1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Thinking about the reasons as to why the formerly dominating ships are now unplayable is certainly worthwile. And the problem can't be x7 and Palp, only, because there were lists without either of them. So what changed? Jumpmaster, Asajj, Fenn, Mindlink, Bombs/Ordnance?

The jumpmaster is slightly comparable to Dash, and the ImpAces had no problem there. Miranda+Sabine/Biggs were already available, too.

So why are ImpAces suddenly unplayable in the current meta?

The thing happend which all defenders of imperial aces said it would happen: The one suppressing factor which created the rise of imperial aces vanished from the meta. Tripple Scouts stopped surpressing rebel lists, and all the stronger rebel lists became playable again, marking the end of imperial aces. on top they got kicked when already down with the palp nerf, introducing of a thousand paper-cut counters like black market slicer tools, stress on tons of ships, stronger mindlink aces for scum, bombs with sabine, clustermine buff and assaji + latts. Basically everything happened. The perfect storm that all this gets suppressed another time is rather unlikely. Or in other words, Palp Aces was all the empire had left, than Imperial Veterans came, stuff happened and the last two strong options for empire lost their validity while the new tools for the empire did fall below the power curve, while rebels and scum got on top of that great new toys.

2 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

Rebels have made it to the final table of literally every Worlds. When's the last time the Empire was seen at the final table? During the Whisper/Fat Han meta?

Final table is relatively irrelevant. The very top comes down to individual ability and is hence unfeasible to be taken as measure for balance.

Much more important is how ships performed in a broader scale, e.g. top 32 or even overall.

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

That shows two interesting things:

1. The balance between factions was **** in May 2016
2. The balance between factions is **** in May 2017

Personally I can't relate to people sticking to one faction, but I understand that some just do so. And the situation is **** for them.

The Empire had amazing diversity a year ago, with numerous possible 30-35pt ace combinations. I always wished to have something similar for rebels - and I still do - because their ships are always 5pts too expensive to build similar list types.

Thinking about the reasons as to why the formerly dominating ships are now unplayable is certainly worthwile. And the problem can't be x7 and Palp, only, because there were lists without either of them. So what changed? Jumpmaster, Asajj, Fenn, Mindlink, Bombs/Ordnance?

The jumpmaster is slightly comparable to Dash, and the ImpAces had no problem there. Miranda+Sabine/Biggs were already available, too.

So why are ImpAces suddenly unplayable in the current meta?

It wasn't sudden. Anti-Ace cards have been building up for a while.

Miranda+Sabine didn't really become a thing until after Imp Vets came out. Yes, it was available, just not used as much. Jumpmaster aren't much of a problem expect for maybe Dengaroo, but that's dead.

7 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

So why are ImpAces suddenly unplayable in the current meta?

Sabine crewed K Wings with errated cluster mines.

Basically.

3 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Well Rebels are definitely better off - Heaver open win, Stele open win, bonkers rebels Jank in two of the top 4 Worlds slots.

And again, we're not comparing to 2016 we're compared to pre-nerf 2017.

Take down bombs and TLT a bit and you'll see Vader, Whisper, Soontir, Inquisitor, O.Leader, Howlrunner all come back. They're still objectively good.

And when that happens, I'll change my tune. Until then, I can't accept that the meta is better than it was before.

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Final table is relatively irrelevant. The very top comes down to individual ability and is hence unfeasible to be taken as measure for balance.

Much more important is how ships performed in a broader scale, e.g. top 32 or even overall.

But top 8 and 4 should have a decent mix of all three factions.

2 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

The thing happend which all defenders of imperial aces said it would happen: The one suppressing factor which created the rise of imperial aces vanished from the meta. Tripple Scouts stopped surpressing rebel lists, and all the stronger rebel lists became playable again, marking the end of imperial aces. on top they got kicked when already down with the palp nerf, introducing of a thousand paper-cut counters like black market slicer tools, stress on tons of ships, stronger mindlink aces for scum, bombs with sabine, clustermine buff and assaji + latts. Basically everything happened. The perfect storm that all this gets suppressed another time is rather unlikely. Or in other words, Palp Aces was all the empire had left, than Imperial Veterans came, stuff happened and the last two strong options for empire lost their validity while the new tools for the empire did fall below the power curve, while rebels and scum got on top of that great new toys.

This is badly rewriting history.

Imperial Aces were dominant before Jumpmasters and remained highly competitive through Triple Jumps and Dengaroo being developed. The Aces lists were driven away by /x7 Defenders, which were both better than Aces against other things and killed them head-to-head. Imperial Veterans consolidated the various Imperial builds into basically being a faction of one ship.

When /x7 got nerfed the other Imperials should have returned, but they've been kept down by Rebel bombing.

1 minute ago, SOTL said:

Well Rebels are definitely better off - Heaver open win, Stele open win, bonkers rebels Jank in two of the top 4 Worlds slots.

And again, we're not comparing to 2016 we're compared to pre-nerf 2017.

Take down bombs and TLT a bit and you'll see Vader, Whisper, Soontir, Inquisitor, O.Leader, Howlrunner all come back. They're still objectively good.

TLTs and PWTs are an established element of the game, they gonna stay. So indeed without a change to TLTs you will not see Vader again. We got a ton of new stress tools as well, which reduces Soontir and Inquisitor. OL is still good though.
Howlrunner suffers as the TIE-Swarm is not anymore the base-line ship of the power curve, a few seem to be able to compensate with for example high ps ace swarms which bring lot of pilot skills and synergies while cutting down the swarm size to six. Again, an unlikely return without new upgrades to increase the base-line power of those TIE-Fighters. Two Dice attacks are still not cutting it, because tanky ships the new base line.

Whisper, well Whisper is Whisper, well played I doubt she will ever be really bad, except when TLTs and turrets eat her alive. ;-)

3 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

The thing happend which all defenders of imperial aces said it would happen: The one suppressing factor which created the rise of imperial aces vanished from the meta. Tripple Scouts stopped surpressing rebel lists, and all the stronger rebel lists became playable again, marking the end of imperial aces. on top they got kicked when already down with the palp nerf, introducing of a thousand paper-cut counters like black market slicer tools, stress on tons of ships, stronger mindlink aces for scum, bombs with sabine, clustermine buff and assaji + latts. Basically everything happened. The perfect storm that all this gets suppressed another time is rather unlikely. Or in other words, Palp Aces was all the empire had left, than Imperial Veterans came, stuff happened and the last two strong options for empire lost their validity while the new tools for the empire did fall below the power curve, while rebels and scum got on top of that great new toys.

So Triple Scouts > Rebels TLT > ImpAces? We can clearly see that Mindlink-Scum still dominates.

As far as I remember, "all the stronger rebel lists" boils down to TLT-Y-Wings/-K-Wings, with an occasional VCX-100. If TLT and Bombs were all that hold back ImpAces, then I'd expect to see more ImpAces because the TLT+Bombs are not that prevalent.

7 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Miranda+Sabine didn't really become a thing until after Imp Vets came out. Yes, it was available, just not used as much. Jumpmaster aren't much of a problem expect for maybe Dengaroo, but that's dead.

Miranda+Sabine is still less played than Y-Wings or Biggs, so I doubt that this combination is the thing to hold back ImpAces...

9 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Sabine crewed K Wings with errated cluster mines.

Sabine isn't played that much. And many Mirandas fly Conner/Ion or Homing missiles, not cluster mines. So only few lists overall are dangerous to ImpAces?

8 minutes ago, SOTL said:

The Aces lists were driven away by /x7 Defenders, which were both better than Aces against other things and killed them head-to-head. Imperial Veterans consolidated the various Imperial builds into basically being a faction of one ship.

Ironic that the success of Imperials is what drove Imperials out of the meta and leads to self-restricted imperial players to complain now.

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

So Triple Scouts > Rebels TLT > ImpAces? We can clearly see that Mindlink-Scum still dominates.

As far as I remember, "all the stronger rebel lists" boils down to TLT-Y-Wings/-K-Wings, with an occasional VCX-100. If TLT and Bombs were all that hold back ImpAces, then I'd expect to see more ImpAces because the TLT+Bombs are not that prevalent.

Miranda+Sabine is still less played than Y-Wings or Biggs, so I doubt that this combination is the thing to hold back ImpAces...

Sabine isn't played that much. And many Mirandas fly Conner/Ion or Homing missiles, not cluster mines. So only few lists overall are dangerous to ImpAces?

Conners are basically the same level of dangerous on Sabine crew K Wings, and 5 die homing missiles are also poison.

There are a range of factors, but I'd personal lay the blame for them completely dying mostly at the feet of sabine crew and Advanced SLAM, not because they necessarily do more to shut them down than the other options, but because they make them SO much less rewarding to play.

Previously, a single mistake could have a good chance of killing your ace, but a mistake would be 'clip someone's arc at range 1-2'. Now, a single mistake kills you, but a mistake can be 'exist on the board at range 1-3 in arc or anywhere in the front half of range 2 from half to all of your opponent's list'.

It's not so much (for me as a former imp aces player) the power of the things that shuts them down, it's the lack of gameplay that you get as a result of them. An ASLAM K wing doesn't just hard counter you, it stops you playing the game entirely.

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

So Triple Scouts > Rebels TLT > ImpAces? We can clearly see that Mindlink-Scum still dominates.

As far as I remember, "all the stronger rebel lists" boils down to TLT-Y-Wings/-K-Wings, with an occasional VCX-100. If TLT and Bombs were all that hold back ImpAces, then I'd expect to see more ImpAces because the TLT+Bombs are not that prevalent.

Miranda+Sabine is still less played than Y-Wings or Biggs, so I doubt that this combination is the thing to hold back ImpAces...

Sabine isn't played that much. And many Mirandas fly Conner/Ion or Homing missiles, not cluster mines. So only few lists overall are dangerous to ImpAces?

Just because something isn't played as much as other things doesn't mean it isn't a threat. The threat of coming up against K-Wing bombers with Imperial Aces, on top of tricks with Ghosts and other autodamage, makes the cost/benefit ratio for Imp Aces unfavorable, therefore put to the side. Plus, you have examples of Miranda-Sabine winning two System Opens, meaning the threat of someone netlisting those builds go up as well.

Again, it is similar to the reign of U-Boats. As a Rebel, you might get lucky and never fight one. But relying on luck like that is a poor strategy that may or may not pay off.

1 minute ago, SOTL said:

This is badly rewriting history.

Imperial Aces were dominant before Jumpmasters and remained highly competitive through Triple Jumps and Dengaroo being developed. The Aces lists were driven away by /x7 Defenders, which were both better than Aces against other things and killed them head-to-head. Imperial Veterans consolidated the various Imperial builds into basically being a faction of one ship.

When /x7 got nerfed the other Imperials should have returned, but they've been kept down by Rebel bombing.

Dominant or competitive?` Nothing wrong with competitive. And remember, Sabine and K-Wings were suppressed during Wave 8 by the Uboots, which was basically the luck for the imperial aces which allowed them to say competitive. Dengaroo was not discovered either. And while imperial veterans for sure consolidated the various imperial builds, it did so with the help of the new attani and manaroo lists, most prominently Dengaroo and the reaction of the meta to super-tanky agility tanks and the defender themselves. If you build a list which can kill a defender in one combat phase than imperial aces will have issues too, the counters simply overlapped.

As I said, after the defender phase, we had so many new tools in our toolboxes to deal with imperial aces that it is hard to consider them still strong, especially when you can just fly scum aces instead. They still even have functional support ships, unlike the empire.

Now Soontir is still Soontir, OL is still OL, but the game is a different one, not only on the meta level, but in its full scope as well. Now if the empire gets some new strong support options or tools to strengthen themselves against all the anti-ace counters …things can change even without nerfing the other two factions.

@GreenDragoon Turrets are mainly keeping Vader out of the game. The autothruster aces can deal with them, even when it can get tricky and easily overwhelming. Or better they could, the new Palpatine is not suited for last second saves, so TLT is stronger against imperial aces.

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Ironic that the success of Imperials is what drove Imperials out of the meta and leads to self-restricted imperial players to complain now.

The true irony is that imperial ace players just switched to lists like old man rau, which is basically a more fun Palp Ace list anyway. Double reposition with low damage is not as fun as single reposition with tons of damage. ;-)

I really would like to fly Soontir again, but I was so excited about Old Man Rau, that I literally started to fly Mindlink Guri as substitution until those Fangs finally arrived in September.

The reason I'm so annoyingly stubborn is because I'd really like to understand if there are other reasons that we're currently missing.

3 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

There are a range of factors, but I'd personal lay the blame for them completely dying mostly at the feet of sabine crew and Advanced SLAM, not because they necessarily do more to shut them down than the other options, but because they make them SO much less rewarding to play.

Previously, a single mistake could have a good chance of killing your ace, but a mistake would be 'clip someone's arc at range 1-2'. Now, a single mistake kills you, but a mistake can be 'exist on the board at range 1-3 in arc or anywhere in the front half of range 2 from half to all of your opponent's list'.

It's not so much (for me as a former imp aces player) the power of the things that shuts them down, it's the lack of gameplay that you get as a result of them. An ASLAM K wing doesn't just hard counter you, it stops you playing the game entirely.

I completely relate to this. It's not fun to play and shuts your list down.

But what I don't understand - you still have a small chance to win against these lists, and most lists you'll encounter are different, i.e. not Sabine-Bombers. So are there other factors, too?

5 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Just because something isn't played as much as other things doesn't mean it isn't a threat. The threat of coming up against K-Wing bombers with Imperial Aces, on top of tricks with Ghosts and other autodamage, makes the cost/benefit ratio for Imp Aces unfavorable, therefore put to the side.

I agree, but the threat is smaller than it is made out to be here on the forums. You'll hardly encounter a Sabine-Bomber, overall. So why does the possibility shut down so many lists?

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

The reason I'm so annoyingly stubborn is because I'd really like to understand if there are other reasons that we're currently missing.

I completely relate to this. It's not fun to play and shuts your list down.

But what I don't understand - you still have a small chance to win against these lists, and most lists you'll encounter are different, i.e. not Sabine-Bombers. So are there other factors, too?

If there's even a middling chance I'll run up against something that makes my list so unfun to play that I might as well concede before I even start, I'm not going to bother bringing the list.

It's getting to the point where I'm seriously considering not bothering going to big tourneys at all because of the amount of super mirandas I see - if there's a single ship that makes me want to just concede a match because it plunks down on the table opposite me, it's super miranda. If I don't think I'm going to enjoy the time, why would I bring the list and spend 10 plus hours playing. If it's a chore, I'm going to do something else.

because when you dont meet sabine bombers, you meet double stressers, which shuts you down outright the moment they can see you

and when you dont meet either sabine bombers or double stressers, you meet autoblaster turrets

and when you dont meet a rebel list, you meet a triple uboat that blocks you, renders you actionless and thus highly vulnerable

and when you finally dont meet any of those, you meet that 1 guy with a VI Darth Vader

13 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Ironic that the success of Imperials is what drove Imperials out of the meta and leads to self-restricted imperial players to complain now.

Kind of, though you have to assume that if K-Wings were going to be developed anyway that the aces would be gone regardless of the Defenders.

The question would be, if there weren't loads of bulletproof Defenders around would players have felt they had to turn to bombs to get their damage through?

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

So are there other factors, too?

Mindlink is more fun.
Palp sucks.
Ventress and Stram are no fun with Soontir either when they start to handout stress. Blackmarket slicer tools suck when they hit.
4 and 5 dice attacks are common now and super accurate on top, when token stacks start to fail on single attacks those aces lose their edge.

There is a multitude of reasons, which is the main reason why I don't believe we will got those Imperial Ace lists back anytime soon. The game changed and it is not going to change back.

Just now, thespaceinvader said:

If there's even a middling chance I'll run up against something that makes my list so unfun to play that I might as well concede before I even start, I'm not going to bother bringing the list.

It's getting to the point where I'm seriously considering not bothering going to big tourneys at all because of the amount of super mirandas I see - if there's a single ship that makes me want to just concede a match because it plunks down on the table opposite me, it's super miranda. If I don't think I'm going to enjoy the time, why would I bring the list and spend 10 plus hours playing. If it's a chore, I'm going to do something else.

or you could bring a TIE/D with tractor beam and bully the miranda outright

the imperials do have a lot of tools to harass and outright bully Kwings

Just now, Duraham said:

or you could bring a TIE/D with tractor beam and bully the miranda outright

the imperials do have a lot of tools to harass and outright bully Kwings

Unless you're out PSing Miranda with your TIE/D, she won't be in arc. I've tried it.

My best successes against Miranda have been with Ketsu/Bossk, but even then it relies on the Miranda player not kiting successfully. A kiting Miranda with bombs is probably the hardest ship in the game to pin down, for me at least.

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

The reason I'm so annoyingly stubborn is because I'd really like to understand if there are other reasons that we're currently missing.

I completely relate to this. It's not fun to play and shuts your list down.

But what I don't understand - you still have a small chance to win against these lists, and most lists you'll encounter are different, i.e. not Sabine-Bombers. So are there other factors, too?

I agree, but the threat is smaller than it is made out to be here on the forums. You'll hardly encounter a Sabine-Bomber, overall. So why does the possibility shut down so many lists?

Because of how easily a K-wing Bomber can burn down an ace. See @thespaceinvader 's example. Again, just because a counter like that isn't on every table make it any less a threat. There are plenty of other things that keep aces down (like homing missiles, autoblaster turrets, token stripping, ect), but from my experience and the experience of others, k-wing bombers with Advanced Slam and Sabine is a boogieman (or boogiewoman, in some cases) that is the biggest reason why we don't see Imp Aces around.

1 minute ago, SabineKey said:

k-wing bombers with Advanced Slam and Sabine is a boogieman

Boogieman is a false threat, so I'm not sure if you did that intentionally or not

Those "plenty" things are very interesting IMO

Just now, GreenDragoon said:

Boogieman is a false threat, so I'm not sure if you did that intentionally or not

Those "plenty" things are very interesting IMO

Fair point on the boogieman, so we'll change the comparison to going into the woods where there are wolves. There is not a guarantee that you will be attacked by the wolves, but is it worth the risk?

For your second point, how so?

I would assume because plenty of options sounds like a "healthy meta with plenty of things".
Now those things all fit on a k-wing or a jumpmaster, just to break the illusion.