I've heard a lot of confusion over the new OP structure in our local playgroups and on just about every podcast out there. And I agree it seems confusing (so many "hyperspaces"), but I think it's not nearly as crazy as some people are thinking. So I wanted to lay the structure out as I understand it and with all the info we know so far. If you think anything is wrong or missing here let me know and I will update.

Non competitive events (e.g. don't feed towards Worlds):
Attack run kits = (no mention of list-building restrictions) 1.0 seasonal game night kits. Stores can hold as many as they want (enough for 3 events per kit), and stores can determine the format. There is also some kind of challenge during these that would award an additional prize if you complete it. Prizes are all cards, no tokens.
Deluxe wave kits - Happen once per wave. Includes 3 types of events. There is also a "Wave Leader" based on overall results of the events at each store, including leagues or attack run kits.
- Quick Build Party: Based on the names I suspect these aren't even tournaments? Aimed at newer players I assume.
- Themed tournament: (will have list-building restrictions) e.g. Scarif tournament.
- Wave Championship: (will have list-building restrictions) Being described as equivalent to store champs, but this is obviously a bit misleading since a store could have 3-4 per year.

Open competitive events:
Hyperspace Trials/Cups: (will have list-building restrictions) Hosted by your local game stores. I am going to avoid the comparison to regionals/nationals because I think that is creating some of the confusion. Trials appear to be happening at any store that can fit 50+ people or are willing to find another venue to do that, so we should see a lot more of these than regionals. Cups will be less common, but hopefully not locked to 1 per country. Top 1 from trials and top 2 from cups get worlds invites.
System Opens: (unclear if list-building restrictions) Hosted by FFG/Cascade/someone else. Top 8 get invite to worlds. Top 1 gets invite to Coruscant. Hosted alongside Hyperspace qualifiers where any undefeated player also gets a worlds invite

Invite-only competitive events:
Worlds: (unclear if list-building restrictions) Will be an Xwing only event. A lot of talk about number of people, however with likely hundreds of trials/cups, dozens of system opens, I think we will easily be over 500 invites. How many people attend remains to be seen.
Coruscant: (likely will have list-building restrictions) Friday before Worlds at FFG. Winner gets invite and paid flight for next year's Worlds.

Some of my thoughts:
- A lot of people (including me) have been wondering why the name change. I suspect there are a few things: one is that by the nature of being a “regional championship”, regionals right now mean that if you're in a major city you have hundreds of people at these, where more remote areas have regionals of 20 people. Nationals creates problems too, for example in Canada we have had nationals in Toronto, which makes sense, but then East/West coast players have to take a 5 hour flight to get to nationals, which basically means Canadian nationals is mostly just a second Toronto regionals (and yes, we know, it was won by an American this year…) By calling them trials/cups, they avoid these challenges.
- Competition levels at “competitive events” likely goes up for some people due to wanting an invite to worlds
- Competition level at seasonal kits likely goes down due to lack of tokens as prizes
- Competition levels at wave championships likely goes down compared to store champs due to increase frequency
- Invite only worlds is interesting. I like the idea that it really is a world championship and we will truly see only the best of the best there. The recent announcement that FFG is returning to Asia will hopefully mean that it can truly be a “worlds” even (or at least as much as it can be when it’s always located in the US and people still need to pay for flights).
- Hopefully FFG have correctly forecasted the percent of worlds invitees who will attend or we could end up with either a very small or large event
- Coruscant on the same weekend as worlds is interesting. Makes it more affordable for international players than if they were two different events to travel to. It will also be a very small event and offer a free invite and flight to the next worlds, so it’s got a big upside if you participate. But it also likely means practicing for two different lists in the two biggest tournaments of the year, so we will see if people want to play in it or not.
- it appears most events will have list building restrictions (the only events that I don’t believe have mentioned list building restrictions are attack run kits, worlds and Coruscant). This is interesting, as long as they aren’t too restrictive. Hopefully they don’t create imbalance issues.

You have understood it exactly the same way I have.

What we have not had made clear yet is what ships can be used in events other than the wave kit events.

My only concern is the possibility now that there are so many OP events that people will get OP’ed out and attendance at wave-level events will be dismal.

1 minute ago, Herowannabe said:

My only concern is the possibility now that there are so many OP events that people will get OP’ed out and attendance at wave-level events will be dismal.

Agreed. However the fact that all the "competitive" events are now spread throughout the year, instead of us having a store champs season and a regionals season might help address that a bit?

1 minute ago, evcameron said:

Agreed. However the fact that all the "competitive" events are now spread throughout the year, instead of us having a store champs season and a regionals season might help address that a bit?

It might help with the Regionals Hyperspace Trials season, but each “store champs” season is now condensed into the time between wave releases. If Wave 1 to 2 is any indication, that’s only about 3 months, which is about the same timeframe that Store Champ seasons have always had. Only now as soon as one season ends the next one immediately begins.