Ok, so I'm finally getting around to updating all of my old decks. My goal is to finish it this summer and repackage them all as "DT Duels" (Darth Trumpetus Duels). During this process, I thought I'd post my old decks, along with playtest reports and all my tweaks. Comments are welcome, but I'm not really looking for advice, card ideas or any new drafts. This is more a sharing session, but I'm always interested in feedback. And apologies for a long post.
So, I've started with the deck that is currently my "oldest" deck, in that it has not seen a revision in the longest amount of time. This deck was initially a collaboration with Robert Oyung, which is mainly why it hasn't seen any updates. Out of respect/loyalty/whatever I haven't touched it since the two of us deemed it "finished" almost 4 years ago. However, I have since gotten several bits of feedback, and have had 4 years worth of deck designing experience under my belt since then, and I feel confident that I can improve upon it. So, what follows is a tweak of the old "Cyborg Grievous" deck, and should now be regarded as my own deck, even though some aspects of the old version will remain the same and could be attributed to Rob Oyung (and honestly, I don't remember what parts were his ideas and which were mine, so I'm just claiming ownership over the new version).
Here is the old version:
So, I've started with the deck that is currently my "oldest" deck, in that it has not seen a revision in the longest amount of time. This deck was initially a collaboration with Robert Oyung, which is mainly why it hasn't seen any updates. Out of respect/loyalty/whatever I haven't touched it since the two of us deemed it "finished" almost 4 years ago. However, I have since gotten several bits of feedback, and have had 4 years worth of deck designing experience under my belt since then, and I feel confident that I can improve upon it. So, what follows is a tweak of the old "Cyborg Grievous" deck, and should now be regarded as my own deck, even though some aspects of the old version will remain the same and could be attributed to Rob Oyung (and honestly, I don't remember what parts were his ideas and which were mine, so I'm just claiming ownership over the new version).
Here is the old version:
| QUOTE |
| Cyborg Grievous HP: 16, Blue Magnaguard Droids x2 HP: 5, Minor Melee Power Combats DOOKU'S TRAINING x3 A7, Draw a card. ANNIHILATOR BLASTER x3 A[STAR]: Play this card face-up. You may play any basic combat card (face down) against a target at long-range as if Grievous has a blaster. Draw a card. COWARDLY DEFENSE x2 D0*, *If any Magnaguards are alive, Grievous exchanges places with one of them and takes no damage. Instead the moved Magnaguard takes the attack and may defend as normal. Special Cards GENERAL'S ORDERS x2 Move Grievous up to 6 spaces. Then move Magnaguard 1 up to 4 spaces and move Magnaguard 2 up to 4 spaces. TWIRLING SABER CHARGE x2 Move Grievous up to 3 spaces. Any characters adjacent to a space in Grievous' path receive 2 damage each (includes starting and ending spaces, and only once per character). |
After running this deck through the 1vs1 gauntlet, here are Grievous' playtest results:
Overall: 10-13-1 42%
Tier 1: 0-7-1
Tier 2: 1-5
Tier 3: 9-1
My goal is for this deck to be a solid Tier 2 deck with potential to beat a Tier 1 every once in awhile. Based on these results (and the current results in the EDOL Character database), he's probably low Tier 2, maybe even Tier 3. It seems a little on the weak side since his winning percentage should be up above 50% in order to be competitive with the other Tier 2s. Also, his results by Tier make him pretty much a non-threat in Tier 1 and even against the other Tier 2s. He defeated most of Tier 3 with ease, so, he's close and only needs a few tweaks to up his power level.
First off, I think increasing the damage on TWIRLING SABER CHARGE from 2 to 3 is a good tweak to ramp up Grievous power level. It's only an increase of 2 total direct damage, but there was at least a couple of matches where that would have made a difference, and the card kind of underwhelms as it is. It's currently not that much better than Flamethrower and this card should be a little be scarier than that. Also, the wording needs to be cleaned up a bit, and I like RIDE WITH ME from Eowyn's deck, so I'm going to use that as a model here.
Secondly, the movement on GENERAL'S ORDERS suffers from not having a card draw attached. Not only that, but the movement numbers have always bothered me that they are not the same. I think making everyone a move a 5 on the card (instead of 6 and 4) would improve a lot. So basically, make it like GIVE ORDERS, but a move of 5, and with a card draw (what GIVE ORDERS should be anyway).
Thirdly, I think the Magnaguards would be better served with Minor Blue instead of "Minor Melee". Minor Melee is an outdated deck, and Minor Blue has seen enough testing within the last few years to convince me it's a better option.
So those are all minor tweaks, but needed. Which brings me to the last issue with the deck: ANNIHILATOR BLASTER. I'm not convinced that ANNIHILATOR BLASTER works as well as intended as a power combat card. It's kind of a clunky mechanic to play the card face-up as a power attack. So, it's kind of a messy card and I think it needs to be changed somehow. There are a couple of alternatives. First, it could work a ranged direct damage card, and this would be the smoothest fix. But I don't think the deck needs another direct damage card, let alone x3 of them. Second, (and this has more or less become the accepted way to handle characters that can do both melee and ranged attacked) is to make Grievous a shooter instead of a melee character. This would require a new basic deck, and it would require DOOKU'S TRAINING to have an adjacency clause. This is actually a very quick and easy tweak, but if I did that, then it kind of negates the entire card itself, since all his basics could be used at range, and then I'd have to come up with 3 more cards. What would I add? He's already got good offense, movement and card draws. He lacks healing, discarding and manipulation, but the deck doesn't really need too many more elements, so I'm leaning against this idea as it changes the deck pretty dramatically. Finally, I could keep the card essentially as is, but instead make it a special card instead of a power combat. This is where I'm leaning, and if I did that, I'd drop the card draw (because of the addition to GENERAL'S ORDERS and to clean up the wording a bit). Also, I think x3 is too many, because it depletes his basic cards and it's actually quite difficult to pair the card with three basics throughout a duel. And I don't want this card to be his signature card. So, that would leave me with another slot open. I actually do think Grievous suffers from a lack of discarding, and as a "Dark Sider", he could use some more character traits. So, I would add the following card:
YOU ARE DOOMED x1
All players controlling a character adjacent to either Grievous or a Magnaguard, must choose and discard a card for each of your characters still in play.
This gives Grievous a potentially devastating card early on (especially in masterplay), and also makes his Magnaguards even more valuable than they were before. It also gives him a solid combo with GENERAL'S ORDERS. He can potentially play ORDERS then DOOMED, then use SABER CHARGE to catch up if need be, and land DOOKU'S TRAINING, which would be a pretty nasty combination of 4 cards (considering he could then use COWARDLY DEFENSE to run away afterwards!!). So, here is the new version I'll be playtesting:
| QUOTE |
| General Grievous HP: 16, Blue Magnaguard Droids x2 HP: 5, Minor Blue Power Combats DOOKU'S TRAINING x3 A7, Draw a card. COWARDLY DEFENSE x2 D0*, *If any Magnaguards are still in play, Grievous exchanges places with one and takes no damage. Instead the moved Magnaguard takes the attack and may defend as normal. Special Cards GENERAL'S ORDERS x2 Move Grievous up to 5 spaces and then move each Magnaguard up to 5 spaces. Draw a card. TWIRLING SABER CHARGE x2 You may move Grievous up to 3 spaces in a straight line. Grievous does 3 damage to all opponent's characters adjacent to any space in his movement path, including starting and ending spaces. ANNIHILATOR BLASTER x2 You may attack any one enemy character with a basic combat card at range as if Grievous has a blaster. This character may defend as normal. YOU ARE DOOMED! x1 All players controlling a character adjacent to either Grievous or a Magnaguard, must choose and discard a card for each of your characters still in play. |




