2 hours ago, Biophysical said:

Duncan is a better player than I, but I found his choice of Omega Leader to be a little confusing. In a vacuum, OL is one of the very best Imperial picks, but in a high HP world, she's a little lackluster. She maybe does some work against Dengar, and maybe FSR to ignore Lowhrick and slowly wear down Biggs? Keeping the squad the same, I'm not sure what a better replacement would be, though.

2 hours ago, mdl0114 said:

Yeah for the points OL is still potent, just not a major offensive threat. I don't know what else you can fit in at that cost.

I theorize that if Duncan can't push an Empire squad to the top table in a large event, it currently cannot be done.

....please don't bring up France, remember, it's part of Europe, which is another world altogether. ?

France seems to be the outlier so far anyway, Germany was also 1 Imperial in the top 16. Haven't seen the full top 16 at NOVA so maybe a couple other Imperials snuck in and failed to reach top 4.

2 hours ago, mdl0114 said:

Yeah for the points OL is still potent, just not a major offensive threat. I don't know what else you can fit in at that cost.

X7 delta comes to mind. They're also brutal against fsr2 and give you a bunch of hp

I don't know if an x7 delta helps much against Nym/Miranda but it definitely fits, can even add in TIE mk2 for stress recovery.

7 minutes ago, mdl0114 said:

I don't know if an x7 delta helps much against Nym/Miranda but it definitely fits, can even add in TIE mk2 for stress recovery.

6 hp is harder to chew through and 3 dice focus evade means nyms often unmodded tlt probably isn't doing much damage either. You need the rest of the list to help out in that right as well.

Can we discuss Paul Heaver's plot armor?

He made some pretty major errors in his streamed games, and never paid the price! Sometimes dice bailed him out; sometimes his opponents engaged one at a time allowing Miranda to do her thing; other times his opponents flew straight into multiple bombs to wildly swing the game.

You NEED to be good and lucky to win these big events. Heaver was certainly both of those yesterday. Congrats Paul!

I took Duncan's plot armor when I defeated him. I definitely took a lot of risks that all went my way, thankfully. If you have any questions about specific things, I should be able to answer them.

1 minute ago, pheaver said:

I took Duncan's plot armor when I defeated him. I definitely took a lot of risks that all went my way, thankfully. If you have any questions about specific things, I should be able to answer them.

Congrats, first of all, on the win!

One question I had in the finals, did you forget that Tim's Miranda had a TL and Concussion missiles on your Miranda or were you going to take the shot in return for setting up that fantastic bombing run?

9 hours ago, Tbetts94 said:

Duncan just proved Vader can make it right now.

Vader is the first pilot you should be picking in most Imperial lists. KyloRac could run PS10 Quickdraw, but that's only because Quickdraw is the second best Imperial ship in this meta.

But that is the problem, the two best Imperial Ships in the meta are pretty vulnerable the old reliable Turret (especially TLT) so you need to fly so well. Your firing arc is a fraction of theirs.

-On France. You really need more data to analise it properly. For example if 25% of lists are Imperials at US events, maybe France was more in the 40% range. If you get more Imperials into a top cut they are more likely to go further.

-On Duncan's Omega Leader. People really hate OL so it's pretty easy to leverage that against people. OL is also pretty strong against the Selfless Rebels too so it's likely more about a tool for each matchup.

1 minute ago, DodgingArcs said:

Vader is the first pilot you should be picking in most Imperial lists. KyloRac could run PS10 Quickdraw, but that's only because Quickdraw is the second best Imperial ship in this meta.

But that is the problem, the two best Imperial Ships in the meta are pretty vulnerable the old reliable Turret (especially TLT) so you need to fly so well. Your firing arc is a fraction of theirs.

-On France. You really need more data to analise it properly. For example if 25% of lists are Imperials at US events, maybe France was more in the 40% range. If you get more Imperials into a top cut they are more likely to go further.

-On Duncan's Omega Leader. People really hate OL so it's pretty easy to leverage that against people. OL is also pretty strong against the Selfless Rebels too so it's likely more about a tool for each matchup.

Yep, PS11 is super strong which is why Vader is almost a must. (Nice to see Vader). If Vader could take Autothrusters he would bring Imperials on par with the current power levels.

35 minutes ago, Tbetts94 said:

Yep, PS11 is super strong which is why Vader is almost a must. (Nice to see Vader). If Vader could take Autothrusters he would bring Imperials on par with the current power levels.

That's true but in reality Vader is fine against turrets like Dengar, Rey and Han. It's all the cheap double tap turrets like TLT.

I would rather turrets were brought in line rather than anti-Turret tech was reintroduced, because then we just end up on the cycle again that led to bombinsanity and PS10 Nym.

I know I'll be pushing for a 1 Turret ship only format at our next casual tournament just to see what happens. I don't think that's the answer but it will at least be interesting to try out.

Back to the original point though. PS11 Vader is pretty necessary against PS10 Nym, but both Nym and Miranda have *all* the tools. I like the idea that you can put all the tools you need in a single list, but I don't like that 1 Ship can have all the tools.

It's fine to have an Ace Hunter, it's rubbish that they can hint Ace's in every way they need to.

Its also disappointing from the Imperial side that you can't get the tools necessary in a single list to deal with everything - though that is partially because the Empire Autothrusters ships are pretty much dead right now.

3 hours ago, pheaver said:

I took Duncan's plot armor when I defeated him. I definitely took a lot of risks that all went my way, thankfully. If you have any questions about specific things, I should be able to answer them.

it was fun to watch some of your games. the range on Nym and Mirandas bomb drops is pretty crazy. there were times when you would end up with 2 or 3 bombs on someone that looked totally out of reach to me.

then sure enough one slam or boost/br/move later....bombs are going off everywhere. was pretty impressive.

the TLTs seemed to cause just as much havoc. people would try to stay out of bomb range and just melted a little bit at a time. and miranda's regen....holy cow

sometimes it looked like you could have just put miranda on the table with any other ship(s) and you would have been fine.

6 hours ago, Crit Happens said:

Can we discuss Paul Heaver's plot armor?

He made some pretty major errors in his streamed games, and never paid the price! Sometimes dice bailed him out; sometimes his opponents engaged one at a time allowing Miranda to do her thing; other times his opponents flew straight into multiple bombs to wildly swing the game.

You NEED to be good and lucky to win these big events. Heaver was certainly both of those yesterday. Congrats Paul!

Yup, like i said, it comes down to minimizing mistakes, but the game is at least half or more RNG due to dice. Which is perfectly fine, you just have to play a lot of games if you are genuinely better that others to actually even out the RNG effects. I've had games where I positioned perfectly and rolled quad blanks on my plasma torpedos with Dengar. I've also had games where I made a huge mistake and picked the wrong maneuver and got a random blinded pilot crit to bail me out. Play a solid game with minimal mistakes on your part and you can be happy regardless of the outcome of the dice.

6 hours ago, Crit Happens said:

Can we discuss Paul Heaver's plot armor?

He made some pretty major errors in his streamed games, and never paid the price! Sometimes dice bailed him out; sometimes his opponents engaged one at a time allowing Miranda to do her thing; other times his opponents flew straight into multiple bombs to wildly swing the game.

You NEED to be good and lucky to win these big events. Heaver was certainly both of those yesterday. Congrats Paul!

pheaver is X-wing Jesus.

9 hours ago, pheaver said:

I took Duncan's plot armor when I defeated him. I definitely took a lot of risks that all went my way, thankfully. If you have any questions about specific things, I should be able to answer them.

And I put all that effort into inflating it for him too...

You're welcome

15 minutes ago, Brunas said:

And I put all that effort into inflating it for him too...

You're welcome

Dislike.

1 minute ago, Timathius said:

Dislike.

Sad reacts only

On 8/30/2017 at 1:21 PM, MrAndersson said:

So Nym is 4 for 4 at national and continental championships so far?

And with the US nationals that's now 5 for 5.

1 hour ago, MrAndersson said:

And with the US nationals that's now 5 for 5.

True, but look closely at his wingmates; he's great, best ship of the Wave, but his best buds make him really work in the OP realm and allows the squad to do s*** it really shouldn't be able too.

7 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

True, but look closely at his wingmates; he's great, best ship of the Wave, but his best buds make him really work in the OP realm and allows the squad to do s*** it really shouldn't be able too.

Yeah, Nym on his own, in any configuration, can still die very fast to focused fire (such as TLTs - 2 TLT ships can tear him apart, and his damage output isn't enough to stop them on his own). Unfortunately he gets to fly with such (un)fun things as Miranda and Dengar. Which makes it more understandable how he slipped through - on his own he's mainly going to end up being a glass cannon (With, perhaps, slightly more health than is warranted).

6 hours ago, Polaritie said:

Yeah, Nym on his own, in any configuration, can still die very fast to focused fire (such as TLTs - 2 TLT ships can tear him apart, and his damage output isn't enough to stop them on his own). Unfortunately he gets to fly with such (un)fun things as Miranda and Dengar. Which makes it more understandable how he slipped through - on his own he's mainly going to end up being a glass cannon (With, perhaps, slightly more health than is warranted).

This.

Yep......add Dengar or Miranda and it's downright laughable that the squad is tournament legal.

Sniped from the Polish Nationals thread from @Oldpara

Top32 archetypes:

1. Arkadiusz Cala (Nym Dengar)
2. Piotr Kuc (Nym Dash)
3. Lukasz Knade (Leebo Poe)
4. Mikolaj Slaski (FSR)
5. Arkadiusz Kuna (Ghost Sync turret, Biggs, Rex)
6. Mateusz Chrzanowski (FSR)
7. Bartosz Wojcicki (Dash Miranda)
8. Tomasz Pawlak (Nym Dengar)
9. Maciej Jewtuszko (Nym Corran)
10. Piotr Krzempek (Nym Dash)
11. Karol Pietrowicz (RAC Inkwizytor)
12. Lukasz Jagalski (Nora, Braylen, Pava)
13. Piotrek Nitka (Ketsu, Asajj, Inaldra Mindlink) (DROP)
14. Karol Pruszkowski (Dengar, Asajj)
15. Jakub Miotk (Vessery, Quickdraw, Inkwizytor)
16. Damian Drzystek (Nym, Fenn PTL, Sunny Ion)
17. Tomek Kejna (Nym, Miranda)
18. Riku Maenpaa (3 Defenders with crackshots)
19. Kacper Mojsym (4x Azutick +Wookiee Commandos)
20. Maciej Markiewicz (FSR)
21. Wojciech Pisarek (Nym Miranda)
22. Marcin Filanski (Nora, Lowhhrick, Pava)
23. David Hovorka (Nym Dengar)
24. Piotr Kucharski (FSR)
25. Marcin Naprawski (crack swarm 7 TIE)
26. Lukasz Poczesny (Miranda Dash)
27. Jan Swirski (Miranda, HWK TLT, Lowhhrick)
28. Adrian Gawel (Quickdraw, Kylo Upsilion) (DROP)
29. Michal Nowak (Nym Dengar)
30. Jan Kalwoda (Nym Dash)
31. Pawel Pafawag (Dash Miranda)
32. Michal Golembiowski (Vader, Quickdraw, Kestal)
33. Pawel Rojewski (Vader, Quickdraw, Inkwizytor)
34. Fabian Wandas (Dengar, Fenn, Inaldra)

Every list but the following have either Dengar (6), Lowhhrick (6), Rebel Nym (6), Scum Nym (5), Miranda (5), Biggs (4), or Quickdraw (4).

3. Lukasz Knade (Leebo Poe)

11. Karol Pietrowicz (RAC Inkwizytor)

12. Lukasz Jagalski (Nora, Braylen, Pava)

13. Piotrek Nitka (Ketsu, Asajj, Inaldra Mindlink) (DROP)

18. Riku Maenpaa (3 Defenders with crackshots)

19. Kacper Mojsym (4x Azutick +Wookiee Commandos)

25. Marcin Naprawski (crack swarm 7 TIE)

Final was Jan Swirski with Miranda, Lowhhrick, and Rebel Operative vs Pawel Pafawag(sp?) with Miranda/Dash. The game was won by Jan.

Do we have a break down of the cuts?

edit: checked @Oldpara 's break down (thanks, dude!). We have top 16 being 13 rebels and 3 Scum. Top 4 was just Rebels.

On 9/3/2017 at 4:31 PM, Sithborg said:

Well, if you want to dismiss other National tournaments, that is up to you. Frankly, you will not find much corroboration of what happens in Europe in the US. If there is one thing I have noticed in my 20 years of gaming, going back to SWCCG, Europeans are more innovative than Americans. There is far too much group think and follow the leader in the US.

I must say with these last two Nationals this weekend, I'm seeing quite a bit of corroboration between what happens in Europe and the US.