Wat I think about Wat

My take on Wat Red with some spice

Table of Contents

1. Thought Process

2. Let’s Talk About the Deck

   1. Strength

   2. The Spice

   3. Weakness

   4. Some Card Choice Considerations

3. What About Other Aspects?

4. Conclusion

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Thought Process

Wat’s abilities is somewhat similar to Kylo Ren leader’s ability in that it converts a card resource into a +2 power buff. The approach should be to put in high value units that encourage the opponent to trade into your units. As such, this lends the leader to be in an aggro deck.

Let’s Talk About the Deck

https://swudb.com/deck/bTRPghcooSGY
[Disclaimer: limited testing, but good quality games vs a PQ finalist]

I play tested Bo1 vs Alyssa’s Sabine ECL for ~5 games early on in the pre-release timeframe, and I think it holds up in that matchup. If you look at the edit history, I initially had Tarkintown, but I found it too situational (and useless if opponent lane dodge to space) and the 5hp is needed in base race situations.

Strength

The ideal Turn1 play is playing two 1-drops (or Droid Deployment) as that immediately gets the ball rolling for buff potential for the next turn. Death Star Stormtrooper and Benthic highly encourage the opponent to clear as they pose too much damage output potential for the cost if left unchecked. Huyang and B1 Attack Platform are other examples of this. It’s fine/good if these units get traded away by the opponent as that helps enable Wat’s abilities. General Tagge is there to punish opponents who don’t clear any troopers. Poggle is a value engine for slower decks (useless vs aggro).

The Spice - Keep Fighting

Using Keep Fighting on Wat is another 5 damage potential (1x buff and Wat’s 3 power). It also allows for a valid unit to be ready for Wat’s buff if it wasn’t already utilized. As such, going wide is very much needed to have available units to die and to buff ready units. That’s why the deck has a low curve and not much top end.

Weakness

Given that the deck is heavily reliant on buffs and it’s very telegraphed, facing against any bounce or exhaust cards can be a struggle. Additionally, the opponent can kill off specific units before the buff has been given.

Some card choice considerations

• If there is a high threat of decks that are able to ping on Turn1 (eg Bossk, Jango, and Vos), then consider swapping out the Death Star Stormtrooper for higher hp 1-drops troopers (Warzone Lieutenant, Guavian Antagonizer, and Vanguard Infantry). However, I think Obedient Vanguard is too good to drop, even in such a meta environment. 

• If bounce/exhaust cards are too common, well, the easiest thing to do is to drop this deck. JK, but otherwise, then that means the deck needs to be able to go wider and faster, so there may be a consideration to drop the ramp cards.

• Due to the buffs, there is consideration of including Overwhelming Barrage if one wishes the deck to go for a midrange tilt.
  [Edit: swapped the two Resupply for two Overwhelming Barrage in the deck link]

What About Other Aspects?

I have briefly looked at other aspects for consideration, but I think the Aggression aspect best suits the above thought process of going wide and having “high value units that encourage the opponent to trade into your units.”

I think Wat ECL is too slow and would get run over by aggro decks.

Cunning has some strong events (eg Surprise Strike) and strong early game units (eg Greedo and Crafty Smuggler), but those units tend not to have the Trooper tag, so it loses synergy with Obedient Vanguard and General Tagge.

Vigilance doesn’t offer much for this aggro deck.

Conclusion

The deck’s weakness to bounce and exhaust effects makes me not rate this deck too highly given the presence of Han1 Yellow and Jango decks. Otherwise, I think it’s a competent deck.

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