With the first few Planetary Qualifiers out of the way we've gotten to see the meta formulate. There are a few Sabine's out there, but 17 out of the 40 spots from Top 8s from last weekends tournaments were rocked by Boba Fett. Many tournament goers are demanding to see Fett banned, or some of his key cards like Boba Fett's Armor errata'd. It's not so difficult to look at the landscape of other decks to know that's not necessary. If the majority of slots are going to be Boba Fett, let's instead talk about a deck that out plays the number of units that deck puts out. Cad Bane - He Who Needs No Introduction, actually requires a lot of introduction since he hasn't been seen that much in high level play.

Cad Bane plays with the Underworld package that comes out of Shadows of the Galaxy, utilizing some of the same units from the prominent Boba Fett matchup. Particularly the Bounty Hunters for Hire duo and everyone's favorite common Cunning friend; Crafty Smuggler. After that, this deck veers off the midrange train and straight into... control.

Cad Pain | Star Wars Unlimited

• Leader (1)
• 1 Cad Bane - He Who Needs No Introduction

• Base (1)
• 1 Remnant Science Facility - Nevarro

• Ground units (25)
• 2 Crafty Smuggler
• 2 Pyke Sentinel
• 3 Bazine Netal - Spy for the First Order
• 3 Cloud-Rider
• 3 4-LOM - Bounty Hunter for Hire
• 2 Bossk - Deadly Stalker
• 3 Zuckuss - Bounty Hunter for Hire
• 2 Enfys Nest - Marauder
• 2 Fennec Shand - Loyal Sharpshooter
• 3 Supreme Leader Snoke - Shadow Ruler

• Space units (14)
• 2 Cartel Spacer
• 3 Seventh Fleet Defender
• 3 Black Sun Starfighter
• 3 Xanadu Blood - Cad Bane's Reward
• 3 Avenger - Hunting Star Destroyer

• Events (9)
• 3 Ma Klounkee
• 3 Power of the Dark Side
• 3 Takedown

• Sideboard (10)
• 3 Lurking TIE Phantom
• 3 Vigilance
• 2 Fell the Dragon
• 2 Super Laser Blast

Buy This Deck Export text

Like any good control deck our turn-to-turn desire is to play cards that take away our opponent's board presence. How do we do that? We create an engine that squeezes value out of every single card we play. With our leader, we want to play an Underworld card every turn to deal a damage - and we have plenty of options to choose from. This means the Bounty Hunters for Hire duo that we talked about earlier performs better here than it does in the competing Boba Fett deck because it triggers Cad Bane to shoot an enemy.

Since we have so many Underworld units, we definitely need to utilize Ma Klounkee. Not only will we get an extra damage out of playing it - we also get to save one of our Underworld units with damage on it. Many of the units we want to save here also have When Played effects that we can then reutilize; and if we play them in the following phase we'll also set ourselves up to get a shot with our leader. Especially our cheaper cards like Cartel Spacer (to get an additional exhaust) or Bazine Netal (to get rid of another late game threat) should be played repeatedly.

Bossk is another key addition to our engine that squeezes value out of everything we play. Getting an extra 2 points to shoot at a ground unit and make way for your bigger plays becomes increasingly useful when that event is also Underworld (like Ma Klounkee) to get Cad Bane to shoot or removal to kill an additional obstacle standing in the way of victory. Set 2 seemed to leave this Bossk unit by the wayside - but I'm excited to see him come back in such a practical way. Enfys Nest wants the same respect, allowing your Ambush units to survive for more hits. This seems more useful on paper than in practicality, but even if you can help one Ambush unit survive it means she's earned her place. In the same way as Bossk she can (hopefully) squeeze another attack out of 4-LOM, Zuckuss, or Fennec. The perfect scenario, though, is her helping Bossk himself survive to get some shots off while you playing your Events.

Where this deck diverges even more is the inclusion of Vigilance and the best removal suite in the game. Power of the Dark Side and Takedown are great ways to clear the field from threats, which aren't new or notable for control decks. Supreme Leader Snoke - Shadow Ruler here contributes to our late game with some middling top end numbers - but more importantly, he makes it easier for Cad Bane to ping enemies to death. His ability to crush the majority of aggro unit staples sold me after coming in skeptical. Don't sleep on Snoke - he's a menace to aggro decks.

Vigilance also gives us access to more Sentinel cards to help delay the early game. Pyke Sentinel might be the best first turn play for us, but Crafty Smuggler isn't terrible. Buying us that one turn sets us up to Ambush into Cloud-Rider for the opponent's turn two unit, or shore up our space arena with Black Sun Starfighter. And when we get into late game, we can drop Avenger - Hunting Star Destroyer to make sure our opponent's board stays clear while we blast our way to victory.

Although we're built to counter Boba Fett, we have some issues with Sabine. It's best to board in the Vigilance against her so that we can heal once we've stabilized - which is worth it even for the extra 2 resources out of aspect. We can also board Vigilance against Han2, which we might need to mill our way to victory to win against. Sabine might be the second most popular deck going into the rest of the Qualifiers this month - so we need to make sure we can survive against her as well.

If you plan on taking Cad Bane to your Planetary Qualifier be sure to capture the magic of the look on your opponent's face when you reveal what you're playing. Hopefully folks will catch on that there are plenty of ways to counter the all-powerful Command Boba Fett, and help diversify our deck pool a little bit more! Good luck, and may the Force be with you.