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Jump to Lightspeed introduces a new yet familiar mechanic to Star Wars Unlimited. Originally introduced in FFG's old Star Wars Destiny, indirect damage is an allotted amount of damage that the defender divvies up and assigns amongst their units or base. Playing indirect damage usually amounts to a higher amount of damage than normal since you're giving up the agency of choosing where the damage goes. As always, this rule can be broken by a variety of cards and you can find that in this set by looking no further than the new Devastator - Hunting the Rebellion. Pairing this with the new Spotlight Deck leader Boba Fett - Any Methods Necessary creates a consistent way to generate indirect damage and have a little more control. Welcome Star Wars Unlimited's first competitive burn deck.
Deck: Boba Burn | Will Sobel | Star Wars Unlimited
LEADER:
1x Boba Fett - Any Methods Necessary
BASE:
GROUND UNITS:
1x Boba Fett - Feared Bounty Hunter
3x Allegiant General Pryde - Ruthless and Loyal
SPACE UNITS:
1x Fett's Firespray - Pursuing the Bounty
3x Devastator - Hunting the Rebellion
3x Fett's Firespray - Feared Silhouette
3x IG-2000 - Assassin's Aggressor
3x Kylo's TIE Silencer - Ruthlessly Efficient
EVENTS:
2x Sneak Attack
2x Waylay
3x Daring Raid
Sideboard:
3x Shoot Down
1x Boba Fett - Feared Bounty Hunter
1x Darth Vader - Scourge of Squadrons
Like most Cunning Villainy decks, we dominate the space arena with cards like Triple Dark Raid, allowing us to get powerhouse cards like Devastator and Fett's Firespray - Feared Silhouette out much earlier than expected. These allow us to get the upper hand with indirect damage in spades. We control space in the early game with Zygerrian Starhopper and Droid Missile Platform, both of which provide the threat of indirect damage on some solid bodies to boot. You can watch your opponent squirm as they deliberate whether to continue taking 4 from attacks or 3 indirect damage. Even if we don't see Triple Dark Raid our midgame is still solid with IG-2000 - Assassin's Aggressor; poke some smaller units for free kills, get rid of enemy shields, or prepare an enemy to be Overwhelmed.
Our ground suite isn't our strong suit, but we run so much damage and other removal which gives us more flexibility on where to defend and where to apply pressure. First Order Stormtrooper and Allegiant General Pryde - Ruthless and Loyal fill out our turn one plays. Mixing this with Guerilla Soldier creates a stable and consistent draw of cards providing more of our indirect damage. Pryde runs double duty here, allowing you to defeat an enemy The Darksaber, pilot, or shield - giving your damage even more efficiency. Even with this suite, don't discount Boba Fett - Disintegrator from Spark of Rebellion which maintains its spot as one of the best Cunning Villainy ground units being both cheap and easy removal. Boba Feet, Feared Bounty Hunter is another new card from this set certainly proving itself as one of the better pilots. By the time we get deeper into tournament season we may see the number of these Boba Fett's fluctuate as people evaluate whether 2-for-1ing enemies gets put under a microscope. My gut says this deck will ultimately land with fewer Boba Fett - Feared Bounty Hunter to make room for Dengar - Crude and Slovenly with as many Underworld ships as we're running.
Which brings us to our event suite; some removal and efficiency. The most important card here is Planetary Bombardment which is one of our game closers. Even without the Capital Ship kicker the amount of damage will put your opponent into panic - but paired with Devastator we'll assign 12 damage where we want and we can save ourselves from a bad position or apply significant pressure to a base. For removal we're running Waylay and Daring Raid. If we're already in a good position, that Raid can be used to surprise finish off a base or at least put more pressure on a base since we're being aggressive. Like Triple Dark Raid, Sneak Attack provides another use of some When Played abilities like Ruthless Raider or Devastator while giving us a single turn to turn sideways into enemy bases. We can also utilize Surprise Strike for an incalculable closing hit or take out a bulky sentinel in our way faster than expected.
Largely with this deck we're trying to hit fast and hard while taking advantage of units with damage-focused effects. We want to burn out our enemy faster than they can turn sideways which means focusing our Waylay and Daring Raids on units that are faster than us. Our toughest match is against Sabine since she can outpace us - and if she gets in a hit with Darksaber we may not recover. It's important for us to have answers to Sabine and her smaller units - but Pryde sees the main deck here so that we have a built-in solution to get rid of the Darksaber.
Like everyone else in this meta we also struggle against Jango, though we're poised to outrace him in the first few turns. That tide changes dramatically since Jango deploys a turn before us and starts locking down our units before we can deploy Boba. Some builds of this deck main deck Open Fire and Force Choke specifically to deal with Jango as fast as possible. In my experience you should have more board control than Jango when he deploys - which allows you to use your units as removal, or overwhelm your opponent with indirect damage. If Jango survives into the next round, you've likely already lost.
Other matchups to look out for are the new Cunning Gar Saxon - Victory of Mandalore aggro deck and any Cad builds. You need to draw into aggressive hands against both and make sure you apply as much pressure onto the base before they get their engines up and running - otherwise you lose momentum in the late game. You have preferred matchups against Quinlan, Piett, and Palpatine who take too long to get their engines going. You can easily rollover those decks by simply having more of a board presence than them in the first few turns.
We may have traded one Boba for another in the current meta. Though this deck isn't nearly as efficient as the other deck you shouldn't discount the sheer amount of damage output this deck has. Good luck with your deck testing in the next few weeks, and we'll see if we get mid-season bans for Jango or Triple Dark Raid. If so - it will tear this deck apart.
