If you are looking for one of the most fun decks to play in Star Wars: Unlimited during Twilight of the Republic, you have stumbled upon the perfect article!
Nala Se, Clone Engineer (TWI 1) has been a deck I have been working on since the release of Set 3, and I finally arrived at a place I feel comfortable with sharing the deck with you all.
Click here to view the deck on SWDB.com
The Most Fun a Kaminoan Can Have At a Droid Factory
Nala Se is an incredibly unique leader. First, she allows you to deck-build in a very interesting way in that you can include clones of any aspect, including Heroism. When you play a clone unit, she allows you to ignore any aspect penalties.
Moreover, her stat line is also extremely unique as she deploys on 4 resources as a defensively-minded 1-7 leader unit. Her defenses go beyond that, as she grants all friendly clones an awesome base heal ability on When Defeated.
This defensive play style got me to lean into Droid Manufactory (TWI 22), which is an extremely strong base but at the cost of having the lowest health.
So between spamming clones and spamming some droids, I realized that this needs to have some Exploit options. This turned out to be a perfect compliment to what Nala Se does – healing your base while her clones die around her.
I will first go into some overall strategy tips and how to learn to play the deck more consistently. Then I want to highlight some individual cards and talk about their importance in the deck.
Flexible Strategy
This deck is actually very flexible. We have some solid tools for aggro, control, and even midrange. If I had to pick exactly what this deck is, I'd say it’s actually Exploit Midrange.
Against pure aggro decks, you need to lean into control a bit more. The heal from Nala Se can be huge in that instance. But if you want to double dip on that healing, In Defense of Kamino (TWI 129) can be a massive swing.
If you’re playing into something that leans more into the control playstyle, you will want to try to play a bit faster. When you deploy Nala Se on 4 resources, you will create 2 battle droid token units thanks to Droid Manuactory. These can instantly be used to Exploit a bigger unit onto the board and allow you apply some pressure in return.
But waiting until you have more resources or more exploit targets can allow you to drop our biggest threats, such as Gor, Grievous's Pet (TWI 118) and Malevolence, Grievous's Secret Weapon (TWI 39).
Killing our own clones doesn’t always feel as good as sacrificing battle droids, but remember that with Nala Se deployed in the ground arena, those defeated clones heal 2 damage off our base.
Another strategy you can fall into is actually just swarming your opponent. If they are unable to keep up with your board state, you can easily go wide and benefit from cards like Clone Commander Cody, Commanding the 212th (TWI 114), Batch Brothers (TWI 144), and Merciless Contest (TWI 238).
This style can certainly work going into particular matchups, but most of the time this deck will ultimately adjust to the exploit play style.
Highlight Cards
All of the Clones, of course!
There are a ton of clone options that I originally considered when putting this deck together. It obviously helps when you can pull them from any aspect. I am lumping all of my choices here and giving you some reasoning behind them.
For the most part, though, our clones are fodder. If we can swarm, we can utilize them for that, but at the end of the day they are exploit targets, pieces to trade into, and occasionally a means to get 2 health back on our base. This led me to include some lower health units with solid effects.
Batch Brothers brings in a second clone (token unit), so that’s an obvious choice. Omega, Part of the Squad (SHD 198) is a search engine for more clones.
Coruscant Guard (TWI 106) and Hidden Sharpshooter (TWI 214) both can have ambush, which is extremely useful. Hevy, Staunch Martyr (TWI 164) has a When Defeated effect (Deal 1 damage to each enemy ground unit) that pairs well with what we want to do.
The overall premise changes for Jesse, Hard-Fighting Patriot (TWI 145), Commander Cody, and Wrecker, BOOM! (SHD 154). Jesse is just a crazy good body for 3 resources, and we can trade into the droids he makes easily. Cody helps this deck with his Coordinate ability to give each other friendly +1/+1 and Overwhelm. Lastly, Wrecker is just the best Clone in the game, so we need him for his pure power.
In Defense of Kamino
I cannot tell you how much I love this card. I thought at first it was a bit of a gimmick in this deck (well the whole deck is a gimmick, but you know what I mean). The more games I played, the more I wanted to see this card every single game.
Not only does it give all of your Republic units Restore 2 for the current phase, – if Nala Se is on the board – it essentially makes all your clones have a When Defeated effect that heals your base for 2 damage AND creates a Clone Trooper Token in their wake. This has swung entire games and solidified wins for me. I shifted heavily to more Exploit options solely for this card.
Overwhelming Barrage
This card has been one of the best events in the game since Star Wars: Unlimited was released. It is such a useful card for this deck – and Exploit decks in general – because we can get very large units out, very early. This allows Overwhelming Barrage to hit the board harder on even earlier turns in the game. Using this on Gor, Malevolence, or even a Baktoid Spider Droid (TWI 117) can be a show stopper.
Gor
The last card I want to highlight is one of my favorite Legendaries of the set, Gor, the keyword salad.
I have been trying to find a good home for this card, and this is certainly it. Exploit 3 on a 12 cost means we only have to wait until we have 6 Resources (and three units)to play him. Since we're able to flood the board so well, this ends up being pretty easy!
Ideally, you can get some additional value out of the stuff you are exploiting as well. Remember, you can always deploy Nala Se later. This can be very useful into certain matchups!
Clone Engineering FTW
If you can’t tell by how I have written this piece, this deck just excites me so much.
It is truly some of the most fun I've ever had playing Star Wars: Unlimited, and it plays unlike any deck I have ever played. It also uses some really underrated cards and performs very well with them.
I would love for you give this deck a try and let me know what you think!
Shane
Twin Sunz
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