Star Wars CCG: 1996 Light Side Champion Decklists

A couple posts back I outlined my plan to find balanced decks for Star Wars CCG limited to the Premiere, A New Hope, and Hoth sets.  I had no idea where to come up with balanced decklists and having navigated the interweb I wasn't sure I would find them.  I certainly did not have the time to play test and build them myself.  So I settled on using the wayback machine and bought several issues of Scrye Magazine from the 1996 - 1998 timeframe and found what I was looking for.  I found a time capsule of articles, deck lists, and tournament reports.

For today's post I'm looking at light side decks from the 4 top finishers in the first Star Wars CCG Worlds tournament in December 1996.  And here they are:

R Asselin (1st)

B Sorgjerd (2nd)

Characters 1 Biggs Darklighter 1 C-3PO 1 Chewbacca 1 Han Solo 1 Jek Porkins 2 Kal'Falnl C'ndros 1 Leia Organa 2 Luke Skywalker 1 Momaw Nadon 2 Obi-Wan Kenobi 2 R2-D2 1 Wedge Antilles Weapons 2 Obi-Wan's Lightsaber Devices 1 Restraining Bolt Used Interrupts 4 Alter 1 Grimtaash 4 How Did We Get Into This Mess 1 Nabrun Leids 5 Sense Lost Interrupts 1 Double Agent 1 Gift of the Mentor 2 Houjix 1 Jedi Presence 1 The Force Is Strong With This One Effects 1 Lightsaber Proficiency 1 Mantellian Savrip 1 Revolution 2 Undercover Locations 1 Dejarik Hologameboard 1 Tatooine: Lar's Moisture Farm 1 Tatooine: Mos Eisley 1 Tatooine: Obi-Wan's Hut 1 *Yavin 4: Massassi War Room 1 Yavin 4: Massassi Ruins Ships / Vehicles 4 Corellian Corvette 1 Gold Leader in Gold 1 1 Red 6 1 Red Leader in Red 1 2 Tantive IV

Characters 1 Biggs Darklighter 1 Chewbacca 1 Figrin D'an 2 Han Solo 1 Jek Porkins 2 Kal'Falnl C'ndros 1 Leia Organa 3 Luke Skywalker 2 Obi-Wan Kenobi 1 R2-D2 1 Red Leader 2 Talz 2 Wedge Antilles Weapons 1 Jedi Lightsaber 1 Obi-Wan's Lightsaber Used Interrupts 3 Alter 2 Grimtaash 2 Nabrun Leids 3 Sense Lost Interrupts 1 Don't Get Cocky 1 Double Agent 2 Gift of the Mentor 1 Houjix 1 Sorry About The Mess 2 The Force Is Strong With This One Effects 2 Demotion 1 Lightsaber Proficiency 1 Mantellian Savrip 2 Revolution Locations 1 Dejarik Hologameboard 1 Tatooine: Cantina 1 Tatooine: Lar's Moisture Farm 2 Tatooine: Mos Eisley 1 Tatooine: Obi-Wan's Hut 1 Yavin 4: Jungle 1 Yavin 4: Massassi War Room 1 Yavin 4: Massassi Ruins 1 Yavin 4: Massassi Throne Room Ships / Vehicles 1 Luke's X-34 Landspeeder 1 Millenium Falcon 1 Red 6 1 Tantive IV

J Alread (3rd)

K Reitzel (4th)

Characters 1 Biggs Darklighter 1 BoShek 1 Chewbacca 1 Commander Evram Lajaie 1 Commander Vanden Willard 1 Dutch 1 General Dodonna 1 Han Solo 1 Jek Porkins 1 Kal'Falnl C'ndros 1 Leia Organa 1 LIN-V8K 2 Luke Skywalker 1 Momaw Nadon 2 Obi-Wan Kenobi 1 Owen Lars 1 Pops 1 Red Leader 1 Tiree 1 Wedge Antilles 1 Wioslea Weapons 1 Jedi Lightsaber 2 Obi-Wan's Lightsaber Used Interrupts 7 A Few Maneuvers 1 Sense Lost Interrupts 1 The Force Is Strong With This One Effects 3 Revolution Locations 1 Alderaan 1 Dantooine 1 Kashyyyk 1 Tatooine 1 Tatooine: Lar's Moisture Farm 1 Tatooine: Mos Eisley 1 Tatooine: Obi-Wan's Hut 1 Yavin 4: Jungle 1 Yavin 4: Massassi War Room 1 Yavin 4: Massassi Ruins Ships / Vehicles 5 Corellian Corvette 1 Tantive IV 6 X-Wing

Characters 1 Biggs Darklighter 1 BoShek 1 Chewbacca 1 Figrin D'an 1 Han Solo 1 Jek Porkins 1 Kal'Falnl C'ndros 2 Luke Skywalker 1 Momaw Nadon 2 R2-D2 1 Wedge Antilles Used Interrupts 4 Alter 2 Grimtaash 4 Sense Lost Interrupts 2 Don't Get Cocky 2 Double Agent 2 The Force Is Strong With This One Effects 2 Demotion 1 For Luck 1 Revolution 1 Traffic Control 3 Undercover Locations 2 Dantooine 1 Kashyyyk 2 Kessel 1 Tatooine 1 Yavin 4 Ships / Vehicles 5 Corellian Corvette 1 Gold 2 1 Gold Leader in Gold 1 1 Millenium Falcon 1 Red 6 1 Red Leader in Red 1 1 Tantive IV

In looking at these decks one sees they are extremely similar.  This is not too surprising as the pool of cards was limited in 1996.  Competitive decks were largely comprised of "Mains and Toys" supported by Alter and Sense.  What is interesting to see is the unexpected quantity of different characters in these decks.  I had expected to see a lot of duplicate Mains in each list (like 3x Luke Skywalker, 3x Han Solo, 4x Obi-Wan, and so forth) and yet there aren't many.  

After thinking it through this may make sense.  You can only have one of a unique card in play at any time.  Stuffing a deck full of duplicates means you'll have a handful of duplicates you cannot deploy, limiting your options in battles.

Let's move on to some differences.

R Asselin's deck is ground drain based but it carries a strong complement of starships to deploy to systems owned by the Dark Side.  In an interview after the tournament he praises the card How Did We Get Into This Mess.  That is a terrific card that reminds me of Wheel of Fortune from Magic the Gathering.  I wonder if that card gave him enough of an edge to win the tournament.  It likely allowed him to dump non-optimal hands and cycle until he found what he needed.

B Sorgjerd's deck is another ground drain deck with starships to meet The Empire in space.  His deck doesn't really stand out in comparison to the others.  Its just a strong deck.

J Alread's Deck is really interesting with the high numbers of characters.  His deck is geared toward draining in space as well as on the ground.  He included 3 copies of revolution and 7 copies of A Few Maneuvers!  The card obviously helped his space combat but the real reason I suspect he chose it was for the 6 destiny value.

K Reitzel's deck is the only Light Side deck designed for space combat.  Scrye magazine didn't list the entire deck as the card count is only 55.  This is likely an error in printing or copying the contents listed from the tournament.  What were the other 5 cards?  We may never know.

Well I have to pick one as my light side deck for my balanced deck experiment.  So which deck do I like the most?  I like R Asselin's deck for the use of How Did We Get Into This Mess.  I'm a big fan of card cycling and that one card, IMO likely contributed to his success in the 1996 Worlds tournament.