If a ship isn't making much of a blip on the list of players making a cut, then it isn't good.

Fallacious. To make this statement you must operate on the following assumptions:

• Every list is equally represented.
• List power is linear and therefore on average when two lists collide the "better" one will emerge victorious.
• Player skill is evenly distributed amongst players of a list.

None of these are true.

The high profile lists's numbers are heavily padded out by people who think they're an easy ticket to victory. If they win tournaments, then they'll be copied even more. Paul Heaver's list was a fairly normal mixed Rebel toolbox but even that's seen heavy duplication. When one list is entering itself into a tournament twelve times it has a much better chance of one coming out on top than a similarly powerful list that has two entries.

Ship and list power are not linear. How good a ship is is based on the context of what it's paired with and what it's facing. Lists have good matchups and bad matchups: a TIE phantom has a good chance of soloing three mid-PS X-wings but is screwed against a higher PS turret and must rely on the rest of its squad to take it down. A good list against a lot of bad matchups will appear worse, and a bad list against a lot of good matchups will appear better.

With all the extra actions and repositioning, the actual planning phase is slowly losing its importance.

I can sympathise with this statement. It's why I wonder if Boost and Barrel Roll should, much like Gonk, count as each other. That'd leave Corran, Vader, Soontir and the rest still very good at repositioning around their post maneuver position but unable to escape when caught dead in arc. That in turn would make the game much more friendly to mid-PS.

On the other hand, OP can you name a single well represented ship in the competitive meta that lacks both post-maneuver repositioning as well as good action economy (or action-less dice boosts, like Predator or IG-88bs ability, which are similar to better action economy)?

If you don't like your opponent being able to do 3 actions per turn, learn to block.

Which does nothing with my dissatisfaction about where the state of the game is headed of course. With all the extra actions and repositioning, the actual planning phase is slowly losing its importance.

so, learning to block is exactly what you should be doing as that stresses the planning phase and the dial reveal more than anything else

that and use bigger obstacles, they heavily limit where a ship can reposition to. A ship with arcs can only go so many places to arc-dodge while still having a shot

Engine Upgrade (IMHO) was a mistake. The four point cost sounds like enough of a penalty. It is on cheap ships but on a 42 point Corran or a 60 point large based ship, EU is just too good. Hindsight being 20/20, it would have made more sense to be either small ship only or come with a built-in penalty.

If one were to simply make bank boost red, that would go a long way. A simple change, one that would still leave boost powerful but not autoinclude. Being able to do freebie 1 /banks/ is too good. Bank barrel roll and decloak are restricted as are other "super" maneuvers like Inertial Dampeners, Lightning Reflexes, Daredevil, etc.

IMO if you want Hypermobility you should have to pay a cost more than 4 points and an action and a slot you weren't using anyways. Boba's Imperial ability, Navigator, Stay on Target, Hera's Ghost pilot ability, etc. are the ways to do hypermobility. Because right now you /could/ use those combos, OR you could just slap an Engine Upgrade on something and bank boost every turn with an equal or better effect.

Look at Expert Handling for example. If a ship doesn't have innate barrel roll it's pretty much a red "manuever". But put engine upgrade on a ship that doesn't already have boost and now you can do a 2 hard and bank boost and almost never have to K-Turn.

Maybe if bank boosts were red, engine upgrade could make them white for ships that have innate boost along with a discounted cost for them.

Also, the less people that are flying Boostwings, the less you have to fly Boostwings in response to keep up with them.

I disagree to the original post. The game changed and it actually is bad to have only one action for almost everything but generic/swarm lists. Its just not enough anymore. In times where a 17 point generic gets a dual action its not the Wave 1 action economy anymore.

You also have a lot more options and ships to reposition yourself. Aces without repositioning have a very hard time beeing worth their point.

I think many of the original statements are outdated by the current game design.

If non-repositioning aces would move last 90% of the time they would have a chance of predicting the enemy movement and still beeing worth it, but thats just not true. You have to invest into Pilot skill by blocking your EPT and then you can still get matched or even outbid on Pilot skill.

If the enemy can outmanaeuver you and you only have a front arc your actual fire oppotunities would have to count double, but most of the time they dont.

Engine Upgrade (IMHO) was a mistake. The four point cost sounds like enough of a penalty. It is on cheap ships but on a 42 point Corran or a 60 point large based ship, EU is just too good. Hindsight being 20/20, it would have made more sense to be either small ship only or come with a built-in penalty.

Someone suggested making barrel roll and boost red/white+stress once. That goes a little too far.

If one were to simply make bank boost red, that would go a long way. A simple change, one that would still leave boost powerful but not autoinclude. Being able to do freebie 1 /banks/ is too good. Bank barrel roll and decloak are restricted as are other "super" maneuvers like Inertial Dampeners, Lightning Reflexes, Daredevil, etc.

IMO if you want Hypermobility you should have to pay a cost more than 4 points and an action and a slot you weren't using anyways. Boba's Imperial ability, Navigator, Stay on Target, Hera's Ghost pilot ability, etc. are the ways to do hypermobility. Because right now you /could/ use those combos, OR you could just slap an Engine Upgrade on something and bank boost every turn with an equal or better effect.

Look at Expert Handling for example. If a ship doesn't have innate barrel roll it's pretty much a red "manuever". But put engine upgrade on a ship that doesn't already have boost and now you can do a 2 hard and bank boost and almost never have to K-Turn.

Maybe if bank boosts were red, engine upgrade could make them white for ships that have innate boost along with a discounted cost for them.

Also, the less people that are flying Boostwings, the less you have to fly Boostwings in response to keep up with them.

Didn't agree with this the first time around but now I'm warming to the idea.

Banning Engine Upgrade entirely also sounds like a decent idea to me.

Where's EU showing up that it's become such a horror show?

Don't get me wrong, I remember the dark ages of wave 5, but nowadays I only see it on Vader and that poor bloke don't take well to torpedoes

Where's EU showing up that it's become such a horror show?

It's also part of Corran.

Personally I think it'd be very interesting to see what would happen if for one tournament you banned Veteran Instincts, Engine Upgrade, Push The Limit and Predator. Adaptability and Dengar Crew too, them being essentially mini-VI and crew Predator.

Personally think Predator should be a banned card anyway for the crime of crowding out other EPTs with quality whilst being mind-crushingly dull.

Man I havnt seen corran in a dog's age

R3-a2 was murderous

Vader, Corran, Dash...not really seeing Engine Upgrade elsewhere. Sometimes Chiraneau? Does anyone run Fat Han any more?

Engine Upgrade isn't a problem, Boost isn't a problem. The outrageous PS bids were the real issue, and that's swiftly becoming a thing of the past.

This has been an interesting discussion. I have to agree with the OP in general, but that said, the issue at hand falls into the realm of min/maxing.

I've had alot of success of late with a naked Cartel Maruader. No boost, no barrel roll, no PS (well, 3), just a plan and some handy options on the dial. He didn't have a shot every turn, he didn't avoid an arc every turn, but I could leverage the ship's assets to approximate repositioning.

The threat of a 3 dice attack, maybe even 4, needs to be considered. Sure, you could boost/roll into a good shot on another component of my list, but will you do that if it means giving up a shot from something I already moved this turn? Maybe not. Plays like that aren't easy, but they can be practiced, and as we go further in an era of options that have been blown wide open I think it's pretty clear that the days of sticking to what has worked in the past are numbered.

If I had said a year ago that a munitions based, low PS list would win a prestigious event, I would have been ignored like you wouldn't believe.

It'll be interesting to see what Wave 9 brings.

Theres too many ships right now that can evade majority of the tactic in this game for cheap. Turreted beasts that just have to not fly out of range 3 or hit a rock and they do insane damage in the process, for a wopping 3-6pts more than your average ship that doesnt have a turret so he gets about half as many shots throughout the game assuming you didnt wiff a maneuver. Ships that actually WANT to stack the stress completely ignore the dangers of poor planning and being forced to use red moves are also not expensive enough. And ive ranted about large ships minus falcon, boba, and shuttle in enough threads as it is so i wont beat a dead horse there.

Yes, not all ships are created equal. It would be boring if every ship had access to the same things. But in terms of balance, something shouldnt be able to ignore a major MAJOR aspect of the game or have **** near twice the killing/surviving power of another ship for pennies more.

Sorry but every regional and national is going to be won by ships that can either reposition or have a turret. Sorry but if a ship has x wing syndrome (no reposition, no turret) then it's just collecting dust in the trays or you're giving out wins to people bringing good lists.

Sorry but every regional and national is going to be won by ships that can either reposition or have a turret. Sorry but if a ship has x wing syndrome (no reposition, no turret) then it's just collecting dust in the trays or you're giving out wins to people bringing good lists.

Tell that to the x7 defender.

Sorry but every regional and national is going to be won by ships that can either reposition or have a turret. Sorry but if a ship has x wing syndrome (no reposition, no turret) then it's just collecting dust in the trays or you're giving out wins to people bringing good lists.

So a 33 point 4/4/4/4 non-repositioning non-turret ship wouldn't win? Or maybe a 5/5/5/5 20 point?

The inability to reactively reposition does not make or break a ship. Only the extreme end arc dodgers can reposition without sacrificing offensive power.

The X-wing's problem isn't that it can't reposition. If it were that simple there'd be Blue Squadron Novices everywhere. It's the combination between its lack of tricks and its statline not compensating for that. The barrel roll on the Delta-X7 does next to nothing for it at PS1, but 28 points for 3/3/3/3 and a free evade is a statline that can easily make up for that.

I think the game needs more tools to fight double reposition, but flying with your dial alone is not a fundamental make or break.

Sorry but every regional and national is going to be won by ships that can either reposition or have a turret. Sorry but if a ship has x wing syndrome (no reposition, no turret) then it's just collecting dust in the trays or you're giving out wins to people bringing good lists.

Thats a lie. More people with those ships will win than without not because theyre OP but because like in my post they enable the player to ignore major aspects of the game and let a total gakhead of a player seem good. If he/she faces someone without turrets that is a ballin' player and knows how to fly circles around everything, they will still lose and lose hard barring bad dice.

Nobody wants to learn the game that hard though. So they go for the "Eh, i dont have to try" lists. U-boat spam anyone?

Thats a lie. More people with those ships will win than without not because theyre OP but because like in my post they enable the player to ignore major aspects of the game and let a total gakhead of a player seem good. If he/she faces someone without turrets that is a ballin' player and knows how to fly circles around everything, they will still lose and lose hard barring bad dice.

Nobody wants to learn the game that hard though. So they go for the "Eh, i dont have to try" lists. U-boat spam anyone?

Not even that. People assume if it wins it's good. Usually there's some merit to that, but it causes every metagame to tend to homogenity. U-boats get press, U-boats get played, someone wins with U-boats, U-boats are copied as a winning list, more U-boats get played.

We don't even know if they're any good, we haven't got any numbers on them like we used to get. You can shift the X-wing metagame with hype and scares. Look how quickly the Fat Turrets died out after a fairly inconsequential change to their scoring.

And can you blame them? All the internet gives are spam lists and winning lists to copy.

What we need is a good series of listbuilding articles.

Agreed.

I get a lot of 1-4min downtime throughout the day at work so im usually on my phone listbuilding during those downtimes. Ive come up with some rather odd mixups that performed a lot better than i thought they would but i still dont think they're tournament-winning. Brought a punisher/defender/obs squad pilot to a local impromptu tournament with 14 people, went 1-2 with 1 of my losses being a total bust and the other being literally 1 die not in my favor lol. I got a LOT of flak for bringing a defender, but i would have placed 4th if i got that lone die result in my favor lol.

Also it showed me a major flaw i didnt notice. Defenders have no green banks, soft or hard. The game i got completely tabled he got stressed and i couldnt get rid of it. I kinda feel obligated to put the TIE Mk2 on him instead of Outmaneuver, even though that ept has done some serious damage.

Where's EU showing up that it's become such a horror show?

Don't get me wrong, I remember the dark ages of wave 5, but nowadays I only see it on Vader and that poor bloke don't take well to torpedoes

It's not just engine upgrade, it's boost in general.

If bank boost was red and you had to put a (discounted) engine upgrade on Fel in order to make it white or just fly Tycho Instead, it would go a long way to stopping Boostwing. Soontir would still be powerful but he'd be missing either his precious Stealh or Autothrusters if he wanted to white bank boost.

Again, ships that don't have barrel roll that equip Expert Handling treat it as red pretty much. Lt. lorrir's bank barrel roll is red and restricted to one ship. Echo's bank decloak is restricted to one ship. But boost? Any ship can do a white bank boost.

I'm serious when I say this: Compared to other repositioning actions, boost is OP. If bank boost had a special cost associated with it, it would be in line with the other repositioning actions and cards like Inertial Dampeners and Navigator and Stay On Target and Expert Handling.