You don't design lists on the basis of receiving crits.

But you can design a list on the basis of dealing out crits, and if you do so, you will be interested in what deck the opponent is using. Ergo, I suggest that each player gives his/her deck to the opponent. It stimulates aggressive play because you only have to consider offense. Whereas if you can choose the crits you might face, your only consideration will be, in a practical sense, how you can make the game last longer. That does not seem ideal for tournaments.

Today I flew a bunch of Black Squadrons with Crack Shot. I chose to use the new deck in order to reduce my risk of losing Crack Shots early.

I should have sat down for more than a minute to analyze which deck was better for my squad and if the new deck really was the best option, but I think it adds more to the game, looking at all the damage deck cards and seeing which deck is better for your squad. Just like one does with obstacles.

One thing of note is that Interceptors can pretty much ignore the Loose Stabilizer crit from the new deck. They can just green hard 2 over and over, lol.

Arnt you kinda playing into stereotypes there? Black squadron pilots on crack shot...

You don't design lists on the basis of receiving crits.

But you can design a list on the basis of dealing out crits, and if you do so, you will be interested in what deck the opponent is using.

Much less so than the interest in what list he's flying.

Any crit is still a damage, if I deal a munitions failure to an AP, that is still 33% of his hit points and the only thing better is a Direct Hit.

If I deal Structural Damage to Chiraneau however, it's a crit that deals only 8% of the hull points.

A thrust control fire is more devastating to a Defender than an Agressor. Twice as damaging and the stress is much harder to get rid of.

All crits are not created equal, yet it is only a problem with the old deck, it seems.

You don't design lists on the basis of receiving crits.

But you can design a list on the basis of dealing out crits, and if you do so, you will be interested in what deck the opponent is using.

Much less so than the interest in what list he's flying.

And that is exactly what you would want; damage deck choice should not be the thing makes or breaks anyone's list. I did not do my suggestion to really change anything, but to offer one way of stimulating use of the new deck and making it an actual successor to the old one, without really making anything obsolete or introducing anything radical.

It is my reasoned guess that generally, if you do not know what your opponent is going to play, the new deck is a better choice to unleash upon her. I don't claim all the crits affect all ships, it was not my reasoning behind the idea.

Added to this are the advantages of stimulating aggressive play and not making anything obsolete. Some even believe that the old deck is a better choice because most lists wil be dominated by aces and they believe that the old deck is better against such lists. Go ahead. This kind of reasoning is totally possible within the system I proposed. It is the kind of choice that the FFG article talked about.

A shuttle doesn't care about a damaged engine, nor does a Ghost or Decimator care about the one that lowers agility.

Except those two crits are identical in both decks.

Guess they haven't fixed everything have they? The much touted "a crit must be devastating" somehow doesn't always apply to some of the more popular ships.

Both are fairly edge cases that currently affects exactly one ship each, and another one that is "soon" to be released.

If I had to guess, it clearly wasn't considered a big enough issue to change the cards.

It's definitely going to be far less common than a generic flipping an injured pilot crit, a ship with no secondary weapons flipping a munitions failure card (or one that relies almost entirely on a secondary weapon) or a ship that flips blinded pilot but has to wait until it can actually shoot something to lose the effect.

All of those are cards that can have an effect less than the designers wanted to achieve, and can come up in pretty much every single game.