Dark Surgeon
by Alex "Greedo007" Tennet

(Won the Colorado states in the hands of John Arendt and went 3-0 at the UK National in the hands of its creator. John summed the deck up with "It turns you into a virtual surgeon.")

Starting Cards (8)
Agents of Black Sun/Vengeance of the Dark Prince
Coruscant
Coruscant: Imperial City
Prince Xizor
-
Prepared Defences
Imperial Arrest Order
Mobilisation Points
Crush The Rebellion (Default)

Locations (3)
Kuat
Coruscant: Docking Bay
Death Star: Docking Bay 327

Starships (5) Bossk In Hound?s Tooth
Boba Fett In Slave I
Stinger
Zuckuss In Mist Hunter x2

Characters (18)
Boba Fett With Blaster Rifle
Dengar With Blaster Carbine x2
Djas Puhr
Prince Xizor
Vigo x2
4-LOM With Concussion Rifle x2
Guri x2
IG-88 With Riot Gun
Emperor Palpatine x6

Effects (10)
Bad Feeling Have I
Battle Order
Blast Door Controls
Broken Concentration
First Strike
No Escape
Presence Of The Force x2
Secret Plans
Lateral Damage

Interrupts (16) Evader & Monnok
Force Lightning x2
Ghhhk & Those Rebels Won?t Escape Us
Main Course
Sense & Uncertain Is The Future
Control & Set For Stun x2
I Have You Now
Twi?lek Advisor x2
Imperial Barrier
Jabba?s Through With You
Oh, Switch Off
Projective Telepathy x2

Strategy:
As mentioned, this lost not a single game for myself at the UK national, nor for John Arendt when he used it in Colorado to win the state championship. Take it from me when I say that it is tried and tested well beyond those seven games. Before rating or attempting to play this deck, you should examine the cards involved closely. I will make references to many of them throughout this section.

Playing this deck well takes a certain type of mindset. You need to remember all the benefits your objective gives you, and posess a good enough memory to make use of them. Played correctly, you can turn almost any game around from a bad start. In game 4 of my national, against Michael Riboulet, I drew up the worst starting hand I?ve ever had with this deck. It contained 4 cards I could otherwise pull from my deck, both personas of Boba Fett and no Emperors. That game was turned around and won by 35 force. I would have to say that the single biggest benefit to Black Sun is the removal of luck as a factor in your game. This is a massive ability to have. Here?s how the deck works.

First off, force denial. Let me explain some of my thoughts on SWCCG deckbuilding. One of my top gripes is giving up force. Most of my decks give up few icons at all, and I was a massive revo player back in the day. The way I see it, passing up free icons to the opponent is equivilent to saying "I?m not only going to let you beat me, I?m going to give you the tools to do it." So this deck does not even have to give up icons at all, and in two of my three nationals games I did just that - completely deny them force. This is key against Watch Your Step. Combine it with Broken Concentration, Projective Telepathy, Battle Order, Bad Feeling, First Strike, Secret Plans et al and you are looking at a very muddled opponent.

By contrast, your own force generation is extremely high! I have generated 16 force on my second turn using this deck. Against WYS, currently the most popular light deck, you can expect generation of 13 on your second turn in most games. Any game where you are able to not only out-generate, but roughly double-generate your opponent is going to be a game you can control. Control is the nature of the deck of course - you are able to view your force pile every turn while flipped, enabling you to draw what you want, when you want it. Viewing your top destinies is massive - even when unflipped you will know them from the turn previously and can put this knowledge to use with cards such as set for stun, force lightning, main course and of course, simple old-school battle and weapon destiny. Rarely do I use the destiny-peeking ability on my opponent?s reserve deck, but the option is there should the situation arise.

You almost always have a great damage curve right from the start, in addition to the large generation. This does not leave any deck the time to take things slow, as the pressure is on from the word go. And once the pressure is on, you are able to maintain it through surgery on your own deck to sift through what you need. This incredibly underestimated ability turns you into, to quote John after his states, a "virtual surgeon" - hence the deck title. With so many cards to mess with your opponent?s force, he is faced with some bad choices. Deploy luke early to stop the damage? Back him up or draw cards I will badly need? Save force and eat drains while I do so? Unfortunately, stopping this deck is not as simple as dropping luke to a battleground. He either needs backup, which you don?t have to force to provide, or defence cards that you have to draw and save force for (and get around broken concentration, blast door controls and first strike).

The options given to you as a player by this deck are quite amazing. Unfortunately I can?t go into everything here, it would take me too long, but if you?ve got any specific questions at all then dmail or email me. Now I?ll deal with card choices.

Okay, if you didn?t catch it first time, yes that is not a misprint. I use six emperors here. Excessive? No. I believe you can get away with five, but I would not play with any less than that. He is an integral component of the deck, not least because of his destiny number. He makes the deck tick as well as it does. It is akin to using multiple vaders in hunt down, only this vader does not die so easily, has a destiny of six and can be recycled into your deck more easily than Fall of the legend (no grabbers touch this guy). Destiny tracking and drawing is very important here and the emperor fits with almost every card in the deck, one way or another. DO NOT change him for the disgraceful Reflections II version, even if that?s all you can access. Very few people own six emperors - your best bet is to borrow, rent or beg for the ones you are missing. I?m afraid some decks, like this one and Palace Raiders, just require that. If you have a few mates then you should be okay.

"Oh no, wait, I can?t use Vader!" Contrary to much popular belief, Vader is not an essential component of every tournament-level SWCCG deck. About the only disadvantage you are really at without a Vader is being unable to capture Luke against TIGIH - fortunately an objective of questionable quality in itself. Your first aim there is simple - kill luke before he can go near Palpy. There are many cards in here to facilitate this. Start Battle Order versus TIGIH to prevent early drains and afford to take your time a little. Consider not playing palpatine until you are ready. As for your worries about only one other Xizor, this is all you need and in most games the extra does not get deployed. Play another if you are paranoid, but take it from someone who saw this deck through from conception - you don?t need it.

Should light side SAC be particularly prominent in your area, you should consider switching in the anti-combo and a grabber. There are in fact two controls and a sense in here, which is fine for most areas I believe, but if your meta is different then make the call. If you?re looking for the differential booster (this deck can tend to draw a lot in some situations) then look no further than broken concentration, quite an incredible card here. When your opponent is low, make sure you flip back to the first side to stop them losing to your objective and then stop them drawing up with Broken Concentration. You can then put your hand back into your deck one turn at a time, before ending it when you wish.

The other major no-show here that people may raise is Hidden Weapons. Interestingly it was a large part of my original design, but it quickly became apparent that it was redundant. It seems like the be all and end all at first, but really it?s not worth the card space (which is more than just a HW or two, it requires different character selection as well and very specific game placements). And believe it or not, many skilled opponents are wary of going near Boba just for fear of the card. Same for the D* Docking Bay (NOT put out every game, I should add) and Put All Sections.

So what cards are good here? Set for stun/control? Hugely strong. Bounce any character bar Jedi Luke or Ben. Dash is a great target for this card if you haven?t been able to grab the lateral damage. In my national game 5, I faced a loaded falcon with Epp Han, Luke and Chewie. Because I knew the top two destinies were main course and a palpatine, in his draw phase I paid 3 to bounce chewie, activated nothing in my turn and deployed No Escape to get SFS back. I then used it again, bounced luke with my 6 and battled away Han and the falcon for free (with battle order). Not only do you get sfs, you get the ability to cancel ice storm, sandwhirl, sense or alter or even a suped-up force drain from ebo or kessel.

Broken Concentration? Nothing to do with training decks - that?s simply a bonus. With this you can increase the effect of your force denial by actually removing force from your opponent. I?m sure I don?t need to go into all the situations where this card is otherwise useful, but in combination with first strike it means the light side must have 3 force for a fallen portal, 4 for a hyper escape with one ship (which you can cancel after they use the force), 6 for It?s a Trap...and of course you can save it for the drop on an unwary opponent. Everyone knows about First strike, but how many are prepared for you deploying a broken concentration? Key card and no mistake.

Two Force Lightning. I don?t know how many people have recoiled in horror when I pull out the second, but there have been quite a few. Card to put back with your objective, easy hit on characters, free blow up with guaranteed destiny, card to track. Oh switch off? Very useful in fact, especially in a droid-only strike where 4lom only gets to cancel one epp?s game text. Helps a lot against fallen portal. Plus another destiny six.

As for specific matchups, I?m really not a fan of these, as you can never take into account every deckstyle, the player behind it, deck composition and so on. If you have queries about specific situations or want guidelines against a certain deck, contact me. Email is best, as d-mail is temperamental from member pages. atennet@hotmail.com is the address. However, do note that your biggest advantage is by far against WYS. From playing many, many games against this popular light side deck in all forms, in only one game have I failed to win by less than 20 differential - and this was prior to evolving the deck into its present-day form.

I really cannot begin to explain every nuance of this deck in a strategy section. The best way to look at your questions is to examine the decklist and think "what is there to deal with this" - because there is usually something there, however subtle its inclusion. Remember those Dr. Pepper advertisements from a while ago? "You have to try it to love it". The people who have tried this deck have been amazed at what it can do. Learn to play it and I do not think you will be disappointed.

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