Step 1: Loyally serve the Empire

Step 2: Fly alongside the greatest pilots to grace the battle space

Step 3: Escort duty is for chumps, bring me a third Ace!

How's that working out for ya

For me:

Step 1: Pick a squad that a.) is cool and b.) seems like it's got something it can do against all the major meta players.

Step 2: Run this squad a bunch against myself vs the major meta players that it seems like it has the worst matchup against. This helps me figure out opening moves, good situations that I want to engineer, and bad situations that I want to avoid.

Step 3: Tweak the squad to help against the worst matchups.

Step 4: Play it against my buddy who almost never plays X-wing, against either a meta list or some random list he puts together, and lose.

Step 5: Go to tournament.

I'm assuming that step 1a is a euphemism for "Grab my Defender."

You know, I played a Scum squad last fall.

Store championships last year taught me that practicing doesn't necessarily mean much.

I brought a list I had practiced with for months with great success only to go 2-2 twice. On the flip side I saw players bringing lists they had never flown before or maybe once or twice the day before and make it to the top cut.

Step 1: Loyally serve the Empire

Step 2: Fly alongside the greatest pilots to grace the battle space

Step 3: Escort duty is for chumps, bring me a third Ace!

How's that working out for ya

Took 12th in a regional and 4th in a SC, though arguably could have won the CS with a better engage

I am not a good enough theory-crafter to come up with stuff on my own. So I usually go through recent tournament results to find a list that sounds fun and reasonably competitive. The forums are not a good place to look for competitive list, I have found. A lot of people will post pure crap and tell you it is gold (probably because it works in their local meta).

Step two is to tweak the list to better suit my own play style, if needed. I am not a super competitive player, but when I go to a tournament I would like to at least have shot at placing. So I try to find a good balance between 'fun' and 'strong'.

Then just practice and make adjustments. This is usually the step that I put too little effort into, partly because I get tired of playing the exact same list enough to really evaluate it.

Step 1: Loyally serve the Empire

Step 2: Fly alongside the greatest pilots to grace the battle space

Step 3: Escort duty is for chumps, bring me a third Ace!

I make a list that I think has good synergy and then I play it a lot on vassal. Make notes for possible tweaks and try them out.

Mostly just practice. Come up with a strategy for asteroid/debris placement. Party on Garth

I am not a good enough theory-crafter to come up with stuff on my own.

It's really all a matter of coming up with a type of list or a specific ship you want. Then, you can go online and look for things that fit with that. Try yourself and ask more questions online. I've found some people can fly some ships very well, but they cant' fly others well. It's more of how a person plays the game. Soontir might be great in some people's hands, but utter crap in the other. So, if you find some loon who says two Tie Defenders is fantastic, try it out for yourself. If you can't get it to work, as him online. Maybe it works for him and maybe it doesn't work for you....or maybe you just need to try it out a few times and wrap your head around it.

I hardly play the same build twice (except while in a tournament, of course). I might sometimes, when I find a team particularily fun to fly. But more often than not, I will always try something else. And that's how I train. I experiment with every ship, try every combination I think might work on a particular ship. Then, I build myself some archetype, if I fly X pilot, I give it Y upgrades, unless I pair him with Z. I give each of those archetype a role, what they counter and what's their weakness. I try to fly each ship to get a hang on how they maneuver, what to do and what not with each one, learn their dials and action bar. This way, when I go against any ship, I now how to counter them, I know what to expect because I know how they work.

Then, when it's time to build a team for a tournament, I think about what I should expect to see, how to counter it. And I like to come up with my own list, try to think outside the box. A good exemple is the last list I brought to a tournament, Moralo and IG.

The current list that we see often win tournaments is Regen ships, stress inducing ship, TLT Y-Wings, Aces with Palp. How to counter them?

To counter the regen ship, I need to give constant damage and prevent them from running away and regen. How do they regen? R2-D2 needs to make a green move, R5-P9 need an action. So, to counter R2 I need to ionize it, to counter R5, stress him. So, my answer to it: Moralo with a Ion Cannon, Tactician, Bossk and Gunner. I can ionize R2, stress R5, or do both, and if they dodge the first Ion shot, I'll make them pay with a F+TL shot and maybe a second stress.

To counter stress inducing ship (Twin turret tactician or Stresshog), I need to consider that I might spend 2-3 turn stressed. That's a real pain for IG. Unless I give him wired. This way, he will feed on that stress. He might not be able to boost or k-turn, so that's not optimal, but at least multiple stress doesn't spell doom. As for Moralo, Gunner and Bossk ''garantee'' me that I'll be able to give some damage even while stressed.

To counter TLT, multiple attack from a turret. Autothrusters is a given, but dice will eventually fail me. So I'll give it Sensor Jammer. A TLT Y-Wing doesn't have 2 Focus, so at least one of the 2 attack have a maximum possibility of 2 hit. Combined with 3 dice, Autothrusters and maybe Wired that will affect every defense roll, that's dodgeable.

Aces with Palp. I need attacks, lot of attacks. And stress. And give them hard choice. And hit hard. So I take IG-B and a HLC, while Moralo force them to dodge the first Ion shot, only to be shot at again by a F+TL shot. And they'll do everything to avoid that range 2 Tactician space. And on a YV, it covers a lot of space.

So in the end, I came up with:

IG-B with Wired, Sensor Jammer, HLC, Inertial Dampeners (to exploit Wired), Autothrusters, Ion Bomb

Moralo Eval with Ion Cannon, Bossk, Gunner, Tactician, Inertial Dampeners

An unorthodox build can counter pretty much everything. Its big weakness: swarm. Not enough firepower and can go down really fast against concentrated fire. So if I have the time, I'll make one or two test drive versus its hard counter. I know that I can deal with the rest, so I'll practice against its weakness.

And that's pretty much how I prepare for a tournament. Doesn't need much practice with a particular build, I already know how each ship fly. Just need to think about how to set them and the opening moves.

Pick stuff I like, try out some different combos/synergies, and above all aim to have fun.

Step 1: Loyally serve the Empire

Step 2: Fly alongside the greatest pilots to grace the battle space

Step 3: Escort duty is for chumps, bring me a third Ace!

How's that working out for ya

Took 12th in a regional and 4th in a SC, though arguably could have won the CS with a better engage

So, what you're saying is, the rebellion was triumphant those days

To start being competitive you haven't got to make any fundamental changes to the way you design your lists presently, but what you do need to do is start asking 'how will my list deal with X?'

Clearly there is no substitute for practise, but we don't all have the luxury of being able to play 5 or six casual games per week. Where you can give yourself an edge is by doing a bit of research and asking yourself how will you list deal with the common lists and ships in the meta (local or otherwise).

At the moment you're going to want to have some idea of how you will handle the following lists and ships;

Poe

Corran

Dash

Soontir

Vader

Omega leader

Brobots

Swarms

Fat ships

Palp aces

Phantoms

TLT's

Those are a few examples of common ships/list archetypes you're likely to come up against. Figure out your lists weaknesses and assess which types of lists are most likely to exploit your weaknesses. Whatever practise time you get play those lists you expect to give you the most trouble. You'll quickly see which games are difficult and adapt your play to suit them and which match ups are simply lost causes. Revisit your list and make some changes to shore up your weak matches.

Unfortunately as soon as you get into a competitive environment you'll get hit by lists and tactics neither you nor your casually buddies dreamed up and you'll see weaknesses in your list that you never even thought were there. This doesn't mean your list is dead in the water, it just means it needs some more tweeks to address the freshly revealed weaknesses and then you take it to the next event. And the next. And so on.

I'm always looking one competitive bracket ahead. So during the winter casual events, I was working on my store champ list. Testing a list in a tourney environment is the only real way to learn about it. Now it's store champ season, and I'm working on my regional list. Each store champ I attend is no longer just a tourney, it's a training exercise.

Personally I tend to stick to one list or thereabouts for the whole season. Whilst my list may never be exactly the same from one event to the next, the core principles of the list remain true and the seasoning is adjusted based on my experience at the tourney table.

Sick with it and most importantly, have fun!

Definitely keep local meta in mind as well. We have a guy locally who likes his bugzapper swarms, which is definitely always something to keep in mind when list building if you think you might run into it...

Sticky notes mounted on a dartboard

Last year I went to a bunch of different SC's and regionals with a well thought out and practiced list. Either confirming to the meta or trying to counter it. The result was the same though; I got middling results most of the time and completely and utterly crushed some of the time.

Until one regional came and I did not have a clue what to fly. The Friday night before I spent the entire night playing GoT the board game and drinking with friends till 4 in the morning.

The next day, with to little sleep and bit of panic (because I was running late and still did not have a list) I grabbed the box of Rebels and quickly jumped in the car. While sipping my cheap gas station coffee I dreamt up a list with ships I knew to fly well and with little upgrades so I wouldn't forget anything.

I managed to stay on my feet for 7 games and went undefeated all day, totally won the sucker!

Last year I went to a bunch of different SC's and regionals with a well thought out and practiced list. Either confirming to the meta or trying to counter it. The result was the same though; I got middling results most of the time and completely and utterly crushed some of the time.

Until one regional came and I did not have a clue what to fly. The Friday night before I spent the entire night playing GoT the board game and drinking with friends till 4 in the morning.

The next day, with to little sleep and bit of panic (because I was running late and still did not have a list) I grabbed the box of Rebels and quickly jumped in the car. While sipping my cheap gas station coffee I dreamt up a list with ships I knew to fly well and with little upgrades so I wouldn't forget anything.

I managed to stay on my feet for 7 games and went undefeated all day, totally won the sucker!

Haha, funny story, I am certain it was due to that cheap gas station coffee, and I am certain that has become your staple ever since ;-D

Just as a side note, what was your 7-win list then?

Last year I went to a bunch of different SC's and regionals with a well thought out and practiced list. Either confirming to the meta or trying to counter it. The result was the same though; I got middling results most of the time and completely and utterly crushed some of the time.

Until one regional came and I did not have a clue what to fly. The Friday night before I spent the entire night playing GoT the board game and drinking with friends till 4 in the morning.

The next day, with to little sleep and bit of panic (because I was running late and still did not have a list) I grabbed the box of Rebels and quickly jumped in the car. While sipping my cheap gas station coffee I dreamt up a list with ships I knew to fly well and with little upgrades so I wouldn't forget anything.

I managed to stay on my feet for 7 games and went undefeated all day, totally won the sucker!

You clearly took your Game of Thrones to heart. It's a good job you won, because when you play the game of thrones...

Not really, if I have time I like to make my own coffee. Though coffee in general is definetly a staple of mine.

Full results of the tournament are posted here;

http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/get_tourney_details?tourney_id=501

My system is simple.

Choose a squadron, practise with it for months, then abandon it the day before the tournament, throw something together that I've never used before and fly that instead.