Table of Contents
How to Use the Meta Snapshot
This snapshot, or tier list, shows the best decks to play in any particular event to give a player the highest chance of winning the event.
Here are the various decision points that go into forming the Meta Snapshot and how to properly use and follow it:
- Introduction: This is just an overview of the snapshot; a guide on how to use it.
- Thoughts and Observations: A general summary of the current meta with commentary about notable points including influencing events or new cards or any other important information regarding the meta.
- Deck List: A sample list, maybe from a featured event, in most cases, or from my own testing gauntlet, if necessary. Will feature some of the most popular and newest decks, not necessarily all of them.
Legend - The Ranking System
- S-Tier: Overtuned decks that warp and control a large part of the meta. May not always be in the meta snapshot.
- Tier 1: Well-optimized decks that can consistently top and/or win an event. Not a perfect deck, but a solid deck with few weaknesses and a gameplan against most everything.
- Tier 2: Competitive decks that have a few glaring weaknesses but can still compete with some, or most, of the top decks with some solid tech options and sideboard plan.
- Tier 3: Average deck that isn't bad but also not well-equipped to top or win an event without a lot of breaks going your way. Poorly optimized decks, linear in nature, and easy to attack.
- Tier 4: Inconsistent deck that may be built around a specific card or multi-card combo that doesn't end a game. Overly niche deck that won't win against the top, well-refined decks.
Thoughts and Observations
Welcome back to another edition of the Meta Snapshot! Each month, or as needed when there are a large density of large events, we'll release a tier list detailing all of the meta decks. Last time we broke down a lot of decks from release events around Europe and the US where Boba Fett really proved to be dominant. This time, we have several $1k+ events around the US that proves maybe Boba Fett isn't as oppressive as once believed. A lot of that has to do with Vigilance control decks popping into the meta with some interesting tech choices like the card Vigilance itself.
Interestingly, vigilance-sor-58 has creeped into the meta in control decks that don't mind to pay the aspect penalty to gain an edge in the mirror, or help stabilize into aggro. It's surprisingly good into Boba Fett decks as gaining 5 life is essentially buying a turn against a Firespray, plus gaining the best secondary effect at the time. Against aggro, you're always choosing to gain 5, and against control the mill option is incredibly potent as you expect games to drag on for a while.
Additionally, we saw some Sabine decks come back into play after getting pushed out early in Europe, which I stated was most likely an anomaly because the deck is incredibly powerful and most likely just getting play incorrectly. Nobody ever wants to actively play against Sabine regardless of what you're playing because for-a-cause-i-believe-in-sor-152 can win games out of nowhere that the Sabine player has no business winning.
Let's take a look at the current tier list as we stand a month into the game's lifecycle.
The Tier List
| Tier | Cards |
|---|---|
| S-Tier | Nothing |
| Tier 1 | • Command Boba Fett • Command Sabine • Command Iden Versio • Command Krennic • Vigilance Darth Vader |
| Tier 2 | • Aggression Leia • Cunning Sabine • Cunning Boba Fett • Aggression Iden • Command Darth Vader • Aggression Chirrut • Forms of Palpatine Control |
| Tier 3 | • Command Luke Skywalker • Aggression Luke Skywalker • Forms of Grand Inquisitor • Forms of Han Solo • Vigilance Thrawn • Forms of Grand Moff Tarkin • Command Chewbacca |
| Tier 4 | • Everything else |
The Decks
Command Boba Fett
Still the "best deck" just due to the power level of the individual cards in combination with extremely pushed leader stats. Yes, we've established that there are decks that beat boba-fett-disintegrator-sor-179, even heavily favored into it, but it doesn't make it any less powerful. It just means we don't have to classify it as S-Tier anymore, which I didn't truly believe was ever the case to begin with.
Something Boba can try to do to adapt to the vigilance control decks targeting it, it to pivot to main deck cunning-sor-203 which not only pushes extra damage across but attempts to allow Boba Fett to keep any tempo advantage that it has.
Below is what I think is the best current version of Boba Fett for the meta.
Command Sabine
Nothing has really changed with Sabine over the last month. I think there's room to experiment with a few card choices, like general-dodonna-massassi-group-commander-sor-242, but the deck is pretty tight as you have to maintain almost entirely heroism cards for FACIBI to be as efficient as possible. The main thing that has changed, in my opinion, is that more people are learning how to play against Boba Fett which is boosting her success rate overall.
Command Iden Versio
I think this deck is somehow still extremely undervalued and being overlooked as "best deck" in the game. The Iden deck can honestly do it all. You combine the efficient removal from vigilance villainy with the command villainy cards and you end up with a pretty terrifying deck to play against. I prefer Iden over director-krennic-aspiring-to-authority-sor-1 because your Barrages are much better and she's harder to remove for Boba Fett.
Not being able to just be taken out by a well-timed steadfast-battalion-sor-116 is a big deal, and over the course of a game she's going to heal more than Krennic as well in almost every instance. That's not to say Krennic isn't good, he absolutely is, but Iden I feel is just better positioned currently.
Below is the deck I won a $1k with with assistance from the KTOD team on the list.
Command Krennic
Krennic largely plays most of the same ways as Iden but you lose a lot of the stabilization on the Leader side of Iden and trade it for a 7-butt Leader that is difficult for a lot of decks to remove. It is of the opinion that having a Leader that doesn't get removed by Takedown is a huge benefit in the control mirrors, but Krennic on his own isn't very threatening and doesn't provide any real clock. The matchup is ultimately won by attrition and Iden is just better at that in a vacuum.
That said, the following deck has done well and should continue to do well as long as vigilance control exists in the meta as a top tier deck.
Aggression Chirrut
A bit of an underdog story right now, we have Aggression Chirrut. Objectively the best current deck for Force Throw, Chirrut is unassumingly the midrange killer. What the deck does better than any other deck, with the exception of Boba Fett, is control the midgame with a very hard to remove Leader as well as Force trait units backed by upgrades and Force Throws.
There's a lot of untapped potential with Chirrut, despite having a very underwhelming Leader side, and I'm excited to see which direction the deck goes in the future. The deck is always evolving to wrap itself around the meta but with that being said, we'll still with the list we had last time as well with no major developments in the last month.
Aggression Leia
A deck that is very similar to Sabine in playstyle but is oftentimes better positioned into a field of control decks. Where Sabine can be a little weak, Leia can actually be strong. That said, she struggles a lot in the Sabine matchup where Leia isn't fast enough to race, or resilient enough to play the control game, and she can struggle against Boba Fett as well if the Boba player can remove Leia quickly as she lacks the reach that the Sabine leader ability provides. I still think Leia is pretty well positioned into the current expected meta and as such, she's a solid tier 2 deck this time around.
Command Darth Vader
Yet another energy-conversion-lab-sor-22 deck but what Vader has that no other Leader in the game has is a sometimes impossibly difficult to remove Leader, albeit a steep price of 7 resource requirement. This basically makes Vader play as a Command control deck, though there's some space in my opinion for a Vigilance Vader deck as well. Losing the ramp is definitely an issue but gaining the control tools that vigilance offers makes it a pretty terrifying deck.
I think Vader is really well positioned into the meta as a catch-all to the control strategies running around as well as having a decent Boba matchup but a poor Leia/Sabine matchup. I'm not sure how much blue improves that as a whole, or even makes it worse, but it's something worth trying. For this time, we're focusing on the more popular and widely accepted Vader deck, Command.
Aggression Iden
This deck deserves its own section mainly because it plays unlike any other deck currently in the game. While there's space for a "normal" Iden red deck to exist, the most prevalent version at the moment is the event heavy "oops all removal" versions that just run the opponent out of threats and win with milling via multiple vigilance-sor-58s.
I think this particular deck is extremely good into a control meta but extremely bad into an aggro meta which keeps it from being a solid tier 1 deck. I wouldn't be surprised if this deck wins events here and there if the meta stays control heavy but until we get to that point it's hard to justify a deck as tier 1 that can't beat most, or any, aggressive deck. Below is the current version of the deck that you can find in a few different places.
Command Luke Skywalker
Luke is in an interesting spot at the moment. He's very good against the control decks but also very bad against the most popular decks - boba-fett-disintegrator-sor-179, mostly. The Sabine matchup is something that is really dependent on your restore capabilities but the Boba Fett matchup is nearly unwinnable at the moment.
Luke can go a few different ways - you can lean into u-wing-reinforcement-sor-104 and make a recursion style deck to fight the control variants, or you can lean into vigilance-sor-58 and just out-restore the more aggressive decks and possibly Boba Fett. I'm not sure which one I like more at the moment but he's just stuck in this in-between area with no really good amazing matchups and a few very poor matchups which puts him solidly in tier 3.
Conclusion
Last time we saw a meta that was all over the place. This time, we're starting to see a more established meta that's still built around rebel aggro, Boba Fett midrange, and villain vigilance control. Over the next 3 weeks we're going to be seeing a large $5k event in Orlando, FL, as well as a ton of May 4th events so anything can change, but this current meta is what you need to prepare for. Outliers can and will exist but I'd expect the majority of the events to be won by the pillars of the format.
I hope you've enjoyed this edition of the meta snapshot as we look forward to bringing you another one after the May 4th event weekend!