True Discipline (ARH Mid-Cycle Tournament 1st Place)

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
None yet.

Norman 34

I piloted this deck to first place in the ARH Mid-Cycle Tournament (Seeking Answers Meta) on Sep 3, 2022. I lost round 1 to Stinger's Rako-Kallus, then won the next four rounds to land 4-1 in fourth place for top cut. Those wins were against Polyfly's Droideka x2 + Aphra, Strmtrpr81's Vizsla-Tarkin-CI, Gringostoso's "Leia Shenanigans" (Leia-Greez-Wedge), and Beaconfire's Lando-Cassian-HS (also a variant of something I cooked up!). The top cut matches were won 2-1 each, and were against Gameslayer's Vizsla-FN2199-Trooper plot, and RT's KRAMPS (Ki-Adi-Mundi + Lars family + High Stakes).

So, where to begin... This deck started with a hypothesis: Having observed the efficacy of Cassian reset with Strategic Discipline, is it possible to pursue a similar path with Strategic Discipline but in hyper-aggro mode? Could that take down durdle-y support decks effectively before they could stabilize?

I began thinking about this in late June as I narrowed down choices for Gencon Worlds. After some theory-crafting and play tests, I really liked the deck but felt that I couldn't really justify bringing it or my other SD variants compared to my behemoth Rako-Kallus deck armed with Commando Raids. Clearly, that was the right decision at the time, but I thought I'd bring it to this mid-cycle event to really test its mettle, and to good effect.

But anyway, back to the design...

Our objective is to leverage Strategic Discipline to accelerate a gameplan similar to Cassian Reset, but with an eye for being hyper-aggro and reaching critical mass of damage-dealing quickly. So we need to draw cards, generate extra resources, and have high-value character dice. Obviously, SD requires a red character, so who do we choose and who's the partner? If we're going for max draw, then letting Black Market Connection into a high-value weapon like Vibrosword be part of our win condition is probably a good idea. So we're in Red-Yellow now. If we're trying to prey on wides, then how about Whistling Birds be another possible win condition? But we need modifier sides for that... okay then, that means we want Zeb Orrelios - Honorable Warrior on the team. But how are we going to pair his sides otherwise? Tada, Cara Dune - Vengeance Of Alderaan plus weapons equals greater flexibility of matching base to mod. Basic team is now solved for, now we fill it in.

Drawing mechanisms start with the obvious: Contraband Seizure, Lavish Cape. But since we're going for weapons, turns out Armory will get us card draw too. And you know what, Promotion actually is pretty good when you have a weapon on Cara - those mod sides will frequently be resolvable! And of course, basically every event is on its own a mini- Contraband Seizure, you can even play Black Market Connection (the first time) this way to no effect on its own but tap SD and there's your draw.

Resource Generation: Imposing Figure works most of the time, and even when it doesn't it'll still trigger the draw. Truce and Reap for good measure. Armory is beautiful, of course.

Upgrades: Westars and Bo-Rifles are natural for the deck. Standard Issue Blaster is, IMO, an under-appreciated card. Did you like Quicksilver Baton from Convergence? SIB is hands-down better than QB. I've already talked about Promotion, Lavish Cape, and Vibros. Amban Blaster is a good 3-cost weapon that also can be removal, but I could see rotating that out for something else.

Removal suite: We're lean on removal overall. Headstrong and Crash Landing are featured, and instead of other removal cards I felt that including heal cards would ultimately be better. Heals provide extra survivability while also being a little more flexible than most removal in this deck. I can hear you now: "What about Rallying Cry?" Good question, the lack of flexibility of RC means we may not get to continue with our Strategic Discipline the way we want when we want. "What about Strike A Deal?" Good question, in my testing I felt that giving my opponent even more resources (Truce wasn't getting deleted) was too dangerous and enabled big removal during the crucial turn 1 and 2 moments. All of this meant that sticking with Field Medic and even First Aid would simply be better overall.

Distribution: a perfect 17-17 split.

In conclusion, sure it isn't the "perfect deck" but doggone if it hasn't demonstrated to me that the concept is solid. Just don't be like me and forget your Westar pings 95% of the time. For shame!

1 comment

zues133 1

Thank you for sharing.