5th Place @ a 1K$ - Double Red Bo-Katan

Introduction

After a lot of playtesting and 35 iterations this is the finalized deck list I brought today (8/24/2024) to the Raleigh, NC 1k$ tournament. It was hosted at Triangle Trading Cards, 28 people participated in 5 rounds of swiss with a cut to top 8.

I also recorded the games from my POV, with varying camera angles / quality, but if anyone wants to see the matches I'll throw them in the comments once I upload them to YouTube. The top table was also streamed throughout the tournament, which I got to play in it for Round 3!

[Timestamped link to the tournament stream]

About the Deck

Bo-Katan Tarkintown is a Mid-Range / Aggro deck. Of course that means compared to her blue variant, she leans a lot more towards an aggressive playstyle. This build has slightly better play into the control archetype, but still has a lot of the tools necessary to curb some of the aggro matchups (except if Sabine hits her curve, she's a monster). To be up front, although very versatile, this deck can definitely still leave you feeling like a jack of all trades, master of none.

Her access to a fairly consistent 1 damage ping, as well as the threat of Tarkintown means that a lot of red removal tools become much more efficient. Can't open fire to kill a 3/5 Boba Fett? Open fire + ping. What about a 4 health Poe Dameron after Han2 cheats it out? Ping + Tarkintown.

Not to mention the versatility of the 4 cost Legendary event Aggression, dealing 4 damage to an enemy unit to control the board only gains extra reach in conjunction with her leader ability. Then removing upgrades (bounties or enemy upgrades), readying a unit with 3 power or less to get in more damage, or drawing a card if your opponent is discarding your hand gives you so many options.

And while the deck is still slightly expensive (~150$ according to SWUDB), it is a lot cheaper to put together than a lot of the meta decks out there right now (Sabine is currently running ~260$).

Tournament Matchups & Results

1. Cade Bane Green (30hp): 2W | 0L
2. Krennic Green (ECL): 2W | 0L
3. Bossk Green (ECL): 2W | 1L (Crazy triple Bounty Hunter's Quarry)
4. Han2 Blue (30hp): 1W | 2L (Crazy triple Force Throw)
5. Vader Green (30hp): 2W | 0L

Final Results: I finished 5th Place (4W | 1L) and top 8 decided to split the prizing.

I can't remember the exact order of the placements, but 1st place went to Qi'ra ECL. The entire top 8 consisted of 4 Han2 blues, 1 Qi'ra ECL, 1 Bossk ECL, 1 Vader Green 30hp, and 1 Bo-Katan Tarkintown.

Key Takeaways

1. First off, I definitely got lucky as I didn't run into any of the 7 Sabine players, and they were getting picked off by the many (I think 8) Han2 Blue players. Do I think Bo-Katan is getting slept on? A little bit. Is she going to break into the meta? As much as I would love for her to, I don't think so. She definitely still has a lot of problems into Sabine, and can be fairly inconsistent into Boba Yellow.

2. Black One is a 1 of in the deck to refuel your hand against control / longer match ups but the second one in the sideboard never got sided in, so definitely would change that out for something else. Maybe a third Heroic resolve.

3. The Chaos of War actually didn't really see play. I ran 3 of it in the sideboard, and sided it in vs Krennic and Han2 blue, but if I saw it early I just resourced it as I'd rather have units / removal in hand, and I didn't really need it late game as I either already had board control or I didn't have enough damage on opponent's base for it to do anything meaningful. Might lower it down to 2 or even 1 of in the sideboard.

4. The Han2 Blue matchup is very dependent on getting good Tarkintown value. In game 3, my opponent cheated out Cassian Andor on turn 1 and I had thought I needed to Tarkintown it if I ever wanted to see any semblance of board control. I maybe wouldn't have TT'ed it if I atleast had a Bo-Katan in my starting hand that could trade evenly into the 3/3 Cassian, but I only had two 2/3's, a Sabine Wren unit and a House Kast Soldier which would get eaten up.

5. While hand control can definitely hurt, resourcing your smuggle targets (Nite Owl Skirmisher and Cassian Andor) can bail you out. In my 2nd game vs Han2 blue, after getting Force Throw'd three times (fortunately he didn't have a force unit on board) and discarding my entire hand, I was still able to keep building a board because I had smuggled 2 Nite Owl Skirmishers early on.

I'm just trying to put Bo-Katan on the map!