5 Things That Are Hot and Not About Destiny!
WHAT IS THIS?
The "5 Things That Are Hot and Not About Destiny" is our regular weekly segment here at the YOUR Destiny website and meant to be a column on what has been going on, either, in Destiny generally, or in the head of the columnist specifically.
The column will be written by our resident writers and their opinions are obviously just opinions - you might disagree, heck, we'd almost be disappointed if you don't disagree! Feel free to participate in the discussion on our Facebook Page!
MAY 15, 2019.
TODAY'S COLUMNIST: Luke Magnuson
Read OUR PREVIOUS COLUMNS!
5 THINGS THAT ARE HOT ABOUT DESTINY:
Written by LUKE MAGNUSON
1. COMPETITIVE BIGS
At the beginning of Star Wars Destiny, Fantasy Flight Games had a really hard time designing 'BIGS' (which I would define as characters that are 18+ points). There were a few good ones smattered in there (Sabine Wren, OG Darth Vader), but those were offset by a lot of absolutely terrible BIGS (Jyn Erso1, K-2SO, Obi-Wan1, etc.). They just couldn’t seem to get those characters right (even one of the good ones, Sabine, was just a terrible play experience for opponents).
This has turned around with recent sets. Vader - Terror to Behold, Palpatine - Unlimited Power and Captain Phasma are all pretty beastly BIGS: Fun to play, powerful in unique ways, and competitive. Even characters like Qui-Gon2, Enfys Nest, and Dooku2 are, if not quite top tier, interesting to play and at least at a Tier2 power level. Big characters are HOT, and I LOVE that we’re finally getting some good ones!
2. THE WOMEN OF STAR WARS
In a meta currently dominated by villain decks, where can heroes look for their salvation? It is not the men, but the women of the Star Wars universe who stand poised to bring some hero decks to the top!
Both Padmé Amidala and Satine Kryze are excellent for their costs. Padmé brings tons of Focus sides and big damage at the affordable cost of 14elite, and Satine brings Resources, Focus, and even a little damage at the incomparably cheap elite cost of 10!
I continue to be impressed with these two characters when I sleeve them up, and if I was looking for a good hero build, these are the characters I would start with. Oh, and if you’re looking for a mill deck, look no further than Commander Leia Organa (aptly named Heart of the Resistance)!
3. DECKS THAT MIX UPGRADES AND SUPPORTS
Shameless plug of my recent article posted on the Destiny Council website last week, featuring middle/middle decks that have evolved to include some of the games powerful supports. I’ve been playing a lot of these kind of decks recently, and I love the way they play.
The ability to go fast or slow, depending on how the game develops, leads to a lot of interesting play decisions and opportunities to gain small advantages over your opponent. This type of non-linear play is something I enjoy in a deck, and I hope we see some of these decks start to compete at the top level! I think they have the chops to do so if more people start playing them, but time will tell.
4. INTERESTING BATTLEFIELD DECISIONS
Destiny has had a tough time making the decision of choosing the battlefield interesting. It has swung back and forth from battlefields that are almost never powerful enough to take over Shields (which represents the majority of the games life) to the Across the Galaxy meta, where every single deck ran Theed Royal Palace and wanted to start with it (talk about boring!).
We finally seem to have entered a place where the battlefield decision is important and interesting. Salt Flats and Theed (post errata) have become that default battlefield of choice for most decks, and they provide just enough of a benefit to make you think twice about taking the Shields, especially if the opponent’s deck is faster than yours. Add to that some scary new battlefields in Mean Streets and Fighting Pit, and the battlefield decision has become more interesting than ever. I hope for more of this going forward!
5. THE RETURN OF THE YOUR DESTINY PODCAST:
After a long hiatus, Mads Utzon and Claus Staal are back at it again! If you’re looking for some high quality Destiny analysis and quality production the YOUR Destiny Podcast really is one of the best. Here’s hoping they’re back for real!
You can find all the episodes of the YOUR Destiny Podcast here including the latest episode that apparently ended up taking 4 months to produce!5 THINGS THAT ARE NOT ABOUT DESTINY:
1. NO NEWS ABOUT STORE CHAMPIONSHIPSWith some of the bigger tournaments still a ways off, and no Galactic Qualifiers near me, I would love the opportunity to play in some Store Championships. It seems like the perfect time for these, yet no announcements have been forthcoming. Where are they?!? It is definitely NOT cool that we have no idea still when to expect Store Championships!
2. OUT OF CONTROL RESOURCE GENERATION
Snoke and Watto are the worst offenders (especially when paired together!), but add to that the arrival of Wat Tambor and Satine Kryze to other crazy resource generators like Lando and Yoda, and it seems like every deck that hits the table can generate a ton of resources.
I was hoping the loss of Chance Cube would tone this down… but there are just too many characters with multiple resource sides and too many good supports to pay for with all of those resources. Resource thin decks like eBoba/eSeventh have been left in the dust, and it makes me sad.
3. LIGHTSABERS
Remember the days when the the best cards in the game were all lightsabers. Gone are the Shoto Lightsaber and Ancient Lightsaber of yesteryear, and it has been replaced with… not much? Treasured Lightsabers are good I guess, and villains have some nasty 3 drops, but beyond that there’s just a bunch of meh.
The reprint of the plain old (terrible) Lightsaber just put the nail in the coffin. Lightsabers are definitely NOT hot right now.
4. FORCE STORM!
When a single card can pretty much delete your team all by itself… that is definitely NOT hot. Repeating Specials are already dangerous, but having one that escalates is an even bigger problem.
It’s just out of control, especially if a natural Special or two are rolled. I hope FFG erratas Force Storm to prevent these kind of plays, as they are a terrible play experience.
5. PUTTING ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET
There is no doubt that decks that go all in on modding up the Shadow Caster and resetting it are very powerful. The problem is that putting everything into that leaves you very vulnerable to simple counter cards - in this case cards like Vandalize, Sebulba Always Wins, and N-1 Starfighter.
I’ve never be a fan of decks like this, and I continue to be skeptical of any decks that put all their eggs in one basket (Palpatine being an example of a deck that straddles the line very closely…). As powerful as these decks can be, you’ll never see me sleeve one up for a major tournament.
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