Welcome to the final installment on our look back on the Tatooine Galactic Open! Today, Norman walks us through his deck choice and building process for the Jyn Erso/Han Solo (High Stakes) deck he played to a 6-0 finish in the first Heat.
Tatooine Open: Deck Write up for the Winner of the First Heat
Written by Norman
Some of you will want a TL;DR version, so let’s start with that: Jyn-Han finally won a significant event, but it’s not exactly the list you’d expect. You can just scroll down for the list, but for longer-ish explanation…here goes!
I believe it worthwhile to describe the lead-up to the tournament and the deck’s evolution first. Everybody knows that I have played a lot of Jyn-X decks. Well over a month ago, I started considering the optimal archetype of Jyn-Han. From Jyn’s introduction and into the release of Han from High Stakes, playing Admiral was the way to go. The Admiral ban, though, diminished the deck quite a bit and forced Jyn players to consider alternative archetypes. The first option was emphasizing weapons (for redeploys and Armory) and action cheats (Instigate, Seize the Day). The second was mixing this with titles, namely General and Veteran of War and sometimes even Master of Disguise (for the brave soul). The issue here, naturally, was that you dilute your ramp synergy (Armory and You Are In Command Now each worked with only half of your upgrade package) and run the risk of losing your investment if Jyn gets focused down hardcore by an aggressive deck, like Din Djinn (The Mandalorian) or Anakin Skywalker from Transformations. The issue endemic to both variants – and the seeming reason that it failed to take top deck in tournaments overall – was that the sequencing always ended up strange and slow, when we actually needed to move fast. The third archetype, which I had not taken the time to build, hypothesized that playing supports assisted by the hand denial could be powerful.
Two catalyst points enabled the version of the deck I want the first heat of the Tatooine Galactic Open with. First, the Mean Streets ban made it possible for midrange and slower decks to re-enter the meta since free Jump to Lightspeeds were no longer operative. Just as important, though, was that the reprint list delivered a major improvement to the kit for hero supports. We got back Resistance Crait Speeder and Senate Chamber. Easy Pickings, of course, improved every yellow hero deck out there, and it makes perfect sense for the deck. Weapons Factory Alpha is a tremendous boon as a battlefield choice. Even if I only get to use it once, it accelerates my plan while in many cases provides little to no value on subsequent turns for my opponent. Finally, Friends in Low Places is a brutal denial piece that sends the deck to another level. The new kit made it possible to ignore upgrades almost entirely (only playing Riot Shields, since this Han Solo has the trooper subtype).
When I first introduced the prototype deck on a Friday night stream with Lanza and friends, I was surprised at how well it worked off the bat. The premise of “deny first, deploy later” was very effective, and the kit of supports worked nicely together as well. We were doing a kind of “king of the hill” night, so I just kept playing until I finally lost to Mando. I think that was 4 games later. I did find that my cost curve was a little high, so I adjusted a few cards and brought it to the first ARH Sunday Funday tournament. That version went undefeated in another 4 games, and frankly I felt it performed even better than before. I proceeded to make a few more adjustments, and played some league matches that week with it. It continued to just win out, so I knew I was going to take to one of the GO Heats and put it to the test.
The deck proceeded to be undefeated in my hands, taking top spot in heat 1. It also went 5-1 in the hands of Algeroth, who only lost in the mirror to me. I did face two mill decks in the tournament, though, and one could argue that this deck can really give mill fits since the hand denial will never turn off. I also did not see any Desperate Measures in the tournament, and that’s clearly a non-trivial threat to the deck overall. While not unbeatable, it’s clear that the current state of the meta and the reprint list in particular allows the deck to thrive. Perhaps upon losing many of the tools there’s another way to adapt it, but until then I think it is solidly in the tier 1 category. I don’t have sufficient time to recount the games during the heat, but major props to my opponents Ed, Strmtropr81, Algeroth, KiloMike, Moophisto, and Echo3ofClubs for the excellent matches.
But you came here for the list, right? Boring conversation anyway…
