In general, I think discussion of ideas makes them stronger, not weaker. Surprise works once. A truly strong element works each time. You expose the idea to the light and let others probe for weaknesses, so you're not blindsided by them when they show up in games.

You don't tell anybody, let them find out at the tournament. Top tier players don't post there lists before going to tournaments and there's a reason why.

Didn't Paul Heaver talk about his worlds list on nova a few weeks before hand? I knew Nathan and jeramys list ahead of time as well.

loose lips and sinking ships and all that.

Uh, not sure if you're serious, here.

Every top-tier player I've ever met has two things in common with the rest. First, they practice constantly with a single list. Second, they adapt very quickly to new or unusual approaches, attacks, or combos. Since this is a game where your list is public knowledge, your advantage lasts until the start of the tournament.

So hiding my special, unique combo requires two unlikely things to work. First, it has to be so unusual that no one can adapt to it in the space of a single game: if a smart, experienced player can see the combo and then imagine how it would play out on the table, my attempt at secrecy is useless. Second, it has to be both substantially different from anything in the current metagame and at least as effective as the current elements in the metagame: if my list brings something unheard-of, but in order to do it the list as a whole is a little less powerful (or is weak to a commonly used game element), I'm still not going to win.

I have never seen a list that qualifies on both counts. The strongest tournament lists in X-wing don't rely on gimmicks or misdirection--they're just very efficient.

Why on earth would they ignore that ship?

People do. I think it is a function that they do not see the ship often, do not deal with autoblasters often, and they all know what Talonbane can do. Even those who see Serrisu as a priority, then leave Guri as the third option. Guri shines when she is ignored. The list seems to work because I have three hard-hitting options, and two of them will be moving last/shooting first with a 99-point build.

We shall see how it does Saturday.

Why on earth would they ignore that ship?

People do. I think it is a function that they do not see the ship often, do not deal with autoblasters often, and they all know what Talonbane can do. Even those who see Serrisu as a priority, then leave Guri as the third option. Guri shines when she is ignored. The list seems to work because I have three hard-hitting options, and two of them will be moving last/shooting first with a 99-point build.

We shall see how it does Saturday.

All 3 of those ships are definitely high-priority targets to kill quickly normally. Havne't had the chance to play against it yet, but it definitely forces some hard choices

Hopefully we will see you Saturday.

Hopefully we will see you Saturday.

Won't be there . Wife and I are going out for our anniversary. Might try to make it out thursday afternoon for a couple games, we'll see if I can manage it.

Why on earth would they ignore that ship?

People do. I think it is a function that they do not see the ship often, do not deal with autoblasters often, and they all know what Talonbane can do. Even those who see Serrisu as a priority, then leave Guri as the third option. Guri shines when she is ignored. The list seems to work because I have three hard-hitting options, and two of them will be moving last/shooting first with a 99-point build.

We shall see how it does Saturday.

All 3 of those ships are definitely high-priority targets to kill quickly normally. Havne't had the chance to play against it yet, but it definitely forces some hard choices

Speaking of rules. Here is one I found the other day.

If your opponent kicks your ass at X-Wing, you lose.

That one was pretty intuitive actually, but I needed reminding.

You don't tell anybody, let them find out at the tournament. Top tier players don't post there lists before going to tournaments and there's a reason why.

Didn't Paul Heaver talk about his worlds list on nova a few weeks before hand? I knew Nathan and jeramys list ahead of time as well.

loose lips and sinking ships and all that.

I don't know anyone who has ever hidden their list. Granted I haven't gone to Nationals or Worlds. Usually I'll just do local tourneys, store champs and sometimes regionals. Never seen a big secret. Top tier lists are usually any strong list flown by a skilled player.

I usually fly a list for a good dozen games or so and maybe a tournament or two to get a good test of how the build does across the board before I start discussing it. I had about 30 games in by the time I posted about my Boba/Bossk list on the forums which saw success against some current meta lists like Palp Aces, Brobots, and TLT spam.

The key is definitely taking it to a tourney as the more games you win the tougher your opponents get. Playing casual games here or there might not be too telling as the variance in player skill and also list archetypes (they might be testing funky combos too, or just playing a fun list) is too random to figure out how competitive it can be.

As others have echoed though the combos would have already been discovered elsewhere, and it's all about how unprepared your opponent is at dealing with the list. Card text and all is easy to understand, but bringing in the oddball ship(s) that your opponent has not memorized the dial for seems to be the best way to surprise people.

Every top-tier player I've ever met has two things in common with the rest. First, they practice constantly with a single list. Second, they adapt very quickly to new or unusual approaches, attacks, or combos. Since this is a game where your list is public knowledge, your advantage lasts until the start of the tournament.

I've heard that too - I wonder if I should be doing that - as I tend to play as many different lists as possible, often with elements that I like recurring in the different lists. To get a feel for how different ships fly together, how different abilities can function together, and how they fly differently against other different lists - understanding what ships can and can't do. I wonder if any of the top tier players do that, I log as many hours playing as I can.

I think it was bruce lee - who said, I fear the man who's practiced 1 kick 10,000 times, but not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks 1 time.

You don't tell anybody, let them find out at the tournament. Top tier players don't post there lists before going to tournaments and there's a reason why.

Didn't Paul Heaver talk about his worlds list on nova a few weeks before hand? I knew Nathan and jeramys list ahead of time as well.

loose lips and sinking ships and all that.

Those were 3 of the top 4 players at worlds, I suspect none of thier ships were sunk.

You don't tell anybody, let them find out at the tournament. Top tier players don't post there lists before going to tournaments and there's a reason why.

Didn't Paul Heaver talk about his worlds list on nova a few weeks before hand? I knew Nathan and jeramys list ahead of time as well.

loose lips and sinking ships and all that.

Those were 3 of the top 4 players at worlds, I suspect none of thier ships were sunk.

1. I don't remember Paul Heaver giving his list out weeks before world's.

2. Did Nathan and Jeramy come onto the forum before hand asking for people's opinions and critiques on there list in preparation for world's?

3. Gencon>world's

You don't tell anybody, let them find out at the tournament. Top tier players don't post there lists before going to tournaments and there's a reason why.

Didn't Paul Heaver talk about his worlds list on nova a few weeks before hand? I knew Nathan and jeramys list ahead of time as well.

loose lips and sinking ships and all that.

Those were 3 of the top 4 players at worlds, I suspect none of thier ships were sunk.

1. I don't remember Paul Heaver giving his list out weeks before world's.

2. Did Nathan and Jeramy come onto the forum before hand asking for people's opinions and critiques on there list in preparation for world's?

3. Gencon>world's

None of those guys brought any sort of top secret combo that they were keeping secret from the world. Nobody in the Top 16 at World's brought anything new. KineticOperator's list was the only thing kind of surprising but only because it was nothing but K-Wing's. People had been talking about TLT, Tactician K-Wings since they were spoiled.

None of those guys won because their opponents were unprepared to deal with what they brought (with KO possibly being the exception).

They might not have posted their lists to the FFG forums but I would be surprised if they didn't use some sort of a community as a sounding board while deciding what to bring.

I'm not sure why you think that the U.S. Nationals would be tougher than Worlds. It was a smaller tournament with less international participation.

You don't tell anybody, let them find out at the tournament. Top tier players don't post there lists before going to tournaments and there's a reason why.

Didn't Paul Heaver talk about his worlds list on nova a few weeks before hand? I knew Nathan and jeramys list ahead of time as well.

loose lips and sinking ships and all that.

Those were 3 of the top 4 players at worlds, I suspect none of thier ships were sunk.

1. I don't remember Paul Heaver giving his list out weeks before world's.

2. Did Nathan and Jeramy come onto the forum before hand asking for people's opinions and critiques on there list in preparation for world's?

3. Gencon>world's

None of those guys brought any sort of top secret combo that they were keeping secret from the world. Nobody in the Top 16 at World's brought anything new. KineticOperator's list was the only thing kind of surprising but only because it was nothing but K-Wing's. People had been talking about TLT, Tactician K-Wings since they were spoiled.

None of those guys won because their opponents were unprepared to deal with what they brought (with KO possibly being the exception).

They might not have posted their lists to the FFG forums but I would be surprised if they didn't use some sort of a community as a sounding board while deciding what to bring.

I'm not sure why you think that the U.S. Nationals would be tougher than Worlds. It was a smaller tournament with less international participation.

Is there much overlap between the folks that play at Gencon and the ones that play at Worlds? I would think that for most people they go to one or the other. I imagine that now that we have Nationals, a North American Championship, and Worlds all so close together that it will make it worse. Traveling across the country to play with spaceships is expensive, doing it three times in a few months is kind of crazy. I have a hard enough time getting an entire Saturday for local tournaments.

I think if I was going to incur the cost of going to Gencon, I wouldn't want to spend a long day playing X-Wing instead of doing the rest of the convention. If I'm going to fly to the middle of nowhere to play X-Wing, I'd just as soon go to Worlds.

You don't tell anybody, let them find out at the tournament. Top tier players don't post there lists before going to tournaments and there's a reason why.

Didn't Paul Heaver talk about his worlds list on nova a few weeks before hand? I knew Nathan and jeramys list ahead of time as well.

loose lips and sinking ships and all that.

Those were 3 of the top 4 players at worlds, I suspect none of thier ships were sunk.

1. I don't remember Paul Heaver giving his list out weeks before world's.

2. Did Nathan and Jeramy come onto the forum before hand asking for people's opinions and critiques on there list in preparation for world's?

3. Gencon>world's

1) you not remembering doesn't mean it didn't happen, check out the Nova podcast

2) no, they played thier lists publicly as much as possible though, and willingly spoke about them when asked

3) I was 6th after Swiss at gencon, I had been running the same rebel control list that I ran all through regional season. I'm not able to speak for everyone in the top 16, but a good number of us were playing the same lists throughout. In fact, my opponent in the top 16 did post his list in the forum about a week beforehand.