What happens when Greef Karga, Greedo, and Major “Party Guys” Partagaz walk into a cantina? If you answered, “walk out with a gorgeous Bespin playmat, a snazzy Reva spot gloss, and the coveted Resurgence Championship crown,” you’re right!
In this issue, we’re covering the action with all 4 semifinalists: Stubby (USA), Echo3ofclubs (UK), Rainmaker (USA), and champion Djclero (Italy). To learn more about the players behind the discord handles, click on their name for a link to other recent coverage.
Pre-Tournament Prep and Deck-Tech
Leading up to the event, what did you expect to see and how did that influence your ultimate deck choice?
Djclero: I’ll be honest, I hadn’t followed the meta really, but I was terrified by the Cluster Missiles/Tie Fighter Squadron combo and decided to bring a deck with discard for that reason. Needless to say, no one played it in the end.
Stubby: I had no expectations but figured to see a few Dooku and Yaddle decks.
Echo3: I expected to see Luke/Yaddle. I don’t really tech against meta builds, but anyone that knows me knows that I exclusively play Villain Yellow which has a few good unblockable damage upgrades at the moment. Dauntless and Projectile Rifle can be crucial in that particular match up.
Rainmaker: It’s a pretty wide open meta and the only thing I knew was Turkeyclubsamich would play Mill and that deck scared me. I also thought mods were in a good spot which convinced me to run them..
When you look at what folks *did* bring, what’s most surprising? What does it tell you about the early Resurgence meta?
Echo3: It’s an absolute free for all and that the meta is alive and healthy.
Rainmaker: Surprised there was no repeat lists! The meta feels wide open with a lot of competitive but not NPE decks.
Djclero: I really liked Norman and Nute’s deck. I always dreamed to make a deck with Snoke and Beckett, and making capital ships work. The variety of the meta tells me that the work ARH has put in the last sets, trying to close up the gap between ‘unplayable’ cards and busted bombs is slowly paying off and that’s great news I think.
Stubby: Very surprised it was so diverse and that there were so many 3 wide decks. This is very exciting to see and the playing field is the most even I have seen.
Which deck did you play and why?
Stubby: I’ve been playing a lot of Ezra/Obi/Path recently. The Path feels borderline broken given how much healing it generates and I like that it (and Guardian) can work for each character.
Echo3: I’ve been toying with which is the strongest mono yellow villain deck at the minute, it was a tough choice between Jabba/Bib/ThugDroid or Qi’ra/Dryden but after going 4-0 in echobase on Thursday with Qi’ra/Dryden I figured I’d run that for the weekend and see how it goes.
Djclero: I played ePartagaz, Greedo, Greef and Crucial Intel. I built the deck for an echobase event over two months ago and never touched it since, and I just wanted to give it a spin because it felt fun. I like drawing cards, and I like discarding other people’s cards. Hence, Partagaz immediately caught my attention when he got released. Plus: a chance to make Most Wanted and Alternative Methods work was to hard to pass. In general, the goal is to play Dead or Alive and Most Wanted on the opponent’s characters, discard cards from the opponent’s hand to tick up Crucial Intel and to go through the deck with Partagaz, and then finally try to blow everything up with Crucial Intel. Ideally you want Partagaz’s dice in the pool and some threat from an opponent before using his PA so that you have something to do with it no matter whether you hit a 0, 1, 2 or 3.
Rainmaker: I played Lando/Bix/RebelPilot. The goal is to start with the Millennium Falcon and play mods, but not necessarily onto the Falcon. Using the XS Freighter to tutor the Heavy Laser Cannon for a discount is insane value and we need the Rebel Pilot to do that.
What were the last cards to make the list? What was card 31 that you wish you could have included?
Echo3: This was the first mono yellow deck in years that I haven’t included Everybody Profits and man did i miss it!
Djclero: I mean Command and Infamy are the obvious answer, because they are both insane but I couldn’t find room for either. Name the System is also a nice little card that I really like and would work well in there but I couldn’t find room for any of them anyways.
Rainmaker: I’m glad I included Quite the Mercenary. It’s currently a one-of (because of the Falcon) that can be used for healing and to turn the Lando or Bix die if they are in the pool. Cluster Missiles would have been helpful in the 3-wide matches.
Stubby: The last card I added was Sanctuary and wish I’d been able to squeeze in a second copy.
Championship Recap
Swiss Highlights
Djclero: The most epic moments were in the final, but the Swiss itself was not short of pepper. In terms of matchups, I think the funniest was the one with Rainmaker again. I was very impressed with his deck. One round I had the cringiest hand and burnt him for 10 damage from hand with double Alternative Methods, but he soldiered through and annihilated me anyways. Still, it was a very enjoyable and class match up.
Stubby: I actually never really went to time before and did against Djclero’s deck. I had no idea who won at first!
Echo3: My favorite moment may have been winning the game with Salacious B Crumb dealing 1 damage off of 2 blanks.
Rainmaker: My match with Nemesis and his Palpatine/Vader deck was insane! He ended up being one damage short at the end but played so well and made the right decisions consistently. Every game outside of the 1st game in the finals was close!
Semifinal Coverage
After 5 rounds of Swiss matches, the semifinals were set, with Echo3 and Rainmaker in the battle of the 4-1s and Stubby (4-1) taking on Djclero, who snuck in with a 3-2 record and a strong strength of schedule (only losses against Stubby and Rainmaker).
Many thanks to Norman for streaming Djclero/Stubby’s semifinal, which you can check out HERE.
A couple of semi-finals highlights to keep an eye out for? Unique Perspectives (a Djclero trademark) to finish off Ezra in game 1 and then intentionally defeating Partagaz with self-damage in game 2 in order to redeploy two Light Repeating Blasters and Imperial Rule.
Read on to hear from what the semifinalists saw across the table…
Echo3: In the first game, I whiffed on my mulligan: getting 5 events in round 1 and then 5 upgrades/supports in round 2. It’s always mentally challenging when you know you can’t advance your board state in that most critical first round and you feel so far behind. Game 2 was much closer, but ultimately I was beaten by the better player: Rainmaker.
Rainmaker: I played Echo3 in Swiss and that was the only match I lost. His damage output from the jump is high and my goal was to survive to keep the extra value off Dryden and ramp hard. I targeted Qi’ra first both times and with his relatively low health pool I was able to get the auto-turrets down setting up some painful ping damage. In the end, I was able to keep Bix on the table long enough to recur some mods from discard and ramp enough to overwhelm.
Stubby: Skill and Luck… I was lacking in both! I played Djclero in Swiss and barely won by going to time. It was brutal so in the semfinals, I was looking to try and take out one of his characters immediately to avoid Unique Perspectives later. It backfired pretty spectacularly and then I got rolled.
Djclero: I had lost to Stubby on time during the Swiss rounds, because I just could not push enough damage through the shield wall of Obi-Wan and the Jedi Temple battlefield. In the semi-final, I think overall getting the bounties early and then having the time to use that ramp was what did it. I think I also had the chance to remove a die showing a resource on round 1 in game 1, and in the long run that could have helped too.
Finals!
With semifinal wins under their belts, DJclero and Rainmaker squared off for a battle of the 3-wides! Once again, Norman had the stream HERE. Here’s what they shared about the strategy they used coming into the finals matchup:
Djclero: My goal was to control Rainmaker’s hand even if he could cycle through the discard with Ferrixian ease. I also tried to keep lucid on the same clear target to get at least 1 kill as soon as possible and to disable Copilot.
Rainmaker: I knew from our Swiss matchup that he had a lot of damage out of hand potential so my goal was to be cognizant of that and to try and resolve shield sides if I could.
In the 1st match, everything went DJ’s way, finding two Black Market Connections in his initial hand while Rainmaker struggled to get his big mods out on the board quickly.
In the 2nd match, things were looking grim for Rainmaker who didn’t draw a support until round 3 while DJ had another dream start with two Dead or Alives. As he tells it: “The deck really needs to see XS Freighter to tutor those mods and to give slots since the Millennium Falcon can only hold 3.”
Once the vehicles arrived, however, Rainmaker methodically clawed himself back into the match one mod at a time. This set the stage for an epic final round that’s definitely worth a watch on Norman’s stream. Here’s the touchline reporter view:
DJ’s round started with “Han Shot First” Greedo (2x Westars!) with 1 health remaining, a Light Repeating Blaster-wielding Partagaz on 3, and an Uncompromising Greef with 4.
On Rainmaker’s side, Bix the fixer arrived on the scene with 4 health remaining and a heavily-bountied Rebel Pilot with 5, but also packed a Partisan X-Wing with its Automated Turret and a fully loaded Millennium Falcon with 2 Heavy Laser Cannons and a Dorsal Turret.
The opening gambit used Crucial Intel for two actions, the first of which allowed Greedo to sacrifice himself – drawing fire from the Automated Turret in order to fire off his Westars at Bix before handing them over to Partagaz, who quickly came in with a monster of a roll: defeating Bix with the LRB and a Westar ping. With 2 indirect and a discard on his character dice, 2 indirect and 2 ranged on the Westars and a +2 on the LRB, Partagaz was feeling *very* confident…
… until the Rebel Pilot kickstarted the Falcon into a last ditch run, using the Heavy Laser Cannons to re-roll both Westar dice… a blank and a shield!
All eyes turn to Rainmaker’s dice: a 3-for-1 ranged, 2 ranged, and a threatening 2 indirect. One hapless Partagaz PA later (who knew Uncompromising was on top of the deck?!?), Partagaz was out, Greef had the hot-potato Westars and LRB, and was staring at lethal.
The snap reaction from this spectator was to roll in, take 2 with the Westars and assume 50% chance of LRB’s immediate resolution but… DJ was sitting on a Den of Thieves for some extra cushion and it was soon all over.
Here’s DJ’s spin on that final round: “… the last round was epic with Greedo suiciding himself for the cause, Partagaz going from threatening lethal to a harmless bureaucrat when the Heavy Laser Cannons messed with his weapons, and Greef Karga left to finish the job hidden in a Den of Thieves trying to recycle the same weapons for the millionth time in the same round.”
And so it ended. Djclero takes home his second title of the Resurgence era (he won the release party back in June) and that amazing Cloud City prize, 3-wides reigns supreme, and the ISB maintains control over the scoundrels on the Outer Rim.
Rainmaker has the final word to close us out: “All the credit to DJ, he played well and came up with another creative deck that makes you pause to decide what the right choice is. In the end, we all had a good day rolling some virtual dice!”
