DT Duels: Jabba the Hutt, Revision

Technically, the next deck on my list of customs that hasn't seen a tweak should be Kit Fisto. However, I've never really been that attached to that character and I'm not really interested in pursuing a revision of that deck. If I have the time/energy, I'll come back to Kit, but for now I'm going to move on to Jabba the Hut. This is a character that I have struggled with for years to get right (in fact, I've created and published no less than 4 deck versions for this character). And yet, I'm still unsatisfied. Here is the current original (ie, fourth version):

Where to begin? This deck is a mess. First off, there are 8 unique cards...more than any Hasbro deck, and way too many "x1" cards (there are 5). I dislike this deck so much that I literally haven't played with it in years. There are some neat ideas in here (I do still like the FAILED SMUGGLING RUN card and TREACHERY is always fun), but by and large this deck lacks a clear path to victory and has too much going on. There is a definite discarding and direct damage theme that ties everything together, but even that gets muddied among BOSKA, SPEAR ATTACK and HIRE BOUNTY HUNTER. This is a deck where I think I just need to completely rethink it and basically start over.

And this starts with the minor character choice. Back in the day, melee minors where a rarity, especially a pair of weaker ones. For this reason I did not go with Gamorrean Guards and opted for Bib Fortuna. The irony there is, with that choice I've still got a melee minor character, and one that could barely be called a combatant. Another perfect minor character choice for Jabba would be Boba Fett or Greedo, but since both are already in the original game, I want a new character in the mix. So, the first change is to drop Bib Fortuna and go with Gamorrean Guards. This will free up talent cards for Jabba who is going to need them with my new concept.

Secondly, the new concept will still revolve around direct damage, as I feel this theme fits Jabba perfectly, but it will do so in a completely different way. When I think about Jabba the Hut, he is nothing more than a fat slug, essentially incapable of much direct combat (Remember how Leia takes him down by simply strangling him with her chain?). However, he is a crime lord with an endless supply of resources and minions willing to carry out his will and bidding. His reputation is such that even Han Solo is worried when his smuggling run fails and a bounty is placed on him. The best way to represent Jabba would be in a deck where his minor characters and allies do all the dirty work. The best Jabba deck I've seen to date is Dorkistan's version, although Roman's version is also very cool, especially the card names. Sultan's aligns better with the vision I see for Jabba. So, without intentionally trying to steal ideas from Sultan, here is the new idea:

So, the path to victory here is through direct damage and avoidance. Jabba's goal is to play a game of keep away while inflicting direct damage at the same time. His regenerating minors, 1 power defense and movement cards can help him play a game of avoidance while he chips away with the direct damage. In some sense, it's like the Emperor's design, except without discarding and substituting healing for movement and defense. I'm keeping BOSCKA from the old deck, because I think it's great, and MY KIND OF SCUM is merely a reworking of HIRED TREACHERY. TAKE HIM AWAY is a tweaked version of REFUSE AUDIENCE, and then the remaining cards are entirely new.

I SHALL ENJOY WATCHING YOU DIE is merely a character defining card, attempting to capture the "bounty" aspect of Jabba. I'm not sure how this would play out in a game, but presumably drawing 4 cards would be a pretty good incentive to take down a character. In a free-for-all this could be really fun and could give Jabba a neat bargaining chip. In 1vs1 or team games, it's just a benefit for you or your team. UNLIMITED RESOURCES also ties into the character defining aspect, but because the minors are integral to the success of CRIMELORD'S ORDERS, opponent's will be keying on the guards. So, just the presence of this regenerating card should keep the guards alive. Jabba's got TAKE HIM AWAY and BOSCKA to help deal with opponent's that go right after Jabba first.

MY KIND OF SCUM has potential to do the most damage, especially in massive games. If you assume a 3vs3 game there would be a max of 9 potential characters on the board that could attack an opponent's character. However, because of the targeting rules in SWED, only 8 would be able to target another character at any given time. Despite an 8 direct damage card being utterly ridiculous, it is highly unlikely to ever have a character completely surrounded by 8 opponents, and since Jabba can't move his teammate's characters, I don't forsee this happening much even in a massive game like a 3vs3. In 1vs1 this card maxes out at 3 direct damage (all of Jabba's characters) and in 2vs2 it maxes out at 6 (2 teams of 3 characters). This is powerful, but remember this is the "max potential", so on average it's going to hit for less.

Never-the-less, the primary means for damage is through a steady stream of weak direct damage cards in BOSCKA, TAKE HIM AWAY, CRIMELORD'S ORDERS and the aforementioned MY KIND OF SCUM. If you assume the max potential on all those cards, Jabba has up to 10 direct damage in those three other cards, plus whatever he can get out of MY KIND OF SCUM, which could be anything from 3-8, depending on game type and game situation. So, max potential if all conditions are met is 26 direct damage. I am not going to lie, this is obscene. However, my hope is that the conditionals are such that it rarely if ever gets this high. In 1vs1 his max potential is 16 direct damage, while 2vs2 is 22 and 3vs3 is 26. The more allies Jabba has, the better MY KIND OF SCUM becomes, but as I said before, this is merely the max potential. And would it really be that big of a deal if he had a bit more direct damage in team games? I think it fits his character if nothing else. And without any discarding or power attacks, he'll struggle to deal damage outside of his DD cards.

After all that, this deck is completely un-playtested, so we'll see how it goes. But, are there any opinions on this one thus far?

I agree with a lot of what you said, A fitting path to victory for Jabba should be direct damage. I like how you ping the enemy to death with a lot of 1pt punches (very slimy)

I really like how you did "I Shall Enjoy Watching You Die". Instead of being a straight up draw 4 cards, the condition makes it more character fitting, gives Jabba a way to positively interact with his partners, and gives you a reason to have 2 in the deck, helping to cycle through a little faster.


You may want to reword Crimelord's Orders so it only damages enemies, I doubt the guards would attack Jabba or each other. Other then that, I think guard movement is what Sultan's deck really needed, otherwise it just seems a bit too sluggish with all melee guys.

I really like my kind of scum, just makes him more fun to play in big games along with "watching you die"

So I think you mean "when this character..." not "if". As it stands, you're asking Jabba to choose a character, and if that character is [currently] destroyed, stuff happens (which in this case adds to the confusion 'cause "destroy" would be in the wrong tense).

"Choose any character. When this character is destroyed, the player who destroyes this character may draw 4 cards."

Also, I'm guessing you'll want to either up the movement or the damage by 1 on TAKE HIM AWAY!

Palamon, you're right. I should word it so it's only "opponent's characters".

Sultan, you're right too! It should say "when this character is destroyed" as opposed to "if". As for TAKE HIM AWAY, I waffled over 5 or 6 movement...I went with 5 so as not to make it too powerful. We'll see how testing goes. As for the direct damage, I'm worried there is too much already, so I want to see how it goes with only 1. If it were 2 I think that would put the deck over the edge. I'll keep my eye on it in testing, but yes it is a pretty weak card on it's own (half the value of Dooku's FORCE PUSH, which is already pretty weak).

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Aaaaah... Jabba! One of my best character. And mostly because your deck Scott. Maybe it's only me, but in my opinion your old deck is a little masterwork. I played it so much that I can say that it is quite perfectly balanced (I tweaked only one card, BOSKA! RANCOR PIT where I upped the direct damage to 4 points.. really a very very minor tweak). I have memories of incredible matches played with it

First of all I like mostly Bib Fortuna as his minor. Then the new version seems to have a bit too many analogies with your Tarkin deck: yes, it will play very differently but it remembers it very much (minors doing direct damage, minors regeneration). Finally the new deck looks a bit weak for now (at least in 1vs1 matches), but maybe I'm wrong on this.

In the end, your new deck has great ideas and for sure fits the character very well (I SHALL ENJOY WATCHING YOU DIE is a great card), but don't take it bad... in my opinion your old deck is better and - not less important - more original than the new one

I like the new Jabba build. It feels more focused, as you said. I agree that Jabba's theme should be using resources to destroy opponents, including using minors as a resource. I used a similar concept in my Jabba deck, but I actually had Jabba use his minions as a direct resource in that he essentially "spends" them.

I wouldn't worry about having too much direct damage. It is spread out very thinly among a lot of cards. Actually dealing a lot of damage will require a lot of actions and talent cards. In addition, maxing out the damage on all those cards will be tricky.

The only concern I have right now is that Take Him Away! is a bit too weak. 1 damage and moving a character so that he/she has a 1 in 6 chance of coming right back next turn (rolling a 5) seems sub-par.

The Gamorrean sacrifice deck is a neat idea. It has given me another idea to go with the regeneration thing. I may not use it, but I'm envisioning treating the Gamorrean's like suicide bombers (or in this case, suicide thermal detonators?), where they march up and receive 4 damage whilst doing 4 damage to an enemy. I'm not sure if I'll use it, but I'll keep it on the back burner as an option if the above build doesn't work out very well.

And to Raistlin, I know that you like the old Jabba deck. You've mentioned that to me before! If you like it, well, continue to use it! I for one do not like it and will no longer be using it. But, to each his own. But you do raise a good point about Tarkin already having a regeneration effect. Even though I haven't gotten to Tarkin yet, chances are good that I'll keep the regenerating stormtrooper idea (because it fits Tarkin so well). And so, the cats out of the bag here. I used this fact as a reason to NOT go with a regeneration effect for Lando, because I didn't want another deck with regeneration...and that is true, from a certain point of view. But, at the time, I was thinking I might want a regeneration effect for Jabba with Gamorreans. I wouldn't be opposed to having two decks with a regeneration effect. It's a unique idea and I certainly wouldn't want to over-do it, but, if 3 decks had the effect, that would be too many. And I definitely didn't want Tarkin, Jabba AND Lando to have regenerating minors.

Even so, there's no guarantee this new Jabba deck is even going to work! So, I may have to come up with something else entirely anyway. Keep the feedback coming guys! This is good stuff.

I ran a couple of duels with this deck against Jango in a 1vs1 and he went 1-1. Unfortunately the deck didn't perform how I had hoped. The good news is that there was definitely not too much direct damage for a 1vs1 duel. There was a decent amount, but it didn't feel overpowered, and it didn't feel like he even came close to Vader's potential direct damage.

One of the card interactions that surprised me (and that I didn't like) was MY KIND OF SCUM. Initially I had Jabba involved in the direct damage, but seeing it in action with Jabba trying to march around the board to get into attack position along with the guards didn't feel right. It did combo very well with CRIMELORD'S ORDERS, but I didn't like how Jabba was included. I'm thinking I need to put a clause on there somewhere that says "every character except Jabba". And if I do that, I'm also thinking about bumping this one up to 2 direct damage for each character, but I'd need to test it in team games to see what the potential really is.

Secondly, I'M GOING TO ENJOY WATCHING YOU DIE seems really great on paper, until the deck is up against a personality minor in 1vs1. There is very little incentive to go after Zam with this deck, because there just isn't enough offense to do it. That, and it would take most of the first deck cycle to pull it off. The benefit of having Jabba draw 4 cards got me thinking...just what is he drawing 4 cards FOR? There's no big home-run card in the deck like a Bowcaster or You Will Die, and there isn't even a small number of strong cards like a Taunting or Battlemind to try to cycle for. This is one where I'd need to test it in 2vs2 to see if it makes a better impact, and I need to see it against weak minors too, but in this matchup against Jango they were useless.

UNLIMITED RESOURCES was also a card that seemed to take up space. With a Minor Blue basic deck and 5HP a piece, these Gamorreans are tough to begin with. Add in the fact that they can regenerate, and the question is, why bother attacking them? It's true that they provide the main offensive punch of the deck, so it's probably worth it to take down 1 guard, but I'm wondering if I should experiment with weak melee minors rather than Minor Blue...I think I'll keep them as they are for now, but I need to watch this going forward.

TAKE HIM AWAY completely works against the deck design, especially against a shooter. This card required Jabba to roam around the board *trying* to get adjacent and bait a character into attacking, just to dish out 1 whole point of damage. It might work better against a melee character, but even then, most Force users have hit/run capabilities of some kind making this card near useless. It reminded me a lot of Yoda trying to chase down an opponent to land a FORCE PUSH. But at least there Yoda gets a payoff of 3 damage and doesn't have to wait for the enemy to attack first. This card needs to be completely rethought and I think it should probably just be dropped entirely as it isn't really related to anything else.

Lastly, the deck was essentially just movement and direct damage with a weak set of basic cards. This combination doesn't really work well together, because the basic cards did nothing more than pull defense cards, and then the direct damage was not quite enough to be effective. I think there needs to be some resource denial for Jabba, either in the way of action loss, discarding or both to compliment his direct damage and basics. Resource Denial would be fitting for Jabba anyway.

So all told, I wasn't too happy with the build. There are some elements that worked like BOSCKA and CRIMELORD'S ORDERS. And I think the other direct damage cards could work with a little tweaking. So, with all this in mind, I'm going to try this tweaked version for the gauntlet:

I got rid of TAKE HIM AWAY and replaced it with a discarding/action loss card in THERE WILL BE NO BARGAIN. This is something Jabba can use to slow down his opponents, and if used in tandem, could work well with his basic attacks. I tweaked MY KIND OF SCUM significantly. I upped the damage to 2 (since I dropped TAKE HIM AWAY), and then limited it to minor characters only. This way I can leave Jabba out of the damage, and it will still pay-off in 1vs1. In 2vs2 it has a max potential of 8 direct damage, which may be too much. And then in 3vs3 or free-for-all, it could *potentially* be a game winner if a character was totally surrounded by enemy minors dishing out 16 damage. I just don't see this ever happening, but I'll be testing it to see what the odds are of this card connecting for super damage in multi. If it ends up being ridiculous, I can always limit it to just the guards. The rest of the cards will stay as they are for now. If this one doesn't work out, I may try the sacrificing minors idea for MY KIND OF SCUM instead.

I would let Jabba stay involved. It just gives you more options, especially should the Guards go down early. It's also a nice move against an advancing Jedi, who could get surrounded and hit by everyone, but the damage tops out at 3 so that's not too strong. A wise player will realize that it's probably not worth getting Jabba into attack position just for a little extra damage. Just because you can march Jabba around the board doesn't mean you should. Regardless, if you're looking for Vader-like DD ability, I'd definitely up the damage to 2. Really makes it worthwhile for opponents to concentrate on killing the Guards first.

Mainly defense, but the regeneration card is a big deal as well.

What this card does is make killing both Guards a bad idea, which virtually ensures opponents will kill one but leave the other alive. Considering how Jabba relies on them being alive, that could work pretty well, IMO.

Agreed, MY KIND OF SCUM (great card name btw) is the one I'd look at. Not a bad card but kind of redundant with CRIMELORD'S ORDERS. I'd consider replacing it with something, a resource-denial card would make sense.

Here's an idea: Up the damage on CO to 2 each, keep the mechanic on MKOS but instead of 2 direct damage per minor, 2 discards per minor. Could add up to a 8-card YWD-type of card.

I actually like that idea, but I think it would work better the other way around. I could put the discarding on CRIMELORD'S ORDERS, and then keep the damage on MY KIND OF SCUM the way it is (for now). That way CO can either setup direct damage from MKOS or could setup a combo to help basic attacks land for damage. Or it could even be paired with THERE WILL BE NO BARGAIN for a turn of discarding and action loss to slow the enemy down. I think it would give Jabba more options that way and also makes more sense thematically, because it's a "crime" (and I think of stealing as discarding). The effect would be very similar to my new Grievous' YOU ARE DOOMED, but hopefully it's different enough to not appear redundant. My only fear is that the card would be very powerful as a multi-move + discarding.

That said, at x3 that would give the deck a lot of discarding (THERE WILL BE NO BARGAIN is also at x3). So, I think it would be good to limit it to 1 card per character, and then make it a random discard, rather than a choose and discard 2. So, if I make that change to CO, it drops what would be a considerable amount of DD too. So to compensate, I think I'll up the damage on BOSCKA. So, the end result is: