My question is what would happen if you applied the same method of analysis MJ is using here to, say, a Recon Specialist on a Bounty Hunter. I doubt it would be as valuable as the Emperor, but I suspect you'd find that according to this method a lot of upgrades are going to be very valuable.

Conversely, if you applied the same method to a PTL on Sooner Fel that you were actively blocking as a game strategy, it would make PTL on Soontir look like a bad card.

Which inherently, supports my previous statement saying that there are too many factors to quantify certain upgrades.

I think the emperor lends himself to that kind of analysis because he really is in league of his own points and effect wise. But I assume you'd get similar points percentage return out of thrusters, recon spec, TLT on a hwk... Lots of combos.

So... Emperor or no, if I fly my ships well and the dice are on my side I can win? If I fly the emperor and get 3x his cost out of him so can still lose? Sounds pretty good to me.

If you were a terror with Vader and Soontir before you still will be. If you walked over Vader and Soontir before (who did that?) you'll have a less easy time now but still should win. I like to hear that Jax is finally coming into his own.

I mean, I don't think we can assign a numerical value for "getting his points back". That phrase is just so obtuse because of just how many factors exist in this game such as skillful manuvevurs, prediction, asteroid placement, ship stats, raw dice, modified dice, you name it.

I think a better way to analyze the effectiveness of Emperor is how many active rolls he participated in modifying. Say he eventually goes down after 12 rounds surviving on the battlefield, but only 10 of those he played an active round in modifying dice. You essentially got 10 guaranteed evades/crits from blanks. That's the only way I can see something like this quantified.

So... Emperor or no, if I fly my ships well and the dice are on my side I can win? If I fly the emperor and get 3x his cost out of him so can still lose? Sounds pretty good to me.

If you were a terror with Vader and Soontir before you still will be. If you walked over Vader and Soontir before (who did that?) you'll have a less easy time now but still should win. I like to hear that Jax is finally coming into his own.

I mean, I don't think we can assign a numerical value for "getting his points back". That phrase is just so obtuse because of just how many factors exist in this game such as skillful manuvevurs, prediction, asteroid placement, ship stats, raw dice, modified dice, you name it.

I think a better way to analyze the effectiveness of Emperor is how many active rolls he participated in modifying. Say he eventually goes down after 12 rounds surviving on the battlefield, but only 10 of those he played an active round in modifying dice. You essentially got 10 guaranteed evades/crits from blanks. That's the only way I can see something like this quantified.

Well, that is what Majorjuggler did a couple pages back. He hinted it might be close to ATs I think but no other references and for some cards that would be tough. Even when it can be done it can be misleading because as Biophysical pointed out, the longer an upgrade lasts the more it gets used. So even in games that the Emperor loses, if he's the last left, he's going to look like he was incredibly valuable.

I think for something like Autothrusters, it's a little easier to mathwing out than the Emperor because they activate under specific conditions (out of arc or in range 3). So math plays out in a way where out of 10 rounds, 4 of which Autothrusters had a hand in. For the Emperor, because you can change any dice, anywhere, as long as its one of your ships once per turn, you can easily have 2-3x the amount of use of Autothrusters, especially since it normally sits on a effective 10+ HP ship. That in itself can be said that it's "worth" the points when compared to the 2-point Autothruster. But to say he's made X amount of points back is probably way more than I want to think about.

I agree that MajorJuggler's "usage points" aren't really a good way of looking at Palpatine because the whole point of good upgrades in X-Wing is getting more -- sometimes far more -- than their points say they're worth. Both players are trying to do this.

That said, I think there is an obvious useful comparison: Biggs.

When I play against Palpatine's Uber -- and IMO when anybody who plays against it should try to do -- my first priority is eliminating it. I do not want that 8 points' value getting multiplied to 16 or 24 or 32. So I go after it hard. This creates a Biggs Effect.

Better Than Biggs

Works from anywhere

10 HP can take 1 turn longer to kill

More versatile, works on offense and defense

Usually can spend its action on offense

Worse Than Biggs

4 points more expensive

Nearly always gives away starting position

Might not fire more than once

Has no chance to Biggs Maneuver out of danger

I'm sure there's stuff, even obvious stuff, I've missed, but this serves to illustrate.

I draw my own conclusions from it, but I'll hold off on sharing them for now, except to note that, implicitly by stating how hard I go after the shuttle, I obviously think Palpatine is badass.

When I play against Palpatine's Uber -- and IMO when anybody who plays against it should try to do -- my first priority is eliminating it. I do not want that 8 points' value getting multiplied to 16 or 24 or 32. So I go after it hard.

When I play against Palpatine's Uber -- and IMO when anybody who plays against it should try to do -- my first priority is eliminating it. I do not want that 8 points' value getting multiplied to 16 or 24 or 32. So I go after it hard.

By the time you kill the shuttle and turn to fight the aces they will have wrecked half your list and will have the easiest time in the world mopping up.

The shuttle is a trap, guys. If you go for it first, you're creating a flank the aces can attack, allowing your opponent to freely use the Emperor on offence, and ensuring that the aces are going to live to the endgame. None of those things are good for you.

The truth of your statement depends entirely on the list you're flying. Lots of lists can drop a shuttle in two turns. More so, they can move to engage while threatening to block and trap an ace, so the ace can't sell out and go pure offense. Not all lists can do this, but big, beefy 4-5 ship lists or swarms absolutely can.

By the time you kill the shuttle and turn to fight the aces they will have wrecked half your list and will have the easiest time in the world mopping up.

And yet that has not been the way it's worked for me, and I've primarily flown Brobots against them, which should theoretically hate this "trap" the most.

It will take two rounds, possibly three, to kill the shuttle. That's at most six attacks from the aces.

And that ignores that the Palp's Uber player cannot completely discount you going for an ace. He or she cannot safely immediately fly hard for you, for fear that you will turn for the aces. So, in practice, you have to fade four shots from the aces. And that sucks. But if it "wrecks half your list," then you simply cannot win the match-up you're in.

The aces are the trap. Every round you spend trying to get super-lucky and tag the aces is another round in which the value of Palpatine is climbing. Eventually, barring extremely good luck for you, you're dead ... and might not even know it yet.

The truth of your statement depends entirely on the list you're flying. Lots of lists can drop a shuttle in two turns. More so, they can move to engage while threatening to block and trap an ace, so the ace can't sell out and go pure offense. Not all lists can do this, but big, beefy 4-5 ship lists or swarms absolutely can.

Exactly. And, for the record, so can incredibly versatile and nimble ships like Advanced Sensors Brobots.

The truth of your statement depends entirely on the list you're flying. Lots of lists can drop a shuttle in two turns. More so, they can move to engage while threatening to block and trap an ace, so the ace can't sell out and go pure offense. Not all lists can do this, but big, beefy 4-5 ship lists or swarms absolutely can.

Exactly. And, for the record, so can incredibly versatile and nimble ships like Advanced Sensors Brobots.

Raw speed probably helps them on that count as well.

By the time you kill the shuttle and turn to fight the aces they will have wrecked half your list and will have the easiest time in the world mopping up.

The shuttle is a trap, guys. If you go for it first, you're creating a flank the aces can attack, allowing your opponent to freely use the Emperor on offence, and ensuring that the aces are going to live to the endgame. None of those things are good for you.

Not so the last time I played it. Even with the Big E, I couldn't land roll more than two hits in a single dice roll. If I didn't roll three blanks with Soontir, it wasn't an attack roll.

Edit: for clarification

The problem as I see it is the attitude that no card, unless it is absurdly OP, will ever be judged to be too powerful.

That is my attitude.

There's no such thing as an overpowered card. Just an undercosted one.

You can't really judge whether something is overpowered or not by how much it costs or how much it's "worth" (which is going to be subjective anyway no matter how you swing it). That's looking at it the wrong way.

I don't think this is a fair assessment of what the math does here. While there's probably no clear number in points return that objectively leads to the conclusion "overpowered", we can use the numbers as an indication that something is amiss. And we can also corroborate what we already suspected.

The problem as I see it is the attitude that no card, unless it is absurdly OP, will ever be judged to be too powerful. You're clearly setting the bar for an OP card too high:

...there is nothing in the game right now that will guarantee you a tournament victory as long as you don't mirror match.

This is good.

Really? Do we have to wait for a card that will guarantee a tournament victory before we can use the term 'overpowered'? I'd say the word has well and truly become a sarcastic euphemism by the time we would have been cursed with such a ridiculous upgrade or pilot. Yes, it's good that there is no such card, but that isn't saying much. Far weaker cards deserve the qualification "overpowered" in my book.

Apparently, nothing is ever OP, or that is what I understand when reading the forum. Whisper wasn't OP, until the erratum! After the erratum, there does seem to be a reluctant consensus that the Phantom was, after all, a bit too powerful for its points. But I like to think that we don't need the judgement of the design team and can make up our minds about what works and what doesn't.

On another note, I think that claiming we cannot say anything about Palpatine because he is more or less effective in different builds, is a bit of a red herring. We don't judge PtL by how well it works on a bare Luke Skywalker. We look at the likes of Soontir Fel and Jake Farrell, where the card really makes sense. Same goes for Palpatine. If he is best next to aces, then that is how the card should be judged, not by accounting for some combo that few people will use anyway.

Oh don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of Major Juggler and Mathwing in general, I was simply making a point that the math isn't the best way to determine what is overpowered or not. Let me see if I can illustrate by commenting on some of the recent posts. Some people have argued for gunning for the palmobile first, others have argued just as vehemently for going after the aces first. Say you go for palp first- doesn't that then increase the value of the aces by giving them a few extra turns to do their thing? What if you go after the aces first, doesn't that then increase the value of your list by giving Palpatine more turns to do his stuff? No matter how you cut it, you're getting the most "value" out of what stays on the board the longest and the least value out of what dies the quickest.

As for arguing over the semantics of what is "overpowered" or simply "very very powerful," well that really is just semantics. But one needs to look only as far as MtG to see plenty of examples of what overpowered really means. Once you have to start banning cards and combos from tournament play or changing the rules of the game just to maintain some semblance of balance, then you can accurately describe them as overpowered. So actually by that reasoning, I would have to say that yes, pre-nerf phantoms and pre "half-destroyed = half-points" fat PWTs were overpowered.

Looks like another Nationals won by Ace+Ace+Palpshuttle, that makes two National wins in consecutive weekends. Philippines was this weekend just gone and New Zealand the week before.

It appears TLTs have gone from 2 ship predators to Aces prey in a matter of weeks. Always interesting how quickly the meta changes and adapts in this game.

Worlds should be fun!

As for arguing over the semantics of what is "overpowered" or simply "very very powerful," well that really is just semantics. But one needs to look only as far as MtG to see plenty of examples of what overpowered really means. Once you have to start banning cards and combos from tournament play or changing the rules of the game just to maintain some semblance of balance, then you can accurately describe them as overpowered. So actually by that reasoning, I would have to say that yes, pre-nerf phantoms and pre "half-destroyed = half-points" fat PWTs were overpowered.

Second, it is important to know when a card causes too much imbalance. That is not to say the card will automatically cause you to win a tournament, but as I said earlier, we should really be wary of far less powerful cards. An OP card does not have to be obvious. I don't have a good definition, but do have an idea what the eventual effect will be. Imbalance makes a game less attractive to play in clubs and homes. That will trickle down to the precious tournament scene, which lives and dies by the virtue of people playing and enjoying the game among friends and family.

Once the game has a reputation in the vein of "Steve always brings his Palpatine and then my X-Wings don't have a chance," then all the theorizing on this board doesn't help one bit. It is a bad sign, regardless of whether Palpatine is an auto-win button. Such a situation should be avoided.

Looks like another Nationals won by Ace+Ace+Palpshuttle, that makes two National wins in consecutive weekends. Philippines was this weekend just gone and New Zealand the week before.

It appears TLTs have gone from 2 ship predators to Aces prey in a matter of weeks. Always interesting how quickly the meta changes and adapts in this game.

Worlds should be fun!

NZ nats was won by a Whisper/Vader/Colztet build. Palp +2 aces did get 3rd and 4th (and 5th and 6th and 2 other places in top 16 I think)

Looks like another Nationals won by Ace+Ace+Palpshuttle, that makes two National wins in consecutive weekends. Philippines was this weekend just gone and New Zealand the week before.

It appears TLTs have gone from 2 ship predators to Aces prey in a matter of weeks. Always interesting how quickly the meta changes and adapts in this game.

Worlds should be fun!

NZ nats was won by a Whisper/Vader/Colztet build. Palp +2 aces did get 3rd and 4th (and 5th and 6th and 2 other places in top 16 I think)

Oh - thanks mate - seems I got my rankings confused!

So 2 x Ace + support wins and Palp + 2 x Aces comes 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th!

Please someone get me the list with colzet!!!!

Please someone get me the list with colzet!!!!

NZ nationals won by Geoff Gartland- Imperial: 99pts

36 points: Darth Vader TIE Advanced, TIE/x1, Lone Wolf, Engine Upgrade, Advanced Targeting Computer.

39 points: “Whisper” TIE Phantom, Fire-Control System, Veteran Instincts, Advanced Cloaking Device.

24 points: Lieutenant Colzet TIE Advanced, TIE/x1, Advanced Targeting Computer

I stand corrected on VI Jax. I prefer list with mid to low PS, so against me PTL is infinitely stronger than VI, but the more high PS aces there are the safer a bet this is.

It appears TLTs have gone from 2 ship predators to Aces prey in a matter of weeks. Always interesting how quickly the meta changes and adapts in this game.

What I find particularly exasperating is how many people were convinced that TLT was flat-out broken and would warp the metagame just as the Phantom did.

And now that conversation is almost entirely gone, and it's been replaced as far as I can tell by this conversation (and a little bit about how strong Brobots still are). I wish people in the X-wing community would rush to judgment a little less slowly, but after seven waves it still doesn't seem as if we're learning.

No worries, vorpal

It's not an xwing thing, it's an internet thing

It appears TLTs have gone from 2 ship predators to Aces prey in a matter of weeks. Always interesting how quickly the meta changes and adapts in this game.

What I find particularly exasperating is how many people were convinced that TLT was flat-out broken and would warp the metagame just as the Phantom did.

And now that conversation is almost entirely gone, and it's been replaced as far as I can tell by this conversation (and a little bit about how strong Brobots still are). I wish people in the X-wing community would rush to judgment a little less slowly, but after seven waves it still doesn't seem as if we're learning.

you should read into some warhammer/40k related forums .. :-D

but yeah, I too am firmly in the "wait and see" and "just try to beat it" camp. if worlds, regionals etc are all dominated by a 'shuttle, 2 aces' list from now on onto say next spring - something is wrong and things will be done (I guess). if not, that is a lot of hot air (and time for typing) wasted.

time we all could better use to actually play and have fun.

It appears TLTs have gone from 2 ship predators to Aces prey in a matter of weeks. Always interesting how quickly the meta changes and adapts in this game.

What I find particularly exasperating is how many people were convinced that TLT was flat-out broken and would warp the metagame just as the Phantom did.

And now that conversation is almost entirely gone, and it's been replaced as far as I can tell by this conversation (and a little bit about how strong Brobots still are). I wish people in the X-wing community would rush to judgment a little less slowly, but after seven waves it still doesn't seem as if we're learning.

Assault Missilocalypse 2013!!!!

What are people's general strategies and openings/deployment when playing WITH this list?

I've not played with or against it yet so I'm just theorising:

- Keep the palpmobile out of the fight for as long as possible, flying around the edge of the board, modifying dice

- They either take the bait and go after it and you flank them with your 2 Aces or they go after your aces which try and arc dodge and survive until the shuttle gets in the fight

- ????