I've been in a funk trying to come up with new lists. I want something competitive, but also new and unheard of.

Unfortunately, lists must be meticulously crafted and well-rounded to stand against the harsh reality of efficient meta-lists, (ugh). During my process, I've realized how many different lists scare me away from certain ships, the sharks that lurk in tournament pools.

Prey: Tie Phantom

An RAC with VI, Gunner, Vader, and Kylo shuts down a Phantom like you wouldn't believe. Shooting at an uncloaked Whisper before she can fire back is a death sentence, especially with Kylo there to slip crits under the shields with help from Gunner. Like any list, it can be outplayed, but the Phantom cannot arc-dodge a 360 arc.

Paratanni has Asajj, and Asajj stresses things, and when Phantoms are stressed, they die. Simple as that. Phantoms can arc-dodge, but trying to dodge Asajj and Fenn is an uphill battle.

Bombing K-Wings ruin Phantoms, but the saving grace is their decloak at the beginning of the Activation Phase, so they can at least try and bait out SLAMs.

Prey: Z-95's and Tie Fighters

These guys just don't have any punch anymore. 2 dice are shrugged off by X7's even in the best of circumstances. That is if they also live through being diced up by superior firepower provided by Lances, Protectorates, TLTs, and Defenders.

They can shoot, but rarely can they hit.

Prey: Interceptors and Tie Advanced Prototypes

Autodamage isn't as scarce as it once was. While trying to tackle once-titan Soontir Fel, FFG created a slew of new cards with the intent to rein him in. BMST, Conner Nets, Hotshot Copilot, Zuckuss, and 4-LOM chew up Soontir, but... they also pushed out the Advanced and the Advanced Prototype. Defenders are actually capable of withstanding some of these tricks where an Interceptor fails.

Prey: B-Wings and X-Wings

For jousters, its a shame that there's ships out there who're just better. They are too expensive for what they are capable of and will be arc-dodged by fat turrets, out-jousted by Defenders, and nuked by a malevolent Range 1 Fenn Rau. If Soontir was still around, its unlikely that they'd ever even get arc on him, or have the mods necessary to make the most of there 3 dice primaries. B-Wings' red maneuvers are asking for them to get blown away, how many meta lists make room for a red maneuver to be the best choice? Would a 19-20 point X-Wing be the end of the world in comparison to an 12 point Tie Fighter who is still a better jouster?

I'm missing a good few ships that have trouble making a dent against the best of the best, but I thinks its this a good sign that the next few expansions will have to bring some of these ships back.

It's true; all of it.

Still hoping we get a Battle of Yavin pack with a repaint or two and then make those fighters viable again

JB, I think a lot of us are right there with you. I like making lists--it's one of my favorite part of the game--but it's a shame that certain ships we love to fly can't be built into viable squads in today's meta.

Wrong or right, the power creep is real, and it has squeezed out ships that were once great. Soontir used to be a thing, and now? Not so much. The game is what, 4 years old? Can you imagine in another 4 years what the meta will look like? At this rate, Fenn Rau will no longer be a threat and our X's, B's, Z's, Firesprays, Phantoms and TIEs of all flavors will be nothing more than faded memories.

I'm not calling for a fix, but what I'd like to see is FFG to address the creep, and quite frankly find a way to freeze it where it is before 7+ red dice are the norm.

So what were the sharks again? All I see was the chum.

3 hours ago, Lobokai said:

Still hoping we get a Battle of Yavin pack with a repaint or two and then make those fighters viable again

Been hoping for that for a little better than three years myself.

In all honesty they key to making a non-meta list work is less cleverness or brilliant insight and more just getting serious reps in with a list. With a lot of play, you start seeing the interactions between ships more clearly, and you start understanding weaknesses of power lists and how your weird list can exploit them.

For example, a few months ago, I ran a quad Interceptor list for a few weeks. It was 3 Royal Guard Pilots, each with Predator, and Autothrusters, backed up by an Alpha Squadron Pilot. This was wave 6 Jank in a wave 9 meta, and it had game agaisnt a lot of serious lists because of the speed, offense, and blocking, but you can't really fly it right off the bat. You have to understand how the opposing squad will move and how your ships can use that information to avoid or inflict damage. That comes from practice agaisnt competent opponents or yourself, and other takes time, and it's hard to communicate to others.

6 hours ago, Marinealver said:

So what were the sharks again? All I see was the chum.

Well, its the same old top of the foodchain X7's, Dengaroo, Paratanni and Kylo Hotcop

Just watched it last night, 4 Z-95s do practically nothing against X7's'

EDIT: 1 takes two shields off of vessery, the only damage done to a defender the entire game

That's depressing

Nothing is more gratifying than beating down a polished player using a meta netlist with a list I have created. It's just so hard for them to accept. You have to be creative, be willing to take some lumps as you learn your list (and if it's even good) and have a plan if you face specific meta lists.

My current favorite Imp list is a RAC and Echo list. Other RAC lists are scary so I run RAC Determination with Dauntless and if I face a RAC + Ace list my first Kylo crit is damaged cockpit to both. Now that both are PS0 good luck getting a crit through vs my 4 Agi Echo with Palp and Lone Wolf who now has the highest PS. By no means have I mastered clubbing net lists but I do fairly well against them with my own builds. Don't be afraid to take chances (and lose sometimes) with your list building.

I think snapshot is going to be a key part of an alternative list. It has a lot of potential, and is effective against both low agility targets, and predictable, low health ships. The key is rolling more dice with it, or rolling against less dice. Mauler Mithel, Zeta Leader, Scourge, Jan Ors, Latts Razzi, and a few others can do the trick. Defenders have predictable moves, and although they get their evade token for the attack, boosting the number of dice you throw in a turn is a huge step to strip those token stacks. People say 2 dice attacks are dead, but there are plenty of low agility ships that are doing well right now. Naked 2agi vs. a snap shot is not something you want to have happen to many times in a game. Getting 2, or even 3 snapshots off at the same time would really make Asajj, Manaroo, or a number of other ships sweat.

So, I guess that is my alternative idea, a swarm of snapshot ships, or a miniswarm of snap shots that can improve that attack somehow.

Swarms can still bite, and they are the original shark.

21 hours ago, JonasBenz said:

Well, its the same old top of the foodchain X7's, Dengaroo, Paratanni and Kylo Hotcop

It's February 2017. Defenders have been in the meta since Veterans released in early July 2016. So that's 8 months. Dengaroo has been around for about the same time length but not nearly as prevalent now as it was. It won worlds, but not much recently. So 8 months as well. Paratanni has been around since, I'd say, about Christmas - it didn't show much at worlds but has picked 3 system open wins so far. So that's 2 months. Kylo Hotcop has only been around for about a month - since the Upsilon shuttle released. I flew the non-kylo version since december, so give that 3 months.

On average (8+8+2+3)/4 that's 5.25 months the current meta-lists have been at the top. No FAQs have affected them in that time (let's not forget the nerf of Deadeye Jumps which was on top since February-ish 2016) and we haven't got an FAQ for Wave 10 yet.

So it's hardly "same old".

2 hours ago, ThalanirIII said:

It's February 2017. Defenders have been in the meta since Veterans released in early July 2016. So that's 8 months. Dengaroo has been around for about the same time length but not nearly as prevalent now as it was. It won worlds, but not much recently. So 8 months as well. Paratanni has been around since, I'd say, about Christmas - it didn't show much at worlds but has picked 3 system open wins so far. So that's 2 months. Kylo Hotcop has only been around for about a month - since the Upsilon shuttle released. I flew the non-kylo version since december, so give that 3 months.

On average (8+8+2+3)/4 that's 5.25 months the current meta-lists have been at the top. No FAQs have affected them in that time (let's not forget the nerf of Deadeye Jumps which was on top since February-ish 2016) and we haven't got an FAQ for Wave 10 yet.

So it's hardly "same old".

Oof, thanks for laying down cold hard facts on me. Blame that on my diction

40 minutes ago, JonasBenz said:

Oof, thanks for laying down cold hard facts on me. Blame that on my diction

I just think that the current meta isn't really stale yet - paratanni is the main element, and that's only been around for 3 months. Give it time, and maybe an FAQ. I also reckon there'll be some sort of dengaroo-esque sleeper hit that we haven't figured out yet which might appear. The scum epic might bring stuff to shake things up too.

IMHO, The defender problem is an X7 problem. FFG may not link to do it, but that free evade token needs to be an ACTION such that good flying, blocking, and stress tools are available to mitigate what is otherwise an unhittable ship with 2 dice attacks.

39 minutes ago, balindamood said:

IMHO, The defender problem is an X7 problem. FFG may not link to do it, but that free evade token needs to be an ACTION such that good flying, blocking, and stress tools are available to mitigate what is otherwise an unhittable ship with 2 dice attacks.

We'll see whether that happens. But bear in mind that costs the same as (or more than) Soontir Fel - with more health, no natural evade action, a less variable dial (you've got 3 turns, banks straights, and 4 straight, K and 5 straight), and lower pilot skill. It's better with its stress/blocking-resilience and jousting skill, but still fundamentally similar to Fel.

I wouldn't call it undercosted, but maybe having it be an action would be better. I'm undecided.

Definitely not undercosted since the whole point of x7 was to fix the cost of the Defender. I think the most reasonable solution is to make it an Evade action and only trigger if you didn't overlap a ship (i.e. make bump and stress tactics useful again). Changing anything more than that would probably put it back into the grave.

Don't we have missiles that ignore evade tokens? I didn't watch that video but I suspect those Z-95s didn't have their munitions slots filled.

5 hours ago, defkhan1 said:

Definitely not undercosted since the whole point of x7 was to fix the cost of the Defender. I think the most reasonable solution is to make it an Evade action and only trigger if you didn't overlap a ship (i.e. make bump and stress tactics useful again). Changing anything more than that would probably put it back into the grave.

I dunno, having counterplay that doesn't affect the 'normal' use case, and still comes with a 2pt discount, is unlikely to break the build any, just make it more 'fragile' to counter-play.

If you wanted to break the build, you could specify that the evade token comes after the normal action, and with a stress: It's then a free built-in PTL effect with only one action option and a speed limit attached. That would drastically affect their power, because it means far fewer builds get to enjoy the token as a routine thing. (Ryad is still giggling, though.)

5 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

Don't we have missiles that ignore evade tokens? I didn't watch that video but I suspect those Z-95s didn't have their munitions slots filled.

Yeah, and a good thing too. They lost one before it even fired, meaning more points weren't sunk on such a fragile carrier

17 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

Don't we have missiles that ignore evade tokens? I didn't watch that video but I suspect those Z-95s didn't have their munitions slots filled.

They cost 5 points each and require a TL, generic Zs are not a very useful carrier for them.

On March 6, 2017 at 6:23 AM, thespaceinvader said:

They cost 5 points each and require a TL, generic Zs are not a very useful carrier for them.

5 homing Zs and a blocking A-wing are bound to do some damage. Probably not winnable but worth testing. Maybe.

I'd expect 1 or 2 of them to get PS killed before they can blow their missiles, unless you give one of them (the A Wing?) Thread Tracers and hit.