16 minutes ago, skotothalamos said:

Yeah. people can't deal with Vader. Vader's so good he was instrumental to the US sweep of Coruscant.

I always run out of reactions at the worst times

Just now, Brunas said:

I always run out of reactions at the worst times

Socialism.

11 minutes ago, Brunas said:

I always run out of reactions at the worst times

Got you fam.

here's a not very representative picture of the start of a turn:

the lambda and luke aren't very interesting: 1 straight reinforce and luke does luke **** and locks or whatever:

What about Vader and Wedge? Wedge can't turn into Vader here (assuming afterburners is involved), because Vader should be doing something like a 3 turn or 3 bank. Here's some example Vader placements:

Vader has multiple options with multiple dial choices to arc dodge or block anything wedge does that isn't a kturn, without any risk of return fire. Noteworthy - has to take a damage for some of those. It might be better to just trade shots than spend a force, if Wedge/Luke are splitting fire while you get to concentrate Wedge down you're probably ahead anyways.

Which is the real strength of supernatural - Vader could probably just 1 bank here and be fine, because Luke can't catch him and knows it, so is it really worth it to even send Wedge after Vader?

Looking at your example does highlight the strength of SR Vader. Guessing that if Vader is moving first he just gets into position to block Wedge since Wedge's movement to turn into Vader is pretty predictable?

1 minute ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

Looking at your example does highlight the strength of SR Vader. Guessing that if Vader is moving first he just gets into position to block Wedge since Wedge's movement to turn into Vader is pretty predictable?

That 3bank - b-roll positioning option is nice, because you can either block a two hard, or be in position to light Wedge up if he ignores Vader. Wedge can talon roll, but it's an unmodified shot vs Vader...

Honestly, I saw the first picture @Brunas and I thought to myself - "If I'm the Rebel player here, I'm in the 'you screwed up' position and will be suffering the consequences next turn."

1 hour ago, Tlfj200 said:

And Jesper couldn't handle all of those torpedoes, and totally didn't lose because of game state errors.

Definitely not an example of Jesper dumpstering the same list in Swiss.

5 minutes ago, jagsba said:

Definitely not an example of Jesper dumpstering the same list in Swiss.

No, his honor. You're supposed to just joust the torpedoes.

1 minute ago, Chumbalaya said:

You're supposed to just joust the torpedoes.

It's like Christmas, only with more BOOM!

26 minutes ago, jagsba said:

Definitely not an example of Jesper dumpstering the same list in Swiss.

The Curse of the Swiss is real! Even if the opponent doesn't learn new tactics from it, the universe will conspire to ensure the curse sticks!

Krayts - Kinda need an episode from the drive tomorrow. I'd like a return on my Patreon pledge.

Where are my over/unders? Cmon people, I've got a fake gambling addiction to nurture here

I would like to note for the over under, that the scum percentage was incorrectly reported as "20%". It was in fact, 21% scum.

The 3 reported percentages were 20% Scum, 24% Rebel, 51% Empire.

Unless FFG shuffled the numbers more than a hollywood accountant, or 5% of those at Coruscant entered with early release copies of First Order squads, a clear math mistake has occured, as 20+24+51 is 95%.

1 minute ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

I would like to note for the over under, that the scum percentage was incorrectly reported as "20%". It was in fact, 21% scum.

The 3 reported percentages were 20% Scum, 24% Rebel, 51% Empire.

Unless FFG shuffled the numbers more than a hollywood accountant, or 5% of those at Coruscant entered with early release copies of First Order squads, a clear math mistake has occured, as 20+24+51 is 95%.

#Dontfactionmesnake.jpg?

Non-trolling. Does anyone have an explanation for why the US hasn't won one of the last 2 Worlds + this Coruscant?

I have a theory that the general standard of play in the UK is higher than in the US. As our population density is higher so the average player is likely to come across the top players more regularly, and so improve. But that isn't overly relevant to the top standard of play.

Is the top end of US play any different from European from your experience of the FFG HQ tournaments? (It doesn't look overly different to me from stream games.)

I have noticed that the top Aussie players seem really good. And i much preferred watching an Aussie Regional stream over a US System Open stream when those were overlapping at the start of this year. As the Aussie standard of play seemed so much higher.

1 minute ago, Darth Seridur said:

Non-trolling. Does anyone have an explanation for why the US hasn't won one of the last 2 Worlds + this Coruscant?

I have a theory that the general standard of play in the UK is higher than in the US. As our population density is higher so the average player is likely to come across the top players more regularly, and so improve. But that isn't overly relevant to the top standard of play.

Is the top end of US play any different from European from your experience of the FFG HQ tournaments? (It doesn't look overly different to me from stream games.)

I have noticed that the top Aussie players seem really good. And i much preferred watching an Aussie Regional stream over a US System Open stream when those were overlapping at the start of this year. As the Aussie standard of play seemed so much higher.

I would be willing to bet it's a combo of a few things. Someone traveling from Europe cares dramatically more than someone making a domestic flight, probably practices a lot more, and because of that is probably on average better at the event than the average American attendee. We (in the US) call worlds FFGcon for a reason. Also, coincidence - was the US better than Europe at XWing before when people when the US won worlds the previous 4 times? Probably not.

9 minutes ago, Darth Seridur said:

I have noticed that the top Aussie players seem really good. And i much preferred watching an Aussie Regional stream over a US System Open stream when those were overlapping at the start of this year. As the Aussie standard of play seemed so much higher.

because of the time difference you were probably watching AU top 8/16 cut matches from start of day 2 against round 6 US games from end of day 1.

that alone would drastically change the quality of play.

36 minutes ago, Brunas said:

I would be willing to bet it's a combo of a few things. Someone traveling from Europe cares dramatically more than someone making a domestic flight, probably practices a lot more, and because of that is probably on average better at the event than the average American attendee. We (in the US) call worlds FFGcon for a reason. Also, coincidence - was the US better than Europe at XWing before when people when the US won worlds the previous 4 times? Probably not.

My own personal view is that the last 2 years is too small a sample size to form a judgement.

Regarding previous years, FFG Worlds *seemed* to have been a more US centric event. Now certainly, more people seem willing to travel over. So i would argue those events from when the game was much smaller are irrelevant to the current game. Which it has seen a large population growth.

I would also argue that the average US player at Worlds is irrelevant here, since we are talking about the very end of the cut etc. So top vs top.

Regardless, just an interesting talking point. Alex Davy mentioned something about the large European events being a crucible when discussing all Euro top 4, during commentary.

Honestly, trying to analyze Coruscant for anything in depth is a massive waste of time- 'Coruscant Meta Analysis' is something best left to the glue eaters on reddit scrambling to find lists to carry them. We were 1 game away from Josh and his Disrespect/pointless Luke Gunner from making top 16 as an example. This tournament isn't representative of anything.

in short- Meme Format.

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

I would be willing to bet it's a combo of a few things. Someone traveling from Europe cares dramatically more than someone making a domestic flight, probably practices a lot more, and because of that is probably on average better at the event than the average American attendee. We (in the US) call worlds FFGcon for a reason. Also, coincidence - was the US better than Europe at XWing before when people when the US won worlds the previous 4 times? Probably not.

Also, "Save me Duncan" while rolling green dice doesn't work in Europe. So they have to fly better.

EU>NA

/thread

32 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Honestly, trying to analyze Coruscant for anything in depth is a massive waste of time- 'Coruscant Meta Analysis' is something best left to the glue eaters on reddit scrambling to find lists to carry them. We were 1 game away from Josh and his Disrespect/pointless Luke Gunner from making top 16 as an example. This tournament isn't representative of anything.

in short- Meme Format.

It was obviously a meme fest, but it was an even field where everyone started with the same limitation. If imperials had the softer ones, no one was preventing anyone to play Empire (as many have actually done)

But who cares about that, I want details on that Luke Gunner thing!

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

Someone traveling from Europe cares dramatically more than someone making a domestic flight, probably practices a lot more, and because of that is probably on average better at the event than the average American attendee. We (in the US) call worlds FFGcon for a reason.

Let's do Worlds in Europe then, so you guys would be more motivated!

Joking aside, you have a good point.

But it souds awfully close to the fox and grapes: I'm sure USA top players went to Worlds with the same (and in some cases even more) preparation than the Europeans. I remember fondly your awesome data gathering and list building process.

And while Worlds had americans of all level of skill when the europeans there were almost all top players, it's hard to say the same for an invite-only event like Coruscant

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

Also, coincidence - was the US better than Europe at XWing before when people when the US won worlds the previous 4 times? Probably not.

For the first 2 editions and probably also the 3rd USA was definitely better than Europe: the game took a while to devolp properly here, only the UK was maybe the exception

2 hours ago, Darth Seridur said:

I have noticed that the top Aussie players seem really good. And i much preferred watching an Aussie Regional stream over a US System Open stream when those were overlapping at the start of this year. As the Aussie standard of play seemed so much higher.

Obviously didn't see my streamed game at regionals lol

46 minutes ago, Sunitsa said:

We were 1 game away from Josh and his Disrespect/pointless Luke Gunner from making top 16 as an example.

Also, I don't think this can be ignored when considering why the europeans, who tried, did so well compared to the Americans

49 minutes ago, Sunitsa said:

And while Worlds had americans of all level of skill when the europeans there were almost all top players, it's hard to say the same for an invite-only event like Coruscant

I went to Worlds and I am not by any stretch a top player. I bet a decent amount of the recent non-Coruscant success is due to the different metas. At the most recent worlds, let's assume you had two pools of players. US and Everyone else. In the US pool you had players of all skill levels who generally practiced against their local or the US meta (if they even paid attention to the meta at all). The top US players, of course, probably looked at all metas. Personally, I was vaguely aware of the Euro meta, but I had no idea how to deal with it (as evidenced when I played Simeon and got flustered). In the Euro pool you were generally going to find only top players. As mentioned, the lower tier players are less likely to travel (especially with such short notice as we got this year) to fabulous Minneapolis.

I would bet that the top Euro players had better matchups against the lower tier US players because we had no idea WTF we are doing against anything that we haven't seen before. So making it through Day 1, I feel like the Euro players had a better shot at moving on to day 2. I'm curious what the break down was of the 4-2s of US vs. non-US and how that compared to the overall field.

The average skill of the US player at World's had to have been lower.

1 minute ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

The average skill of the US player at World's had to have been lower