Top 8 NA Champs Poe Maz w/ Cargo Hold (tourney report) 1.0

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Based on Gameslayer989's Paz the Turn deck. I took out 2 Long Con to put 2 Planetary Uprising in. Played it like normal Poe Maz but utilized Retreat and Hyperspace Jump to punish slower decks and Cargo Hold - Eravana to help vs FN matchups. Card changes I'd make after the event: maybe drop Logistics back for Long Cons but I'm not sure if that's any good or just drop them for another removal option like Defensive Position. I've seen lists running Evade just to shore up Palpatine - Galactic Emperor games but it's probably not worth the slot for such a huge event where Palpatine decks are not likely to work their way to the top tables.

Note that I never played Poe Maz seriously until this event. I played about a half-dozen games with a janky Poe Maz mill deck I built maybe mid-July that focused on using Millennium Falcon and Launch Bay discards with playing insane amounts of defense and it was ok but I dropped the deck pretty quickly (I think if heroes get another 3 die available to Poe then it might be a pretty strong deck). Anyways, I saw @Gameslayer989's deck right after the big online "store champ" event and decided it looked to be really strong vs FN decks. I sleeved it up and then practiced a handful of games with it on Tuesday before GenCON. Played it vs an Emo Kids, a Funkar, and a Poe Maz Throne Room deck. Found a few of the correct lines in those matchups and also realized in the pseudo-mirror the games were really close but if the other Poe Maz got a Planetary down they seemed to always win even though it would be a close finish.

Jump forward to the night before. I had just played the NA Champs Netrunner tournament and went 8-1-0-1 sitting in 3rd place with 2 rounds of swiss in the morning followed by a potential Top 16 double elimination in the afternoon that would conflict with the start of Destiny. I was not expecting to be in the position that I was in and was REALLY looking forward to playing Destiny at GenCON so I had a very tough decision to make. I knew I could ID twice and make top 16. I was distressing the entire night about what to do but I couldn't come up with a good solution and didn't want to just drop. Before going to bed for the night, I pulled out the deck and had to figure out what to cut for the 2 Planetary Uprisings and initially took out a Logistics and a Smuggling then after about 20 seconds of thought just swapped them back in and dropped the Long Cons. Regardless of what happened, my deck was ready.

Next morning I had to be there at 9 for check in, ended up IDing both rounds of swiss (even after a pairings snafu in BOTH rounds... good job ffg.) I was #3 seed and we were scheduled to start at 1:15 with Destiny starting at 2. After lots of thought, I decided to let the first game decide my fate and if I lost, I would concede my second game in the losers bracket so I would make the start of Destiny, but if I won I would play it out and concede my chances at a good performance in the Destiny event. My thought was if I missed the first round of Destiny then I'd lose my chance because the structure of the Swiss was SO bad at nearly 400 players doing 8 rounds cut to 16. You lose one game to variance and you're basically out. I ended up losing an extremely close game of Netrunner, which I wasn't too upset about. I conceded game 2 as was the plan and got ready for Destiny to start about 10 minutes later.

Well, I made it to the start of the tournament and here's a round by round:

Round 1 - Han Rey

Pairings get posted, I'm on table oblivion. I make my way around trying to find my seat and sit down across from none other than probably Poe Maz's worst matchup: Han Rey. I went through all this emotional distress of having time conflicts in the two games I love with a passion to get paired up vs an almost auto-loss round one knowing I'd have to go 7-1 to make the cut. To rub salt in the wound, I rolled like TRASH the entire game. I think the first two rounds I didn't roll a Poe Special or damage OR a focus on Maz. Ugh. Now I'm looking at a virtually impossible task of going 7 for 7 to make top 16 (sorry for the spoiler if you read the decklist title). Oh well. One game at a time.

Record: 0-1

Round 2 - Poe Maz (Throne Room) - Win

Next round I'm up against a Poe Maz with Throne Room. Not excited but at least I got a few practice games in for this. Throughout the game there were a few give-aways that my opponent wasn't too practiced up, for instance he wasn't discarding anything after any of the rounds and was drawing only 1 or 2 cards where I was sometimes ditching 3 or 4 cards to find the good cards for the matchup like my second Hit and Run or my Planetary Uprisings or just increasing my chances at drawing a big card to throw with Poe. I get there and can breath a sigh of relief that I'm at least still in it.

Record: 1-1

Round 3 - Vader Guard

I had run into this deck a handful of times playing some games with Funkar and Phasma on TTS in the last few weeks leading up to GenCON. I mostly knew their game plan but hadn't practiced vs it with Poe Maz at all. I knew they were going to try and guardian a bit then play price of failure with a built up Vader. My choice was to just attack Vader hard and see how it went. They ended up guardianing to sacrifice their Guard and save a 3 damage from hitting Vader and they never got their huge play off. Game went smoother than I thought it would.

Record: 2-1

Round 4 - eBala FN Guard

Once I sat down and realized I got paired up vs Jay from the KoR podcast, my stomach sank. I listen to those guys and I know he's a great player. I actually had met him at worlds and we played in a casual 8 player pod side event. He's on eBala FN Guard and I'm pretty scared. I knew rainbow FN was brutal but this is the deck I have the tech for and I'm supposed to beat. The game starts and I have double thermal in my opening hand. Round 1 roll Poe, roll Maz into Thermal, Round 2 Hit and Run into both 3 for 1, Round 3 Hit and Run into both 3 for 1 and I think I get a Planetary down and it feels like the game is basically over. I rolled and drew like fire. Poe Maz had one of those games. I remember thinking when I drew 2 cards at the start of the third round and top decked my 2nd Hit and Run that this just wasn't fair. Nothing he could do here and I felt really bad that this happened to such a great guy knowing that our Tourney life was on the line. He dropped after I took the W in this round. Hopefully we'll get to play again sometime with some fair decks.

Record: 3-1

Round 5 - eVader FN

There is a reason Cunning is in this list and Darth Vader - Dark Apprentice is that reason. I started with it round 1 and it fired the first three rounds. My opponent made the mistake of targeting Poe and this game wasn't close. I made Vader hit himself silly twice then made him smack his storm trooper buddy so hard he killed himself.

Record: 4-1

Round 6 - eBala FN Guard

I honestly don't remember much about this game. I think this is the game where I had double Thermal in starting hand, fired one and then he rolled a Vibroknife in with FN's ability, hitting a discard face and discarding my second Thermal out of the 4 cards I had. Don't remember anything else besides that.

Record: 5-1

After the round they posted standings and lo and behold I'm in dead last on SoS at 35th. As I knew going into the event, especially after dropping my first game, I HAD to go 7-1. Now I'm starting to feel it. These next two games are going to be rough.

Round 7 - eJabba eDooku (Crime Lord)

So I sit down and take a huge sigh of relief seeing this pairing. I'm aggro and aggro can beat mill pretty hard unless he opens with fast hands and rolls like fire with Jabba to attack my hand like crazy. My opponent wins the roll-off and takes shields, as is expected. I'm targeting down Jabba but it took a decent amount of effort to punch through. He played Datapad round 1 on Dooku and immediately I realize something is up. That card shouldn't be in a mill deck, especially one that is sitting at 5-1 in the largest and most competitve Destiny tournament to date. I end up using Cargo Hold - Eravana to great effect this match and my opponent seems to be put on tilt by me moving all his upgrades around and removing his dice from his dice pool. I move Datapad to Jabba. He plays a Fast Hands on Jabba round 2 and I move a Holocron to Jabba. He plays his second Datapad on Dooku which I move to a fully loaded Jabba forcing him to discard his Holocron. He's really upset at this now. He had been doing some damage to Maz with Dooku and I kept shielding her up from her own die as well.

At some point in there he played an Ace in the Hole into a Cunning targeting Poe's special with Cunning but I don't remember what he played with it after that. At that point the jig was up: He's trying to Crime Lord me. Maz and Jabba went down around the same time. I had both of my Planetary Uprisings out which had been getting some damage onto Dooku so I didn't have much to go. We roll into round 5 or 6 and He has 5 resources, I have 3 resources. I roll out and do some damage. He rolls out and Dooku has a focus showing. I do some damage but I'm not at lethal with a claim. I think Dooku had 6 damage on him and some shields. I'm holding a Hyperspace Jump in hand but decide there's no reason I should risk him having the Ace in the Hole Crime Lord combo. I pass. He discards to reroll a single Dooku die. I pass. He discards to reroll again. I pass. He stops and thinks for about a minute and then says "You either have it or you don't" and plays his Ace in the Hole for a Crime Lord die. I didn't even look to see what side it rolled. I Hyperspace Jump. Game over. He's out of Ace in the Holes and there's no way he can mill me out or race me on damage after that. I think those few passes I took was my play of the tournament. Great game.

Looking back, I think instead of him going for the Crime Lord, he probably should've conceded the Crime Lord play that round and went for it the following round. He could've focused into the 2 Discard and hit my hand possibly discarding my Hyperspace Jump but I maybe would've claimed the battlefield after he burned the focus. It would've been really close to claim to get the damage but if he doesn't pay for the discards he still has 5 and can roll in the crime lord and maybe get lucky. I think I would've had to not claim until he dropped to 4 resources by paying for the discard. Definitely would've been a lot of mental games going on if he took that line. Maybe I would've just jumped after he uses the focus? Not sure.

Record: 6-1

Standings get posted again and I'm at 21, still in last of the X-1s with the worst SoS. Anyways, I get a chance to play into the cut. Let's do this.

Round 8 - eBala FN Nightsister

Don't remember much of this game but I do remember the final actions. Round 3, I had Nightsister and Bala both within thermal range. Maz is dead. I roll Poe, see a special. He uses Nightsister to make me re-roll it. I hit a special again and then fire the Thermal killing both Nightsister and Bala. He activates FN and resolves and then plays out a Flamethrower out on him. It rolls the 4 for 1 and he only has 1 resource. The 4 is not nearly enough to kill Poe. He discards to re-roll twice I think and doesn't get the 2 or the 1 side he wants. He plays Boundless Ambition. I think he drew zero weapons. He discards to re-roll a bunch of times and doesn't really do anything. I win immediately on claim the next round. I think he had his second boundless and if he had the money would've drew into 5 upgrades and very likely would've won. He said his misplay was he had an aftermath to play instead of using Nightsister's ability. He would've gotten 2 from it and that definitely would've pushed him over the top to kill off my Poe.

Top 16 - vs Jason Brown's Vader Guard

Got to look through the deck list before we started. It was basically exactly what I expected from a Vader Guard but had 2 Close Quarters Assault which was really interesting. My goal was to just dodge the huge Price of Failure play so I knew to not attack the Royal Guard because if I did then he'd just sacrifice him as soon as he drew Price of Failure. I was basically just going to attack Vader as hard as I could and hope it worked. He won the roll-off round 1 and chose his battlefield (Moisture Farm - Tatooine). I split the shields because I was scared of him killing Poe really fast (I once played vs Vader Guard with my janky discard Poe Maz and they killed Poe round 1 from a Price of Failure.) Game went well and I got the Guard killed off from a U-Wing and Vader went down quickly after that. Game 2 he chose his battlefield again. I think round 3 I played a Hit and Run rolling a 3 for 1 on Poe and then on a DL-44 that was on Maz and I took the chance to snipe the guard off to prevent the Price of Failure play. Poe ended up dying this game but Maz easily closed out the last 3 damage the following round with her DL-44. Retreat and Hyperspace Jump did tons of work in these games and I actually was able to play DL-44 into DL-44 into activate Maz in both games as very effective mitigation vs Vader. Hit and Run into roll both characters and resolve damage followed by Retreat next action definitely happened in one of these games. I wasn't expecting it but it feels like Poe Maz is just hugely favored in this match-up.

Result: 2-0 win

Top 8 - vs Mike Gemme aka Bobby Sapphire's eBala FN Nightsister

He won the rolloff and took shields, splitting them on Bala and FN. I think I landed a round 1 Thermal. He got an F-11 down and resolved it, then I moved it to Nightsister from claiming. Round 2 I hit Nightster and Bala with some damage and got a Planetary down. I also moved a holdout to the Nightsister from claiming. Round 3 I had to choose to kill of Bala or sink 4 into FN with a falcon. I chose to kill Bala since Maz only had 4 life left and I wasn't sure how impactful he could make a Bala reactivation (looking back he could've suicided Nightsister to get him both redeploy guns into rolling 4 dice again which would've probably been the game for him so I made the right choice I think.) I play my second Planetary and I'm basically done for the round. He has Nightsister with 2 life remaining and FN with 9 life remaining. He had yet to activate FN which had a Z6 on him and Nightsister had the F-11D and Holdout. I get anxious and claim thinking I have a good chance at this game from the board state without thinking through what is going to take place. He does 2 to FN and lets the planetary kill Nightsister so both weapons redeploy before his FN activates. He activates, kills maz, and does some more FN shenanigans getting 3 damage on Poe. I say something about claiming being a huge mistake and I should've passed, but it's too late. FN has 7 health remaining and I had yet to see a hit and run this game. I ditch my entire hand and draw into the Hit and Run i'm looking for with a DL-44 turning on the special. If I roll a 3, a , or both 2 on the activation, then my claim action becomes lethal. I roll out and get a 2 and a . I discard to reroll with my extra action and roll a 2 and a . He removes my 2 die and goes on to kill off Poe before the next round.

Game 2 I decided to take my battlefield again (FN is the reason it's in the deck in the first place...) This time I see double thermal in my opener. After landing them in round 1 and round 2 I think I'm in a great spot but things just don't go my way after that and FN does his thing. Didn't see a Planetary until it was way too late to matter and ended up playing an upgrade on Maz the final round but I think I missed on my roll-out but it wasn't even close to enough to matter even if I did get the damage.

Result: 0-2 loss and i'm out

In summary, I didn't play this deck like Gameslayer's write-up says where your goal is to get a Falcon or U-Wing down to have more consistent damage output throughout the game. Between Planetary, Dug In, Field Medic, Hyperspace, Retreat, and sometimes playing an upgrade on Maz, you're pretty tight on resources and paying 5 to get a ship down just seems like it won't give a proper return on the investment.

Only thing I'd change is I'd get a handful of practice games in vs Rainbow FN trying out some different lines of play to see what works best (attack FN hard and let Nightsister do her thing?) I got pretty lucky the final round of swiss to beat it and secure my spot into the cut, but then in top 8 lost 2 close games that imo I was definitely looking like I had the W at one point in both of those games. The deck isn't too hard to pilot well and outside of dodging Palpatine or Han which are near auto-losses, this is definitely a top deck in the meta. I might consider running Throne Room over Cargo Hold but I think you don't really need Throne Room in almost all matchups if you prioritize keeping Maz alive. It's really hard to evaluate the benefits you gain from dice and sustainable upgrade mitigation vs FN decks. Should probably just jam 10 games with each and see which version wins more. I'm sure Cargo Hold also will give you an edge vs players that haven't practiced vs it since it can throw people for a loop moving their upgrades around and removing their dice from the pool, especially if they're playing non-FN 3 or 4 character decks.