Jabba Unkar 5-2 NSW Regionals. Full Writeup & Guide 1.0

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• 1.0

In the lead up to my local regional tourney I knew I wanted to play a villain deck and was looking like locking in to 4 wide vehicles (Ciena Ree - Adept Pilot, Guavian Enforcer, 2x First Order Stormtrooper) but had an unfortunate problem that in all our internal testing it was slow and was going to get crushed by 5 die villains.

Looking for inspiration elsewhere I decided to go a bit rogue and try tune a mill deck for the day, enter Jabba Unkar. I'll do a card by card breakdown (for the less obvious cards) then go into some general thoughts and my matchups on the day.

Blocks & Dodge: in today’s aggressive meta single dice removal are not enough, for a control deck to make it to the late game you need mass removal. One of each is so that you have a trump card you are always digging for late game (or cheating back later), also with the rise of R2P2, mixed damage matchups both become usable. In these matchups think of them as double electroshocks, remove two dice for two resources, anything more is a bonus.

Cheat: helps make clutch plays that players are not expecting and can rebuy key cards such as dodge and block. Also a critical player against ancient lightsaber plays, as you can rebuy buy out and buy out for 1 to finish it off when they think they have another turn.

Friends in low places: Only one of these as it is actually very difficult to find an opportunity to play the card. The deck relies on tempo a lot, with timing being everything, there is very little opportunity to play this card. Further between discard sides and Unkar's ability, their hand isn't a problem to get rid off.

Unpredictable: Flex slot, I've tested data pad here and was underwhelmed. Unpredictable provides soft removal while also keeping up with tempo, first card to go once more removal comes out.

Bait and Switch: Odd card in this deck but good for surprise discard of Jabba the Hutt - The Great and Mighty's discard or increasing resources from Unkar/Hounds tooth before a big buy out, again can be subbed with more removal going forward.

Everything else is basically point and click removal or survivability, while Blackmail and Fast Hands are there for added discard sides combined with fast hands to make opponents life a nightmare.

General Thoughts & Play Tips:

• Tempo is so important in this deck, knowing when you have windows to play supports or upgrades (or non removal events) is key, often this can be unintuitive. EG, you will find that blackmail often comes down at the end of a round as early on you need to be rolling in both characters and discarding and won't have time to put blackmail on before rolling out.
• Know when to Unkar them or when to just discard. Often Jabba's discard is better, even if they have two cards left and you have enough dice to Unkar them twice, usually it is better to just discard two immediately. This is because as opponents will know that their hand is disappearing shortly they will discard to reroll whatever is out, you are always aiming to limit their options, so faster discard is almost always better.
• If in doubt always use removal. I have used He Doesn't Like You on Jabba's two discard side before as it removed critical dice from an opponent and forced a reroll.
• Against all the ping damage decks (QGK/R2P2/any Kylo 2 deck), shields are key as it is the only way to mitigate ability damage, prioritise Personal Shield/Hound's Tooth/Blackmail in the mulligan.

Tournament:

R1: Palpatine - Galactic Emperor (Loss)

• Personal shield isn't as good as other ranged matchups as they just target alternate character and splash damage hits personal shielded character.
• Discard sides can still hurt as all your removal is critical (and messing up your plan while damaging still sucks)
• He doesn’t like you isn't particularly good as palp almost always has initiative and can roll out before you get any dice in pool
• Lost with Palp having no cards in hand or deck and having to pitch to reroll and hit damage to win, 33% chance for him 66% chance for me. Wasn't my morning unfortunately.

R2: eQui-Gon Jinn - Ataru Master/Ahsoka Tano - Force Operative (Win)

• Newer player so deck was not optimised, couldn't keep up with the mill unfortunately

R3: Qui-Gon Jinn - Ataru Master/Kanan Jarrus - Rebel Jedi (Loss)

• Discard missed key early upgrades so he still got his economy online
• Hard to fully control the deck as shields are damage too, much more manageable if you can limit their upgrades (see below)

R4: Mace Windu - Jedi Champion/Rebel Trooper (Win)

• Easier matchup as there are only really 2 dice that need controlling
• After discarding their hand, consider choking their resources to make their four damage sides useless

R5: Qui-Gon Jinn - Ataru Master/Kanan Jarrus - Rebel Jedi (Win)

• Early choke on resources and discarding their hand and upgrades meant that they were stuck on starting dice for two rounds, giving me enough time to finish them off.
• Deck is reliant on upgrades to get enough damage through the shields and removal, the more you can limit their economy the better

R6: Ciena Ree - Adept Pilot/Guavian Enforcer/2x First Order Stormtrooper (Win)

• Unkar's ability crushes this matchup, you haven't lived until you Unkar a AT-ST.
• Fast discard helps too as the deck functions of multi card synergy to get the engine going
• Practically infinite resources lead to big buy outs and the win

R7: Ciena Ree - Adept Pilot/Bala-Tik - Gang Leader/Nightsister (Win)

• Dodge is SO good here as they are aggressive about getting max damage, don't get greedy though and still use it when they have 3 resolvable damage sides
• Early game they will reroll a lot (with Nightsister too) so don't rely on removing their base damage sides hoping to strand modifiers, remove the biggest damage first
• Late game (sub 10 cards left total, Nightsister with 6 dmg from reroll pings) is when you can get more aggressive about removing base damage sides and hoping to get lucky
• Mull hard for dodge as it single handedly makes this match up winnable due to how many dice they roll (and they almost guarantee a loaded Bala reactivate somewhere)

So yea 5-2 but heartbreaking loss to Palp early cost me a T8 spot due to my SoS being terrible. Overall the deck felt great but very very reliant on player skill as there is no room for error in the timing of everything. If you have made it all the way to the end, thank you so much for reading and happy milling!