TIE Squadron is pretty much obsolete unless you want to be a jerk at your local tournament. With so many rules and changes, what lists do you think dominate the meta and take home the prizes?

What??? How is TIE Swarm obsolete and/or flying it being a jerk?

In my experience, tournaments are usually won by the player that flies the best that day.....not necessarily who brings the 'best netlist'

More than ever, it's about player skill. There are plenty of strong lists in the meta, but it's no longer a scenario where 4 TLTs dominate, and even Triple Jumps aren't going to auto-win you anything anymore.

Honestly, the winning list is whatever you're more familiar with/have practiced. Some considerations for that practice should be Triple Jumps, Dengaroo, Imperial Aces, Double VCX Y... But none of those guarantee victory (though **** me if I see double VCX, I just don't even want to play that game).

Also, Crack Swarm is totally a viable TIE swarm list in the current meta. So not exactly obsolete.

Tie Swarm is still big although it has always been challenging to fly well. 3 Black/Cracks, 3 Academies and Howlrunner seems to be the preferred format at the moment.

Triple U-boats are still around although they have largely been supplanted by Dengaroo. 2 U-boats and a Party Bus is also popular.

Palp Aces and Triple Aces are still popular for the Empire although those Aces now also include Defenders following their recent buffing. The /x7 variety seem most popular for action economy with Ryad and Vessery seeming to be the most popular pilots.

Rebel Regen was big before U-boats dropped with their massive alpha strike potential. Now that the novelty has worn off triple U-boats, I can see regen making a comeback. Certainly it will do a lot better against Dengaroo than 3 U-boats.

The Ghost has proven to be popular for its massive damage potential if not its durability. Ghost/Dash seems popular although Ghost/Chewie could probably work too or even double VCX-100.

Initial reports suggest that the ARC-170 has some very good builds with Stressbot-Braelen and PTL/Regen-Norra emerging as very competitive. We have not seen many tournements since these guys dropped yet so it may take a few months to see how much of an impression they make on the meta.

if there were a "best list", tournies would only ever be won by the same thing

if there were a "best list", tournies would only ever be won by the same thing

As it is, if you look at tournement results, you will tend to notice that the upper quartile is usually composed of what are normally termed "lists that are competitive in the meta". You may get outliers due to luck, people practising with a list to squeeze the best out of it or just people hitting on new combos that have not been spotted before. But even so, 3/4 of the top lists normally are a recognized list.

I have played several different games over the years and most systems have a "meta" of some sort. Magic the gathering, 40K, even A Call to Arms. If you went to competitive events for any of those systems, you would frequently see certain "power lists" in the upper echelons of the tournament.

if there were a "best list", tournies would only ever be won by the same thing

That would be true if we ignored player skill and luck of the dice.

As it is, if you look at tournement results, you will tend to notice that the upper quartile is usually composed of what are normally termed "lists that are competitive in the meta". You may get outliers due to luck, people practising with a list to squeeze the best out of it or just people hitting on new combos that have not been spotted before. But even so, 3/4 of the top lists normally are a recognized list.

I have played several different games over the years and most systems have a "meta" of some sort. Magic the gathering, 40K, even A Call to Arms. If you went to competitive events for any of those systems, you would frequently see certain "power lists" in the upper echelons of the tournament.

I've seen in other games what happens when an obvious "best list" emerges....

And Fickle is right; it would be 90-95% of winning lists the same to within a couple of upgrades.

Not because of a lack of luck or player skill you understand, simply because an obvious "best list" would result in tournaments (at least the higher level ones) being so saturated with that list that it will end up winning most of them just by law of averages.

If it's a tournament with something relatively important on the line, then a person who considers themselves a good player would need a really, really good reason to knowingly take a suboptimal list to that tournament.

So whilst an obvious best list might not dominate at store level, it would skew the metagame quite badly at a regional or national level.

if there were a "best list", tournies would only ever be won by the same thing

That would be true if we ignored player skill and luck of the dice.

As it is, if you look at tournement results, you will tend to notice that the upper quartile is usually composed of what are normally termed "lists that are competitive in the meta". You may get outliers due to luck, people practising with a list to squeeze the best out of it or just people hitting on new combos that have not been spotted before. But even so, 3/4 of the top lists normally are a recognized list.

I have played several different games over the years and most systems have a "meta" of some sort. Magic the gathering, 40K, even A Call to Arms. If you went to competitive events for any of those systems, you would frequently see certain "power lists" in the upper echelons of the tournament.

note the plural in "power lists"

hence, no "best list"

We don't have to look very far to see a "best list" scenario in action -- Imperial Assault's 4x4 list (4 Imperial Officers, 4 Imperial Guards) caused actual errata/rewrites of the cards to be put in place, to prevent their shenanigans.