Kelvin Tiberius, Sable Gryphon, Antigrapist, and Sozin cover the recent changes to the FAQ and Tournament Rules and discuss how they would prep for Worlds.
Antigrapist’s questions of the week:
Is the x-wing community/meta overreacting to twin laser turrets? Outside of the Spanish and Polish Nationals, 4x TLT seems to be rare and not doing particularly well when it does show up.
What would you say is currently the strongest squad or pilot?
Yes. TLT's, especially non-title 4 TLT lists, are not nearly as big of a deal as the talk would have us believe. But if you took such a list back in time to the pre-wave 7 meta it would be a real monster.
Best current list archetype: If I have to pick just one I'd go with palpatine shuttle + 2 aces.
Close second: mixed rebels with 2 TLT and filler B/Z. Maybe Poe or Jake, but you're probably better off with Tala/daggers. I want Corran to be in here, but he's just a liability versus swarms, ps9 and TLT's(which is basically the whole meta now).
Close third: basically everything that was good before wave 7 can still win you games and won't stop you from getting an MoV that can make the cut. Ace + base.
I agree that 2 Aces + Palp/Doom Shuttle is a top tier list. I am also a fan of 4/5 ship rebel builds. Usually Poe + 2 Bs + Z or BBYY.
It's not the palp shuttle so much as the fact that there are 3 very viable (and relatively cheap) imperial aces now all at ps9 in the form of whisper, fel, and vader. Running any 2 of them together regardless of the rest of your squad is gonna be very strong.
I'm hoping and praying to go up against 3 ship lists at Worlds.
Having same problem with downloading as the last episode.
Also having problems downloading this episode like the last 2
It's not the palp shuttle so much as the fact that there are 3 very viable (and relatively cheap) imperial aces now all at ps9 in the form of whisper, fel, and vader. Running any 2 of them together regardless of the rest of your squad is gonna be very strong.
TLTs are in a dicey place, if you expect to see a lot of them, then you don't want to actually play them. Good players implicitly know that coin flip matches in big tournaments aren't a good idea, hence why you see some of the Jake, 3 x TLT lists cropping up.
Strangely at NZ nationals, Brobots and TLTs were largely absent. A crack shot swarm did really well in Swiss, but fell to a Palp shuttle list in top 16 (I think).
One thing that occurred to me as a good counter to the 2 Ace lists is the swarm, specifically the Scum Bug Zapper swarm. Each Z functions almost like a turret, in that you don't have to worry about getting in arc. But even better, its guaranteed damage. It doesn't care that your cloaked, tokened up, and get re-rolls. Bring enough so that individual damage doesn't hurt your list too badly and you can cover enough space. Eventually, the arc-dodgers will get taken down.
Further, if you're worried about TLTs or other swarms, you can bring the Black Sun Soldiers at PS3.
I think this list would function very much like the Greedo Shot First list that Sable Gryphon brought to the Regionals, only swapping out Torkul for the additional Z.
I feel that this list does a good job addressing each of Paul Heaver's 3 pillars. Jousting? The Z-95 is actually extremely efficient. Arc-Dodgers? They can't dodge automatic damage and the Z swarm likely has more HP. Turrets/PWTs? The swarm will put out more dice and more damage.
With all that said, I feel like I have to be missing something or this would be more popular already. What is the reason these aren't taken? Anyone have ideas/experience with the list?
Did you give credit for the earning your wings article to the wrong person? Thought that was Osoroshii.
Awesome guys! Looking forward to seeing everyone at Worlds!
Did you give credit for the earning your wings article to the wrong person? Thought that was Osoroshii.
duh, thank you. speaking of which, here are the show notes
ffg forums index of useful links
team covenant aces league articles (one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight )
all ship dials (print outs)