When I started to make this deck, I wanted a DS deck that would surprise the players in my play group... something that could stand toe-to-toe with what they were currently playing. I was running a Tyranus/Force Drain deck for months and switched to the Maul/Force Drain one week. Knowing that everybody would be building a defense for that deck, I went back to the drawing board. After pondering a Droid deck for hours, it just didn't feel right. One card kept standing out: the Gungan Grand Army.

Right after The Phantom Menace set came out, a couple of players in my group played all Gungans, and they were obliterated. I was reluctant to play an all-Gungan deck after this. I thought they were too slow, but had potential with the right support cards. The deck listed below, though a little big for most players, shocked my group and me! This is the second version of this deck, and I play-tested a third that works just as well as the other two. I will list the changes in the third version at the end of the article.

Although most people don't like building decks focused on 2 arenas, sometimes it works if the cards support each other. Since the Light Side is dominant in Space, it was natural to focus on Characters and where the Gungans fought best: the Ground arena. The Space units are cheap to deploy in setup and later recoup build points so you can deploy the Gungans to Ground.

Jungles of Dagobah drops the speed of your opponent's units, such as Anakin's Podracer, Luke's Snowspeeder, Wedge's Snowspeeder and Sebulba's Podracer. The Luxury Airspeeders boost each other's speed as well as all your Gungans. This, in most cases, will allow you to tap the Kaadu Scouts for the Accuracy against those troublesome speeders or any bigger units your opponent might have out. The sped up Gungan Kaadu Squads and Grand Army, or two, are powered up with Accuracy from the Kaadu Scouts and Captain Tarpals and Boss Nass in the Character arena. The Grand Army's Overkill ability allows you to target a damaged or low health unit and move the remaining damage to another unit. Also, don't forget the Army's ability to discard another Gungan from any arena and remove 3 damage counters. This will help keep the Army going strong for several rounds.

For the Character arena, the different versions of Vader make him the "Swiss Army Knife" unit of the deck. You can use him to gain Force by giving your units "Bounty: Gain 1 Force", set aside your top 3 cards to be able to take advantage of any Battle cards not in your hand, search for a Battle card, pay Force and make an opponent's Character retreat after Vader attacks or use Darth Vader (K) to lay down a beating. Captain Tarpals and Boss Nass are there for the Ground arena and San Hill gives you the added build if needed.

Your Mission cards are there for Build and Force gain for you, and Force drain for your opponent. The Battle cards are to keep the smaller Ground units alive, disrupt your opponent's Battle cards and give your Grand Armies or Kaadu Squads a boost of power by using Dark Sacrifice on another unit.

This deck is fun to play. The Ground setup also works well in a Maul deck and in that third version I mentioned earlier. A change I made in the third version was to drop Boss Nass and add Orn Free Taa (A). Tapping a piloted speeder will drive your opponents crazy and Orn Free acts as a free intercept for Vader in case your opponent wants to use that piloted speeder. I also cut out the Kaadu Squads and put in Gungan Battle Wagons. They're cheaper, add power to the other Gungans, and can be used with the Grand Army's discard ability. Enjoy!

4 October 2004