AshesFall said:

Who are these many others ? I have not heard that till now. Rebels just are not there yet in comparison to Jedi.

Toqtamish said:

I've found pretty similar success with my Rebel/S&S deck and my Jedi deck.  I think the biggest thing with the LS is learning how to play it properly and Jedi and Rebels both play very differently.  I would suspect that most people are naturally better at one of the playstyles than the other.

dbmeboy said:

Sounds like a reasonable explanation to me.

Toqtamish said:

These many others are both my own local players (we're 15 people right now who play regularly) and a lot of players on OCTGN. I'll gladly catch you on OCTGN and demonstrate. I would be happy to be wrong about rebels being OP right now. :)

The rebels have a couple of downright broken cards. This together with their strength in resources, abundance of strong vehicles (less suceptibility to both chokes and other counters like detained) and their cheap and strong units make them extremely powerful. Depending on your preferred build you can do lots of different things. Another strength is that they simply do not rely on a couple of very specific powerful cards or units. Their tactics work extremely well with just lots of their base units (X-wings, I'm looking at you) even when they do not draw any of the cards that are crazy. :)

AshesFall said:

I've personally had a much easier time with Jedi than rebels, but as someone said above, it may just be the way I play.  I've always enjoyed direct damage decks, so I'd imagine the rebels could work.

You quoted some cards, but didn't state any actual builds.  Do you actually use leia?  I stopped trying with her quite a while ago, just can't draw her reliably enough.  I do agree though that the rebels have some truly powerful cards.  What deck(s) are you using that you are saying is "borderline OP"?  Maybe I haven't tried those particular builds yet.

shaggscoob said:

This is the deck I am using, the first four are mandatory dual pods;

2* The Defense of Yavin 4

2* Mobilize the Squadrons

2* Draw Their Fire

2* Mission Briefing

I've been experimenting and debating around the last two sets, basically it's a choice (and preference) between The Rebel Fleet and Fleeing the Empire. Right now I'm running one of each, but depending which way you want to go you could dual pod either. The rebel fleet gives more vehicles, minimizes exposure to detained/choke and all the other stuff that cannot target vehicles, and above all adds home one and the repair droid. Home one is an absolute insane beast, especially with the stuff you have that gives shields (fleeing the empire if you use it, the two command centres, covering fire). It hits like a truck, and damages every objective your enemy has. I cannot overstate how awesome that is, more later. Fleeing the empire on the other hand is a card draw pod, you get stolen plans and the awesome "you're my only hope". This card let's you sacrifice a character (leia, or some rookie or other card you dont really care about) and suddenly you are three cards up. great for winning crucial edge battles or making your opponent drop that card he's holding. 

Leia is the first "OP" card. She removes -every single focus token- on your things when she gets captured. The things you can do with this horrifying. Do it inside a battle and one round kill that trench run or heart from zero damage (and clean the battle of enemy troops). Do it outside a battle and blow up a second objective. And she probably comes back when you blow up your second objective too (naturally you attack the objective where she was captured).  The crazy thing about this is that it simply doesnt matter whether you're committed to the force, have been subjected to any amout of tactics and so on. A more reasonable version of this card would be "remove one focus token from every card you control". I digress. There are also tons of things you can do to sacrifice her even outside of card effects. Attack alone at the start of your phase, time it and make sure your opponent can only block with units that do unit damage. if he doesnt block you get to deal damage to an objective and tactic one of his defenders down for the main strike, if he blocks you get your resources and possible focused units back. 

The other two OP cards are these;

Rebel Assault: This card is very cheap (2) and let's you deal either two damage to an objective or a character. So it's versatility is insane, it deals 2/5ths of the damage needed to an objective or auto kills most units in the game (who has two HP). And the best part? You have four of them. Four. With some judicious play and the rest of the tricks this deck brings you almost never need to worry about the enemy nasties. Remove that one unit that you identify as the cinch in your attack before you do, or kill that objective at the end of your turn, or bring another objective to 4 damage before you strike another one with h1. And so on, endless possibilities. No other card does two damage in one go, and no other card has this kind of versatility. A more reasonable version of this card would be: Cost 3, deal 2 damage to an objective or 1 damage to a character (making sure you cant auto kill most units in the game including boba fett, Motti and Tarkin. *sadface*. 

Mobilize the squadrons: This objective. Sheesh. The strength of an objective that gives you two resources -every single turn- and has the versatility to remove focus from -other- objectives and command centres and enhancements (for the future, as there are no other enhancements save the command centre where it is useful right now) when you havent double focused the squadron. I'm not really sure how to rewrite this one. 

So why are the rebels (and this deck in particular) so good? Several reasons:

Resources: You have so, many, resources. Between mobilize, Draw their fire, mon mothma, the two command centres and slew of hidden outposts you wont lack resources barring a bad draw. 

Lots of cheap and good units, non reliance on single units: Yeah. X wings are awesome. Especially with astromechs. A wings are good too (card draws!). Red two is great, Y wings too, and so on. You dont really need any specific card, you can make the deck do horrible things to the enemy no matter what you draw (well, almost).

Almost no bad cards: Unlike sith, navy and to some extent jedi you just dont have any "bad" cards. Trench run is borderline, but even that is very useful on occasion and at least has two force icons for edge battles. Mon mothma cannot be overrated, ackbar, h1, events and so on. Even though I really only think the three mentioned cards are OP, the rest of the cards are really, really good as well. Mothma is awesome (one extra edge is surprisingly good), ackbar is awesome, home one as well, the lowly engineer shines, red two is terrifying. The list goes on. This "general high level" of the cards is what makes the rebels top of the line. 

So what does the deck do? How does it come together?

In short, damage and tactical strikes. You have an insane amount of ways to damage and disrupt your opponent. Two blaster emplacements, two engineers. Steady damage. Four rebel assaults. Two ackbar. Your opponent will likely try to spread the damage from the emplacements, making his units slightly damaged all around. Perfect for Ackbar to arrive to kill them off. If you get one emplacement and one engineer in play and keep them there, it's often game over. Does your opponent have palpatine? Play ackbar and assault him. Dead. remember all the nasty tricks you can do with ackbar. Play him in an unopposed engagement to get two surprise tactics. Play him from hand straight into an engagement your opponent didnt even think you could block as you were all focused out. Play him, sacrifice him with a card and play the second copy for extra fun and games. The list is long.  Your opponent needs to stay on his toes constantly, a sudden red two attack where you time it right to kill the objective unopposed could give you a second attack and a second dead objective in a turn. leia can easily do the same, and kill a trench run (or heart of the empire) from undamaged in one turn. Add to this damage capacity the ability to play most of your hand every turn, shield your stuff, and so on.

In my opinion this deck outshines the jedi because it does not rely on a few characters to do the job. It has a lot of flexibility, many, many ways to deal with problems and a damage output only rivaled by a surprise yoda with saber and trust your feelings. It's also a lot less vilnerable to many of the tactics the dark side uses. Tactics icons arent as good when used to focus one of three x-wings as when they focus Luke or obi. Chokes, rancors and force stasis and detained doesnt work against vehicles, and so on. The one area where it is weaker is the force. I have found that if you kill your opponents units a lot he has to play his cards though, and often you can create situations where you dont have to win the edge to achieve your goals. Loose the edge in one battle, go in unopposed in another. Use cards with black blast icons or simply initiate a battle to kill one or two of the enemy units. Mon Mothma helps too. 

A word of warning

The deck does require some thoughtful play. Dont just rush in. Due to the very high damage potential of the deck you can afford to wait for a turn or two even if the enemy has the force. I have pulled one round wins by killing two slightly damaged objectives many times. Attack when you can without getting wiped, maximize the "unopposed damage" bonuses. Your versatility is your greatest strength. One turn it might be worth sacrificing a unit to force the opponent to block (if he doesnt the damage to the obj is fine anyway) and take the force off him with a small chaff unit like the rookie. Another round it might be better to sit back and let your forces build for another turn. In yet another you attack all out. Watch your draws, consider what might be coming up. Remember to always set up opportunities for those devestating attacks and assaults in the future, laying the groundwork in the first three rounds will pay off later. Kill and damage your opponents units. Your goal is to damage several objectives to the point where they have three or better two HP left. This sets you up for single unopposed run kills, h1 mayhem with several objectives dead at once, and surprise game winning rebel assaults. Dont be afraid to use the assaults to remove obstacles to your attacks rather than on the objectives themselves. You have four of them after all, and surviving units that do damage to the objective is better than damage to an objective and dead units when you attack. A turn one vader doesnt have to be a problem, depending on what you draw you candraw him out and surprise him with an ackbar in another combat to focus him down. Play vehicles mainly, blaster emplacements and assaults work well. 

The Rebel deck is certainly powerful.  That said, it can have trouble with DS swarm decks for all of the same reasons that it causes problems for Sith decks.  Rebel Assault is less efficient at board control when there aren't big targets to hit.

dbmeboy said:

Agreed, though unfortunately (in my experience) the navy comes up considerably short for a couple of reasons;

The dark side has tremendous trouble in a straight "race for the win by killing objectives".  The ds will not be able to hold force with a maximum agression, so let's count it. Three objectives from the get go is 1 (first turn) + 1 +1(Second turn and one obj dead), +1+2 (third turn and second obj dead) +1 +3 (fourth turn and third obj dead) That's only ten. Even if they hold the force for a turn it's still just 11. So in a straight up obj trade the ls stll wins. A largely unopposed rebel deck can easily take out one objective per turn as an average across three turns. The navy needs a turn or two to build up, and in that time the rebels have usually taken the advantage. This is especially true against a deck like this one, where the rebels have such a damage potential both against units and against objectives.

Most of the navy "good stuff" is two hp (Tie assault squadron, Motti, Tarkin, backstabber, you name it) and prime bait for reb assaults. I think the assault is excellent against strong high value targets, but even better when you can take out a high value target right off the bat with just one. A lot of the rest of their stuff is very weak and easily attritioned by emplacements and/or ackbar. The navy -does- have a precious few things with durability, an early devastator can spell a win (unless the rebs draw decently) and AT-ST's are gooddefensive units but fairly expensive. The AT-ST commander is about the only thing that can counter blaster emplacements (Unless you give up offensive potential for take them prisoner, which I'd probably reccomend anyway, though that puts you farther behind in the objective race generally). The Navy low cost units have a lot of trouble comparing to all their rebel equivalents, and it shows. Unfortunately another of the rebels card comboes, heroic sacrifice and X-wing escort, also shines vs navy. The navy disadvantage is sort of compunded by the fact that they cant even compete well for the force. A tarkin or motti can do it (but is weak to assaults) but generally they stay on the same level. 

You are assuming the DS can only kill 1 objective/turn with your math.  I've had my Navy deck be able to take out 2 objectives in a turn by turn 2 or 3 on a number of occasions.  Of course, my Rebel deck can also pull of 2 objectives on turn 2.  Even my Jedi and Sith decks have managed that with the right opening.

dbmeboy said:

My assumption is made on the basis that the rebs and navy are equally good at taking out objectives (I dont actually think they are, I think the rebs are better at it, but I compare them as equals for the sake of argument). Assuming that they are equally good at killing objectives, and assuming that both try their best resulting in on average one objective destroyed per turn (even if you destroy all three on your third turn it's still the same average) the ls wins. The example mostly illustrates how the ds cannot really focus purely on offense, they need to defend at least a little. This is built into the game engine, objective destruction is not as effective for ds as it is for ls (hence the reason why laser blast is ok for ds, but would be ludicrously silly for an ls deck). 

Of course it's often down to draws, a first or second turn devastator with resources to spare for dial speeding is of course awesome, but happens fairly rarely (read, close to never. Second turn is a little more viable). 

I came back to the thread with another thought after having turned it over a bit in my head. The main trouble with the navy/reb matchup is the navy's glaring lack of direct damage and control options. Rebs have several great ways of handing that 1st-2nd turn deva, or striking hard to counter units out of the game. The navy does not. Their two cards with that possibility is the Defense turrets objective (I think that's the name) and the assault squadron. The turrets deal only one damage (most of the good, cheap reb cards can take two) and the assault squadron, while great, can only take two itself (you know what's coming for that one). 

i played Rebels alot and it looks like they dont work yet. Sith Control wrecks the Rebel Deck. I am looking forward to the Hoth Cycle, they should get a boost

che4p said:

I have not found this even remotely true

dbmeboy said:

With the exception of the Sith I've seen the other main affiliations all pull off 2 objective turns not all that uncommonly.

I've taken 3 on turn 2 with my Rebel Deck.  I think the Rebels can do it with the least set up required due to Leia's ability and Rebel Assault.

ScottieATF said:

My friends and I are waiting until a gaming day next weekend to finally get started on this game, a little late to the party. These two comments worry me a bit. I'm ok with the idea of going from no DS objectives defeated to 3 all in one turn, but I would expect/hope that the game was balanced more around that happening around turn 4-5. Is it really that common to win the game on turn 2? Or is this just a case of perfect draw against a bad draw?

Scoob said:

No it is not that common at all. I have never seen it myself.