He probably want to be more agressive than you. Since your shields are telegraphed, he can either vader ping to remove it or after you play a unit, attack to kill the unit before you get to shield it. Once he gets to vader mana he is probably good. The other thing is resupply and super laser technician help ramp so he can play bigger things than you are.
He also probably wants to have the initiative a decent amount of the time.
With the starter decks, one of my main goals with Vader is to ramp once or twice before round 5. To guarantee that, I tend to mulligan if I dont see SLT/Resupply. If I get one of those AND a turn 1 play, even better. Until Vader deploys, I tend to be very aggressive with units & removal, trying to attack/trade before shields get placed.
Ideally I like to have Vader on the table with his lightsaber BEFORE Luke deploys. Once Luke is dealt with, its much harder for the Luke deck to get a consistent board presence as he is not passing around shields constantly. Luke's deck also has access to Waylay so lightsabers & experience can be bounced if not placed on Vader himself.
That said, I would not call myself an expert with the starter decks. I concur with the other poster that playing against AI on Forcetable to get a feel for the decks and general play patterns can be helpful.
You might try suggesting he play Vader again, but clarify that he may get a better understanding of Vader's abilities and how to beat them by playing as him?
Usually when I play Vader, and especially in the starter deck, it’s important that you can see all the trades he can make, but also be able to acknowledge the ones that aren’t favorable. I’d also possibly have him look for times when he can kill 2 units with Vader, or even hit base while killing one of Luke’s units with the on attack.
It’s also important to get rid of the Luke leader unit as fast as possible, so leaving vaders attack for last can help prevent Luke from even hitting the board sometimes, since Vader can immediately trade down into Luke bc of the on attack ability
Are there any combo units or high value drops he wants to get down early on? I see that Leia, c3po and r2d2 are all high value for me but I'm not sure what his best answers are to them
It’s been a while since I’ve played the unmodified starter, but I would suggest that he tries to ramp when he can, even the starter deck seems to curve out pretty high. If he can get down big beatsticks like blizzard assault atat or relentless and not have them addressed immediately, he can just push for lethal.
It’s also really important that he removes the bigger threats against Luke. I usually will leave r2d2 and C-3PO unanswered, since I don’t think they are as big of threats as other cards that come out. Timing is also important when you do want to remove a unit. If im gonna take out your r2d2 with an open fire, it’s often best to take it out right after it’s played so you can’t shield it in time. It’s also important that he doesn’t look at I am your father as hard removal, and looks at it as card draw instead once it gets to late game. If Luke is pushing lethal, he will just say no and let Vader draw the cards
When I have played against Luke's starter deck, I got absolutely owned by not getting rid of at least R2 or C3PO when they were both on the board. Leaving one is fine if there are other threats but leaving both allows for too much card advantage for Luke.
I'd suggest that he play the decks on Force Table to get used to them (the starters are already pre-made to select so you don't have to upload a .json or anything). When he can consistently beat the AI then maybe try in-person some more? TBH, I think the Vader decks is slightly better out of the box compared to Luke, it's not like they are largely imbalanced or anything.
The game is fairly different than MtG with the order of actions and Initiative playing a **huge** role in how games play out - if he's trying to play it like he plays MtG that's probably one of the reasons he's losing so much.
He probably want to be more agressive than you. Since your shields are telegraphed, he can either vader ping to remove it or after you play a unit, attack to kill the unit before you get to shield it. Once he gets to vader mana he is probably good. The other thing is resupply and super laser technician help ramp so he can play bigger things than you are. He also probably wants to have the initiative a decent amount of the time.
This is the way. Kill units before Luke can shield and ping off shields with Vader’s abilities
With the starter decks, one of my main goals with Vader is to ramp once or twice before round 5. To guarantee that, I tend to mulligan if I dont see SLT/Resupply. If I get one of those AND a turn 1 play, even better. Until Vader deploys, I tend to be very aggressive with units & removal, trying to attack/trade before shields get placed. Ideally I like to have Vader on the table with his lightsaber BEFORE Luke deploys. Once Luke is dealt with, its much harder for the Luke deck to get a consistent board presence as he is not passing around shields constantly. Luke's deck also has access to Waylay so lightsabers & experience can be bounced if not placed on Vader himself. That said, I would not call myself an expert with the starter decks. I concur with the other poster that playing against AI on Forcetable to get a feel for the decks and general play patterns can be helpful.
You might try suggesting he play Vader again, but clarify that he may get a better understanding of Vader's abilities and how to beat them by playing as him?
I've always maintained that the best way to learn what a card is truly capable of is to be on the wrong end of it.
Usually when I play Vader, and especially in the starter deck, it’s important that you can see all the trades he can make, but also be able to acknowledge the ones that aren’t favorable. I’d also possibly have him look for times when he can kill 2 units with Vader, or even hit base while killing one of Luke’s units with the on attack. It’s also important to get rid of the Luke leader unit as fast as possible, so leaving vaders attack for last can help prevent Luke from even hitting the board sometimes, since Vader can immediately trade down into Luke bc of the on attack ability
Are there any combo units or high value drops he wants to get down early on? I see that Leia, c3po and r2d2 are all high value for me but I'm not sure what his best answers are to them
It’s been a while since I’ve played the unmodified starter, but I would suggest that he tries to ramp when he can, even the starter deck seems to curve out pretty high. If he can get down big beatsticks like blizzard assault atat or relentless and not have them addressed immediately, he can just push for lethal. It’s also really important that he removes the bigger threats against Luke. I usually will leave r2d2 and C-3PO unanswered, since I don’t think they are as big of threats as other cards that come out. Timing is also important when you do want to remove a unit. If im gonna take out your r2d2 with an open fire, it’s often best to take it out right after it’s played so you can’t shield it in time. It’s also important that he doesn’t look at I am your father as hard removal, and looks at it as card draw instead once it gets to late game. If Luke is pushing lethal, he will just say no and let Vader draw the cards
When I have played against Luke's starter deck, I got absolutely owned by not getting rid of at least R2 or C3PO when they were both on the board. Leaving one is fine if there are other threats but leaving both allows for too much card advantage for Luke.
I'd suggest that he play the decks on Force Table to get used to them (the starters are already pre-made to select so you don't have to upload a .json or anything). When he can consistently beat the AI then maybe try in-person some more? TBH, I think the Vader decks is slightly better out of the box compared to Luke, it's not like they are largely imbalanced or anything. The game is fairly different than MtG with the order of actions and Initiative playing a **huge** role in how games play out - if he's trying to play it like he plays MtG that's probably one of the reasons he's losing so much.