Unrelated to the next big panic... Or maybe, the second latest panic, next to a potential wave drop in a few weeks...

So, looks like all my big tournaments are done until GenCon at this point. One System Open and two Hyperspace Trials. Made cut in all of them, exited the first round of elimination in each of them. Analyzing my results, I'm coming up with this:

• Each game was winnable
• Dice may have won me one game had some key torpedoes (yes, three of them) not gone flat. I was already losing however, so had I not messed up earlier I wouldn't have needed to depend on these late game torpedoes.
• My opponents played well, but in all cases I had at least one opportunity to capitalize on and missed it
• All three games I made mistakes that my opponent punished me for
• All three games I may have got into my own head before dice were even picked up. I play better when relaxed, and I was NOT relaxed in any of these

I'm thinking the last three are likely connected and where I need to focus my attention on. If there's something I need to work on, it should be the ability to take a step back, relax, and then play my game properly. That's... easier said then done, of course.

Does anybody else find themselves in this position?

I have played with double infiltrator a bit in practice games and it's pretty silly. Dooku is crazy tanky, Maul makes you pay pretty badly for shooting him, and the torps are **** near inevitable.

I played against it at my trial with Ani/Mace/2V and I pretty much only had a chance because my opponent was new and I know what his list could do better than he did.

12 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

I'm thinking the last three are likely connected and where I need to focus my attention on. If there's something I need to work on, it should be the ability to take a step back, relax, and then play my game properly. That's... easier said then done, of course.

Does anybody else find themselves in this position?

Unironically: a beer before the tournament.

7 minutes ago, Chumbalaya said:

I have played with double infiltrator a bit in practice games and it's pretty silly. Dooku is crazy tanky, Maul makes you pay pretty badly for shooting him, and the torps are **** near inevitable.

I played against it at my trial with Ani/Mace/2V and I pretty much only had a chance because my opponent was new and I know what his list could do better than he did.

The remaining two ship lists will be hunted down and points adjusted. Any collaborators will suffer the same fate. These have been trying times, but we have passed the test.

1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

The remaining two ship lists will be hunted down and points adjusted. Any collaborators will suffer the same fate. These have been trying times, but we have passed the test.

THE INQUISITION SHALL CONTINUE TIL SHIP COUNTS IMPROVE

22 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Does anybody else find themselves in this position?

GenCon is probably the next big event for me, too, but I have a decidedly different take. I did Adepticon and a shockingly small HT. I scrubbed out of both. Analyzing my results, I'm coming up with this:

• I'm not all that great at X-Wing
• I like the game more when I care about the results less
• I'll always be a snowflake when it comes to list building
• I should probably stop doing big events

2 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

4. Braylen Stramm

This is kinda mind-blowing to me. I wasn't really aware of Braylen being played *at all* before the points adjustment, and now he's a top-5 pilot, over Wedge and Soontir. Dude came out of nowhere to shred the meta. And we know there's a lot of pre-adjustment data in there, since Whisper and Redline are still up at the top.

[can't get a "They came from... BEHIND!" gif to stick...]

2 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

This is kinda mind-blowing to me. I wasn't really aware of Braylen being played *at all* before the points adjustment, and now he's a top-5 pilot, over Wedge and Soontir. Dude came out of nowhere to shred the meta. And we know there's a lot of pre-adjustment data in there, since Whisper and Redline are still up at the top.

Double modded offense and defense is a good strategy- Who knew?

3 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

This is kinda mind-blowing to me. I wasn't really aware of Braylen being played *at all* before the points adjustment, and now he's a top-5 pilot, over Wedge and Soontir. Dude came out of nowhere to shred the meta. And we know there's a lot of pre-adjustment data in there, since Whisper and Redline are still up at the top.

"free" mods...

3 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Double modded offense and defense is a good strategy- Who knew?

When he was 50 points? Pretty much nobody.

3 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

When he was 50 points? Pretty much nobody.

Placed Top 16 at a system open pre-pts adjustment.

1 hour ago, Biophysical said:

I get this, but what if you're not straight lines up on Maul? What if you're coming from multiple angles so that you're not K-turning en-masse behind him? You've basically described a squad that opted into a direct joust, lined up.

Sure, but now we're in the territory of your opponent has agency too. Most lists are 3-4 ships - it's unreasonable for maul to not have at least two in arc if he'd like with his actionless proton torpedoes after barrel rolling at i5 with his deep double digit bid.

I'm not saying it's impossible or anything, but just reminding everyone that every time you shoot maul, put a stress tokem on your ship in your headsim and try to decide if you can avoid jousting.

12 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Placed Top 16 at a system open pre-pts adjustment.

Fair enough.

But looking at metawing from launch to adjustment, he's at #49. Dude played his way up to the top.

https://meta.listfortress.com/pilots?ranking_start=2018-09-13&ranking_end=2019-01-18&large_tournament_multiplier=true&widespread_use_multiplier=true&use_ranking_data=all&tournament_type=&format_id=&

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

When he was 50 points? Pretty much nobody.

3 points isn't major- I was looking at using him as some sort of central-board flanker a year ago. Just like I architected Parking Brake Han, I was right all along.

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

Sure, but now we're in the territory of your opponent has agency too. Most lists are 3-4 ships - it's unreasonable for maul to not have at least two in arc if he'd like with his actionless proton torpedoes after barrel rolling at i5 with his deep double digit bid.

I'm not saying it's impossible or anything, but just reminding everyone that every time you shoot maul, put a stress tokem on your ship in your headsim and try to decide if you can avoid jousting.

Im not saying you can dodge Torps, I'm saying that if you attack from a dispersed formation and converge on him instead of jousting in a close box, you can stay on target with turns and banks instead of K-turns.

1 minute ago, Biophysical said:

Im not saying you can dodge Torps, I'm saying that if you attack from a dispersed formation and converge on him instead of jousting in a close box, you can stay on target with turns and banks instead of K-turns.

Oh, sorry, my point wasn't very clear - I agree. For example, that's what happened in my game. The problem being, my one shot I got with Mace, two with each v19, and one Anakin shot into maul did a combined 5-6 damage (which isn't far out of the norm). Then it was Anakin vs the world - given unlimited time the game was probably possible, but I only had 30 minutes or so left.

28 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

3 points isn't major- I was looking at using him as some sort of central-board flanker a year ago. Just like I architected Parking Brake Han, I was right all along.

Insert sarcastic Dr. strange gif:

“congratulations, you’re a prophet “.

a wind of change blows in from the east...

3 hours ago, LagJanson said:

Unrelated to the next big panic... Or maybe, the second latest panic, next to a potential wave drop in a few weeks...

So, looks like all my big tournaments are done until GenCon at this point. One System Open and two Hyperspace Trials. Made cut in all of them, exited the first round of elimination in each of them. Analyzing my results, I'm coming up with this:

• Each game was winnable
• Dice may have won me one game had some key torpedoes (yes, three of them) not gone flat. I was already losing however, so had I not messed up earlier I wouldn't have needed to depend on these late game torpedoes.
• My opponents played well, but in all cases I had at least one opportunity to capitalize on and missed it
• All three games I made mistakes that my opponent punished me for
• All three games I may have got into my own head before dice were even picked up. I play better when relaxed, and I was NOT relaxed in any of these

I'm thinking the last three are likely connected and where I need to focus my attention on. If there's something I need to work on, it should be the ability to take a step back, relax, and then play my game properly. That's... easier said then done, of course.

Does anybody else find themselves in this position?

That describes my extended experience (except the cut part. Only made cut once and that was only in a community event). To a certain degree, it also describes Hyperspace, but I feel as if I was the beneficiary or the victim of high variance quite often in Hyperspace. In extended, I can certainly point to examples of me or my opponent overcoming garbage variance to come out the winner or swipe defeat from the jaws of high-variance victory. In Hyperspace, things snowball real quick.

-Edit-

OK, I know the Englishmen have funny swear words, but that means I can't ****** defeat from the jaws of victory anymore?

15 minutes ago, player3010587 said:

That describes my extended experience (except the cut part. Only made cut once and that was only in a community event). To a certain degree, it also describes Hyperspace, but I feel as if I was the beneficiary or the victim of high variance quite often in Hyperspace. In extended, I can certainly point to examples of me or my opponent overcoming garbage variance to come out the winner or swipe defeat from the jaws of high-variance victory. In Hyperspace, things snowball real quick.

-Edit-

OK, I know the Englishmen have funny swear words, but that means I can't ****** defeat from the jaws of victory anymore?

I'm not blaming dice variance for my losses. I blame dice variance for not allowing me to steal a game I didn't deserve back from an opponent in the last few minutes. I gave up too much damage early for little return due to bad positioning in that game.

The others, no. Bad plays.

• Put my Phantoms into the rocks vs a good player... Why'd I do that? I just got finished lecturing somebody else not to fly Phantoms near the rocks...
• Left Dutch hanging... range 3 from three different enemy ships without supporting fire from friendlies and got pasted. Down in the damage race there. Then gave him Dutch to finish off a few rounds later... lost by 15 points, so it really mattered.

32 minutes ago, player3010587 said:

OK, I know the Englishmen have funny swear words, but that means I can't ****** defeat from the jaws of victory anymore?

It isn't a swear word. Slang is blipped out too if it is vulgar or X-rated.

1 hour ago, player3010587 said:

-Edit-

OK, I know the Englishmen have funny swear words, but that means I can't ****** defeat from the jaws of victory anymore?

I really had to think hard about what word that must be. Maybe in the past, you could write an awkward sentence where you snatched defeat from the jaws of victory?

2 hours ago, PaulRuddSays said:

I really had to think hard about what word that must be. Maybe in the past, you could write an awkward sentence where you snatched defeat from the jaws of victory?

Pretty sure the past participle is "snought."

...

80% sure.

11 hours ago, LagJanson said:

Unrelated to the next big panic... Or maybe, the second latest panic, next to a potential wave drop in a few weeks...

So, looks like all my big tournaments are done until GenCon at this point. One System Open and two Hyperspace Trials. Made cut in all of them, exited the first round of elimination in each of them. Analyzing my results, I'm coming up with this:

• Each game was winnable
• Dice may have won me one game had some key torpedoes (yes, three of them) not gone flat. I was already losing however, so had I not messed up earlier I wouldn't have needed to depend on these late game torpedoes.
• My opponents played well, but in all cases I had at least one opportunity to capitalize on and missed it
• All three games I made mistakes that my opponent punished me for
• All three games I may have got into my own head before dice were even picked up. I play better when relaxed, and I was NOT relaxed in any of these

I'm thinking the last three are likely connected and where I need to focus my attention on. If there's something I need to work on, it should be the ability to take a step back, relax, and then play my game properly. That's... easier said then done, of course.

Does anybody else find themselves in this position?

The founder of this topic, who observed but did not play, made a fair observation of my play at the MI hyper trial. I don't get out to play that often, and he felt that I tend to do well because I focus so much on the basics. There is some truth to that. Slow down, make sure your playing the game by the rules and are not missing or rushing anything. At the same time don't slow play. Even if your opponent can predict what you are going to do, a lot of the time the best move is still the best move. I'm also just excited to get a few games in. Have fun, play well, and remember there are many worse things you could be doing.

15 minutes ago, Cr0aker said:

The founder of this topic, who observed but did not play, made a fair observation of my play at the MI hyper trial. I don't get out to play that often, and he felt that I tend to do well because I focus so much on the basics. There is some truth to that. Slow down, make sure your playing the game by the rules and are not missing or rushing anything. At the same time don't slow play. Even if your opponent can predict what you are going to do, a lot of the time the best move is still the best move. I'm also just excited to get a few games in. Have fun, play well, and remember there are many worse things you could be doing.

Wholesome and alarming.