So, this was my first X-Wing tournament (not counting the one I had to drop after the first round in January). I scrapped my original squad the day before the tournament, since I saw the spoiled Boba Fett crew card, I figured I'd give Palpatine a go before the meta would have such a strong counter. So, going with Palp and two aces I obviously threw in Vader, but knowing the TLT meta has been strong at my store, went with predator over VI.

I have Soontir phobia, and I know he is well-loved by a few regulars at the store, so I went with the anti-Soontir Carnor as my second ace, knowing he'd also serve me well against Poe and could carry his weight against TLTs almost as well.

23 players, four rounds of swiss and then a cut to the top four. There was a pretty even mix of all three factions. Significantly less Rebels than I expected to see and a very healthy diversity. Surprisingly few TLT's and stresshogs, though they were present.

I started all my matches the same, with the palpmobile at 45' in the corner and Carnor in front of it with Vader out on the other side at varying distances to flank. Round one typically was palp intentionally bumping Carnor and then both my Aces going forward with 3 or 5.

Brobots A&B identical glitterstim crackshot HLC and autothrusters

It seemed like a pretty short game to me. Vader snuck around to flank and after a few whiffed attacks at Carnor he started to gun down the palpmobile, but by then Vader was riding their butts and consistently doing four damage to them. Carnor did a lot of 1 greens and boost/barrel rolls to stay at range 1 and/or out of arc. He didn't really do much offensively, but his pilot ability did loads of work. My opponent took my palpmobile down half before being destroyed.

Bombersx3 and Jonus, extra ordinances with seismic bombs and cluster missiles/assault missiles

I played this same list of Craig's in our league, and from what I gather it's his go-to team. He's great at flying them in formation, but I focus fired and had some amazing arc dodges that put Jonus out early. Even with all the crits I was dishing out, the TIE bombers were resilient. Vader boosted near the second volly of seismic charges and went down to 1 hull where he stayed the rest of the game, and Carnor was turned to fine dust by a spectacular cluster missile before I finished off his crit-handicapped bombers. Predator played a big roll in this matchup.

Brobots A&B HLC/mangler and some other differences I don't recall.

I also played Gabe with his team in league before, and knew to be keen on having focus for his sensor jammers. He flew a lot more aggressively than Eric, and the mangler made it a lot more tough on me. There ended up being a lot of bumping with my shuttle getting in the way. Thankfully, Carnor really shined and kept him from evading or focusing much of the match so it was simply a matter of time. Palpmobile went down, but I came out on top.

BBYT70 B's had advanced sensors, Y had TLT, T70 had integrated astromech and a R2.

We were both 3-0 at this point, and I felt like I had ended up with some lucky pairings. There were some scary swarms (like a 7 bug zapper) out there that would have really ruined my day. Lance's squad stuck in formation right across from my Palpmobile and drove right at him. Palp ran away as my aces flanked. He had a great opportunity to some K-turns on turn 3 and put both my aces in all his arcs but went after the Palpmobile instead, and ended up touching an asteroid with a lead B-wing which left a bumping conga line.

I focused on the Ywing before the traffic jam, and then turned my attention to easy prey as he started hitting my shuttle. Once again, Carnor prevented any focus or evades as I stayed glued to his rear ships and Vader's predator helped tremendously. His squad was systematically eliminated and by the time his Y-wing turned back around in the corner by an asteroid it was his last ship left and poof it went.

At that point, it was a cut to the top four and I was number one seed and paired up with the fourth seeded Patrick...

VI Vader, Whisper with Tactician and Decoy, and Epsilon Leader.

This game was over for me before it even started. I was exhausted from my first ever tournament and I was up against a list I had no idea how it worked. Having only been playing since November, I had never played with or against a Phantom before, knew nothing about their dials, and the five red dice at range 1 just made my ships explode. Carnor first and then Vader, at which point I conceded so I could go home and sleep. In retrospect, I should have been a lot more defensive than I was in my previous matches, and I kept forgetting his Vader had VI which led to multiple bumps as I repeatedly ran into him since he hadn't moved yet.

Patrick ended up losing the Finals to 2nd seeded Travis with a Palp and two Aces team a lot like my own. If I recall, he had VI Vader and sensor jammers on the palpmobile and flew Soontir instead of Carnor.