Mirror Post to Team Covenant Article

LINK HERE

Excellent article Sunny!

I think it's important for people to realize that consistently blaming dice for their losses will really interfere with their longterm ability to improve.

Between this article and the play to win article I am inspired. I am determined to play with a different, more focused mindset in future games.

Excellent article!

I think it's important for people to realize that consistently blaming dice for their losses will really interfere with their longterm ability to improve.

I agree completely, however dice do have an impact on the outcome of every match. Dice can certainly win and lose you games in X-Wing. The best thing to do is to learn to fly to take the dice out of the game as much as possible. What I mean by that is, in a face to face joust the dice will determine the winner. Building a squad to take advantage of the dice will serve you well, this is the reason C-3PO is such a strong card in X-Wing. Focus fire, arc dodging and action denial all will help push the dice in your favor. So the reason I agree with your statement is, if you feel the dice screwed you, find the reason the dice had the chance to screw you and fix it.

Great article, thanks!

I had similar thoughts. Nice aticle.

I think it's important for people to realize that consistently blaming dice for their losses will really interfere with their longterm ability to improve.

I agree completely, however dice do have an impact on the outcome of every match. Dice can certainly win and lose you games in X-Wing. The best thing to do is to learn to fly to take the dice out of the game as much as possible. What I mean by that is, in a face to face joust the dice will determine the winner. Building a squad to take advantage of the dice will serve you well, this is the reason C-3PO is such a strong card in X-Wing. Focus fire, arc dodging and action denial all will help push the dice in your favor. So the reason I agree with your statement is, if you feel the dice screwed you, find the reason the dice had the chance to screw you and fix it.

Ironically, I think that the best way to factor out the dice is to roll a LOT more of them. The more dice you roll, the more their results will approach a normal distribution of outcomes. That will mean a few really good rolls and a few really bad rolls and most around an expected value.

The same goes for more games. The more games you play; the more dice you roll. At Worlds even Paul lost a match, but was still able to rise to the top of the tournament. That wouldn't have been the case if there had been fewer matches and anyone losing a single game would have been out.

So, once you rolling more dice, then the winnings go to the one doing the superior flying, taking advantage of the dice modifiers, and generally managing risk better.

Okay, I'll go read the article now.

Sunny, I do feel I have to point out that part of the reason Paul got to that final table was due to an AMAZING amount of sportsmanship on your part. Paul knows that, recognizes that, and I think it should just be known that your 'Fly Casual' attitude at the highest level of competition should be commended.

It shouldn't as much of a surprise that Paul was able to repeat. He's a very good player whose build was all about mitigating the randomness in the game.

The Falcon has a ton of health so one bad round of rolls isn't enough to kill it.

Han's reroll gets used when the roll was below the statistical average.

The Predator reroll gets used when at or above the statistical average.

Engine Upgrade dodges as many arcs as possible while the Falcon's turret permits attacks.

C3PO completely removes the randomness from 1 evade die.

R2D2 compensates for when the opponent does roll above the average.

Fickle dice do effect the game but good players and builds can minimize the impact of bad rolls while taking advantage of the good ones. While Paul's victory does show that skilled play with a consistent list wins games, the infamous Richard Castle game was literally decided by a single round of luck.

After I wrote this, and of course got all the flak from chess players , I started thinking more and more about this. The skill in this game is really quite far ahead of the dice. When people looked at the top 32 down to the top 8, down to the finals, the repeat players in there from previous tournaments is quite staggering. There is a TON of great players that show up consistently. I was easily the most "unknown" of the people in the top 8. That really drives the point of my article home. New players should definitely take note.

Blaming dice is such a trap and locks you into repeated failure.

There are always more reasons for a loss. Whether it's a list with weaknesses (or perhaps too many bad matchups), maneuver errors (bumping ships/landing on asteroids), priority targeting errors, poor strategy, asteroid placement shortcomings......the list can go on and on.

One of the biggest keys to my improvement as a player is in analyzing my mistakes each match and learning from them. As an example at a Regional I went up against a strong player late in the day who was flying a TIE swarm. Although my play group has some strong players I go against regularly, pretty much none of them fly TIE swarms and my inexperience cost me when I tried to joust my BBBY list against the swarm. My next match was against another swarm. This time I made my opponent move through the asteroids and we ended up having an incredibly close match that really came down to one exchange of fire late in the match. At that point the luck of the dice did go in my opponents favor but I refuse to blame those individual rolls for the result. You see, as the day went on I discovered an inefficiency in my list. Had I made a very small tweak to the list it would have been stronger and could have been the edge I needed to take down a player who a few months later took that same swarm to a top 4 finish at Gencon.

There is always something you can do differently to improve your chances of winning. Nobody ever plays the perfect game with the perfect list. There is always something that can be done better.

After I wrote this, and of course got all the flak from chess players , I started thinking more and more about this. The skill in this game is really quite far ahead of the dice. When people looked at the top 32 down to the top 8, down to the finals, the repeat players in there from previous tournaments is quite staggering. There is a TON of great players that show up consistently. I was easily the most "unknown" of the people in the top 8. That really drives the point of my article home. New players should definitely take note.

I think your central argument is quite right, and I take your statement about Chess as one of personal preference. I also think that learning how to mitigate risk in a game is a more challenging intellectual endeavor than purely outthinking your opponent. It also models real-world challenges more.

However, I do think that new players like the sense that they too can win in a match against a superior player (even if that's not true). The ones who need the message of your article are those who are bummed out about their dice roll. I like what you said about perception in this regard.

Very good article Sunny!

This Rounders quote speaks equally to X-wing: "Why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker EVERY YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas?"

Personally, I hope FFG does something about the current meta. Not the "Fat Han" meta, but the "Paul keeps winning Worlds" meta. It's been two years! Nerf Paul Heaver!

It is true that blaming dice is a trap. Better players will win more.

It is also true that this game IS a dice game and you can and will lose due to bad luck. It's absolutely no coincidence that the winningest players use lists that mitigate the effects of dice as much as possible--whether that be by arc-dodging or dice modification. In fact, I find arc-dodging to be the strongest form of dice modification: the best green dice are the ones you never roll at all.

Paul's Fat Falcon list is just exactly that sort of dice mitigation taken as far as it can possibly go. WWHSD in his comment above explains it well. The falcon is all about consistency and avoiding enemy arcs. Green dice suck? C3PO, R2D2, and the MF title all say: what are these green dice you speak of? Are you red dice cold? Predator and Han rerolls, baby! Getting shot at by lots of enemies? How about a nice boost on top of the already amazing dial of the YT-1300 to get you out of arc or behind that asteroid?

You still have to be a good enough player to use all of these dice mitigation tactics optimally, though.

From reading tourney reports it sounds like part of Paul Heavers success is his opponents fearing him. He isn't an intimidating guy in general and even by his set-up and the way he organizes his stuff, but knowing he is great at the game and is the world champ puts up a bit of pressure to the point where even his semi-final opponent stated "his heart wasn't in it" in his tourney report.

I went to worlds and there was a certain intimidation factor when I played against someone who had all official acrylic tokens or templates and/or even would start talking about how high they finished at certain regional events etc.. as opposed to playing someone that looks like a newer player or has their stuff all disorganized. Playing against Paul has to get in the heads of players to some degree and plays into how he was able to repeat.

And let’s not discount how huge match-ups are! Paul’s build was strong in general and against most of the more popular builds, but playing against a Wedge would have ruined Paul’s day. Imagine Richard Hsu’s squad going against Paul. We most likely would not have had a repeat champ.

I half wish Ribann was still around so we could see his insane rage and argument/trolling against this article :lol:

Great post.

I think it's important for people to realize that consistently blaming dice for their losses will really interfere with their longterm ability to improve.

This is true.

It's probably a bad habit one picks up from less well thought out games (such as $40k), or at least that's how I got to thinking about it. After getting into Warmachine and X-wing, though, I was basically forced to learn from my mistakes if I was ever to have any hope of winning.

Small adendum: green dice are bastards.

After every game of X-wing and 40K, me and my regular opponent talk about what went right and what went wrong.

Sometimes (rarely) sheer dice rolls are the difference, this has yet to be the case in a 100/100 tourney game - but i've seen it wreck a reinforced GR75. Sometimes, army/squad builds are at fault - at one point my friend had a build that was paper to my rock, and all i could do was mitigate and hope for a game ender with me holding objectives - didn't happen, but that's fine. Other games had clear mistakes on one side or another that cost - or sometimes 1 bad dice roll that cost (40k as it happens).

Generally I agree that dice mitigation is the best way to win in both games, autoblasters being a constant on my B-wings (we don't mirror match), and arc dodging being done as much as possible.

Even if the dice screw you, there is no luck involved in maneuvering.
If you are skilled at maneuvering, and at predicting your opponent (definitely a skill. See Poker for an example), then you should consistently place yourself into positions where your green dice won't be used at all, making their incompetence irrelevant.

Folks started to realize this with the Phantom, but I've been preaching it since Wave III, on the "Hypermobile B-Wings".

Think of Greens as being a safety net in case you fail to place your ship properly, and you'll get much better at the game, in my opinion.

Big fan of Pauls. He is on top of his game atm, and obviously able to play and predict like only a very few. However -

Now that he has proven that he can win with what many will consider strong lists, I hope that he has the guts to try out some ship that aren´t getting a lot of love, and make them shine through his talent.

Like the Hawk.

In a way I almost feel that after winning Worlds (twice!) follows a responsibility to "push the limit". So Paul if you are reading this.

I´m a fan. Watching your games is entertaining. Now it´s time to up the ante. And thb... that goes for all of us. That mean less Fat Han play - for 1.

By all means - this is not "calling out Paul Heaver". It is however a shout-out in the hope that the really talented players will take responsibility and help forward X-wing and even out whatever imbalances there are, meta, rules etc..

Peace - thx for the entertainment.

Kepler

I know a lot has already been said, so no point in repeating ideas. I will say this. I am greatly impressed by the overall attitudes of X-Wing players. I have been playing games for many years, and have played in World Level Tourney's in a few CCGs, I have seen many types of players. Congratz to all of you that show wonderful sportsmanship. If its a bad shuffle in a CCG deck or the roll of the dice in X-Wing, you have to control your fate. You will NEVER eliminate the element of chance. That is what makes it a game. That lucky shot, your the life saving evade. I am by far NOT the best player. But I play with Capt'n Scrappy and Hothie and I learn every match from them. They beat me pretty bad, but I get better each time. And that is what you should do, learn from your loss. I teach my son that losing is more important than winning. Don't get me wrong, winning is the goal. But if you keep winning, you have less of a chance to grow. And then sooner or later, you will be beat. But if you take a loss and really look at what happened, you will soon come face to face with Paul and blow him apart. I know I have my sights set on Sunny, but that is personal.

Keep flying casual, boys. Remember, it is only a game if you are having fun, then its work.