I can see Vader replacing Soontir, but he's not quite as durable.
What if PTL Arc Dodging Aces were very rare in the Meta?
Unless you get rid of Palpatine, you will never make PTL aces not worth flying. Especially once the Upsilon comes out and Soontir can use its Co-Ordinate action to get 3 actions stress free and still trigger his ability.
* Please try to limit the "It will never happen. PTL Aces won't go away" comments. I am just curious what the game would be like if they weren't all over the place. Let's just pretend if you don't think it would happen.
I also don't think it's just BMST that will be able to defeat Palp Aces. There is also a ton of other things like Ventress to double stress, Old Teroch to remove all of Soontir's tokens, and a host of other things. It's not JUST BMST. I do want to talk about what would happen to the game if they did go away, not really how feasible it happening is.
Most of those options have been around in one form or another for a while. Stresshogs didn't kill Palp/Aces, I doubt Assaj will. Wes and Carnor didn't kill Palp/Aces, I doubt Teroch will.
The trouble with most of those options is that just as hard as they hit palp/aces, they also hit everyone else who uses similar mechanics - but Palpw ill always render the dice variance significantly lower for players who have him, than for players who don't.
We'll see the new hotness for a while, and for the first time in a year or so, the Empire's new hotness isn't a hyper-durable multi-action ace-capable ship, so even that will lower the amount of palp/aces in relative terms. Not the number of PTL aces though, because Fenn Rau.
Unless you get rid of Palpatine, you will never make PTL aces not worth flying. Especially once the Upsilon comes out and Soontir can use its Co-Ordinate action to get 3 actions stress free and still trigger his ability.
* Please try to limit the "It will never happen. PTL Aces won't go away" comments. I am just curious what the game would be like if they weren't all over the place. Let's just pretend if you don't think it would happen.
I also don't think it's just BMST that will be able to defeat Palp Aces. There is also a ton of other things like Ventress to double stress, Old Teroch to remove all of Soontir's tokens, and a host of other things. It's not JUST BMST. I do want to talk about what would happen to the game if they did go away, not really how feasible it happening is.
Most of those options have been around in one form or another for a while. Stresshogs didn't kill Palp/Aces, I doubt Assaj will. Wes and Carnor didn't kill Palp/Aces, I doubt Teroch will.
Stresshogs still needed to get a shot on the Arc Dodging aces, which wasn't always possible. The same for Wes. Teroch can be PS 9 with VI and can Boost and/or Barrel Roll to get into place. He doesn't just remove a Focus, but removes all Focus and Evade. It happens before anyone fires. It will be a lot more brutal to Soontir Fel than the other options. Ventress also doesn't need to fire to activate the double stress. She just needs someone in her MOBILE arc to give it.
It's not just Ventress. Or just Old Teroch. Or just BMST. Or just any one card. I see a lot of things that have been added to the game that can really do a number of PTL Arc Dodgers. So, I believe we will see a reduction in the number of PTL Arc Dodgers.
Then again....I'm not really trying to debate IF it will happen. I would like to talk about what the meta would be like IF IT DOES happen. If you don't agree that it will....indulge my fantasy as how you see the game. Or just ignore the thread.
Any generic defender has as much ability as soontir to negate 4 damage.
Uhh, what? Soontir has an extra green die (usually), and autothrusters, and sometimes an extra focus token for a second attack.
The STresshog only needs to get them in one arc to double stress them, and they're moving after her just like they're moving after it.
If it were to happen, I suspect you'd see a lot more jousters, but mostly I suspect you'd just see basically the same meta but with palp/defenders or palp/whisper/blah replacing palp/PTL aces.
I do think that a return of Tie Phantoms could happen, since there would be less PS 9 people firing before Whisper.
If BMST become prevalent in the meta, Imperial players will simply gravitate to the non-PTL aces. Vader, Whisper, Echo, Omega Leader, Defenders with Juke or Predator. Now, this does mean no Autothrusters for each of these ships. Then comes the return of turrets. Turrets everywhere.
And defenders absolutely wreck boats too. Too many tokens to punch through. Any generic defender has as much ability as soontir to negate 4 damage.
However, not being arc dodgers they'll be shot at a lot more. PalpAces works by giving Soontir one get out of jail free card a round. A TIE defender can't emulate that positional ability.
If BMST become prevalent in the meta, Imperial players will simply gravitate to the non-PTL aces. Vader, Whisper, Echo, Omega Leader, Defenders with Juke or Predator. Now, this does mean no Autothrusters for each of these ships. Then comes the return of turrets. Turrets everywhere.
Autothrusters lets TIE interceptors survive against turrets, but it isn't what put an end to Two-Ship.
Edited by Blue FiveVader will care not about these slicer tools.
Vader does not get stressed, he stays cool at all times...until someone fails for the last time
in all seriousness though i think we'll see a LOT more vader/OL since they never took stress to begin with.
I do think that a return of Tie Phantoms could happen, since there would be less PS 9 people firing before Whisper.
Doubtful. Dengar will still be around and hes one of the largest phantom threats. Every time i face him with echo/whisper i am literally planning everything from the get-go to completely avoid him till hes the last ship.
While I do love Vader and think he's powerful now, he's almost objectively more difficult to use than soontir
It's not just thrusters, Vader gets two actions to soonts effective 3 AND he needs to set up ATC
He can't boost + roll and hold onto a focus for dice mods, for example
So while he could see play, he will require quite a bit more finesse to utilize effectively
Edited by ficklegreendicePGS would either finally be happy or find something else to dislike. 
As a person who doesn't particularly like aces, I'm delighted by BMST. I would expect to see TLTs make a resurgence since they work well against the non-PTL aces. I like that BMST is still useful against joustier lists too since it lets low PS ships land damage off of K-Turns so it's rarely wasted points.
Most Imperial PTL aces would likely just take Yorr instead of OGP with Palpatine and pass on the stress (people used to do that already when Stresshog was prevalent, didn't they ?).
Only PTL aces that might have a problem if BMST proves good and/or prevalent are the Rebel ones (Tycho and Jake) and Fenn Rau IMO.
However Tycho and Jake aren't exanctly the most popular ships ATM, and Fenn hasn't even been released yet, so one can only speculate about how popular he'd be.
Edited by LordBladesYeah I need whatever it is you all are smoking if you think bmst is gonna stop Palp aces. Fel can still beat a ton of lists without pushing the limit and they'll just end up taking Palp with yorr...
Yeah I need whatever it is you all are smoking if you think bmst is gonna stop Palp aces. Fel can still beat a ton of lists without pushing the limit and they'll just end up taking Palp with yorr...
Maybe the rules have changed, but it used to be that taking the stress was a cost to use Push the Limit, so if Yorr takes the stress, the cost is not paid and you don't get the free action.
EDIT: I am wrong. PtL still works, but Soontir doesn't get his focus token from his ability.
Edited by BudgernautIf Yorr wants to eat all the stress that just makes taking out Palpatine sooner easier with BMST since Yorr has to stay close to use his ability and all that piled stress is potential bonus damage 
Yorr still serves a purpose, but BMST makes that fight easier regardless.
Yeah I need whatever it is you all are smoking if you think bmst is gonna stop Palp aces. Fel can still beat a ton of lists without pushing the limit and they'll just end up taking Palp with yorr...
Maybe the rules have changed, but it used to be that taking the stress was a cost to use Push the Limit, so if Yorr takes the stress, the cost is not paid and you don't get the free action.
EDIT: I am wrong. PtL still works, but Soontir doesn't get his focus token from his ability.
I do feel like Soontir's focus is a huge part of what makes him so good. When he can focus and evade in the same turn it's really hard to get a hit on him unless he's directly in the firing arc of multiple ships. And with 3 attack he doesn't really need to use the focus on attacking to have a solid chance at 1 hit. But without the focus, though he can perform multiple actions, one ship has a real chance of landing a hit on him, and with his low hull that makes him way more vulnerable.
Not that Soontir won't still be great, but his focus token is kind of a big deal in my experience, so losing it would actually be really helpful when I'm playing against him.
Edited by Crimson36If Yorr wants to eat all the stress that just makes taking out Palpatine sooner easier with BMST since Yorr has to stay close to use his ability and all that piled stress is potential bonus damage
I have trouble imagining I'm going to use my action to use BMST on Palpatine's shuttle rather than token up for offense. Maybe if I've got a BMST swarm of Z-95s I'd go for Yorr, but otherwise I'm going to just lay into him with my offense and punch through the 1 die of defense.
But you're right about Yorr being too much of a tether. Palp shines because he has no range limitation. Once you're tied to Yorr's range, Soontir can't arc dodge too well.
Yorr still has to be within R 1-2 of Soontir Fel to take his stress. It doesn't seem that easy. I'm happy if that's the way Imp Aces have to run.
If Yorr wants to eat all the stress that just makes taking out Palpatine sooner easier with BMST since Yorr has to stay close to use his ability and all that piled stress is potential bonus damage
I have trouble imagining I'm going to use my action to use BMST on Palpatine's shuttle rather than token up for offense. Maybe if I've got a BMST swarm of Z-95s I'd go for Yorr, but otherwise I'm going to just lay into him with my offense and punch through the 1 die of defense.
But you're right about Yorr being too much of a tether. Palp shines because he has no range limitation. Once you're tied to Yorr's range, Soontir can't arc dodge too well.
My thought process here is that I'm probably running 2-3 PS 1 Z-95s with Slicer Tools. Taking the 'Slice' action vs. focus at Range 2 is interchangeable in terms of expected added damage to your offense (.5 expected damage on Slicer Tools, +.5 expected damage for focus).
considering a hypothetical Z-95 vs Yorr at Range 2 exchange
The benefits of slicing over focus are:
1) damage is dealt before any other attacks (you can't be PS killed and miss out on your opportunity to land any damage)
2) it raises the maximum amount of damage that it is *possible* to deal in a round (i.e. you can successfully slice for 1 damage and then roll native hit hit, defender blanks out and you end up having dealt 3 damage vs. max 2 damage with focus.)
3) damage is dealt under shields (not generally relevant on high health ships, but could be in special cases like Dengaroo)
4) you can damage multiple ships per round (slice one ship, attack another).
5) you don't have to have arc on the target
The benefits of focus are:
1) it can be used defensively
2) you can change your mind about who you are targeting.
Yorr doesn't make Soontir better at all. If Yorr takes the stress, Soontir doesn't get the extra focus token, AND Soontir has to stay close to Yorr. What makes Soontir so good is the ability to reposition, while still getting focus/evade (along with AT and Palpatine). If you use Yorr, you lose one of those three actions, and Soontir is easier to block. There's a reason you never see Yorr currently paired with Soontir, only with Whisper/OL.
What the game needs is a counter Palpatine card in Yoda, Jabba. Both need abilities that give them disctinct advantages as well so the game will be balanced.
Palp is creating an out of balance meta overall and I hope they release Yoda and Jabba soon.
I think Soontir is going to have a love afair with Epsilon leader... Soontir moves last, PTLs and gets all his tokens/ some repositioning while staying in range 1 to Epi, who then removes stress at the start of the combat phase ie before the next activation phase.
We are just going to see a new version of Imperial A-holes:
Imperial Coolness
Neither the kihrakz nor the t-65 are particularly efficient jousters.
You just get more crackswarms, bbbbz, and brobots.
I was under the impression that the T-65 was about the same efficiency as the B-wing after IA. Is this not the case?
It may still be slightly less good than the B-Wing purely statwise, but the X-Wing has a better dial, especially when it's using an R2 unit.
If jousters were to become viable again, I'd take XXXX(Z) over BBBB(Z). I stopped flying those types of lists because I finally got fed up of chasing around some stupid super ship all game while up on points and still losing. It's super frustrating to outplay the **** out of someone with 4 R7 T-65's, get two fresh ones into the endgame against a Soontir, and still lose. I'm actually somewhat good at this game, and I'm done putting myself at a disadvantage.
Only competitive nubstomper lists from now on that I have some experience with. Mindlink Brobots, Dengaroo, Palp Aces, and eventually double lothal Y-Wing x3 ABT once I get some games in with it.