FN/Dooku, or How to Win Games in Destiny
FN-2199 and Count Dooku is a character pairing that I have been championing for almost two months now, all the way back to a time when Poe could still Fast Hands and Vader/Raider shared the title as undisputed king of the format. The metagame has since shifted, thanks to the Fast Hands nerf and the kickback against FN decks, but as of today, FN-2199 stands firm as the strongest character in the game. Slowly but surely, the Destiny community has come around to the notion that our favorite traitor-hater (and not Poe, Maz, or Rey) can hold claim to the coveted “most-broken character” title, of which I can claim a small portion of the credit. For those unfamiliar, I’ll direct you here and here, to two writeups I’ve penned after a SC Top 4 and SC win, respectively.
Today, I won’t be delving into “how” the deck works (as I’ve already devoted 4000+ words to that topic) but rather “why” it succeeds, specifically how it relates to the concepts we will discuss in Part 1. Understanding the underlying mechanics behind what separates a consistently successful deck from an unsuccessful one will yield returns not only through aiding deck building and deck selection, but also in informing thinking and strategy as you play games. The goals of this article are twofold; to provide a solid framework through which we can analyze decks for strengths and weaknesses for years to come, and to get you to play the most fun deck in the game. Lofty goals, for sure. Let’s get started.
Enter the Matrix
Under the surface of every game of Destiny lie hidden mechanisms that control the outcome of the match. Without going all Edward Lorenz on you, imagine the game of Destiny as a computer program, game, or app. The dice we roll, the cards we draw, and the effects we imprint on the game act as the binary code running everything, the subliminal 1’s and 0’s that combine to create User Interface that we see. Just as we interact with programs, when things go ‘wrong’ we only notice the glitch in the display graphics that hint at a problem, not the underlying code that is causing the error. In the same way, we only notice when Vader rolls in a 3 and a 2 to kill us, without thinking about the copies of Force Strike, Bait and Switch, and Lightsaber Throw they used to get us there. How lucky.
The Real Villains
It’s no secret (or perhaps it is), that the ‘best decks’ in Destiny claim that title thanks to the underlying engine that they are able to exploit and translate into success. Vader/Raider is a powerful, aggressive strategy that hits hard while providing a lot of health, but the key to its success comes not from its character pairing, but from the consistency it gains from its events. The archetype is built around the concept of resolving its character dice for maximum value every turn, and uses Bait and Switch and Force Strike to gain more “threes” as potential rolls. When you break it down, Vader/Raider doesn’t do anything unfair, or unique, relying instead on the concept that as long as it can conistently do five to six damage a turn, they will kill you before you can kill them. Vader/Raider’s strength is also its weakness, however, as the deck plays at ‘one speed’, and isn’t capable of stretching damage to catch up if it falls behind on output.
Poe/Maz operates similarly, but exploits a different engine, relying on Maz to consistently trigger Poe specials and throw never-ending bombs for large amounts of damage. We all know what this deck is capable of doing by now, but laying out not only how the deck is powerful, but also why, can help us gain insights into how to beat it. Players have spent countless hours trying to fight Poe/Maz on multiple axes, like making them discard their hand quickly to rob them of their bombs, or targeting Maz to remove her focus dice. Neither of these strategies can claim consistent success, as Poe/Maz can fight through discard by playing Hit and Run to cheat actions, plays ten (or more) copies of big things to throw, and targeting Maz first essentially gives Poe 20 health. The only consistently successful way to beat Poe/Maz is to focus Poe’s character dice, essentially halving their damage output every time one can be removed.
Both Vader/Raider and Poe/Maz rely on consistency and resolving character dice to win games, and, for the most part, it works well for them. Consistency, speed, and power are an excellent recipe for success, but both archetypes have their weaknesses. Removing character dice through events like Isolation or Electroshock can seriously disrupt their damage output, and coupled with some bad rolls or a poor hand can cripple the archetype and cause it to lose games. What if there was a deck that dodged a format focused on character dice, yet still retained the same consistency, speed, and power that the best decks in the field abuse? What if there was a strategy that adopted all the strengths of the top decks in the field, and solved their primary weakness? What would such a strategy look like?
FN/Dooku
FN/Dooku is, at its core, a carefully calculated complementary pairing that lines up well against the top decks in the field, otherwise known as a ‘metagame deck’. To understand why a metagame deck is successful, you have to gain a clear picture of the metagame characteristics, hereafter referred to as ‘context’. We already started talking about context with our discussion on Vader/Raider and Poe/Maz, and we’ll continue it now with the rest of the field’s ‘top decks’. While these are up for debate (and don’t worry, I will be debating them in future articles) for now, the top decks in the field consist of Vader/Raider, Poe/Maz, Kylo/Vader (aka EmoKids), and FN/Unkar/Trooper (aka Funkar). Let’s quickly break down the last two on the list before jumping into our answer to them.
Kylo/Vader, at heart, is a less consistent, more reactive aggressive strategy than others in the field, slightly to the right of Vader/Raider but far left of control. Instead of using event slots on damage fixing, Kylo/Vader aims to play as much mitigation as possible, and rely on character dice and cheap upgrades to do most of the legwork. The deck is capable of burst plays thanks to plentiful specials and No Mercy, but can also suffer from consistency issues. Finally, the strategy forgoes the common “main/support” pairing strategy in favor of two mid-cost characters, but suffers from a disparity in power between Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Overall, the deck plays the ‘middle of the road’ Aggro deck role well and is capable of strong individual plays, but struggles when dice don’t cooperate and Vader is killed early.
FN/Unkar/Trooper is a midrange/resource generating strategy that looks to grind out advantages and extract as much value from each action as possible. Salvage Stand and Imperial Inspection provide ‘free’ value from character activations, and FN gives double value from upgrades. The glue holding everything together is Unkar, who’s primary goal is to strip the opponent’s hand and generate resources to play plentiful upgrades on FN. The deck plays powerful cards and has great synergy, but can struggle when situations don’t line up correctly. Removing three value of dice to discard a zero cost event happens far too often for comfort, and Salvage Stand/Imperial Inspection can be played around with only minor adjustments. Finally, Unkar and First Order Stormtrooper don’t contribute much to the damage plan, leaving the deck vulnerable if FN dies early. Overall, the deck is capable of unfair things and ‘spinning tires’ equally, making it an addicting, but frustrating strategy.
Consistency, speed, and power. All of these decks can claim two out of three (most of the time), but each fall short in certain areas. We know the context, the enemies, and the history. Let’s meet our heroes.
At its’ base level, FN/Dooku is a complementary character pairing that looks to progress the game to a favorable boardstate, and translate that condition into victory. Let me explain. There exists a tendency to call any deck with FN an ‘FN deck’, which isn’t a false statement, but doesn’t tell the whole story. FN/Dooku uses FN for the effect it has on our opponent, and how its strengths line up against the weaknesses of the format, but I hesitate to call the strategy an ‘FN deck’, because doing so suggests the deck relies heavily on FN to succeed, which isn’t entirely true.
I’m getting ahead of myself here. I suggest, for those that haven’t, to read both my writeups on the deck, which explain the strategy card by card. FN/Dooku seeks to fight the other aggressive decks in the format by matching their damage output on the early turns and exceeding them in the midgame, in the hopes that we can take down their primary character before they kill our FN. Where Poe/Maz must play a ton of expensive cards to deal damage, and Vader/Raider must use events to fix their character dice, FN/Dooku only needs to play weapons, and has multiple ways to gain value from them for free. This lets us play all the great blue mitigation options (like Kylo/Vader), but with a much better character pairing, stronger burst damage engine, and increased survivability.
Conclusion
Ask anyone at your local store what the top decks in Destiny are, and you’ll hear the same four names over and over again. Vader/Raider. Poe/Maz. FN/Unkar/Trooper. Kylo/Vader. Each of these strategies are incredibly strong, but each have their weaknesses, weaknesses that FN/Dooku dodges. The deck isn’t unbeatable, many methods to fight it exist in the card pool. But, for now, these weaknesses remain only ‘potential’, as players have yet to adopt the necessary changes to fight it. It has an incredible matchup against EmoKids and Funkar, is great against Poe/Maz and above even against Vader/Raider. The window is closing, but my successes over this past month have shown that FN/Dooku has what it takes to be considered among the number of the so-called ‘top tier’. Forget the age-old saying. FN/Dooku beats them. And by doing so, it joins them.
Thanks for reading,
Trevor Holmes
ArchitectGaming
Trevorholmes91 on Discord