Not flying meta vs handicapping yourself

By Ailowynn, in X-Wing

8 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

List?

Just load kylo to bear with sensors, ptl, title, autothrusters and tech so you can always win on points

Slap in two fcs Zeta S for 50, big bid leftover

Obviously nowhere near optimal, but SF aren't bad enough to be considered "shooting yourself in the foot" like using two unguided rocket punishers or something

1 hour ago, Erion_Fett said:

The other day, two Friends of mine were in a match. One flyed Nymranda. The other flyed Kimogila with Dalan Oberos, 4-Lom in G1A starfighter, and Viktor Hel in Khiraxz, just because he wanted to fly a stress-spam list and seem funny to him.

My friend with the stress-spam list beated Nymranda. With a very casual list.

He flyed better just because his list was more funny to him than nymranda to its adversary.

I mean no disrespect to the original poster but this sums up why I left X Wing. As a 52 year old historical wargamer who got into X Wing for fun and a bit of a change I can safely say I have never seen any of these characters in the films, have no idea who they are or what they do and would wonder if I saw them on the table would I even recognise the game as Star Wars?

I've gone back to historicals and thoroughly enjoy Armada. I don't have a bad word to say about the game or anybody who enjoys playing it as it currently is. I think it's great if people are getting fun out of it. But it's left me behind and I don't miss it. To me it was just more fun when it looked like the films.

24 minutes ago, BlodVargarna said:

List? Kylo is next on my list of ships to obsess over.

Kylo Epsilon (100)

•Kylo Ren (47) - TIE Silencer
Push The Limit (3), Advanced Sensors (3), Advanced Optics (2), •First Order Vanguard (2), Autothrusters (2)

•"Epsilon Ace" (19) - TIE/FO Fighter
Weapons Guidance (2)

Epsilon Squadron Pilot (17) - TIE/FO Fighter
Weapons Guidance (2)

Epsilon Squadron Pilot (17) - TIE/FO Fighter
Weapons Guidance (2)

1 hour ago, That Blasted Samophlange said:

Love. You can learn all the math in the 'Verse, but you take a boat in the air that you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of the worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens. Makes her a home.

????????

Brown Coats unite!

Not flying the meta does not mean flying with a handicap.

Not knowing what the meta is and how your list should fly against it, is.

2 hours ago, SpikeSpiegel said:

Would flying Soontir + Kylo only for a regional be a meme list or a handicap?

Asking for a friend.

It would be brilliant because your init bid is so high that you need against most list just to trade a ship and afterwards can run for the rest of the game and win. With a init bid that high even Soontir becomes a point fortress. :D

3 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

It would be brilliant because your init bid is so high that you need against most list just to trade a ship and afterwards can run for the rest of the game and win. With a init bid that high even Soontir becomes a point fortress. :D

I'd be able to do that for one game. But round after round of running for your life for 75 minutes. UUUUUHGGGGG. By round 3 I'd be so emotionally exhausted I'd probably land Soontir on a rock and roll a major explosion into a direct hit on turn three.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Over 3 FOs? Two zetas with fcs will easily perform more consistently and decently

Kylo Special Forces (100)

•Kylo Ren (46) - TIE Silencer
Intensity (2), Advanced Sensors (3), Advanced Optics (2), •First Order Vanguard (2), Autothrusters (2)

Zeta Specialist (27) - TIE/SF Fighter
Fire Control System (2), Special Ops Training (0), Lightweight Frame (2)

Zeta Specialist (27) - TIE/SF Fighter
Fire Control System (2), Special Ops Training (0), Lightweight Frame (2)

I'm going to add my pet peeve regarding meta flying as well.

Just because someone is flying a meta list, does NOT mean they just got it from the internet!

Some people are very good at crafting lists and sometimes 2 people can come on with the exact same list entirely on their own.

I don't know why it bugs me as much as it does but the whole paradigm of one person making a list famous and getting naming rights (usually to something unintuitive that requires flash cards to memorize list names, but that's another conversation), and everyone else is labeled a thief.

Maybe the person dismissively being labeled as a list thief actually came up with first or had been playing it just as long. Just because a list became famous due to the efforts of one player, doesn't mean that player pioneered it.

Small gripe, I admit, but I believe it's a fair one.

Edited by Sekac
2 minutes ago, Sekac said:

I'm going to add my pet peeve regarding meta flying as well.

Just because someone is flying a meta list, does NOT mean they just got it from the internet!

Some people are very good at crafting lists and sometimes 2 people can come on with the exact same list entirely on their own.

I don't know why it bugs me as much as it does but the who paradigm of one person making a list famous and getting naming rights (usually to something unintuitive that requires flash cards to memorize list names, but that's another conversation), and everyone else is labeled a thief.

Maybe the person dismissively being labeled as a list thief actually came up with first or had been playing it just as long. Just because a list became famous due to the efforts of one player, doesn't mean that player pioneered it.

Small gripe, I admit, but I believe it's a fair one.

I've definitely seen it before, more than once. With a finite number of cards, convergent ideas are guaranteed. Now add to that the fact that the number of "good" cards is an even smaller pool, and we get a lot of lists that are the same, but no sharing of info was required.

Well as I said way back in Wave 4 & 5 there are three tiers of competitive list.

  1. Tier 1 is the current tested tried and true lists. Now of course being the King of the Hill means everyone is trying to knock you off and everyone is studying for a weakness to exploit.
  2. Tier 2 is competitive lists that are not tier 1. They were built for tournaments and to win. They could be older Tier 1 lists that have long been usurped, or a new list be it well rounded or focused on a strength that just doesn't match up with the meta. Not considered competitive however this is the proving grounds for all Tier 1 lists. Even the old Whisper RAC build was able to make a come back as the only Imperial List to reach top 8 when Scum dominated worlds.
  3. Tier 3 (if it could be called that) is simply non-competitive lists. They were made to either a theme (such as all the unique Obsidian Squadron Pilots) or a gimmick (like making a 12 dice attack). All in all they were made as an experiment, to test out a certain mechanic, or just to have fun.

Each Tier could also be broken into 3 subtiers such as Top Mid and Low.

  • T1 Top Champion Lists
  • T1 Mid Top 4 lists
  • T1 Low last years T1 Top
  • Tier 2 Top old Tier 1 lists
  • Tier 2 Mid solid lists that never quite broke from the pack. They tend to have 50% or greater win rates but never consistently make the top cut.
  • Tier 2 Low Anti-T1 TOP lists (aka hate lists) they are designed to only beat a certain list and will loses to any other.

and Tier 3 is just Tier 3.

Some folks are so "everybody must fly the meta" that this one time I was running 4 rebel Y-Wings with TLT (it did pretty well tbh), and the guy I was up against mentioned how when I shot his stuff he had to add stress.

Now I had no idea what he was on about, called my list Stressbot, a name I'd heard but didn't understand. So I figured he knew some rule that I didn't. So I was like, "Uh, sure. Alright." because I genuinely had no clue.

I don't know if I won that one, but one way or another, I ended up with an advantage I definitely shouldn't have had, because there was nothing in my list that should have given him stress... But he was so convinced that nobody could fly anything but the meta that in his mind, that was what he was playing against.

I hardly had the experience to tell him otherwise. I don't even have 20 games under my belt, sadly.