In 2.0 are academy pilots as bad as in 1.0?

is it better to put a black with crack shot or an academy to save points?

How are your tie fighters working?

Academy Pilots were never bad. For a long time were considered the most efficient ship in the game. Only when 2 dice attacks became ineffective they became less good.

An academy is 1) a blocker, 2) efficient stat/cost ratio.

1) Blocking is really back in the game now that almost all tokens require actions (exception with Scum Han Gunner and force users). So that alone increases the value of a cheap IN 1 blocker.

2) With a lot of fewer mods, 2 attack dice are once again a threat. And the Tie is the cheapest 2 dice you can get.

Never expect an Academy to win a 1v1 fight against a Generic X-wing or Fang, as those ships cost more and are overall better. But an efficient Tie Fighter can bring A LOT to a list.

The games I’ve played, I included a pair of academies intending to just use them as blockers and distractions, they actually did a decent amount of damage and survived better than I expected. Was playing against rebels with wedge, a u-wing, and a couple generics

To echo the above, Academy Pilots were never bad. I've seen them carry plenty of games. People so often ignore them to concentrate on other targets, often to find themselves in an end game low on health facing multiple high agility foes who can alternate between (minor) damage dealer and blocker as needed.

11 hours ago, Forgottenlore said:

The games I’ve played, I included a pair of academies intending to just use them as blockers and distractions, they actually did a decent amount of damage and survived better than I expected. Was playing against rebels with wedge, a u-wing, and a couple generics

They're also nice punching bags for a Ruthless ace - manoeuvrable and expendable - which pairs well with the fact that a lot of TIE craft can't easily do anything with blank results on red dice.