Good morning! In case you weren’t around and missed our Meta Monday recap, we played in a $1K this past weekend in Burleson, TX (DFW) where I was able to take the win with Boba Command! The following is a discussion of the list, why I chose it, and a recap of each round as best I remember it. I intended to write this Sunday while everything was as fresh as it could be, but I crashed pretty hard that day.

Before we get into it, shoutout to GeekOut in Burleson, TX for running an awesome event! The space was large, the judges were great, and outside of a few inconveniences (A/C problems, tiny match slips, having to call out table pairings) I have no complaints. Hopefully TEC from FFG will be brought up to full force before long so TO’s aren’t having to use 3rd party software to insure a functional tournament experience.

The Deck

First things first, I finally landed on playing Boba Green at around 10:27am (1.5 hours before the tournament started) when I handed the Boba list to the TO instead of Chirrut. In the weeks leading up to the tournament, Tyler asked me about 20 times what I was playing and until the week the answer was always “I’ll figure it out the week of.” I try to play and understand all the decks in the meta, so the goal of a tournament is to play the deck that I think is most poised to counter the current meta. I talked a little bit about this a few weeks ago in Morning Musings, but I typically want to live in the counter to the counter of the meta as I think that’s where you’ll generally have the best luck with pairings and favorable matchups. At the end of the day if you want to win a tournament, you’ll have to have at least some luck on your side! The other decks I had considered throughout the week were Han Green, Han Blue, Sabine Green, and a brief trip down GI Yellow thanks to wooooo before quickly knowing I wouldn’t be able to play that at a high enough level on short notice. I didn’t feel super comfortable on a late pivot to Boba Yellow, as I felt like I had a much better grip on all the lines for green.

Boba Command is a list we’ve been tinkering around with since November or so, and one I feel very comfortable piloting. We were big believers in Recruit back before the game was released, so when people started talking about bringing it back into the 50, I was all aboard. While 20 events in a deck seems heavy, Recruit being able to filter through quicker and grab something needed is great. There were multiple times on the day that I whiffed round 1 and was able to recruit for a better Rd 2 play or Greedo to drop Round 1. Obviously, there’s also synergy with Bossk, but that play didn’t come up for me on the day.

Shoutout the KTOD for the Gamorrean add, they fit right into that 4-drop spot when you whiff on ramp, and often also represent a good stumbling block into aggro and other midrange decks at any point in the game.

The big question was whether I wanted Cunning, and how many copies of it. During testing throughout the week of, I waffled between Cartel Spacers, Seasoned Shoretroopers, and even tried Snapshot Reflexes along with Academy Training. Ultimately once I started to see the lines where Cunning was fantastic, I was sold on it and even put a 3rd in the sideboard in place of the 3rd Emperor’s legion.

Outside of the above, the list is pretty standard, though a bit more event-heavy and with less round 1 plays than most (which Recruit helps with some). No Good to Me Dead at x3 felt like a no brainer into the resurgence of Han and Luke decks, and I’ve always personally been a fan of the 2x Resupply to avoid clogging hands with ramp cards late. Thanks to Recruit, I was also able to shave off a Steadfast Battalion and feel good about it.

As I mentioned above, the sideboard consisted of a 3rd Cunning, 2 Emperor’s Legion, 2 Change of Heart and 2 Relentless all for control matchups (Boba’s weakest), and 3 Starvipers to give a little help into aggro. The only thing potentially worth considering further is Spark of Rebellion or Bodhi potentially to see if fitting in some hand hate would help a little more against the heavy control decks built to murder us.

Expecting a lot of aggro decks, a lot of Han decks, and a good chunk of green/yellow Bobas, I felt like I had a good main deck into all of those and was mostly hoping to dodge Control. I knew my fellow piece of Garbage Tyler was likely going to bring Iden Blue, so there was likely going to be a lot of dread waiting to hear pairings each round.

Round 1 vs. Boba Green (Jon H.)

Well well, we took no time finding our first match against Boba! It always helps calm the nerves when you sit down across a nice opponent and Jon was exactly that.

Game 1 we both ramped, but Jon missed a play entirely on the 5 resource round I believe and I was ahead from the get-go. He ended up scooping when I had a bigger board, 19 damage on his base and 3 on mine.

Game 2 he was able to jump out ahead and keep pushing. We entered an awkward spot where he chose to claim over attacking with his fresh Firespray which left me confused, but he had bigger plans to start the next round. We reached a point in the game where I needed to land a big Cunning and hope he didn’t have Barrage to clear my Boba with the +4, but he did. 26-17 loss.

Game 3 was very similar to Game 1 with me pushing damage early. Jon missed a round 1 play and Resupplied Round 2 while I pushed hard and got an early damage lead. An OB slowed me down, but I was able to open the final round with a Shoot First on Vader to swing for the lethal 6 damage.

Win 2-1

Round 2 vs. Luke Blue (Max M.)

My Round 2 opponent actually played on the table beside me in Round 1 (shoutout to his opponent who came dressed in a full cosplay of a TIE Fighter pilot and wore it all day long). Max popped open his Luke Vigilance deck and my mind started scrambling as I had never tested this matchup. I knew No Good to Me Dead would definitely be clutch to help prevent him from stabilizing with Luke, but I definitely was going to hope to dodge a lot of Vigilances.

Game 1 Max opened with an R2-D2, who ended up with a Jedi Lightsaber and Luke’s Lightsaber on him over time. I never drew the Waylay but was finally able to barrage it off the board (and Max was kind enough to point out that the Luke’s Saber wasn’t a 2nd Jedi lightsaber like I initially thought and didn’t hold me to the extra OB damage I initially sent there). I really hate the way FFG set up the upgrade templating to tuck under cards, because for the life of me I never know what upgrades they are, or if an experience is a shield across the table. Max drew no Vigilances this game, and No Good to Me Dead on Luke leader allowed me to push 17 damage in the last round to close the game.

Game 2 was similar with an R2 opening and Viper Probe droid on my side that showed he had Luke’s Saber, a Jedi Saber, and The Force is with Me this time. I slowly pushed damage before he found his first Vigilance healing from 18 to 13 on base. A Waylay on Obiwan and 2 No Good to Me Deads played on Luke Leader and Luke the Unit helped me clear the way to push 12 damage from Surprise Strikes and close out the game.

Win 2-0

Round 3 vs. Iden Green (Joel T.)

Joel sat down and after introductions, his first comment was that he needed to start playing faster and he kept going to time. Being generally regarded as a faster player, this crept into my brain a little bit, but the pace of the games were fine. He was running the 30 hp green base with Iden, a variation I haven’t seen in a long time, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from this deck. It ended up being a taller control Iden than is generally played, and potentially my worst matchup on the day?

Game 1 was slow, pushing through a Vigilance and several Iden healing actions. She didn’t stay out long as a leader thanks to him being forced to trade her into Boba, but it took me a while to get enough units on the board to get the damage, through, since he saw 2 Power of the Dark Sides and 2 Takedowns in the first 10 cards. Thankfully Joel never drew into Superlaser Blast, and I was able to close out the game finally with an ECL’d Steadfast Battalion.

Game 2 I sideboarded in 2 Change of Hearts and skipped on the Relentless and Legion, since I never saw Superlaser and wasn’t sure if Joel was running it. He was able to stabilize much earlier this game and Iden stayed out as a leader for a while. I finally hit a point where I was able to swing with Firespray and then lose a Crafty Smuggler to his Avenger attack before taking the initiative. I then played Change of heart to take Joel’s Avenger and swing him from 13 to 26 damage. This might have gone a few more rounds, but I got lucky and he thought an Iden heal would get him out of lethal (I thought he was going to follow this action with Make an Opening or something else to heal) allowing me to take the initiative and attack with Firespray first action for the win. There was about 15 minutes left on the clock, so I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have made it through a game 3.

This was the round I looked up and down the top table and saw a Boba on almost every match. After checking the results, there were only 2 undefeated Bobas remaining..

Win 2-0

Round 4 vs. Leia Red (Britton J.)

I noticed Britton playing against the only Iden Blue left at the top tables the round before. Since he was now facing me, I was pumped to realize that meant only 1 control deck was left at the X-0 field (Vader/Blue) which was playing against Sabine Green beside us at this point (shoutout Moonlife on discord who was piloting Sabine). Britton was pretty happy with the showing thus far and said this was not the norm. I was happy to see my first Leia of the day, a matchup I felt very good about. Britton was using the 30 hp Red base.

Game 1 unfortunately did not agree with me. Britton opened up space, and I had no Round 2 play other than a Waylay on an A-wing after it attacked (I don’t think I won a single roll off after the first round all day). Britton ended the game with about 5 units on board and swinging a lot of stuff to face that I couldn’t deal with.

Game 2 went much better as Britton went space, but I drew an OB this game. I was able to push enough damage and get the win 30-21 with some help from a Starviper heal.

Game 3 was the cakewalk I was looking for as I drew 2 OB’s and Britton couldn’t get anything to stick on the board. I ended up winning this game with only 9 damage on my base.

Win 2-1

It was at this point I went across the street to the bar with Lawton to get my first drink of the day and celebrate being 2 wins away. We knew one of us was likely to get the Vader Blue at this point, so I started thinking about how to deal with that deck.

Round 5 vs. Boba Yellow (Lawton B.)

Fortunately? Unfortunately? We both dodged the Vader Blue, but we ended up facing each other. Lawton was running mostly the same as Mike Gemme’s Boba cunning list that won the CT 1k the week prior, and I knew this matchup would not be easy. It did feel good to be playing Star Wars cards with a homie again though.

Game 1 started off about as bad as it could for his deck, and I was able to get way ahead on damage. Unfortunately, I drew into nothing and had a very poor Boba resource 5 round which kept him from scooping and playing it out to see if he could draw a Cunning to turn the game around. He ended up not, and we coasted our way to a Game 1 win.

Game 2 he was able to maintain pace with me, before playing the Cunning he needed in Game 1. A big 1 cost Asteroid sanctuary (thanks to Jabba) also exhausted my Boba at an important spot. It was at this point that he has 2 Seventh Fleet Defenders and a Cartel Spacer all with shields that the OB I drew next round could effectively do nothing to. This pushed him far enough ahead on tempo that he closed me out with 25 damage on his base, 1 action away from victory for me.

Game 3 was fortunately exactly what I needed with a hot start and him clawing to do anything. He ended up scooping with 15 damage on his base and 6 on mine after he drew a mostly dead hand.

Win 2-1

I was pretty happy at this point knowing I only needed 1 win to guarantee top cut, and I was likely facing Leia again after it beat Vader on the stream (rip) table. Lawton’s SoS was also looking good, but he was geared to try and get the 2 wins to guarantee top cut as well at 6-1.

Round 6 vs. Leia Red (Jason T. aka His Dudeness)

It’s the boy himself, His Dudeness on discord. Jason is local to us, though this was actually my first time playing him IRL thanks to a busy season at work around the release of the game, and not lining up schedules at local stores. Despite Leia being a favorable matchup, I knew this man’s been playing aggro longer than I’ve been alive (okay maybe not that long), but the man knows how to hit face. These games were likely to come down to thin margins if I didn’t just hit the amazing Boba aggro draws. These games were also on the stream table (rip), so we’ll be uploading it on our Youtube in a few days. He was on Tarkintown, so generally whatever I ECL’d was instantly going to be deleted.

Game 1 went well for me with a slow start of X-wing Rd 1, A-wing Rd 2, and only a Medal Ceremony Round 3 for him. With him whiffing a round 4 unit play and me being able to Waylay the buffed A-wing, I was able to push enough damage (along with an OB on his Leia deploy) to win with 13 damage on my base. This game featured my big misplay of the day, as I had initially planned on trading Greedo into something which didn’t transpire before I dropped a 2nd Greedo on my Boba reset. Whoops, thankfully Jason called it out right away and I sacked him to the discard. Important to always take a fresh look at the board no matter what lines you mapped out, as things do change from time to time on the battlefield… or don’t!

Game 2 was a thiiiiiiiiin margin, that we came to discuss after the game he could have gotten there had he sequenced differently. On the 6 resource round, he was able to Rebel Assault his 2 ships for 8 putting me at 16 damage. I dropped my Firespray before he played For a Cause I Believe In to put me at 20 damage which meant I had to take initiative. I opened the next round with Cunning to exhaust his A-Wing and Wing Leader and bounce Red Three, meaning he could do no damage that round. I had 12 on his base, with leader Boba, Gamorreans, and a Firespray ready to swing for 13 and that was all she wrote. If he had taken initiative to guarantee damage with the ships he had out (and I wasn’t able to deal with them) and saved the For A Cause for next round, he would have been able to get there.

Win 2-0

With my 6th win, I was guaranteed top cut, so naturally we went back to the bar across the street. Lawton was hoping for a good matchup round 7 to make the cut, so we drank to that.

Round 7 vs. Vader Green (Ryan C.)

At this point I was already in top cut and super relieved to not have to hyper focus for this match. Beside us fellow Garbage Roller Tyler and my buddy Lawton were playing in a 5-1 win and in game!

I sat down across from the friendly, yet taunting Ryan Chiriboga. Tyler had played him earlier in the day and lost, but had a fun story to go along with it which Ryan re-shared with me.

On around April 20th or so, Ryan bought into the game ($200+ booster boxes!!), managed to pull a Sabine showcase, traded it for 3 Vaders and then went to our website and read our entire New Player Guide. Now he was sitting at the top table of a 1k 3 weeks later playing to make the Top Cut. If that’s not the most rewarding thing about doing content, I’m not sure what is!

I think Ryan played these games well, and I definitely was a bit sloppy at times playing unfocused knowing the match ultimately did not matter.

Game 1 he ramped and I did not. This isn’t the crux of the matchup, but it is very hard for Boba to push ahead without the big early advantage before Vader comes out. I ended up doing 21 damage before he closed me out with a couple of Vader’s (leader and unit) staring me down and a Ruthless Raider nuking my base.

Game 2 was the opposite, where I ramped and he did not at all. He was able to Traitorous my Boba Fett, but an OB just cleared the way for me to hit face. A couple of StarViper heals almost got him to stabilize with Vader, but I had just enough on the board to close him out.

Game 3 was more of the same as Game 1. I think he Vader unit’d me, I Vader unit’d his Vader, before he Vader’d my Vader. Vader? Vader. Nothing super memorable here, but I did a measely 19 damage to him before falling.

Overall, I was super happy with my showing and thankful my only loss came in a match that did not matter. Lawton ended up taking Games 1 and 2 against Tyler, so we knew he was in while Tyler and David (our 3rd Garbage player of the day) both finished 5-2 and had to wait to see who bubbled.

Lose 1-2

Swiss Complete

At this point me and Lawton went across the street to the bar to get a couple of drinks and re-focus for top cut. We both finished with about 20 mins left in the final round, so we refreshed the updated standings in challonge every few minutes to see what pairings might end up looking like. Here’s what the final Top 8 looked like.

Which lead to these pairings for the bracket

Tyler and David both snuck in as the 6th and 7th seed giving us a 3/3 conversion rate of Garbage Rollers to the top cut in the event. It was nice to see everyone perform and have a good time! Idk about the other guys, but I had pretty low expectations hoping for just 1 of us to make the cut given the chaotic meta we were playing in.

Top 8 vs Boba Green (Jon H.)

That’s right, my Round 1 opponent on the day managed to submarine back into the Top cut- well played by Jon! I felt like I had the better deck suited for the mirror thanks to Cunning and felt fairly comfortable with the matchup, so I was overall happy to see this pairing Rd 1. As I noticed in our Round 1 matchup, his list mainly differed with a lack of main deck Cunnings and he ran Strafing Gunship and Cartel Spacer over Cunning and Gamorreans.

Game 1 was much like our Swiss game 1, I pushed ahead early and he didn’t have a ton of early plays. I won this game with 4 damage on my base.

Game 2 I fell behind early but was able to claw back into a decent spot. Unfortunately, on a pivotal round where I planned on ECLing a Viper probe droid to clear his Boba leader off the table, I somehow managed to resource it instead of the intended Crafty Smuggler. It could have been the alcohol or the general state of tiredness of 9 hours of SWU, but it is what it is. From there he was able to push enough damage that I couldn’t get back in the game.

Game 3 was fairly close, and a clutch No Good to Me Dead on my Boba leader brought Jon fairly even after I had pushed ahead early. I still had the board though and drew into 3 copies of Surprise Strike over the last 2 rounds to push the damage needed.

Jon was happy to be free at this point, as he didn’t originally think he was making top cut and had called his girlfriend to come pick him up!

Win 2-1

Top 4 vs. Leia Red (Jason T)

God bless Jason for taking out Iden Red, as I hadn’t tested that matchup at all. I once again locked in knowing these would likely be close games.

Game 1 was incredibly tight. We came to a point where he swung in to get me to 15 damage, I OB’d with a gamorrean and he Fleet LT’d his Leia to clear my gamorrean. That left the board where he had Red 3, an A-Wing and Fleet LT in play tapped and I knew a Rebel Assault could kill me first action of the next round if I didn’t deal with. I was able to clear the Fleet LT and line up the damage in a way that I was 2 actions away from lethal. Going into the next round he did have the Rebel Assault pushing me to 24 damage, before I attacked, and all he had was a Guerilla Attack Pod. If he had sequenced playing the Pod first then rebel assaulting, I don’t recall if I had a way to stop him, but these are the razor thin margins. I win 25-24 damage on base.

Game 2 reached a similar situation, but he was able to push enough damage that drawing a Rebel Assault would win him the game. Unfortunately, he did not have the For a Cause or Attack Pod to follow up for the win after attacking with his only 2 units letting me swing with everything for the win.

We finished pretty quickly, so I went over to watch the rest of game 2 in the other match where Lawton was up 1-0. Unforunately the long day was catching up to Ryan and in game 2 he forgot to deploy Vader the first round he could. Lawton had 2 Firesprays, so he may have still been able to close it out, but ultimately missing Vader deployment sealed the 2-0 for Lawton.

Win 2-0

Finals vs. Boba Yellow (Lawton B.)

We were both exhausted and ready to be done at this point, so the finals mostly consisted of us (I know I was at least) playing very fast and loose. I remember very little of these games (and the camera SD card got full so this recording didn’t get the whole match) but Game 1 he hit a couple of Cunnings and got there, Game 2 he hit none and I overwhelmed his board with an early ECL. Game 3 went by even faster, and I took it down.

Win 2-1

Closing Thoughts

While Boba Green is far from the most dominant deck in the game people thought it was early on, the deck was very strong in to the right meta. After the explosion of control decks the past few weeks, which led to people starting to lean more into aggro and the control decks going taller, I felt like it was the right timing to play the midrange deck that could eat the other midrange decks and beat aggro.

I was fairly happy with how I played, only noting a few sequencing issues and misplays throughout the day. The biggest thing for me though was it felt really good after 5 years (RIP Star Wars Destiny) to be back playing an all-day Star Wars card game tournament with lots of familiar faces from Oklahoma, to New Orleans, to Arkansas, and other parts of Texas! Hopefully there will be many more of these type of events in the future, but for now my eyes are set on GenCon and seeing many long-time friends IRL again!

FFG really nailed a healthy meta for set 1 of about 8-12 decks that could have a shot at any tournament based on how pairings line up, which is fun for everyone! It always takes a bit of luck in a meta like this to win, so I’m thankful despite losing all but 1 dice roll on the day, my luck was in the right spot!

Once again, shoutout to GeekOut Burleson for hosting a fantastic tournament! I’m hoping they plan on making this a regular occurance at least once or twice a year, as it was great to have some long time friends travel in once again for a day of Star Wars Card games.

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Sorry to everyone that had planned on tuning into the stream. My laptop had 0 problems in test streams leading up to the big day, and I’m still not sure what happened. Regardless every time we hit start streaming, within a random interval of 10 minutes it would restart with no blue screen. We’re assuming it was overheating, but who knows. Real bummer, but at least we recorded most of the tournament to re-share. Keep an eye on our YouTube channel for those.

Thanks for reading!