Jabba's Palace and Manipulation
Manipulation is one of the strongest strategies out right now. When
it gets going, there is not much the Light Side can do against it. Even
decks designed to beat can have trouble. There are only a few strategies
that can beat a good manipulator, and even those aren't fool proof.
I will make the statement right now that I think the manipulator is a bit too strong. But we'll get there soon enough. I also maintain that the manipulator brought about some of the most inventive and innovative ideas so far. I have seen more non-unique alien strategies since I began playing a manipulator than ever before.
In the first article on this subject, I made some statements that I said I would get back to. It is now time to visit these points.
The Conception
Manipulation has been possible since nearly the beginning. Someone
figured out how powerful scanning crew was and thus, the first theme deck
was born. There was little to stop this, save a sense alter war, until A
New Hope came out.
Also in Premiere was one of the most powerful characters ever made, M'iiyoom Onith. The thing that kept Onith in check was the fact that her ability was so force intensive. You had to get tons of force out, and her on the table, to make it work. By that time, the Light Side could already have a few of the big boys down to make trouble.
In a New Hope came some of the most powerful cards still today. The Grimtaash/Monnok cards are a pain in the neck for many a theme deck. These cards helped against decks with lots of multiples, but it was What Are You Trying To Push on Us that really hurt a scanning Crew strategy.
The manipulator slowly began receiving piece after piece in later expansions that would ultimately lead to the creation of a finely tuned instrument. But it would not become feared until the big slug reared his ugly face.
Enter Jabba's Palace Expansion
It was Jabba's Palace that gave the manipulator high octane to run on.
With the creation of starting interrupts and the Palaces' game text, one
of the biggest roadblocks for manipulation was removed... force
activation. As we all know, Expand the Empire on Jabba's Palace brought
out a ton of force for the Dark Side on its second turn.
But that wasn't it. One of those sites also allowed you to deploy an alien from the reserve deck and deploy it to the Audience Chamber. Combine all this with scanning crew, Ability Ability Ability, A Dangerous Time, and some senses, alters, and controls, and things became very nasty. Suddenly the manipulator reared its ugly head as a streamlined machine that could pulverize Light Side decks all over the world.
So why does all of that history matter?
Well, we must understand what makes manipulation so strong in order
to understand how to the playing field even again. Because it is a unique
blend of certain cards that makes this strategy so powerful, if one or
more is weakened somehow, the strategy may remain viable, but not
invincible.
So what could Decipher do? Well, one solution might be to errata Expand the Empire . Make it cost one force to deploy so that you couldn't use Twi'lek Advisor to start with it. This would slow the dark side down considerably, and might even balance the manipulator all together. But I have a funny feeling that Decipher has different plans. Which brings me to my next point.
Decipher's BIG Decision
Put simply, how bad does Decipher want to get rid of manipulation? In
one swift motion Decipher could make manipulation so costly that it would
either render the strategy impossible or too costly. Either way, the
manipulator would disappear from the tourney scene. Or Decipher could
create cards that would hinder manipulation, while keeping it
competitive.
Since I found out that Asteroid Sanctuary was number one on the hit list, I've started wondering if Decipher will nix any powerful strategy that comes along. If they handle either asteroid sanctuary or the manipulator too harshly, they could be reinforcing such a precedent. This could be disastrous for the game, and I hope Decipher treads softly in making these decisions.
But don't be surprised if manipulation runs and hides once Special Edition gets here. Just remember, unless the strategy is annihilated, it will probably be back.
Beakman