I think Kevin R. Is running an ISD/Quasar/Goz Sloan w/ defenders. At least that's what he was talking about a few weeks ago.

19 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

So word from Q is there are 20 ISDs in play for 25 players. ISDs apparently out number flotillas.

Oh please oh please oh please

30 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Oh please oh please oh please

To be clear, Q is the TO. This is as accurate of information as possible.

Yes but I hope it stays the same tomorrow.

2 hours ago, Truthiness said:

He's good, but it's not to the same level he is at X-Wing. By which I mean he's beatable, as opposed to the immortal God that he is in X-Wing.

At least the 2014-2016 Heaver was an Immortal God. His deal with the Devil seems to have since run out, over the past couple years, but no one else will probably ever be a 3-Time X-Wing World Champion.

1 hour ago, Truthiness said:

So word from Q is there are 20 ISDs in play for 25 players. ISDs apparently out number flotillas.

No doubt, there were a ton of ISDs at the North American Championship as well.

The era of Sloane is here, and we will come to hate it even more than the era of Reikaan, I suspect. Wouldn't have thought FFG could make the Squadron Game even more absurdly powerful, but then they went and made Sloane. Sloane + Avenger is by far the most powerful ship in the game now, and there's really not any way to stop it from murdering your ships. Because what Armada really needed was for the most cost-efficient dog-fighting squadrons to become more useful against ships than bombers.

6 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Yes but I hope it stays the same tomorrow.

Don't know if they will be as prevalent as today's flight, but judging by the store champs data, you should see them do well. They were by far the most successful ship class, and the most prevalent non-flotilla class. Boarding vs non-boarding ISDs has little impact on performance. Both do well.

8 minutes ago, Baltanok said:

Don't know if they will be as prevalent as today's flight, but judging by the store champs data, you should see them do well. They were by far the most successful ship class, and the most prevalent non-flotilla class. Boarding vs non-boarding ISDs has little impact on performance. Both do well.

Oh, I'm quite aware.

23 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

No doubt, there were a ton of ISDs at the North American Championship as well.

The era of Sloane is here, and we will come to hate it even more than the era of Reikaan, I suspect. Wouldn't have thought FFG could make the Squadron Game even more absurdly powerful, but then they went and made Sloane. Sloane + Avenger is by far the most powerful ship in the game now, and there's really not any way to stop it from murdering your ships. Because what Armada really needed was for the most cost-efficient dog-fighting squadrons to become more useful against ships than bombers.

Hardly. I've played against Sloane, I've beaten Sloane, and I've done it with minimal squadrons. I expected there to be a Sloane crazy period as everyone tried her out. I'm pretty sure a good chunk of those ISDs are Avenger BT anyway, not Sloane.

Aaaaand Heaver's at the top table. Wonder what he's running.

So the only thing I take from this:

.

.

.

There will be almost no ISD;s at UK Nationals in a couple of weeks.

14 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

No doubt, there were a ton of ISDs at the North American Championship as well.

The era of Sloane is here, and we will come to hate it even more than the era of Reikaan, I suspect.

I'm going to have to disagree, until we get some different results than the wave 6 store champs.

Sloane did ok, but didn't overperform. Fighters are strong, ISDs are strong, but I'm not seeing Sloane dominating yet.

7 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Hardly. I've played against Sloane, I've beaten Sloane, and I've done it with minimal squadrons. I expected there to be a Sloane crazy period as everyone tried her out. I'm pretty sure a good chunk of those ISDs are Avenger BT anyway, not Sloane.

Still think Sloane has the potential to be one of the good admirals. In the right list, with the right player she can be top tier.

Isn't this where someone claims the sky is falling and ISDs are too prevalent and need a nerf or some other opinion of that nature? 20 ISDs for 25 players is clearly too many blah blah blah

4 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Isn't this where someone claims the sky is falling and ISDs are too prevalent and need a nerf or some other opinion of that nature? 20 ISDs for 25 players is clearly too many blah blah blah

Only when one wins.

7 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Only when one wins.

They and MC80s need to win 6 of the top 8.

12 minutes ago, geek19 said:

Isn't this where someone claims the sky is falling and ISDs are too prevalent and need a nerf or some other opinion of that nature? 20 ISDs for 25 players is clearly too many blah blah blah

20 of 25 ISDs. Maybe.

20 of 25 BT Avenger. Yes, needs a nerf.

This is also day 1 and we don't know what is on those ISDs. Hard to say yet.

15 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Still think Sloane has the potential to be one of the good admirals. In the right list, with the right player she can be top tier.

I think shes spot on where she needs to be to be honest. People forget there is a counter, mostly on rebel side, Sloane needs squadron activation. YT1300 and Jan Ors can **** on All the blue swarm units by sheer impossibility to clear. She also requires ships to actually deal damage still. I think shes mabye a slightly better Sato overall, but still not anything like rieekan situation, because rieekan didnt start OP, CC and other squadron upgrades for rebels made him that way.

25 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

Hardly. I've played against Sloane, I've beaten Sloane, and I've done it with minimal squadrons. I expected there to be a Sloane crazy period as everyone tried her out. I'm pretty sure a good chunk of those ISDs are Avenger BT anyway, not Sloane.

As a Sloane convert, she's hardly unbeatable, you just need a plan and to not give the Sloane player an opening. In my experience Sloane is terrible at creating opportunities (counter intuitive as this is to the average Sloane alpha strike) and ruthless about exploiting them.

2 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

20 of 25 ISDs. Maybe.

20 of 25 BT Avenger. Yes, needs a nerf.

This is also day 1 and we don't know what is on those ISDs. Hard to say yet.

If they consistently beat everything else (what of it there is) sure. If they perform middling, I'm less convinced. Popularity and viability aren't related, and effective use is even more independent.

Are there any dual or triple ISD lists down? That would concentrate the Imperial heavy metal and mean more people brought other things.

8 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

They and MC80s need to win 6 of the top 8.

Amen. Id prefer if the better fleet moving foward had 3-5 activation at most if the game remains at 400 points. Larger ships just needs to be there, otherwise why even play this game. In a perfect world anything would be viable, but this just cant be the case, if i picked what should be meta, large ship should be the jewel and flotilla should be dead last.

1 minute ago, mintek917 said:

Amen. Id prefer if the better fleet moving foward had 3-5 activation at most if the game remains at 400 points. Larger ships just needs to be there, otherwise why even play this game.

5 is already the average and IIRC ( @Baltanok) it's falling. MSUs and other swarm fleets have no reason to leave, if the balanced meta still includes large ships, which the data supports.

Also totally missed the joke.

1 minute ago, GiledPallaeon said:

If they consistently beat everything else (what of it there is) sure. If they perform middling, I'm less convinced. Popularity and viability aren't related, and effective use is even more independent.

Are there any dual or triple ISD lists down? That would concentrate the Imperial heavy metal and mean more people brought other things.

Certainly true. But it's hard to say if they do well because of the sheer numbers. I used to run track in high school and the team was 3-4 times larger than the competition. We would win events simply because we could have people in 3rd-8th place. We didn't need 1st or 2nd because we watered down the competition. Because of that, I think we need to see what the other lists are and see where they place. If it's at the bottom, the ISD lists are over performing. Middle, than it's mostly equal. Top, and we won't be having this discussion.

It was my impression that 20 fleets had an ISD, not 20 ISDs among the fleets. Hopefully it's the latter, else we will have a stale meta.

@MoffBergerFett posted the Third Round heats.

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

Certainly true. But it's hard to say if they do well because of the sheer numbers. I used to run track in high school and the team was 3-4 times larger than the competition. We would win events simply because we could have people in 3rd-8th place. We didn't need 1st or 2nd because we watered down the competition. Because of that, I think we need to see what the other lists are and see where they place. If it's at the bottom, the ISD lists are over performing. Middle, than it's mostly equal. Top, and we won't be having this discussion.

It was my impression that 20 fleets had an ISD, not 20 ISDs among the fleets. Hopefully it's the latter, else we will have a stale meta.

I hear the concerns about dominating the meta by raw numbers. (The Imperial Navy would be proud.) For that reason, let's wait until we have more tournaments, be it Q3 tourneys, Regionals, etc. before we call it. I'm expecting another surge of ISDs around Jan to March, so the numbers problem is probably not going anywhere soon, I just don't want to jump the gun.

I for one welcome the era of Sloane as a Rebel player. So many Imps are now bringing piles of generic TIEs for me to slaughter. Nothing like killing 9 fresh TIEs in one ship activation. Still don't know how I'll cap that.

I will admit to doing my best to skew those store champ results to appear like more large base Rebel ships are taken. I brought 1, then 2, then 3 large bases to the ones I attended.