53 minutes ago, SirCormac said:

I wouldn't want to limit list-building too much (someone might want to play Pure Sabaac and Backstabber, let them!) But I am worried about things like:

1. 8 Academy Ties

2. 6 Black Cracks

...

6. 3 Crack x7 Glaives

Crackshot is on the ban list.

44 minutes ago, SirCormac said:

Just to reiterate my point, Jess Pava, Captain Rex, Lowrrick, and Ezra in the Sheathipede is a really, really strong list right now. They are all Ps 3-5. Also, weaker pilots (like Duchess and Talonbane) are Ps 8 and 9. You need to spell out which pilots you want to ban. I really think you need a list (doesn't need to be huge) that bans pilots across the board (PS-wise). BTW, Kanan-Lowrick is another very, very strong meta list. Both are PS 5.

I agree that some mid PS guys are good, but I don't think they would break it like a meta list would break it. Yes, there are some high PS guys that get cut that aren't that OP, but they are sacrificed on the altar of simplicity.

6 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I agree that some mid PS guys are good, but I don't think they would break it like a meta list would break it. Yes, there are some high PS guys that get cut that aren't that OP, but they are sacrificed on the altar of simplicity.

Both lists I just listed are meta lists. Not every meta list has Ps 8+. Dash-Norra are both PS 7, and even without PTL, could be quite formidable in your format. I think if you really want middling pilots to have a shot, you need to ban the top-tier pilots (which is not the same as PS). It could be very simple. Just a list of 20 pilots that are off-limits. Leave it at that. Simple, but effective.

Hey, HeyChadwick! Just a thought, what if you just banned all the top 50 pilots on here:

http://meta-wing.com/pilots?

And the top 50 upgrades on here, skipping titles:

http://meta-wing.com/upgrades?

I think that might be a good non-controversial way to institute a ban list.

So I looked at Meta-Wing to see what your PS 8+ would do, and to be fair to you, it kills 10 our of 10 of the current meta, which is pretty funny. Who knows? Maybe it will work!

2 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

Hey, HeyChadwick! Just a thought, what if you just banned all the top 50 pilots on here:

http://meta-wing.com/pilots?

And the top 50 upgrades on here, skipping titles:

http://meta-wing.com/upgrades?

I think that might be a good non-controversial way to institute a ban list.

I really like the idea with the 50 pilots. The upgrades might be a little harsh (the other pilots still need to upgrade stuff), but I agree with the pilot one

Limited formats are tricky since it's hard to keep the banned list effective at keeping out things you don't want while not being too cumbersome when squad building. You also end up on a slippery slope where you're just drawing an arbitrary line at what is the most powerful card you want to allow and of course each player has a different perception of whether you did that right.

That said, it's definitely something I've thought about and the answer I ended up with that I still want to try is just two rules:

1) Each ship can only equip a maximum of 2 upgrade cards
2) Neither of these upgrades may be an Elite upgrade

The goal is to kill "combo wing" and "ace wing" by severely limiting card synergies and devaluing aces by reducing the action economy advantage they enjoy, while keeping squad building straightforward due to easy to remember restrictions. But again, that's the game I want to play and not necessarily the one anybody else does

15 hours ago, SirCormac said:

Both lists I just listed are meta lists. Not every meta list has Ps 8+. Dash-Norra are both PS 7, and even without PTL, could be quite formidable in your format. I think if you really want middling pilots to have a shot, you need to ban the top-tier pilots (which is not the same as PS). It could be very simple. Just a list of 20 pilots that are off-limits. Leave it at that. Simple, but effective.

Both these lists are meta lists, but they are also effective vs. Other meta. So, take Kannan / Lorrhick. Would they be as tough vs. a mini swarm list that had firepower and blockers? This list works against lists with fewer ships, but more numerous ones can make it struggle. It will be a different kind of meta and what people bring could cause current good lists a headache. I see it when I play my lusts against meta gamers. Against certain lists, I destroy them. Meta is odd balance game.

Different story with the first list. I agree. At some point, though, you have to say Good Enough. You can't block everything. You put it out there and say it's a B-team tournament. Someone can surely come in with something that sneaks in, but you just live with it. No big prizes for first place. What's the point? One guy wins with crazy list. Did most bring fun lists and have a good time? It's a success.

Someone suggested banning Auto Thrusters. What do people think? Only effective at R3 or out of arc. No TLTs or super aces. I think it would be fine, but @Cubanboy thinks its too much. I'm open to discussion.

15 hours ago, Kieransi said:

Hey, HeyChadwick! Just a thought, what if you just banned all the top 50 pilots on here:

http://meta-wing.com/pilots?

And the top 50 upgrades on here, skipping titles:

http://meta-wing.com/upgrades?

I think that might be a good non-controversial way to institute a ban list.

So, I looked at the list of top 50, but there are some pilots that aren't bad. Ban Inaldra? Ban Gold Squadron Y-wing? Allow Soontir Fel? No thanks. I just want to kill the high PS and OP pilots. Just knocking off PS7+ is better.

what ships if any would be banned? Or would you just allow the ships and ban certain upgrades, titles, etc? Likening the idea maybe this year I can actually get to play.

Here's the thing @heychadwick - Everybody is going to have their own ideas of what to ban/limit to create a b-team/anti-meta tournament. Getting agreement on such a setup is VERY difficult to do and the bigger the group the less agreement you'll have, particularly without set guidelines.

From experience, there are many ways to get this to work. It's easiest to build off of something somebody else has already proven successful. I'd suggest taking a peek around at other anti-meta styled tournaments for one that you like as a starting place. PTL (Prototype Toronto League) would be a good starting point. These guys are constantly experimenting with different formats to mix things up, and they've got a very competitive lot of players working on things to keep it functioning in a balanced form.

There are also many smaller events run, some of which have been noted already in this thread. Have you heard of or seen something already done at all?

For flavor... how about 1 unique no doubles? You could have one pilot with a great skill, and other than that one pilot, you can't have any other uniques or doubles in your list. You can still get a small amount of flavor (and a pretty neat Poe/Soontir/Kylo, but poe and kylo couldn't have their respective titles as the pilot already fulfilled the "one unique"). So Soontir might still be a problem, he could add a gunboat, and a defender. Is that the strongest list in this format? You wouldn't have swarms because of no duplicates. You could have a TIE swarm, but howlrunner + generics isn't really all that great. You couldn't put R2D2 on any named pilot. I guess you could have a neat Nym but no havoc title. You could trick out Miranda, but her support would be severely limited. 1 unique would solve a lot of the problems with the no uniques no doubles format I think (where high PS imperials are pretty king in our tourneys)

Edit: looking through Meta-Wing, it hits at least the top 20 squads with a nerf of some sort. 3BDQ? 1Nu, QD, and two other non named ships, sure! Most of the lists have more than 1 unique or spam generics.

22 minutes ago, Ghostrider58 said:

what ships if any would be banned? Or would you just allow the ships and ban certain upgrades, titles, etc? Likening the idea maybe this year I can actually get to play.

No ships banned, even if I hate the Tie Phantom. Just pilots and a few upgrades. Keep it simple and straight forward:

- pilots over PS 7

- all TLTs

- all Harpoon Missiles

- all Push The Limit

- Advanced Cloaking Device

- Captured Tie

- Vet Instinct and Adaptability

- No Deadeye

- No Crackshot

Quote

Yes, I get that many hard core tournament types would hate it

What makes you say that? A B-Team tournament is just a tournament with a different card pool.

The first question you've got to answer is what sort of lists do you want to see or not want to see? The second question is how to make what you want optimal and what you don't want suboptimal.

9 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Here's the thing @heychadwick - Everybody is going to have their own ideas of what to ban/limit to create a b-team/anti-meta tournament.

Yep. I'm not looking for broad consensus! I don't really need anything fancy or for people to agree.

I posted here to brew ideas. I think I got what i want, but open to other arguments for the details (like AT).

I'm looking at throwing together something fun for GenCon. I won't even be running it at that slot as I'll be doing Trench Run then. 20-24 slots open. Don't like it? Don't play. Like it? Play. Not sure on prize support, but prefer to spread it around than heap on the winner. Not our main event. We just had open tables run at this slot and it sounded too boring. Throw this in for fun instead. Doesn't need to be revolutuonary, perdect, or replicable. Just fun.

4 minutes ago, Firespray-32 said:

What makes you say that? A B-Team tournament is just a tournament with a different card pool.

The first question you've got to answer is what sort of lists do you want to see or not want to see? The second question is how to make what you want optimal and what you don't want suboptimal.

Agreed! Tournament types might have just been knocked out if the big FFG event and want to try something fun. No stress. No BS combo that just kicked your butt. Oddball gameplay.

Just doing a 20-24 person event for the heck if it. People like it? Do it again! No one shows? No Big deal! Don't do it again!

23 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I'm looking at throwing together something fun for GenCon. I won't even be running it at that slot as I'll be doing Trench Run then. 20-24 slots open. Don't like it? Don't play. Like it? Play. Not sure on prize support, but prefer to spread it around than heap on the winner. Not our main event. We just had open tables run at this slot and it sounded too boring. Throw this in for fun instead. Doesn't need to be revolutuonary, perdect, or replicable. Just fun.

It's a fun idea. Wishing you guys good luck at it. Too early to tell whether I'll be pushing spaceships at the table for that one, but I'll likely try to take a peek to see what's going on if I can.

40 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

No ships banned, even if I hate the Tie Phantom. Just pilots and a few upgrades. Keep it simple and straight forward:

- pilots over PS 7

- all TLTs

- all Harpoon Missiles

- all Push The Limit

- Advanced Cloaking Device

- Captured Tie

- Vet Instinct and Adaptability

- No Deadeye

- No Crackshot

What about Bomblet Generator, Sabine, and Cad Bane? R2D2?

35 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

What about Bomblet Generator, Sabine, and Cad Bane? R2D2?

I'm fine with Bomblet Generator as Nym is banned.

Sabine? That's a good one, actually. I might add her. Make bombs even across all teams.

Cad Bane? Hmmmm.....Not sure. Would love some feedback.

R2-D2? I'm fine. No real crazy ship that can abuse him. Expensive. No Corran Horn to abuse it.

We ran a tournament a couple years ago in this vein, "No Heroes at the Helm."

The format was pretty simple (though it was several waves ago, pre-JM5K): No Unique pilots allowed.

After having done that one, I came up with a pair to complement it. Haven't actually run any of these yet, just sitting in my text file of X-Wing tournament ideas).

"Heroes not Zeroes": All Pilots must be Unique and have an EPT (EPT must be equipped).

"Best of the Rest": All Pilots must be Unique and cannot have an EPT slot (No A-Wing Test Pilot)

There's probably room in there for another, "All pilots must have an EPT slot but cannot equip an EPT." (A-Wing Test Pilot allowed) Maybe call it "Natural Talent" or something.

Probably plenty of room for other variations as well.

23 minutes ago, Eisai said:

"Best of the Rest": All Pilots must be Unique and cannot have an EPT slot (No A-Wing Test Pilot)

This seems like a very interesting idea, actually.

I've got one more idea that might be good, and might be bad.

An "Attrition" styled tournament.

If you bring a unique pilot or upgrade to the table, and it is destroyed, you can't use that for the rest of the tournament. Fleeing the battlefeild preserves the ship for a later, at the health it was at when it fled. Spent munitions are gone unless the player "goes up" in point cost for half that upgrade's cost (for determining initiative order only.)

Dead pilots (including unique pilots) could be replaced 2 matches later with one non-unique in the same ship and same non-unique upgrade loadout of a lower pilot skill.

6 hours ago, heychadwick said:

I'm fine with Bomblet Generator as Nym is banned.

Sabine? That's a good one, actually. I might add her. Make bombs even across all teams.

Cad Bane? Hmmmm.....Not sure. Would love some feedback.

R2-D2? I'm fine. No real crazy ship that can abuse him. Expensive. No Corran Horn to abuse it.

No Sabine.

Cad Bane is a lot less problematic, as he

-works only on dice bombs

-does not even garantee damage

So he basically is a bomb loadout in the crew slot, costs 2 pts instead of zero, and has a slight buff in form of reroll to dice bombs.

Only problem could be bomblet generator (but bomblet Quadjumper is hilarious fun (and Zuvio is not allowed)).

On ‎1‎/‎25‎/‎2018 at 9:21 AM, heychadwick said:

No ships banned, even if I hate the Tie Phantom. Just pilots and a few upgrades. Keep it simple and straight forward:

- pilots over PS 7

- all TLTs

- all Harpoon Missiles

- all Push The Limit

- Advanced Cloaking Device

- Captured Tie

- Vet Instinct and Adaptability

- No Deadeye

- No Crackshot

Ok so how many ships are we talking here? One, two three, or are you thinking a straight 100pt. limit?

Easiest way that I can think of, which has been echoed on early responses, is that you "ban" pilots based on the ships. Basicly, what are the pilots we have seen on each platform over and over again? So, for example;

Y-wing: gold squad pilot banned

X-wing: Biggs and Wedge

J5k; all of them

Tie Phantom: whisper and echo

So on and so on.

EPTs? That is case by case, but definitely no VI, TLT, Deadeye........

9 hours ago, Ghostrider58 said:

Ok so how many ships are we talking here? One, two three, or are you thinking a straight 100pt. limit?

100 pts