Article 5C- Competitive LS Deck- Hidden Base by Chris Gogolen (Please note, this deck/article has not been updated since the Players Committee’s reset of all Virtual Cards)
Introduction
The previous LS deck I posted was based on the Profit objective, a very heavy ground based deck. For this article I am taking to the skies for Light, and posting a deck based around the Hidden Base objective. Overall, Hidden Base is a competitive deck that is not often played, given the number of other options that Light side currently has. Many of the cards in the deck are inexpensive to acquire, or are cards that if you left the game in the Decipher era you probably still own.
Please note that the objective received an Errata from Decipher back in 1999-2000, so it doesn’t work exactly as its printed. The Players Committee also made a slight adjustment to the card (underlined), which we will go over. The correct text:
Hidden Base– Deploy Rendezvous Point. Place a planet system (with a parsec number from 1 to 8) from outside your deck face down on your side of table (not in play), that card indicates the planet where your ‘Hidden Base’ is located. While this side up, once during each of your deploy phases, may deploy one system from Reserve Deck, reshuffle. Opponent loses no more than 1 Force from each of your Force drains at systems and sectors. Flip this card any time after the system matching you have deployed 5 battleground systems and your ‘Hidden Base’ indicator has been deployed.
Systems will slip through your fingers– While this side up, to draw a card from Force Pile, opponent must first use 1 Force. For each battleground system you control, you may cancel one opponent’s Force drain (limit twice per turn). You may not deploy any systems. At each system opponent occupies during any deploy phase, opponent may ‘probe’ there by placing one card from hand face down beneath that system. Place out of play if “Hidden Base” system is ‘probed,’ Dark Side places ‘probe’ cards in Used Pile (and may retrieve 1 Force for each Probe Droid used to ‘probe’).
If you look at the printed card, you will notice there are some changes. Normally I wouldn’t recommend jumping in with a deck that the main card doesn’t match, but there is a PDF in the Download Section of the website (Decipher Errata PDF). You can print out the correct text, and put it over the normal card like a Virtual Card.
Once again, I will try to avoid using cards printed after Death Star 2 where possible, but will offer suggestions at the end of cards you should try to acquire from those sets to make the deck stronger.
Starting: 7
1. Anger Fear Aggression- V + 15 Defensive Shields
2. Hidden Base
3. Rendezvous Point
4. Heading for the Medical Frigate
5. Squadron Assignments
6. Rogue Squadron Tactics (Virtual from Draw their fire- Special Edition)
7. Republic Logistics (Virtual from Secure Route, a Coruscant Uncommon you can buy for around .50)
Locations: 8 *)
8. Dagobah
9. Dagobah: Yoda’s Hut
10. Dressel
11. Kiffex
12. Bothawui
13. Tatooine (ideally the Episode 1 version, if you don’t own it you can use the Premiere version or choose another system with Parsec 7 or 8 like Endor or Sullust)
14. Kessel
15. <> Forest (from Special edition- don’t deploy this until the middle of the game)
Ships: 8
16. Artoo in Red 5 x2 (3RD Anthology or Reflections 2 card)
17. Artoo in Red 5
18. Millenium Falcon-V
19. Infinity(virtual from Medium Bulk Freighter from Special Edition)
20. Red Squadron 1
21. Red 1-V
22. Red 3- V
23. Red 6
Pilots: 9
24. Wedge Antilles, Red Squadron Leader
25. Luke Skywalker- V
26. Captain Han Solo
27. Chewie-V (from the 2 player Hoth game)
28. Boshek, Brash Smuggler
29. Red Leader-V
30. Biggs Darklighter, Rogue Legend
31. Jek Porkins- V
32. Lando Calrissian, Unlikely Hero (Virtual from Punch It)
Other Characters: 3
33. Boussh ( Enhanced Jabba’s Palace- if you don’t own her, replace with a 2nd Flash of Insight)
34. Obi-wan with Lightsaber x2
35. Obi-wan with Lightsaber
Effects: 6
36. Projection of a Skywalker x2
37. Projection of a Skywalker
38. Flash of Insight-V
39. Imperial Atrocity-V (if you don’t own 1, replace it with We’re Doomed)
40. A Jedi’s Plans (Virtual from Wise Advice)
41. Uncontrollable Fury
Interrupts: 15
42. Escape Pod – V x2
43. Escape Pod – V
44. Starship Levitation-V
45. Hyper Escape x2
46. Hyper Escape
47. Rebel Barrier x2
48. Rebel Barrier
49. Out of Nowhere
50. A Few Maneuvers
51. Houjix
52. Antilles Manuever & Rebel Reinforcements x2 (Virtual from Antilles Manuever-Special Edition)
53. Antilles Manuever & Rebel Reinforcements
54. Steady Aim
55. It’s a Hit (Official Tournament Sealed Deck pack)
56. It Could be Worse
57. Corellian Slip-V
Admiral’s Order: 1
58. I’ll take the Leader
Weapons: 2
59. X-wing Laser Cannon x2
60. X-wing Laser Cannon
*)The systems in this deck are strategically placed because they have a 5 parsec gap (3 of them are at parsec 2, and the others are parsec 7 or higher). Your starfighters have the hyperspeed to make the jump from one end to the other, but many Dark ships like Star Destroyers, TIEs, and some of the bounty hunter ships have less than 5 hyperspeed, and will be limited as to where they can move around. Bothawui and Dressel are also Force Drain -1 on the Dark side, so if you can’t battle your opponent there, at least you are not losing much force If they drain you.
Strategy
This deck works by getting out 5-6 systems, setting up some force drains, and using the flip side of the objective to cancel your opponent’s drains at 2 locations per turn. The flip side also makes them pay 1 force to draw a card, which limits both their hand size and what they are able to deploy each turn. It will take a couple of turns to get everything out and get your objective flipped, but once you do, you have the potential to lock down your opponent and take very little damage. Your opponent can try and probe to find your Hidden Base and cancel your objective, but that requires them to have ships in space at the system they want to probe, and that gives you the opportunity to go battle them. Also, note that your Hidden Base marker card does not count as part of your 60 card deck. You can also change it after each game, so I recommend bringing an extra copy of every system you play. This will prevent the possibility that someone watching or sitting near you during a prior game already knows what your marker is before the game even starts. Your early turns are going to be spent getting your systems out of your deck and setting up ship/pilot combinations. Since you can’t drain for more than 1 force at each system until you flip, you want to deploy Kiffex and Kessel last and focus on getting the other systems out first. They give you a better force generation ratio (i.e. the force you generate vs the force opponent is generating from your locations).
Turn 1– you activate at least 3 force. Before you activate, use Rogue Tactics to take Wedge and Dressel into hand. You will use Hidden Base to get a system out and get Dagobah. Then use the Dagobah’s text to pull out Yoda’s Hut. Use Republic Logistics to deploy A Jedi’s Plans. That card lets you use 2 force to deploy a battleground location each turn. Deploy Dressel from hand and use 2 force to deploy another system, hopefully Bothawui or Tatooine.
Turn 2– you are now activating at least 11 force. You will use Hidden Base to deploy a system(your 3rd battleground system), and look and see if a 4th system is available. If so, use 2 force with A Jedi Plans to get it out. Now you just need to get your final system in play and you are ready to flip your Objective. You have Wedge in your hand already so you can try to use Squadron Assignments to match for his ship or another combo if you prefer. Red Leader is a good one to match for early if you can, as Red 1 lets you pull Red 3, Red 6, and Red Squadron 1. He also makes your ships immune to Tallon Roll, which is also a good thing right now with the Spice Ties deck being popular. You also want to match for Luke/Red 5 quickly, as Luke lets you retrieve 1 force per turn when he’s piloting at a battleground. He also allows you to instead take into hand a card I recommend you try to obtain in the future- All Wings Report In & Darklighter spin. That is a very powerful card from the Coruscant set that currently runs between about $8-10 each. If you can afford 2 of those, they will speed up your deck tremendously.
Turn 3– you will be getting at least 13 force at this point. Use Hidden Base to get your last system into play, but don’t flip just yet. This Objective has an optional flip timing, meaning you can flip to the 7 side whenever you’ve met the requirement of the 5 battleground systems and decide to. You could deploy 7 or 10 systems if you wanted, so the rules allow you to flip once you’ve decided you don’t want to deploy any more systems. My recommendation is that you flip during your opponent’s turn, preferably their Move phase. If they have some force drains that you need to cancel, then flip during their Activate phase so you can cancel the drains. But if you can afford to wait, then wait until their Move phase. Since they probe systems during any deploy phase, if you wait then they can’t just deploy a ship on their turn, probe the 1st system and if they miss move to a 2nd system. This way they have to wait until your Deploy phase to probe the first system, and it slows them down. Also, by flipping right before their Draw phase, you are now going to limit the number of cards that they can draw into their hand.
Rest of Game
Once you are flipped, you will be able to start force draining at Kiffex and Kessel and causing some force loss. You will also be retrieving 1 per turn from Luke. If you can cancel two force drains a turn, and limit losses from other drains with either Projection of a Skywalker or Boussh being Undercover, then you should lose very little force for a while. This will let you pull ahead in the game from your opponent while they spend time getting their ships out and trying to find your Hidden Base. Use Rebel Barrier wisely to limit their movement, and then deploy your other ships to battle them. If you are having trouble paying for your force drains, then go ahead and use A Jedi’s Plans to get the Forest out and put EPP Obi wan there to get around Battle Order, which your opponent likely pulled very early against you. You can also feel free to take the site and the Obi-wans out of the deck, and just commit yourself to the fact that you will be paying for all your force drains for the rest of the game.
What to expect from the Dark Side player?
The most common Dark Side space package right now is Boba Fett Prepared Hunter, Jango Fett the Assassin, and Slave 1 Symbol of Fear. This ship is power 8, immune to less than 9 attrition, maneuver 7, and gets 2 battle destiny draws. It is a very difficult problem to deal with for many LS decks. The X-wing Cannons will help with that problem quite a bit. When you fire the cannon, you can use 3 force to increase your destiny draw by 3, and if you hit the ship it is immediately lost, which would end the battle before they get to draw battle destiny. With the maneuver being 7, you would need to draw a 5 to hit it, of which there are 16 in the deck. Some of those will be on the table, so it could be a little challenging. Steady Aim will fix that for you. The Lost text on that card adds 4 more to your weapon destiny, meaning you are now shooting at +7. So long as you don’t draw a location, which should all be on the table except the Forest by that time, you hit it.
Cards to acquire to make the deck better/different:
All Wings & Darklighter Spin x2- Coruscant
Dash Rendar/Outrider- Reflections 2
Lady Luck(Virtual from Queen’s Royal Starship, a Coruscant rare or Reflections III Foil)
Corran Horn- Reflections 2
Let the Wookie Win- V – A New Hope
A 2nd I’ll Take the Leader
Dash/Outrider and Lady luck will shift the deck a little bit away from mostly x-wings, so you would change up a few thingstake out an x-wing cannon, etc… Getting Corran Horn allows you to play another X-wing, Red Squadron 7-Virtual, and gives you one more person that Wedge can be with to cancel a battle destiny.
Cards to consider adding:
Out of Commission/Transmission Terminated- Reflections 2- not a required card anymore since Hunt down is rarely played, but its use to put cards out of play comes in handy
We’re doomed- yet another way to minimize damage and help grind your opponent down.
Jedi Levitation-V- for those times when you lose a key pilot, or happen to draw a character for battle/weapon destiny.
Hope you enjoy playing it.
“The force is strong with this one”
