To be honest, doing this write-up is a bit of a surprise. About a week before the Columbus PQ, after a night of jamming practice games, a friend and I had discussed how winning a PQ was probably not a realistic goal to set but achieving a top-8 or top-16 would be nice. And yet, after 6 rounds of swiss and 3 elimination rounds in Columbus, I found myself holding the Champion playmat. Here’s a few words about how it came to pass… 

The Deck

I played Quinlan Vos / Tarkintown for this event. The decklist is below. I wasn’t always locked in on Quinlan, but as the event approached none of the off-meta decks I had been trying to make click felt strong enough to fight through a large tournament field. I had put in a reasonable number of reps on Quinlan, starting back in early December, and had won a local store showdown a couple weekends prior to the PQ on the deck. When in doubt, play what you’re comfortable with. Quinlan was a natural option for me to fall back on.  

The Deck

I played Quinlan Vos / Tarkintown for this event. The decklist is below. I wasn’t always locked in on Quinlan, but as the event approached none of the off-meta decks I had been trying to make click felt strong enough to fight through a large tournament field. I had put in a reasonable number of reps on Quinlan, starting back in early December, and had won a local store showdown a couple weekends prior to the PQ on the deck. When in doubt, play what you’re comfortable with. Quinlan was a natural option for me to fall back on.  

BananaCrapshoot and I are recording a deck tech video talking about some of the individual card choices, which if you want to hear more about you should check out https://youtu.be/a24XL1tEXWw Just a couple of quick notes about some of the build: 

1. I’ve had Greedo in my Quinlan decklist for quite a while. Yes, it is not great early against some other ping-based decks like Cad or Jango. It is still better than the alternatives at advancing the deck’s gameplan vs the rest of the field. 
2. Leia was the last deck change I made before the event, and she proved her value throughout the day. In multiple matchups Leia either enabled early board position with the resource reset or created a key tempo advantage late with an exhaust play. 
3. Poe Dameron closes games very fast. He is not overly prevalent in Quinlan decklists, I guess because Plo is usually the better 5-cost unit. But there are plenty of situations where you’d rather see a Poe. Poe Dameron made the winning attack in several games throughout the day, and I have no regrets about having him slotted in beside Plo in the finisher role. 

The Event

First off, shout-out to the awesome group of local players from the Cleveland/Akron area that made the trip down to Columbus for this event. It was a really fun local crew that attended, and even though some were disappointed with their results, having a group to talk and laugh with between rounds was a definite plus to the whole experience. I’m happy to be part of the NEO SWU community, and I look forward to seeing some of the other great players in the area succeed at future events.  

Overall, throughout this PQ season Quinlan has put up some good finishes but seemed to have trouble closing in top-cuts. I won’t attempt to explain the entirety of PQ results that have occurred, but I certainly think a little bit of matchup luck helped me along the way during this PQ run. In 9 rounds, I only had to play 4 unique decks. And one of those was in a 5-0/5-0 round which was something of a breather with top 8 secured for both of us. The road was as follows: 

Rd 1: Sabine ECL (2-0)

Rd 2: Sabine ECL (2-0) 

Rd 3: Jango TKT (2-0) 

Rd 4: Han 1 Yellow (2-0)

Rd 5: Han 1 Yellow (2-0) 

Rd 6: Bossk Green (2-0)

Top 8: Sabine ECL (2-1) [Rematch of rd 1 opponent] 

Top 4: Jango TKT (2-0) 

Finals: Han 1 Yellow (2-0) [Rematch of rd 5 opponent] 

So, 6/9 matches against either Sabine or Han1 Yellow. While those decks are probably what most people consider the top of the meta, it is still surprising to have such a narrow range of opposition decks over the course of an entire event. And I do think my build of Quinlan is slanted towards those opponents specifically with a slightly lighter top-end and more aggressive early game than others. Here’s some details from each match, as best as I can recall them. 

Rd 1 – Sabine ECL 

In game 1 of this match, I was able to get a Tarkintown off in round 1 to clear Sabine’s turn 1 play and get ahead. Fortunately, my opponent did not have a Darksaber on Sabine Deploy turn, and I was able to end the 4-resource turn by playing Qi’ra unit naming Poe Dameron to keep him off an ECL play. Opponent never found a Wrecker, and with no equipment or late game ECL option available, Sabine just didn’t have the juice to out-race Quinlan. In game 2, I think my opponent had to spend his turn 2 casting For a Cause I Believe in, rather than playing a unit to the board. Fortunately, my turn 2 was Millenium Falcon, getting ahead on the damage race and board position and never looking back.   

Rd 2 – Sabine ECL

I don’t remember exactly how the early part of game 1 went, but at one point I cast Spark of Rebellion and saw General’s Blade, Poe and Wrecker. I opted to let my opponent keep the General’s blade for his Sabine deploy and chose instead to take away Poe to stop a winning ECL play, setting up a Force Throw with only Wrecker in opponent’s hand a turn later to secure the game. Game 2 was a very close match, but Qi’ra unit kept him off a late game play for a turn and put Sabine in a position of having to choose to clear board rather than just going to the base with their damage. This small speed bump was enough to turn the corner with a follow-up Plo the next turn. 

Rd 3 – Jango Tarkintown 

The Jango matchup can be difficult for Quinlan, but I think it’s mostly a 50/50 that comes down to draw and some key gameplay decisions. In game 1, my opponent opened on Bazine, keeping me off a t1 play which was neat. Unfortunately, Bazine also does not apply much pressure. The key moment in the game though, was Sparking my opponent’s hand on 5 resources and finding Sneak Attack, Ruthless Raider, Ruthless Raider. Taking the Sneak and leaving them with no plays on the Jango Deploy turn was enough to pull ahead on board and outrace the hard-cast Ruthless Raiders that followed. Game 2 I think I got away with an early Leia/Greedo opening after my opponent started on Kylo’s Tie Silencer and never punished me with a P-38 or ISB Agent. The early pressure advantage was enough to carry through to the end. 

Rd 4 – Han 1 Yellow

Game 1 of this match one was a fun one. I don’t remember exactly how we got there, but my opponent attacked with Han to put me to 22 damage on base with a Millenium Falcon in play. He was only at 19 damage taken and seemed to be in a pretty strong position. So, as we were updating damage totals, he made a comment that I needed to deal with Falcon or lose. Unfortunately for him, I had a Poe Dameron on board and a Surprise Strike in hand for the 11-in-one-action exacto victory. Game 2 was a back-and-forth affair during which Leia exhausting Han on deploy provided a key pivot point.  Red three was also key in this one enabling a couple crucial powered up attacks before cashing itself in for a Falcon (with a Quinlan ping-assist). 

Rd 5 – Han 1 Yellow (rebels version) 

This match included easily the most improbable and probably lucky win of the day. My opponent led off the game with a C-3P0 which I was unable to Tarkintown. Sadly, 3PO proceeded to miss on the draw trigger 4 times in a row. While we were trading units elsewhere on the board, the inability to garner any kind of card advantage off 3PO meant late in the game there was no gas in hand to finish me off. Despite having 24 damage on my base when I finally cleared the board, my opponent went 2 rounds never drawing a threat that was able to stick and get the final point of damage in. This was a very tight match with the winner securing a top 8 finish, and I was not surprised to meet this player again in the Finals. 

Rd 6 – Bossk Green 

This was a 5-0 match and a bit of a breather that we played out in a friendly manner. Game 1 I got to Spark away an Emperor Palpatine, and even though Bossk ramped 2-3 resources ahead of me, he never drew another top-end threat to take advantage of the ramping. In Game 2, the ramp was a little slower and I was able to apply enough wide pressure through early game units before the big stuff could come down. Qi’ra shut off Overwhelming Barrage in this one until my opponent eventually cast it for 8. But by then it was too little too late.  

Top 8 – Sabine ECL

Game 1 of this one included an interesting decision from my opponent. After he started out the match with a Sabine ping, I led with an A-wing. I guess his only 2-cost option was also A-wing, so instead of simply playing it out to get defeated, he decided to use his ECL first action, resulting in essentially a trade and no base EPIC actions left. I think this trade is advantageous for Quinlan as not having Tarkintown after round 1 is not nearly as problematic as not having ECL. I haven’t played enough Sabine to know what the best lines to take are in that scenario, I’ll leave it to some Sabine experts to offer more guidance. Game 2 was my one game loss of the day and included a bit of a misplay on my part. In the mid-game I resourced a spark of rebellion that I could have used to take a Wrecker before getting to 6. Even though Qi’ra was able to turn off Poe once again, my opponent kept ECL up this time and was able to Wrecker in for 6 damage to base to take a victory. In the deciding Game 3 my opponent cast a couple For a Cause I Believe In to make the final damage count close, but never really found the units needed to win the damage race. 

Top 4 – Jango Tarkintown

During the decklist exchange I noticed my opponent was running 3 copies of On the Doorstep, which made me a little worried. OTD is a newer innovation in Jango, and I hadn’t had many practice games into it. Luckily, it was never cast during the semi-finals. In game 1 of this one, I managed to find my single copy of Millenium Falcon, Lando’s pride to ambush a Ruthless Raider that might have turned the game around after some early hand disruption slowed Jango down. In game 2, my opponent had multiple copies of Lurking Tie Phantom to play, but I was able to Spark of Rebellion a Triple Dark Raid and Plo ambush Jango immediately on deploy. With no resource-cheating effects and no sustained Jango presence, Quinlan was able to outrace the Lurking Tie threat. 

Finals – Han 1 (rebels version rematch)

As noted, this was a rematch. And game 1 was almost the exact reverse of the previous game 1 we had played. This time 3PO was able to draw an extra card early, while due to winning the Falcon war in the Space Arena, it was I who got ahead in the damage race. Putting my opponent to 22 damage on base and landing a Poe Dameron to threaten the game. My opponent cashed in his entire board of Han Leader, Qi’ra, and Falcon to completely clear the board, and had an Enfy’s Nest in hand as follow-up to start their comeback. Not drawing anyway to deal with Enfy’s my only chance was to go as wide as possible. Even with Enfy’s handling 2 units a turn, I was able to smuggle an L3-37 and over the next few rounds play combinations of A-wing, Sabine, and Greedo to keep too many units on the board for Enfy’s to answer entirely. A top-deck Spark of Rebellion in the final round to take a Waylay from my opponent enabled me to get the final damage through. In the final game I was able to strip a Cunning from my opponent’s hand with Spark of Rebellion and again had Leia for a key tempo swing to flood the board and overwhelm Han’s defenses in the mid-game. 

Wrap-Up

If you’ve made it this far, hopefully some of the highs and lows of the day were as fun for you to read about as they were for me to recap! All of the people I played against and encountered in Columbus were quite friendly, and the whole event was a blast. If you are on the fence about going to a future PQ or other event, I’d recommend going for it. Negative play experiences tend to draw the most attention, but overall it’s a great game and a great community of players. 

Would I recommend Quinlan for your future events? Sure, why not! No deck is totally match-up proof, and there are certainly some more difficult matchups for Quinlan that I avoided. But the deck will give you a shot against the other top-decks in the meta, and there’s really no matchup you will sit across from and think “oh no, this is impossible”. Plus, it is a very fun deck to play! 

Thanks for reading, until next time! 

Sam