It is not hard to notice the number of lists in the competative meta using Palp.

I am no ace hater as I think that aces kicking ass is very much in line with the films and I for one wish the game to play reasonably like the films.

Putting aside why the freaking Emperor is jetting around supporting fighters in the first place, should there be more hard counters for Palp?

Boba works for one faction. What of the others?

Taking the highest price crew in the game should play as a high risk - high reward proposition. His prevalence on the field indicates much more reward than risk.

Fairly certain juggler's already pronounced him as being far more value than even c3po, who already was busted as hell

Personally rather just wish for more autodamage to be introduced into the game. Takes care of both Palo AND green dice

Is it Palp is too powerful or too cheap? Or is it the shuttle? Or just the combo of the two? Something doesn't feel right for sure. I would much rather run 3 Imp aces for fun and manuveurability, but it seems your better off with the silly Palp shuttle sitting in the corner and running two aces.

You shouldn't be keeping the shuttle in the corner- It's quite capable of contributing offensively.

Fairly certain juggler's already pronounced him as being far more value than even c3po, who already was busted as hell

Difference is C-3PO goes on a ship you already want and Palpatine forces you to put a Lambda in. (Or a Decimator, but they're much less common)

Muwhahahahahahahahahaha!

I never understood why hes so insanely good. Not for his price that is. One die result changed to any result per round for 8pts and really prevents the ship hes on from doing anything other than toting him around so hes even more expensive.

Aside from making Wampa get his ability off every round he attacks, i just dont see how he can be such a gamechanger every game.

If used correctly, Palpatine is great. It's a top tier card, no doubt about it. But overpowered and in need of a nerf? No.

I never understood why hes so insanely good. Not for his price that is. One die result changed to any result per round for 8pts and really prevents the ship hes on from doing anything other than toting him around so hes even more expensive.

Aside from making Wampa get his ability off every round he attacks, i just dont see how he can be such a gamechanger every game.

On paper, sure, it doesn't sound great. But in practice, oh boy. It really, really adds up. I wasn't sold on him until the first tournament I saw streamed after his release.

Classic case of reading the meta wrong.

Palp Aces is so popular/succesfull because uboats surpress all the rebel squads who do _great_ against Palp aces (such as Poe+Stressbot+x).

Imperial aces derive so much from their HP pools and a no questions asked evade result when needed is really really good. Also the good aces players can get value out of a palp shuttle. The shots it fires are absolute free money.

I never understood why hes so insanely good. Not for his price that is. One die result changed to any result per round for 8pts and really prevents the ship hes on from doing anything other than toting him around so hes even more expensive.

Aside from making Wampa get his ability off every round he attacks, i just dont see how he can be such a gamechanger every game.

On paper, sure, it doesn't sound great. But in practice, oh boy. It really, really adds up. I wasn't sold on him until the first tournament I saw streamed after his release.

To put it another way, every game goes on a sliding scale between skill and luck, from purely skill-based games like Chess to purely luck-based games like Chutes & Ladders.

What Palpatine does is tick the list he's in closer towards the skill-based side in a game that's about 40/60 skill/luck. He reduces variance, which is a veteran player's worst enemy.

I never understood why hes so insanely good. Not for his price that is. One die result changed to any result per round for 8pts and really prevents the ship hes on from doing anything other than toting him around so hes even more expensive.

Aside from making Wampa get his ability off every round he attacks, i just dont see how he can be such a gamechanger every game.

On paper, sure, it doesn't sound great. But in practice, oh boy. It really, really adds up. I wasn't sold on him until the first tournament I saw streamed after his release.

To put it another way, every game goes on a sliding scale between skill and luck, from purely skill-based games like Chess to purely luck-based games like Chutes & Ladders.

What Palpatine does is tick the list he's in closer towards the skill-based side in a game that's about 40/60 skill/luck. He reduces variance, which is a veteran player's worst enemy.

Especially when a bad results on your green dice results in a dead ship, not having bad dice once per turn is great

The other thing to remember is that the higher the points go, the less value Palpatine has. In Epic or Cinematic play he's a barely useful upgrade (for his price). Even at 150 points he loses a lot of potency.

Classic case of reading the meta wrong.

Palp Aces is so popular/succesfull because uboats surpress all the rebel squads who do _great_ against Palp aces (such as Poe+Stressbot+x).

Yep. Palp has been around longer than the TLT, but it's only in the recent wave that he's gone to top-2 in the meta. For reference, there were only 3 palpatine lists in the top 32 of 2015 Worlds. Nowadays, all the rebel control and regen lists get swept from the swiss rounds by U-Boats before they can seriously impact the performance of the imperial aces.

You say you want the game to play like the movies?

What's more like the movies then the insanely hard, seemingly hopeless fight against the evil Emperor whose very goal is to oppress you.

You say you want the game to play like the movies?

What's more like the movies then the insanely hard, seemingly hopeless fight against the evil Emperor whose very goal is to oppress you.

The Rebels don't always win, in the game they're missing their Plot Armor.

You say you want the game to play like the movies?

What's more like the movies then the insanely hard, seemingly hopeless fight against the evil Emperor whose very goal is to oppress you.

The Rebels don't always win, in the game they're missing their Plot Armor.

i suffered the Tie Phantom nerf, i put up with Fat Han with 3PO and double Regen Rebels, don't you dare touch old Palpy.

Palp is only as good as aces. And anti-ace tech is on the rise.

I ran Palp-Aces for the first time last week (because I didn't have a Raider until recently).

I ran Fel and Vader fairly normally.

But I used the shuttle as a **** gunboat.

I actually kinda just used the Emperor only a few turns and relied more on the 3-die attack of the shuttle.

Aces are powerful, but they are powerful by relying on being positional and risking high variance.

There are games your greens will outperform expectations, and the enemy will be burning in your wake. There will be others where they betray you, and you'll crumple to shots you should never have even sweated over.

Outperforming can let a middling player do extraordinarily well, but underpeforming can sink the best player. This is partly why, I suspect, we so often see Paul Heaver flying rebel lists at Worlds - he's a knack at choosing good ships that make good counters to the meta and then exploiting them to their fullest potential, but he's also got a knack at picking ships that are highly reliable. Fat Han is guaranteed to withstand 3 hits a turn. Poe out of arc simply cannot roll at least one evade, and with R2D2, that's 2 damage shrugged. He's a master of the Z-95, a low-dice-high-HP (relatively speaking) filler that's as points-efficient as you can get. This means he can flatten out some of the variance; sacrificing the lucky win (which he didn't need) in return for minimising the unlucky loss (which he can't afford).

Emperor Palpatine helps reduce the variance on powerful, high-variance fighters, in the hands of players who are good enough to win games with their pick of Imperial Aces... provided the variance didn't kill them first. And if they outfly their opponents and aren't relying on greens for the round? He lets Soontir hit with an analogue of fully-modded dice (for the purposes of back-of-the-envelope averages, one guranteed die mod is roughly equivalent to a full set of rerolls, so Palp+F is comparable to TL+F on 3 dice) to emphasise the positional advantage with a damage one.

And that's why he's scary.

Right now what is keeping Palp in balance is the limited number of ships that can take it. The Shuttle and Decimator take up 1/4 to 1/2 the points on the list. Once you bring in Palpatine you end up building the rest of your list around that one ship.

To a certain extent, I'd say that Palp is at least 75% responsible for Imp Aces being a competitive threat. Sure the Aces are hot to start with, but Palp let's them survive enough to win. Without Palp, I would totally think that Aces would go away again too.

Palp is only as good as aces. And anti-ace tech is on the rise.

I'm actually surprised we're not seeing people put anti-ace tech to better use but maybe that's because it's hard to tangle with Palp Aces and Uboats.