A Christmas week edition of Magnuson Madness! The new Holocron has introduced some madness into the system by both given us new options and taking away the old ones. We’re left with a somewhat understood meta (Reylo, Palp, 5-die Chopper, Aphra), but with more of an open door for new combinations and ideas to make a dent. With that in mind, I’d like to explore an archetype I’ve been curious about since the Holocron dropped – 3-wide Hero Guns decks. We saw three characters reduced to the point where they can fit in this archetype – Finn, Zeb, and Rex – while the hit to Fateful Companions has gotten rid of the old 3 wide Hero Guns deck (Han droids). We’re left with a plethora of possibilities – all of which I think could be good, none of which I’m completely sold on either. Why do I like this archetype? For one, it lends itself to some pretty beefy 3-wide lineups. But also, it utilizes one of my favorite combos in the game currently: Ewok Ambush+Rex’s Blaster. One of the few advantages Hero has over Villain currently is better action cheat options and subsequently more explosive plays – Ewok Ambush is the best action cheat card and Rex’s Blaster is the best facilitator of these plays. But I digress, let’s get into some decks!
Browsing Category Magnuson Madness
Magnuson Madness – Rebel Traitor+Pulse Cannon
The Madness is back! Now that the suite of major tournaments is over and I don’t have to play lame meta staples anymore (cause reps), I can start to explore some new combinations of cards to see if anything shows promise. One place I always like to start is with powerful cards that have yet to see much play. Pulse Cannon is a great example of this – it is really powerful when it goes off, and has one of the highest damage upsides of any card in the game. Villain upgrade lineups (besides Palp), just haven’t quite been able to make the cut recently, and Pulse Cannon is very susceptible to removal. As I started to explore some Pulse Cannon decks, I realized that it combos really nicely with the Rebel Traitor, who can get the Pulse Cannon into the pool protected. And I noticed that even without considering Pulse Cannon, Rebel Traitor’s ability is quite useful in the current meta – you can really mess up the sequencing of Droids or SM if you do it right. And thus the deck building began!
Magnuson Madness – Dooku + Separatist Conspiracy
A part of deck building and theory crafting is trying to find ways to gain advantages over your opponent. Hand advantage, though less important in Destiny than in some other games (due to drawing back your hand each round), is one possible area to exploit when considering possible combinations of characters and cards. An easy example of a character who gained you hand advantage was the original Darth Vader, whose ability essentially gained you a 20% card advantage over the opponent each round (5 vs 4 cards). The advantage this presents is subtle but important – more cards means you have a better chance of maximizing your round than your opponent does. So in today’s addition of Magnuson Madness, I’ll be looking at a combination that maximizes card advantage – Dooku3 + Separatist Conspiracy.
Magnuson Madness: Hero Palp
In this edition of Magnuson madness we’ll be examining the hero version of the Palp deck (infinite upgrades +Bacta + Fatal Blow). How do you get infinite upgrades in Hero you ask? Let me introduce you to my little friend: Custom Bandoliers. These guys are actually useful, given the right deck. What is this right deck? Mace Satine Built to Last. Yah yah, go ahead, laugh all you want, this deck is actually legit (somehow), and I recently took first place at a 24 person, cut to top 4 (with best of 3s) local MN tournament (shout out to Michael and Bowie who run the Twin Suns Cup tournaments). So lets go ahead and take a dive into the madness of a Magnuson deck build.
Magnuson Madness – Snowball or Bust
On this weeks installment of Magnuson Madness, we observe a potentially strong, maybe okay, probably weak ??? lineup… with one twist. This deck will snowball like no other deck can. We’ll be taking a look at a double Executioners, Dengar, Armored Reinforcement for Punishing One deck. When this deck kills something, all hell breaks loose, as not only will you collect bounties, but you’ll be rolling in plenty of extra dice to keep that snowball rolling!
