So I am going to my first tournament next week. I am running 3 TIE Defenders (Ryad, Stele, Vessery) with x7 and Crackshot on Stele & Vessery. With this list which damage deck should I take with me?

The new one.

Reasons to run the old one:

• You only have the old one.

That's it.

The whole reason for the new deck is because the old one is inconsistent: it contained some crits that were game losing on some ships and effectively facedown on others. The only reason they even allow the old one is because telling players they had to buy the new core to play competitively didn't go down great. At a high enough tier event they'll just have spare TFA damage decks on hand.

If you're running a generic swarm the old damage deck might be a hair better for you because it contains situationally dud crits: there's one that strips pilot abilities and EPTs and one that discards secondary weapons which do nothing to unupgraded generics. But even then I'd run the replacement.

Thank you for the response it's very much appreciated

New one, the old ones for generics.

If you were running 3 X7 Glaives with Crackshot, you'd probably be better off with the old deck and this list is probably a little better off with the new.

Ships that depend on their secondary weapons benefit from the new deck.

Pilots with EPTs and pilot skills benefit from the new deck (one shot EPTs don't care much).

Ships with Gunner or Accuracy Corrector benefit from the old deck.

Generic ships without secondary weapons benefit from the old deck (lots of cards do nothing, Major Hull Breach and Major Explosion can be nasty).

While the official statement is that you can run either deck, a lot of players feel you should only be running the old deck if you only have the old deck. It's odd because I'm not really bothered by the idea of players being able to use either deck, but I find myself looking at my opponent sideways if they bring an old deck and are flying newer ships. It's not even like I'm upset, just... Bothered? I don't know. It's a weird thing haha.

The whole reason for the new deck is because the old one is inconsistent: it contained some crits that were game losing on some ships and effectively facedown on others.

yeah, structural damage is really helpful against a Ghost or Decimator.

While the official statement is that you can run either deck, a lot of players feel you should only be running the old deck if you only have the old deck. It's odd because I'm not really bothered by the idea of players being able to use either deck, but I find myself looking at my opponent sideways if they bring an old deck and are flying newer ships. It's not even like I'm upset, just... Bothered? I don't know. It's a weird thing haha.

All the more reason to use the old deck, if your opponent is upset because of some made up rule in his head then that's one psychological advantage right there.

All in all, it doesn't matter one whit.

If you are planning that, when a ship of yours is dealt a crit, and it isn't the hit that kills it, and it is a ship that might benefit from one of the few cards that don't hurt it, you actually pull that card... well, you might want to check your level of obsessiveness and reassess if the game is still fun.