Star Wars Monday: Destiny ep. 2

 

This week, we’ll be talking briefly about the recent Rules Changes, Product Availability, World Championships, National Championships, The Road to Store Championships, and my Recent Experience with FFG Customer Service.

We’re also announcing another GIVEAWAY.  Like us on Facebook, Follow us on Twitter, Subscribe to us on YouTube, and/or share the original Facebook post for a chance to win a full set of the Spirit of Rebellion prerelease promos.  The more things you do, the more chances you will have to win!  We will draw one lucky winner on June 5th. Sorry, continental U.S. only this time.

Also, as a tip to reading my or other’s articles, don’t forget to install the Reddit SWDestiny Hover Image extension. No affiliation. Just a sweet Chrome extension that makes reading stuff online a breeze.

 

Rules Changes

Version 1.3 of the Rules Reference can be found here.

There are several notable additions, including:

• Errata on Hyperspace Jump and Outer Rim Smuggler.
• Blanks are a type of symbol, so C-3PO can change blanks to whatever he wants.
• There is a new “Set-Aside Zone” for cards like Premonitions.
• Exhausting a tokenless Backup Muscle is no longer a pass, because an exhausted Support changes the game state.
• “That damage,” such as on Chewbacca, refers to “that amount of damage” not that type.  It is neither melee nor ranged damage.
• Damage “distributed as they wish” cannot be distributed in excess of a character’s remaining health.  For example, your opponent cannot direct 2 damage from Palpatine‘s effect onto a character with 1 health remaining.  They must split the damage 1 and 1.
• Many references to Triggered and Replacement effects.
• Rolling is defined as both rolls and rerolls.

I urge every competitive player to familiarize themselves with any new changes and to memorize where information can be found if it becomes necessary to refer a Tournament Organizer (“TO”) to an explanation in the middle of a match.  Doing so will save you from lost time while the TO looks up the rules or perhaps even a game loss.

 

Product Availability

It seems as though the initial wave of Spirit of Rebellion is doing much better than any of the waves of Awakenings.  However, after two weeks, my FLGS is sold out.  Word on the street is that the next wave is coming May 25th.

If you can’t wait until May 25th, Star Wars: Destiny has now hit a major retailer: Barnes & Noble (X-Wing and Armada have been there for awhile now).  Although we recommend buying from your FLGS if at all possible, certain professions or employees receive steep discounts of 25-30% at Barnes & Noble stores.  If you are not one of those lucky few, you can also buy second-hand gift cards for 9-12% off.  Personally, I have successfully used Cardpool on several occasions to purchase Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and Clark’s gift cards for home improvement or clothing purchases.

A $100 box of SoR with a guaranteed 6 legendaries is nothing to scoff at.

Worlds

eVader/Raider defeats ePhasma/Bala/Trooper to win Worlds.  However, it was an atypical, upgrade-heavy version of eVader/Raider.

Full decklists can be found here, but a snapshot of the top 16 decks are as follows:

6 of the top 16 decks included Rey, before Force Speed or Vibroknife were tournament legal.  Get ready for Spirit of Reybellion.

 

National Championships

Although the above image is for the European Championship, the same prize structure will be at the U.S. National Championship taking place at the NOVA Open in Arlington, VA in late August.  This is not to be confused with the North American Championship occuring at Gen Con in Indiannapolis, ID just a few weeks prior.

Check out that alt-art Vader door prize.  It’s a scene from the season 2 finale of Star Wars Rebels.  Also, those tokens are double-sided 1 damage/3 damage unlike the Q2 GNK tokens.

The Road to Store Championships

Photo credit: Warren Houghton

Although we briefly covered the Store Championship prizes in our last article, FFG’s official Store Championship announcement can be found here.

At the second and most recent Q2 GNK at my local FLGS, which was SoR legal, I ran what I dubbed “PG-13.”  The decklist can be found here.

Match One vs. Krennic/eJabba:

I had not tested against this deck and I was suspicious if it was even legitimate.  Boy, was I in for a beating.  It took me about two rounds to realize that my deck was not at all effective against non-damage sides.  My opponent got a round one Imperial Inspection, Fast Hands, Blackmail on Jabba and never looked back.  I spent the entire game without resources or upgrades.  I ended up taking way too long to kill Jabba and getting milled with 6 health remaining on Krennic.  I should have been more aggressive and used mitigation on Discard and Special Sides, and claimed more often to avoid that extra Deathtrooper die.

0-1

 

Unfortunately, my next two matches were against brand-new players, so there isn’t much to recap.

 

Match Four vs. Red Team Go! (eSnap/Rebel Commando/Rebel Trooper) :

I had also not tested much against this deck (recognizing a pattern?  The GNK WAS the testing!).

There wasn’t much to say here.  The early game looked great.  In round one, I got 6 damage onto Snap and only managed to take 2 in return.  However, Rebel Commando was equipped with two Promotions and a Rocket Launcher.  The next round did not go so well.  I took 14 damage from It’s a Trap!, costing me my Phasma and severely crippling Guavian.  I managed to kill Snap, but I don’t think I survived the third round.  That match, I learned that I need some sort of hand disruption, such as Friends in Low Places and that Endless Ranks is not very helpful if the Stormtrooper is always the last to die.  Despite two characers with Guardian, I may need to run some The Best Defense…

2-2

It’s important to remember that, although I did not do very well, I learned a lot.  In testing, this deck ruins Palpatine and mid-range aggro like eVaderDA/eKylo.  However, now I know that Villain Choke-Mill is a bad matchup for this deck.  That deck seems to be gaining in popularity, so unless your meta is ePalpatine-heavy, I would shelf this one for now.

 

My recent experience with FFG customer service

You may remember from the last article that I had put in a claim with FFG for my misprinted Grievous die.  Since then, a currently-out-of-print Awakenings pack showed up to my door, free of charge.  This golden nugget in a riverbed of Spirit of Rebellion was exciting to open up.  The anticipation was killing me.  There could be anything in this pack.  There could even be a boat.

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It was a Comlink 😦

Takeaways

Thanks for reading and please make sure to follow us on all of the different social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Patreon, and share this article with friends who you think might also enjoy the game.

Keep your head up if your first few weeks of post-SoR testing went as poorly as mine did.