Aurra-Tik 2.0

• Versions
• 2.0
• 1.0

EDIT: 6/9/2017

Adjustments made as of 6/4/2017

+2 Armor Plating -- this card is really strong to me, and I've honestly thought about playing Ammo Belt to get even more use out of it. At the very least, you can use it to tank a Planetary Uprising one turn which absolutely helps in a deck with this little health. If things are going your way, you can use it to upgrade into a 2 cost upgrade for a dollar cheaper.

-2 Hunker Down -- I took this card out because the action to play and the action to tap the card is a little slow. This is a deck that can play a little slower, and when it does it's able to roll out max damage, play supports, tap Backup Muscle, and tap Hunker Down. My local meta is getting more melee heavy, and I'd rather have the Armor Plating most times honestly. Both cards make good Teeth discards for sideways damage, but I found more value out of Armor Plating.

-2 Salvage Stand -- I really like this card... but this is a fast meta. Aurra-Tik can absolutely play as fast as ePalp and Poe/Maz, but spending the action to play this card can mess up the speed. I never got Salvage Stand out in other tournaments and playtest sessions, and when it did it didn't really do anything to Palp and Poe/Maz. I decided I wanted more mitigation than money choke, so this had to go.

-2 Friends in Low Places -- This card is really cool and I like it, but it slows the deck down. The only way I would consider playing it now is if I had Infamous out, and since that doesn't always happen it can't exist in this deck. I can't race Palp or Poe while using this card.

+2 One Quarter Portion -- I'll admit, paying your opponent feels bad. Real bad. It's a two dollar swing! But negating 5 damage from Palp or 4-6 damage from Poe is absolutely worth it. I got the chance to tap Infamous, He Doesn't Like You into One Quarter Portion on a Poe and it felt very good.

I went 2-3 with this deck at a store champs in Jacksonville, FL. I definitely made some misplays (not remembering Bala's kill trigger, going for Vader instead of Guard in that matchup), and the dice weren't always hot. My losses were against ePhasma/Guavian/Trooper, Vader/Guard and a Poe/Maz. The decks I beat were another Poe/Maz and ePalp, so it feels a little vindicating knowing that this deck -can- beat popular meta decks. The Guardian abilities on ePhasma and Royal Guard decks really hurt Aurra, so put a Fast Hands (or two, honestly) on her as soon as possible. I should have tried to defeat the Royal Guard first in my Vader/Guard matchup. Missing the Bala kill trigger in the Poe/Maz matchup I lost really put me on tilt, so I'm disappointed with those mistakes.

However I had a super fun time, and everyone who played against this deck said they felt pretty scared and knew the damage output possible. That feels good to hear. In my Poe/Maz matchups I was able to defeat Maz turn 1, which I think is absolutely the right call if you can get it out. I also let the Poe player take their battlefield. I think the 2 shields is a big deal in this deck, and while I put them all on Bala each time Aurra is the real target here. I made it my goal to put a Holdout on Bala for the reactivation trigger, Fast Hands and Armor Plating on Aurra ASAP.

I am going to take a break from this deck as my local meta has decided to retire all our store champs decks (including our local player who won the event). I will return to Aurra-Tik sooner than later though, the explosive power of their character dice is insane. With a Holdout Blaster you can do 12 damage Turn 1 using 2 cards to power up Aurra (granted, that only gives you 2 cards for rerolls, but it's happened. You know I blew up Poe turn 1!).

Original Description

Been playtesting this Mono Yellow Aurra deck from The Hyperloops with my own additions. This is a powerful combo that on round 1 with a Holdout Blaster can do 12 damage (which I have done and it feels great lol). Since I'm using Docking Bay - Finalizer, I decided to cut a few cards to include more supports. These are my first cards that I'll discard to power up Aurra Sing - Deadly Shot, and claiming to play a free Backup Muscle is great. I feel that Salvage Stand is a powerful card in this deck as I always seem to be rolling money. I'm using Salvage Stand as a way of mitigating damage by choking resources to pay for damaging upgrades.

Opening hand I like to keep Holdout, Fast Hands and if I have my battlefield I try and keep a support or two for a good power-up-discard. By the time you get to mid game, you want to have a board that allows you to Fight Dirty and Armed to the Teeth for maximum sideways damage. Since this deck is fairly squishy, a lot of times I can't afford to reroll and allow my opponent to take more actions. I'd rather Fight Dirty and get guaranteed damage off of bad die sides, then AttT my die-less upgrades for a kill and get Bala-Tik - Gang Leader reactivated. The name of the game is consistent damage, I believe this deck in it's current form needs to deal as much damage as possible with as little actions as possible to keep advantage.

Some of the key cards: Bait and Switch makes me feel like Bala and Aurra have another damage side a piece. It's unfortunate that it doesn't work on Jetpackk, but overall it can turn a bad dice pool into some damage, or a good dice pool into a great one. Fight Dirty keeps the pressure on no matter what you roll. Friends in Low Places giving hidden information + many times a discard is great; it lets you know when you can get greedy with a reroll or two or if you need to do what you can and claim early.

I plan on bringing this deck in it's current form to store champs in a couple of weeks. The only things I am thinking of changing is maybe reducing the supports and including +1 Personal Shield/+2 Armor Plating. An 18 health deck of two major targets definitely puts this deck in "Glass Cannon" territory, so I'm wondering if more mitigation or damage reduction is the way to go.