Parattani, Dengaroo, and x7 Defenders all have a ship - or ships - that get action economy that can't be easily shut down.

Imperial Aces had something similar, in that even if you blocked Soontir, you could be facing Authrusters and the Emperor anyway.

If there's a spot that seems to need hitting, it's the ability to get tokens without any effort at all. x7 might still be too good even with 'as a free action' added on, but timings could be tweaked there, too.

At least it's a list that fights fair, though.

4 hours ago, WWHSD said:

Even with those focus tokens they are still just turning eyeballs into hits/evades. There are plenty of abilities that allow modification even if a ship can't take actions.

The stress and the action denial is a big deal even if it doesn't seem like it. When only one ship is getting an action, no one is target locking, evading, repositioning or moving their mobile arcs.

Mindlink lists with Manaroo have a lot of focus tokens rolling around but focus tokens still need you to roll eyeballs to be any use.

If you can keep applying stress it does really hurt Paratini. Having to ditch stress every few rounds is usually no big deal but having to pull green manuever every round gets old fast. The stressbot on either an ARC-170 with Gunner or a BTL-A4 Y-Wing can double stress a ship in a Mindlink list one round, and then in the next rounds split up its attacks to double strss two ships. That's a horrible spot to be in running an Attani list.

"Needing" to roll eyeballs increases the reliability of dice quite a bit, though, as you know, especially when rolling a lot of dice over time, which Fenn does because he's Fenn and both Manaroo and Asajj both do as well because they have a lot of health and are going to be around awhile.

With respect to stressing out a list, yes I think it could be annoying to keep them consistently stressed, but the big difference is that Mindlink actually counters that stress for very cheap. You don't have to wait a turn to clear it, you can get actions that turn. When double stressed, mindlink still allows actions while a double stressed ship in most other situations is a defenseless ship for a turn and could normally be easily pounced on.

9 hours ago, Panzeh said:

If you took off the salvaged astromech it would be a garbage ordnance platform.

After the FAQ made R4 Agromech conform to the rules as written I swapped up the build I was using on the Torpedo Scout I had in my squad to have Deadeye, Plasma Torpedoes, Extra Munitions, Guidance Chips and Dengar. I was quite happy with it. It did about almost as well with ordnance as the previous version did but it did a lot better when it can time to use it's turret.

19 minutes ago, AlexW said:

"Needing" to roll eyeballs increases the reliability of dice quite a bit, though, as you know, especially when rolling a lot of dice over time, which Fenn does because he's Fenn and both Manaroo and Asajj both do as well because they have a lot of health and are going to be around awhile.

With respect to stressing out a list, yes I think it could be annoying to keep them consistently stressed, but the big difference is that Mindlink actually counters that stress for very cheap. You don't have to wait a turn to clear it, you can get actions that turn. When double stressed, mindlink still allows actions while a double stressed ship in most other situations is a defenseless ship for a turn and could normally be easily pounced on.

When I've played squads with Mindlink and Manaroo there are plenty of rounds that I've ended up with a ship that is still sitting on the 3 focus tokens that they had that round. The ship with the tokens didn't do any damage and got hit by one or more attacks. Focus tokens are great but if you can't supplement them with Evade Tokens or Target Locks they often aren't enough. Making a ship that usually has Focus+Target Lock or Evade+Focus only end up with a focus token is significant and I think a lot of people lose sight of that.

There are a lot of upgrade cards and pilot abilities that give modifications or action equivalents to a ship that was denied its action. Mindlink isn't alone in this.

Parattani has won 16 regionals listed on juggler 2nd placed 3 and top 4'd at 16 more. Thats 35 top 4 placements... I don't know how many regionals there are but out of the ones that came after parattani became prevalent im willing to bet that almost 70% of them were won by it.

7 hours ago, gamblertuba said:

I think Last Winters Night is Omega Lease, Wampa, and four crackshot blacks.

My point stands. Perhaps even stronger now since at least one of the two of us can't remember what's in it.

My X-wing pet peeve is naming lists. This game is complicated enough without constant colloquialisms to keep track of. My only contribution to this phenomenon was back in wave 4, but Tala Dagger Knights is pretty self-explanatory.

That's an easy one. Parattanni doesnt get all the hate because not a single one of its elements feels really broken. It's not like Dengaroo stacking 30 stress to force Zuckuss on every green die rolled. It's not like Fel changing three blanks into 3 evades. It's a simple, harmonious and elegant list that's also fairly easy to fly and play. No broken elements keeps the hate somewhat in check. We're sure to see some resentment from overplay, but hate...?

16 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

I think we had this same discussion last year with Triple Jumps and Palp Aces. Everyone was angry at Jumpmaster but Palp Aces were actually doing the winning.

The argument that made sense then, and I think applies to Paratanni too, is that while Jumpmasters made it abundantly clear that your game was ruined (with their massive alpha strike) the Palp Aces at least gave you the illusion that you were in a real game while they danced around you. I think a lot of the time when you're up against Paratanni it provides a very good illusion that a game is happening, when in fact the dice are being subtly stacked so consistently against you that it's all but a foregone conclusion.

This man hits the nail on the head.

I never really had a problem playing against dengaroo because it has such an obvious achilles heel, being manaroo's need to stay out of the fight and possible another one if you in that dengar himself doesn't deal with bombs. (Although I'll confess bias in that I was playing a list that didn't have a problem with Dengaroo when it was more prevalent than it is now). But I take the point that it had the effect of pushing some lists out of the meta.

To me paratanni feels like you are playing your 100 point list against a list that is actually worth slightly more than 100 points. Maybe thats why some people feel like you still get a good game out of it and that if you fly better you still have a chance of winning. But all other things equal it probably starts the game with a slight advantage over most other lists that it plays, which makes sense as if you put 1 extremely (IMO) aggresively priced ship, Manaroo, alongside 2 ships that are priced very competetively and then give them cheap action efficiency which is only slighly mitigated by the stress effect then you are on course to make an overall very points efficient list.

'Twas ever thus that some lists were point for point more effective than others, but I think its prevalence at the top tables of tournaments is slightly concerning. While it doesn't have the same meta warping effect as say, u-boats or dengaroo, if it becomes increasingly popular and begins to dominate the upper strata of tournaments then that is almost as significant a problem.

Parattani is not broken per se, but the action economy it has makes it seem like it is.

I mean, take a PtL ace. You pay 3 points and a stress token for one extra action. Now take Parattani: you pay 3 points across 3 ships for a free token on each, then get tokens from Manaroo on the ship that needs them most, Manaroo gets her focus back and finally Asajj can stress someone and generate an evade token out of it. Oh, and Mindlink has the interesting effect of making you semi-immune to stress, because you will at least have a focus token on each ship and 2 token on one of them.

20 hours ago, SylinRhyas said:

Parattani is way more dominant then Dengaroo or torp boats ever were. It's completely dominating regionals.

Unlike Dengaroo Paratanni doesn't rely on broken and untested combos.

It just works and has few bad matchups. It is by no means OP - what it is, is forgiving.

Indeed, perhaps the only thing that I'd consider "unfair" about Paratanni is how the list can casually disregard basic rules of the game concerning bumping and stress. The game was designed around the notion that either of those things result in losing actions and thus efficiency. Whenever I play against a good Paratanni however, I have to consider that he can simply create a massive cluster**** somewhere, using 2 large bases to block any movement that makes sense - and then shoot the c*** out of me with his tokened-up ships while I either don't get a shot at all, or at the best of times I shoot (and defend) with unmodified dice. It's really hard to stop him from doing exactly that, and it doesn't help that 2 of his ships can effectively shoot at 360 degrees (with obvious caveats for the need to adjust arc on Assajj) while the third one is just very nimble and capable of getting precisely where it wants - especially since it's got it's entire dial at it's disposal as well as the option to simply bump something with few (if any) disadvantages of doing so.

Arguably that's exactly what Manaroo/Mindlink is.

And to sum up: Paratanni's record in Swiss is better than any other list. It's record in Top-8s is better than any other list. It's won more regionals than any other list. It's won all the system opens. And if that's not enough, arguably the second-best list at the moment is just another variant on the same **** but with Old Teroch. Six of the Top-8 lists at Yavin Open were Manaroo/Mindlink.

But it's not overpowered. Ok.

The one thing that annoys me the most with Parattani is infact Asaj's pilot ability (+Latts combination). It used to be that you had to shoot with tactician in range 2 in arc, or that you "chose" to shoot at a ship with rebel captive. Adding a free evade once per round is one thing, worse is the almost complete elimination of Whisper and Echo from the Imperial arsenal. The success of Parattani also coincides with the almost complete dissaperance of the "traditional" imperial aces.... not sure if that is due to Defenders just being better, or the "threat" of Black Sun Slicer tools on stressed aces.

That's primarily the TIE Defenders. I think Aussie Nats final was the death knell for aces - two high-PS aces desperately unable to deal with the Defender's K-turns and superior tokens.

7 hours ago, WWHSD said:

When I've played squads with Mindlink and Manaroo there are plenty of rounds that I've ended up with a ship that is still sitting on the 3 focus tokens that they had that round. The ship with the tokens didn't do any damage and got hit by one or more attacks. Focus tokens are great but if you can't supplement them with Evade Tokens or Target Locks they often aren't enough. Making a ship that usually has Focus+Target Lock or Evade+Focus only end up with a focus token is significant and I think a lot of people lose sight of that.

There are a lot of upgrade cards and pilot abilities that give modifications or action equivalents to a ship that was denied its action. Mindlink isn't alone in this.

There absolutely are, but none are really as cost effective/cheap nor do they give it to your whole list regardless of where they are on the board and with as minor a drawback.

Compare it to fleet officer. Paratanni pays the same points for Mindlink in the list as the cost of one Fleet Officer. Fleet Officer has a range restriction and generates two focus tokens while also taking a stress and doesn't work if the ship gets blocked (unless you have another way of giving it an action). I could do this with a lot of other cards. So, yes, Paratanni is "only" giving a focus token, but it's doing so cheaply that it's very effective and it allows the ships in the list to take other actions (and I already mentioned how action efficient Asajj is).

I really think the results speak for themselves. Paratanni is the most single successful, specific list ever and Attani Mindlink lists have been everwhere in top cuts in addition to Paratanni.

It's not a like Focus token isn't a big deal - it's a 50% increase in damage out and a 66% increase in evades rolled.

42 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

That's primarily the TIE Defenders. I think Aussie Nats final was the death knell for aces - two high-PS aces desperately unable to deal with the Defender's K-turns and superior tokens.

Defenders are certainly a difficult match up for high PS aces - especially Inky seems to struggle as his slow greens become a liability and the inability to get an extra die at R1 makes it hard to push damage past their defense. However, if played well, Aces can use the Defenders' predictability and low PS to win anyway. That's especially true for Phantoms, who can use lateral movement to keep flanking Defenders. Being effectively restricted to hard 3s for turning makes Defenders really vulnerable to that kind of tactic.

What really made Aces a no-go for me was the rise of Sabine. I cannot justify taking, say, Soontir over Vessery if the former can die to a single bomb while the latter will usually survive even the second one.

18 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

It's not a like Focus token isn't a big deal - it's a 50% increase in damage out and a 66% increase in evades rolled.

Yeah, I was going to say that focus is usually the default option because it's usually either mathematically equivalent (when it's not better) than other tokens and it's more flexible. It's an unusual argument to make in my opinion that it's a "limitation" of Attani. If Attani were TL only or Evade only, I could see that. Sure it's not Palp, but I usually get more mods out of Attani (when I've run it). than I do Palp. But they're also both problematic, imo.

1 hour ago, Stay On The Leader said:

That's primarily the TIE Defenders. I think Aussie Nats final was the death knell for aces - two high-PS aces desperately unable to deal with the Defender's K-turns and superior tokens.

Interesting, I would have assumed a "competent" Soontir and Vader player having higher initiative and access to boost/barrel-roll could easily arc-dodge 2 defenders. But I guess good blocking with the defenders are key here? or is it more their raw stats in combination with tokens?
(That makes me wonder if Swarmleader Vader has a place in this meta).

2 hours ago, Keffisch said:

Unlike Dengaroo Paratanni doesn't rely on broken and untested combos.

It just works and has few bad matchups. It is by no means OP - what it is, is forgiving.

I totally agree. People speak about the 'high decision density' of Parattani, which really just boils down to a couple of decisions:

1) Who will you give the extra focus token to? (Pretty much a no brainer in most circumstances)

2) Which way will you point Asaaj's arc? (Also a no brainer in most cases)

3) Which ship will take the focus action for the team? (90% of time, it will be Manaroo, perhaps even higher).

And thats about it. The only thing that is occasionally challenging is setting up a safe approach for Fen, which is not all that hard with Asaaj creating the opening for him.

Don't get me wrong, there are easier lists. But you can usually afford several rounds of bad dice/decision making with Parattani (Unless you derp Fen into a range 2 Killbox), and thats a luxury that very few other lists have.

17 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

Interesting, I would have assumed a "competent" Soontir and Vader player having higher initiative and access to boost/barrel-roll could easily arc-dodge 2 defenders. But I guess good blocking with the defenders are key here? or is it more their raw stats in combination with tokens?
(That makes me wonder if Swarmleader Vader has a place in this meta).

Each turn there's broadly three possible outcomes:

1. Aces and Defenders can fire at each other: Defenders win, they're better at jousting

2. Aces didn't manage to arc dodge: Defenders win, they'll chip down with TL/Focus/Juke

3. Aces did manage to arc dodge but don't have actions to modify their attack dice after arc dodging: It's a draw.

So you're playing a game of Rock-Paper-Paper and the Defenders brought Scissors. In the aussie nats final Soontir and Inquisitor just got devoured without even stripping shields off a Defender.

4 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Each turn there's broadly three possible outcomes:

1. Aces and Defenders can fire at each other: Defenders win, they're better at jousting

2. Aces didn't manage to arc dodge: Defenders win, they'll chip down with TL/Focus/Juke

3. Aces did manage to arc dodge but don't have actions to modify their attack dice after arc dodging: It's a draw.

So you're playing a game of Rock-Paper-Paper and the Defenders brought Scissors. In the aussie nats final Soontir and Inquisitor just got devoured without even stripping shields off a Defender.

Yeah, defenders are not that hard to dodge but they're hard to both dodge and shoot at. In this way super dash is better than palp aces against defenders because he can get into more awkward places and still shoot.

3 hours ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Arguably that's exactly what Manaroo/Mindlink is.

And to sum up: Paratanni's record in Swiss is better than any other list. It's record in Top-8s is better than any other list. It's won more regionals than any other list. It's won all the system opens. And if that's not enough, arguably the second-best list at the moment is just another variant on the same **** but with Old Teroch. Six of the Top-8 lists at Yavin Open were Manaroo/Mindlink.

But it's not overpowered. Ok.

bump.

36 minutes ago, Stay On The Leader said:

Each turn there's broadly three possible outcomes:

1. Aces and Defenders can fire at each other: Defenders win, they're better at jousting

2. Aces didn't manage to arc dodge: Defenders win, they'll chip down with TL/Focus/Juke

3. Aces did manage to arc dodge but don't have actions to modify their attack dice after arc dodging: It's a draw.

So you're playing a game of Rock-Paper-Paper and the Defenders brought Scissors. In the aussie nats final Soontir and Inquisitor just got devoured without even stripping shields off a Defender.

Thanks for your reply.

1. Agree.

2. Agree.

3. Interesting. I need to watch that final. I would have thought Soontir would effectively have "3 actions" a turn: (1) Boost + (2) Barrel-roll to arc-dodge, but his ability should give him an extra (3) focus for that attack (assuming no defender can shoot at him) + Palp. But ofcourse the defender has focus + evade + Palp.

According to your analysis, then the new "coordinate" action on the Upsilon should change the situation back in favour to the "traditional aces", right?

If the problem is lack of modifiers in outcome 3, then the new coordinate action could add the target-lock/focus that was missing after arc-dodge. Ofcourse the defenders could be flying supported by the Upsilon, but they are already tokened up so not much more to gain.

Well, you could argue that the white K-turn on the Defenders is giving them the arc-turning equivalent to Boost & Barrel actions, so Defenders get: Boost/Barrel/Evade/Focus/Target Lock each turn in their duel against Soontir.

Upsilon is not very good as a support for aces, it pulls too many points away from the aces.