DEFEAT Hard Control Decks in Star Wars Unlimited TCG With These 5 Strategies!

Star Wars Unlimited TCG has seen some "hard control" decks entering the metagame since its release -- things started off with "Mind Tricks" Iden and have gone further from there with builds like Vigilance Vader and even Iden double blue! This video explains what these decks want to do and several tactics for countering them, including the Vigilance mill gameplan, the Relentless lock, just playing aggro, and more!
For my earlier interview with Zst0rme on "Mind Tricks" Iden, see: • Zst0rme Talks "Mind Tr...
For my interview with Sawse on Double Blue Iden, see: • Interview with Jordan ...
For my video covering a Store Showdown win with double red Sabine, see: • I Won a Store Showdown...
For my video covering the three different colors of Sabine that have been prominent recently, see: • Which Sabine Deck is B...
If you're just getting into Star Wars Unlimited, you can check out my introductory articles at The Fifth Trooper blog over here:
General Introduction: thefifthtrooper.com/an-introd...
Deckbuilding and Aspects: thefifthtrooper.com/star-wars...
Initiative and Actions: thefifthtrooper.com/star-wars...
Who's the Beatdown: SWU Edition: thefifthtrooper.com/whos-the-...
Draft and Sealed Play: thefifthtrooper.com/star-wars...
Improving Your Efficiency: thefifthtrooper.com/improving...
Drafting Spark of Rebellion Common Leaders: thefifthtrooper.com/drafting-...
Drafting Spark of Rebellion Rare Leaders: thefifthtrooper.com/drafting-...
NOTE: This is an unofficial fan video. I intend no infringement; if FFG or Disney requests I am happy to remove this footage. Star Wars is the property of Lucasfilm/Disney, Star Wars: Unlimited is a Fantasy Flight Games production.

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

This was pretty much the secret tech for store showdowns. I got second in my store showdown by being ahead of the curve on this particular knowledge.

[@TowerNumberNine]

Nice! What part of this did you feel especially ahead on?

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

Killing vader blue lol. It was in 2 out of 5 matches, important ones, and they had no chance with only 1 or 2 restocks.

[@iam1hobbit]

@@LanceBryantGrigg How far down the control mirror counter rabbit hole did you fall? :)

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

@@iam1hobbit pretty far lol.

[@djclero6861]

Regional governor is another card that can mess with hard control, tough it only slows them down. Uwing reinforcement into multiple governors is very nice tough. On an unrelated note, a worrisome control deck that hasn't been mentioned and worries me is Boba blu, which adds the nightmares of alternative threats like a firespray to an already strong control gameplan

[@djclero6861]

Anyways, really nice video man! I really like this kind of guides! You are a real gift for the community!

[@divineoblivion1]

This is a very good video and something I love about the game. This game isn't that old and it is already showing a very interesting evolution that is going on throughout the game. I appreciate you making these videos and love the work you do. Keep up the awesome work mate!

[@TowerNumberNine]

Thanks, I think the meta is really interesting and already has a lot of play to it with various options, people coming up with new tactics to use against different targets, and so on!

[@imanujakku]

Increasing the unit count in your deck in deck building or in side boarding can help. The worst thing you can do against heavy control is not have a unit to play. With boba green i just start playing all my ambush units onto dry boards and resourcing my non damage events. You need them spending cards every turn because they generally cannot stop resourcing. I do think if you are aggro or mid range you need an answer for entrenched. Ready units like falcon and firespray always help and sneaky combos like sneak attack fleet lieutenant. Ready units is something im guessing will be very rare but if there are more it will be harder to play pure control.

[@L8NightGaming]

Great video TNN. Gonna stew on countering the counter to your counters counter. -Loopee

[@fernandocastanon2237]

Bona yellow is great in this games. Bodhi, cunning plus firespray are amazing

[@jaredblondeau3611]

Ive been running ruthless raider in main with extra in side for the long slow control decks, even at 8 resources late game its at minimum a free 4 damage just for playing it, and if they dont deal with it you can just take initiative and get another 4 in, it doesnt win on its own but it gives a quite a bit of reach when you have 2-3 in deck. If youre careful when to play it and can get it in when they tap out Millenium Falcon can also hit and just return to hand late game over and over.

[@schmelzwah]

For blue Midrange decks Regional governors can also help against these hard control decks. Call SLB after they take initiative on 7 or after they spend their resources and to prevent them from wiping the board and to kill the governor they need to spend resources so they won't have the resources to play SLB allowing you to push that little extra damage to finish. I believe this especially works with the decks that can do recursion with Home one and Rogue Squadron Skirmisher as skirmisher can also recur Regional governors.

[@insbn5685]

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. Regional Governor is only good against Mid Range decks, and not Soft or Hard Control. Why do I assert this? Because you can nullify one card, but they have many other removals to take it off the field, so it's no problem for them, or they can play around it very easily. The worst part is that there are cards that interact directly with it, so you can't rely on anything to defend it like you can with something that has Sentinel. Also, it will be good against decks with key cards that repeat their names, like the two Millennium Falcons, or that have cards searchable by something like a base/leader in an easy or recurring way.

[@schmelzwah]

@@insbn5685 I encourage attempting to use it against hard control to name SLB and only playing it after they take initiative on 7 to buy you one more turn to end them. Yes they can remove it, no they likely can't interact with it because they don't have units on board TO interact with it. If they spend a card on the 8 resource turn to kill it they can not spend 8 resources for a SLB so it locks them out of SLB for that turn regardless if they kill it or not and buys you one more turn with what ever units you have on board at the moment or that you played on the 7 resource turn.

[@stropes.]

Relentless can work but Green-Black has another great card in the matchup which is Emperor's Legion. The Blue-Black control builds count on Superlaser Blast to remove the units and provide a reset but for only 2 Resources the ramp deck can get all of their cards back and then still continue to drop threats after the Blast has resolved due to Legion's low cost. Boba Green decks can get back and then drop a Firespray or spam the board again with low cost units like Greedo, etc. One important thing to keep in mind with Restock is that unless you're on shuffle effects (like Search Your Feelings) the cards will be at the bottom and the Control player knows this so they can play around it and hold onto their Vigilance when you're down to 6 or less cards before using one to get the rest all in one go without letting you loop it. IMO Double Blue Iden is much harder for Aggro to beat due to Vigilance at 4 and the large amount of healing across the deck in all slots. Double Blue is a lot weaker going into Green-Black but it makes up for that weakness when it comes into the Aggro matchup.

[@gabrielcal4310]

been playing boba green and definitely getting better at beating the hard control decks. relentless, reinforcement walker, confiscate sideboarded in and a good understanding of how to beat the deck and u have a shot. its never easy but u have a chance

[@thenancygirl88]

Hi! Thank you for your videos. What do you actually think about Leia Red? Is it too weak now?

[@stawickyrs9233]

Blue villainy control is such a fun killer in the game. I’d rather lose to Sabine on turn 5 than play against blue villainy control

[@92eddiekrueger]

No, not another one of these videos!!! haha, in reality I prefer people know how to beat the decks I like so both sides can have a challenge and have fun (hopefully)

[@toadtin7013]

I would love to see a video on countering aggro and midrange.

[@Ilovetoplayjazz]

Also how counter boba yellow!

[@TowerNumberNine]

I'll make a video on countering aggro soon! Midrange is a little harder to "target" because it tends to be more adaptive and less tied to one particular game plan.

[@toadtin7013]

@@TowerNumberNine makes sense, still would love to get your thoughts on it.

[@kezkoal]

green card recursion have proven to me to be extremely strong versus control. you keep enougth table presence to force the opoent to counter but still keep in your hand recursion pieces to keep going in case of superlaser, if you did not get it out of its hand with spark or brody. The point is , home with falcon if brutal, even more if you hapen to have an extra cheap unit( greedo, leia...) because the safest play is geting the falcon in hand at the start of the next turn so it doesnt get vaporiced and still making the oponent face 10 damage. Since control isnt proactive you can play really slow, making the plays as favorable as you want to, you can look at your cheap units as "discard removal from your opoent hand and maybe do some damage".

[@fry9000]

Vader Ramp is a decent budget option to counter control. Gotta play lots of value, a little hand hate and be careful with board placement.

[@Ilovetoplayjazz]

I did decent with your red Sabine list at my showdown but got absolutely worked by Mike Gemme’s Boba Yellow deck and went 0-2 against it. Do you have any ideas of how to survive this matchup with red Sabine?

[@TowerNumberNine]

This is a quite unfavorable matchup for red Sabine IMO -- yellow Sabine has a better chance. That said you can try to get value by avoiding using units that are vulnerable to bounce (K2, Wing Leader on things other than Sabine) and trying to play around Cunning -- still tough though!

[@joaocarlosmatos]

My lgs is on a strange meta: full hard control withblue vader, mono blue iden and the green villany ones such as blue palpatine. On the other side full agrro. Usually the green ramp control decks take the win because Relentless pretty much kills the blue control versions on the spot and still has a good answer to agroo. My question is, and considering the recursion spoilers from yesterday, is it possible to even play a green villany control deck without Vaders which are surely gonna rise even more in price, becoming very prohibitive to buy.

[@TowerNumberNine]

To be honest, I think playing a Command/Villainy control deck without Vader is a big mistake, and as you point out the new Palpatine's Return card makes Vader even stronger. I know this is unfortunate given where the card prices are right now, but I think while you *can* make a deck like this without Vader it will be worse. Hopefully this will improve once the second wave of Spark of Rebellion arrives.

[@MeepleonFire]

What kind of versions? The Iden/Krennic with ECL? Or even Palpa blue?

[@joaocarlosmatos]

@@MeepleonFire palp blue, green vader

[@MeepleonFire]

@@joaocarlosmatos Vader green has an awfull machup against aggro unfortunately... Palp blue is better in this machup thanks to the blue healing and childsen

[@joaocarlosmatos]

@@MeepleonFire i agree. My store showdown top 4 was 2 iden blue (i was one) palp blue (won undefeated all games) and green vader. Agroo was just vanquished and there was no 1 on boba, was pretty much all sabines a few lukes and chiru

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

This is why Iden Blue has such a big advantage and she's very much so miss understood. Iden does quite well VS Sabine. She's like the golden bullet to Sabine. It's sorta unreal actually.. especially when you cut with green. You run less Steadfast Battalion, which feels really weird on ECL.. but you try to topdeck a gideon hask and smash sabine with him on the turn after flip and then make him 10/10 with a supported iden behind sentinels. She's terrible in the mirror; but the thing is you just don't bring her out and focus on bringing those mirror cards.

[@TowerNumberNine]

Iden definitely has play against Sabine but I do not think she is favored against Sabine double red at least and likely not against yellow either, not sure about green.

[@LanceBryantGrigg]

​@@TowerNumberNine Yellow is pretty easy to be honest. Red is harder. How much have you played the match? i have played it many many many times and i do very well in this match up. I generally like it when they bounce the stuff out.. and in general you are using the cards as you get them so spark is not as much of a concern as sabine thinks it is. It really helps if Iden draws at least one POD in the top 10 and additionally knows how to not suck at taking the initiative. Problem is most iden players are honestly really bad.

[@Machobeard]

I was under the impression that if a Bo3 doesn’t finish before time, both players get a game loss. Has that FFG rule changed?

[@Machobeard]

Apparently that’s for Bo1 and not Bo3

[@TowerNumberNine]

If a Bo3 doesn’t finish on time *and it is a tie* (0-0 or 1-1) it’s a double loss, but if you win the first round and the second doesn’t complete you win.

[@ReallyBigBadAndy76]

If the best of 3 ends tied at 1-1 then it is indeed a loss for both players.

[@Jfeldhake]

This is what I live for!

[@sgtfigg1]

Hard control is alittle too good I hope they add more counters to control here in the future I have my own deck for hard control and I don’t like to do it to my playgroup I limit myself to playing it once or twice a day cause it leads to easy wins

[@mythicgames7683]

My crazy idea was to simply play a deck at like 120-150 cards. It's essentially unmillable and full of threats that control won't have enough answers for. But how to build it to not be terrible and swingy against everything else? The initial thought was to use Chewie as he can also throw sentinels in the way of something like Avenger to try and slow/stop that game plan. It's probably a stupid idea, but I want to try it.

[@ReallyBigBadAndy76]

I think this is probably a viable strategy once set two drops. Chewie is a decent choice for this and you probably also want plenty of cards that let you search like search your feelings, plan for takeoff etc. I doubt you need 120 cards in the deck but 70-80 might be good.