| Card draw simulator |
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Odds:
0% –
0%
more
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| Derived from |
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
| Inspiration for |
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| None yet. |
Norman 34
When FFG canceled Destiny in early 2020, we had only seen Reylo in the Spark of Hope meta. It made top 16 of Worlds 2019, but naturally the deck would evolve with the Covert Missions release. The expectation in Jan/Feb 2020 was certainly that Reylo would make a major appearance at the final world championship slated for mid-2020. However, COVID came about, we never had that worlds, Trandos dominated for a lot of CM until the Gandocron, and Transformations changed everything on its release during the summer of 2020.
Therefore, I would argue that there was never really an optimized Reylo deck within the final FFG holocron updates that was uninfluenced by the unbalanced Transformations set. And, since this Gencon FFG standard tournament had Transformations banned from play, I wanted to see how much I could optimize Reylo without the awful threat of Captured (basically requiring you to play 2x Breaking Bonds to compete) or flippy Anakin Skywalker and Transformations Han Solo.
In SOH Reylo decks, they figured out that Luke's Protection was a really interesting way to set up extra value with Rey specials re-rolling back into the pool combined with means of drawing cards like Dark Counsel, R2-D2 and Treasured Lightsaber. SOH Reylo also played a mix of weapons and abilities, even using Soresu Mastery at times, to provide a diversity of options. CM provided new options that could supersede the old, though, and some cards were even slept on for a while. Shien Mastery was an obvious improvement over Soresu (along with Fluid Riposte, and Anakin Skywalker's Lightsaber was definitely better than Rey's Lightsaber as well (and attempts were made successfully to play both since you could overwrite one with the other).
Other interesting options became available too with CM. For instance, Abandoned Refinery - Savereen working alongside Knighthood and even Forbidden Lore could get extra value on the margin, and made playing the CM Jedi Lightsaber feasible too. But we also became more aware of the power of Bendu's Lair as the straight-up best option for a Reylo battlefield, making things like Snoke's Throne Room or Comm Tower - Scarif far less appealing. One card, though, that didn't get a lot of attention until later was Bloodletting. It can create killshots where none existed before, or prevent you from dying when you'd otherwise have little hope. In addition, I think people are quite mistaken about just how much On Guard is better than Polarity.
The diversity of options available, to me, meant that we didn't have to hedge in a single direction but rather use a few of them all at once. Bloodletting is great as a one-of, as is Luke's Protection, R2-D2, Dark Counsel, AND Treasured Lightsaber. We don't need to go all-in on any single part of that strategy, as each provides unique options while most are unique cards on the table anyway. So if you get them all out, great. If you get one of them and need the other for a reroll, fine. Reylo can just work well with whatever you draw, at least in this version.
So I think this is about 90-95% optimal at this point. The main thing I might change is considering greater ramp capability as opposed to using Steadfast. That would probably mean we play It Binds All Things, but who knows. Anyway, this deck went 5-0 in FFG standard, and won two Reylo mirror matches as well. Excellent showing, and I hope the above gives you some insight into the evolution and optimization mindset that I employed here.