Digging Up Gem(me)s #3: Size Matters – PLUS: Worlds Meta Analysis

Starving for Destiny Content that has nothing to do with rallying aid? I got you, bae.

With only a week and a half before worlds, this may be my last post before the event. I run the Drama Club at my school, and the spring play is this week, so I’m going to be busy as hell. Luckily, school vacation was this past week, and even though I was away for a wedding or stuck in a car for part of the week, I spent a shitload of time narrowing down decks for the World Championships.

Before we get to that, I want to introduce my final Digging Up Gem(me)s for a while. Size Matters In Star Wars Destiny was part 2 of my call out/creation of Stairs (Rey/Aayla) leading into the Connecticut regional, and combined with Changing the Way We Build Decks (the first Digging Up Gem(me)s I posted), form the foundation of my thesis that culminated in Rey/Aayla becoming a heavily represented deck in the meta. In case there is any doubt that I provide my honest thoughts and opinions about the game here in my weekly Monday articles, I specifically chose these three articles to read as proof of the contrary. Not that I feel I need to defend myself; our Patreon followers know I give them the goods, and I’ll be sharing my worlds deck with them before the event (and, I’ve posted a lot of my playtesting videos in the channels already).

Here’s the link to the original article: Sorry Yoda; Size Matters in Star Wars Destiny

Speaking of playtesting for worlds, this is how I see things. Feel free to agree or disagree, but when playtesting I feel that it’s important to figure out what we think we’ll be facing and try to select and build decks that will best combat the meta you come up with in our heads. This worked out for me really well in my two regionals, as I think I made two great meta calls, and took two different decks to the final table (and my buddy Reflex took the same Sabine deck to the victory podium the very same weekend that I used when I scooped to HonestlySarcastc in the finals of New Jersey).

While my calls in the past few months have been sound, it is impossible to call every weekend perfectly, and identifying the worlds meta will be nearly impossible. Not only will the best teams be working hard to identify the best decks, possibly ones that haven’t even been widely exposed as of yet, but since there are three separate day ones, the meta can and will shift dramatically based on the events of the days previous. There are merits to playing in each day, but I’m thankful to be playing on Day1A. I can see myself tailpsinning trying to evaluate the meta based on the information of the first two days and making a last minute decision that contradicts all of my earlier work. By playing Day1A I can let myplaytesting and meta analysis stand on its own, and I’ll know very quickly whether or not I’ve failed or succeeded.

Now, these are simply my opinions. I’ve been wrong before. I’ll be wrong again. Lots of people have disagree and think otherwise, and that’s fine. That’s great. That’s why we play this game. All I can do is offer my own thoughts here in my own blog, so feel free to hit me with your thoughts in the comments.

Enemy #1

Yoda/Hondo

Special chaining is really abusive. It’s something we thought may have gotten nerfed in the pre-worlds FAQ-drop, but it didn’t, so Yoda/Hondo is the best way to abuse this mechanic, and abuse it they do. Between Force Wave, Hand Crafted Lightbow, and Cunning, in addition to the natural specials of Hondo and Yoda this deck can claim quickly and strip your ability to damage it by choosing Frozen Wastes as their battlefield. And, if you decide you want the shields you have to live with that die being stripped just about every round as no deck is consistently faster than it.

Beats: Just about everything. Loses to: Stairs. Good players. Profitable Connections.

Expect to play this twice.

The Inner Circle

Boba/7th

Even with the nerf to Maul’s Lightsaber, this is still one of the hardest hitting round one decks in the format. It takes advantage of premium Yellow Villain mitigation that people have seemingly forgotten about, as well as Force Illusion, to give its opponents fits. It’s one of the few decks in the meta that can abuse Bait and Switch, which is filthy when used in conjunction with Boba Fett’s Special. Its weakness is its 21 health, but makes up for it with the ability to get the round 1 kill once in a while.

Beats: Sabine, Jank, Mill. Loses to: Rey/Aayla, Qui-Gon/Yoda

Expect to play this once. People who have a lot of practice with the list may stick with it, making the match up tougher than it may have been in testing.

Blue Shieldies

Both Rey/Aayla and Qui-Gon/Yoda have broken out over the last couple months and will have a presence at worlds. If you’re worried about Rey/Aayla, Qui-Gon/Yoda actually has a strong match up against it. Blue Hero 3 may trump Qui-Gon/Yoda, creating a mini R/P/S situation among this contingent of decklists since Rey/Aayla is pretty strong against the three-character version (middle/middle does that). Choosing the right one will be tough with such a diverse meta, but each is strong in its own right.

Beats: Each other, Yoda/Hondo, Boba/7th, brOTK. Loses to: Vehicles, Obi/Maz, Each other

Vehicles

Vehicles are strong and accessible. Being the cheapest competitive deck, just about anyone can run it. There are several different versions, and the four character lists seemingly trump the three character lists, but if I’m right about the meta, Vehicles may be a liability. If you think Blue Shieldy decks will dominate the Yoda/Hondo lists, then Vehicles will be well positioned to crush those decks.

Beats: Blue Shieldies, Obi/Maz. Loses to: Yoda/Hondo, Mill

The Field

The rest of the decks you should expect to face once, but mathematically you won’t. We have to be prepared to face decks like Sabine, Mill, Obi/Maz, and brOTK, and our deck might even just auto-lose to one of the decks in the wide field, but the chances of us facing two Five Dice Villain decks or Thrawn/Talzin decks are really low, so we can simply hope to dodge a specific match-up. If we happen to face our auto-loss more than once and it wasn’t one of what we considered the top meta decks we either read the meta wrong or got really, really unfortunate, and those things just happen sometimes.

That’s it for today. If I don’t write to you before worlds, make sure you come and say, “hi.” I’ll be the handsome man in the purple hoodie crying about my dice.

Thanks for reading,

BobbySapphire

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