2 minutes ago, jwilliamson12 said:

RAC-Inquisitor is a good counter. Especially with new players. It'll split their focus. If they try too hard to land punches on Inquisitor, RAC will tear it to shreds. You can always ISYTDS Blinded Pilot Fenn to prevent the PS11 coordinate.

That all being said, @Jeff Wilder is on the money with his thoughts.

Every list I've put together this week, I've had to think, "will this survive a 4-round Ghost TLT attack?" And the answer is almost always no.

What exactly is RAC-Inquisitor?

3 minutes ago, Pooleman said:

What exactly is RAC-Inquisitor?

Rear admiral Chinereau with Vi, Engine upgrade, Kylo, Palp, (occasionally title)

Inquisitor with PTL, Autothrusters, Title

there can be other upgrades in there but that's the core of the build.

14 minutes ago, T70 Driver said:

This list just won the Mt. View California regional, going 8-1 and beating a Fenn/Ghost list in the finals.

... With 1 HP remaining, when the Ghost player intentionally bumped, forgetting he had two Stunned Pilots.

Sam's a great player, but Trip-Defenders is not the answer to Mauler Ghost. Go plug the numbers into a good X-Wing calculator, and you'll see why.

7 minutes ago, Quadjumper King said:

Rear admiral Chinereau with Vi, Engine upgrade, Kylo, Palp, (occasionally title)

Inquisitor with PTL, Autothrusters, Title

there can be other upgrades in there but that's the core of the build.

Thank you. I fly mostly rebels only

5 minutes ago, Pooleman said:

Thank you. I fly mostly rebels only

Then take the rebel variant, Han/Jake. (Or it’s newer incarnation, Rey/Poe).

For me, the problem with the Ghost is that it's a very strong generalist. Any given general function--attack, defense, mobility, utility--it does better than most of the other ships in the game. It's not truly the very best at anything, but it's above average to good at everything and its only well-defined weakness can be easily mitigated. The Ghost/Fenn list has many favorable matchups and few unfavorable ones.

I think it's strong, probably a bit stronger than a jack-of-all-trades has a right to be, but I don't think it's egregiously OP. It's just unfun to play against/watch because its only really bad matchups are lists that have been specifically designed to beat it.

27 minutes ago, Pooleman said:

What exactly is RAC-Inquisitor?

Something like this:

Just now, jwilliamson12 said:

Something like this:

Thank you sir.

1 minute ago, Pooleman said:

Thank you sir.

I believe this won the North Dakota regional. Radio TCX interviewed the guy who flew it. His list may have been slightly different than this. I’d have to check List Juggler.

1 hour ago, Icelom said:

its really not that bad... Its a good list but its very beatable.

besides if you nerf this list you will be back next week complaining about the next list you lost to demanding it be nerfed. They cant nerf everything.

My complaints are specific and have been proven correct over time. My gripes have been aimed toward Jumpmasters (3 nerfs), Palpatine (1 nerf), TLTs and harpoons. So yeah, I’m throwing my toys out of the pram tonight, but I’m happy with my track record. Thanks.

My main beef is it invalidates pretty much every list I’ve taken to tournaments since I’ve started playing this game. I want to fly what I love, not shelf them to tech against this monstrosity.

I’m sure in a day or two I’ll have calmed down and thought of a rational game plan using the tools I want to use. I hope so, anyway, because otherwise I’m just going to have to hope I don’t face it (fat chance!)

1 hour ago, Icelom said:

I've played it twice. both times flown by a newish player. found it fun and not toohard to beat. won both games. But my opponent is determined to beat me with it. So we'll see. Once you take care of the ghost or the shuttle, the rest folds pretty easy. At least that's the way it seams in the whole two games I've played, lol.

7 minutes ago, PanchoX1 said:

I've played it twice. both times flown by a newish player. found it fun and not toohard to beat. won both games. But my opponent is determined to beat me with it. So we'll see. Once you take care of the ghost or the shuttle, the rest folds pretty easy. At least that's the way it seams in the whole two games I've played, lol.

Considering there are two ships in the list, killing one of them is a good start.

1 hour ago, Jeff Wilder said:

said

41 minutes ago, Pooleman said:

What exactly is RAC-Inquisitor?

Rear Admiral Cherinou(decimator pilot) with Palp and the Inquisitor (tie adv. prototype).

decent high PS ace/palp carrier list

The ps 11 boost coupled with the whole docked ghost and ezra maul tlt shenanigans is utter trash bs. But nerf away just one of those parts (like with genius, proton, TS) and it should be bearable balanced yum yums.

The Ghost is one of the few ships I've never bought, and for the same reason I never bought a Decimator and fell out of love with flying Rebels... attrition is boring.

Seriously, soaking each shot that comes your way in a high health damage sponge is dull. I'd rather avoid shots through maneuvers, or at least roll green dice.

The only thing I find to be more boring than the Ghost are TLTs.

1 hour ago, Jeff Wilder said:

You don't need Expertise, specifically, but you really need something with passive mods enough to, at the very least, take Fenn off the table.

Please could people stop responding with "it's not unbeatable." Pretty much nobody is saying it's "unbeatable."

It is oppressive. But, more problematic, it's oppressive in a very specific way that isn't very good for the game.

(1) It's a tremendous points fortress. The Mauler version is typically 73 points locked up in a single ship ... except it's even worse, because if you "half-kill" the Ghost, you don't get 36 points ... you get 27 points.

(2) It suppresses every ship with 5 or few HP and no Autothrusters. (It actually even suppresses ships with Autothrusters, but less so.) That is a lot of ships, and it's a lot of iconic ships.

(3) It discounts the benefits of good maneuvering, because the best maneuvers by arced ships can simply be erased by perfect information boosts at PS 11.

(4) It forces ships to rely on passive modifications, which are, themselves, bad for the best foundational game of X-Wing, which is "Plan, maneuver, take an action, shoot."

(5) It's simply not very fun to play against. Obviously this is subjective, and I have no doubt there's some special snowflake who instinctively has already started typing, "I like to play against it!" But I would be willing to bet that if we polled all active tournament X-Wing players, 90%+ would say, "No, I don't enjoy playing against it., even when I win" Including people who actually play it!

Don't get me wrong, it's a genius list, and it deserved to win a System Open based on that. It does not deserve to keep winning; not with all the negative effects on the game required to beat it.

Like most problem lists, there's not one factor to blame. It's a toxic cocktail. I think if you really want to target just this archetype, then the "end of round" turret shot should have to be performed by a turret on the docked ship. But that ignores so many other problematic aspects of the list ... and all of them are just going to come up again.

I agree with you.

As I said in some other discussion, I think the biggest culprits are the Ezra+Maul combo and Fenn Rau ability to suppress token spendings.

Actionless modifiers, when they don't require setup or lack a proper downside, are just bad for the game. We are seeing it now with the Ezra, Maul we have seen it in the past with Palpatine, x7, unhinged k4, Han Solo and others.

Without having to take TL or focus to heavily modify its attacks, the Ghost can just evade or boost every turn and win the vast majority of attrition war.

Fenn forces most other lists to shoot on him first, due to his ability, Hotshot and Sensor Jammer on the ghost and Fenn, at least against most lists, is actually more durable than how Biggs used to be: he can't be bypassed by ordnance, has a pseudo arcdodging potential and force your opponent to rely on luck to take him down.

Those 2 factors, coupled with the fact the Ghost is one of the best point fortress still in the game thanks to shuttle, makes facing the current iteraction of Ghost Fenn painfull to face.

I'm not sure that we need to have a nerf yet: after all it's not much time that list is around, I would rather wait a bit and see if something would emerge to punish it, but if it has to be a nerf imo it should be aimed to:

-Fenn Rau ability: the game doesn't need Biggs 2.0, especially when, other than the Ghost, you can play him with Lowrick and Rex. I don't have a solution thought, maybe make him apply a condition that resolves in the next turn?

-Maul: make him remove the stress after the end of the combat phase. It's not optimal since it would only work on the TLT double tap and won't solve the fact that Maul+Ezra is a broken combo thought

-Make the Phantom cost 0 and trasfer its cost to the Ghost

11 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Considering there are two ships in the list, killing one of them is a good start.

Well technically there are three, but who's counting?

Maul and Ezra only work so stinking well because of the TLT. Very few targets are going to dodge both TLT shots so you are almost certain to lose your stress. I don't think we'd be up in arms about Maul and Ezra with an ion turret.

2 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Maul and Ezra only work so stinking well because of the TLT. Very few targets are going to dodge both TLT shots so you are almost certain to lose your stress. I don't think we'd be up in arms about Maul and Ezra with an ion turret.

Well, only when you throw in the PS11 coordinate boost to control range...

9 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Maul and Ezra only work so stinking well because of the TLT. Very few targets are going to dodge both TLT shots so you are almost certain to lose your stress. I don't think we'd be up in arms about Maul and Ezra with an ion turret.

This. The Maul/Ezra combo was clearly designed to work together and is very thematic. It in and of itself is not a problem. It's only when paired with the TLT/Ghost combo that lets you use Maul twice and Ezra 4 times in the same turn that it goes off the rails. TLT's biggest problem is not TLT itself, for 6 points it's really good and at the top of the power curve but probably OK. Rather the issue is the way the double shooting mechanic combos with other cards that were designed and costed around a standard primary weapon shot.

It's true that Maul+Ezra is basically a 2 point upgrade when you divide its 6 points across 4 attacks, Maul triggering on half of them.

It should be said though that last week everyone and their mom was complaining about Veteran Instincts, and Sensor Jammer is now forcing aces to bring Expertise instead. So you can thank Ghost/Fenn for killing the PS race at least.

The ghost itself has been around for about 2 years. It’s only now considered op because of a specific build and it was previously overshadowed. As others have said; the meta is like a hydra. Cut one head off and another will bite you.

I'm really increasingly convinced the Sheathipede expansion was simply poorly planned out, in ways similar to the mistakes made with Captain Nym - handing a high-PS pilot an EPT must involve working out what that means with their action bar, special ability, and playstyle.

Seriously: Should co-ordinate have been so easy to achieve at PS 11? Or a pre-repositional bombing run at PS 10? Should they have been on pilots whose special abilities explicitly encouraged such shenanigans, and more besides? Fenn with an arc-hunting - aka 'high PS is really helpful' - debuff, Nym explicitly built to ram with his own bombs...

I get that Fenn Rau was already explicitly a PS 9 + EPT pilot, but why they didn't make him some kind of pocket ace instead of an arc-hunting debuff monster is beyond me.

Nerf cards!

Nerf dice!

Nerf factions!

Let's just sit across each other and talk about how cool these ships look!

Wait, a blaster snapped off my X-wing!

Nerf models!