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Danny Schaefer: Han Solo Aggression
This deck is an explosive, high-synergy midrange/tempo deck that aims to maximize Han Solo’s (Spark of Rebellion, 17) leader ability. The deck gives up cards for extra resources in the early game, hoping to build a board advantage and get off to a fast start. In the midgame, the deck recoups that card disadvantage by playing powerful 6 and 7 cost units ahead of schedule. Ideally, the deck can adapt to either take an aggressive role against slower decks or play a more controlling game against fast opponents.
The major strength of this deck is its potential for explosive plays. In the best-case scenarios, the deck can put a 7-drop Mace Windu (Spark of Rebellion, 149) or Han Solo (Spark of Rebellion, 198) unit into play as early as round 3 and completely dominate the ground arena. And even when it’s not doing that, the deck can regularly play those cards on round 5—or simply get a major early-game edge by playing a combined 7 resources worth of units in the first two rounds. And if you play against a more controlling opponent, this deck has lots of ways to deal damage out of nowhere in the late game between the Millennium Falcon (Spark of Rebellion, 193), Mace Windu, For a Cause I Believe In (Spark of Rebellion, 152), and K-2SO (Spark of Rebellion, 145).
The deck’s weakness is consistency—there are a lot of neat combos, but sometimes you draw You're My Only Hope (Spark of Rebellion, 246) with no payoffs, or draw into the more controlling side of your deck when you really need an aggressive start.
Early iterations of this deck were more combo-focused, with more expensive units and more ways to cheat those cards into play, like a particular event that we won’t spoil today. I even briefly toyed with a Command version that ran Resupply to get 7-drops into play even faster! Ultimately the deck ran more smoothly by trimming some of those elements in favor of more consistent aggressive cards.
The reason I love this deck is that it’s so full of combos and overlapping synergies, so strap in while I dive into several of my favorites:
Han’s ability allows you to play both R2-D2 (Spark of Rebellion, 236) and C-3PO (Spark of Rebellion, 238) on round 1, immediately recouping the card disadvantage and setting you up to draw more cards in the next round. And while the droids aren’t too threatening on their own, following them up with Red Three (Spark of Rebellion, 144) can turn them into meaningful attackers.
Ezra Bridger (Spark of Rebellion, 192) operates in a similar space as a round 1 play that can quickly start replacing the cards that Han uses as resources.
R2, C-3PO, and Ezra all allow you to look at the top card of your deck, which is great for setting up You’re My Only Hope. In a perfect world, one of those cards shows you Black One (Spark of Rebellion, 147) on top of your deck on round 2 and you can immediately play it with Han’s ability plus You’re My Only Hope, refilling your hand while putting a 4/4 Space unit into play.
But perhaps the best setup for You’re My Only Hope is For a Cause I Believe In. One of the best lines in the deck is playing it on round 2 to dig 4 cards deep looking for a 7-drop like Mace or Han, then leaving that card 3rd from the top so you can hit it off You’re My Only Hope on the following round.
Regardless of how the early game plays out, the deck always wants to aim for an explosive round 4 by leveraging Han’s deploy. You should begin the round with 5 resources in play and at least 2 cards in hand, one of which is a Mace or Han unit. Use leader Han’s ability to go up to 6 resources, then deploy him and attack to go up to 7 resources, allowing you to play your 7-drop two rounds ahead of schedule and likely take full control of the ground arena!
And of course, no Han deck is complete without the Millennium Falcon. The cards work perfectly together, with Han allowing you to play the Falcon on round 1, then get double use out of your extra resource by paying the Falcon’s tax before you lose the resource at the start of the next action phase. Between the Falcon, Red Three, and Green Squadron A-Wing (Spark of Rebellion, 141), you have the potential to launch a devastatingly fast space attack that will catch many opponents off-guard.