Kalikori Vehicles (Seattle 18-Participant SC Winner, 7-0) 1.0

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• 1.0

I flew what was essentially the Gencon Top-8 list by rmohler at an 18-person Store Championship at Blue Highway Games in Seattle, Washington. While I'd love to say that I cooked up the deck myself, I only have two cards that are different:

• -1 Caution
• -1 Pinned Down
• +1 Suppressive Fire
• +1 Surgical Strike

That said, I've also been trying to make Hera work for a while in a variety of different decks. In our local casual league, I led our Phoenix Squadron clan to our seasonal victory under the Phoenix Leader call sign, so she's dear to me. My first acrylic GQ spot gloss was Hera, so I've been eager to play her, and I haven't had much luck beyond top 8 at other Store Championships with other lists. (I've made top cut a few times, but couldn't take it home.)

After going back and forth between about four different lists, two hours before the tournament started I sleeved this up. I'm grateful that I was able to take an SC with her, even if the list wasn't completely original.

We did four rounds of Swiss with a cut to top 4. I went 4-0 in Swiss, then semi-finals were elimination rounds and I made it to the finals. I took two more games in the finals to take home a fancy Ahsoka Tano - Force Operative.

I dodged any mill decks that might have been lurking, so I think I was pretty lucky with my pairings. I had not played with this specific version of a Hera Syndulla - Phoenix Leader deck before, but am no stranger to her flavor of vehicles. Round details ahead.

Round 1 vs. Five-wide Battle Droid by @thejumpingflea

Matt is a close friend of mine, and I've seen his deck evolve a few times into the monster it is today. I think this match up was generally in my favor, provided he didn't get Aftermath and Attrition too early. I lived the dream by getting to do a Hera into Quadjumper which rolled into a , then traded for a Hailfire Droid Tank in round 1, which set me pretty well ahead for most of the game. By far the most impressive action of the game was a Matt's Climate Disruption Array action that he used to defeat two of his wounded Battle Droids, which triggered his two copies of Attrition - twice. This resulted in four damage to my characters, which defeated Maz Kanata - Pirate Queen and Hera Syndulla - Phoenix Leader simultaneously. (They had eaten a lot of earlier.) Two more overflowed onto Yoda - Wizened Master, then the Droids gained 4 , which were used to play an Endless Ranks the next round. Ouch.

Round 2 vs. Luke Skywalker - Reluctant Instructor / Rey - Finding The Ways

Rebecca is another old friend of mine, and I consider her to be one of our area's toughest blue hero list players. She didn't disappoint today and brought a spicy Force Wave + Cargo Hold - Eravana combo, effectively letting her resolve the ability twice per round after moving it from Luke to Rey, and then moving it back again with the claim to set up for the next round. She expertly mitigated any or sides she saw early, which slowed me down dramatically. I was down to one character while she still had both of hers alive, so things were looking grim, but Force Wave had the potential to backfire a bit since the second and third damage targets would have been her own characters, which softened the blows from her most potent weapon. Despite some clutch unblockable Synchronicity plays that went under my the armada prevailed once again once I was finally able to get some ships on the board.

Round 3 vs. Finn - Soldier of Necessity / Maz Kanata - Pirate Queen / Jawa Scavenger

I hadn't played against Sam before, but anyone who fields a Jawa is immediately endeared to me. Sam focused on Hera Syndulla - Phoenix Leader first, then when Maz had soaked some , he hit me multiple times with Sudden Impact on Finn's 3 side to spread 2 damage to each of my characters and took down the gals pretty quickly. Lucky for me, his Fortuitous Strike attempts mostly whiffed, (including a painful roll of 4 sides,) and the ships did their work before he could finish off Yoda.

Round 4 vs. Doctor Aphra - Artifact Hunter / Snoke - Supreme Leader / Ciena Ree - Adept Pilot

I was concerned about this pseudo-mirror match because I feel like the villain version is a bit more powerful and consistent than what I was running, but my opponent, Riley, admitted to being fairly new to the game, so that emboldened me a little. We both accumulated massive amounts of and hit critical mass fairly quickly, but the game went long and time was called during our final round. He hit some key rolls with the Slave I Power Action, but I was able to eke out just enough indirect damage through some Hailfire Droid Tank triggers to finish off a lone Snoke.

End of Swiss, 4-0.

Semi-Finals vs. Finn - Soldier of Necessity / Maz Kanata - Pirate Queen / Long-Term Plan by @Fahs

Shawn is another local pal that I think loves playing Finn about as much as I love playing Hera. While I was sort of surprised to see two Finn lists in the same day, this one played very differently. His Rex's Blaster Pistol + Maz Kanata - Pirate Queen combo meant routine quick activation and dice I couldn't interact with. He hit Hyperspace Jump twice and Retreat once, leaving me with two dead characters and what felt like a rusting fleet of yet-to-be activated vehicles. Getting Long-Term Plan up to +2 was enough to boost lethal at two clutch moments that I couldn't stop. It was looking bad with just one character left, but all of that running away plus his Maz's Vault and two Truces left me with a hand full of vehicles, (since I threw away most of my mitigation - I wasn't going to be able to play it anyway,) and the resources available to play all of them. When his hit and run engine finally lost steam, it was the starships' turn, and the dice cascade took me to the finals. (But not before he forced me to mill 7 with my Force Illusion from a bunch of + dice. Ow.)

Finals vs. Rey - Force Prodigy / Luke Skywalker - Reluctant Instructor / Profitable Connection

This is a deck and a player that are both near and dear to my heart. AJ and I routinely carpool from weekly events, so I'm very familiar with his list and his plays. Another friend of ours took a very similar list to second place at another local SC, (Grats, Ingrid!) so I'm pretty sure I could probably name every likely play they had up their sleeves.

That actually made me less comfortable rather than more comfortable going into this match, because I know how fierce he is with this pair. I knew that this was going to be a ramp-race, that I was going to have few opportunities to interact with his dice, and I was worried that his shield generation (22 health + ALL THE + Force Illusion) was going to outmatch my health pool (28 health + modest shields, unless I could swing an early U-Wing). I also knew he wasn't likely to make many mistakes, whereas I was flying fairly fresh and would have a lot of decisions and actions to make with so many supports potentially on my board.

During round 1 he focused hard on Yoda, and blew through my shields and an illusion with a huge Vibroknife-modified swing. We were on Weapons Factory Alpha - Cymoon 1 which was a massive boon not just for that round 1 ship discount, but also because it meant he couldn't remove my character dice with his battlefield, Frozen Wastes - Starkiller Base. I was deeply aware that most of my mitigation wasn't going to work against Rey's action cheating, Swiftness+Loth-Wolf Bond, and Force Speed, so I pitched a lot of it to dig for ships up until I got a lucky Easy Pickings off against Rey's Lightsaber and an Heirloom Lightsaber that were both showing . The vehicle death ball got too big after that and the gals took down that tanky old Luke Skywalker - Reluctant Instructor.

Round 2 was fought on the Frozen Wastes - Starkiller Base, and AJ changed his targeting priority to Maz Kanata - Pirate Queen, since she became the easiest target when he pushed enough damage to kill her in one round. (I imagine turning off Easy Pickings was also appealing.) This game was a little more one-sided, despite not having my battlefield of choice. I drew deep with from R2-D2 and T-47 Airspeeder, and hit critical mass while Yoda was still at full health, fully shielded, and packing a Force Illusion. Y-Wings did most of the work this time, but I can probably contribute most of this one to AJ's unfortunate (for him) lack of Vibroknife draws... or much mitigation.

Some other notable cards and plays:

• Surgical Strike was supposed to be clutch anti-support tech, but didn't actually see play.
• Resistance Crait Speeder turned out to be something I was comfortable playing through Hera's , despite only costing 2. Returning to hand meant that it also lost the damage it gained when I pumped its die, and it was easy to play again the next round for more Hailfire Droid Tank triggers.
• Quadjumper is still the preferred target for Hera though, since its "Trade-in" action can be used to get around having to return vehicles to hand.
• N-1 Starfighter and U-Wing were great in tandem, especially with this deck's ability to fix dice.
• Hailfire Droid Tank is of course a deck staple and was something I was lucky enough to get into play in round 1 during three of my seven games.
• Resolving Chance Cube for 3 with a C-3PO action was not only sort of funny, but also may have saved me a game.

Thanks for the fun ride, everyone!

Ezra Bridger: What's wrong with us?

Hera Syndulla: We have hope; hope that things can get better. And they will.

P.S. - Special thanks to DJ Ciena for dropping, despite going 4-0 in Swiss. <3