I am going to a tournament soon, and I need someone to scope and tell me the metagame right now. In the process of squad building, and the tournament is this Sunday! I know about 2 Lothal Rebels + Y-wing and Party Bus, but that's it!

I tend to think it also depends on your location. Meta in my area is fine the most ridiculous thing that'll make people go WTF, and bring it.

About an hour south of us, the meta is Vessery, Ryan, Inquisitor/Carnor/Fel.

You got two reliable "extremes" to plan for

Extreme 1 is "high health and four dice"

Aka torpscouts with potential 4lom zuckuss dengar YV; the aforementioned ghosts

Extreme 2 is "stacked the **** out of guaranteed damage mitigation"

Ie Palpatine aces or x7 defenders

The other thing worth noting, is that there are increasingly options both for big ships and aces which are much more stress-tolerant.

TIE/x7 Defenders do care about multiple stress tokens. They don't like them. But compared to the TIE "what do you mean I don't get any actions - Boom" Interceptor, they are incredibly tolerant of them - able to move at full speed, K-turn and even get evade tokens (and in the case of Vessery, target locks) whilst stressed.

Equally, Manaroo doing token-passing shennanigans, or scum crew, allows scum big ships to stack up tycho celchu-sized piles of stress tokens from overclocked R4s, Zuckuss, and still be good shots and/or hard to hit, turn after turn.

Stress-related tricks are not a bad idea, but don't expect them to be as crippling to ships as they were previously.

Double post

The meta has diversified somewhat but here is what appears to be rocking the world of the interwebz.

Tie Defenders, particularly the /x7 variety due to their durability and action economy. Vessery and Ryad supported by Omega Leader or Inquisitor for Target Locks is popular.

Palp Aces is still a thing. We may start to see Soontir less often now the Black Market Slicer tools are making themselves felt but don't expect this type of list to disappear overnight.

Jumpmasters are a big deal for Scum and come in several flavours. Scouts with Torpedoes and Deadeye are often nicknamed U-boats and clock in around 33 points. Some people still run lists of 3 but it is more common to see 2 with Party Bus (cheap YV-666 with assorted Scum crew).

Dengaroo is quite popular too. This uses Manaroo to feed Dengar a constant supply of tokens while Dengar piles up stress without really caring about it.

The VCX-100 is a popular choice for Rebels at the moment. Sometimes run as a pair or alongside Super-Dash.

Fully tooled Kanan with Biggs for ablative protection is quite cool although I am not sure how competitive it is.

Rebel Regen took a hit with the introduction of JumpMasters as they could generate enough spike damage with their torpedoes to burn down rebel ships before their regen could save them. Now that triple JumpMasters have receded in favour of Dengaroo and other variants, Rebel Regen might be viable again.

Do you guys think I should use IG-88A or IG-88C?

IG-88 C is more popular.

In our local meta, I'm the only one who has ever used IG-88A in a tournament. (That I'm aware of)

We had a large run of Z-95 swarms, so it was very effective as ships were dying constantly to mitigate shield loss.

IG-88 C is more popular.

In our local meta, I'm the only one who has ever used IG-88A in a tournament. (That I'm aware of)

We had a large run of Z-95 swarms, so it was very effective as ships were dying constantly to mitigate shield loss.

Based on the current meta though, should I use A, are there a lot of swarms?

Could four protectorates be the next big thing? If you don't feel like buying new stuff, I bet U-Boats will still do fine.

Yeah, but which should I use?

Yeah, but which should I use?

Ultimately that is a decision only you can make. If you want a competitive list, it needs to stand up to what is currently strong in the meta. But it also needs to be one you can fly and make work for you.

Swarm lists are a good example of this. They are pretty powerful but one of the reasons they are not more common is that they are tricky to fly well. It takes effort and concentration to fly that number of ships, get them onto the right targets and avoid unplanned bumps (blocking enemy ships is just fine if you plan it of course ).

I would recommend getting some games in a casual setting first to try out some different lists and play styles. Find out what works well for you and what you enjoy playing. Then you will have a much better idea for building up competitive lists.

Yeah, but which should I use?

Personally, I have found that C is better than A. The last time I flew Brobots was in a Store Championship earlier this year. I took second with C and D running VI, Advanced Sensors, HLC, AT, Title, Dampeners. Its not a standard loadout but allows for a lot of maneuverability with a free evade. It didn't hit hard but was defensive and dodgy. I fell in the final round to 4 TLT Y-Wings.