With Scum out, it seems like a lot of things are in flux. I'm not sure what I can really learn from the List Juggler data, given that it's not really sorted by wave just yet.

So how has the "Turrets; turrets everywhere!" meta developed since Scum's release? I'm seeing a few dual-Aggressor lists out there, but is there a more general trend?

It would seem to me that with everything in flux, it's a good time to have an adaptive list over a specialized list.

But what are your thoughts?

Experiment. Enjoy. rinse. Repeat.

Too shaky to tell, which is awesome. Enjoy the variety while it lasts

locally, though, we've moved from pain in the ass boring as hell turrets back to high agility. It should come as no surprise that tons of people want to play auto-thrusters in addition to scum.

If there is one thing that Wave 6 will do to the meta, it is dodgers are stronger than ever. We will see just as many or more Phantoms than we did when Wave 4 dropped, and the Interceptor is back with a vengeance.

one thing we do need is List Juggler needs to have date relevant data charts, not just a data chart for all of the games played since its inception.

second, playing with scum is good, there are more options out there than there used to be.

Third, gladly enough I think most people are beginning to learn to fly very well and need less Phantom hard counters, so the meta should shift back to soft counters and lost of dice and lots of ships to counter possible turrets.

I hope the "rock, paper, scissors" aspect of a third faction means that things have opened up to the point that "meta" ends up fading into the background!

I would like to see such a variety of builds now that no one "type" of build dominates and everybody is building more uniquely!

If there is one thing that Wave 6 will do to the meta, it is dodgers are stronger than ever. We will see just as many or more Phantoms than we did when Wave 4 dropped, and the Interceptor is back with a vengeance.

Do you think the Phantom comes back because turrets are deterred by autothrusters? It would seem to me that the deterrence of popular builds doesn't kick in all that fast. It seems (to me) like it took a little while for the turret to displace the Phantom as the hegemonic ship.

Third, gladly enough I think most people are beginning to learn to fly very well and need less Phantom hard counters, so the meta should shift back to soft counters and lost of dice and lots of ships to counter possible turrets.

That's certainly my hope as well - greater variety.

Imperials everywhere

If there is one thing that Wave 6 will do to the meta, it is dodgers are stronger than ever. We will see just as many or more Phantoms than we did when Wave 4 dropped, and the Interceptor is back with a vengeance.

Do you think the Phantom comes back because turrets are deterred by autothrusters? It would seem to me that the deterrence of popular builds doesn't kick in all that fast. It seems (to me) like it took a little while for the turret to displace the Phantom as the hegemonic ship.

Third, gladly enough I think most people are beginning to learn to fly very well and need less Phantom hard counters, so the meta should shift back to soft counters and lost of dice and lots of ships to counter possible turrets.

That's certainly my hope as well - greater variety.

Oh, Phantoms never went away, and turrets aren't going away either. But, I'd say there are less Phantoms on the table than there were six months ago, even if Whisper is currently one of the most popular pilots in the game. The meta will adapt to the new releases, as it always does, and powerful ships with few counters will emerge. Now, the strongest counter to the Phantom has become weaker, making the Phantom stronger overall and therefore an even more attractive choice than it was in Wave 5.

But, just a prediction. Could be wrong.

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

honestly not yet. tie bomber soon hopefully.

some little buff to the X. its not bad, its just a little lost about its identity.

lets see how the syck and the starviper mature.

changes in role over time are a big deal. obsolescence is always possible. lets hope not

Going only by the SC that I went to last weekend, its all over the place. There were around 20 people there, and I saw only one double YT build, and only one other Falcon at all. There were a couple of Decimators, one with a BH and one with a phantom. But that's about it for what I would have called the "meta" at the time. The cut to the top eight was nicely all over the place as well. If I remember correctly (and I don't have the lists, just what I remember being in them) there was:

1 panic attack list (3b, 1y)

2 double aggressor list

3 Decimator, Firespray list

4 three named A wings

5 four X wings

6 E wing and Z-95 swarm (the z's had cluster missiles)

7 four Interceptors (without autothrusters)

8 and a Defender with two bombers and an interceptor

It should also be noted that this is not necessarily the order that they finished in, other than 1 came in first, 2 second, 3 and 4 top four, and 5-8 top eight.

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

The TIE Advanced and generic E-wings are still in pretty deep bantha pudu. Obviously the Advanced fix is on its way, but E-wings and Defenders could use a patch, and X-wings could use a smaller one. The niche for TIE Bombers is still very narrow.

There are lots of approaches to the game that still don't work, and although I'm really interested to see how FFG handles those things as the game goes forward and confident that they'll do it well, that doesn't mean it makes sense to pretend that everything is coming up roses.

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

honestly not yet. tie bomber soon hopefully.

some little buff to the X. its not bad, its just a little lost about its identity.

lets see how the syck and the starviper mature.

changes in role over time are a big deal. obsolescence is always possible. lets hope not

Tie Bomber is certainly viable now.

It's got the best survivability-to-cost ratio in the game, and gets even more absurd after adding a Hull upgrade.

For extra damage, give it a bomb! Best damage-to-cost upgrades available to any ship.

Seriously, just because it has 2 torpedo and 2 missile slots doesn't mean that the uselessness of those upgrades are a detriment. The B-Wing and Y-Wing do just fine these days.

Imperials everywhere

This is probably the biggest universal right now. The wrecking ball of "Decimator plus arc-dodger" is still the most common combo. Double or triple arc-dodgers (Soontir with a Phantom) are also common, along with people running various TIE swarms.

On the Rebel side, the YT is still a very common sight, though I can't recall seeing a lot of Han. B-Wings were also still out in force, either as part of BBBBZ or a 4B control list.

Scum seems to be a bit more limited, and is maybe 10% or less of the tourney makeup. People either haven't bought into the faction yet, or are just sticking with what they know and trust for now.

also things dont stay indefinitely unstable without some outside force:

continual releases or rehashes that give significant change. (rehash i think is good, upgrades, new ways to build, new ships all the time? heck no, i think thats horrible. )

games like starcraft2 do use patches to keep things from stale-ing up.

older games would usually allow people to find new ways to play over years. but that might feel very stale for modern day players.

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

honestly not yet. tie bomber soon hopefully.

some little buff to the X. its not bad, its just a little lost about its identity.

lets see how the syck and the starviper mature.

changes in role over time are a big deal. obsolescence is always possible. lets hope not

TIE Bomber just won in TCAces last night. I've personally seen it do very well mixed in with a swarm in Wave 5. It's far, far harder to kill than a TIE Fighter for only 4 extra points, and is well worth it as a value buy to support some bigger names.

Bombers could definitely use some. Especially with Y-wings becoming more viable now. I've enjoyed flying Y-wings Y-wings and more Y-wings. Slave and two Y-wings, or four y-wings have brought me much sucess at my local league. Turrets or no.

I hope the "rock, paper, scissors" aspect of a third faction means that things have opened up to the point that "meta" ends up fading into the background!

I would like to see such a variety of builds now that no one "type" of build dominates and everybody is building more uniquely!

rock, paper, scissors would imply that we'd have bad match-ups across faction lines, which I don't believe is the case

Aggressors are a bad match-up for the rest of scum, though, with the exception of possibly firesprays

I could definitely see a variety of builds now that turrets don't idiotically invalidate a whole class of ship, but the return of high agility arc dodgers is going to make things hellish for swarm ships. 2 dice attacks are just so bloody worthless. Feedback array gives Zs a new lease on life but sadly Aggressors take it all away

Truth be told, haven't (thankfully!) seen any more of the boring as drying **** 2 ship imp builds. Phantoms, Soontir, Decimators etc. they all get worked over by a solid B-wing facilitate rebel control list

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

honestly not yet. tie bomber soon hopefully.

some little buff to the X. its not bad, its just a little lost about its identity.

lets see how the syck and the starviper mature.

changes in role over time are a big deal. obsolescence is always possible. lets hope not

Tie Bomber is certainly viable now.

It's got the best survivability-to-cost ratio in the game, and gets even more absurd after adding a Hull upgrade.

For extra damage, give it a bomb! Best damage-to-cost upgrades available to any ship.

Seriously, just because it has 2 torpedo and 2 missile slots doesn't mean that the uselessness of those upgrades are a detriment. The B-Wing and Y-Wing do just fine these days.

I respect you hugely, but would like to politely disagree.

Its very very very hard to hit too many lists with bombs nowadays. any sort of arc dodger you ahve no chance. even Bs can dodge bombs pretty well.

PS4 gammas arent going to catch much.

--

survivability wise, that's nice, but the damage output is too low on 2 dice ships and fat builds or high amount of green dice make 2 dice much worse than they were when the game was first debut'ed.

there is also no way I would consider adding hull for 3 points on a bomber. Can you show me a meta viable build with that?

The B and the Y have much more potent other weapons in their arsenal: B has a fantastic short dial plus BR. and Cannons and crew possibly, and systems and EPT and useful pilots and already a high cost effective DAMAGE output. Y has turret, BTL for damage, astromech and also scum variants have EPTs. There are HUGE DIFFERENCES. emphasis mine.

--

Tie defender doesn't see much use either.

I'd really love a 1-2 pt BTL-style-title: after firing secondary weapon, you may have an additional primary attack. (any secondary, including missiles).

Woul'dnt that be awesome?

It would be the imperial heavy hitter.

4 pts: flechette + primary.

9pts: HLC + Primary

on a vessel with decent survivability.

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

honestly not yet. tie bomber soon hopefully.

some little buff to the X. its not bad, its just a little lost about its identity.

lets see how the syck and the starviper mature.

changes in role over time are a big deal. obsolescence is always possible. lets hope not

TIE Bomber just won in TCAces last night. I've personally seen it do very well mixed in with a swarm in Wave 5. It's far, far harder to kill than a TIE Fighter for only 4 extra points, and is well worth it as a value buy to support some bigger names.

can you link us to video or at least the build? im intrigued.

...even if Whisper is the most common single pilot in the game, currently.

Is this so? According to the Juggler data, Whisper accounts for 4.1% of pilots by count and 5.86% by points. Even within the Empire, that's outnumbered by Chiraneau by points and Academy by numbers. So, how are you counting?

Imperials everywhere

This is probably the biggest universal right now. The wrecking ball of "Decimator plus arc-dodger" is still the most common combo. Double or triple arc-dodgers (Soontir with a Phantom) are also common, along with people running various TIE swarms.

Am I just missing the sarcasm? The Empire seems like the minority faction according to the numbers I'm seeing. Is there a time-cut-off you're looking at the games since the release of Scum?

Completely unstable. Hopefully permanently so.

... and every ship is viable.

honestly not yet. tie bomber soon hopefully.

some little buff to the X. its not bad, its just a little lost about its identity.

lets see how the syck and the starviper mature.

changes in role over time are a big deal. obsolescence is always possible. lets hope not

TIE Bomber just won in TCAces last night. I've personally seen it do very well mixed in with a swarm in Wave 5. It's far, far harder to kill than a TIE Fighter for only 4 extra points, and is well worth it as a value buy to support some bigger names.

can you link us to video or at least the build? im intrigued.

The one I saw at store championship recently was as follows:

Backstabber

4 Academy Pilots

2 Scimitar Pilots with Seismic Charges

Made it to Top 8, losing on a draw to the squad that ultimately placed 2nd, with 42 points remaining on each squad. The Scimitars are just beastly, generally requiring at least 3-4 concentrated 3-dice attacks to score a measly 18 points.

SableGryphon also posted about his Worlds experience, where he used 4 Scimitars with Proximity Mines, plus a Doomshuttle. The low PS is an advantage with the new Proximity Mine ruling, as you know exactly where the higher-PS pilot will be when you fly past them and drop your bomb on top of them. He had also noted that it was especially demoralizing to go up against, as your opponent has to roll their own dice for each proximity mine they hit. To fly over a bomb and have your own dice roll three crits against Soontir Fel? That sort of dice betrayal gets in your head!

...even if Whisper is the most common single pilot in the game, currently.

Is this so? According to the Juggler data, Whisper accounts for 4.1% of pilots by count and 5.86% by points. Even within the Empire, that's outnumbered by Chiraneau by points and Academy by numbers. So, how are you counting?

Imperials everywhere

This is probably the biggest universal right now. The wrecking ball of "Decimator plus arc-dodger" is still the most common combo. Double or triple arc-dodgers (Soontir with a Phantom) are also common, along with people running various TIE swarms.

Am I just missing the sarcasm? The Empire seems like the minority faction according to the numbers I'm seeing. Is there a time-cut-off you're looking at the games since the release of Scum?

No sarcasm. I didn't get into any of last weekend's events, but the first weekend after Scum's release only saw 10% of players actually using them. Still seeing a lot of folks trying to hitch their wagon to Decimators, though Interceptor use is way up thanks to Autothrusters.