Building and Understanding Tier 1 Decks

With Gencon rapidly approaching and store championship season reaching its peak, many people bandy about the term, “tier 1 deck.” Today I will address two questions, what are the tier 1 decks, and what are the elements of a tier 1 deck? For the competitive player, this information is crucial for understanding what they will expect to see at a large tournament and for choosing what deck to bring to a major tournament. However, this information is critical to the casual player as well, as a means of making their fun deck stronger and for getting a glimpse into what they can expect to see in the decks of others.

There are three critical components of making a tier 1 deck.

• Efficiency / Good Cards

• Consistency

• Execute a Plan Quickly

Effeciency / Good Cards

This is the no fun portion of the article. The bottom line is that tier 1 decks only include good cards. Yes, Black Market looks like a fun card. But it costs too much for what it does.  Tier 1 decks tend to include undercosted cards and many of them. Some great examples of these cards are He Doesn’t Like You, Sith Holcron, Force Speed, Fast Hands, Z-6 Riot Baton, and Imperial Inspection.  A defining characteristic of these cards is that they seem to be worth at least .5 more and were rounded down. In many cases, one would happily pay 1 more resource for these cards.

When tier 1 decks play cards that look like they are inefficient, or perhaps downright bad, it is often for a particular situation. However, these situations tend to have tremendous upside to them and occur frequently. For example, many (Awakenings) Vader/Royal Guard decks are using Price of Failure. This is a situational card, but one with tremendous upside. Often when looking at tier 2 decks, you will find many of these situational cards and usually with lower impact. A great example of this is the Ventress/FN/Bala deck that won a Store Championshiop earlier this season. It was a deck full of situational cards like Friends in High Places. Obviously when a card like this works, it is amazing. However, the situation doesn’t arise often enough. Additionally, the inclusion of several other situational cards like Fair Trade and Bait and Switch, insured that hands were often clunky with several unplayable cards. Tier 1 decks rarely run into this situation.

Poe/Maz is a great example of this type of approach. There are no cards in the deck that are overcosted or “bad.” Dug In and Defensive Positional both are technically situational in that they require you to have the battlefield. However, this deck almost always has it, especially once Planetary Uprising hits the table. Essentially, this tier 1 deck is all about using Poe’s ability to throw high value cards at the opponent, while using resources to remove their threats and heal up. Every card is playable at all times, assuming between Poe and Maz’s ability you can roll a special! The deck can bog down a bit when Throne Room isn’t used and Maz dies early. At this point, vehicles can bog down the hand, but there are only 4 cards that fit that description.

My favorite example of this principle in action is FN/E Unkar/Trooper. This deck is an interesting deck because it simply runs piles of “good” cards. There are a couple of decent cards like IQA and Flame Thrower. However, FN even allows you to get huge results with these cards, and Unkar’s ability fixes the “bad” rolls. Cards like Imperial Inspection and Salvage Stand can win the game on their own due to their ability to control the game. Powerful removal like The Best Defense, He Doesn’t Like You, and Flank can destroy turns. Then after the board has been completely controlled, FN can burst you down with great cards like Rocket Launcher and Riot Baton. In fact, this deck is so full of good cards that only Flame Thrower, IQA, and Gaffi Stick could ever be considered anything less than great. It is frightening to consider how good this deck could get with more weapons from the next set.

Consistency

Tier 1 decks generally play cards that are not high risk, high reward cards. If they do, they will be carefully chosen, and there will not be many. More often, these decks include many cards that always yield good results. For example, most tier 1 decks don’t play cards like Friends in High Places, Planned Explosion, and Premonitions. All of these cards have incredible upsides, but they are wildly inconsistent. Regarding characters, Krennic is an excellent example of this problem. He has a cool ability and great dice sides. However, his sides are all over the place. Krennic is the very model of inconsistency, and it’s no surprise that no one has found success with him. Just imagine how good he would be with 2, or even 3, damage sides.

When I think of consistency, I think of the ever popular Phasma decks. In both Awakenings and SoR, it took a while for them to surge to the top. Phasma decks are not flashy, but they are the very model of consistency. The current build is Elite Phasma, Guavian Enforcer, and Trooper. This list does two things and does them very consistently: roll guns and remove dice. Nearly, every card in the deck is based around these principles. Usually there are about 10 upgrades in the deck focused around guns, Phasma has 2 guns, Trooper has 3, and Guavian has 3. It even includes the event Bait and Switch so that it can turn resources into guns. The rest of the deck focuses on removing dice. Between countless events and guardian, it often feels impossible to resolve modified dice. Additionally, it can be difficult to kill any one character as the damage is spread evenly throughout. In many games, the Phasma player will sustain heavy damage while losing no characters.

Execute a Plan Quickly

Tier 1 decks execute clearly outlined plans, and they do it quickly. This does not mean that all tier 1 decks are aggressive decks. In fact, fast mill decks are often very close to tier 1 (though the recent nerfs hurt them substantially in this set). There are a number of decks that do this very well such as: Poe/Maz, Vader/Raider, Palpatine, and Vader/Kylo, and FN decks.

FN/Bala/NS is a good example of a deck that executes a plan quickly. Its plan is to do a lot of damage and do it quickly. Like the Phasma archetype, it has a lot of damage sides on its character dice. FN has 3, Bala has 2 and a focus, and NS has 2. On top of these dice, FN’s ability allows for weapons to be rolled in for most fast damage. When these weapons hit modified sides, they are often able to be linked up with the many base damage sides in the deck. While in many decks an IQA rifle might be an inconsistent weapon, in this deck, its +3 side is often linked up with Bala or NS. The speed of its plan is on display even more prominently when Boundless Ambition is played. There is nothing scarier than claiming, and seeing that 1 lonely resource turned into several more weapons and a big chunk of unexpected damage.

Tier List

Many people hate tier lists. They are subjective and can stifle creativity. However, we have reached the end of the SoR cycle, and it has become clear that a few decks meet the criteria listed above more effectively than others. It is my opinion that while there are many good decks, three have separated themselves ahead of the rest of the pack. Hopefully these tier 1 decks will help you prepare for Gencon and beyond! Even if you aren’t playing them, you should be ready for them.