Cake - Small Store Championship Winner 2.0

• Verziók
• 2.0
• 1.0

I piloted this deck to a Store Championship win (over an admittedly small field) this weekend. There were only 7 players, so we just did 3 rounds of Swiss and then the only undefeated (me) was crowned. I would've liked a larger field to play against and a real top table for the win, but I'm very pleased with the deck's performance and I feel confident that I could have taken it in a "full" tournament without adding too much headache.

I've been toying with this list since the day WOTF dropped, but I really don't think it hit its stride until this version. The synergy between the two characters is pretty easy to see and exploit, but for the first several iterations I felt like it was still just a Cad deck. When he rolled decent damage or that discard with Ambush and I had the money to resolve it (or Truce in hand), it worked. When he didn't, it was a Blue/Yellow deck with mediocre dice. Force Speed helps Cad quite a bit, as you can activate with actions left over to use those Snoke focus (Snokus?) sides and get your damage through clean.

Probably the best change I made was the night-before inclusion of Enrage. Dealing a damage to Snoke for the ability to play an upgrade and still resolve one of the deck's many pay sides smooths out the resource curve considerably. Coupled with Truce, you have pretty good odds of getting one of those all-important economy cards out turn one.

The mitigation suite leaves a little to be desired, but ultimately Cad is just too resource-dependent to go in on even too many 1-cost cards. Killing a character is the best mitigation, after all. Villain blue/yellow is about as good as it gets for free mitigation, so you're at least getting good value out of the mitigation you are able to play.

The real trick is knowing what to use Snoke's Power Action on. It's easy to get stars in your eyes about a 3 being 5, or that discard taking your opponent's whole hand. But early in the game, just taking 3 resources on a Cad die can enable you to play super aggressive the rest of the game. Even taking a damage to gain 3 shields can keep you alive that one extra round you need to turn a tight game into a blowout.

Round 1 - Luke/Leia mill

I've seen this deck called "We Used to Make Out," which is hilarious. Unfortunately, I don't think the deck itself lives up to the pun. I've toyed around with Leia a lot and ultimately I've found that any deck I build around her is useless if she dies before round 3 or 4. It was no different here. I rolled decent damage early, but my opponent had First Aid and Field Medic in hand, so a very strong Turn 1 showing from Cad resulted in Leia with a single point of damage on her, and a couple of those juicy Luke shields to boot. That established the tempo for the entire game, though, my opponent was on the back foot the entire time. Most resources were spent on mitigation, and I was able to Vandalize his C-3PO to cripple his endgame. Cad's discard side was brutal, both with and without Snoke amping it up.

Leia went down while I still had a few cards left in my deck, and then I just played safe, dealing whatever damage I could roll and conserving my cards. Luke got me down to my last hand, but he actually nearly milled himself and only had one card left when I finally cut down the wise old master. I do think this matchup could be scarier, I think my opponent was running a pretty rough list. I didn't see Force Speed or Suppressive Fire in there, which I think are cards that could really make that list pop. I was also very conscious of Flames of the Past and made sure to keep matching upgrades on my characters instead of going hog wild with Cad activations. Still, I like Cad in general vs. mill, especially mill that is so heavily focused on one character.

Round 2 - Kylo/Pryce

This match was a testament to the power of these two characters. My opponent's list was far from optimized (she doesn't own Ancient Lightsaber, for instance), but it was still pretty close through the early rounds. I drew heavy into yellow and couldn't avoid getting pinged by Kylo twice, and taking the shields instead of the battlefield came back to bite me when Pryce turned a poor roll into 6 damage. I gave as good as I got, though, dealing 6 to Kylo and getting Cad a full set of shields at the end of Round 1. Round 2 I was able to mitigate the majority of her dice, and a Cad 2 discard prevented her from doing the same thing to me. Snoke gave me his 2 focus side, and Kylo didn't make it out of the round. From there it was mostly just mop-up. I focused on getting redeploys onto Cad so Snoke could close it out (as a side note, the Supreme Leader is surprisingly sturdy in a 1v1), but Pryce's single melee side didn't provide a strong enough foundation for my opponent's Dagger of Mortis or Electrostaff and Cad never went beyond the 9 damage he took while Kylo was alive.

Round 3 - eYoda/Cassian/Anakin

This is the deck I was most afraid of from the start, as I've seen it played here and there to great effect and I had 0 experience with the matchup. 27 health is a lot to chew through, especially when your first kill doesn't turn off Easy Pickings or Into The Garbage Chute. I went hard for Cassian out the gate, getting 5 damage on him with Cad's first activation, but my opponent got out a Force Illusion that made my decisions a little more difficult going forward. Turn 2 I rolled out enough to kill Anakin straight-up, so I switched targets. I lost my Force Speed to a nice Force Meditation/Flames of the Past combo, and I was starting to sweat with more than half my deck gone. Yoda was still alive and Cassian now had a Force Illusion and a Second Chance, making it impossible for Cad to roll out and kill him. Snoke came up big for me, both by generating resources with Enrage and by letting me get 4 damage on Yoda with the Cad die left over after Anakin died.

He did what he could to keep the Green One alive, but I was able to secure a kill on Yoda the next round, leaving me with a full hand, two cards in my deck, and a Cassian who could absorb upwards of 15 damage but was rolling a single die. I put him in a tough spot by resolving a big packet of modified damage, taking 6 off the top of his deck; including his second Easy Pickings, the other Second Chance and a Hyperspace Jump. The plan was always to Vandalize whichever upgrade he didn't use to block that packet, so Second Chance came off in exchange for some Snoke Disrupts and a Cad shield. He got me down to three cards in hand and none in deck, but that Force Illusion broke his back, and it was only a matter of time before Cad just naturally rolled enough damage to seal the deal.

There are a number of changes I've considered, but since I got my Store Champ swag I'll probably be focusing on tinkering with a bunch of weird decks until regional season comes around. I like the idea of As You Command getting me value out of Snoke's weaker sides, especially that 2 indirect early, but I rarely play it so I might just go back to running two Take Flight instead. Feel Your Anger can be such an impactful card, but lately I find myself using it to mitigate a single die more often than not. I would probably replace that with By Any Means or another 1-cost card, I think there are a lot of decent options in that slot. It may be heresy, but I've been seriously considering cutting the other Force Illusion. This list is pretty tight, and when you're only running 8 weapons it can cause you physical pain when you block damage with 2 or 3 of them.