Sunday, April 7, 2013

Star Wars CCG: 1996 Dark Side Champion Decklists

Continuing with the quest for balanced decks from 1996 is a look at the Dark Side decks from the 4 top finishers in the first Star Wars CCG Worlds tournament in December 1996.

Like the light side decks from the previous post, the dark side decks are also extremely similar.  Perhaps the only the notable differences lies in the location types selected by the players.  A couple players focused primarily on pilots, systems, and starships.  While others built a mix of pilots and ground oriented characters along with ground locations.  Here are those decks.



R Asselin (1st) B Sorgjerd (2nd)

Characters
2 Admiral Motti
1 Chief Bast
1 Commander Praji
1 Danz Borin
3 Darth Vader
1 Dr Evazan
1 DS-61-2
1 DS-61-3
2 DS-61-4
1 Garindan
2 Grand Moff Tarkin
1 Labria
1 Officer Evax
1 R3-T6
1 Tonnika Sisters
1 U-3PO

Weapons
1 Vader's Lightsaber

Used Interrupts
4 Alter
5 Sense




Lost Interrupts
1 Charming to the Last
2 Gravity Shadow
2 I have You Now
1 Nevar Yalnal




Effects
1 Lateral Damage
2 Presence of the Force
1 Undercover


Locations
1 Death Star
1 Kashyyyk
1 Kessel
1 Kiffex
1 Tatooine
1 Yavin 4






Ships / Vehicles
1 Black 2
1 Black 3
1 Black 4
1 Conquest
1 Devastator
1 Imperial-Class Star Destroyer
1 TIE Scout
2 Vader's Custom TIE
4 Victory-Class Star Destroyer

Characters
2 Admiral Motti
1 Commander Praji
1 Danz Borin
3 Darth Vader
2 Dr Evazan
1 DS-61-2
1 DS-61-3
1 DS-61-4
1 Garindan
2 Grand Moff Tarkin
1 Mosep
1 Officer Evax
1 Ponda Baba
2 Reserve Pilot
1 U-3PO


Weapons
2 Vader's Lightsaber

Used Interrupts
3 Alter
2 Boring Conversation Anyways
2 Elis Helrot
1 Evader
3 Sense

Lost Interrupts
1 Charming to the Last
1 Dark Collaboration
1 I Have You Now
1 Nevar Yalnal
1 Sniper
1 The Circle Is Now Complete


Effects
1 Disarmed
2 Presence of the Force



Locations
1 Death Star
1 Eriadu
1 Kashyyyk
1 Kessel
1 Ralltiir
1 Tatooine
1 Tatooine: Lar's Moisture Farm
1 Tatoone: Mos Eisley
1 Yavin 4
1 Yavin 4: Jungle


Ships / Vehicles
1 Black 2
1 Black 3
1 Black 4
1 Conquest
1 Devastator
2 Imperial-Class Star Destroyer







J Alread (3rd) K Reitzel (4th)

Characters
1 Admiral Motti
1 Chief Bast
1 Colonel Wulf Yularen
1 Commander Praji
1 Danz Borin
2 Darth Vader
1 Djas Puhr
1 Dr Evazan
1 DS-61-2
1 DS-61-3
1 DS-61-4
1 Garindan
1 General Tagge
2 Grand Moff Tarkin
1 Hem Dazon
1 Kitik Keed'kak
1 Labria
1 Lieutenant Tanbris
1 Officer Evax
1 Prophetess
1 Tonnika Sisters
1 Trooper Davin Felth
1 U-3PO


Weapons
2 Vader's Lightsaber

Used Interrupts
7 Dark Maneuvers
1 Evader



Lost Interrupts
1 The Circle Is Now Complete
1 Your Powers Are Weak Old Man







Locations
1 Death Star
1 Death Star: Central Core
1 Death Star: Dentention Block Corridor
1 Death Star: Level 4 Military Corridor
1 Death Star: War Room
1 Eriadu
1 Kashyyyk
1 Kessell
1 Ralltiir
1 Tatooine: Jundland Wastes
1 Tatooine: Mos Eisley

Ships / Vehicles
1 Conquest
1 Devastator
6 TIE Advanced
4 Victory-Class Star Destroyer


Characters
1 Admiral Motti
1 Captain Khurgee
1 Commander Praji
1 Danz Borin
3 Darth Vader
1 Djas Puhr
1 Dr Evazan
1 DS-61-2
1 DS-61-3
1 DS-61-4
1 Garindan
2 Grand Moff Tarkin
1 Labria
1 Officer Evax
2 U-3PO










Weapons
1 Vader's Lightsaber

Used Interrupts
4 Alter
2 Monnok
3 Scanning Crew
4 Sense

Lost Interrupts
1 Charming to the Last
1 Gravity Shadow
2 I have You Now
2 Nevar Yalnal

Effects
1 Reactor Terminal
2 Undercover

Locations
2 Dantooine
1 Death Star
1 Kashyyyk
1 Kessel
1 Kiffex
1 Tatooine
1 Yavin 4





Ships / Vehicles
1 Conquest
1 Devastator
6 Victory-Class Star Destroyer



Time to discuss the differences.

R Asselin's deck is focused on providing itself with systems, starships and pilots looking to battle in space or just go for force drains across systems.  Gravity Shadow helps keep the light side from moving ships between systems and cards like Charming To The Last and I Have You Now help in the inevitable battles with light side Characters.  If this deck needs to go to ground for some force drains then Tarkin, Vader, and Vader's Lightsaber are strong options here.

B Sorgjerd's deck contains both ground and system locations.  The interrupts are tooled to counter common light side characters.  Its basically a brute force deck for force drains.

J Alread's deck is the most unique of the bunch sporting Death Star ground locations, a large variation of characters, and seven copies of Dark Maneuvers.

K Reitzel's deck also follows the brute force starship and system drain design similar to R Asselin's deck.  He was the only top place finisher to run Monnok and Scanning Crew.  It is hard for me to understand how Monnok might have been useful in the championships.  His opponent's decks didn't seem to run a lot of duplicates.  I suppose as the game lengthened he could use it to lure out any Sense and Alters the opponent may have been holding in reserve.  Scanning Crew is a pretty good card however and I've heard of players running several copies back in the day.  Scrye only listed 58 out of the 60 cards he should have had in his deck.  My guess is the other 2 cards were Ties of some flavor.

So which deck do I like the most?  This is difficult because I really like J Alread's deck because I find the Death Star locations to be thematic.  His design was unique in that he carried no Alters or Sense and minimized his Effects and Interrupts such that an opponent's Alter and Sense cards would be useless.  Since I want balanced decks I also want a small amount of Alter / Sense wars between the light and dark sides.  Therefore I ultimately choose second place player B Sorgjerd's deck as my dark side match for R Asselin's light side choice.  After looking over Sorgjerd's deck I see cards in there that are not very useful against R Asselin's deck so I will make the following adjustments just to keep things a bit more balanced.

-2 Boring Conversation Anyways
-1 Sniper
+1 Djas Puhr which combos well with Presence of the Force
+2 Victory Class Star Destroyer

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