The real disappointment is that there are now two different damage decks. No matter how FFG addresses this issue for future tournaments, it will cause some (if not many) to grumble. They should have just let sleeping dogs lie.

Regarding the loss of things like Injured Pilot and Munitions Failure: good riddance.

Yeah, you can't get that crit that blows off Dash's HLC. However, the Dash player paid 12 points for that ability. HWKs and Y-Wings are paying 2-6 points for their turrets. EPTs cost between 1-4 points, and likely double that if you injured an A-Wing pilot. The ability to permanently destroy something an player invested points in on a lucky crit was not a very balanced factor.

And that's without even getting into the things that added no punishment, like Munitions Failure and Minor Hull Breach to Chiraneau.

I kinda like the new damage deck- it's a lot less swingy, makes it easier to value crits. Also, attacking upgrade cards directly is kinda crazy and the idea about randomizing comes off as clunky as you now need to bring another die to roll to randomize the upgrade that actually gets hit. This also defeats the purpose of the new damage deck which is to smooth out the crits, not spike them up harder.

How have you all got the new set already?

Do you mean 'how many of you'? I'm still waiting on my LGS to get their stock.

I am disappointed, but really, it's only because I'm a Maarek Stele superfan.

His ability itself was awesome. With a damage deck that was full of potentially useless cards, as well as some severely crippling cards, the ability to pick from 3 choices was great.

The only problem was, since it only worked when you critted, it was an ability that you rarely ever got to use. Then the Advanced Targeting Computer came out, and it became an ability you were using almost every time you attack. Maarek was suddenly awesome!

Then, two weeks later, they released the new damage deck. The new deck is much more even. There's no useless cards in it, but there's no really crippling cards in it. All the cards are just "good". Which really hurts the usefulness of his ability. When all the cards are good, there's not as much benefit from being able to choose between them.

So my favorite pilot got to be awesome...for about 2 weeks. He's still a lot better than he was before the ATC, but not as cool as he was before the new damage deck.

Well Maarek is still awesome against Huge Ships. He's simply brilliant. Sure he may not play quite as well in 100 death matches. That's okay as there are still other TIE Advanced pilots; but in Epic he definitely shines. The right tool for the job

I was able to track down a copy at a local B&N, who had given me a 15% off coupon for Labor Day.

The real disappointment is that there are now two different damage decks. No matter how FFG addresses this issue for future tournaments, it will cause some (if not many) to grumble. They should have just let sleeping dogs lie.

I don't think they could have. Am I annoyed that you have to get a new damage deck, yes. I am glad that there is an updated damage deck, even more yes.

In my opinion, the damage deck is why there are so many imbalanced ship point costs from the first several waves of ships. FFGs overvalued the impact of crits on the game which lead to shields being viewed as more powerful than they were compared to hull. In reality, the difference between taking crit versus a regular hit was relatively minor. This is why the X, Y, A and Advanced are so overpriced compared to the TIE Fighter. You can also see it in skills like Marksmanship which when it first came out was basically 3 points for an improved offensive focus or proton bombs that cost an additional 3 points over seismic to guarantee a critical effect on a target. These cards rarely get used except in specific combos, which points to an issue with what they bring to the game. Its also why people speak in terms of hit points in the game and rarely say, yeah but the E-Wing is 60% shields which is why it is costed correctly. There was a point in time that I thought for crits to be worth their cost in the game, they all had to count as two hits plus an additional effect.

In short, the damage deck needed to be updated to make crits more relevant to the game and make shields worth what they are costed at

I still think Mareek is useful even if all effects are useful on all targets. There are going to be cases where some crits are more useful than others at that point in time. As an easy example, if you are shooting at an X-Wing with 2 hull left, would you prefer a Direct Hit or anything else? Mareek makes it 3x as likely to get that Direct Hit you want. Conversely against a Super PTL Dash with 5 hull, I would prefer to drop a stress on him rather than deal a Direct Hit (because you know you can murder him next turn if he has no actions).

I was able to track down a copy at a local B&N, who had given me a 15% off coupon for Labor Day.

Also, if you have an effect on something, you have affected it. So some of the old crit effects don't affect all ships. Affect is the verb, effect is the noun. Unless you're trying to make something happen, like the way I'm trying to effect a change in the way everyone is using affect and effect. I hope the effect of my attempt will be to affect the level of grammar on the forum.

I don't see why Marek-fans are upset. It's not like Marek actually stood a good chance of getting any one specific crit result, anyway- The odds of his ability revealing a particular non-direct hit result is only about 17.1%- Certainly possible, but nothing you'd want to base a strategy on. If you were hoping for one of three crits, your odds are better, but still under 50% (45.2%). With the new deck, Marek is far less likely to get stuck with a merely "Ok" crit, and will usually get fairly good results. You may not see the incredibly swingy game changers often, but you've gained consistency.

EDIT: Just to be clear, this isn't math-wing. What we're talking about is simple probability. It is possible your results may differ from the predicted estimate, but that simply means one of a few things;

a) You're a statistical outlier, and more play will likely cause you to come closer to average performance.

b) You and/or your opponents do not shuffle damage decks well enough (it takes 7 riffle shuffles to properly randomize a deck, believe it or not!)

c) You're only remembering the outliers, because memory is funny like that.

I was able to track down a copy at a local B&N, who had given me a 15% off coupon for Labor Day.

Hey! I'm a B&N member! Where's my coupon?

Also, if you have an effect on something, you have affected it. So some of the old crit effects don't affect all ships. Affect is the verb, effect is the noun. Unless you're trying to make something happen, like the way I'm trying to effect a change in the way everyone is using affect and effect. I hope the effect of my attempt will be to affect the level of grammar on the forum.

Grammar Nazis have a certain effect on my affect.

And in a fandom that loves Stormtroopers of all things we are bound to get Grammar Nazis with our rules lawyers and trolls.

Still, extra points for being extra punny.

I was able to track down a copy at a local B&N, who had given me a 15% off coupon for Labor Day.

Hey! I'm a B&N member! Where's my coupon?

Are you signed up for their emails? When I was a member, I used to get 25% off coupons in my inbox around every US holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Mother's Day, etc). Even after letting my membership lapse, I still get 15% off coupons all the time.

That's okay as there are still other TIE Advanced pilots

This is a filthy lie.

I was able to track down a copy at a local B&N, who had given me a 15% off coupon for Labor Day.

Hey! I'm a B&N member! Where's my coupon?

Are you signed up for their emails? When I was a member, I used to get 25% off coupons in my inbox around every US holiday (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Memorial Day, Mother's Day, etc). Even after letting my membership lapse, I still get 15% off coupons all the time.

Hmmm. The emails go to my wife (it's actually her account...)