Deck Tech: Cad Bane Vigilance

As I continue to deck build in Star Wars: Unlimited, I find myself coming back to a core concept where I want a deck that can play as control into heavy aggro matchups, but can also put the pedal to the floor and deal fast damage into hard control matchups.

I found a comfortable landing spot for that exact concept with my last deck on here, Vader Double Aggression.

As I have tweaked and played around with this deck, I believe I have now landed on a list in Cad Blue that can function very similarly.

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Death by a Thousand Pings

The idea for this deck came to me while I was examining Cad Bane’s pinging ability. A few things stand out to me about that ability. 

1. It can be used as soft removal.
2. It can be used to weaken units for better trades, or for more Overwhelm damage (hello Maul, Shadow Collective Visionary [SHD 90]).
3. It can be used to reduce unit’s HP to a threshold where Villain Blue can use their unique removal tools extremely successfully.

Point Number 3 really stuck out to me. If I can constantly be pinging units and keeping their health totals low, there are so many fun Blue cards that can take advantage of that exact situation. Let’s take a look at some of these cards.

• Make an Opening (SOR 76) - This can sometimes be considered soft removal, but if the unit has 2 health or less, they’re gone! Plus the heal is extra nice. 
• Takedown (SOR 77) - Hard removal that gets even better.

• Vigilance (SOR 58) - Insanely useful card in this. It will cost 6, but against most decks being able to heal 5 and kill a unit with 3 or less remaining HP is nuts. 
• Count Dooku, Darth Tyranus (SOR 38) - Cad’s pings just make his removal even easier to trigger, and then you’re left with a 5/4 shielded to trade or push damage through.
• Supreme Leader Snoke, Shadow Ruler (SHD 37) - Even though he is an 8 drop, giving a boardwide -2/-2 can remove a few units, especially when they’re getting pinged from Cad’s unit side this late in the game. Plus that -2/-2 also just provides easy trades and reduces your opponent’s overall damage-to-base threat.

Fueling the Underworld Engine

All of those cards easily justified my decision to make this Cad deck in Blue, so the next step for me was filling it out with some typical yellow Underworld cards.

Some of my choices might seem a bit weird – like Gamorrean Guards (SOR 211), Smuggler's Starfighter (SHD 215), etc – but I found these choices helpful to make the deck good against a larger variety of match ups. 

Then we also have the typical choices like Greedo, Slow on the Draw (SOR 204), Waylay (SOR 222), Bazine Netal, Spy for the First Order (SHD 184), Cartel Spacer (SOR 178), etc.

I do want to shout out Bossk, Deadly Stalker (SOR 182) though. These extra pings from playing events are really useful in eliminating low health targets, but also being an Underworld unit with Ambush is REALLY good with Cad Bane.

Finding Blue Allies

So now it came to a time where I got to scan Blue for some underworld cards, something that aspect is really not known for. Ultimately I found four units that were very interesting:

• Embo, Stoic and Resolute (SHD 59) – an underplayed unit outside of draft. A solid body who can heal himself or others when he defeats opposing units, something we should be able to do. Fits in this deck because there are not too many 3 drops I was interested in. 
• Synara San, Loyal to Kragan (SHD 33) – This is a card that sees almost no play, but I actually find her extremely interesting in this deck. The bounty is self inflicting base damage, which we can easily heal. But more importantly, it is only active while she is exhausted. This allows for some serious playing around. Her stats warrant this negative effect especially with Grit. On top of all this, we also run Ma Klounkee (SHD 229) and Xanadu Blood, Cad Bane's Reward (SHD 191) to bounce her if needed.

• Pyke Sentinel (SHD 29) – A solid two drop with Sentinel and Underworld. This would absolutely make the side deck to slot in against aggro, but I want more Yellow units early if possible because of Gamorrean Guard and Cartel Spacer.
• Lom Pyke, Dealer in Truths (SHD 32) – This unit has quickly become a favorite of mine for Villain Blue. I need to test him more in this deck, but initially giving shields to the opposing units in any capacity feels off with Cad Bane’s ability. There are ways to play around it, but I also just LOVE Bossk in this deck, so for now I am rolling with the Trandoshan.

Blue Suits Bane Well

And with all that said, the deck is now essentially complete! There were a lot of other smaller decisions to make throughout the deck building process that I enjoyed with this one.

Overall, I am happy with the deck – it functions very well, is versatile, and is off-meta. All three of those things are the most important for me to fully enjoy a deck.

I hope you enjoyed this breakdown and my thought process behind this, and I also hope you enjoy the deck! 

Shane
Twin Sunz
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