Carnor and Corran will be more than happy to run VI

Non-PTL, no emperor backed, Carnor is supersquishy. Playable but far from ban worthy.

Corran without FCS, R2D2 and PTL ain't really efficient. Again, playable but far from bannable.

Spam of generics is probably the most obvious consequence of such ban list

Pretty much. Depending on exactly what's banned I suspect a Black squad TIE/ln list would be king.

TIE fighters are controlled by the banning of crackshot and Howlrunner, I'm more concerned by BBBBZ and warthog Y

Eh, I'll just take however many Black Jukes I can afford instead, and a bomber buddy.

Eh, I'll just take however many Black Jukes I can afford instead, and a bomber buddy.

That would be a pretty awful squad.

This is and interesting thread; but I do see how it opened Pandora's Box a bit.

We have had games where we banned non-Star-Wars-mechanically-logical cards. So basically, pilot abilities that assist them, ship upgrades, weapons, AI, etc. were all OK, but ones that are outside --albeit fantasy-- basic mechanical physics were banned. For example, abilities to alter the minds of enemy pilots (Biggs), flip dice (Palp), or remove or add tokens to an opposing ship (Zuckuss, Old Teroch, etc.)

It was easy to differentiate and there was no arguments..... Peace in the Galaxy.

Edited in the hope to make it easier to understand......

Because nothing in Star Wars ever violates basic physics, except... literally everything in Star Wars,

I think the best way to promote players to fly something new without having to do something as drastic as create a ban list is to do something out of the ordinary instead of making a list of dos and do nots.

My favorite idea I have come across is a draft format where you do a pilot draft, and then after it is completed, the draft lists are dispersed randomly between the participants. This way, players are looking to draft bad pilots instead of the cream of the crop to neuter their opponents possible lists. The benefit of this is that once you get to the later rounds, there aren't anymore bad pilots, just under used ones.

If I were in charge, I would have the cut off leave 20 or so pilots still on the board so pilots like Manaroo which would be able to form a strong base for any list stay off the table. Would depend how many players there were though.

*edit* Dang! Just ninja'd on the draft idea!

One thing you can do is have a Unique event. With that, I mean that all unique pilots/upgrades can only be flown by one person. You will have to have a draft event ahead of time. It doesn't have to be super complicated. Just have everyone bring a list of 10 uniques they would want to bring. Then, randomize each player and put them in order. The first person gets the first available unique on their list. With enough people, you will easily get some unusual lists. There will only be one Soontir Fel. There will only be one Emperor. Dengar might not get paired with Manaroo.

If you wanted to take it a step further, you can limit the number of some upgrades there are out there and require they take a unique slot. For example, there are only four /x7 titles that people can use. They will take up a unique slot in your list. Also throw in only 1 Advanced Cloaking Device, as well. Maybe limit the number of TLT's that can be picked. Anything you want to limit can be done this way. Worried Crack Swarm will dominate? Limit the number of Crackshots that can be taken to 6. Also, you can limit Royal Guard title, so that you have to use it as a pick. Maybe the guy who gets Soontir doesn't get Royal Guard title, which makes Soontir more reasonable.

For one, you won't see all the meta lists as people just won't get those upgrades. It will also encourage people to try pick non-meta uniques to try to actually get the uniques they want. There is also strategies to pick things that others can't take. For example, a Rebel player might put Palpatine as the top of his list, just to block any Imperial player from getting it.

EDIT 2: things you can limit can be very interesting. Limit PTL! Or Engine Upgrade. Maybe even Auto Thrusters. So, if you want the best Soontir, you will have to get something like 4 picks to get him. He's still good without one of those upgrades, but he will take up 40% of your picks to get the optimal Stealth Soontir.

That's also a great idea heychadwick; it would make the gamer's think before loading up on one ship. Well played. It is a fun way to start a game. I played once where there was only (2) of each non-unique upgrade available in the draft for each 4 players; that was interesting. Plus, you HAD to play every ship and upgrade within your first two games (200 point target for each player), so grabbing them due to a 'hierarchy' list was not always a good idea as you could get something that either couldn't fit on your ships or didn't help.

Nothing important......

I think the best way to promote players to fly something new without having to do something as drastic as create a ban list is to do something out of the ordinary instead of making a list of dos and do nots.

My favorite idea I have come across is a draft format where you do a pilot draft, and then after it is completed, the draft lists are dispersed randomly between the participants. This way, players are looking to draft bad pilots instead of the cream of the crop to neuter their opponents possible lists. The benefit of this is that once you get to the later rounds, there aren't anymore bad pilots, just under used ones.

If I were in charge, I would have the cut off leave 20 or so pilots still on the board so pilots like Manaroo which would be able to form a strong base for any list stay off the table. Would depend how many players there were though.

I liked the team draft you did on vassal, while not being very pratical with that engine, I enjoyed following it

click on topic thinking of pilots and cards i think are on the list

The only one im surprised to see is VI. The rest are the standard "I CANT BEAT THESE GUYS WTF" picks.

Also Manaroo not being on the list is surprising, especially since Palp is.

Ban lists are a very bad thing. All you do is crack the meta in negative ways, allowing some old veterans to resurface to once again be brutally overpowered since their counter is gone or render a TON of ships on the sidelines useless because they depend on an upgrade you banned because 1 pilot abuses it to the extreme so 4-5 others must suffer as well.

To everyone helping me decide what would be on a banned list:

I just threw up a bunch of ideas in my OP. I was trying to find a balance between removing the right pilots and the right upgrades. I don't want to ban a ton of stuff. Just enough to make the tournament have some creative variety. A small restriction on generics might also need to be implemented. If I did ban PLT, I could skip on banning quite a few pilots.

If your objective is to make people fly different lists from what has been good in the past, I think you need a more weighted banlist, something like that.

Pilots:

Soontir Fel *

Carnor Jax *

Corran Horn *

Dengar

Inquisitor *

Fenn *

Biggs

Omega Leader

Old Han

RAC

Manaroo

Asaji *

Bossk (maybe)

IG-B

Howlrunner

Upgrades:

Tie x7

Crack Shot

Zuccus

R2-D2 Astromech

Outrider

Palpatine

Attani Mindlink

TLT

FCS

Dengar

*They can be allowed if you ban PTL. Probably you'd better with banning PTL and allowing those pilots

I think I would do the upgrade ban list that you listed, only adding VI. And with PTL banned, the pilot ban list would be much smaller. Likely only consisting of Omega Leader, Whisper, Biggs, Old Han, RAC (maybe), and Howlrunner. We would need to find a way to avoid lists like BBBBZ and LothalLothalY. Hopefully the ban list could be kept below 10-12.

For those of you who suggested the alt formats:

I really like the draft idea for the pilots! Very creative! How would we deal with three different factions? I would like to keep it as one faction per player if possible, ie not intermix them. An upgrade draft would be fun too.

I appreciate the recommendations about different formats like Mario Kart. However, if that was my goal, I would just play Mario Kart format.

Keep in mind the point of this whole post was to make a tourney that encourages creative new (not worn out) lists that will be entertaining to fly and fly against.

Thoughts? I like the discussion so far.

I forgot to mention that I like the idea of a restricted list as well. Could lead to some interesting stuff.

For those of you who suggested the alt formats:

I really like the draft idea for the pilots! Very creative! How would we deal with three different factions? I would like to keep it as one faction per player if possible, ie not intermix them. An upgrade draft would be fun too.

I say you should be allowed to cross pick uniques. You only get 10 possible picks. If someone else picks your pick before you, you lose that slot. If you pick a slot from a different faction to block it's use, then you lose a slot. You might be very limited in what unique pilots you do get.

I think it's also important to throw in various other upgrades you want to control in that list, too. Otherwise you might just have everyone going Thug Life, Triple /x7, or Crack Swarm. Or limit it so that if someone gets Soontir Fel, they aren't able to just build Stealth Soontir Fel from the get go.

Going back to alternative formats. I saw one of your goals schmi was to create more lists using ps4-7. Instead of trying to force that with a ban list you could keep it simple with some sort of pyramid list restriction for your tournament.

ie

1.Every list in the tourney must contain 4 ps1-6 ships (or 3 ps1-5 and 1 ps6-7).

2.Every upgrade is considered unique.

3.Anything else goes.

Obv you can get creative and modify the above. The above is much cleaner and simpler than a ban list but basically you will for sure see more lower ps variety but people can still fly their aces if they take 4 barebones middling ps pilots. Making every upgrade unique allows for some tried and true combos but nobody will be able to make a full list that would abuse said "efficient combos." Last but not least, classic dual/tri pilot lists (dengaroo, Miranda/corran, palpaces, parattinni) are basically impossible with the above restrictions (could potentially do palp mini aceswarm but that sounds different and interesting to me).

Ruthless Vess + Lone wolf Ryad + OL with A Score To settle would be pretty brutal with just the listed upgrade bans.

ive seen other games have formats with extensive ban lists and the metagame actually gets staler because it reduces the number of options, op. it makes the problem (if you consider optimal list building a problem) worse.

Is everones local meta just super stagnant?

We see all kinds of crazy lists around here and a bunch of the ships listed on that ban list I rarely see any more.

Double post!!!

You could run a poll, the participants propose cards to be banned. Top x most proposed cards are banned?

Instead of a ban list try no Unique ships or Unique upgrades. It is as budget as it gets.

You could run a poll, the participants propose cards to be banned. Top x most proposed cards are banned?

Alternatively, have everyone submit lists a week in advance. The n most frequently used upgrades/pilots are banned. Just tick everyone off lol

Instead of a ban list try no Unique ships or Unique upgrades. It is as budget as it gets.

I've heard this or similar mentioned a number of times. Do players enjoy this? For me, I would be pretty miffed if I showed up to a league night of any sort and someone told me I couldn't use anything with a dot next to its name. I enjoy BBBBZ or Crack swarm as much as the next guy, but restricting the game that way seems pretty stale unless you are doing some sort of training on blocking methods and/or formational tactics.

Lack of uniques would probably make the meta just shift which pilot was absolutely crazy. Generics with an EPT suddenly become the top dog instead of a good inclusion or a distraction.

BBBBZ immediately comes to mind if a "unique ban" was a thing.