2 hours ago, shmitty said:

Been planning on working in some additional Squadron usage analysis for the data.

Blail and Norse you both seem to be in the squadrons are too prevalent/strong camp. What would be your breakdown of how many points would be light/medium/heavy for squadron spending? Same for number of squadrons?

Well, I used to think that the game should be structured such that capital ships could take a minimal fighter screen (around 6 generic fighters or so) to tie up bomber lists for a couple of turns, barring some good rolls or positional play. In addition to that, capital ships should survive normal bombing runs. Large high-hull and high health ships go down in one turn either from an entire list focusing their attacks, or tanking 2-3 turns of attacks to ultimately go down.

Right now, Intel allows a bomber group to ignore all fighter screens. BCCs are not only easily stackable on the cheapest ship in the game, but those cheap ships also play into the activation war of launching your attack board at a time of your choosing. Norra makes every bomber more effective at killing capital ships. Rieekan allows those expensive aces not only to remain in play, but inhibit squadrons and ships in an unnatural way.

On top of all of this, one theme that I keep revisiting, is that capital ships have little in the way to respond to fighters. If say, an ISD, forgoes shooting at capital ships and fires it's two dice against Rebel squadrons, it will not harm many of them... certainly not kill many of the 5+ hull fighters that Drew likes running in his list. Of the upgrades that are most effective at harming these healthy fighters, only Cluster Bombs does the most good by cutting into a healthy squadron enough to make an AA shot threaten it. Everything else, even Quad Laser Turrets, is not effective enough of a deterrent. Toryn Farr can help the two blue dice shooters, but you realize this helps the Rebellion more than the Empire, and we're discussing this fighter ball that the Rebels will do the most effectively.

Right now, fighters have nothing to fear when winding up to attack capital ships. Especially the high hull rebel fighters, with Aces backed by Rieekan. This needs to change. The game needs more upgrades to threaten fighters and stop their impunity against large ships. It was needed perhaps in the days of wave 2 when Ackbar was running roughshod over every other kind of fleet. But Blail and I are afraid that Rebel fighters are the end-all of all lists. For myself, I'd rather it be Imperial heavy ships because they are the most expensive entities in the game (in addition to being much more thematic).

Currently the best response to fighters in my experience is... more fighters. It means the current strategy favors whomever rushes to the top in squadron domination. Do you have a great Rebel all-comers fighter ball that ignores capital ship attacks and punches them to death with 3-hit/crit bomber attacks, or must you cancel this fantastic battle ball with 134 points of fighter hatred with your own squadrons and kitted carriers to back them up?

3 hours ago, shmitty said:

Been planning on working in some additional Squadron usage analysis for the data.

Blail and Norse you both seem to be in the squadrons are too prevalent/strong camp. What would be your breakdown of how many points would be light/medium/heavy for squadron spending? Same for number of squadrons?

I would gather the following statistics:

Average amout on antiship damage per round

Average amout of antisquadron damage per round (this one will be less accurate due to Soontir/Mithel/Howlrunner abilities, so maybe note their presence separately)

Average counterattack damage (or sum of all counter values)

Sum of all relay values

Total number of squads/number of Rogue squads

So, this is where I need to point out that I have not been keeping nearly enough track of Baltanok and the awesome work he is doing with Squadron analysis.

Go to the squadrons tab in the data and scroll all the way to the right and down. Starting around cell DL26. All of the analysis is there and it is very thorough. I'm going to work on getting it presented in a more accessible spot, but it really breaks down a lot of the squadron usage data in an amazing way.

Pertinent to this thread, the average Wave 5 fleet in the Top 4 is spending 74 points on squads, which is actually less than the field.

PT, I'll put in some tracking on counter, relay & rogue. The "antiship" and "antisquad" values in there are average, not modified for ace special abilities, swarm, BCC's, etc.

Formula on average speed is off, haven't fixed that yet. (currently, it's sum of speeds.) Will probably do a stands by speed count, the way I did a stands by wave count.

Ok, took some time to parse through your analysis Mad.

134 squadron points of interceptors is the throwaway simple answer (though 12 TIE interceptors with flight controllers... if all on the offensive, I wonder...). The best I've had in practice matches against this is an aces ball under an ISD-I with tua taking cluster bombs and a super activation of 6 fighters a turn for a massive alpha strike. I've lead with Cienna and ended with Vader, throwing in Mithel into that list with a few other things. Strom partners with Vader for a second TIE/A using defensive tokens, Rhymer is in there for some sniping and medium-dice shots to draw out the fighters, and Valen is in there for some ankle-biting. Running Vts for a bit instructs me on how good a 3 black die AA roll can be. Dengar and a generic Jumpmaster are available for when I need Intel.

Partner up with some Gozantis, and that's the list. I feel it can be too specific of a counter to lists like Drew's, but I haven't run it much outside of solo matches yet

Relay is useful, but a little restrictive I feel. If I take 2x VSDs I can also bank a squadron token when I need to (or take Boosted Comms on GZs for that activation advantage) and use boosted comms for command 4, and leave my squadrons for fighting ships instead of the relay. So far I haven't thought of a combo to really exploit massed relay use (3 shuttles). Maybe TIE/SA, but all that needs to happen is for it to get tied up by A-Wings or something.

Strategic depends on the objectives more than anything I think. While practicing against this list I haven't practiced for those kinds of game wins, though I have been through the setup portion of the game against this list and realized yeah, neither of us are interested in moving, this would be a draw. It may be a failing on my part not to consider winning that way, but I was more interested in finding an active way to beat the list through clashing against this list.

I'm not sure how I can agree on the theory of Mon Mothma MCs... I'd trust Rieekan better because those ships, regardless of if they died, can ignore squadrons completely and focus on delivering massive batteries against flotillas and Yavaris with some accuracy generators. It would need to completely table every capital ship to win the game.. which means also catching loose flotillas. Permutations of the speedbump list I've used have an engine techs TR-90 that also escapes quite often, and so long as that ship lives the fighters are still valid.

4 hours ago, Madaghmire said:

In order to respond to this, I sort of have to attack Drew's fleet. So I want to preface this by saying that I haven't played him, and its entirely possible that in his hands this fleet is the unstoppable murder machine you make it out to be here. Clearly he's a very skilled armada player to win a regionals.

With regards to slicer tools cutting off Yavaris, lets not undersell the value there, especially in regards to Drew's fleet here. Killing its ability to run a squadron command is vicious. He's ostensibly dropping 4-6 B-Wings onto your face with that thing, probably six by using the Pelta's Adar squadron and a passed token. In fairness though, he is running Ashoka and Comms Net, so even should you kill his command, he probably gets a token to Yavaris and is able to double tap at least one squadron.

Now, lets look at his list. Certainly, it has some real strengths. 5 activations means he's probably not taking a last/first,A 396 bid means he has a shot at choosing initiative, but anyone who was really invested in going first will. He has 9 deployments, but the nature of the fleet means he needs to commit relatively early in deployment. He's not really looking to fool you. He's gonna put his B-Wings up on you, and use his several (three) rerolls to maximize damage. But his obvious strengths lie in his fighter wing. Its a well thought out wing that can bring the pain vs ships. It can pivot and dogfight very effectively, especially since he's almost by definition going to be doing so next to his own ships and benefiting from not only Toryn but also their flak fire. His Yavaris activation is downright brutal, ideally bringing two bwings (or three with an Adar Squadron) up onto your ship with FCC and then double tapping them, or ripping your fighters with a double tapped wedge.

So weaknesses? One, its a slow, defensive fleet. If you go second and refuse engagement, you win. Not a very satisfying win, but a win. Its going to have trouble chasing down anything that doesn't want to be chased down. I had to put that out there, but I don't really encourage this. In a tournament, its probably just torpedoing both of your chances. In a casual game...this is a pretty **** move.

So let's move on. You could try playing games with his FCC's by engaging his squads before they get that benefit, but its going to be very difficult to maximize that disruption before his fighters obliterate whatever you sacrificed to do that. And Rieekan just makes it more difficult to time. It's possible to do, but only a select few lists have both the anti ship firepower, maneuverability and squadron makeup to really use such a tactic effectively.

One major weakness is that he really has almost nothing in the way of ship to ship firepower. he has 5 unmodified reds if both ships train their front arcs on you, and maybe another two blues at medium. Not assuming a double arc. If he also double arcs you then add like another two reds. Whatever. He wants to kill you with fighters and if he fails to do that his ships shouldn't pose a huge threat.

So what are the weakness' in this squadron build? They all have one. Here, we have a singular source of intel (Jan) and a singular source of Escort (Wedge). With Rieekan, these flaws can be covered against many lists pretty easily.

But at this point, I am operating under the assumption that going forward, the Utah meta is awoken with regards to this list. Hungry for a way to push its face in, even if it means making some concessions in fleet building. Norse mentions 134 points of interceptor...I would never ever run that. Aside from being terrible anti-ship, its bringing a bludgeon when all you need is a scalpel. If you place IG88, Saber Squadron and Mithel in your squadron ball, you should have no issues taking Jan out first. Just watch for Shara and don't let her catch them before you bring them in. Hiding them in asteroids or covering them with intel of your own mitigates the risk. IG88/Saber is a wonder assassin combo for the Imps, and if you are really getting dominated by bomber lists...maybe start bringing them to take out the intel. If this list loses its intel and has to go ship to ship...it loses. Or at least, it really, really should. On the Rebel side, E-Wings can give you the same effect. This is why these squadrons were put in the game. Especially IG88. This is the droid you're looking for. And when you kill your main target, he's still a 5 speed rogue black die for anti ship if you want to use him that way. Timing is important, as you will likely lose something to Wedge (adar/double tap from Yav) but its a good trade if you can kill his intel.

The other thing his squadron ball does not have is strategic. Norse, you mentioned lists like sitting at speed 0 and playing come at me bro? Well, start bringing strategic and take token objectives. And then just beat him on token points, or at least force him to come on the offensive. This fleet can be used offensively, sure. But not easily. It's major sources of damage are still slow.

It doesn't have relay either. If you really have just had enough of these guys, Imperials with relay 2 lambdas, strategic, and strong antifighter should be a nightmare for this list. You really wanna pound it into the ground cuz you just hate it SO, SO much? Kit Demo antisquad. GSD-2 Blue die.

I'm sure there are other ways. Mon Mothma MC30 swarms shouldn't have tremendous issues with this fleet either, as close range essentially renders his re-roll sources ineffective, and his ships wont be able to stand up to their firepower. There were none at the Utah regional. Ard's fleet would eat this thing alive. I mean, like, 400-0. Boom. Shenanigans. No fighters necessary.

Again though, that's just on paper. I haven't seen Drew fly this thing. It may be that he is just so **** good that it doesn't matter what you do this fleet is unbeatable in his hands. I have flown very similar Pelta/Yav stuff myself, because I don't think there's a lot of us who didn't look at this and go "hey, I bet this could work" as soon as they saw the Pelta. And, if I do say so myself, I'm no slouch.

TL;DR- Love the list, its great. But far from unbeatable. See above for suggestions.

Edit; Thanks for waiting! Also for some reason when I first posted I was analyzing like he had some kind of mega Yavaris that could play with both Adar and Flight Commander. Fixed.

Wonderful Magd.

Now, I agree with some of your assessments. We've actually made many of the same observations, but in private. (this is civil war stuff for us, hehehe. Congrats Drew. )
Now: Mothma rerolls actually really don't do anything, lemme show you:
B wing: blue dice becomes 6/8 chance of a hit. That's still too good.
Black dice: avgs 1 hit. You never reroll this, as the possibility of ending up hit crit is too damaging. you have a 4/8 of doing nothing (rerolling hit to hit), 2/8 of it being much worse hit crit, and 2/8 chance of it going blank. That's no good. statistically its a total wash. Thus, Mothma actually doesn't help beyond lowering avg by 2/8s on that blue die.
Yes, you lower his chances of getting max dmg and hitting Norra, but I'VE been giving you guys avg dmg = 2 ALL week. Not avg dmg = 2.5. Mothma reduces to 1.75. YUCK!

Also, I believe I tested, a MC30 with Adv projectors actually DOES survive Yavaris 3x2 tap. But the literal next squadron kills it. Not enough shields, nor redirects.
If you manage to get all 4 MC80s in, you'll probably lose one immediately and severely wound a 2nd, and get your shots off but if the carriers survive, next turn, with the carriers added firepower and a few more squadron commands, you lose the 2nd and the 3rd.
... It really doesn't sound that bad, buts def not 400-0. Heck, realistically, he should be able to FCT 4 fighters close enough to actually one shot the first one before it even fires. def not 400-0.
The crazy part is I took Mc30s against it. I found out sadly that at close range, that Pelta and Neb got punch for punch against them. And its really easy to double arc with those ships going slow. (Or maybe I'm good at double arcing with Nebs, but I bet the winner could double arc small ships with his eyes closed. )

I really dunno why Ewing snipe is supposed to finish these off. 3 blues realy aint that much. Esp when hes gonna double tap Wedge after you're all done and wipe out whatever you sent in. Yeah, sure he loses Jan, (Actually he doesn't really even. Usually its actually really well protected! In real games, we've had 3 against him between the 3 of us), but you lose your squadrons, and then the bombing begins.

He knows to not let you wipe out his stuff in a AA contest.

I forgot to mention how Jan is unusually resilient under Rieekan. Even if she blows her defense tokens protecting other fighters, killing her means Drew could still use her elsewhere if he hasn't activated her. Even if she "dies" (throwing counter 2 at targets as well), she can still move to project intel on things before Yavaris double-taps.

2 hours ago, Norsehound said:

Well, I used to think that the game should be structured such that capital ships could take a minimal fighter screen (around 6 generic fighters or so) to tie up bomber lists for a couple of turns, barring some good rolls or positional play. In addition to that, capital ships should survive normal bombing runs. Large high-hull and high health ships go down in one turn either from an entire list focusing their attacks, or tanking 2-3 turns of attacks to ultimately go down.

Right now, Intel allows a bomber group to ignore all fighter screens. BCCs are not only easily stackable on the cheapest ship in the game, but those cheap ships also play into the activation war of launching your attack board at a time of your choosing. Norra makes every bomber more effective at killing capital ships. Rieekan allows those expensive aces not only to remain in play, but inhibit squadrons and ships in an unnatural way.

On top of all of this, one theme that I keep revisiting, is that capital ships have little in the way to respond to fighters. If say, an ISD, forgoes shooting at capital ships and fires it's two dice against Rebel squadrons, it will not harm many of them... certainly not kill many of the 5+ hull fighters that Drew likes running in his list. Of the upgrades that are most effective at harming these healthy fighters, only Cluster Bombs does the most good by cutting into a healthy squadron enough to make an AA shot threaten it. Everything else, even Quad Laser Turrets, is not effective enough of a deterrent. Toryn Farr can help the two blue dice shooters, but you realize this helps the Rebellion more than the Empire, and we're discussing this fighter ball that the Rebels will do the most effectively.

Right now, fighters have nothing to fear when winding up to attack capital ships. Especially the high hull rebel fighters, with Aces backed by Rieekan. This needs to change. The game needs more upgrades to threaten fighters and stop their impunity against large ships. It was needed perhaps in the days of wave 2 when Ackbar was running roughshod over every other kind of fleet. But Blail and I are afraid that Rebel fighters are the end-all of all lists. For myself, I'd rather it be Imperial heavy ships because they are the most expensive entities in the game (in addition to being much more thematic).

Currently the best response to fighters in my experience is... more fighters. It means the current strategy favors whomever rushes to the top in squadron domination. Do you have a great Rebel all-comers fighter ball that ignores capital ship attacks and punches them to death with 3-hit/crit bomber attacks, or must you cancel this fantastic battle ball with 134 points of fighter hatred with your own squadrons and kitted carriers to back them up?

This is exactly what I've been saying for all of last week, Norse.
This is our problem: large ships have no realistic cost effective way to deal with this. (Don't make me laugh at cluster bombs. Yes, they can work. But AdvProj or ECM will be better 70% of the time).

Also, let me add to my retort analysis to Magd: (I can't speel)
It is possible to create a one-trick pony that has the AA to defend this. We've actually done it a few times in testing. The problem is that those lists are so SCREWED OVER by the investment to beat this that they don't muster the force to beat any other lists, more ship based lists for example. And its not a moderate investment. To have a high % probability of beating THIS list, you're investment begins around 150-200 points. And at that, I reckon its a 70% chance of winning, not an auto win. But that counter list has a 30-40% ability to beat any other list.
Whereas, even our wins against this list, aren't even like 400-0s also.

This is the ultimate nightmare of the Edsel-Blerg triangle theory of squadrons Variant Wave5. From wave1? Its BACK. Except:
mass squadrons (good% vs anything) < mass AA squadrons < 6sq light/none squadrons < mass squadrons

2 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

I forgot to mention how Jan is unusually resilient under Rieekan. Even if she blows her defense tokens protecting other fighters, killing her means Drew could still use her elsewhere if he hasn't activated her. Even if she "dies" (throwing counter 2 at targets as well), she can still move to project intel on things before Yavaris double-taps.

Quoted for emphasis.

OK, found a major error in my formulas. I hadn't updated the formulas to deal with the new W5 squads. I'd inserted columns for them, but they weren't being counted in a lot of places, including wing cost.

With that now fixed, the average squadron wing is approximately 100 points, and 3 of 4 winners were over 120. 42% of top 4 are over 120.

Again, very sorry for not getting this updated & corrected previously.

19 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

This is exactly what I've been saying for all of last week, Norse.
This is our problem: large ships have no realistic cost effective way to deal with this. (Don't make me laugh at cluster bombs. Yes, they can work. But AdvProj or ECM will be better 70% of the time).

Eh, yes and no. Think about how many fighters are hitting you.

ECMs are kind of wasteful when getting hit with fighters projecting 3 constant damage all the time. You're bracing down to 2, and Norra is still helping to strip shields. The proportion of usefulness with ECMs is equal to the sizes of ships you're usually fighting. If there's an ISD opposite of you, you want Brace. Against Drew's list the biggest battery you're facing is the 3-dice Yavaris. You're more concerned about the fighters attacking you, Yavaris is the finisher. By the time you're using brace against Yavaris I think you're already in a desperate position.

Advanced Projectors has a bit more use because you can access those shields anywhere you like. But Norra is still stripping them easily on the arc that is being attacked regardless of how much you spend elsewhere. The nearly 3 constant damage is also a constant drain on the shields no matter where you are putting them. It gives you a little more use out of your shields before you go down, but practically it will only save my ISD 2 points because I can use the shields on the back.

Redundant shields is pricey and too little for the kinds of suffering you'll do over the turn of those multiple 3-damage hits.

Reinforced Blast Doors is a good followup option because most Norra blasts are going to deal hull damage as their crit is used to strip shields. In fact a B-Wing strike on a 1-shield arc with Norra will deliver exactly three cards. It doesn't require a command so it can kick passively. ISDs can use this with their contain to remove some damage, and it pushes a Motti ISD up to effectively 17. That is, if it lives long enough to trigger the doors.

I pick Cluster Bombs because it is the only upgrade card in the game that would make an opponent player pause before committing a fighter to attack me. Sure, against a Rieekan list it doesn't have the impact as others because that ace can still persist for the rest of the turn. But delivering 4 unlockabale damage is pretty big against anyone, even aces, that can finish off a fighter after my own fighter alpha strike has taken away part of the hull. In the very least I could hope for wiping out one of the B-Wings from the universe and scoring 14 points. Maybe it finished off the last bomber after all squadrons have finished their runs.

Cluster Bombs is the only defensive upgrade that causes harm to enemy units. In fact I wonder how effective this would be on an Instigator Tua Raider packing Flichette Torps and Quad Laser turrets. It's too fragile to realistically consider, but that setup is pretty nasty on paper when sending it against fighters.

However that threat of using them to respond to a fighters' attack is what makes them appealing, and why I want to see more cards that I can use on my capital ships. If Quad Lasers were a black die instead of a blue and didn't have a range requirement, that would be another good card to give to capital ships to help them fight back against these kinds of overloaded squadron combinations.

20 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Eh, yes and no. Think about how many fighters are hitting you.

ECMs are kind of wasteful when getting hit with fighters projecting 3 constant damage all the time. You're bracing down to 2, and Norra is still helping to strip shields. The proportion of usefulness with ECMs is equal to the sizes of ships you're usually fighting. If there's an ISD opposite of you, you want Brace. Against Drew's list the biggest battery you're facing is the 3-dice Yavaris. You're more concerned about the fighters attacking you, Yavaris is the finisher. By the time you're using brace against Yavaris I think you're already in a desperate position.

Advanced Projectors has a bit more use because you can access those shields anywhere you like. But Norra is still stripping them easily on the arc that is being attacked regardless of how much you spend elsewhere. The nearly 3 constant damage is also a constant drain on the shields no matter where you are putting them. It gives you a little more use out of your shields before you go down, but practically it will only save my ISD 2 points because I can use the shields on the back.

Redundant shields is pricey and too little for the kinds of suffering you'll do over the turn of those multiple 3-damage hits.

Reinforced Blast Doors is a good followup option because most Norra blasts are going to deal hull damage as their crit is used to strip shields. In fact a B-Wing strike on a 1-shield arc with Norra will deliver exactly three cards. It doesn't require a command so it can kick passively. ISDs can use this with their contain to remove some damage, and it pushes a Motti ISD up to effectively 17. That is, if it lives long enough to trigger the doors.

I pick Cluster Bombs because it is the only upgrade card in the game that would make an opponent player pause before committing a fighter to attack me. Sure, against a Rieekan list it doesn't have the impact as others because that ace can still persist for the rest of the turn. But delivering 4 unlockabale damage is pretty big against anyone, even aces, that can finish off a fighter after my own fighter alpha strike has taken away part of the hull. In the very least I could hope for wiping out one of the B-Wings from the universe and scoring 14 points. Maybe it finished off the last bomber after all squadrons have finished their runs.

Cluster Bombs is the only defensive upgrade that causes harm to enemy units. In fact I wonder how effective this would be on an Instigator Tua Raider packing Flichette Torps and Quad Laser turrets. It's too fragile to realistically consider, but that setup is pretty nasty on paper when sending it against fighters.

However that threat of using them to respond to a fighters' attack is what makes them appealing, and why I want to see more cards that I can use on my capital ships. If Quad Lasers were a black die instead of a blue and didn't have a range requirement, that would be another good card to give to capital ships to help them fight back against these kinds of overloaded squadron combinations.

This assumes 134 Bombers becomes dominant so far as to totally mitigate Large ships and gunship dmg altogether. However, people are saying you can have an ISD and 134 squadrons too. (Sadly, I think that poor ISD isn't really the superior power in that list). If you face off vs that ISD 134 bomber list, you still want ECM over Cluster.
You face off any other list thats NOT bomber, you'll want ECM on Large ships.
I usually go AP mediums. I like it cuz it does give you 3-4 more hp vs bombers too.

36 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

OK, found a major error in my formulas. I hadn't updated the formulas to deal with the new W5 squads. I'd inserted columns for them, but they weren't being counted in a lot of places, including wing cost.

With that now fixed, the average squadron wing is approximately 100 points, and 3 of 4 winners were over 120. 42% of top 4 are over 120.

Again, very sorry for not getting this updated & corrected previously.

wait. say that again???????????

Also, what's the average point value of squadrons in top4?

Bottom corner of Wave 5 regionals data, squadrons page.
No biased analysis from BB. =) Just data, I haven't read it all yet.

41 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

OK, found a major error in my formulas. I hadn't updated the formulas to deal with the new W5 squads. I'd inserted columns for them, but they weren't being counted in a lot of places, including wing cost.

With that now fixed, the average squadron wing is approximately 100 points, and 3 of 4 winners were over 120. 42% of top 4 are over 120.

Again, very sorry for not getting this updated & corrected previously.

Just so we're clear, you're saying 42% of top 4 players since Wave 5 launched have 120+ points of squads, but nearly 75% of that archetype is in the winners bracket?

83.4% of the top 4 spent more than 81 pts.

66.7% of the top4 spent more than 101 points.

58.3% of the top 4 had 7-10 squadrons. (That by itself is in healthy limits, with the rest of it, sounds disturbing).

Reminder, small sample size questions: This is top4 data. So its 16 lists atm. 4x4.

Uhh Baltanok, could you also put # of BCC next to squadron data

And also track for how many of these have:

Bomber 2 dice
Bomber 1 dice
Nonbomber avg dmg of 6/8th+ aka nonbomber 1 black dice
Nonbomber non-blk die non-multiple-other-dice

4 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Just so we're clear, you're saying 42% of top 4 players since Wave 5 launched have 120+ points of squads, but nearly 75% of that archetype is in the winners bracket?

Cactus: There are only 4 winners, there are only 4 regionals so far.

Winners is subject to huge variance. However, trends over each tier, top1/4, top8, top4 are not.

Just now, Blail Blerg said:

Cactus: There are only 4 winners, there are only 4 regionals so far.

Winners is subject to huge variance. However, trends over each tier, top1/4, top8, top4 are not.

thanks, for somem reason I thought we'd gone through more of these nationwide.

How many snipe units present?

How many Mithels?

How many IG88's?

If these numbers are incredibly low then I dont see any sense in the data, all it says is people arent really putting effort in. We all agree Intel freedom is the issue. We have tools, nobody is using them.

Even if you start taking these tools, you don't stop at taking one of them. In my experience, you take some or all of those in a chosen ace ball, where there are too many threats and mechanics playing off one another to counter effectively. Because supporting that disgusting 3x BCC list are some pretty good ace options. Drew has Zombie Wedge in there, and he also has Shara.

Shara Bey is one ace though that can cover a lot of stuff by locking it down and forcing attacks on her. If your Sniper Saber squadron is too far away (or it is already attacked and destroyed by Shara's incoming alpha strike), the only response is IG-88 with 5 hull and one scatter. Guess who's next to be shot down? And Shara's scatter is still there even if IG-88 dives in. IG-88 cannot oneshot Shara, even if Sabers roll 2 damage on their counter (Shara just burns her brace against both attacks).

Unless you gang up on her with aces like IG, Valen, tanky fighters that can absorb the hits, Rieekan Zombies, or massed TIE Fighters that you don't care to lose, she's gonna hurt your list. The only other way away from her is to move in an intel carrier to make her heavy, but then on the next turn Shara will attack that if she can. And if she's free, she'll pounce on the next part of the ball she wants to lock down.

IMO, Empire doesn't have as great of aces as Shara, Wexley, and even Ten to some extent, but the first two have been really frustrating to face in Drew's list type. Aces like Zetrick and Cienna are not anywhere as game-changing as the Rebel aces. Even the Wave 5 aces don't leave as much of an impact as the Rebel CC aces because of how well they can buff their surrounding squadrons, or threaten them in Shara's case. Fortunately Empire already has Mithel and Chiraneu in the toolbox, it's time to bring them out... then make them run away once all squadrons are dead so they don't die to incidental AA fire like their generic squadmates.

Stop the hyperbole.

How many are taking IG88, Saber, Mauler? How are they doing?

How many are taking Ewings? How are they doing?

If they are turning up to regionals and struggling, then its worth a look. I bet they are not appearing at regionals, so all this is hot air.

Snipe isn't as effective as it seems honestly. Gallant haven with Jan and Rieekan is a pretty broken combo.

55 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Stop the hyperbole.

How many are taking IG88, Saber, Mauler? How are they doing?

How many are taking Ewings? How are they doing?

If they are turning up to regionals and struggling, then its worth a look. I bet they are not appearing at regionals, so all this is hot air.

Tried them. The issue is that you can't kill them out.

I'm going to stop talking, because I don't think myself or any of my friends in our meta can discuss the list further without discussing how he actually plays various elements. I'll simply state that it is incredibly punishing, highly durable, and resists a lot of attacks by his opponents and can rapidly turn them into a net win. Saying "just do X" really doesn't apply if you haven't faced it, because we have and we have.

45 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Tried them. The issue is that you can't kill them out.

I'm going to stop talking, because I don't think myself or any of my friends in our meta can discuss the list further without discussing how he actually plays various elements. I'll simply state that it is incredibly punishing, highly durable, and resists a lot of attacks by his opponents and can rapidly turn them into a net win. Saying "just do X" really doesn't apply if you haven't faced it, because we have and we have.

I honestly hope he GETS YOU ALLLLLL. Muahahahahahahaha.

No seriously though Drew, collect some more skulls. We're not a large enough pile yet.

Nope, you cannot retract to that position and try and take a moral high ground.

Blail's argument is built on statistics. Without statistics of the counter its meaningless. Its a crucial factor in the argument. The difference between the counter not being present and not being effective is crucial.

No hyperbole, no whining.