A Disturbance in the Force - a Star Wars Destiny Blog

Deck Breakdown: Jango\eBala-tik\Trooper

  I've done a couple articles now showing my process of actually building a deck, so I'm kind of flipping the script and today I'm going to take a deck that is already built and just talk about the card choices and why the deck works.

The deck in question is probably considered the top deck of the current format - Jango\eBala-tik\Trooper.  While there really hasn't been any major events to point towards as proof of this deck's dominance I think you'll find most online content creators in agreement that this is the deck to beat heading into worlds in May.

Let's get to the deck list:


Total Cards: (30)

 Character: (30/30)
 2x Bala-Tik (Awakenings)
 1x First Order Stormtrooper (Awakenings)
 1x Jango Fett (Awakenings)

Battlefield:

 1x Imperial Armory (Awakenings)

 Event: (16)
 2x Armed to the Teeth (Awakenings)
 2x Cannon Fodder (Awakenings)
 1x Dug In (Awakenings)
 2x Electroshock (Awakenings)
 2x Fight Dirty (Awakenings)
 2x Flank (Awakenings)
 2x He Doesn’t Like You (Awakenings)
 2x Logistics (Awakenings)
 1x Tactical Mastery (Awakenings)

 Support: (2)
 2x Backup Muscle (Awakenings)

 Upgrade: (12)
 2x DH-17 Blaster Pistol (Awakenings)
 2x F-11D Rifle (Awakenings)
 2x Holdout Blaster (Awakenings)
 2x Hunker Down (Awakenings)
 2x Jetpack (Awakenings)
 2x On the Hunt (Awakenings)

So why male models?

Let's start with the character selection.  When people first got their hands on the game back in December and January, eJango/eVeers became the first breakout deck in early tournament play.  Jango's ability to cheat out his activation, Veers having solid damage dice, and access to a great selection of weapons and events in yellow and red gave the deck a lot of raw power.

The biggest issues with the early eJango/eVeers decks were its lack of health and its heavy reliance on needing good rolls.

To address the health issue the move to 3 characters was key.  Where eJango/eVeers has 19 health, Jango/eBala-tik/Trooper has 25 health.  Running 3 characters makes the deck a little slower in the action economy (having 3 characters to activate as opposed to 2), but player's can get around this by simply not activating the First Order Stormtrooper if they feel they don't have time or that his contribution would be beneficial.

To address the issue with reliance on good rolls, playing with 2 yellow characters with a total of 3 yellow dice made Armed to the Teeth more reliable and allowed Fight Dirty to be included to give another source of reliable damage.  We'll talk about those cards more below.

Character Abilities

If you've been playing Destiny for any length of time at this point, you're aware of Jango and his ability to cheat in actions.  I don't need to sing his praises any more.  One thing to note is in this deck, you only play the 1-die version of Jango - and it doesn't really bother anything.  Jango's ability isn't dice dependent.  Slap and upgrade or two on him and he's just as threatening as always.

Playing 1-die Jango gives us the room to play 2-die Bala-tik.  The advantage to this is now your opponent has a real decision to make regarding who they want to target and kill first.  You have two decent threats on the table vs eJango/eVeers where Jango has the bulls eye painted on him.

Bala-tik's ability, while not as good as Jango's, is still plenty relevant, particularly against 3 or more character decks.  Don't forget to use it.  If you manage to squeeze out at least 1 extra activation on Bala-tik during a game you're in great shape to win.

The First Order Stormtrooper doesn't have an ability, but his die is actually pretty good especially for the points.  It's not like eJango/eVeers was ever getting good use out of eVeers ability anyways.  The trooper's greatest purpose in this deck is just getting you access to the red weapons and letting you get in a few impactful events.

Reliable Damage

The dice Gods can be cruel, so any way to deal damage off of cards is breaking the system.

You basically never see a Jango deck leave home without Backup Muscle.  It's a top 10 card in Awakenings.  Not only are you getting 3 damage for 1 resource off of it, the damage can't be prevented by shields which gets around all sorts of pesky things.

Armed to the Teeth is another card frequently played.  I run it as a 2-of in this deck, though you might see a lot of Jango decks taking it as a 1-of.  The reason being is this card is actually pretty bad early on in the game.  You don't have a lot of upgrades and there is little reason to burn them early.  Later on though it's a different story.  You might have Jango or Bala-tik close to death so you can use this to just get that last oomph out of them.  Or it might be the last bit of reach you need to close out a game.

I like it as a 2-of though, cause if I get it early I like knowing I'll still have another in my deck later and I can try and dig for it if needed.

Fight Dirty is the key event that lends you to wanting to bring Jango and eBala-tik.  You get that extra yellow dice in the pool, then you can have those turns where you just don't care what you roll out.  You're going to get that damage off this card.

6 cards that can deal damage no matter how bad I roll - that equal consistency.

Efficient Removal

Yellow villains have had it too good in Awakenings, hopefully that will change in Spirit of Rebellion.

If you wonder why you see so much villain, particularly yellow villain, at the top of any tournament results you see, it's because of it's access to two cards: Electroshock and He Doesn't Like You.

If you've followed my deck building articles, you know I always prioritize putting in dice removal/manipulation in my decks over most other things.  It's that important - you don't want to just let your opponent do what he wants unimpeded.

Electroshock is 1 cost and can target 95% (approximate) of the die faces in the game and remove them.

He Doesn't Like You's best feature is it is free.  That's super important especially in the early turns.  I can play a 2-cost upgrade out on a character and I know I still have the ability to remove an opponent's die later on if I don't get resources.

Side Bar

A very common mistake I see players make is spending all their resources on getting their upgrades out, but not leaving any resources open for the dice removal they might need to play later.  For example, with this deck in round 1 if I have Jetpack, DH-17 Blaster Pistol and Electroshock in hand - I'm playing out the DH-17 Blaster Pistol on Jango for the 1 resource and keeping the other resource open to play my Electroshock.  I see all to often a player will look at the Jetpack and see the more powerful card and play that out, but then their opponent will have a god-roll and they're sitting there with an Electroshock that will save them, but no way to pay for it.  Something to think about.

Back to Removal

So after He Doesn't Like You and Electroshock, there are a couple removal cards that Mr. Stormtrooper helps us out with.

Cannon Fodder falls in line with He Doesn't Like You - our Stormtrooper is literally cannon fodder in this deck, we don't care if he dies.  So this gives us another 0 cost way to remove an opponent's die at the expense of our little buddy.  Not like your opponent is going to target the Stormtrooper first with Jango and Bala-tik on the board anyways.

Flank is a must play if you have 3 or more characters.  It is even powerful than Electroshock in actuality, hitting any dice on the table, but with it's obvious drawback of needing more characters.

All in all that is four 0-cost die removal cards and four 1-cost die removal cards.  You can't find better in any deck in the meta.

Tricky Dicky Cards

There's a few other cards in here that just offer us some utility or tricks if you will to help our deck along.

Dug In - despite the DMG article calling it "unplayable" in their satirical way, this card is still incredibly powerful.  This deck does run 3 characters so maybe I'm not claiming the battlefield as quickly as some decks, but I'm still pretty fast with Jango's ability.  I included a 1-of this, which I can play towards if I really want it.

Logistics - This card is slow to play, taking an action to resolve 1 die, but this deck is actually pretty resource starved.  Luckily all the cards cost 2 or less so it can get by without it.  Just an extra resource here and there though can really relieve the pressure of managing your resources.

Tactical Mastery - the positive is that it can let you cheat a couple actions in a row, the negative is it relies on your Stormtrooper still being alive (along with Logistics and Cannon Fodder).  I only include 1 of these because it's powerful and that leaves our total at 5 cards that require the Stormtrooper to be alive.

Guns and Stuff

With just one set out we don't really have a whole lot of options as to what to pack for upgrades.  This deck focuses on ranged damage and we're in yellow and red which just so happens to have all the guns.

F-11D Rifle and Holdout Blaster both have the ridiculous keyword "Redeploy".  If you get a couple of these dropped on Jango it really puts the pressure on your opponent.  They HAVE to kill Jango, but then Bala-Tik just gets loaded up with weapons and keeps the pressure on.

DH-17 Blaster Pistol and Jetpack round out the weapons.  The tiny pistol's best use is keeping resources open to pay for Electroshock and Flank while still improving your board.  Jetpack is a bit overrated actually.  It only has two damage sides and they are both modifiers.  Don't count out the shield and the special to get a shield though, those are arguably better than the damage sides a lot of the time.

Hunker Down - there are a lot of melee decks being played, but this card just doesn't care really.  If you get 1 shield out of it that makes it equal to Take Cover.  Get a couple out of it and that's more than good enough to make it one of the best cards.  This card has two great uses - play it early and use it to give shields if your opponent is trying to slow play to avoid your Jango activation.  Or on a turn where your opponent happens to get the battlefield before you, play it and get a shield, then get another shield early the next turn.

On The Hunt - Anti-shield tech, but people also overlook that it can be kind of a Force Throw "light" in a yellow deck.  It's hard to find the resources in this deck, but sometimes you have them and this special can be really good.

How Do I Play This Game?

Winning The Dice Roll

So you've won the dice roll - "Let's grab the battlefield and get this beatdown started!", you might be thinking.  WRONG.  Probably.

I think someone has finally made a game where you want to go second at the start of the game the vast majority of the time.  Getting 2 shields is just better than going first in the first round where you don't even have any fun upgrades or anything in play. 

The only reason you would want to go first is if your deck benefited greatly off your own battlefield and your opponent isn't playing the same one.  Or if you want to stop one of the stated decks from benefiting from their battlefield.

As of right now these are the only deck's that want their battlefield:
ePoe/eRey - Emperor's Throne Room

eHan/eRey - Starship Graveyard

Hyperloop - Emperor's Throne Room

Some Yellow Hero deck - Starship Graveyard.

Discard - Command Center

Basically if your opponent isn't running any of the above three battlefields, you want to be going second always.  Get those shields, you'll claim the battlefield  later on when it's more impactful.

Mulliganing

Or what to look for in your opening hand.  This is similar for a lot of decks right now, but basically you're looking for a weapon upgrade and a die removal card that you can play with said upgrade.

For example:

DH-17 + Elecroshock/Flank

F-11D/Holdout/Jetpack + Cannon Fodder/He Doesn't Like You

I'd favor the weapon upgrade over the removal, so if you have a weapon upgrade but no compatible removal, send the other 4 cards back to try to find the removal.

Assuming you have your weapon upgrade and removal, there are some cards you always mulligan if they're in your opening hand, because they're not good until later in the game.  

Those would be:

Fight Dirty

Armed to the Teeth

Tactical Mastery

Dug In - unless you got stuck going first and have the battlefield

Gameplay Tips

Starting off, your first upgrade is going to go on Jango.  You need to get him back up to 2 dice so his ability is impactful.

Most likely your opponent is still going to target Jango first, so prioritize redeploy upgrades on him and non-redeploy on Bala-tik (if you have a choice)

You want to build Jango and Bala-tik fairly evenly.  Don't over-commit to either character.  The poor Stormtrooper will not get any upgrades the vast majority of the time.  He's there to be Cannon Fodder.

Once Jango and Bala-tik have an upgrade or two each, don't feel obligated to keep piling more on - save your resources to pay for removal and damage sides that have a cost.  Jango with two upgrades and Bala-tik with one upgrade is more than enough power on dice to win the game.  At that point you want to make sure you can pay for things.  Don't leave yourself broke.

You can wait to see what your opponent rolls from activating a character BEFORE you make the decision to activate Jango off his ability.  This is particularly important for Flank - you can make the decision if it's worth it to keep Jango ready so you can play Flank or if you are better of just rolling him in.