Dengaroo has been a fun build, is the party over now with Black Market Slicer Tools?

I don't know if I'd say over, since people still play builds that aren't as powerful as they once were. But it's definitely more risky going the Zuckuss crew route.

I think people have just figured out how to beat it. Have you seen any of the Canadian or Australian Nationals matches? It was handily defeated by Palp-backed x7 Defenders.

Mostly, people are just ignoring Dengar until Manaroo is dead, in which case, depending on positioning, Dengar is a LOT less scary. Focus fire still wins matches.

I doubt Dengar will care very much about BMST. BMST is 1 action in return for 0.5 damage vs. a 9 hp ship. Unless you run something like a z-95 swarm with BMST it's not very likely you will kill Dengar with them.

It will help through. For some builds pushing 1-2 damage with BMST might be just what they need to tip the scales in their favor.

I doubt Dengar will care very much about BMST. BMST is 1 action in return for 0.5 damage vs. a 9 hp ship. Unless you run something like a z-95 swarm with BMST it's not very likely you will kill Dengar with them.

It will help through. For some builds pushing 1-2 damage with BMST might be just what they need to tip the scales in their favor.

As far as bmst is concerned dengar is only a 5 hp ship

I doubt Dengar will care very much about BMST. BMST is 1 action in return for 0.5 damage vs. a 9 hp ship. Unless you run something like a z-95 swarm with BMST it's not very likely you will kill Dengar with them.

It will help through. For some builds pushing 1-2 damage with BMST might be just what they need to tip the scales in their favor.

As far as bmst is concerned dengar is only a 5 hp ship

Still 10 uses of BMST before Dengar dies.

I doubt Dengar will care very much about BMST. BMST is 1 action in return for 0.5 damage vs. a 9 hp ship. Unless you run something like a z-95 swarm with BMST it's not very likely you will kill Dengar with them.

It will help through. For some builds pushing 1-2 damage with BMST might be just what they need to tip the scales in their favor.

As far as bmst is concerned dengar is only a 5 hp ship

Still 10 uses of BMST before Dengar dies.

Thats the average. Doesnt mean itll always take that long. Played a game the other day with super dengar and fenn rau, lost 3 health on fenn and 1 or 2 on dengar from bmst. I think he missed twice.

I doubt Dengar will care very much about BMST. BMST is 1 action in return for 0.5 damage vs. a 9 hp ship. Unless you run something like a z-95 swarm with BMST it's not very likely you will kill Dengar with them.

It will help through. For some builds pushing 1-2 damage with BMST might be just what they need to tip the scales in their favor.

As far as bmst is concerned dengar is only a 5 hp ship

Still 10 uses of BMST before Dengar dies.

Thats the average. Doesnt mean itll always take that long. Played a game the other day with super dengar and fenn rau, lost 3 health on fenn and 1 or 2 on dengar from bmst. I think he missed twice.

The inverse of your result (only 2 successes over 8 tries) is exactly as likely. Because of how probability works, it'll still work out to 50% overall. You can't count on outliers.

Edited for grammar derp.

I know perfectly well how probability works. And if you have multiple slicers, 10 tries in order to kill him might not take more

Than 3-4 rounds. Even with only 2 its 5 rounds on average, and hopefully you have ships that can survive

Dengaro wont be scared of a single bmst, maybe not 2 either, but more than that gets to be an issue

I know perfectly well how probability works. And if you have multiple slicers, 10 tries in order to kill him might not take more

Than 3-4 rounds. Even with only 2 its 5 rounds on average, and hopefully you have ships that can survive

Dengaro wont be scared of a single bmst, maybe not 2 either, but more than that gets to be an issue

I'm not convinced. To get a decent amount of BMST on the table, you'll need to bring lots of low-agility ships, in which case Zuckuss isn't nearly as necessary. The best Dengaroo counter so far has been just not shooting at Dengar when he's looking at you, and Dengar has similar flexibility when facing BMST: just don't use Zuckuss. That way, Dengar can maintain his own actions. Manaroo is already slippery, and because BMST requires an action, you won't see too many ships using it while also being able to keep up with a boosting-barrel-rolling Manaroo.

I really don't think BMST is going to be the monster people seem to think it will be. Actions are hugely important, and getting rid of repositioning capabilities and dice mods always comes back to bite you.

I doubt Dengar will care very much about BMST. BMST is 1 action in return for 0.5 damage vs. a 9 hp ship. Unless you run something like a z-95 swarm with BMST it's not very likely you will kill Dengar with them.

It will help through. For some builds pushing 1-2 damage with BMST might be just what they need to tip the scales in their favor.

As far as bmst is concerned dengar is only a 5 hp ship

Still 10 uses of BMST before Dengar dies.

Thats the average. Doesnt mean itll always take that long. Played a game the other day with super dengar and fenn rau, lost 3 health on fenn and 1 or 2 on dengar from bmst. I think he missed twice.

The inverse of your result (only 2 successes over 8 tries) is exactly as likely. Because of how probability works, it'll still work out to 50% overall. You can't count on outliers.

Edited for grammar derp.

Well really, the issue is that both players have to plan for the worst-case scenario. Obviously, the average is half a damage per action; but one game is still going to be a small enough sample size for outliers to have a significant impact. That means that the Z-95 player has to be worried that he won't be able to push any damage through with BMST, while the Dengaroo player has to be worried that he'll die to BMST. Both are equally likely, but I'd argue that Dengar is in a worse spot; he's forced to be cautious when he'd rather be vaping Z's.

Sorry for the dumb question, but if BMST is used on Dengar whilst in his front arc, will that trigger his pilot ability?

Sorry for the dumb question, but if BMST is used on Dengar whilst in his front arc, will that trigger his pilot ability?

No such thing as stupid questions!

The answer is no, because BMST is an action, not an attack. Dengar's ability is "Once per round after defending."

And because BMST is an action (unlike Feedback Array), you could both use BMST and perform an attack in the same round.

I doubt Dengar will care very much about BMST. BMST is 1 action in return for 0.5 damage vs. a 9 hp ship. Unless you run something like a z-95 swarm with BMST it's not very likely you will kill Dengar with them.

It will help through. For some builds pushing 1-2 damage with BMST might be just what they need to tip the scales in their favor.

As far as bmst is concerned dengar is only a 5 hp ship

Still 10 uses of BMST before Dengar dies.

Thats the average. Doesnt mean itll always take that long. Played a game the other day with super dengar and fenn rau, lost 3 health on fenn and 1 or 2 on dengar from bmst. I think he missed twice.

The inverse of your result (only 2 successes over 8 tries) is exactly as likely. Because of how probability works, it'll still work out to 50% overall. You can't count on outliers.

Edited for grammar derp.

Indeed, when building a list you can not count on outliers, but at the same time you can not count on common outliers not happening when you build a list. If you lose 3 out of 10 times easily to that bmst and lists which are even without that one point investment good … then you really have a problem. Tournaments require you to win constantly for about 4 to 8 times in a row. The more open your list is to lose based on dice, the more likely that event is gonna happen at least once in a tourney. Competitive lists are all about making dice less of a factor. Which means it is unlikely that we see list relying to win on BMST, but very likely to see BMST as additional tool to increase the chances of such lists.

Action independent ships will like to use bmst, ships which have no good chance to get trough Soontirs defense will like bmst as well. Keep in mind, the main goal here is anyway to stop Ryad, Soontir, Inquisitor and the likes of the imperial token stack users which Palpatine, and/or autothruster/steal device support. Those are real tough nuts to crack with two dice, spending your action here to have a 50% chance to hit is well worth it. Using BMST against Dengar is just a bonus for those lists and it is a bonus with a small price of losing in most cases just a focus token.

I know perfectly well how probability works. And if you have multiple slicers, 10 tries in order to kill him might not take more

Than 3-4 rounds. Even with only 2 its 5 rounds on average, and hopefully you have ships that can survive

Dengaro wont be scared of a single bmst, maybe not 2 either, but more than that gets to be an issue

I'm not convinced. To get a decent amount of BMST on the table, you'll need to bring lots of low-agility ships, in which case Zuckuss isn't nearly as necessary. The best Dengaroo counter so far has been just not shooting at Dengar when he's looking at you, and Dengar has similar flexibility when facing BMST: just don't use Zuckuss. That way, Dengar can maintain his own actions. Manaroo is already slippery, and because BMST requires an action, you won't see too many ships using it while also being able to keep up with a boosting-barrel-rolling Manaroo.

I really don't think BMST is going to be the monster people seem to think it will be. Actions are hugely important, and getting rid of repositioning capabilities and dice mods always comes back to bite you.

Zuckuss isn't the only thing that stresses Dengar. Overclocked is rather popular as well. If you don't use overclocked, you're losing out on the focus for your revenge shot (if you get one) and any defense rolls. In which case they can just shoot you and probably do as much damage or more than slicers would have.

I know perfectly well how probability works. And if you have multiple slicers, 10 tries in order to kill him might not take more

Than 3-4 rounds. Even with only 2 its 5 rounds on average, and hopefully you have ships that can survive

Dengaro wont be scared of a single bmst, maybe not 2 either, but more than that gets to be an issue

I'm not convinced. To get a decent amount of BMST on the table, you'll need to bring lots of low-agility ships, in which case Zuckuss isn't nearly as necessary. The best Dengaroo counter so far has been just not shooting at Dengar when he's looking at you, and Dengar has similar flexibility when facing BMST: just don't use Zuckuss. That way, Dengar can maintain his own actions. Manaroo is already slippery, and because BMST requires an action, you won't see too many ships using it while also being able to keep up with a boosting-barrel-rolling Manaroo.

I really don't think BMST is going to be the monster people seem to think it will be. Actions are hugely important, and getting rid of repositioning capabilities and dice mods always comes back to bite you.

Zuckuss isn't the only thing that stresses Dengar. Overclocked is rather popular as well. If you don't use overclocked, you're losing out on the focus for your revenge shot (if you get one) and any defense rolls. In which case they can just shoot you and probably do as much damage or more than slicers would have.

If BMST becomes an issue, we'll likely see this version more.

I know perfectly well how probability works. And if you have multiple slicers, 10 tries in order to kill him might not take more

Than 3-4 rounds. Even with only 2 its 5 rounds on average, and hopefully you have ships that can survive

Dengaro wont be scared of a single bmst, maybe not 2 either, but more than that gets to be an issue

I'm not convinced. To get a decent amount of BMST on the table, you'll need to bring lots of low-agility ships, in which case Zuckuss isn't nearly as necessary. The best Dengaroo counter so far has been just not shooting at Dengar when he's looking at you, and Dengar has similar flexibility when facing BMST: just don't use Zuckuss. That way, Dengar can maintain his own actions. Manaroo is already slippery, and because BMST requires an action, you won't see too many ships using it while also being able to keep up with a boosting-barrel-rolling Manaroo.

I really don't think BMST is going to be the monster people seem to think it will be. Actions are hugely important, and getting rid of repositioning capabilities and dice mods always comes back to bite you.

Zuckuss isn't the only thing that stresses Dengar. Overclocked is rather popular as well. If you don't use overclocked, you're losing out on the focus for your revenge shot (if you get one) and any defense rolls. In which case they can just shoot you and probably do as much damage or more than slicers would have.

R5-P8 Dengar supported by RecSpec Manaroo has been doing very well too. It's the version I run and the times I wish I had a 3rd focus were few and far between.

If BMST becomes an issue, we'll likely see this version more.

anyone that IS running multiple lower agility z95s will be perfectly happy to see that version too. May not get to slice much if you don't zuckuss, but if you only have 2 focus tokens they can likely push more damge through with a modified primary shot anyway. And if you don't zuckuss they don't die as fast.

I know perfectly well how probability works. And if you have multiple slicers, 10 tries in order to kill him might not take more

Than 3-4 rounds. Even with only 2 its 5 rounds on average, and hopefully you have ships that can survive

Dengaro wont be scared of a single bmst, maybe not 2 either, but more than that gets to be an issue

I'm not convinced. To get a decent amount of BMST on the table, you'll need to bring lots of low-agility ships, in which case Zuckuss isn't nearly as necessary. The best Dengaroo counter so far has been just not shooting at Dengar when he's looking at you, and Dengar has similar flexibility when facing BMST: just don't use Zuckuss. That way, Dengar can maintain his own actions. Manaroo is already slippery, and because BMST requires an action, you won't see too many ships using it while also being able to keep up with a boosting-barrel-rolling Manaroo.

I really don't think BMST is going to be the monster people seem to think it will be. Actions are hugely important, and getting rid of repositioning capabilities and dice mods always comes back to bite you.

Zuckuss isn't the only thing that stresses Dengar. Overclocked is rather popular as well. If you don't use overclocked, you're losing out on the focus for your revenge shot (if you get one) and any defense rolls. In which case they can just shoot you and probably do as much damage or more than slicers would have.

R5-P8 Dengar supported by RecSpec Manaroo has been doing very well too. It's the version I run and the times I wish I had a 3rd focus were few and far between.

If BMST becomes an issue, we'll likely see this version more.

anyone that IS running multiple lower agility z95s will be perfectly happy to see that version too. May not get to slice much if you don't zuckuss, but if you only have 2 focus tokens they can likely push more damge through with a modified primary shot anyway. And if you don't zuckuss they don't die as fast.

The problem with z-95s wirh BMST is 'how many can you run before the list becomes crap vs. everything else'.

Z-95s are utter crap vs a lot of stuff Empire brings in the current meta, like crack swarms or defenders for example.

I know perfectly well how probability works. And if you have multiple slicers, 10 tries in order to kill him might not take more

Than 3-4 rounds. Even with only 2 its 5 rounds on average, and hopefully you have ships that can survive

Dengaro wont be scared of a single bmst, maybe not 2 either, but more than that gets to be an issue

I'm not convinced. To get a decent amount of BMST on the table, you'll need to bring lots of low-agility ships, in which case Zuckuss isn't nearly as necessary. The best Dengaroo counter so far has been just not shooting at Dengar when he's looking at you, and Dengar has similar flexibility when facing BMST: just don't use Zuckuss. That way, Dengar can maintain his own actions. Manaroo is already slippery, and because BMST requires an action, you won't see too many ships using it while also being able to keep up with a boosting-barrel-rolling Manaroo.

I really don't think BMST is going to be the monster people seem to think it will be. Actions are hugely important, and getting rid of repositioning capabilities and dice mods always comes back to bite you.

Zuckuss isn't the only thing that stresses Dengar. Overclocked is rather popular as well. If you don't use overclocked, you're losing out on the focus for your revenge shot (if you get one) and any defense rolls. In which case they can just shoot you and probably do as much damage or more than slicers would have.

R5-P8 Dengar supported by RecSpec Manaroo has been doing very well too. It's the version I run and the times I wish I had a 3rd focus were few and far between.

If BMST becomes an issue, we'll likely see this version more.

anyone that IS running multiple lower agility z95s will be perfectly happy to see that version too. May not get to slice much if you don't zuckuss, but if you only have 2 focus tokens they can likely push more damge through with a modified primary shot anyway. And if you don't zuckuss they don't die as fast.

The problem with z-95s wirh BMST is 'how many can you run before the list becomes crap vs. everything else'.

Z-95s are utter crap vs a lot of stuff Empire brings in the current meta, like crack swarms or defenders for example.

BMST is still useful against ryad if she uses ptl. She can obviously choose not to, but hten they lose defense. And with enough shots even 2 agility might be able to hit defenders since tokens only go so far. Not great, but might at least have a chance. Against a crack swarm I'm not sure it'd be terrible. Partly depends what else you have with the Z95s. I don't think anyone is arguing that a 7Z slicer swarm is going to be good, but I've seen people talk about 4 with asajj. Which also happens to have the ability to stress someone that's not stressing themselves for you. Sure, it doesn't happen until after you ractions for a round, but it means they have to spend the time clearing it the next round, which even if they do so you can't slice, means they're limited to greens and can't kturn or anything. or asajj has tactician and can double stress to allow slicing the next round regardless.

Ryad will have focus abs evade without stressing. If she stresses one turn she guarantees vessery will have both tokens and a lock until his target dies. I really don't think defenders care about the tools, outside of maybe assaj.

Of course, ryad moves before aggressors and the worthwhile casters, meaning she's perfectly capable of shedding stress before the two most viable slicer ships can, you know, slice.

Inquisitor, on the other hand, will have a Bad Time.

BMST is still useful against ryad if she uses ptl. She can obviously choose not to, but hten they lose defense. And with enough shots even 2 agility might be able to hit defenders since tokens only go so far. Not great, but might at least have a chance. Against a crack swarm I'm not sure it'd be terrible. Partly depends what else you have with the Z95s. I don't think anyone is arguing that a 7Z slicer swarm is going to be good, but I've seen people talk about 4 with asajj. Which also happens to have the ability to stress someone that's not stressing themselves for you. Sure, it doesn't happen until after you ractions for a round, but it means they have to spend the time clearing it the next round, which even if they do so you can't slice, means they're limited to greens and can't kturn or anything. or asajj has tactician and can double stress to allow slicing the next round regardless.

Ryad witout PTL is only as effective as a regular defender, whuch is still crazy good. A pair of defenders can just go straight after Ventress largely ignoring the Zs. It will be hard for Zs to keep up, and then they need to sneak damage with 2 dice primaries agains 3 greens with Focus and Evade.

Crack Swarm is even worse IMO. The Zs are max PS3, which means a crack swarm has a very good chance to remove at least 2 (if not 3) before they fired the first shot.

1. As already mentioned, slicers vs Dengaroo are not a big deal. Unless you're deliberately running a dedicated slicer Z-95 swarm you'll never be able to destroy Dengar with slicer alone, and if you want to help slicers with regular attacks you need to punch through his shields first. And if you do run a slicer swarm... well, good luck vs anything that isn't stress-dependent.

2. Slicer vs Ryad is indeed much better but not crazily so. There are basically 2 outcomes possible - if the Ryad player feels the pressure, he will refuse to use PTL which typically means not having a target lock. That makes Ryad about as effective as a regular defender (action economy-wise that is, her ability to k-turn at any speed remains there). That's not bad but she remains a dangerous ship and she can always come back to using PTL if the slicer ship is gone or unlikely to be able to use slicer against her. If the Ryad player doesn't care and keeps using PTL, you're spending an action to maybe damage her. Not so sure it really is a favorable trade for you - unless, again, you're running a dedicated slicer swarm.

3. Slicer vs 2-hull ships is downright nasty and might wipe the likes of Inquisitor, Jake or Tycho off the tables for good. Not sure that's a good balance actually, but I guess we'll see...

Edit: I think Dengaroo's reign might indeed be coming to a close but not because of slicers. One reason is that by now most good players know how to deal with the list. The other - I suspect - might be ARCs. Much of Dengar's strength lies in the fact that although he only has 2 green dice, thanks to Lone wolf and infinite tokens he can usually get evades on both of them. Tail gunner will drop this to just 1 die and ARC's title will massively increase the chance of scoring a crit when shooting from behind. As it happens one of Dengaroo's weaknesses is that Dengar is typically unable to perform actions to remove effects of some of the critical hits. Losing a die (either red or green), getting a console fire or (the horror) getting all the cards assigned faceup can really mess him up big time. I imagine Norra + Biggs will become a very, very nasty combo for Dengaroo.

I think it remains to be seen if Slicers really take up much of the meta, especially at the top end. They're going to be like an anti-stress gear check in the middle of the field.

Ryad will have focus abs evade without stressing. If she stresses one turn she guarantees vessery will have both tokens and a lock until his target dies. I really don't think defenders care about the tools, outside of maybe assaj.

Of course, ryad moves before aggressors and the worthwhile casters, meaning she's perfectly capable of shedding stress before the two most viable slicer ships can, you know, slice.

Inquisitor, on the other hand, will have a Bad Time.

I have faced slicers with my defenders they were near useless because he had no reliable way to stress me.