Melbourne AUS PQ winner at General Games Chirnside Park 18/01/25

description

This Gar Saxon deck is a fairly even split between ground and space that will play the aggro in most match ups, with annoying units that are hitting above their paygrade.

The deck can be inconsistent and suffer from no units from back to back draws. Ideally we want to keep 3 units and one upgrade/event from starting hand if we can to help. If the other cards are good though, we can keep 2 and 2.

Not being a meta deck helped me immensely. Several opponents had not played vs. Gar Saxon and even those that had were sometimes caught off guard by its tricks.

main deck

A typical game might looks like:

Turn 1: aim to play crafty or merc gunship. Play Evazan if maklounke is in hand, or into yellow/green

Turn 2: usually a 3 drop, ideally lurking or 7th fleet depending on the matchup. Into decks that can race you, removing a unit at the cost of a shield then maklounke + replaying it can work well. Snapshot + 2 drop is also often nice

Turn 3: usually looking to 3+1 or 2+2 into the less contested lane. Events often see play here too to get rid of something pesky

Turn 4: keep pushing damage. Tie advanced is great if we don't fear removal. Supercommandos can put in work if we need to slow some damage down. These do not work great against wide decks, so time it well. Our tempo events are clutch here too, especially on early leaders. We will often be looking to smuggle this turn due to hand. Lom Pyke can be great here, as he must be answered. Hotshot if if makes sense

Turn 5: flip turn usually wants to be waylay or ngtmd a scary card and then a hotshot Gar to finish the game. Sometimes, supercommandos make sense to play, then snapshot them after the shield is removed to re-sentinel them - this can soak up a tonne of damage

Turn 6: If we are still playing, we are running out of gas. We can't push damage without our units in this version, so must push to the finish line. Cad can clear up the board to make way for our other units (and threaten 7-10 damage), but you must time it well or it be a waste of 7 resources. Toro + Boba can push unexpected damage (but inconsistent in this version). Otherwise go wide and cross your fingers

Sideboard:

Partly set up for aggro, hard control and Jango TT; in the end I was paired mostly into midrange.

Control / hard control: we need lurking to do a lot of work and/or a wide board that can threaten surprise spikes of damage. Put in CoH, Tie Advanced (all in on lurking tie or Gar) and confiscate (bounties, entrenched, traitorous, perilous). Try to time lurking so that you can push it to 3-4 hp immediately before perilous. 7th fleet can often bait these cards out, while you hold snapshot and lurking for next turn

Space decks: Put in Saxon gauntlet. Firespray can't kill it and it slows down Ruthless.

Aggro: Top target, but I'm going to swap it out - probably for a sentinel

Extra thoughts

There is more fine tuning to do. Evazan and Maklounke are probably out. I only played the Dr. twice - once into Sabine, where I got greedy and lost big and once into the final. Something to push that final damage will be better.

Potential payoff on Toro is huge, more bounty hunter may go in to help.

Breaking in over surprise strike - its more flexible and I was expecting a lot of sentinels or shields. Missing lethal by 1 feels bad though, but a few times this let me push lethal through.

match ups

currently from memory after a very long day, so might be updated later to get more accurate order or scores

Round 1: Palp Blue: 2-1

One of the best Palp players in Melbourne, so I was scared. Game 1 he could not draw anything. Game 2 I could not draw anything. Game 3 I managed to finish just before he could stabilise and lurking tie got it done. Props to Oli for being an amazing Palp player, we finished 3 games with 20mins left

There were some major issues with Melee.gg and pairings from here are weird due to TOs having to do it manually - I got paired down several times - good work General Games for managing despite everything

Round 2: Anikin Blue: 2-0

Ani threatened some huge damage, but a NGTMD ani is a sad ani. Both games were one action from going either way, but I got over the line both times.

Round 3: Bo Katan Blue: 2-1

I got matched into my friend I carpooled with playing his Bo Blue. He hadn't played in a while and really gave me a run for my money with a very close 3rd game.

Round 4: Quinlan TT: 2-0

Quinlan couldn't draw his falcons and wasn't expecting a gunship to hit him for 5, 3 times. Won the race in space.

Round 5: Sabine ECL: 0-2

Sabine played beautify. Like all day, I kept drawing space and I can't race Sabine unless I get very lucky and he doesn't. Second game I misplayed a little, but was likely still going to be a win for Sabine. Future adjustments will shore up my deck against aggro.

Round 6: Anikin Blue: 2-0

Very similar to the first Ani blue games

Round 7: Qira Green: 2-1

Lurking tie really is the best card in this deck. Lane dodging got it done again. From memory, confiscate saved me from traitorous game 3 and really swung it back in my favour

Top 8:

Jango Green: 2-0

The space race got it done again. We played two separate games and he couldn't ping well enough to slow it down. Good games Dave - tough luck on the draws (OB replacing a smuggled card when needed)

Rey TT: 2-1

3 very fun, close games vs. Jake resulting in my tightest margin win. Game 1 a rogue Inferno 4 put in close to 16 damage. Game 2 the village people saved the day. Game 3 I dealt with both the village people and Jake got an unlucky top deck on turn 6 that let me hit with Gar twice to finish

Han Yellow: 2-1

Final game vs Anthony who had never played vs. Gar before - this is probably why I won. We were both also absolutely exhausted Game 1 space race got it done. Game 2 Anthony got a bad draw and still got it so massive props to his playing Game 3 This was a 1-for-1 race with us both wanting to go home I think. My units ended up too big for cunning and I scraped by

Big thanks to the SWU VIC community and the The Baddest Batch for doing the stream