Come Out Swinging - Kylo Ren and Energy Conversion Lab
Continuing from last week’s deck and the hype of Han Solo, we tried to build a deck involving one of the more unique Legends of the Force Leaders, and hopefully one with a favourable match-up into the aforementioned Han Solos. And who better to take him down than (spoiler alert) his own son, Kylo Ren!
We had a lot of fun crafting this deck and with less than two weeks until the Galactic Championship, here is everything you need to know about our build of Kylo Ren – We’re Not Done Yet.
Alex Kivitz
I Know What I Have to Do - Card Cycling & Consistency
Kylo Ren – We’re Not Done Yet offers a bit more consistency than most other leaders, with his ability to cycle cards on demand. Similar to his previous iteration as Kylo Ren – Rash and Deadly, this version of Kylo Ren also has you discarding cards from your hand. The benefit here is that if you discard an upgrade this way, you draw a card. This feeds into his ability when he is deployed as a unit.
Kylo Ren says “When Deployed: Play any number of upgrades from your discard pile on this unit (one at a time, paying their costs)”. Not only are you able to consistently get upgrades into your discard pile without having to play them, but you also have access to them later in the game as a toolbox of sorts to get out of tough situations.
This deck functions quite a bit differently than the Han Solo deck we looked at previously. While Han Solo played proactively to set up powerful board-states, Kylo Ren will take on a more reactive role, dealing with issues as they come up and set up a winnable board-state for himself. Because of this, we’ll be breaking down the deck’s contents into separate roles and why they were included.
The Arsenal of Ren - Upgrades & Answers
The biggest part of choosing to play Kylo Ren over other Vigilance Villainy leaders like Gar Saxon or Qi’ra is that Kylo has the ability to utilise upgrades more consistently, and filter through the deck more consistently. If the upgrades we draw are not useful at the time we draw them, we can easily throw them into our discard pile and draw for something more useful, saving the upgrade for when we deploy Kylo Ren.
The biggest part of choosing to play Kylo Ren over other Vigilance Villainy leaders like Gar Saxon or Qi’ra is that Kylo has the ability to utilise upgrades more consistently, and filter through the deck more consistently. If the upgrades we draw are not useful at the time we draw them, we can easily throw them into our discard pile and draw for something more useful, saving the upgrade for when we deploy Kylo Ren.
The first most straightforward upgrade is the Constructed Lightsaber. It’s a solid stat boost and gives Raid 2 to the Force units in the deck. It’s a solid non-unique upgrade that, when Kylo Ren deploys, turns him into one of the harder to remove units from the game. Following suite, Craving Power functions as a solid removal piece as well as an upgrade. Throwing this onto your Anakin Skywalker or even Kylo when he deploys can take care of most units in the game. Having Craving Power in your discard pile turns Kylo Ren’s deployment also into a removal of sorts.
The next few inclusions are tech pieces that serve some unique purposes outside of just power. I really like the copies of Price on Your Head for a couple reasons. It costs less than Resupply, even though you have to kill the unit it’s attached to. Additionally, in situations where you can’t spare the resources to play it, Kylo’s ability can still cycle it into the discard pile and draw something more useful.
Legal Authority is a great upgrade for some temporary removal, but what I like about it more is that when Kylo deploys, a single copy of Legal Authority can remove a pesky sentinel or heavy hitter from the field. Giving your massive Sentinel Leader more health and taking away a potential threat is quite powerful.
The last two upgrades are probably the most odd to see as they are not even in the correct aspects of the deck. The Snapshot Reflexes upgrade is handy as well. When Kylo Ren deploys, playing Snapshot Reflexes allows him to attack right away. This turns Kylo Ren into an ever present threat of massive burst damage.
Coupling that with Legal Authority and Constructed Lightsaber we have an instant 10 damage at any point in the game after 8 resources, effectively being a win the game maneuver while your opponent has 10 health remaining. This is how I best like to play the deck: as a control style deck that effectively reduces your opponent’s max base health by at least 10. It is not very likely that we will play Kylo Ren on exactly 7 resources, but even then it can still be a large threat.
The last key upgrade is Heirloom Lightsaber. This is in the deck as it synergises with Anakin Skywalker – Champion of Mortis, perhaps one of the best sources of stability and control in this deck. Using Kylo’s leader’s ability to instantly put this in your discard pile to turn on Anakin’s effect circumvents the need to pay for the aspect penalty. However, later in the game it’s not even that bad of an idea to play it when deploying Kylo Ren.
Guarding the Base - Surviving the Early Game
Outside of the suit of upgrades, the majority of the deck is built around controlling the game, surviving whatever can be thrown at you, and making it to the 6 resource turn where you can really steal the tempo. Early on, Pyke Sentinel and Phase-III Dark Trooper offer sentinel on the ground to protect that fragile 25 health base you’re running. While Data Vault was a consideration, we felt that the additional 10 cards in the deck took away one of Kylo’s biggest strengths, and added deck consistency.
Onyx Squadron Brute and Supremacy TIE/sf are low cost space units that can deal with early game threats before we get access to our higher cost removal options.
Most decks will be playing one big threat a round for the first few rounds. In this case, cheap events that deal with the majority of units are preferred. We run 3 copies of Power of the Dark Side and Takedown for that exact reason. If you can destroy what is played each turn and survive the early onslaught, you should be in a good position. No Glory, Only Results, and Overwhelming Barrage can deal with more troublesome units. These are in the deck as 2-offs mostly because we don’t really want to see them too early.
It’s unlikely we’ll be able to stick a body on board that makes Overwhelming Barrage worthwhile, and No Glory, Only Results is a more expensive removal option that can be done for cheaper with other cards. Most of these tools are included to get us to the 6 resource turn. This is where the deck really shifts in power with some of the most powerful cards of the deck.
Balance in the Force - Stabilizing & Transitioning to Late-Game
Anakin Skywalker – Champion of Mortis and Darth Vader – Twilight of the Apprentice are the main reasons we’ve chosen to run Energy Conversion Lab instead of Data Vault. These two units alone have the ability to hit the field and remove two or even three threats at once. Anakin is so efficient at trading that we can play him with Ambush, use both When Played abilities due to the Heirloom Lightsaber in graveyard to remove two opposing units, and still run into a third. Darth Vader can likewise be used to put a shield on any unit, even a Leader unit, and attack a secondary target to instantly kill the shielded unit.
Now, people may wonder why we’re not playing Lom Pyke. I feel that the deck was already tight as it is, and shifting to that form of play style would likely fit a different Vigilance Villainy Leader over Kylo Ren.
Of course if we do take a lot of damage early on, we have Reinforcement Walker as a great stabiliser, allowing us to heal as well as occasional discarding upgrades into the discard pile. Superlaser Technician and Price on Your Head allow us to accelerate to the 6 resource turn if we have some room to breathe, and if not at least Price on Your Head can always be filtered away. And just to help with more consistency, we have Doctor Pershing – Experimenting With Life to help draw us extra cards, combat a lot of the hand hate from Force Throw decks, and maybe even absorb an attack or two.
Adaptive Fury - Sideboard & Decklist
Rounding out our deck, we have a general sideboard for some late game control decks, and a couple deck pieces should we need them. Avenger, Hunting Star Destroyer and Devastator, Inescapable are iconic endgame capital ships and have been staple to inclusions in many Villainy decks since set 1. Should we find ourselves in a face-off against another villainy vigilance deck, these may come in handy. Likewise, Superlaser Blast can function as a panic button, if the situation is getting dire and you can’t effectively remove units as they come down.
Lastly, we have the fun combination of Palpatine’s Return and Supreme Leader Snoke, Shadow Ruler. Palpatine’s Return allows you to play a unit from your discard pile and have it cost 6 less. If it is a force unit, however, it will cost 8 less. Should you find yourself being overwhelmed by small units like many Tie Fighters, for example, you can use Kylo Ren’s ability to discard a Snoke and use Palpatine’s Return to play him on your 6 resource turn. You won’t draw a card from Kylo because Snoke is not an upgrade, but this is a way to deal with decks that spam small units.
We hope you like our take on Kylo Ren – We’re Not Done Yet, and if you want to give the deck a try you can find the full decklist here!
We are so close to the Galactic Championship and can’t wait to share with you what we will see there. If you can’t make it, our friends at Malmo Game Week are running their Star Wars: Unlimited Open from August 30 – 31!
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