Zuckus crew says that no ship can evade and negates a serious portion of the entire game. There needs to be some sort of limit.

Actually, all that Zuckuss does is prevent 'oh look, I got lucky on my 3 naked greenns and rolled 3 evades' moments. If you invest in your defense (focus/evade tokens) he becomes way less effective.

Green dice (with focus) have a 5/8 chance, each, of evading a hit. With Zuckuss this goes down to 25/64. That's about a 60% to blank one evade, 37% on two, 22% on three, and a 14% on four. Now, these three Agility ships, how much health do they have? 3? 4? (Brobot saviors: 8) Against a token stack on offense? Not a chance. Why do you think there were so many at world's? Because of how totally fair it was?

Dengar's average damage per attack is 2.4375 (3 reds with Focus and LW). A tocken stacker's average defence is 2.875 (Evade and Focus) BEFORE Autothrusters and Palpatine. Unless the opponent makes mistakes (like shooting back in arc without the needed tokens) Dengar flat-out loses this duel. 3 dice attacks haven't been enough in this game for a long time.

Now consider Zuckuss. The above average defense drops to 2.172 if you ignore Autothrusters and Palpatine. This means that, in average Dengar will get 1 damage in every 4 rounds.

So, at range one, and/when he rounds that 2.8 up, Soontir dies in one? Inquisitor gets dropped to one hull? Defenders lose all their shields or die?

I think your reference to palpitine are more indicative how an eight point cheat is even more broken than a one point green dice don't matter.

Dengar's average is around 2.5. This means that most of his attacks will be a pretty even split of 2 hits and 3 hits.

When Dengar rolls 2 hits, you'd have to Zuckuss your opponent into triple blanks (22% chance) in order to deal 1 damage.

When Dengar rolls 2 hits, you'd have to Zuckuss your opponent into at least 2 blanks (38% chance) in order to deal at least 1 damage.

If you don't have your opponent in arc and he has autothrusters, it looks even worse: no chance to deal any damage with 2 hits, 22% chance with 3 hits.

Regarding range 1, Dengar is a single ship, with no blockers and usually no repositioning. If you're flying an arc dodger and you get caught in range 1, you probably need to look at what you did wwrong.

And no Zuckuss would not be worth it if Palp Aces didn't utterly dominate the meta, crew is the most valuable spot for scum ships, having a subpar filler is not really an option in most cases. Boba is situationally awesome, only cost 1 point, and the most popular list in the game provides him with the best possible target, yet you don't see him that often do you?

Frankly anti-ace tech is needed, but most of the current options are ineffective, overpriced, or to limited in use against other types of ships. Zuckuss hits a sweet spot, and you want to nerf him purely on the basis that he actually works?

Zuckuss, of course, is more effective against ships that aren't aces. Which is one of the big reasons TIE and A-Wing swarms were largely absent from worlds.

Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic is the complete lack of any TIE Swarms (even the Crackshot variant) making 6-2. Ship usage and squad archetype stats are next in the queue.

In my experience X7 defenders are a hard counter to swarms.

Crackswarms can kill even a palp soontir through blocking, but defenders are both harder to block (no self stress) and have twice the health. Once the crackshots are gone you need at least 3 ties to start putting damage.

1 tie to block

1 tie to strip the evade

1 tie to maybe stick a damage...

If you're not blocking, then it's even harder to shoot them due to the PS advantage and the focus + evade token stack.

Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic is the complete lack of any TIE Swarms (even the Crackshot variant) making 6-2. Ship usage and squad archetype stats are next in the queue.

In my experience X7 defenders are a hard counter to swarms.

Crackswarms can kill even a palp soontir through blocking, but defenders are both harder to block (no self stress) and have twice the health. Once the crackshots are gone you need at least 3 ties to start putting damage.

1 tie to block

1 tie to strip the evade

1 tie to maybe stick a damage...

If you're not blocking, then it's even harder to shoot them due to the PS advantage and the focus + evade token stack.

Bingo,

Brought a smaller swarm to Worlds. Faced Palp Defenders 3 times, lost all three. Faced triple Defenders, lost. Beat Aces, beat Double Ghost. Palp Defenders owns low PS swarms or mini swarms. The problem with the meta currently is the arms race between Palp Defenders and Dengaroo/party bus. It leaves just about everybody else out in the cold.

And no Zuckuss would not be worth it if Palp Aces didn't utterly dominate the meta, crew is the most valuable spot for scum ships, having a subpar filler is not really an option in most cases. Boba is situationally awesome, only cost 1 point, and the most popular list in the game provides him with the best possible target, yet you don't see him that often do you?

Frankly anti-ace tech is needed, but most of the current options are ineffective, overpriced, or to limited in use against other types of ships. Zuckuss hits a sweet spot, and you want to nerf him purely on the basis that he actually works?

Zuckuss, of course, is more effective against ships that aren't aces. Which is one of the big reasons TIE and A-Wing swarms were largely absent from worlds.

I'd argue that's not really true as unless the attacking Dengar had perfect attacks rolls it would still take 2 shots per ship even in the unlikely event that you blanked out your green die on every roll. Generally swarms do pretty good against fat ships, and Dengar has less mitigation then something like the old Falcon builds so I don't see him performing much better.

Historically arc dodgers have done more to keep swarms at bay then any PWT, so we're back to my original point about Empire currently setting the standard with Palp Aces.

Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic is the complete lack of any TIE Swarms (even the Crackshot variant) making 6-2. Ship usage and squad archetype stats are next in the queue.

In my experience X7 defenders are a hard counter to swarms.

Crackswarms can kill even a palp soontir through blocking, but defenders are both harder to block (no self stress) and have twice the health. Once the crackshots are gone you need at least 3 ties to start putting damage.

1 tie to block

1 tie to strip the evade

1 tie to maybe stick a damage...

If you're not blocking, then it's even harder to shoot them due to the PS advantage and the focus + evade token stack.

Bingo,

Brought a smaller swarm to Worlds. Faced Palp Defenders 3 times, lost all three. Faced triple Defenders, lost. Beat Aces, beat Double Ghost. Palp Defenders owns low PS swarms or mini swarms. The problem with the meta currently is the arms race between Palp Defenders and Dengaroo/party bus. It leaves just about everybody else out in the cold.

I have been thinking this for awhile, but maybe the key is... a larger swarm? What does everyone think about the old 8 Tie swarm? Maybe one as a Tie FO, or maybe a couple of the lower priced named pilots to fill it out? Wampa and Chaser?

idk. Would love to hear if anyone has tried out the 8 tie swarm as of late and how it went.

Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic is the complete lack of any TIE Swarms (even the Crackshot variant) making 6-2. Ship usage and squad archetype stats are next in the queue.

In my experience X7 defenders are a hard counter to swarms.

Crackswarms can kill even a palp soontir through blocking, but defenders are both harder to block (no self stress) and have twice the health. Once the crackshots are gone you need at least 3 ties to start putting damage.

1 tie to block

1 tie to strip the evade

1 tie to maybe stick a damage...

If you're not blocking, then it's even harder to shoot them due to the PS advantage and the focus + evade token stack.

Bingo,

Brought a smaller swarm to Worlds. Faced Palp Defenders 3 times, lost all three. Faced triple Defenders, lost. Beat Aces, beat Double Ghost. Palp Defenders owns low PS swarms or mini swarms. The problem with the meta currently is the arms race between Palp Defenders and Dengaroo/party bus. It leaves just about everybody else out in the cold.

If I had to complain about Zuckuss, it's that he hurts tie fighters a lot more than he hurts palp aces, but he still hurts palp aces/defenders and is an important upgrade to have against them.

Normal ship green dice need to be better.

That's because it was very different from a card. Both players needed to consent for it to happen so there was an moral judgement put on it (whether or not there should have been).

Ethical issue, not moral. (And, BTW, there are actually three players impacted by an ID decision made -- "we're not going to play" -- by two of them. That's what makes it an ethical issue.)

But that aside, you're right: there's a difference between that and using a card, open and available for all players. Zuckuss (and arguably OCR4, and much more tenuously, Manaroo) is a broken card ... but using it is fair .

Right, wrong word for me and it's true that more than the two people are affected by the decision.

It's no different from take-backs (I forgot to X, can we go back and do that?) and concessions where you're in position to go through even if you lose. It requires consent of both players, and affects the result of a game, and the remainder of the field. I don't see huge arguments about take-backs or concessions.

If you want to dislike ID on personal preference, that's fine ... you don't need to (fail to) logically justify it. I can accept that humans are actually random and that you just don't like IDs.

Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic is the complete lack of any TIE Swarms (even the Crackshot variant) making 6-2. Ship usage and squad archetype stats are next in the queue.

In my experience X7 defenders are a hard counter to swarms.

Crackswarms can kill even a palp soontir through blocking, but defenders are both harder to block (no self stress) and have twice the health. Once the crackshots are gone you need at least 3 ties to start putting damage.

1 tie to block

1 tie to strip the evade

1 tie to maybe stick a damage...

If you're not blocking, then it's even harder to shoot them due to the PS advantage and the focus + evade token stack.

Bingo,

Brought a smaller swarm to Worlds. Faced Palp Defenders 3 times, lost all three. Faced triple Defenders, lost. Beat Aces, beat Double Ghost. Palp Defenders owns low PS swarms or mini swarms. The problem with the meta currently is the arms race between Palp Defenders and Dengaroo/party bus. It leaves just about everybody else out in the cold.

I have been thinking this for awhile, but maybe the key is... a larger swarm? What does everyone think about the old 8 Tie swarm? Maybe one as a Tie FO, or maybe a couple of the lower priced named pilots to fill it out? Wampa and Chaser?

idk. Would love to hear if anyone has tried out the 8 tie swarm as of late and how it went.

I tried it a couple months ago and TIE x7s destroyed it utterly. But then, I'm no TIE expert.

That's because it was very different from a card. Both players needed to consent for it to happen so there was an moral judgement put on it (whether or not there should have been).

Ethical issue, not moral. (And, BTW, there are actually three players impacted by an ID decision made -- "we're not going to play" -- by two of them. That's what makes it an ethical issue.)

But that aside, you're right: there's a difference between that and using a card, open and available for all players. Zuckuss (and arguably OCR4, and much more tenuously, Manaroo) is a broken card ... but using it is fair .

Right, wrong word for me and it's true that more than the two people are affected by the decision.

It's no different from take-backs (I forgot to X, can we go back and do that?) and concessions where you're in position to go through even if you lose. It requires consent of both players, and affects the result of a game, and the remainder of the field. I don't see huge arguments about take-backs or concessions.

If you want to dislike ID on personal preference, that's fine ... you don't need to (fail to) logically justify it. I can accept that humans are actually random and that you just don't like IDs.

I agree there is no difference there, but if you think there weren't huge discussions about those issues too, there absolutely have been. You can still occasionally find people referencing "fly casual" and/or discussing it negatively. It's just that those were issues that people have moved past at this point and/or accepted the way things are.

I was comparing the difference there to a card and why I think it's very different in people's minds, not stating my position. Jeff probably explained it better and I think it's very clear why people reacted more toward the players, in the case of IDs, than they do at players when they bring cards that are perceived as broken.

It's no different from take-backs (I forgot to X, can we go back and do that?) and concessions where you're in position to go through even if you lose. It requires consent of both players, and affects the result of a game, and the remainder of the field. I don't see huge arguments about take-backs or concessions.

This isn't the right place or time to re-litigate this -- and given that anti-ID has already won, there's also no need -- but the logician in me simply has to point out that there's at least one huge difference. (Hint: It has to do with whether people actually play the game.) More like six or seven huge differences, but that one suffices.

When do you think they'll put the video on Youtube?

Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic is the complete lack of any TIE Swarms (even the Crackshot variant) making 6-2. Ship usage and squad archetype stats are next in the queue.

In my experience X7 defenders are a hard counter to swarms.

Crackswarms can kill even a palp soontir through blocking, but defenders are both harder to block (no self stress) and have twice the health. Once the crackshots are gone you need at least 3 ties to start putting damage.

1 tie to block

1 tie to strip the evade

1 tie to maybe stick a damage...

If you're not blocking, then it's even harder to shoot them due to the PS advantage and the focus + evade token stack.

Bingo,

Brought a smaller swarm to Worlds. Faced Palp Defenders 3 times, lost all three. Faced triple Defenders, lost. Beat Aces, beat Double Ghost. Palp Defenders owns low PS swarms or mini swarms. The problem with the meta currently is the arms race between Palp Defenders and Dengaroo/party bus. It leaves just about everybody else out in the cold.

I have been thinking this for awhile, but maybe the key is... a larger swarm? What does everyone think about the old 8 Tie swarm? Maybe one as a Tie FO, or maybe a couple of the lower priced named pilots to fill it out? Wampa and Chaser?

idk. Would love to hear if anyone has tried out the 8 tie swarm as of late and how it went

the benefit of taking 8 ties is mitigated by low PS and lack of modification. i believe the seven tie swarm is the optimum build, with howl and three crack blacks, and three aps for blocking. Mishary Al-Faris (Kuwait Champ) took this and got to the second day, but was then eliminated. nevertheless, i think its the best tie swarm around at the moment. i won Yavin with it, but that was back in the bad old days before the deadeye nerf, and jumpmasters were everywhere.

Defenders are actually the least of its problems, since no matter how many tokens you have, if you straight up joust the swarm they will almost certainly kill one in the opening salvo and then you will likely be in trouble. defenders are also really easy to block, even if it doesnt affect their action economy too much, so you can exert a measure of control over the game.

no, the real issue is Dengaroo. that matchup is basically an auto-lose unless your opponent really screws up. you're not fast enough to catch and kill Roo and Dengar happily oneshots ties while taking basically no damage on the joust. countermeasures + stims mean that you shouldnt even bother shooting him in the first round - the one where ties win or lose games. and doesnt even care if he's blocked.

Ties also hate certain types of rebel regen, and worst of all, Dash, so if either of those come back in a big way, they will be in extra trouble.

I'd argue that's not really true as unless the attacking Dengar had perfect attacks rolls it would still take 2 shots per ship even in the unlikely event that you blanked out your green die on every roll. Generally swarms do pretty good against fat ships, and Dengar has less mitigation then something like the old Falcon builds so I don't see him performing much better.

Historically arc dodgers have done more to keep swarms at bay then any PWT, so we're back to my original point about Empire currently setting the standard with Palp Aces.

I mean, Dallas is nearly as nervous facing dengaroo as he is facing aggressors, and aggressors straight hard counter swarms.

As for arc dodging: well, the Palpatine buddies that are currently seeing the most play are jousters, not arc dodgers. So that's unlikely to be the thing that has swarms running scared.

Anecdotally the thing that caused our local a-wing guy to give up on 5x greens was dengar. Losing two fresh greens in one turn, while improbable, is the sort of thing that leaves an impression.

Which is not, incidentally, to say that palp doesn't need to be reined in. He does, no question.

Which is not, incidentally, to say that palp doesn't need to be reined in. He does, no question.

Some kind of proof to back that up would be nice. No question.

This isn't the right place or time to re-litigate this -- and given that anti-ID has already won, there's also no need -- but the logician in me simply has to point out that there's at least one huge difference. (Hint: It has to do with whether people actually play the game.) More like six or seven huge differences, but that one suffices.

Deliberately losing, and conceding pre-game, make no difference to the score (I shouldn't have to add that this requires you're not so bad at the game that you can't avoid destroying an enemy - but this is the internet). In this case, a pre-game concession is actually better for the event organiser.

Why ID was bad was that it made it easy to generate a result that was very hard to generate via normal play.

If only someone had developed some sort of mathematical model and used it to evaluate the card.

If only someone had developed some sort of mathematical model and used it to evaluate the card.

plus about 200 various pilot cards as well while we're at it

My only complaint about Palp aces and stuff that was added to harm aces is that the counters were to the aces, who; while very powerful are reasonable without palpatine, instead of to palpatine himself. Sadly, now it is hard for people who might want to fly soontir without the palp shuttle to fly him, even though he is not as insane in that form.

I checked the submitted lists that qualified for the second round of elimination, and I found every ship except the following:

• TIE Bomber
• TIE Punisher
• TIE SF Fighter
• Imperial Firespray
• Rebel HWK
• Kira;lqwjsdf
• Starviper
• G1A

First, is this correct? Second, who else thinks it is amazing that there are 40 ships in this game, and 32 of them made it into the second day at worlds. I don't think Zuckuss should be nerfed, I don't think Palp should be nerfed, I think that we are playing an amazing game and Dengaroo is a really hard list to fly well against all of these different opponents. This is easily the healthiest meta we have seen.

*Edit: Hujoe Biggs played a list with a G1A on Sunday. 33 of 40 ships!

That is great.

And I'm for one surprised Quickdraw isn't used more. I think she's solid. Maybe T1.5 but I don't feel like she's T2.

If only someone had developed some sort of mathematical model and used it to evaluate the card.

plus about 200 various pilot cards as well while we're at it

Just out of interest, how many regionals or above has that mathematical model won for you MJ?

I know I normally snark, but I'm actually genuinely curious to see if it's given you a significant advantage...

Which is not, incidentally, to say that palp doesn't need to be reined in. He does, no question.

Some kind of proof to back that up would be nice. No question.

Palpatine pushes the joust efficiency of any ace beyond what is achievable for the old guard of generics. Aces already countered these ships with their strong mobility. That means now they beat the generics on a field where they should by all means lose, in the straight joust, which is already difficult to achieve for the player of the generic squad. Instead of just outplaying the aces you now need to also get lucky, or super-outplay them by also avoiding shots to have more time to get lucky. That is problematic.

If only someone had developed some sort of mathematical model and used it to evaluate the card.

plus about 200 various pilot cards as well while we're at it

Just out of interest, how many regionals or above has that mathematical model won for you MJ?

I know I normally snark, but I'm actually genuinely curious to see if it's given you a significant advantage...

kinda difficult to get a special advantage if people gravitate towards the same pool of ships that his model predicts will be kinda awesome

kinda difficult to get a special advantage if people gravitate towards the same pool of ships that his model predicts will be kinda awesome

True, but don't forget he hasn't released his most recent model into the public domain, or updated the info on the forum for a year or so...

Perhaps the most noteworthy statistic is the complete lack of any TIE Swarms (even the Crackshot variant) making 6-2. Ship usage and squad archetype stats are next in the queue.

In my experience X7 defenders are a hard counter to swarms.

Crackswarms can kill even a palp soontir through blocking, but defenders are both harder to block (no self stress) and have twice the health. Once the crackshots are gone you need at least 3 ties to start putting damage.

1 tie to block

1 tie to strip the evade

1 tie to maybe stick a damage...

If you're not blocking, then it's even harder to shoot them due to the PS advantage and the focus + evade token stack.

Bingo,

Brought a smaller swarm to Worlds. Faced Palp Defenders 3 times, lost all three. Faced triple Defenders, lost. Beat Aces, beat Double Ghost. Palp Defenders owns low PS swarms or mini swarms. The problem with the meta currently is the arms race between Palp Defenders and Dengaroo/party bus. It leaves just about everybody else out in the cold.

I have been thinking this for awhile, but maybe the key is... a larger swarm? What does everyone think about the old 8 Tie swarm? Maybe one as a Tie FO, or maybe a couple of the lower priced named pilots to fill it out? Wampa and Chaser?

idk. Would love to hear if anyone has tried out the 8 tie swarm as of late and how it went.

Personal experience from a practice game for a 120 point local tournament. I had 4x - naked Epsilon Squadron Tie F/Os, Standard Juke / Comm Relay Omega Leader and an X7 MK2 Vessery. And even with some of the best swarm flying I have ever managed to do, it took me 4 rounds to even touch one of his 3 defenders (2 Glaive - X7s with Stealth Device and Wingman plus a Rage Countess with Tie/D, Tractor Beam, Stealth Device and Homing Missile) Of course even with him attempting to concentrate fire at Vessery he didn't manage to take him out until late in the game after he had picked off some of the Ties 1 by 1. If this had been a timed tournament game I would have had the win due to having taken out one of the glaives just before loosing my first F/O. But in the long run he ended up winning with one Glaive on the board untouched.