The assumption appears to be that the World Championship should reflect the theoretical success rate of ships most clearly. This is not an unassailable fact, but a reasonable starting point to test the model. It is possible that a LBW variation wins a store championship, but it is unlikely that such a list would come very far at Worlds. That event just has the biggest potential of 'filtering out' statistical outliers...

It would be interesting to take List Juggler data and correlate each list's frequency--the proportion of players in the cut who take each archetype--with the size of the tournament. If there's a substantial negative correlation, that would indicate an archetype that succeeds only where competition is light, which we can probably disqualify from "Tier 1" (whatever that means).

MJ has provided a model for determining which ships can trade fire effectively. Period. That is one part of what makes ships work, and a very significant one, but not the entire thing and certainly not as effective an indicator as many/most want to assume it is...

You don't have to trust me, just look at the evidence! The real world, it actually happened, recorded not predicted, evidence. The game is in the best place it has ever been.

It's hard to say what the predictive value is of MJ's modeling with respect to the current metagame, since he's declined (for reasons I'm not criticizing!) to make either the current model or its results public.

I certainly do agree with you that if you take the diversity of successful SC lists as the indicator of the game's overall health, it's hard to come to the conclusion that TLT is causing problems.

...I was handicapped from the start wile they just drove around in circles not having to get me in their arcs as they slow rolled me to death with high hp ships and TLT

I'm sensitive to this criticism, but here's my question: would those games have come to substantially different results if your opponents had been flying high-HP ships with Ion Cannon Turrets or the upcoming Dorsal Turret instead?

You didn't say what you were playing, and I'm personally in the camp that says TLT should be 1 points more expensive than it is. But it sounds from your description as if you were pinged to death by durable lists with low but consistent offense, and that's a potentially successful strategy (especially versus a jousting-focused list) even if TLT is replaced with another turret option.

When they ride circles don't engage them, let them build distance and await them when they return. Vorpal Sword made a really good thread on how to deal with TLTs, you might want to check that one out (I don't remember what it was called, though).

Twin Laser Turrets: Why they're scary, and how you can fight back.

That's just it, I did and you went right past it again.

The evidence is the RESULTS. Not the model, not the predictions, not the arguments. The actual real-world results, that you can easily see on the Store Championships thread. Take a look, especially the most recent results that reflect how the meta has continued to adapt, and you will see enormous variety.

And just in case...

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/198561-2016-store-championship-results/page-19

Interesting, isn't it, that MajorJuggler is the one who started that thread you linked to, too? It's as though he's trying to gather as much actual data as he can instead of making broad generalizations based on gut feelings...

The main difference between using those lists and looking at the Worlds top 32 is the skill level involved. We don't know how good or bad the local players were in general, and a good player with a bad list can beat a bad player with a good list with astonishing regularity. In a recent tournament I beat two guys, one using TLT-Kwings and the other using Palpaces, with an Oicunn ramming build backed up by Yorr and Epsilon Leader, does that make Oicunn suddenly good?

However, in the top 32 listed there it was people whose playing skills had been proven through a lot of tournaments (tens? more?) and whose lists had been proven through the previous rounds that winnowed out the other 224 players. The top players also put in dozens of hours testing different builds and filtered their list down to what they were comfortable with AND what worked well. It also included everything the current meta had - note that Poe was strongly represented despite being officially released for what, a month? And a secret until just several weeks beforehand, cutting down on Vassal use? That means the players using him evaluated him, tested him, and found him to be better than their other options to counter TLTs in a VERY short time.

There's a term Magic players use which is applicable to the Twin Laser Turret: Oppressive. It's so pervasive that you have to plan against it or just give in and use it. It's reliable, consistent damage in a game that tries not to have reliability like that. The skill level involved in using them is also minimal, which can let less-skilled pilots achieve victories their ability can't back up.

Think about it for a minute: Out of the top 32 players of this game in the entire WORLD, 33% of their ships were dedicated to carrying TLTs. One THIRD. That's worse than 2014 with Fat Hans being 25% of the meta - and as Y-Wings were 27% of ships being used, definitely worse. Also of note was that despite the available pilot cards nearly doubling, the actual variety in cards being used by top players shrank by a third. That's bad game balance.

Despite all this crying, I personally don't think it's all that bad. With the ever-changing game, we're going to be seeing some changes in the next wave - and the next wave comes out next week. If it's still this oppressive come next Worlds, though, it'll need something done. I'm more a 'wait-and-see' guy unless something is clearly broken, like Phantoms were.

Think about it for a minute: Out of the top 32 players of this game in the entire WORLD, 33% of their ships were dedicated to carrying TLTs. One THIRD. That's worse than 2014 with Fat Hans being 25% of the meta - and as Y-Wings were 27% of ships being used, definitely worse. Also of note was that despite the available pilot cards nearly doubling, the actual variety in cards being used by top players shrank by a third. That's bad game balance.

If Store Championships were following Worlds results, then maybe. But, most are not. This is a point that seems to be constantly lost. The top tier 1 stuff is not the whole game. I understand some really want to believe in the myth of the mathematically pure balanced game. But, that is not this game, nor will it ever be. So, while Worlds and Regionals are a great way to see what is tier 1, it isn't the whole picture.

MJ has provided a model for determining which ships can trade fire effectively. Period.

That's... a bit of a reductionist description of the model, and isn't completely true, but OK.

The model does not take maneuver and action capabilities into account, or even player skill (more on that in a bit). Instead, it states that for a ship that has a completely "neutral" tactical advantage relative to other ships (i.e. the same range bins, relative firing duty cycle, and action economy), for a ship to break even with a known baseline (something like a Z-95 or TIE Fighter), it must do X% more or less damage relative to what its dice on average will roll.

Side note: the PS bid and action economy is specifically addressed in v3.0 which results in jousting numbers for most of the aces that are actually correct now. The numbers in v2.0 are really only accurate for comparing generic ships to each other. Suffice it to say that v3.0's jousting numbers for the aces makes it fairly obvious which ones should be performing well, but that's a tangential discussion.

Continued...

MJ has provided his own predictive data, and crafted a theory of effectiveness based on his model. But real world results are NOT following the predictions spawned by that model.

Note that there is a difference between a model (the math he presents) and predictions made based on that model.

For ships with very disparate capabilities, the simple jousting numbers do NOT necessarily predict which ship is more effective. It is possible to do so using the right analytics, but I don't really include that process in the public model. Note that some capabilities are easier to directly model than others. (More on that later)

More directly to your point above, the model does NOT say what happens when players of two different skill levels play each other. It only says that a stronger player with a weaker squad still has a 50-50 chance of winning if he increases his squad's combat effectiveness by X%, through some means such as getting more shots on his opponent via better maneuvering, or getting a better action economy via blocking, more effective focus fire, or some other means. If a player increases his squad's combat effectiveness by more than X%, then he should win, and the more he increases it the better his chances become. X-wing 101: if you shoot the other guy more than he can shoot at you, then you get an advantage. AKA "Fly Better". More later on how player skill impacts what lists we see in the real world, and how this is consistent with the model.

A model can be 100% accurate within its scope (the variables accounted for) and still have poor predictive accuracy. This is because models can only incorporate known variables and there are always unknowns in real-world applications. More, the exact weight of the different variables (ex, barrel roll and boost are both helpful for maneuvering, but which is more helpful, by how much and by what measure) are not easy/impossible to determine within a model complex enough to be useful.

I don't disagree here; in fact we are converging to the same conclusion. Determining the usefulness of boost/barrel roll/fill-in-the-blank is a very interesting discussion on analytical playtesting, but which is beyond the scope of this discussion. It is, notably, not particularly relevant to my premise that a 24 point TLT Y-wing is now the most reliable and cost effective generic filler in the game.

That predicted "jousting efficiency" correlates directly with popularity is as much (IMO more) due to people picking ships based on the model than it is a reflection of the accuracy of that model. Ships such as the TIE Defender or the K-Wing are perfect examples of the shortcomings in the "math". Both of them are completely inferior to alternative ships in terms of "efficiency" and yet the other less quantifiable advantages they have (white K and SLAM foremost) mean that on the table they can perform every bit as well or better than their jousting "superiors".

I'm not advertising the model otherwise, so we're in complete agreement here. In the case of the TIE Defender, the white K is actually fairly easy to model: you improve the ship's action economy and firing duty cycle, and put these numbers back into the model to get the resulting jousting values. Both of these factors can be obtained from analytical playtesting, which, again, is beyond the scope of this discussion.

The K-wing's SLAM action is much more difficult, if not outright impossible, to accurately represent directly in terms of jousting value. I have been playing Maximum Danger Zone with Warden+TLT/Tactician for a couple months now (thanks for kicking my butt at Worlds and giving me the inspiration! ), so I am keenly aware of this fact.

Major Juggler is presenting "I created a model, trust me, it says these ships should win".

We have been pretty much in agreement to this point, but I do have to stop you here for a moment, specifically re: "trust me". I went out of my way to make MathWing 1.0 and 2.0 public knowledge, including the exact process and coefficients, so the community doesn't need to trust that the model is rationale. It can be recreated and critiqued. This applies to both the theoretical underpinnings, and the specific mechanics of calculating the numbers themselves. Granted most people won't be able to do this. Calculating the probabilities is a relatively straightforward closed-ended problem, but being able to derive the theoretical underpinnings is a different level of expertise entirely. Nonetheless, for those that are willing and able the entire process is there.

TLT is not in v2.0, but if you can recreate the numbers in v2.0 then it is fairly trivial to calculate the expected damage value of TLT, and toss that into the public model, to obtain the jousting efficiency and corresponding required efficiency of particular ships. Then, using some analytical playtesting, you can observe the advantage in the relative firing duty cycle that the TLT turret achieves, and then compare that to the required efficiency. If the firing duty cycle advantage is consistently greater than the required efficiency, then you have an analytical prediction that the TLT should generally displace generics as cost efficient filler. You can also use analytics to better determine the range bins which gives TLT an advantage at range 3 and disadvantage at range 1.

And anybody can do all of the above. You don't have to take my word for it. v3.0 cleans up the numbers and provides useful numbers for aces, but if you're fundamentally just looking to see how effective a 24 point TLT Y-wing is compared to other generic filler ships, then v2.0 is sufficient to get you some pretty good numbers and yield some conclusions with a reasonable degree of certainty.

Others present "I know this game, this is what I see, trust me". But then there are folks who are saying "Look at the RESULTS, not the predictions. The evidence is that the game is incredibly diverse, there are a wide variety of viable ships and builds, TLT spam is NOT even remotely dominating, pure generic ships are seeing success both in swarms and as filler".

You don't have to trust me, just look at the evidence! The real world, it actually happened, recorded not predicted, evidence. The game is in the best place it has ever been.

There's a couple of points in here:

1. The game is in the best place that it has ever been in, from a balance perspective.
2. The real-world results don't match the model's predictions.

1: You're probably right. X-wing game design and balance through the first few years was basically the developers splatter painting a bunch of ships on the canvas, and whatever stuck at the top end of the canvas got used. It's still that way to a large degree. But the developers have learned a few things along the way, and have the benefit of years of history and comparative baselines to work off of, so in general the balance discrepancies are smaller now than they were in years past.

2. This assumes that you are aware of what the model should be predicting. You're close but have some simplified misperceptions -- which by the way is not your fault, I don't outline how to use the model or even say exactly what it is predicting. So, we need to pick up an earlier thread: player skill. There is a very insightful comment here that leads to my next point:

Why does he have to do that?`It's common sense that regionals draw more 'top' players than your average store championship.

Also, as far as i can see MJ has provided far more data in this thread than you or anyone else, so please stop making up bs requests like he has to prove something to you.

No, it is not common sense that Regionals draw more 'top' players than Store Champs.

FFG has an open policy for Store Champs and Regionals, where players of all skill levels are invited to participate and indeed they do.

ListJuggler provides a wealth of data about all kinds of squadrons.

It a useful database to crunch numbers about squadrons.

ListJuggler does not provide a single data point about player skill.

When I have submitted my squadron lists, I have never been asked to fill in my 'player skill'. So how can my player skill be measured and compared to other players in a quantitative manner?

Without a way to measure player skill, how do you propose to determine if there's a correlation between the 'top' players and the types of squadrons that they fly?

This is dragging the thread off topic from the central issue of TLTs.

There's an old saying about lies, damned lies and statistics.

It never hurts to ask someone for evidence to prove their claims and I am sure that Major Juggler can appreciate that.

There's two main takeaways here:

1. It is very difficult to quantify what the player skill spread is at Store Championships vs Regionals vs Nationals vs Worlds.
2. The data set in List Juggler has no notion of player skill, such as an ELO rating, so it is very difficult to separate the variables "player skill" from "ship/list quality".

Re #1: In general, if you could assign everyone an accurate ELO rating based on games played, the player skill distribution should probably follow something approaching a Gaussian distribution. Maybe it would look a little different than a simple Gaussian -- I'm not entirely certain, and this would be a great area of research, and without doing a full literature survey, I presume that a lot of work has already been published in this field.

Regardless of the specific shape of the curve though, the point is that the smaller the venue, the more statistically likely there is to be a large variation in player skill among those that make the cut, if there even is a cut. This is, to some extent, "common sense" and anecdotally verified by most players that have played in a variety of tournaments, but actually quantifying the resulting player skill spread in a cut is very hard. And, to make matters worse, it is geographically dependent. Some areas may be much more well-developed and have a higher overall player skill, but you'll never know from List Juggler unless you cross-compare the individual players that play in multiple tournaments across different regions. And then you have Paul who doesn't really make much of a splash during Store Champs / Regionals / Nationals, but then does 6 weeks of hardcore preparation before Worlds, and wins 3 times in a row. So player data can be time-varying as well.

Re #2: If we assume/accept that player skill variation is relatively high for Store Championship season, then this becomes particularly relevant for the Store Championship season. In this case, the model would predict that the determining factor in what squads win be primarily determined by who is playing, with a secondary effect of what squads/ships are brought. This can actually be predicted based on the ships' required efficiency vs. expected performance from the top level players. Quantifying the latter requires some analytical playtesting, which again, is beyond the scope of this discussion, but the point is that we expect to see a more noisy data set in smaller, less competitive events. Conversely, when the competition level ramps up, and attendance increases and draws from a larger geographic area, then the player skill separation between top end in any given tournament should decrease. At this point the lists themselves should then become a greater factor in who advances. So lets re-visit this again in 3 months when Regionals is wrapping up.

TL;DR:

• The model isn't claiming to do anything it's not, despite occasionally getting misconstrued.
• Store Championships is a "noisy" data set, where the best players generally win regardless of what they bring.
• Even looking at this noisy 2016 meta data, TLT is exerting a huge force on the meta, and generally points to TLT Y-wings displacing Z-95's, vanilla TIEs, and B-wings as cost efficient filler.

KO, I hope this came across as primarily informative and helpful, and not as antagonistic. I also have a different perspective from most, as I primarily approach the game from the vantage point of design, architecture, and analysis, not as a player. Even if the meta is the healthiest that it has ever been, I still see significant room for improvement.

Think about it for a minute: Out of the top 32 players of this game in the entire WORLD, 33% of their ships were dedicated to carrying TLTs. One THIRD. That's worse than 2014 with Fat Hans being 25% of the meta - and as Y-Wings were 27% of ships being used, definitely worse. Also of note was that despite the available pilot cards nearly doubling, the actual variety in cards being used by top players shrank by a third. That's bad game balance.

If Store Championships were following Worlds results, then maybe. But, most are not. This is a point that seems to be constantly lost. The top tier 1 stuff is not the whole game. I understand some really want to believe in the myth of the mathematically pure balanced game. But, that is not this game, nor will it ever be. So, while Worlds and Regionals are a great way to see what is tier 1, it isn't the whole picture.

Without getting too deep into this since it was mentioned upthread, we are seeing that TLTs are still the most frequently used upgrade and that it has success in elimination rounds. We're also seeing Palp Shuttles as having a lot of success after the cut, too. So, in a lot of ways the results are actually mirroring what we saw in world's with variation we are seeing probably explained a lot of other things. (Of course, this isn't holding true in my local area as I mentioned above but I think that's because Crack Stimbots are good counters to both, and iirc, they did make the cut at World's, too.)

That said, in terms of balance, it's also clear that skill is still a #1 factor in this game since we see players winning with quite a bit of variety and nowhere is skill more varied (and recored) than at the store championship level. At least the game is healthy enough that skill and a good plan can trump some of those "oppressive" cards.

Interesting, isn't it, that MajorJuggler is the one who started that thread you linked to, too? It's as though he's trying to gather as much actual data as he can instead of making broad generalizations based on gut feelings...

I think you might be misreading the conversation a little bit.

MajorJuggler is saying look, I've done some math that says TLT is overpowered. I also see TLTs strongly represented in Wave 7 tournament results, at the same time a lot of generic options seem to have vanished.

KineticOperator is saying yeah, but look at tournament cuts overall. For instance--and without meaning to put words in his mouth--look at the T-70. More points are being spent on T-70 X-wings as on Rebel and Scum Y-wings combined. Why would you say TLT is a problem rather than Poe?

So it's not that one poster is relying on evidence and the other is emphasizing intuition. They're both looking at data, but with slightly different sources and interpretations.

And they're not necessarily even disagreeing with each other! It's possible that TLT is too powerful under the hood, and that it hasn't penetrated as far as it could into the metagame. MJ pointed out upthread that it looks as if Palpatine Aces is one of the strongest archetypes out there right now, but it's actually not particularly common--nor are its obvious counters.

Major Juggler is presenting "I created a model, trust me, it says these ships should win".

We have been pretty much in agreement to this point, but I do have to stop you here for a moment...

I think one of the things that makes the high number of points spent on TLT less worrisome to the meta is that with one real exception, TLT is not a squad archetype. It's filler. One Fat Han list isn't hugely different to play against than another, it defines the list. A list with TLTs is just a list with TLTs. They aren't monolithic or particularly difficult to deal with, so even if they are prevalent, they don't define a game. This is, perhaps, why they are more palatable to so many people, even when you completely ignore any potential balance issues.

There's two main takeaways here:

• It is very difficult to quantify what the player skill spread is at Store Championships vs Regionals vs Nationals vs Worlds.
• The data set in List Juggler has no notion of player skill, such as an ELO rating, so it is very difficult to separate the variables "player skill" from "ship/list quality".

Re #1: In general, if you could assign everyone an accurate ELO rating based on games played, the player skill distribution should probably follow something approaching a Gaussian distribution. Maybe it would look a little different than a simple Gaussian -- I'm not entirely certain, and this would be a great area of research, and without doing a full literature survey, I presume that a lot of work has already been published in this field.

Here's the TL;DR version: A normal distribution isn't a bad fundamental assumption, but in elective skill tests there's a self-selection problem. Setting aside Dunning-Kruger, that typically functions as a filter that removes more low-z participants than high-z ones, leading to distributions that are typically skewed right.

Noisy contests also tend to affect kurtosis of the observed distribution, although the direction of the effect is context-dependent.

Regardless of the specific shape of the curve though, the point is that the smaller the venue, the more statistically likely there is to be a large variation in player skill among those that make the cut, if there even is a cut.

Mmm... I think I know what you mean, but it's not really a question of variation. (Of course you know that a representative sample from a normally distributed population always has the same variance as the population itself.) In fact, if you look at each Store Championship as a sample of all X-wing players, the samples are likely to have less variation in skill than the population due to the relative rarity of players in the right tail compared to players at the median.

But an even bigger problem than variance is that each level of competition in X-wing has its own population of likely players, and the distributions are almost certainly substantially different. The filtering effect I noted above is weaker at SCs than at Regionals, because the required investment is lower (someone who's just out for a good afternoon playing his thematic Luke-Wedge-Biggs list might drive across town, but probably won't drive four hours). And if you start looking at national tournaments, there are additional filters in place--how often and how far can you afford to travel?

ETA: As you said above, this is supposed to be informative rather than confrontational. I'm a social-science methodologist who sometimes dabbles in modeling--so when we talk about modeling I'm in your territory, but when we talk about latent psychological and social variables, you're in mine.

Yeah, some of the common beliefs in game design about player psychology tends to go against a lot of what MajorJuggler espouses as key to game design. Expose is a good example. It gets annoying trying to "fix" it to fit a roll it was never intended to occupy.

As I have said before, issues with MajorJuggler essentially comes down to Eurogame vs Ameritrash in game design.

Yeah, some of the common beliefs in game design about player psychology tends to go against a lot of what MajorJuggler espouses as key to game design. Expose is a good example. It gets annoying trying to "fix" it to fit a roll it was never intended to occupy.

As I have said before, issues with MajorJuggler essentially comes down to Eurogame vs Ameritrash in game design.

MJ and Lingula -

The "trust me" was indeed only a rhetorical device. It was also much more confrontational in tone than I intended it to be. It didn't seem so in my mind when I wrote it, but having read it again (and your responses) I can certainly see how it came across that way. I apologize.

MJ -

The irony is that you and I have never actually disagreed. I value your work immensely. I simply try to leaven the conversation with reminders that any model is by definition limited. The tendency is for people to take an excellent model and apply it in an overly broad and/or inappropriate manner. In this particular case, you have never claimed that your model was anything other than what it was, a comparison of "jousting" values (to use a shorthand). The problem is that other people look at that and immediately conclude that it is an accurate comparison of overall effectiveness. It is certainly one component of overall effectiveness (probably the single largest component in most cases), but it certainly not the entire picture.

The "disagreement" between you and I is not fundamental, but perceived.

Regardless of the specific shape of the curve though, the point is that the smaller the venue, the more statistically likely there is to be a large variation in player skill among those that make the cut, if there even is a cut.

Mmm... I think I know what you mean, but it's not really a question of variation. (Of course you know that a representative sample from a normally distributed population always has the same variance as the population itself.)

Good catch. However even if the raw player skill is purely Gaussian, you still have to map "player skill difference" to "increased combat effectiveness", and this almost certainly has diminishing returns at the top-end. So a player at 4 sigma vs 2 sigma will have less of an in-game advantage than a 2 sigma player vs 0 sigma (mean). So, I guess what I'm saying is that the distribution of players' ELO rating may not be pure Gaussian.

Throw in the complication that some players (almost all players?) will have their deviation from the mean vary depending on the squads they fly and the squads their opponent's flies, and you have an extraordinarily difficult to quantify metric of player skill.

Skill level isn't even consistent people get tired or have a bad nights sleep, or they get over excited etc.

Yeah, some of the common beliefs in game design about player psychology tends to go against a lot of what MajorJuggler espouses as key to game design. Expose is a good example. It gets annoying trying to "fix" it to fit a roll it was never intended to occupy.

As I have said before, issues with MajorJuggler essentially comes down to Eurogame vs Ameritrash in game design.

Can you elaborate on that? I'm ignorant to what you mean when you say eurogame and ameritrash. I assume it's some type of design philosophy but that's it.

Euro-style games emphasize game balance and minimal rules, with as little interaction between competitive players as possible, whereas Ameri-style games emphasize randomness and complicated rules, with as much interaction between competitive players as they can squeeze in. Hungry Hungry Hippos is a very Euro-style game (simple rule: get the pellets, you can't really do much to hinder other players), whereas Sorry! is a very Ameri-style game where you're not only trying to succeed but prevent the other person from doing so.

Or more simply, Euro-style is all about skill, Ameri-style is all about luck.

Both types have problems. Ameri-style games often have conflicting rules or no clear end-state (How do you actually WIN Monopoly?), whereas Euro-style often has no randomness whatsoever making each game the same once you figure out the ideal path (Seriously, my Settlers of Cataan has been collecting dust for a decade).

A GOOD game IMHO manages to blend both styles, ideally rewarding skill more than luck, but having that random element to make games unpredictable between same-skill players. X-Wing honestly fluctuates more towards luck in that balance, mostly because one mistake or bad die roll is so unforgiving. Losing a ship is often a third of your force, and the situation catastrophically declines from there.

That's why Rebels are more powerful at the top level than Empire, because they have reliable shields to buffer against fickle green dice as well as other things to protect against a sudden turn of bad luck, such as Corran Horn's double attack or all the various regeneration methods or the high-PS pilots modifying dice independent of their tokens.

Or, as the subject of this thread is about, the reliable single damage every turn from a TLT.

None of those alone is TOO much more powerful than the Imperial advantages, but all of them make a much stronger whole than the Imperial forces for top-level play.

There's a term Magic players use which is applicable to the Twin Laser Turret: Oppressive. It's so pervasive that you have to plan against it or just give in and use it. It's reliable, consistent damage in a game that tries not to have reliability like that. The skill level involved in using them is also minimal, which can let less-skilled pilots achieve victories their ability can't back up.

This is what I was trying to say up-thread, though this is said far more eloquently. I have several main gripes against TLT:

1. It is so good that it completely shuts out other things. (Like the above poster says, it is "oppressive".) I'm confident that wasn't intentional - Alex and Frank have been doing a bang-up job trying to drag older, sub-par ships out of the mud and get them back on to tables - but it is what has occurred. The question is: are they willing to do anything about it, or just let things run their course? The game may be in a good place right now, but list building isn't because TLT is choking out other options like kudzu.
2. It is unavailable to 1/3 of the playable factions.
3. They can clearly be beaten, but flying against them is boring. The point of the game is movement and positioning; the dice determine hits and misses, but over the course of a game, he who carves out the better board position usually ends up winning. TLT Y's don't care about positioning. They're as subtle as flying a sledgehammer. They move around and push through damage at an efficiency of cost that Fan Han could only dream of. They are, simply put, X-Wing for Dummies. They coast around the board and throw lots of dice and don't care where they're pointed or whether or not they get actions. They just overwhelm you with a quantity of dice that no swarm can match; the swarm's only advantage is that it has more pieces to push around and create different angles of attack.

Just because something is beatable doesn't mean it's good for the health of the game (see also pre-nerf Phantom).

still don't see what TLT is choking out, relative to the state of the game prior to wave 7

there's no PWT spam, no 2 ship spam and the options that we weren't seeing earlier still havn't come out, except for those ships that have benefited immensely from wave 7 upgrades ala Ys and Ties (good ole crackswarm)

whatever TLTs choked out, I really haven't ever seen on the table before anyway outside of Tie Swarm and bbbbz. I really can't see that they've had even a remotely similar impact to the phantom, as much as they've just made generic Ys and Ks viable.

I'd take TLTs any day over what would've been the alternative: soontir + cheri versus poe + fat han

imo, the game has never been better or more diverse, what with its lifespan having gone through wave 1-3 tie spam to a wave 5 pancake phantom spam and then wave 6 two ship spam. SO long as juggler's apocalyptic predictions about the x7 defender don't end up shattering the game, things are only getting better

When you expand the amount of options like Pokemon it gets much better, ...

I never thought I would read where Pokemon is situationally better than X-Wing!

Thanks for the daily chuckle!

Another aussie!

Why does he have to do that?`It's common sense that regionals draw more 'top' players than your average store championship.

Also, as far as i can see MJ has provided far more data in this thread than you or anyone else, so please stop making up bs requests like he has to prove something to you.

An interesting related question: how much does the strength of local competition improve a given player? For instance: if Paul Heaver lived in a place with very few X-Wing players, and those players were at my skill level, would he have been world champion even once?

Why does he have to do that?`It's common sense that regionals draw more 'top' players than your average store championship.

Also, as far as i can see MJ has provided far more data in this thread than you or anyone else, so please stop making up bs requests like he has to prove something to you.

An interesting related question: how much does the strength of local competition improve a given player? For instance: if Paul Heaver lived in a place with very few X-Wing players, and those players were at my skill level, would he have been world champion even once?

still don't see what TLT is choking out, relative to the state of the game prior to wave 7

When was the last time you saw a B-Wing in play? A Decimator? A YT-1300?

With the latter two, the argument can be made that they are expressly what TLT was meant to curb in the meta. I think that's probably a fair assessment. If so, that part has succeeded. Unfortunately, the side effect is, IMHO, far worse.

TLTs have pushed most 3 agility ships even farther into the "marginal" column. TIE Fighters are down from pre-Wave 7 percentages (though you can argue that the TIE/fo has made up some of this slack). Same for TIE Interceptors. TIE Advanceds made a short-lived comeback after the Raider release, but they're down since the first of the year as people have figured out why they were losing with ones not named Vader. E-Wings... er, Corran Horn, is down. (Bizarrely, StarVipers are up, so it's not a perfect world, I suppose.) Even Aggressors - who are highly resilient to turrets in general - are down.

Each of these ships has one big thing in common: they rely on their green dice to justify their point costs. TLTs laugh at this notion; therefore, people don't play them as often. For Imperials, this is a huge problem, as their green dice are given to them as a design mechanic in lieu of far more reliable shields... and we all know how awesome green dice are the more times you have to roll them.

When one upgrade card pushes that many different ships aside, it's time to ask ourselves if it isn't a bit overkill.

I think personally think this thread is now just total trash, but while I'm here complaining about the complainers, I may as well put my 2c in.

All this bull about this list is stronger then that. It comes down to your ******* skill level. Paul heaver has won 3 worlds all with different lists, he out flew his opponents. You are forgetting that most of the time, this game is won and lost in the movement phase. And the even after all that. You still need to throw random dice. The tlt doesn't get mods for both rolls. You are rolling in modified dice generally for the 2nd shot. Even on the stressbot all 3 attacks are generally unmodified.

Less ******* complaining and get good scrubs

Less ******* complaining and get good scrubs

There is no context in which this sentiment has ever been meaningful or constructive.

Also, you misspelled "git gud".

When was the last time you saw a B-Wing in play? A Decimator? A YT-1300?

All three were around at both of the last two tournaments I attended. That could easily be a feature of my local metagame, of course, but if you're asking for anecdotes...