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Greg Tuck is a Decipher squadron member based in Dallas, Texas. His call sign
is Red 56. He is also ranked number 10 in the world in Young Jedi Sealed Deck
play, having never lost a tournament game. This situation will most likely change
as soon as this article is published.
- Juz Pakes, Jedi Knight
The deck construction rule for Decipher's Young Jedi card game is clear - a 60-card
deck must be built of exactly ten cards chosen from each of six color-coded groups.
One benefit of this is that, when combined with the fact that each Starter deck
contains exactly five of each color group for each side, Sealed Deck play is a
lot of fun with very little effort.
Why Sealed Deck?
I personally have come to enjoy the Sealed Deck play more than Constructed Deck
play. First of all, everybody begins with the same level of resources. Oh sure,
once in a while someone gets an awesome draw, but in most cases, the cards I get
aren't that much better than the cards you get - it's what we do with them that
counts.
Second, Sealed Deck is a great way to introduce friends to the game. Young Jedi
is such a simple game system. They can easily learn the game and then turn around
and play in a tournament - and not just "play" but legitimately compete, which
makes all the difference in the world.
Deck Construction
You've decided to give this Sealed Deck thing a try. Now you're sitting there
looking at 60 cards (your share of two Starters) and 33-55 cards (your share of
3-5 11-card booster packs per person) - what next?
First, separate them into six piles by the color of the deck-construction dot
on each card. You are guaranteed to have at least ten in each pile from the Starter
decks, so everything else comes from the boosters. Now let's build your deck,
color by color.
(all color references are to deckbuilding dot-color)
Red - The Main characters from the Starter decks (Darth Maul for the Dark Side
and Obi-Wan Kenobi for the Light) are high-deploy, high-damage, low destiny, and
low power - consider getting rid of them unless you have a weapon or battle card
that really fits them. Even that may not be enough to keep them in your deck,
as long as you got some red dot cards from your boosters. In Constructed Deck
play, red cards are power cards - in Sealed, you just don't want to get hurt too
badly here.
Purple - You have ten location cards from the two Starter decks and whatever starships
you got from the boosters. If you got any starships, keep them - swap out the
location you got six copies of in their place. A transport is valuable in Sealed
Deck play, a fighter is almost as good.
Yellow and Orange and Green and Blue - Next, look at your Yellow cards and your
Orange cards. Throw out any cards that are valid only for characters that you
don't have (Watto's Chance Cube, for example - I seem to always get this one,
but have never gotten a Watto to use it!).
Now see what you have left and match them up with your characters (Green and Blue).
Got Anakin's Podracer and Anakin? Great - keep them! Understand that, if you've
got no transports, a stackable character (or weapon) will be able to fight on
only one planet - you may want to keep those Battle Droids instead. Try to keep
weapons and battle cards that can be used by as many of your characters as possible
- nothing is more frustrating than having two weapons in your hand that can't
be used by any of the characters on the current planet. Pay attention to the destiny
numbers - fives and sixes are great, ones and twos are, um, well, not.
Another factor to balance in your head is to be strong at the location you've
got the most of - that's the one you HAVE to win. Eventually weed each group down
to the ten best cards and, voila! there's your deck!
Let the games begin!
You're across the table from your first opponent. First thing I tell everyone
is not to worry - your opponent probably hasn't played much Young Jedi either.
If you won the destiny draw to start the game, pick a location out of your deck.
Don't start at your "strong" location - go for one of the other two planets first.
I usually pick the one with the lowest destiny value, just for that little edge.
Weapons are key to this game - a character without a weapon will usually die easily
in battle against a character with one. Keep track of how many weapons you and
your opponent deploy - if he has really over-deployed on the first planet, concede
it and strand all those weapons there. Unless he got a transport, they're not
coming back (and, if you've got a starfighter, they might not come back anyway).
Remember that, unless you got lucky and have a transport, a stackable character
or weapon, once deployed, is never going to leave the planet alive. So I try to
stay with generic characters and weapons for the first planet. Unlike Constructed
Deck play, "wave" attacks work in Sealed Deck play - out-deploying your opponent
can win a planet for you - just choose when and where to do it so you don't get
stranded. If you've got a combo in your deck, like Sebulba and Sebulba's Podracer,
don't put one down without the other - and don't put them down on a planet you're
going to win anyway - you CAN over-deploy in this game.
After the first planet is decided, if you won, your opponent picks the next planet;
if he won, you do. If you're picking, go for your "strong" planet - this is a
must-win situation for you. On the second and (if necessary) third planets, deploy
all out - put down those stackable characters and do as much damage as possible.
At this point, I would even consider deploying incomplete combos (like Sebulba
without his podracer) just to get the cards down and win the planet. The action
at this point gets fast and furious and builds to an exciting finish, win or lose.
That's one more thing to like about Sealed Deck tournaments - they're almost always
close, fun, exciting games!
If you've tried a Sealed Deck tournament, you know how much fun they are. If you
haven't, try one at your local card shop or at a convention - I think you'll be
pleasantly surprised!
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