R2-D2 & C-3PO, by Vash the Stampede

When I think of “limited power, limitless possibilities” in the Star Wars universe, only one character comes to mind: Artoo-Detoo. R2 is always saving his friends using his ingenuity and hidden gizmos. Just like in the movies, my R2-D2 and C-3PO deck make a great pair of support characters who don’t do a lot of damage, but can prevent the baddies from killing your ally. R2 uses an array of gadgets that don’t hurt much, but really annoy his enemy, while his counterpart, C-3PO, distracts the opponent from making a counterattack. This deck’s path to victory involves constantly attacking with small, but disruptive power attacks that limit your opponent’s options and slowly eat away his/her defense. R2’s signature card, Weapon Compartment, is designed to replicate R2 giving Luke his lightsaber in Return of the Jedi. In a one-on-one, it can be used to search out the attack you need (2 Stun Arms or Fusion Cutter + Cable Gun add up to your opponent skipping his/her turn) and in a team game it can recycle a teammate’s best trick. 3PO’s Made to Suffer is sort of an inverted Force Lift that prevents attacks at the cost of his own movement. Opponents can either destroy 3PO or buy their way out of it with 3 random discards. The infamous duo should play consistently with 8 small attacks with superior effects, 1 card to search them out, and 3 cards that prevent attacks.


R2-D2
Health: 16
Basic Deck: Brown - Melee
No. of talent cards: 9

Stun Arm Quantity: 2
A4: The player controlling the defending character gets 1 less action on his/her next turn.

Fusion Cutter Quantity: 2
A3: The player controlling the defending character cannot draw cards during his/her next turn.

Cable Gun Quantity: 2
A3: The defending character cannot attack or play any Special cards during his/her next turn.

Information Scan Quantity: 2
A2: Draw 2 cards.

Weapon Compartment Quantity: 1
Spc: Search your draw pile for any power combat card. Put that card in your discard pile. Shuffle your draw pile. Then choose any player. Take any combat card from that player’s discard pile and put that card in his/her hand.

C-3PO
Health: 8
Basic Deck: Strong - Melee
No. of talent cards: 3

Mindless Philosopher Quantity: 2
Spc: Choose an opponent. You and the chosen opponent reveal your hands. Both of you discard all cards with an attack value greater than 3.

Made to Suffer Quantity: 1
Spc: Turn C-3PO on his side. While he is on his side, he cannot move and enemy characters cannot attack any major characters. At any time, any player may discard 3 cards at random to stand this character back up.

I guess you could call this a tradition (since I did it with the previous contests), but I'm going to give my thoughts/criticisms to each any every deck.

The first thing that strikes me with this deck is the apparent lack of a real signature card (or x3 card). There are 7 unique cards, which doesn't break any Hasbro molds (Han's deck has 7 unique cards), but the distribution will make this deck a little less consistent. That said, there are plenty of ways R2 can limit his opponent's access to cards in his deck with 6 talent cards devoted to action loss or drawing prevention. In addition, there are 4 other cards with discarding effects. These are both great ways to limit your opponent, which should give R2 a chance to land some damage with low attack cards.

Looking at the deck, I'd like to see a x3 card in there somewhere, and I think STUN ARM is probably the card that needs it. Think about WRIST CABLE and how infrequently you get to play 2 back to back. It does happen on occaision, but not often enough. I think this deck would thrive with a combo like that, but R2 will struggle to pull it off with STUN ARM at only x2. Similarly, FUSION CUTTER is the same thing...and that would benefit just as much (if not more so) from being the x3 card. To be able to drain 2 defense cards with attacks, and prevent an opponent from drawing to restock is really valuable. In some ways, I'd like to see both of these cards be x3, and then drop CABLE GUN. If anything you actually *want* the opponent to attack you after you've limited their access to card draws and actions.

I think this is a good looking deck on the whole, but could be streamlined a bit to make it more consistent. Oh, and MADE TO SUFFER is just a great effect for C-3PO. How did the deck do in playtesting?

I like the way you make a case for R2 and 3PO in the opening. Prior to reading that, I rolled my eyes thinking, how can they make a deck at all? But I believe you have done it. The very low attack values with troublesome secondary effects are most fitting. Nice work.

Ditto that.

I'd also point out that you never even approach the limits of the contest (<A5, no DD, no non-action). That's worth mentioning because it speaks of building from a true "limitless possibilities" perspective, rather than focusing on what the limits are and working around them. I've seen a handful of 3P0/R2 decks over the years and this is the first one where I actually feel, "This could work." I especially like your choice of similar-but-different action-loss effects that serve to empower this deck

MADE TO SUFFER is a great card. Absolutely perfect for its role in the deck, its character portrayal, its creativity. I almost want to see more of them in the deck somehow.

I noticed that too, but the more I think on it the more it fits R2 to have a plethora of tricks as his "signature" move(s).

My thinking on this matter was that, as Sultan said, Artoo uses a bag of tricks to solve problems in the movies, rarely even pulling out the same gadget twice. In addition, the deck uses 6 very similar cards (A3/A4 with effect that cuts the target enemy's options in half), so I felt that it would be consistent enough.

Along the same lines of consistency, I urge you to remember that R2 has Weapon Compartment, which can "tutor" out any attack he needs from the draw pile or discard pile. If you have Stun Arm, grab another! If you have Fusion Cutter, grab Cable Gun! Don't forget that Fusion Cutter + Cable Gun has the same effect as two Stun Arms. For this reason, I think upping the number of any of those would make it too easy to force your opponent to lose his/her turn. As-is, if R2 cycles the deck and plays each of those in tandem, he can rob a target of 3 full turns, all while eating away at health or defense.

Hey thanks Robert! That's what I was going for!

Thanks Sultan! Those restrictions just seemed to make perfect sense for the droids.

I COULD use more copies, but I wanted to keep discarding at a minimum in this deck since the disruption attacks are already eating through cards and actions and Mindless Philosopher is chewing up attacks.

I unfortunately have not playtested this deck yet, so a lot of this is hypothetical.

The last thing I'll say is that I tried to keep the deck simple mechanically. In other words, since the pair is so integral to the movies, I wanted to keep the decks similar in feel to the Hasbro decks and not use anything too unorthodox like counters, markers, or cards that stay on the field.

I agree. I have three suggested changes in BOLD below. I think you need to:
1. Increase MADE TO SUFFER to x2. It is too good of a card to pass up.
2. You must increase 3PO's HP to 10 if you are going to have MTS x2. Opponents will get so pissed off that they WILL try to destroy him out of spite, absent from any tactical advantage! He will need the extra HP to weather the storm.
3. Change INFORMATION SCAN to allow you to draw lots of cards and/or see what your enemy(s) has one more time since you have no power defense. MINDLESS PHILOSOPHER already allows you to see what your foe has twice, but you need one more potential peek to best decide when to play MTS. Also, it will make R2 an even better team player.
4. INFORMATION SCAN needst to be changed to SENSOR SCAN. The word sensor(s) is used in ROTJ to describe what R2 is doing (when looking for Leia after she fights the Scout Troopers). Also I seem to recall in TESB at the Hoth Base that they use the word sensors again to as R2 looks for Luke's return when hand goes out to find him.


R2-D2
Health: 16
Basic Deck: Brown - Melee
No. of talent cards: 9

Stun Arm Quantity: 2
A4: The player controlling the defending character gets 1 less action on his/her next turn.

Fusion Cutter Quantity: 2
A3: The player controlling the defending character cannot draw cards during his/her next turn.

Cable Gun Quantity: 2
A3: The defending character cannot attack or play any Special cards during his/her next turn.

Sensor Scan Quantity: 1
Draw 4 cards. For EACH card you choose not to draw you may force any ONE opponent to reveal their hand.

Weapon Compartment Quantity: 1
Spc: Search your draw pile for any power combat card. Put that card in your discard pile. Shuffle your draw pile. Then choose any player. Take any combat card from that player’s discard pile and put that card in his/her hand.

C-3PO
Health: 10
Basic Deck: Strong - Melee
No. of talent cards: 3

Mindless Philosopher Quantity: 2
Spc: Choose an opponent. You and the chosen opponent reveal your hands. Both of you discard all cards with an attack value greater than 3.

Made to Suffer Quantity: 2
Spc: Turn C-3PO on his side. While he is on his side, he cannot move and enemy characters cannot attack any major characters. At any time, any player may discard 3 cards at random to stand this character back up.

This post has been edited by robertmmoore1968 on August 02, 2009 09:29 am

1. That could work. I didn't realize it would be such a hit when I made it.

2. I think leaving his HP at 8 would be better because it makes going after him a viable option. If his HP were at 10, people would probably still just buy their way out of the effect. The hassle of reaching 3PO if he is far away and using cards and actions to kill him if he has some defense is significant. Really, this is an issue that would have to be resolved after playtesting.

3. I actually don't feel that this deck is one that needs to see the opponent's hand, per se. I find that the attacker is usually the one who needs to be aware of what his opponent has, not the defender. The reason is that the attacker needs to be able to figure a way past defenses. R2 doesn't really care if the opponent blocks. In fact, he welcomes it. He also doesn't really have any tricky defense cards that need to be played against a specific attack.

Also, I am hesitant to cut down on the total number of power attacks because R2 needs to attack often if he is going to push damage through. This deck has absolutely NO guaranteed hits (no DD or A5s), so the little droid just has to plow through the opponent's defense cards until eventually he starts landing 2s, 3s, and 4s.

Most importantly, 2 Mindless Philosophers, 2 Made to Suffers, and 2 Cable Guns might just be too much discarding/attack denial. Again, only testing would reveal this.

4. Good point. Done.

I really like the thought put into Weapon Compartment, seems a bit long winded but makes for a very versatile card in single and multiplayer games.

Although making the search through your deck to find a power combat card to discard seems a bit odd if you are going to give your buddy his weapon back ( guess R2 needed to make room for that lightsaber by trashing an Information Scan :-P )


As for Information Scan, I like the name Sensor Scan as well. Plus, instead of a straight draw card effect, I'd think it would be more interesting if the opponent's response determined how many cards you drew. For example, A2: If Blocked, draw as many cards as the defense value of the defense card.
That way, you either deal some damage or get some "information" as to how good their defenses are.

I like how R2's signature card is really an array of gadgets that roughly do the same thing, just a little bit differently.