State of the game tells me that stressbots are amazing value and works well against nearly every list.

I think Autothrusters versus Twin Lasers is just as boring a meta as last year's was. No matter what pretty ships you slap them on. Just being honest.

There seem to be a few of you confusing a 2pt upgrade and a 6pt upgrade with 100pt lists. Not sure I can honestly help you out of whatever hole you're in.

I'm not sure that we can help you understand how awful it is to play against 4x TLT.

Unless you're at a tournament you never have to. If you want to go to a tournament, figure it out...just like every other list.

And not all lists in the Top 16 here had TLTs or ATs. Autothrusters only shows up on 4 of the squad builds (the two Rebel lists with Poe, Brobots, and on Soontir in an Aces list). TLTs showed up on 5 builds, but only one had 4x.

The winning list had a little bit of everything:

Manueverable high-PS ace with regen and AT.

Range 2-3 double-stress control.

Range 2-3 TLT area coverage.

A Bandit, which in the hands of the world champ is basically Soontir Fel.

I think Autothrusters versus Twin Lasers is just as boring a meta as last year's was. No matter what pretty ships you slap them on. Just being honest.

There seem to be a few of you confusing a 2pt upgrade and a 6pt upgrade with 100pt lists. Not sure I can honestly help you out of whatever hole you're in.

It's certainly not ignore worthy... I have yet to use that option either. I just think you're overestepping when you say the "AT and TLT" is the same as all 2 ship lists.

The final four told me that Prototype A-Wing and Bandit Z95 are both not to be under-estimated.

And are possibly entirely OP.

Not the same, I said as boring. They are possibly more boring and frustrating from what I've seen. With some TLT match ups one player stops rolling a good portion of their dice. And with thrusters, your buff is decided in turn 0 before we've even seen eachother and basically completely strips some of my choices of any viability in the match up.

TLT says: hey take a damage, I rolled three positive results.

AT says: I have tons of modifiers so roll three hits or more, or I'm immune.

They are kinda like polar opposites in a fashion that way.

Not the same, I said as boring. They are possibly more boring and frustrating from what I've seen. With some TLT match ups one player stops rolling a good portion of their dice. And with thrusters, your buff is decided in turn 0 before we've even seen eachother and basically completely strips some of my choices of any viability in the match up.

TLT says: hey take a damage, I rolled three positive results.

AT says: I have tons of modifiers so roll three hits or more, or I'm immune.

They are kinda like polar opposites in a fashion that way.

I disagree on them being boring but hey each to their own.

I don't understand how two components of a diverse meta is the same as last years 2 ship PWT or go home meta. I swear when I first started playing at the turn of the year 90% of the games I saw from tournies were Falcon/Decimator/Outrider and accompanying ace. That's not even close to what we saw from worlds.

I think Autothrusters versus Twin Lasers is just as boring a meta as last year's was. No matter what pretty ships you slap them on. Just being honest.

There seem to be a few of you confusing a 2pt upgrade and a 6pt upgrade with 100pt lists. Not sure I can honestly help you out of whatever hole you're in.

If I put a two point upgrade on a 31 point ship, I essentially have a 33 point compound component. You might say Pauls list was 88pts worth of TLT and AT. When the upgrades are critical to how damage is dealt or mitigated they cease being just upgrades, at that point the pilot or ship you attach them too may as well be the upgrade. I might say that he took two TLTs and attached gold squadrons to them. But not every one thinks that way, so I'll just be over here in the corner getting lambasted for admitting what few others will admit to themselves. There is an ignore option you can add my name to from your profile page, though I've never used it.

I'm fairly new to x-wing but from what I've seen is a very diverse meta compared to past tournament reports. I can see where you think certain pilots or upgrades seem boring but metas shift and right now I think its pretty healthy.

Out of curiosity, and no malicious intent, what would you consider to be an ideal meta?

I think Autothrusters versus Twin Lasers is just as boring a meta as last year's was. No matter what pretty ships you slap them on. Just being honest.

Then you're playing them wrong. Their interactions are more complex even than regular arcs.

Not the same, I said as boring. They are possibly more boring and frustrating from what I've seen. With some TLT match ups one player stops rolling a good portion of their dice. And with thrusters, your buff is decided in turn 0 before we've even seen eachother and basically completely strips some of my choices of any viability in the match up.

TLT says: hey take a damage, I rolled three positive results.

AT says: I have tons of modifiers so roll three hits or more, or I'm immune.

They are kinda like polar opposites in a fashion that way.

I have no idea what games you were watching. But the games I saw with TLTs, they were hardly boring. Granted, I didn't see any of the 4 Ys with TLTs on the stream. But, clearly, those are not dominating the game like many predicted. I don't see how you can look at the variety of ships in the top 16 and call it boring. I was fairly happy with last years, but this is even better. You may not like it, but the fact remains that the TLT and Wave 7 opened up the meta.

I played at World's yesterday and never saw the same list twice. In fact, they were all pretty diverse. I saw 3x Ace B-Wings; Palpmobile with Vader and Juno; Palpmobile with Vader, Backstabber, and Dark Curse; Chirraneau and Whisper; Chewie with Bandit Squad and Wedge; Poe, Jake, and Jan Orrs; Vader, Soontir, and Carnor; and Whisper, Soontir, and Vader. This was my first opportunity to play against most of these lists, so I learned a lot. Wandering around between rounds, I saw a huge amount of variety in builds brought. I personally ran Poe with TLT Goldie, Ion Stressbot Titled Goldie, and Bandit Squad.

Not the same, I said as boring. They are possibly more boring and frustrating from what I've seen. With some TLT match ups one player stops rolling a good portion of their dice. And with thrusters, your buff is decided in turn 0 before we've even seen eachother and basically completely strips some of my choices of any viability in the match up.

TLT says: hey take a damage, I rolled three positive results.

AT says: I have tons of modifiers so roll three hits or more, or I'm immune.

They are kinda like polar opposites in a fashion that way.

You realize that ATs only work at range 3 or outside of the attacker's firing arc, right?

If you watched the final, you'd have seen that ATs barely did anything. Paul only had one turreted ship, and most of his shots were coming from R1-2. AT did very little.

TLTs have a weakness, in that they tend to be unmodified dice, which are inherently unreliable.

Pilots between PS2 and PS8 (after VI) in the top 16:

Champion: (none)

2nd: (none)

Top 4: IG88 A, IG88B

Top 8: Dash Rendar

Top 16: 2x Grey Squadron TLTs, Dash again, 6x Obsidian Squadron, 3x Grey Squadron B-TL-T,

It appears that it's PS8 or bust, unless your ability is bonkers. Possibly PS9 or bust.

This is how I have been feeling as well. If its not 9-11PS, there is no reason to invest in pilot skill.

You have to have counters to a few specific ships and one of the easiest counters to an ace is to be ace-er.

There does seem to be a lot of lists with significant use of TLT in the top 16, but there isn't a single dominant build using that upgrade, nor is there a dominant list using TLT as its linchpin.

It is obviously powerful and popular, but step back and take another look at the lists without the bias of looking for the pattern for TLT use specifically - is TLT significantly more common than other popular upgrades? How many lists include PtL, VI, or autothrusters? My impression is that it isn't, or if it is, their popularity is comparable.

Nobody whines about VI or PtL, despite the clear power and popularity of those upgrades, because they fit into many lists, and you can build multiple effective ships.

Looking at the top 16 lists...nothing too surprising or unexpected...maybe triple kwings, but it's just another version of tlt spam.

I know the types of lists I like to run wouldn't fit in at all. Getting harder and harder to be anti-meta and still competitive.

@claarbar. On the surface, it would seem to be a diverse meta. And pilot/ship wise it was actually awesome. But the under lying engines to how the lists worked were often the same two cards that we've talked about ad nauseum. And that's where I say it faltered. Last year was the opposite problem ironically. For there only being the same few large ships over and over, people claimed it was diverse because they were kitted out with minute differences. Like lone wolf instead of predator or some such. Also mentioning that the engines of upgrade cards were on those pretty much the same; 3PO, R2D2, Isard, etc. Today, it was now you have your differences on the ship/pilot side, but they are all using the same upgrades. My argument would have been nixed if there was say a ion turret and a blaster turret swarm out there in the top sixteen but there sadly wasn't. (I think there was a single auto blaster out there) For a truly diverse meta, not just the ships and pilots I take but the driving engines I put on them to effect my strategy against yours would be different as well. Fair question, hopefully satisfactorily answered.

The game is in good shape. The fact that there is a variety of builds helps. Good to see that the fat turret ships are not as popular. However, maybe one day the syk inteceptor will see tournament play.

TLT+Tank is going to be the new meta.

Just because it isn't the meta you want, doesn't mean that it is a bad meta.

@claarbar. On the surface, it would seem to be a diverse meta. And pilot/ship wise it was actually awesome. But the under lying engines to how the lists worked were often the same two cards that we've talked about ad nauseum. And that's where I say it faltered. Last year was the opposite problem ironically. For there only being the same few large ships over and over, people claimed it was diverse because they were kitted out with minute differences. Like lone wolf instead of predator or some such. Also mentioning that the engines of upgrade cards were on those pretty much the same; 3PO, R2D2, Isard, etc. Today, it was now you have your differences on the ship/pilot side, but they are all using the same upgrades. My argument would have been nixed if there was say a ion turret and a blaster turret swarm out there in the top sixteen but there sadly wasn't. (I think there was a single auto blaster out there) For a truly diverse meta, not just the ships and pilots I take but the driving engines I put on them to effect my strategy against yours would be different as well. Fair question, hopefully satisfactorily answered.

I get what you're saying for sure and I can agree with you in regards to TLT equipping, so to speak, a ship instead of the other way around. I don't really agree with you on autothrusters per say because I feel it has a wider range of use and isn't there only to counter TLT specifically.

You will always find these things in metas that are optimal chooses stat/cost wise but in many games that's what adds depth to the competition with counter play ect. Now other games have easier options to change or shift the meta with nerfs or buffs whenever they feel its necessary whether it be in a game like League of Legends or MTG. With X-Wing it's a bit slower because of the production process and testing. I imagine if they were able to come out with thousands of ships and upgrades the meta would most likely be similar. Not to say TLT would still be considered optimal but there would be builds or in this case upgrades that are just better then others and used more often.

A healthy meta is a tough thing to craft and more so when you consider the limited amount of resources(ships/pilots/upgrades) that we have in X-Wing. It's not perfect but with wave 1 ships still being used it seems to be pretty good to me.

State of the game? Aces and PS are good. Turrets are good. Stress mechanic is a viable list to run. Regeneration is something to look into e. Honestly most of the game is open and if you know how to fly a list and pick a target, you'll get far. I'm really interested to see what had little to no representation on the lists at worlds, see what people aren't running or thinking of. Look at what win and find something that can go toe to toe with many of the lists. Personally I think Boba, Guri and Tycho who perform well under stress could be nice to pull out now that people have had a taste of stress-hogs.

Oh, and munitions still don't excite anyone.

state of the game is best state ever

this is because state of the wave is BEST WAVE EVER

The meta is better than ladt year. There are a few more options.....

BUT!

The above is only true for the Rebels. If your list relies on luck at all you will fall eventually. Which means the Empire is out and will remain out. Yes there were 5 Imperial lists in the top 16 but the vast majority of Imperial ships rely on green dice. And if you rely on green dice you will lose. Don`t believe me? Then tell me why Paul has never flown an Imperial list at Worlds.

The Rebels are too well equipped.

1) There is still luck in this game of dice, luck that can also be mitigated. Paul won hands down but it didn't help that his opponent threw so many blank AGI dice in two turns. It happens.

2) I recently started playing with a Corran (ACE+Dmg), Horton (Steady damage with no modifiers), Gemmer (high AGI blocker with Juking) build all complimenting each other and working independently. Playing in a local tournament Sat but not ready for using this build (need more practice). But in the few games I played it demonstrated how effective different types can be and I think TLT had a significant role in as someone else stated Tank + Ace. Then again a fool as playing 2 A-Wing aces with Horton+TLT. Crazy right?

**** 3) **** The most significant change is the Large Ship rule. It has made tournaments fun again. Thank you for modifying the MOV, it feels like a dogfight again.

Those classifications are near useless. ><

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Also, for me, it definitely showed me what the Poe lists should look like.

Did anyone catch, did the other Poe have the focus droid or R2d2?