I feel like Aphra’s ability fits Fennec unit so well that they are a natural pairing. I have been using a mono yellow Aphra deck built around super powering Fennec. The double yellow gives me cunning and cantina bouncer, both of which I think work well at slowing opponents down.
It's very funny watching him just rant about how aphra is actually super good But there's not a single second of gameplay in this video to prove his point Only thing i wanted to see was gameplay
Love the videos and TTI in general, I think she's underrated, but I'd stick with Vigilance Iden. On a side note, I dont know whats up with your mic or your configs but its capturing the "tschk + breathing" very loudly you might want to check the noise reduction
Appreciate the Intro. With a new popular game we are seeing a ton of people trying to build Channels off of it. Building a Channel doesn't mean someone can authoritatively comment on a new leader before there are games behind it. Many thought Sabine was trash early on until people figured out how to build her. "I can't imagine something, so it doesn't exist" is a very common logical fallacy. I've seen people make bonkers claims about cards that they've clearly never played.
So the argument is that Aphra self-mill is an alternative win condition for a control deck. If the win con is the only real asset Aphra brings to the table that’s something that won’t matter in a lot of games. 80% of the time your win-con in a hard control doesn’t matter so much, most of the game are simply won by value fatigue. The question is: is that win con better than the ones the Hard control decks already have (aka mill with vigilance)? In my opinion, the answer is no: First: speed. Milling with vigilance will mill much faster than you can mill yourself with Aphra,. Depending on the amount of extra draw throughout the game, it will take you about 12-15 turns to mill yourself completely with Aphra. Vigilance can mill much faster if needed, especially when you can grab your vigilance back with Bounty Hunter crew. Second: lethality. Looping restock, doesn't even win you the game, it just allows you to get the 2 best cards of your deck alongside 2 restocks. Since you draw 2 cards per turn, that means that on average you will draw one very good card alongside a restock, and at worst you can draw to 2 restocks (yikes). So yes on one hand you are putting the best cards of the deck back but you are also putting an equal amount of restocks. By comparison, your opponent is milled, not only are you dealing 6 per turn you are also preventing him from drawing any cards at all, that’s almost a guaranteed win. Third: cost. The cost of running Aphra as a leader is MASSIVE, if you compare it to what you get with an Iden, Thrawn, or Boba. The 3 leaders mentioned have much better stats and an actual leader ability that will be useful in every game. The cost of the mill plan on the other hand is very small (that’s why it’s so good), all you have to do with vigilance is use the mill mode every once in a while, when you can afford it. Not only that the self-mill ability has loads of smaller inconveniences: -What if you mill all of your key cards ? You only have to bounty hunter crews to recover them and he is not cheap. What if you decided to resource them? -When you draw your restock early in the game, do you resource them and run the risk of not having the restock you need when it’s time to loop? That means keeping an utterly useless card in your hand for 14 turns! -If you play against another hard control deck and their plan is to mill you anyway, they’re gonna be super glad that all they have to do is wait for you to play your restock and vigilance your ass for the win. If think that reason alone is enough to disqualify this leader, a hard control deck that cannot win against other hard control is going to be a problem. -What about all the key information your opponent gets when he sees what cards have been milled? Don’t get me wrong I am sure this deck is quite good against non-hard control decks, hard control archetypes are the ones that care the least about their leaders, so a suboptimal leader is not going to make your deck from good to trash. But she is my opinion a suboptimal leader for that archetype. Let me know if I got anything wrong in my arguments as usual my opinion is not definitive and I am always eager to learn new things.
I don't think you're giving the self-mill enough credit. You'll get to the endgame much faster than normal hard control decks without Aphra, and from there I'll generally loop Vigilance to mill. If the normal strategy of just milling them before deckout is viable, this deck can also do that. But sometimes you'd rather by always going defeat+heal in the early game, and being able to get into the restock loop situation quicker lets you do that. On the issue of losing your important cards, I don't think that's super significant. BH crew might be expensive but it does work. Aphra herself also lets you get cards back from the discard as well. And I'm generally not resourcing the cards I would need to win the game. Even if you lose some key removal cards and can't get them back, your draw engine should have you ahead by enough that you're still able to answer all the threats you need to. As for the opportunity cost of other leaders, I don't think they're that significant. Aphra has the upside of getting to your endgame quicker which is relevant. On the statistical comparison, I don't think you can say Aphra is straight up worse than any of the alternatives. She's usually a 5/5, especially if you wait to deploy her which you would do with the others as well, and that has advantages in some scenarios. Sometimes a 4/7 or 3/9 or 4/4 shielded is better, and sometimes a 5/5 is better. As for the abilities, Aphra's will be relevant every game. Iden's will be too, Thrawn's most of the time, Boba's some of the time, so I don't think she's a loser on that front. I do think this leader question is probably the best argument against Aphra, but I do think she is favored above the rest. Playing the control mirrors does require some skill, and you can be put into rough situations, but that's what Bazine and Spark are for. If you know what you're doing, you're not going to get your restocks milled. And as for the information problem, that's not super significant. The list isn't really playing anything surprising that needs to be kept secret.
@@TaketheInitiative-SWU Very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to answer let me get back on a couple of things: "If the normal strategy of just milling them before deckout is viable, this deck can also do that. But sometimes you'd rather by always going defeat+heal in the early game, and being able to get into the restock loop situation quicker lets you do that." Yes I understand that there are situations where you are under a lot of pressure and you would rather use vigilance for both effects and then just rely on self-mill as a wincon, but the regulars control deck also plays restock and can do that. Even though they have to wait a bit more, they can do it more effectively because they don't need to put 2 restocks on their pile. So the question is how often is that getting faster into that loop wincon actually a determining factor in a game? My guess is very very very very rarely. "I do think this leader question is probably the best argument against Aphra, but I do think she is favored above the rest." The best argument against Aphra is that her ability is a liability against hard control. And yes I think that a lack of leader ability that can be useful throughout the game is very significant, the amount of healing an Iden can provide throughout the game is massive, there is a reason why she was the best leader for hard control. I also believe 5/5 is worse than 4/4 shield, especially when you won't have those stats on turn 4, 5 and even sometimes turn 6. "Playing the control mirrors does require some skill, and you can be put into rough situations, but that's what Bazine and Spark are for. If you know what you're doing, you're not going to get your restocks milled." Updated version of Hard control decks also play BHC, bazine and spark. My version plays 3 Bazine, 3 BHC and 1 spark (3 after side). You only play 2 of each but more importantly, you have your leader ability working against you. "The list isn't really playing anything surprising that needs to be kept secret." I know that you play 3 SLBs in your deck that's not the problem, however, knowing that there are 3 SLBs in the discard because 2 of them got milled and one got played is SUPER relevant information. I know you're can BHC back into hand but knowing you can't SLB right away is HUGE. It's only an example, my point is having loads of cards in the discard provides massive info to your opponent about what can possibly come up. Thanks again for this interesting discussion.
She just nto worth it imo. If the sole argue to justify this leader is to mill yourself to enable a later game, its clearly imo, not good enough. You so much better to play a leader that would actually do something useful earlier in the game with better stat / abilities. Its 100% not the list, of course you can win with this list, but lets see say would play 100 games, lets say vs top 5 decks, 20 games each with this leader, then another real strong leader, there is NO WAY, statistically speaking you would have more win at the end with Doctor, no way. Nice Intro tho, really original and cool, did enjoyed it :P Haters gonna be haters :), please dont take offense from my commnet.
Yeah no offense taken lol. Glad you enjoyed the video. I think the leader question is challenging, but I think you're underrating Aphra's ability to get you to the endgame quicker and also her stats. There are many cases in which a 5/5 is better than, say, Boba's 4/7. And Aphra usually is a 5/5 if you wait to deploy her. And the Boba versions of this deck also typically wait on the deploy, so it's not that much of an ask.
RIP Brian
As a note, Make an Opening is another answer to Lurking Tie Phantom in the deck
I feel like Aphra’s ability fits Fennec unit so well that they are a natural pairing. I have been using a mono yellow Aphra deck built around super powering Fennec. The double yellow gives me cunning and cantina bouncer, both of which I think work well at slowing opponents down.
Love that intro!
It loses badly to Han and Kylo Ren. I think about adding evacuate but I feel it is not enough
Why don't you side Fell of the dragon againt Krayt dragon ?
I think cards like maklunke would work well too to get multiple uses out of bazine and bounty hunter crew
It's very funny watching him just rant about how aphra is actually super good
But there's not a single second of gameplay in this video to prove his point
Only thing i wanted to see was gameplay
I think it's because this is so obvious how this deck will work and play. So not really a lot of special gameplay to show. Have a little foresight.
You should put at least one frontier trader. This allows you to grab resources and put them into hand.
Would you say she’s better than Thrawn/Boba Blue?
Love the videos and TTI in general, I think she's underrated, but I'd stick with Vigilance Iden. On a side note, I dont know whats up with your mic or your configs but its capturing the "tschk + breathing" very loudly you might want to check the noise reduction
If this deck is actually good, this game is over for me. Vigilance loop?! YUCKKKK
Don't worry it's quite bad, and you won't see a lot of hard control with all the dragons and the hand disruption decks running arround
I hope Aphra wins Worlds so we can clip Captain Shekaka calling her "hot garbage" into oblivion😂
fite me
Appreciate the Intro. With a new popular game we are seeing a ton of people trying to build Channels off of it. Building a Channel doesn't mean someone can authoritatively comment on a new leader before there are games behind it. Many thought Sabine was trash early on until people figured out how to build her. "I can't imagine something, so it doesn't exist" is a very common logical fallacy. I've seen people make bonkers claims about cards that they've clearly never played.
So the argument is that Aphra self-mill is an alternative win condition for a control deck.
If the win con is the only real asset Aphra brings to the table that’s something that won’t matter in a lot of games. 80% of the time your win-con in a hard control doesn’t matter so much, most of the game are simply won by value fatigue.
The question is: is that win con better than the ones the Hard control decks already have (aka mill with vigilance)?
In my opinion, the answer is no:
First: speed.
Milling with vigilance will mill much faster than you can mill yourself with Aphra,. Depending on the amount of extra draw throughout the game, it will take you about 12-15 turns to mill yourself completely with Aphra. Vigilance can mill much faster if needed, especially when you can grab your vigilance back with Bounty Hunter crew.
Second: lethality.
Looping restock, doesn't even win you the game, it just allows you to get the 2 best cards of your deck alongside 2 restocks. Since you draw 2 cards per turn, that means that on average you will draw one very good card alongside a restock, and at worst you can draw to 2 restocks (yikes). So yes on one hand you are putting the best cards of the deck back but you are also putting an equal amount of restocks. By comparison, your opponent is milled, not only are you dealing 6 per turn you are also preventing him from drawing any cards at all, that’s almost a guaranteed win.
Third: cost.
The cost of running Aphra as a leader is MASSIVE, if you compare it to what you get with an Iden, Thrawn, or Boba. The 3 leaders mentioned have much better stats and an actual leader ability that will be useful in every game. The cost of the mill plan on the other hand is very small (that’s why it’s so good), all you have to do with vigilance is use the mill mode every once in a while, when you can afford it.
Not only that the self-mill ability has loads of smaller inconveniences:
-What if you mill all of your key cards ? You only have to bounty hunter crews to recover them and he is not cheap. What if you decided to resource them?
-When you draw your restock early in the game, do you resource them and run the risk of not having the restock you need when it’s time to loop? That means keeping an utterly useless card in your hand for 14 turns!
-If you play against another hard control deck and their plan is to mill you anyway, they’re gonna be super glad that all they have to do is wait for you to play your restock and vigilance your ass for the win. If think that reason alone is enough to disqualify this leader, a hard control deck that cannot win against other hard control is going to be a problem.
-What about all the key information your opponent gets when he sees what cards have been milled?
Don’t get me wrong I am sure this deck is quite good against non-hard control decks, hard control archetypes are the ones that care the least about their leaders, so a suboptimal leader is not going to make your deck from good to trash. But she is my opinion a suboptimal leader for that archetype.
Let me know if I got anything wrong in my arguments as usual my opinion is not definitive and I am always eager to learn new things.
I don't think you're giving the self-mill enough credit. You'll get to the endgame much faster than normal hard control decks without Aphra, and from there I'll generally loop Vigilance to mill. If the normal strategy of just milling them before deckout is viable, this deck can also do that. But sometimes you'd rather by always going defeat+heal in the early game, and being able to get into the restock loop situation quicker lets you do that.
On the issue of losing your important cards, I don't think that's super significant. BH crew might be expensive but it does work. Aphra herself also lets you get cards back from the discard as well. And I'm generally not resourcing the cards I would need to win the game. Even if you lose some key removal cards and can't get them back, your draw engine should have you ahead by enough that you're still able to answer all the threats you need to.
As for the opportunity cost of other leaders, I don't think they're that significant. Aphra has the upside of getting to your endgame quicker which is relevant. On the statistical comparison, I don't think you can say Aphra is straight up worse than any of the alternatives. She's usually a 5/5, especially if you wait to deploy her which you would do with the others as well, and that has advantages in some scenarios. Sometimes a 4/7 or 3/9 or 4/4 shielded is better, and sometimes a 5/5 is better. As for the abilities, Aphra's will be relevant every game. Iden's will be too, Thrawn's most of the time, Boba's some of the time, so I don't think she's a loser on that front. I do think this leader question is probably the best argument against Aphra, but I do think she is favored above the rest.
Playing the control mirrors does require some skill, and you can be put into rough situations, but that's what Bazine and Spark are for. If you know what you're doing, you're not going to get your restocks milled.
And as for the information problem, that's not super significant. The list isn't really playing anything surprising that needs to be kept secret.
@@TaketheInitiative-SWU Very interesting! Thanks for taking the time to answer let me get back on a couple of things:
"If the normal strategy of just milling them before deckout is viable, this deck can also do that. But sometimes you'd rather by always going defeat+heal in the early game, and being able to get into the restock loop situation quicker lets you do that."
Yes I understand that there are situations where you are under a lot of pressure and you would rather use vigilance for both effects and then just rely on self-mill as a wincon, but the regulars control deck also plays restock and can do that. Even though they have to wait a bit more, they can do it more effectively because they don't need to put 2 restocks on their pile.
So the question is how often is that getting faster into that loop wincon actually a determining factor in a game? My guess is very very very very rarely.
"I do think this leader question is probably the best argument against Aphra, but I do think she is favored above the rest."
The best argument against Aphra is that her ability is a liability against hard control. And yes I think that a lack of leader ability that can be useful throughout the game is very significant, the amount of healing an Iden can provide throughout the game is massive, there is a reason why she was the best leader for hard control. I also believe 5/5 is worse than 4/4 shield, especially when you won't have those stats on turn 4, 5 and even sometimes turn 6.
"Playing the control mirrors does require some skill, and you can be put into rough situations, but that's what Bazine and Spark are for. If you know what you're doing, you're not going to get your restocks milled."
Updated version of Hard control decks also play BHC, bazine and spark. My version plays 3 Bazine, 3 BHC and 1 spark (3 after side). You only play 2 of each but more importantly, you have your leader ability working against you.
"The list isn't really playing anything surprising that needs to be kept secret."
I know that you play 3 SLBs in your deck that's not the problem, however, knowing that there are 3 SLBs in the discard because 2 of them got milled and one got played is SUPER relevant information. I know you're can BHC back into hand but knowing you can't SLB right away is HUGE. It's only an example, my point is having loads of cards in the discard provides massive info to your opponent about what can possibly come up.
Thanks again for this interesting discussion.
She just nto worth it imo. If the sole argue to justify this leader is to mill yourself to enable a later game, its clearly imo, not good enough. You so much better to play a leader that would actually do something useful earlier in the game with better stat / abilities. Its 100% not the list, of course you can win with this list, but lets see say would play 100 games, lets say vs top 5 decks, 20 games each with this leader, then another real strong leader, there is NO WAY, statistically speaking you would have more win at the end with Doctor, no way. Nice Intro tho, really original and cool, did enjoyed it :P Haters gonna be haters :), please dont take offense from my commnet.
Yeah no offense taken lol. Glad you enjoyed the video. I think the leader question is challenging, but I think you're underrating Aphra's ability to get you to the endgame quicker and also her stats. There are many cases in which a 5/5 is better than, say, Boba's 4/7. And Aphra usually is a 5/5 if you wait to deploy her. And the Boba versions of this deck also typically wait on the deploy, so it's not that much of an ask.