About
I received Star Wars Epic Duels as a Christmas present from my beloved Aunt and Uncle in 2002.
How We Roll
What is Geektopia Epic Duels?
It’s an evolved form of Star Wars Epic Duels played by “The 3 A-Holes,” Roman Farraday, fooyongfoo, BB and their friends, including Erik B. and Deri (Docmogs/fingersandteeth).
The “evolution” refers to the tweaking of 8 of the original 12 decks and the addition of about 30 custom decks with the goal being that each character’s level of power be fairly representative of their power in the films, by our interpretation. Thus, Mace Windu is more powerful than Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke & Leia are substantially better than the shooters, and Darth Vader is actually tough to beat. Pursuing this goal admittedly results in constant tinkering on the decks. But hey, the Millenium Falcon required constant tinkering too.
House Rules
Aside from our own interpretations of some special card effects, there are only a handful of house rules to differentiate Geektopia ED from Hasbro ED:
All games are 2v2 or 3v3
Personality minors can win.
Minors cannot heal by playing cards of the major.
Whoever goes first only gets 1 action on his first turn.
The winner of a “roll off” can choose to go first or which side to defend.
Every major can be placed on any named space of the side they are defending, every minor must be placed adjacent to its respective major.
The “Mountain Cat” Rule: No direct damage card that affects multiple opponents (e.g. Thermal Detonator) can target any character who has not yet had a turn.
Decks
We play with 4 unchanged original decks, tweaked versions of the remaining 8 original decks and over 40 custom decks. Our custom decks are both our original creations as well as decks we “borg” from the online community. We take someone else’s deck and assimilate it into the Geektopia system by tweaking it to our desired level of power, most have changed enough to be considered distinct from their original. Sometimes, we take ideas from multiple deck creators and fuse them together; our Grievous deck is the best example.
All custom decks are fully compatible with any SWED set, and have the benefit of having been tested for mechanics and balance over years of 2v2 play. However, all custom decks that appear here are developed and tweaked to fit the world of Geektopia ED. One characteristic of Geektopia decks is that every deck can do something. We don’t just make decks to make decks, we take inspiration and try to capture it in a balanced deck that has at least one neat trick it can play. The heart of Geektopia ED is the attack-and-defend process. Most decks have some big attacks and some form of power defense, resulting in an overall “power creep”.
Tier System
Geektopia decks fall into the Tier system that is widely understood by the Epic Duels Online Community:
Tier 1: The strongest decks, Jedi and Sith Masters (Obi-Wan, Emperor Palpatine)
Tier 2: Strong decks with weaknesses, Jedi and Sith (Mace, Dooku, Anakin)
Tier 3: The weakest decks, Shooters or Weak Jedi/Sith (Luke, Han, Boba Fett, Vader)
(All examples in parantheses are of original, unchanged decks)
Geektopia used to have a 5-Tier system, but we’ve redefined our decks in terms of the generally agreed upon 3-tier system. Geektopia is ruled by the “sluggos,” decks with big power attacks and power defense that tend to achieve victory by slugging it out with their foes – the original Obi-Wan, with his arsenal of A6′s, A7′s and D12′s, would be a prime example.