Codename: Fulcrum - A Star Wars Destiny Blog

Earlier, we looked into some various hero decks and analyzed a few strengths and weaknesses that shed some light on why heroes don't see competitive play. The breakdown is that the overall card pool for heroes is much weaker than the overall card pool for villains, and it leads to their removal being weaker and being more dependent on rolls due to the lesser quality of hero cards and characters. Of the available hero card pool, however, two cards come into mind immediately as standout cards that are potentially just as impactful, if not more impactful, than current villain cards. Those two cards are Hit and Run and It's a trap!: If you've been keeping track of the SotR Meta, Hit and Run was featured prominently in Poe/Maz, and is one of the most feared cards in the deck.  The ability to Hit and Run and immediately resolve Poe's dice, or to immediately roll in Maz to focus and then resolve Poe's dice was one of the most powerful plays the deck could mak

The dust from the Spirit of the Rebellion meta is settling and we are in a transition period between what's left of the meta from Gencon and NOVA and the release of Empire at War.  Overall, the two best decks in the meta are Poe/Maz and Rainbow variants featuring FN, with mostly blue villain variants featuring Darth Vader (both versions) and Palpatine slightly behind those decks. Villains see significantly more play than heroes and most Rogue decks that have the potential to compete with the current meta decks are villain-centric. Overall, the game looks very grim for our heroes.  Fortunately, Empire At War is just around the corner, and could potentially bring more hero decks into the spotlight! However, before we jump in and assume that all the new cards will bring heroes into the competitive spotlight, it's important to recap some of the strengths and weaknesses of the hero card pool in general: Strengths: - Lots of shield generation and a respectable amount of healing - Ac

Hello readers!  I apologize for not being around since the release of Spirit of the Rebellion, but I traveled overseas for a family visit and haven't been able to play or keep up with the game very much. During the early release of Spirit of the Rebellion, I was playtesting a Palpatine deck.  The original build started with the build I had posted a while back, but after seeing a version with Rise Again floating around, I decided to give it a shot.  Rise Again seems like an extremely powerful swing, but I was very skeptical of the 5 resource cost, which on paper, seemed pretty steep for a deck that only started with 2 dice and only had a maximum of 5, but it tested quite well, and I was pleasantly surprised with how impactful Rise Again was in this deck and wanted to try it in other decks. I settled on the following Palpatine list before leaving the country: http://swdestinydb.com/deck/view/275489 The event lineup consisted of multiple low cost events, and Holocron provides

Continuing the Spirit of the Rebellion deck list dump, we now review a few hero decks featuring new characters! To start off, we have a character combination that's been receiving a lot of discussion as of late!  Poe/Maz plays a bit similarly to Poe/Rey, but instead of throwing mind probes, force throws, and one with the force, you're throwing Launch Bay, Thermal Detonators, Rocket Launchers, Falcons, and U-Wing.  This deck has the potential for really strong action economy just off of Maz's ability, and the potential to also play the supports through Poe's special.  An extremely explosive deck that tries to just abuse action economy and a powerful special to deal a lot of damage at once. Another extremely explosive deck, Luke/Maz also features explosive starts using a combination of Force Speed and Maz's ability, which give this deck a lot of potential damage as long as Luke's die are still in the pool.  Your economy becomes fueled through the use of

With Spirit of the Rebellion hitting stores soon, I've been writing much less recently, opting to wait until the new set to write more content.  Like many others, however, I'm excited about what the new set brings to the table and how the new characters will shake up the meta!  In this post, I'm going to do a big deck list "dump" so to speak, and show a few decks I have started working on recently.  While some of the old decks from Awakenings can be modified to perform really well in the Spirit of the Rebellion meta, this first deck list dump will feature at least one new character in every list!  Please keep in mind these lists are not meant to be optimal, and are just mere ideas. And so it begins, starting with the villains! Replacing Kylo in Kylo/Dooku of the Awakenings meta, Asajj pairs up perfectly with Dooku for an even 30 points.  The increased card pool makes running mono color decks a real possibility and even amongst mono color decks there are

Hello readers!  I apologize for not updating as much recently, a combination of other things happening, along with the upcoming release of Spirit of the Rebellion, made it hard to put out a post that would stay relevant through the set release!  Now, with new cards to play around, a new set of characters, and many other factors, a lot of the ways we think about this game, and a lot of the cards that we are used to seeing, will change. That being said, since starter decks have been restocked at many locations, and spirit of the rebellion booster packs coming out, with an awakenings reprint happening afterwards, I hope that this game sees many new players, and while I think newer players will be able to manage a competitively viable deck using the starter decks and cards from only spirit of the rebellion, I want to make note of some cards from awakenings that are, in my opinion, very important and something that every new player consider picking up on the singles market.  I've cre

Generally, in Destiny, we want to play efficiently to get the most out of our rounds and quickly claim the battlefield.  Due to this, it's generally best to: 1. activate all characters before ditching cards to reroll or resolve dice, to help action  efficiency and get the most out of  every action. 2. Match up die faces of the symbol and resolve all dice of one symbol in one action, whenever possible, for action efficiency. 3.  Know when to cut your losses when your opponent is close to claiming if you need to  claim faster.  Things like not taking resources when you don't need them, and choosing not to resolve other dice such as disrupt, discard, and sometimes resolving shields when they aren't needed.    By following these three rules, you will generally stay one step ahead of an opponent who isn't following these rules, just due to how much more efficient it is to play like this. However, there are times that playing efficiently isn't always

Dice manipulation is not the only form of defensive play in Destiny, aside from manipulating dice, various cards can heal, add additional shields, or otherwise delay a character death long enough for a single character to last more turns in an effort to do more damage or generate value.  Dice manipulation is a proactive form of defense, while healing is generally reactive.  Adding shields is technically proactive, since shields do not remove damage, and have a hard cap of 3 shields. When it comes to adding shields and general healing, heroes tend to be better than villains.  Villains tend to feature a lot of dice removal, with heroes having a playstyle centered around adding shields and healing for defense.  This week, I'm going to feature a particular deck that I believe stacks shields most efficiently, and is, in my opinion, one of the top contenders for the best hero deck right now. The decklist can be found at the following link: http://swdestinydb.com/decklist/view/78

In a game of Destiny, our actions are limited by the cards in our hand and the dice in play on the board.  Some of this information is public knowledge, known to both players, while another is known to only one player.  Although the majority of damage done in a game will be through character and upgrade dice, both of which is public information once played, one should never forget the information that isn't known to both players, which, in this case, are cards in the players' hands and decks. While dice on board may be dangerous, damage from hand can be unexpected, dangerous, and often can be a game-winning tempo swing.  As the game progresses and characters on both sides start to accumulate more damage, taking note of the possible damage sources from your opponent's hand and making plays with those cards in mind can win you the game.  On the other hand, catching your opponent off guard with a damage card that he wasn't expecting can also create a game-winning ad

Star Wars: Destiny (SWD) is unique as far as CCG/TCGs go.  The most visible difference is that it utilizes dice alongside cards, and both are a very important part of gameplay.  In SWD, the actions we can take are determined by what we roll, and while cards are also important, it's generally much harder to win with cards than it is by simply rolling damage.  In this post, I am going to discuss 4 key aspects that are present in just about all strong performing SWD decks, and in the future, I will discuss how all 4 of these aspects are present in the  decks that I analyze. In SWD, there are many different types of cards and card effects, with a main deck being only 30 cards.  Generally, about half of the cards in any deck will consist of upgrades or supports that provide their own dice, as more dice means a higher chance to roll damage, but that only leaves room for around 15 events or support cards!  With so many options to choose from, how can we separate the  good choices f

Hello, and welcome to Codename: Fulcrum -  A Star Wars Destiny Blog! The purpose of this blog is to provide a good source of competitively minded, written content for Star Wars Destiny (SWD).  Coming from a background of playing other competitive TCGs and CCGs, I was shocked at how much more quality podcast content there was in SWD over written content. I hope to deliver some good and insightful content through my posts, and I hope you will find my way of presenting said content to be fresh and unique! What you can expect in the first preliminary future posts will be topics such as "What makes a deck competitive?" and a few deck profiles with explanations emphasizing the various factors that I think makes a SWD deck competitive.  In the future, I would like to establish a few guidelines for how to rate cards, decks, characters, and hopefully stick to those guidelines.