Yes. The glaring weakness in the list is Bossk can go down like a ton of bricks under focused fire. I tend to bait my opponent after Boba, and try to use his durability while Bossk stays at R3 with the mangler. Bossk does not like furballs, but Boba thrives in them.

Since I'm more aggressive with Boba than Bossk, I can plan ahead if the opponent decides to go all in on Bossk. With his stop maneuver and surprisingly fast dial+boost I can usually allow Boba to get several free shots while the opponent takes ineffective (R3, through a rock, etc) engagements against Bossk.

Thinking about how it would play, I can see why it works well with the set of upgrades you chose. Fly them up side by side, then on the engagement round Bossk stops (hopefully at range 3) and Boba dives in to range 1. Tough to deal with. And if anyone tries to flank Bossk, he can get out of there with amazing speed -- green 3 plus boost moves him halfway across the board.

I played Bossk with Predator, Gunner, Tactician, Outlaw Tech, Engine Upgrade last night to good effect. List had 48 point Boba and rounded out at 99 points.

I almost always go for broadsides with Bossk to allow him to escape so I don't use the Mangler, I find the primary arc restriction changes my flying too much. Outlaw Tech/Predator worked well though. Still tempted to go back to Lonewolf, for the slight bump in defence.

Tactician only triggers in arc right? So having (albeit great) auxillary arcs does not make this upgrade better on these ships than anyother. Is there a tactic I am missiig?

Tactician only triggers in arc right? So having (albeit great) auxillary arcs does not make this upgrade better on these ships than anyother. Is there a tactic I am missiig?

I thought the same thing until I did some reading on it. I guess it works in both primary and auxiliary arcs as well.

Auxiliary arcs are firing arcs for the purposes of most things, namely autothrusters and tactician.

I haven't listened to the latest NOVA Squadron yet, but from the first bit, it sounds like it's what I expect. I'm getting more and more frustrated with their dismissal of so many things as not competitive.

VERY happy to see a very successful "non-standard" build being used! My kudos to you for taking something against the grain and making it work!

I am a huge fan of the show and the discussion, I think it helped me tremendously in my competitive game. Unfortunately it seems to me that the more they talk about a possible narrowing meta, the more narrow it becomes. I'm trying to open up the possibility of other builds getting play time, because there are alternate builds that can compete, but don't get the screen time they deserve because people are afraid of using them as they are not as conventional. The lull between Worlds and Store Championship season is the time for everyone to experiment, hopefully bringing a more diverse meta in the next few months.

The blunt truth is that most of the ships/pilots in the game are not competitive. There are a lot of ships in the tier 1.5 - tier 2 range, but they don't define the top end meta game. Only the tier 1 stuff does. On NOVA Squadron Radio we try to focus on the "competitive" aspect and so therefore focus on the top-end tier 1 builds and how everything else stacks up to it. No need to shoot the messenger - we are just trying to focus on our target audience. Bear in mind this doesn't mean that you can't have fun or do well with tier 1.5 - tier 2 stuff, especially locally.

Generally when we talk about Ship/Pilot X that isn't tier 1, we try to give a sense of where on the sliding scale it sits. We probably have some room for improvement in that area. We are fortunate that we have been able to get Paul Heaver on several shows recently to share his thoughts. Not only is he mechanically an amazing player but he also has an excellent knack in narrowing down the best ships. If you look at his winning lists he always takes the best ships available at the time. He was actually even more blunt about Imperial Assault in a recent episode (he was #2 in Worlds at IA), it was "you can take Royal Guards, or you can take Rebel Saboteurs, or you can lose". The same brutally efficient approach to list building is a large part of the reason why he is the 3-time World Champion.

I am a huge fan of the show and the discussion, I think it helped me tremendously in my competitive game. Unfortunately it seems to me that the more they talk about a possible narrowing meta, the more narrow it becomes. I'm trying to open up the possibility of other builds getting play time, because there are alternate builds that can compete, but don't get the screen time they deserve because people are afraid of using them as they are not as conventional. The lull between Worlds and Store Championship season is the time for everyone to experiment, hopefully bringing a more diverse meta in the next few months.

Exactly! I have been a fan of the show for a long time, but I'm being turned off lately by the dismissive attitude about ships not seen. There is the logic that if they aren't seen at the high tables of the mid-west then they aren't any good. This is because if it were good, people would use it. This becomes the meme on the podcast and on forums. People are less likely to try things because they have seen from a few places that it's not worth using. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

High level tournaments provide significantly better data on what squads are "good" than smaller local, even regional level tournaments. The better player wins 90% of the time in X-wing, so you really don't get good data on what ships are better until you get the best players all together in the same place.

Tournament results are not the only measure of how well ships do. The underlying math has been extremely accurate in predicting which ships will do well and why. Back when wave 4 was previewed, I predicted that the generic Defenders and generic E-wings were absolutely never going to see top-end use. Many people told me that I should actually stop publishing my analysis because it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fast forward a year and a half. Those ships aren't used. There are two possibilities: 1) the ships are terrible and I was the first person to quantify it, or 2) the ships are actually OK but my initial analysis has prevented people from doing well with it for over a year and a half. I don't know anyone that would argue point #2. This includes public statements by Alex Davy.

So, I don't buy the argument that a single podcast or MathWing analysis can significantly distort the meta by telling people what they think is good. There is zero evidence for this, and for it to be true it would require that a large portion of the best players in the world could be "fooled" into believing something that they would quickly disprove on the table themselves. The best ships / squads / combinations eventually bubble to the surface, and once they do, the cat is out of the bag.

That all being said, I think the Firespray and YV-666 are at best tier 1.5, with the optimal loadout in this meta with VI and EU at PS9/10 as the OP suggested. I applaud him for his success and good tactical use of the ship's strengths while covering its weaknesses. I need to finish updating my MathWing analysis (still in process) before I am confident in saying exactly where I think the YV-666 stands on that sliding scale. It's good enough that a solid player can get an 80% win rate with it locally and regionally. A very strong player could probably go 6-2 at Worlds with it and make Top 32. But breaking through the glass ceiling and getting to Worlds Top 8 is a whole different animal.

I'm genuinely curious, here, MJ. At that top 16 or top 8 level of Worlds, do you think the relatively small difference between Tier 1.5 and Tier 1 has more of an effect on the outcome of a game than the specific matchups or the die rolls? I can see over the course of 100 games that you'd start to see a trend, but we never have that kind of sample size at that level to empirically test someone's opinions about where a ship should actually stand. Even in the most recent worlds, when discussing their games, a lot of the top 16 players could point to specific movement mistakes that they made, and sometimes die rolls, when accounting for their losses. It seems like the sample size at that level combined with the fact that highly skilled players can "stretch" a Tier 2 or Tier 1.5 into a Tier 1 means that Worlds is actually not that useful for determining a ship/pilot's quality at finer resolution.

I haven't listened to the latest NOVA Squadron yet, but from the first bit, it sounds like it's what I expect. I'm getting more and more frustrated with their dismissal of so many things as not competitive.

VERY happy to see a very successful "non-standard" build being used! My kudos to you for taking something against the grain and making it work!

I am a huge fan of the show and the discussion, I think it helped me tremendously in my competitive game. Unfortunately it seems to me that the more they talk about a possible narrowing meta, the more narrow it becomes. I'm trying to open up the possibility of other builds getting play time, because there are alternate builds that can compete, but don't get the screen time they deserve because people are afraid of using them as they are not as conventional. The lull between Worlds and Store Championship season is the time for everyone to experiment, hopefully bringing a more diverse meta in the next few months.

The blunt truth is that most of the ships/pilots in the game are not competitive. There are a lot of ships in the tier 1.5 - tier 2 range, but they don't define the top end meta game. Only the tier 1 stuff does. On NOVA Squadron Radio we try to focus on the "competitive" aspect and so therefore focus on the top-end tier 1 builds and how everything else stacks up to it. No need to shoot the messenger - we are just trying to focus on our target audience. Bear in mind this doesn't mean that you can't have fun or do well with tier 1.5 - tier 2 stuff, especially locally.

Generally when we talk about Ship/Pilot X that isn't tier 1, we try to give a sense of where on the sliding scale it sits. We probably have some room for improvement in that area. We are fortunate that we have been able to get Paul Heaver on several shows recently to share his thoughts. Not only is he mechanically an amazing player but he also has an excellent knack in narrowing down the best ships. If you look at his winning lists he always takes the best ships available at the time. He was actually even more blunt about Imperial Assault in a recent episode (he was #2 in Worlds at IA), it was "you can take Royal Guards, or you can take Rebel Saboteurs, or you can lose". The same brutally efficient approach to list building is a large part of the reason why he is the 3-time World Champion.

I am a huge fan of the show and the discussion, I think it helped me tremendously in my competitive game. Unfortunately it seems to me that the more they talk about a possible narrowing meta, the more narrow it becomes. I'm trying to open up the possibility of other builds getting play time, because there are alternate builds that can compete, but don't get the screen time they deserve because people are afraid of using them as they are not as conventional. The lull between Worlds and Store Championship season is the time for everyone to experiment, hopefully bringing a more diverse meta in the next few months.

Exactly! I have been a fan of the show for a long time, but I'm being turned off lately by the dismissive attitude about ships not seen. There is the logic that if they aren't seen at the high tables of the mid-west then they aren't any good. This is because if it were good, people would use it. This becomes the meme on the podcast and on forums. People are less likely to try things because they have seen from a few places that it's not worth using. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

High level tournaments provide significantly better data on what squads are "good" than smaller local, even regional level tournaments. The better player wins 90% of the time in X-wing, so you really don't get good data on what ships are better until you get the best players all together in the same place.

Tournament results are not the only measure of how well ships do. The underlying math has been extremely accurate in predicting which ships will do well and why. Back when wave 4 was previewed, I predicted that the generic Defenders and generic E-wings were absolutely never going to see top-end use. Many people told me that I should actually stop publishing my analysis because it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fast forward a year and a half. Those ships aren't used. There are two possibilities: 1) the ships are terrible and I was the first person to quantify it, or 2) the ships are actually OK but my initial analysis has prevented people from doing well with it for over a year and a half. I don't know anyone that would argue point #2. This includes public statements by Alex Davy.

So, I don't buy the argument that a single podcast or MathWing analysis can significantly distort the meta by telling people what they think is good. There is zero evidence for this, and for it to be true it would require that a large portion of the best players in the world could be "fooled" into believing something that they would quickly disprove on the table themselves. The best ships / squads / combinations eventually bubble to the surface, and once they do, the cat is out of the bag.

That all being said, I think the Firespray and YV-666 are at best tier 1.5, with the optimal loadout in this meta with VI and EU at PS9/10 as the OP suggested. I applaud him for his success and good tactical use of the ship's strengths while covering its weaknesses. I need to finish updating my MathWing analysis (still in process) before I am confident in saying exactly where I think the YV-666 stands on that sliding scale. It's good enough that a solid player can get an 80% win rate with it locally and regionally. A very strong player could probably go 6-2 at Worlds with it and make Top 32. But breaking through the glass ceiling and getting to Worlds Top 8 is a whole different animal.

I appreciate all the research you guys have done on the game!

I'm actually curious on how you choose which tier a ship belongs in? Like you mentioned it's tough to quantify the efficiency of a ship/list at the local level due to a variance in pilot skill. And large tournaments such as worlds might paint a better picture of what ships people are confident enough to fly at the premiere level, however the results of a single top tier tournament might not necessarily be enough data.

How do you consider things like Paul Heavers list, which was unique in a sense, and/or builds like Palp + 2 aces or Brobots which are common, but their success is predicated on the talent of the pilot?

I don't argue the MathWing analysis, it's pretty obvious at times what pilots* will be effective and what won't. I think what my curiosity usually falls is in finding the right loadouts and support that could make a tier 1.5 ship into a tier 1 ship in the hands of a good pilot.

Edited: pilot instead of ship. I don't personally think ships fall under a certain tier, but more specifically,the point efficiency of the generic pilots and the unique abilities/loadouts of the named pilots determine where they would fall on the scale separately.

I'm genuinely curious, here, MJ. At that top 16 or top 8 level of Worlds, do you think the relatively small difference between Tier 1.5 and Tier 1 has more of an effect on the outcome of a game than the specific matchups or the die rolls? I can see over the course of 100 games that you'd start to see a trend, but we never have that kind of sample size at that level to empirically test someone's opinions about where a ship should actually stand. Even in the most recent worlds, when discussing their games, a lot of the top 16 players could point to specific movement mistakes that they made, and sometimes die rolls, when accounting for their losses. It seems like the sample size at that level combined with the fact that highly skilled players can "stretch" a Tier 2 or Tier 1.5 into a Tier 1 means that Worlds is actually not that useful for determining a ship/pilot's quality at finer resolution.

Everything matters, and even at the top levels the better pilot usually wins -- but there is a MUCH smaller margin for error or squad inefficiency at the top end. A great player with a tier 1 list will generally beat a great player with a tier 1.5 - tier 2 list. So the best players try to find those tier 1 lists, which is part of why they are good players. They play the game and the meta-game.

Looking at the results empirically...

2015 Top 16: All 16 players there are using Tier 1 ships / combos, in my opinion. You don't even see any Tier 1.5 until Top 32, and I don't think there's any Tier 2 in Top 32 at all.

So are the best players taking the best lists, or are the best lists making the best players? Some of both is true. There are a lot of extremely strong players in that Top 32. National winners, previous Worlds Top 16 finishers. Ultimately it is hard to definitively answer this question without some hardcore data mining and analytics, which we don't have for the game.

But the correlation is extremely strong. If you want to place high at Worlds then ideally you need a tier 1 squad, certainly at a minimum tier 1.5. Sometimes tier 1 squads like Danger Zone or Panic Attack aren't widely "discovered" before the tournament.

I'm actually curious on how you choose which tier a ship belongs in? Like you mentioned it's tough to quantify the efficiency of a ship/list at the local level due to a variance in pilot skill. And large tournaments such as worlds might paint a better picture of what ships people are confident enough to fly at the premiere level, however the results of a single top tier tournament might not necessarily be enough data.

It is ultimately entirely subjective so everyone has their own opinion of where the demarcation points are for tier 1, tier 1.5, tier 2, etc. Personally my breakdown is something like:

• Tier 1: The best lists, pretty self explanatory.
• Tier 1.5: Almost as good as the best lists, but there's usually some small factor that prevents it from being truly top-tier. Some examples: 4BZ (jousting efficiency not quite high enough), Palp + Aces with Juno instead of Vader, dual VT-49s/YT's (TLTs say hello). A strong player will still crush weaker players in their local meta regardless of the opposing list, and should even do well in Regionals. However getting to the top end of Worlds will be a very uphill climb.
• Tier 2: Can be fun lists, but pretty obvious that they just haven't held up compared to tier 1 lists. Biggs Walks the Dogs was great at the time, but it's going to get shredded by Aces and TLTs now.
• Tier 3 and below: Garbage in the competitive meta. If you take these lists your win rate past Top 8 Regionals vs skilled opponents (if you can even get that far) will be very low even if you are a world-class player. Just don't ever take 3 generic E-wings, 3 generic Defenders, or Blaster Turret on anything.

How do you consider things like Paul Heavers list, which was unique in a sense, and/or builds like Palp + 2 aces or Brobots which are common, but their success is predicated on the talent of the pilot?

It's definitely a game of skill. There are so many different decisions to make in this game, and even very small choices can quickly snowball in favor of the smarter player. Over the long run the dice average out.

I'm genuinely curious, here, MJ. At that top 16 or top 8 level of Worlds, do you think the relatively small difference between Tier 1.5 and Tier 1 has more of an effect on the outcome of a game than the specific matchups or the die rolls? I can see over the course of 100 games that you'd start to see a trend, but we never have that kind of sample size at that level to empirically test someone's opinions about where a ship should actually stand. Even in the most recent worlds, when discussing their games, a lot of the top 16 players could point to specific movement mistakes that they made, and sometimes die rolls, when accounting for their losses. It seems like the sample size at that level combined with the fact that highly skilled players can "stretch" a Tier 2 or Tier 1.5 into a Tier 1 means that Worlds is actually not that useful for determining a ship/pilot's quality at finer resolution.

Everything matters, and even at the top levels the better pilot usually wins -- but there is a MUCH smaller margin for error or squad inefficiency at the top end. A great player with a tier 1 list will generally beat a great player with a tier 1.5 - tier 2 list. So the best players try to find those tier 1 lists, which is part of why they are good players. They play the game and the meta-game.

Looking at the results empirically...

2015 Top 16: All 16 players there are using Tier 1 ships / combos, in my opinion. You don't even see any Tier 1.5 until Top 32, and I don't think there's any Tier 2 in Top 32 at all.

So are the best players taking the best lists, or are the best lists making the best players? Some of both is true. There are a lot of extremely strong players in that Top 32. National winners, previous Worlds Top 16 finishers. Ultimately it is hard to definitively answer this question without some hardcore data mining and analytics, which we don't have for the game.

But the correlation is extremely strong. If you want to place high at Worlds then ideally you need a tier 1 squad, certainly at a minimum tier 1.5. Sometimes tier 1 squads like Danger Zone or Panic Attack aren't widely "discovered" before the tournament.

Certainly everything matters. My concern is how much we can observe everything mattering in the fairly noisy environment of a handful of X-wing games. Basically, top 16 at worlds is NOT at equilibrium, matchups, dice, and individual errors serves to make it difficult to understand how much each factor contributes to player's victory. Furthermore, how do you determine that Danger Zone is a Tier 1 squad? Wardens have unimpressive efficiencies, even with TLTs, so the squad is relying almost entirely on skilled use of Tactician and SLAM to put it over the top.

Certainly everything matters. My concern is how much we can observe everything mattering in the fairly noisy environment of a handful of X-wing games. Basically, top 16 at worlds is NOT at equilibrium, matchups, dice, and individual errors serves to make it difficult to understand how much each factor contributes to player's victory. Furthermore, how do you determine that Danger Zone is a Tier 1 squad? Wardens have unimpressive efficiencies, even with TLTs, so the squad is relying almost entirely on skilled use of Tactician and SLAM to put it over the top.

Wardens with TLT and Tactician is an interesting case. I had been meaning to analyze that one before Worlds but didn't get around to it until recently, after Worlds. In the meantime Aaron beat me with it at Worlds, go figure.

I recently assigned a "utility" value to all the stress generators based on...

• the durability of the platform (survive longer = hand out more stress = more utility value)
• how much surface area it covers
• how much stress it hands out
• double stress counts as 50% more than simply "twice the stress" (in net worth 3x) since you can guaranteed disable a ship next round
• baseline a single R2 tactician on a B-wing as being worth 1.5 points of utility.

The results were interesting:

• R3-A2 on a BTL TLT Y-wing is worth about 10 points. In net it makes the ship worth around 30. Not bad for a 26 point ship and is why as Paul says "it should be in every rebel list"
• B-wings with Tactician generally aren't worth spending the 3 points for E2/Tactician -- unless you get multiples to get the synergy going. If it really is worth 1.5 points of utility then it explains why we don't see isolated B-wings with E2/Tactian as lone "filler" ships. Honestly TLTs are overpowered which is driving out B-wings of all varieties. If TLTs were toned down then Panic Attack would still do really well in this meta vs the aces.
• K-wing with TLT is pretty terrible, but the overall utility value with tactician dramatically increases its total value. Figuring a total predicted point cost is difficult because of the dial + turret + SLAM action, so I'm still working on refining that one. But its value seems to be within a point of its cost, which is much better than you can say for most of the ships out there.

Once you have 3 TLT Tactician K-wings then the synergy can become deadly - but its an extremely high skill ceiling list. Aaron Bonar is one of the few players in the world that can truly pull it off reliably and consistently. Miranda in that list is boss because it affords her the time to slowly lock down and digest her prey while she relentlessly regenerates.

I think I can actually feel myself getting smarter while reading this thread.

So by your metrics how will TLT Tactician HWKs stack up?

So by your metrics how will TLT Tactician HWKs stack up?

I'll let you know when I get around to plugging them into my analysis!

Just finishing up Guri's action economy as we speak. So many ships to write unique code for.

I'm genuinely curious, here, MJ. At that top 16 or top 8 level of Worlds, do you think the relatively small difference between Tier 1.5 and Tier 1 has more of an effect on the outcome of a game than the specific matchups or the die rolls? I can see over the course of 100 games that you'd start to see a trend, but we never have that kind of sample size at that level to empirically test someone's opinions about where a ship should actually stand. Even in the most recent worlds, when discussing their games, a lot of the top 16 players could point to specific movement mistakes that they made, and sometimes die rolls, when accounting for their losses. It seems like the sample size at that level combined with the fact that highly skilled players can "stretch" a Tier 2 or Tier 1.5 into a Tier 1 means that Worlds is actually not that useful for determining a ship/pilot's quality at finer resolution.

Everything matters, and even at the top levels the better pilot usually wins -- but there is a MUCH smaller margin for error or squad inefficiency at the top end. A great player with a tier 1 list will generally beat a great player with a tier 1.5 - tier 2 list. So the best players try to find those tier 1 lists, which is part of why they are good players. They play the game and the meta-game.

Looking at the results empirically...

2015 Top 16: All 16 players there are using Tier 1 ships / combos, in my opinion. You don't even see any Tier 1.5 until Top 32, and I don't think there's any Tier 2 in Top 32 at all.

So are the best players taking the best lists, or are the best lists making the best players? Some of both is true. There are a lot of extremely strong players in that Top 32. National winners, previous Worlds Top 16 finishers. Ultimately it is hard to definitively answer this question without some hardcore data mining and analytics, which we don't have for the game.

But the correlation is extremely strong. If you want to place high at Worlds then ideally you need a tier 1 squad, certainly at a minimum tier 1.5. Sometimes tier 1 squads like Danger Zone or Panic Attack aren't widely "discovered" before the tournament.

I'm actually curious on how you choose which tier a ship belongs in? Like you mentioned it's tough to quantify the efficiency of a ship/list at the local level due to a variance in pilot skill. And large tournaments such as worlds might paint a better picture of what ships people are confident enough to fly at the premiere level, however the results of a single top tier tournament might not necessarily be enough data.

It is ultimately entirely subjective so everyone has their own opinion of where the demarcation points are for tier 1, tier 1.5, tier 2, etc. Personally my breakdown is something like:

• Tier 1: The best lists, pretty self explanatory.
• Tier 1.5: Almost as good as the best lists, but there's usually some small factor that prevents it from being truly top-tier. Some examples: 4BZ (jousting efficiency not quite high enough), Palp + Aces with Juno instead of Vader, dual VT-49s/YT's (TLTs say hello). A strong player will still crush weaker players in their local meta regardless of the opposing list, and should even do well in Regionals. However getting to the top end of Worlds will be a very uphill climb.
• Tier 2: Can be fun lists, but pretty obvious that they just haven't held up compared to tier 1 lists. Biggs Walks the Dogs was great at the time, but it's going to get shredded by Aces and TLTs now.
• Tier 3 and below: Garbage in the competitive meta. If you take these lists your win rate past Top 8 Regionals vs skilled opponents (if you can even get that far) will be very low even if you are a world-class player. Just don't ever take 3 generic E-wings, 3 generic Defenders, or Blaster Turret on anything.

How do you consider things like Paul Heavers list, which was unique in a sense, and/or builds like Palp + 2 aces or Brobots which are common, but their success is predicated on the talent of the pilot?

It's definitely a game of skill. There are so many different decisions to make in this game, and even very small choices can quickly snowball in favor of the smarter player. Over the long run the dice average out.

Thank you for the explanation.

An honest question though: If someone told you before Worlds that a Prototype Pilot would make it to the final, would you have believed them? I know it wasn't the core of the list, but you can't deny the ship did have an effect on his matches.

The talent really starts at the list building phase, and coming up with a combination of what's known to be good, and bringing in the right support to complement it.

I think it's more fair to consider the themes that are having an effect on the meta, such as stress/control, PS9/10 movement phase, and damage mitigation options, than the ships themselves. I don't think I'm having success with my list due to the local skill level (I seem to do well with it on VASSAL as well), I think the success comes from analyzing the more powerful lists, their weaknesses, and how to counter them.

Either way your analysis definitely helps in the end, as it prepares those that are seeking to bring up those "tier 1.5" lists up to top tier by showing the trends and knowing which lists to expect.

Thank you for the explanation.

An honest question though: If someone told you before Worlds that a Prototype Pilot would make it to the final, would you have believed them? I know it wasn't the core of the list, but you can't deny the ship did have an effect on his matches.

The talent really starts at the list building phase, and coming up with a combination of what's known to be good, and bringing in the right support to complement it.

I think it's more fair to consider the themes that are having an effect on the meta, such as stress/control, PS9/10 movement phase, and damage mitigation options, than the ships themselves. I don't think I'm having success with my list due to the local skill level (I seem to do well with it on VASSAL as well), I think the success comes from analyzing the more powerful lists, their weaknesses, and how to counter them.

Either way your analysis definitely helps in the end, as it prepares those that are seeking to bring up those "tier 1.5" lists up to top tier by showing the trends and knowing which lists to expect.

The Prototype is reasonable filler, it's not a big surprise. The jousting efficiency is good enough that it makes a pretty nasty blocker with the boost action. I had been saying for a long time before Rebel Aces came out that the Prototype needed to be 15 points.

So, funny story.

A few weeks before Worlds I was trying to think of specifically what Nathan might bring, because I know he likes Corran+PtL/EU/FCS/R2-D2, and Doug had talked him up on the preview show. I started looking at dual regenerating aces, and I actually predicted the exact list he would take including the Prototype as obligatory filler! I don't know where the evidence is though, I think it's buried in an super long text chain I have going with the NOVA show guys.

So, if you had told me that a Prototype A-wing would make the Top Table, I would have probably guessed that it would have been Nathan flying it. Doug said that he can play well, and he certainly did!

I think it's more fair to consider the themes that are having an effect on the meta, such as stress/control, PS9/10 movement phase, and damage mitigation options, than the ships themselves. I don't think I'm having success with my list due to the local skill level (I seem to do well with it on VASSAL as well), I think the success comes from analyzing the more powerful lists, their weaknesses, and how to counter them.

Depending on how you're getting opponents on Vassal, it's sometimes not really much different from the local level. In fact, if it's really random and you're facing unknown players and/or sometimes random test builds, you're probably better off evaluating based on local opponents where you know their skill level and background.

I think that Biophysical's point about noise is a good one, too, but I think there's a case to be made less noise at a tournament like World's where you're looking at the top 32 lists. Those are likely players that have spent dozens of games flying and testing those ships, they faced increasingly tough competition to get where they were and it was a pretty long road to get there this year. I think there's a lot more noise at smaller tournaments, even regionals sometimes, because of people trying things out or the format isn't as grueling.

This isn't to say that other types of ships might not have made it with the right pilots, and I do wonder if, to some extent, named defenders have been put on the shelf since Wave 4 but haven't come down off it since the phantom tweak, which I think was their real struggle (and to be fair to MJ he's always said that the named pilots are efficient if you're willing to make the PS bid, iirc).

Love this thread - have been playing with this list for a while but it's fallen short of competitive, some of the comments and suggestions in here might help me with that. Haven't tired Tactician on Bossk, looking forward to giving that a spin.

Thanks again!

I proceeded to make the most bonehead maneuver ever and flew my ship straight facing the edge with no way of staying in. It was one of those moments when you flip the dial and realize you made a mistake, but it’s too late.

I’m still trying to crack that undefeated record with it in a tournament. But so far there have been no real match up problems, and the losses have come due to bad luck or pilot errors on my part.

I did this at my last tournament. Flying Latts, full health. At a 45 degree angle and a bit away from the edge of the board. meant to do a 3 turn, somehow dialed a 3 bank instead. Left me off the board by maybe a millimeter. "Fortunately" for me, the game was already lost at that point (opponent had ten numb and corran, I had latts and a black sun ace. he blew up the ace before it got to shoot the round I flew latts off, so no way I'd have been able to kill corran with just latts and no engine).

I like the list in general though, I've loved the hound's tooth so far. Like you I haven't quite cracked undefeated yet, but only ever had 1 loss in a tournamnet. First time I flew it was a 150 point tournament with latts, talonbane and xizor. Smashed everyone I played against with the exception of the guy with bugzappers and torkhil. that one didn't go well.

With a 2-Defender list, I once managed to unintentionally block my own K-turn. I had 2 small ships on the board and one blocked the other. That was a special kind of bone headed move.

So by your metrics how will TLT Tactician HWKs stack up?

I'll let you know when I get around to plugging them into my analysis!

Just finishing up Guri's action economy as we speak. So many ships to write unique code for.

edit: grammar is hard.

Thank you for the explanation.

An honest question though: If someone told you before Worlds that a Prototype Pilot would make it to the final, would you have believed them? I know it wasn't the core of the list, but you can't deny the ship did have an effect on his matches.

The talent really starts at the list building phase, and coming up with a combination of what's known to be good, and bringing in the right support to complement it.

I think it's more fair to consider the themes that are having an effect on the meta, such as stress/control, PS9/10 movement phase, and damage mitigation options, than the ships themselves. I don't think I'm having success with my list due to the local skill level (I seem to do well with it on VASSAL as well), I think the success comes from analyzing the more powerful lists, their weaknesses, and how to counter them.

Either way your analysis definitely helps in the end, as it prepares those that are seeking to bring up those "tier 1.5" lists up to top tier by showing the trends and knowing which lists to expect.

The Prototype is reasonable filler, it's not a big surprise. The jousting efficiency is good enough that it makes a pretty nasty blocker with the boost action. I had been saying for a long time before Rebel Aces came out that the Prototype needed to be 15 points.

So, funny story.

A few weeks before Worlds I was trying to think of specifically what Nathan might bring, because I know he likes Corran+PtL/EU/FCS/R2-D2, and Doug had talked him up on the preview show. I started looking at dual regenerating aces, and I actually predicted the exact list he would take including the Prototype as obligatory filler! I don't know where the evidence is though, I think it's buried in an super long text chain I have going with the NOVA show guys.

So, if you had told me that a Prototype A-wing would make the Top Table, I would have probably guessed that it would have been Nathan flying it. Doug said that he can play well, and he certainly did!

I'm not saying this to try to ruffle any feathers, but more of a reinforcement of the quoted post. Having been there at the top 16 I think Nathan is probably a better player than Doug. Kid is legit.

In lieu of real players I ran a few test games last night and found this to be my most effective build. Looking forward to trying this live. Thanks again for the original post.

Boba and Bossk (100)

Boba Fett (49)
Veteran Instincts (1), K4 Security Droid (3), Glitterstim (2), Engine Upgrade (4)

Bossk (51)
Veteran Instincts (1), "Mangler" Cannon (4), K4 Security Droid (3), Tactician (2), Outlaw Tech (2), Engine Upgrade (4)

I really like this list. The only real weakness I experienced was against a 7 tie swarm. I couldnt get away fast enough with the hounds tooth, ended up in a nasty crossfire. All other games I won I've always enjoyed flying a Lambda, and the 'Tooth is like a Lambda on steroids. I like it, although I personally am not yet sure whether to go for the Tactician or the K4 on Boba.

I really like this list. The only real weakness I experienced was against a 7 tie swarm. I couldnt get away fast enough with the hounds tooth, ended up in a nasty crossfire. All other games I won I've always enjoyed flying a Lambda, and the 'Tooth is like a Lambda on steroids. I like it, although I personally am not yet sure whether to go for the Tactician or the K4 on Boba.

I tried both and settled on K4, simply due to the action economy that it affords with my play style.