Not sure if I agree on the last point. Of course in general I would suspect it is the analytical musings of the tournament players that carry the major force of moving the meta, but just like in in nature there will be some rare flukes or leaps (mutations) that could be caused by a "happy to lucky" casual player. It could be an entirely new build, a new outfitting of a less used pilot or a novel play style on a well known build. A parallel to the scientific world would be how penicillin was discovered.

Well sure, there is an exception to everything and a casual player could make a build that push the game forward but, I don't think a casual player would come up with a new build strong enough to shake the entire metagame. Highly competitive and unorthodox, I have no doubt. But seeing how the community scrutinize every new cards coming and try to exploit them in every way possible, I would be very surprise if a build that would change the meta came from a casual player without the tournament community knowing about it.

I just don't think the casual player care about the meta. I remember when I started playing and had no idea what to try next and what was good and not. I didn't try or care to create the ultimate team, I was just using the ships I felt like flying. No min/maxing, no statistic about what is better between a TL or a Focus, or one more attack die or a Focus. Just going with the moment.

So yeah, technically, a casual player could come up with an unsuspected build and create a new template, but so could my girlfriend or anybody.

Yeah, I think we are on the same page here. In order for the fluky/casual mutation to have any sort of impact on a larger scale in a community the idea has to be either:

A) so brilliant/viable that it is obviously da new thang (rare)

or

B) good enough to be noticed by "a better player" who see the potential and tweaks it or flys it better which thereby increases it "genetic" potential for succeeding/winning/breeding.

BTW, it is the unicorn of X-Wing to have a talented squad building GF ;-)