by BananaCrapshoot

Hello Troopers, I have returned with another BananaBuilds Deck Tech article. Today we are going to look at one of the earlier revealed leaders from the set, Tarkin. I decided to pair tarkin with aggression so we have some ramp and some removal as well as the Tarkin Ability to make our units better if we have left over resources.

No Surprise but the main idea is to ramp early and often so we can play Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine to win the game. We have some flexibility to play board control vs aggro decks, we do this by making our units better with Tarkin’s ability to give xp tokens to units, along with our removal options of open fire, force choke, and overwhelming barrage. Against control decks we can try to push faster with our cheaper units while ramping to our boss monsters.

What Makes It Work?

It all starts with Tarkin, his ability to allow us to use dead resources to buff our units really lets us even out our units. Making weak ones good and good ones better. Then, of course, we have the full ramp package running 3 Resupply and 3 Super Laser Technicians. Using Tarkin to buff units along with our ramp engine we are able to get ahead of the fast aggro decks and keep up with the other midrange decks.

Our ideal first turn is a Tie/ln Fighter, Death Star Stormtrooper, First Legion Snowtrooper, or a Seasoned Shoretrooper. If we play a one drop we will use Tarkin to put an XP token on.

Turn 2 we are looking to play a ramp card, I’ll play either Resupply or Superlaser Technician here, I am not too picky about it. Since we are not running ECL Resupply is probably the better option on round 2 to get us to 4 resources so we can deploy next turn.

From here vs aggro and other midrange I am looking to control the board and make sure I don’t get overwhelmed before I can play Overwhelming Barrage or Emperor Palpatine to gain board advantage. Vs Control we are looking to start pushing damage with our buffed units faster than our opponent can deal with them.

The Removal

Our Main direct Removal event is Force Choke for 2 it really has great reach allowing us to take out most cheap units and cheap leaders with one card. Open Fire is mainly used in the space arena since that’s where we are weakest and most likely to fall behind. But it does take out most space units before we get to 5/6 drops. Overwhelming Barrage is a ridiculous card and at the time of this article being written, our only pseudo board wipe event. The Buff it gives is just gravy. Traitorous might be a hot take but it has performed well in here for me. I use it as a defensive option, not an offensive one. If I do not have any other removal option Traitorous is a decent option to get you out of a pinch and it helps you with your board presence.

Tech Out

Rukh is pretty wild, his ability to just delete 2 units straight up is pretty wild into a ramp mirror or into control decks looking to drop bombs. Gladiator Star Destroyer and Ruthless Raider both 6 drops that allow us to take some control of the space arena. Fifth Brother is a super efficient unit and he gets even better when some XP tokens on him from Tarkin allowing us to close the game with him if needed. Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine are both great boss monster units that can end the game very fast for us. If we get to the point in the game where we are dropping Vader and Palpatine we are feeling good about our chances.

Mulligan

In our opening hand we ideally have a 1 or 2 cost unit and a ramp card, as long as we have those we can get some stuff done. Our odds at hitting both are solid so don’t be afraid to send your hand back and try again.

What Do I Do With This Mess?

Play cheap units early, buff when you can with Tarkin, then ramp as much as you can without sacrificing too much board control. Then turn the corner and win the game when we can drop our 6,7,8 cost units.

Thanks for stopping by and checking out Barkin Tarkin, Let me know what your thoughts are on the deck and what are some deck techs you would like to see in the future. We will see you in the Arenas!

Link to swudb decklist : https://swudb.com/deck/view/RpkBFaaBhwk

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