Title: Bespin and Beyond: Tip and Tricks

Note from the Infomation Broker: David did these tips and tricks in a series of articles. I have put them all together for you in one article. I labeled them Tip #1 and so forth, so you can know when David started other articles. Thanks and Enjoy..and a Very much Thank you to David Akers.

Tip #1

Crazy Sabacc:

I call this strategy crazy because its sabacc taken to the nth degree. Basically either side gets down
Lando (with vaders cape and mandelorian armor) at the CC: Casino with some protection and plays sabacc.
"That’s not so bad" -misinformed swccg player

The real problem emerges when you realize that Lando:

A. Almost always wins
B. Retrieves 3 force each time he wins
C. Can play Trooper Sabacc as well as Cloud City Sabacc on each players turn

So what we have is the potential to Play 2 sabaccs per each players
turn retrieve 12 force and cause the opponent to loose 4 (+1 for the drain) force.
Ask yourself can your deck withstand this barrage of force retrieval and force loss?
If so then you will be ok. If not take this Hint:
The opponent can not play sabacc if you do not have two force in your reserve deck.
Simply set up a few drains and then activate all your force.
Your opponent will curse and scream as you slowly dwindle away their life force.
But hey its their fault for playing a non interactive deck anyway.
Hope this helps.

Tip #2

Operatives:

Starting with the Operative Objective is bound to be popular for both
sides. Dark has Nal Hutta and the Light has Bothuwui. Now I played
these decks before so I know they can come out fast and while a drain
of 5 on turn 2 or 3 won’t make PB3 jealous they can be deadly in a B&B
environment. Now I’m partial to the operatives in this scenario environment so I’m going to give you hints how a dark operatives can
beat light and visa versa.

Dark Ops vs. Light Ops.

To stop their drains try one of the following.
A. Imperial Decree with Kuat and Wakeelmui
B. Coruscant and A Bright Center to the Universe
C. Convert their forest and deploy Quarren/Imperial trooper
Guard Daison/DLOTS and cancel drains at three locations
D. Den of thieves (you should probably start with this)

To battle them effectively try.
A. Converting their locations such as the swamp or forest.
If the opponent was under the impression they could react there you will
catch them totally of guard. Also you can then deploy bubo there from
the reserve. At the forest the two destinies isn’t so bad if all your
characters are immune to attrition (especial EPP Vader)
B. Disrupter Pistols aimed at an operative will almost guarantee he is
out the battle before he can draw destiny.

To out drain them try.
A. Clouds on Nal Huta with gas miners even if you only have one of
each in play it adds 3 to your drains.
B. Your not likely going to win against Light side operatives if you
don’t try the other methods above.

To Gain Force Advantage try.
A. Play Projective Telepathy
B. Play Projective Telepathy
C. Deploy Wakeelmui and Kuat and Coruscant

To shut down thier retrieval try. A. Secret Plans
B. Surprise their Narshadda Wind chimes (unless they are playing Goo Nee Tay)

Light Side Ops vs Dark side Ops.

To stop their drains try.
A. Hark Seff
B. A Gift
C. A Gift

To battle them effectively try.
C. Play Sandspeeders start with Maneuvering flaps or play Cloud Cars
and ASP Droids. Deploy a droid and slam them with a few vehicles.
This is probably the best strategy for battling them (sorry EPP’s).
I’ll take a power 5 forfeit 6 Sandspeeder that deploys for 1 over them any day.
Seriously these vehicles will win you the game in this scenario.
Cloud cars might be better they sure are easier to come by. I even
have all the EPP’s *3, vehicles are just better if you’re playing Ops/ASP’s.
D. Frozen Assets/Draw their Fire to shut down any reacting or interupts they rely on.

To out drain them try.
A. Ithorians
B. Clouds/Miners
C. Coruscant and Kiffex

Here’s a quiz questions how can the light side get a drain of five
from each site (forest,jungle,swamp) in the B&B scenario? It can be done.

Overall I think Light has the advantage over Dark, so if your playing
dark side ops your going to have to put a few curve balls in your strategy
to stop them. Most notably put in protection from A Gift and you should be OK.

If you were putting together an Operative deck I hope this helped.
Don't forget to look for more post in this series.

Tip #3

The Bewil Gambit

The Trick:
A typical scenario for running the Bewil Gambit is like this.
Dark has Upper Plaza Corridor, Carbonite Chamber, and Security tower
on the table with Vader at the Carbon Chamber and Lando and Lobot at
the Security Tower, and only 2 cloud city troopers at the Upper Plaza Corridor.

Put down Melas and EPP Lea to wipe out the troopers right?
So you wipe out the troopers but decide to stick around the corridor I
mean it’s a force drain +1 and if you move over you will have to face Vader.

Next turn dark deploys Capt Bewil to the upper plaza corridor with
EPP Bobafett and then moves Vader, Lando and Lobot over to the corridor
ala the corridor game text for free.
Now your in a mess because you can’t even move away and if you don’t
have any more troops to send in your going to get hit hard. Vader will
probably YAB Lea and then swing at Melas.
The great thing about this strategic move is that it works even if you
have already deployed Bewil to another site. Just move with the Corridor’s game text and the light is locked in.

And as if that wasn’t enough Bewil can reposition your support troops
to the other end of Cloud City by taking into hand Heart of the Chasm.
Obi-wan and Luke won’t due you much good if Bewil moves them three sites away.
They might eventually get to the party but it will be over by then.

The Tip:
A: Well look for this coming, being aware will certainly help you to avoid this deadly trap.
B: Also try converting the Upper Corridor. Then you will be able to at
least move your support troops in or prevent the dark from amassing their troops.
C: If you do get caught by this, initiate a losing battle before the
opponent can play any interrupts like YAB or gets another deploy phase
to reinforce this way you minimize your losses.
D. Stay off Cloud City or at least the UC (Bewil ability gives the
Dark Side the edge here)

Thanks to those people who gave me positive feedback about my last Tips and Tricks. Hope this one helps you too.

Tip #4

Behold I present to you ‘A Gift’

The Trick:
Giving your opponent ‘A Gift’ will go along way towards ensuring your
victory. To do it right you will need at least one (two if you’re serious)
of the following: LS Audience Chamber, Entrance Cavern, Artoo and A Gift.

A Gift pretty much helps out any B&B light side deck I can think of.
Unfortunately unless you’re playing an all tatooine drainer (not a bad
idea with Tessek and Bo Shuda) the sights aren’t all that helpful.
Its up to you how many cards to dedicate to this defense block.
The minimun I would use is 1 droid and 1 ‘A Gift’. Unfortunately there
really is no way the light side can protect the droid in this scenario
other than surrounding it with EPPs. Return to Sender

The Tip:

Hey, unless your not playing aliens you got to deal with ‘A gift’.
First, unless you need to go to Jabba’s palace don’t. By not giving
the Light side any pieces of their ‘A gift’ (locations) combo then you
make it much harder for them to use it.

Second, getting a 4-card combo together (a gift) is hard enough without having to
deal with fast drains. Try to get some fast drains and maybe get
rid of one of those key components.
Once you have been “A gifted” don’t despair, you still have a few options.
1. Any warrior + Hut Smooch.
You need somebody there to capture the spy right. Some interesting
choices would be Vader with Lightsaber (less risky), Chief Retwin(more risky because of FA)
or if they are playing Bo Shuda any alien warrior.
2. Trooper + Blasted Droid + Blaster
This isn’t entirely useless, but 3 cards need to come together, which
makes it much harder to do. Pros: You can use this even if they aren’t
playing AG. Cons: You got to wait to your control phase so you might
have to send a few attrition fodder troops in as well.
3. Warrior + Hut Smooch + Ev99 + Droid Workshop + Torture
Hey if the guy falls for it you might retrieve a bunch of force.
Pros: If you playing None Shall Pass deck you should have most of these cards already.
Cons: More cards in the combo.
4. Jawa + Tattoine site + Dune Sea Sabacc
This probably isn’t worth mentioning but hey if you steal their droid
I guess you prevented ‘A gift’. Pros: none. Cons: almost guaranteed
not to work, and no pros.

Hey, I consider myself a decent player, and I’ll be playing ‘A gift’ think about how you would stop me.

Tip #5

Dark Deal

The Trick:
Dark Deal is a massive way to increase your force drains at Cloud.
In fact I thought that it was so good I played with pretty good success
at last years regional. The trick to my Dark Deal deck was getting out
3 sites with cheap deploying characters and deploying the DD all at once.
I played 4 Imperial Supplies Tactical Support and 6 Dark Deals and about 12 CC sites.
There was a problem though I found that if I had to fight to control Bespin: CC I was slowed down considerably.
So I upped my cloud cars, and ties too about 12 card slots. I started
with Bespin: CC and was able to control it easily. I could usually get DD out on turn 2 or 3.

The same tactics apply and are even enhanced in the B&B enviroment.
Without the need too worry about Grimtash you can pick up as many cards as you want without fear.
Enhanced starfighters and cloud cars combined with the absent of some rather important Light side nemisis
(Falcon, RL, GL) make it even more tempting. If your planing on running Dark Deal look at the
counter strategies below and see if you can incorporate some counters to them in your deck.

Re-Deal

Tip:
There are some things you can do to counter Dark Deal here are just a few:
To Prevent Dark Deal try:
1. Occupy Bespin Cloud City – as long as you occupy it they can’t get
Dark Deal off. Of course that means you need to be using starships or vehicles.
My preference is cloud cars with maneuvering flaps.
2. Control Bespin – If you playing Hidden Base and the other guy starts with BCC pull out your Bespin and occupy it.
It adds to his deploy and might slow him down long enough for you to control BCC.

3.Try to control ground locations. If your opponent starts putting
down CC sites because they don’t have enough force. Exploit that weakness.
Warning: don’t forget about tip #3 the Bewil Gambit. A wise opponent won’t put any locations down before he can get DD off so you
might not be able to do this anyway.

To cancel Dark Deal try:
1. Surreptitious Glance – it’s a card that cancels Dark Deal. If he is
playing 4 or 5 DD though this won’t help much. But hey if your playing
Lobot and Lando it has other uses. 2. Occupying Locations – Well if he isn’t playing aqualishes then its
not hard, just watch out for Bewil. Or you can occupy Bespin the system,
Bespin: Cloud City and two generic cloud sectors to cancel it.
3. Play operatives and “A gift” yeah its a lot of cards, but if you
can get it off fast enough you’ll win.
4. Battle, normally to sacrifice for speed the dark side gives up
a lot of its battle potential. Just battle if this is the case. Don’t forget to
add 4 to the power of that lone CC trooper (+2 if you think he is playing Trooper Assault) and one for every Car or Tie at BCC.
This can easily be 12 or more power from a single Trooper so watch out when
you deploy there and pick your battles wisely.
Your going to see Dark Deal so, just keep your cool and try some of
the above strategies and you just might come out ahead.


Well thats it from David. Also Note that David KNOWS that you can not retreive with Trooper Sabacc only Cloud City Sabacc. There might be other minor mistakes so let us know thanks for reading