Rob Daviau: “I did the Greedo, where he either is really great or dies because it just made me laugh.”
Roman: Us too! We gave him his own deck where he’s a major with the other guys from the Cantina for his minors.
Rob: Oh, nice.
Roman: He does all the same things, but he still dies.
Rob: He still dies. Maybe he gets lucky.
This is a fun, unconventional deck that we break out every once in a while. It breaks convention by including a pair of personality minors who share their own basic deck but have their own specials. Using the Nute Gunray structure, the major is a very frail 12 HP but the minors are a beefy 7 HP each.
This version of Greedo still dies. Maybe he gets lucky.
What does this deck do: Puts 3 memorable characters together long enough to all get killed. Makes you laugh. Threatens to maybe do something but mostly dies.
Greedo with Dr. Evazan & Panda Baba
by Roman F
Greedo
12 HP
Blaster
17 cards
Yellow Deck
Ponda Baba & Dr. Evazan
7 HP Each
Blasters
14 total cards
Shared Strong Ranged Minor Deck
Greedo – 7 Talent Cards
3 x GOING SOMEWHERE?
A4. If this attack does damage, target may not move on his next turn.
2 x SUDDEN ARRIVAL
Move Greedo adjacent to any character. Then do 2 damage to one character Greedo can attack. Playing this card does not count as an action.
1 x I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS…
A10*. *Play this card face up in front of you without attacking as one action. On any turn after this one, you may use an action to attack with this card.
1 x DESPERATE SHOT
A8*. *If you do not destroy the defending character with this card, Greedo takes 8 damage.
Ponda Baba – 2 Talent Cards
2 x HE DOESN’T LIKE YOU
Choose a character adjacent to Ponda Baba. That character may not defend your next action this turn. Then move one of your characters up to 4 spaces.
Dr. Evazan – 3 Talent Cards
2 x I DON’T LIKE YOU EITHER
A3*. If this attack is not blocked, the attack value is 6 instead of 3.
1 x YOU’LL BE DEAD
A8. Dr. Evazan must be adjacent to play this attack. After attacking, move the defending character up to 2 spaces.
Theme: Scum and villainy.
Path to Victory: HE DOESN’T LIKE YOU + I DON’T LIKE YOU EITHER or YOU’LL BE DEAD or DESPERATE SHOT or I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS…
Strengths: Strong attack power with three A8s
Weaknesses: Low hit points, low defense, easy to kill off characters and cards
Strategy: Live long enough to pull off some fun combos
Test Level: Medium
Tier: 3C (lowest of the low)
Inspiration: There’s a lot of history to this one!
Originally, Greedo came with Boba Fett. This was unsatisfactory to many players of Epic Duels because Greedo was pathetically weak, which seemed fine, but he also really weighed down Boba, which didn’t seem ok. A second problem for Star Wars purists was that Greedo and Boba Fett are not really associated in Star Wars, except for loosely by both being bounty hunters who work for Jabba. They never appear in the same scene. They never even appear in the same movie. (Unless you count newly edited versions, which our group does not). Boba was given Dengar as a minor, and we pretty much have exactly the Boba deck we want.
At the same time, there’s no question Greedo belongs in the game, right? Everyone had a Greedo action figure. For a while, we had him as Jabba’s minor, a direct association. We had a slightly more powerful version of Greedo than the original, and he worked as a dangerous henchman minor for Jabba. But we always really wanted to give Jabba some Gammorean Guards. Meanwhile, the idea of a Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba deck was kicked around for a while, but never really pursued for several reasons. Mainly, would you really want to play that deck beyond comic value? And how weak would it have to be to fit into the Geektopia universe? Could those 2 bar thugs even lay a finger on someone like Darth Sidious or Yoda?
We finally had the solution: Greedo starring in his own deck! We know Sultan agrees. Greedo was a star to fans who grew up when Episode IV was synonymous with Star Wars. Greedo is a dueling character in the original film, and is now featured with 2 characters who actually appear in the same Mos Eisley sequence as Greedo, even if they aren’t directly associated. Plus it gives Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba a place and purpose in the Epic Duels universe as Greedo’s minors, instead of their own deck. Finally, the combination of 3 dangerous thugs makes it at least plausible that they could give a Jedi some trouble. Of course, for the Epic Duels universe, that means they have a chance to win a 1v1 game, even against Darth Sidious, hence all the big attack cards. However, it’s pretty easy to kill of the minors and remove cards, plus Greedo himself is the most fragile major in our set. Getting this deck to be the weakest deck yet still strong enough to win is the trick to manage with this one, and you can follow the evolution of adjustments in the comments below.
Is there no way to mark the health for ponda babba?
CG, thanks for your interest and for pointing out the error. I had forgotten to attach Robert Moore’s custom HP chart for this deck. Please take a look at the new version!
Also, Greedo has been promoted to a Core deck!
Wow excellent! I’ve been looking forward to playing the deck. Thanks!
Thanks CG! Let us know what you think! We don’t have much experience with it.
One thing I noticed: the page description says to deal 8 damage to Greedo if DESPERATE SHOT fails to destroy the target. However, the card in the PDF instead has you destroy Greedo, like the card from the original game. Which one is correct?
The wording on the .PDF always trumps what’s written on the site. I probably wrote that with the idea of adjusting that card for Greedo but I’ve never actually made the change.
Would love to hear from others if they’ve tried this deck out.
I’ve played this deck a number of times, often when introducing players to the game since I don’t want to pick a deck that’s too strong, though a few times as well with more experienced players. It’s fun to play, though I don’t recall if it has ever won a game; I *think* it might have once or twice, but it’s been a while, so I couldn’t tell you in what circumstances it won. Still, it’s a relatively common pick on my part.
Nice! I’m glad to hear that it’s fun and doesn’t typically win, but let me know if you ever see it definitely WIN a game. It needs to be weak but still able to win once in a while.
Looking at this right now, one tweak I’m tempted to make for myself is to bump up the power of I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS. For an attack you have to use an action to loudly announce at least one turn in advance, the fact that it’s only as strong as the other two big attacks in the deck just seems kinda… wrong? I feel like this ought to be Greedo’s big trick, the thing that lets him pull off a win if he can land it, something that inspires the enemy team to either shoot him down first or bunker down for a big hit. A10 is probably the best to go with if I want to try this change out, but making it an outright A12 is tempting; maybe not smart, but definitely tempting.
Either way, I feel like something along those lines is what the deck needs to start actually winning games, because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it win all of once despite me using it in a fair number of games against totally new players, and that win may well have been due more to Greedo’s teammate than anything he or the cantina duo actually did. Which is a shame, since the deck is fun to use, in no small part because it’s those three guys in the same deck, but it feels like they should be able to do better with the tools they have than they actually manage to (Ponda Baba’s ability to force through damage should be pretty scary, but it’s kind of a struggle to line everything up to get the most use out of it).
Thanks for commenting on this, I really like this deck and think you’ve got a good idea there with IBLFTT. Let’s try it at A10 at the very least and see how he does. I don’t like 10* because the * doesn’t fit but I think it’s the right number nonetheless.
You clearly have the idea that I’ve been going for: Ponda Baba’s ability nullifies defense, and the deck then has three A8s and two A6s, which seems pretty scary, scary to where my friends thought it was maybe too strong upon initial design. Yet, when you actually play the game with this deck, you’re going to see at most one of these combos go off, and playing it exposes Greedo and his guys to counter attacks, to where they get killed immediately after. Greedo just doesn’t have the defense to step out without getting killed. He needs a big attack or he has no chance.
I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS has to be that big attack because he intentionally has to loudly announce his intentions the way Greedo does, giving Han (or another character) a chance to respond first but if not, he really will kill you. At most I’d go A11.
I don’t know how much you care about stuff like this, but in the new canon it’s official that Greedo hired Ponda and Evazan to help him confront Han. Of course, things didn’t go according to plan and Greedo had to go up against Han alone with less than stellar results…
Oh cool, well, I’m always interested in stuff that strengthens my case for doing a deck a certain way 🙂
The group not doing well vs. Han fits this deck pretty well.