I've been hemming and hawing on my interpretation of Jan too.

Once per round, when a friendly ship at Range 1-3 performs a focus action or would be assigned a focus token, you may assign it an evade token instead.

It could go both ways.

But Jan does open up the crazy defensive Falcon build:

Chewie + Elusiveness + Jan Ors + Kyle Katarn + Millennium Falcon

Lando + C3P0 + Recon Spec

Chewie chooses focus as his action. Jan can turn this to an evade.

Lando moves, gives Chewie free action. Chewie uses MF title for an evade. Lando chooses Focus. Jan can turn focus into evades.

Chewie gets shot. Uses elusive. Generates stress. Which when cleared becomes free focus from Kyle. And then the whole combo resets.

Could be interesting.

I would only go with Lando if I had loaded dice. I generally don't like to rely on randomness.

For Recon Spec, Jan can only turn one of those to an evade, at least from my reading of the card.

I've been hemming and hawing on my interpretation of Jan too.

Once per round, when a friendly ship at Range 1-3 performs a focus action or would be assigned a focus token, you may assign it an evade token instead.

It could go both ways.

I think the language is pretty straight-forward, but it is one of those if you stare at it too long your brain can interpret it in different ways.

Given this is a permissive ruleset, you have permission to use this ability "Once per round". All the rest of the language is singular, so there is nothing permitting you can do this on multiple tokens or actions when you use the ability.

If it read the following it would be more up for interpretation:

Once per round, when a friendly ship at Range 1-3 performs focus actions or would be assigned focus tokens, you may assign it an evade token instead.

Historically what I've read of your posts is that you tend to post jokes, jabs, quips, so no I'm not sure what you mean by a list being competitive, and if I read it I would probably not be sure if you were serious. So how do you determine that a list is competitive?

I would think that this thread alone proves that I'm not always trying to be humorous. There have been multiple times when the issue of "being competitive versus flying casual" came up, and I almost universally align myself with the former camp. That's more or less what I was alluding to.

Any list that stands a decent chance of winning a serious event might be considered competitive. If either of those options you listed before were competitive, we'd have seen them showing up with more regularity at said events. To be clear, a conscious meta decision by players to field specific lists - ones with a better than average chance of taking first place - is not the same thing as being "popular." Pick Your Poison made waves for all of about half a heartbeat before the guy fielding it lost in the second round of a vassal tournament, if I recall correctly. If there was a window for top level players to exploit it, it was assuredly a small one. I won't harp too much about the other options you proposed, except to say that green dice are terribly unreliable, and pre-Refit A-Wings have their own subset of problems. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. If you want something more objective than that, I'll direct you toward the math-wingers.

You might be right on Pick your Poison. But he did miss advancing to the top 8 I think by a single hull point though. And there are tons of World/National/Regional champs in that tourney. Just making it out of the opening round is an accomplishment.

Anyways, back on point is just that I see all the time people adopt "rules of thumb" that they repeat back to everyone and it is sometimes just as detrimental as it is helpful.

I get Math Wing, really I do, and I use math in making my builds. But sometimes being surprising or creative can win matches. if that weren't the case, then people would not keep some lists under wraps until tourney time. And sometimes just going through the thought process is worthwhile. Maybe the cards aren't quite right for it yet, but it sparks an idea for later.

For whatever it is worth, I've seen not this combo, but 3PO+Flight Instructor+MF on Chewie taking evade all the time and it is an absolute PITA. People have become so conditioned to fearing the Falcon and desperately wanting to down it at all costs that they are often late to realize he isn't as big an offensive threat and he's just sapping your attention.

But really all of this is mostly about there being just a tinge of rudeness in your reply and I felt the need to point out that sometimes surprises happen. It is sorely needed now more than ever for us to see some outside-the-box builds.

Can I ask a question about the combo?

Why would you go Lando + Jan Ors? Lando is 2 dice for a chance at evades and focus.

Why not use Recon Spec + Jan Ors? This way you ALWAYS get 2 focus which you can convert to Evades if you need.

Well if you are trying to maximize evades at the cost of consistency and/or you only have 1 recon spec and you need it for a different ship (Say you want to run a Falcon with Lando+Jan and Kyle in a HWK, or a Deadeye +APT+Recon Spec in a B-wing)

Recon Spec+Jan is evade +focus always

Lando+Jan is 5/8 chance at evade on one die, 3/8 Evade + 2/8 Focus on the second

My rough math says 23.4% chance of getting 2 Evades and 15.6% Chance of having an Evade and a focus

This comes out to almost a 1/4 chance of a more favorable result a 1/6 chance of the same result of recon spec + Jan and a 3/5 chance of it being worse than recon spec +Jan

Anyways, back on point is just that I see all the time people adopt "rules of thumb" that they repeat back to everyone and it is sometimes just as detrimental as it is helpful.

I get Math Wing, really I do, and I use math in making my builds. But sometimes being surprising or creative can win matches. if that weren't the case, then people would not keep some lists under wraps until tourney time.

I strongly disagree with that last bit. Talking about your list, both in person and online, is a great way to make it stronger through feedback from your peers (assuming you can find it buried under the noise). Even if someone planning to attend the same tournament hears you discussing it, are they going to make changes to their squad just to meta you out of the tourney? If it really is a novel list, are they going to have enough experience playing against it to know how to beat it?

With that said, I'm definitely someone who prizes creativity over established lists. I don't have a lot of respect for netdecking, in part because I think it's lazy and in part because I've never seen it do particularly well against talented players who roll their own. It's important to be aware of the metagame, but (and I'm paraphrasing Lagomorphia, I think) the people winning major tournaments don't follow the metagame--they shape it.

But really all of this is mostly about there being just a tinge of rudeness in your reply and I felt the need to point out that sometimes surprises happen. It is sorely needed now more than ever for us to see some outside-the-box builds.

I can't control how you feel, but people should be careful not to confuse being frank with being rude.

Anyways, back on point is just that I see all the time people adopt "rules of thumb" that they repeat back to everyone and it is sometimes just as detrimental as it is helpful.

I get Math Wing, really I do, and I use math in making my builds. But sometimes being surprising or creative can win matches. if that weren't the case, then people would not keep some lists under wraps until tourney time.

I strongly disagree with that last bit. Talking about your list, both in person and online, is a great way to make it stronger through feedback from your peers (assuming you can find it buried under the noise). Even if someone planning to attend the same tournament hears you discussing it, are they going to make changes to their squad just to meta you out of the tourney? If it really is a novel list, are they going to have enough experience playing against it to know how to beat it?

With that said, I'm definitely someone who prizes creativity over established lists. I don't have a lot of respect for netdecking, in part because I think it's lazy and in part because I've never seen it do particularly well against talented players who roll their own. It's important to be aware of the metagame, but (and I'm paraphrasing Lagomorphia, I think) the people winning major tournaments don't follow the metagame--they shape it.

Oh, I should clear up that "keeping it under wraps" bit. I wasn't trying to endorse the idea, I was just trying to illustrate that people do it because they see that creative, surprising builds have added value. I have no personal opinion on whether it is good practice or not to keep your builds secret. I'm sure sometimes it does help and sometimes it doesn't. It is really only valuable once, so I usually discuss things in the open, but to each their own.

But really all of this is mostly about there being just a tinge of rudeness in your reply and I felt the need to point out that sometimes surprises happen. It is sorely needed now more than ever for us to see some outside-the-box builds.

I can't control how you feel, but people should be careful not to confuse being frank with being rude.

Maybe not necessarily, but if you're going to presume that everyone with a straightforward demeanor is automatically rude, then I don't know what else I can say to convince you otherwise. This is the internet, and we all have strong opinions one way or another. I'm just not particularly inclined to sugarcoat mine.

Any list that stands a decent chance of winning a serious event might be considered competitive. If either of those options you listed before were competitive, we'd have seen them showing up with more regularity at said events. To be clear, a conscious meta decision by players to field specific lists - ones with a better than average chance of taking first place - is not the same thing as being "popular." Pick Your Poison made waves for all of about half a heartbeat before the guy fielding it lost in the second round of a vassal tournament, if I recall correctly. If there was a window for top level players to exploit it, it was assuredly a small one. I won't harp too much about the other options you proposed, except to say that green dice are terribly unreliable, and pre-Refit A-Wings have their own subset of problems. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. If you want something more objective than that, I'll direct you toward the math-wingers.

A conscious meta decision to field specific lists isn't the same as being "popular", but it can often be due to popularity. People are influenced by lists that appear more "tried and true". Evidence of this is present on this forum everyday. They're the list zombies that comeback with automatic responses without trying or even thinking about alternate configurations.

I didn't really propose any lists here, only other viable options to the additional ship configurations you proposed. But really would 3 a-wings be that much less "competitive" than 4 z's? Any list I would propose from this couldn't be measured by your standard anyway since the Jan Crew card isn't out.

Maybe not necessarily, but if you're going to presume that everyone with a straightforward demeanor is automatically rude, then I don't know what else I can say to convince you otherwise. This is the internet, and we all have strong opinions one way or another. I'm just not particularly inclined to sugarcoat mine.

You responded while I was mid-edit, since I realized it came off harsher than intended. Just see my above edit and we can call a truce, fair?

A conscious meta decision to field specific lists isn't the same as being "popular", but it can often be due to popularity. People are influenced by lists that appear more "tried and true". Evidence of this is present on this forum everyday. They're the list zombies that comeback with automatic responses without trying or even thinking about alternate configurations.

I didn't really propose any lists here, only other viable options to the additional ship configurations you proposed. But really would 3 a-wings be that much less "competitive" than 4 z's? Any list I would propose from this couldn't be measured by your standard anyway since the Jan Crew card isn't out.

I realize I asked you how you might flesh the list out, so I hope you don't feel like I was trying to trap you with a response. I just wanted some better context so we could debate the merits of your YT build, since a discussion without meaningful comparisons would be ultimately fruitless. As far as A-Wings are concerned, I'm very much on board for the post-Refit variety. The pre-Refit version, not so much.

You responded while I was mid-edit, since I realized it came off harsher than intended. Just see my above edit and we can call a truce, fair?

Of course.