Today we’re looking at a potential Throne Room abuser: Phasma Maul.
As I eluded to, Throne Room is our battlefield of choice for reasons I’ll get to later, but let’s take a look at our list first:
The reason why Phasma can abuse Throne Room is obvious, but why Maul? Well, the first part I latched onto in Maul’s ability was that it affects his upgrade dice as well. For this reason, Maul might be the best Holocron user out there, at least in early game. You can start out by rolling in Phasma, and waiting to roll in your Maul until your opponent has rolled in as well. At that point, your opponent will be much less likely to remove your Holocron die, and if they do, well then your Holocron was essentially free removal. The real question that will determine whether this deck has any potential is how fast the rest of the meta decks end up being. If Phasma Maul can claim early for Phasma specials and force powers, I can see it having potential, otherwise, I really don’t know.
So let’s take a look at our upgrade suite. Force Speeds, Holocrons, Force Lightning, Force Throw, Force Focus, and a single Force Push. If there is a card in there that I know everyone is going to doubt, it’s Force Focus, but hear me out. Its two special sides are quite insane in the deck. Early game it psuedo-cheats Phasma special while also soft controlling your opponent. Late game, if you have a Force Focus on Maul with two other abilities it’s still extremely strong. You can use it with Force Lighting to blank an opponent’s die, turn Lightning to special, and then deal one and remove that die while re-rolling Lightning (so Force Focus special essentially dealt one and removed a die). With Force Throw it can turn an opponents die to its highest value and then immediately chuck it back into his face. I know I probably haven’t convinced you yet, but it’s a card I really want to give a shot and see how it performs.
Looking at our removal suite, it’s oriented around Rise Again. This means we’re taking cards that are cheap, as well as cards that redirect damage onto Phasma, as Maul is our only valid Rise Again target. A safer version of the deck might run redeploys and focus less on getting the Rise Again value out of Maul. I however, want to bait my opponent into going Maul first by playing early upgrades on him. If I can get my opponent stuck on him, and unable to ever kill him, I win. So what are we using? Anger, Doubt, Manipulate and 1 Crash Landing are all 0 cost options. Anger while being quite inconsistent, has insane upside, and with Holocron dice, I’m giving it a shot. Manipulate can combo with it too, if we have Force Speed on the board you can Force Speed special, Manipulate, and as long as you already had one blank, you can now Anger. Note also that Manipulate can work well on Throne Room, where blanking your own die wont matter if you’re going to claim for its special. However, the same goes for your opponent’s dice if they have specials as well. As far as 1 cost removal goes, we have Force Illusion, Feel Your Anger, and The Best Defense. These cards all have strong upsides, so they are worth running even with their resource cost. Finally, we have Rise Again. The dream game plan is that we start with a turn 1 Holocron on Maul, so our opponent focuses him. We then play Force Illusion on him, Best Defense with Phasma, and Rise Again what damage get’s through. I have no idea if this will work out, but it worked quite well for me back when Phasma Kylo was still legal. Your opponent would end up never killing a character, and the games were extremely one sided.
Looking at our aggressive cards, they are limited but strong. Intimidate may end up being replaceable if the meta shifts, but as long as it stays shield heavy, 0 for 3 is insane value. New Orders is great if we don’t get our battlefield. Being able to play it to give us a Phasma special, or any of our force power specials will make the 2 cost worth it. Not only does it give us that initial special, but it immediately threatens the claim for another of our specials. Combine it with Force Speed and you can do some beautiful things.
So what do you think? Phasma has got some crazy dice and you can’t underestimate that 3 side on Maul. Will Maul’s passive carry this deck? Or will your opponents be able to play around it? In any case, I hope you enjoyed the read, and feel free to comment with what you think.
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