So here we are, a little over a month into our brave new world of points changes and a Hyperspace variant that is the best representation of the intent of the format thus far.

What have we learned in the last few weeks (besides the importance of knowing how struts, probe droids and discord missiles work)?

1) Less Means More

Without the litany of potentially confounding card combinations and neurotic addiction to widely available I6 Ace crutches, players are having to become more resourceful in their choices of maneuvers and upgrades. There are less bids, and more ships on the board. Newer players are showing more comfort in learning the game through Hyperspace in both OP and local scenes, and getting more reps in flying their ships. More ships and accessories are getting purchased as well, as evidenced by the hilariously fun debut of the Fireball and the Hotshots and Aces pack, with 12 of the 16 pilots and most of the upgrades folding quite neatly into the format.

2) What's Old Is New Again

As prominently maligned as Boba and CIS Swarms both are currently, consider that having both in Hyperspace in the initial meta are what allows everything else to have a chance if flown well. Remove one archetype, and Hyperspace is undoubtedly worse for it. We have 2 ship and 8 ship lists both viable right now. The olden days of fat non-small base ships and 7+ Swarms can both be enjoyed. That's a helluva thing to get right from a design standpoint, and it encourages player development on how to engage both types of builds. These are crucial skills to learn as a newcomer and relearn as a veteran, ultimately good for the health of the game as a whole.

3) We've Only Just Begun

There are Hyperspace puzzle pieces available to all that are dangling in space for exploration for those that dare to experiment; Outmaneuver and Intimidate providing denial of those precious defense dice that Boba gets to reroll, or the swarms get to calculate mod. Snap Shot and Foresight , which can deplete force charges or damage defenders prematurely when 50% probability hits are scored. Daredevil and Coaxium Hyperfuel , which encourage risk taking in order to gain more favorable positions both offensively and defensively. Secondary Weapons like Plasma Torpedoes and Mag-Pulse Missiles become potentially tremendous equalizers for both alpha strike lists and spam generics, against 1-2 agility defenders and "shoot last" aces. Supposed current meta staples will have a harder time against the future varieties once such counters are crafted by capable players.

4) Choices Matter More In A Vacuum

Bringing the three smallest asteroids and placing the opponent's preferred obstacles out of play is a valid strategy now more than ever before. Unconventionally angling one's ships during placement can yield new approach vectors in practicing how to avoid the full brunt of a joust. And strangely enough, many more games are going to time less or achieving a definitive conclusion within that time more often. Every round is a scramble for an edge---one that was a bit easier to attain in Extended, but now must be earned just a little bit more.

5) There Is Balance In The Force

At the recent UK and Texas System Opens, 5 of the game's 7 factions made the top 10. 6 of 7 made top 10 at the 69 player Sith Taker HS Side Event, as well as the 35+ players events in France and Western AUS. EVERY faction made the top 10 at the 40 player Brisbane Hyperspace Trial. Over half of the game's factions have won major events, with all placing in the top 4 somewhere along the way. More than ever, it's become about skilled flying than OP certain faction creep.

6) Excitement Is In The Air

Perhaps more so than anytime except for the the debut of 2.0 or the inclusion of prequel ships in Wave 3, there is newfound energy and momentum being gained in Hyperspace events amongst player bases. Seasoned players indulge their inner Johnny and try to decode new synergies. New players are discovering their dormant Spike through an easier entry into competitive formats. And everyone gets to be a bit more Timmy when they make it all come together, and meet more people socially while enjoying their occasional magical 200-0 game where their pew pew sorcery happens.

WHAT'S AHEAD?

Nothing but potential---After a lackluster start, The Vonreg's TIE scientists are still hard at work determinedly trying to chip away at its tactical offerings. Multiple Deadman's Switch Fireballs promise utterly chaotic mischief for those delicate low HP droids and high HP power pieces. The M3-A, a ship long dismissed competitively, continues to gain credibility due to it's hardpoint and pilot abilities. Jumpmasters are appearing in the wild, proving to be more challenging than anticipated and there are no riots. Fragile precision chassis like the Fang, Nantex, Aethersprite and TIE Striker offer future rewards to the exacting player. And wave 7 will certainly shake things up even more as the prequel factions ships most likely get added into Hyperspace to bolster their ship count. With Store Championships now in full swing, it now lies upon each of us to continue to cultivate our local scenes and Keep. Bringing. New. Players. In.

And Hyperspace does that easier than anything else currently in the game.

Fly on, and cheers to those of you rediscovering your love of the game through this format.

PEACE OUT

Thoughtful analysis, thank you. I am sure many will argue over the specifics, but the effort to give players a view into what's happening with the meta is much appreciated. You've highlighted some excellent points.

Feels like you are just seeing what you want to see. Must be nice.

The new hyperspace was a good idea in concept, but I'm already looking forward to the next culling in June.

22 hours ago, MegaSilver said:

Cool video. I bet she uses only Advanced Sensors on Guri.

Agree with all of the above.

Now let's take these lessons with us into extended . The recent points upset means that many of these observations (though not all) will still apply with nearly equal weight. 2-ship aces and 8-ship swarms will still be gatekeepers and you'll need a plan against both. But for the first time, I feel more or less confident that any particular ship count in almost any faction could do quite well (though I don't see 2-ship Resistance or FO yet; time will tell).

I particularly think that the devs' idea here was to tell us "you must un-learn what you have learned." The conventional wisdom that has always weighed in heavily no longer has such bearing. Howlrunner isn't a must to get mileage out of your TIE/lns. Talents other than Crack Shot can be worthwhile. Rebels can win without Wedge. Falcons do pull their weight. Generics can kill aces reliably when flown well. These observations are no less true in Extended than they have been proven in Hyperspace.

Sure Extended leaves all the easy choices on the table, unlike Hyperspace. But like Hyperspace, there remain many more hard choices to make that you can leverage through skill rather than merely pushing mathematical odds as far as you can. And also unlike Hyperspace, there are more such items sitting just in the place where their effectiveness remains to be proven and may turn out to be truly extraordinary.

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

The conventional wisdom that has always weighed in heavily no longer has such bearing. Howlrunner isn't a must to get mileage out of your TIE/lns. Talents other than Crack Shot can be worthwhile. Rebels can win without Wedge. Falcons do pull their weight. Generics can kill aces reliably when flown well. These observations are no less true in Extended than they have been proven in Hyperspace.

Sure Extended leaves all the easy choices on the table, unlike Hyperspace. But like Hyperspace, there remain many more hard choices to make that you can leverage through skill rather than merely pushing mathematical odds as far as you can

If the easy options are on the table, why would you not take them? Sure, you can leverage your skill to do well without them, but if you leverage your skill and bring the power cards you're going to do better - especially because everyone else is bringing the most powerful lists they can.

(If you're not playing/testing a tournament list, this doesn't matter of course. I Love playing suboptimal whacky lists for fun).

1 hour ago, ClassicalMoser said:

And also unlike Hyperspace, there are more such items sitting just in the place where their effectiveness remains to be proven and may turn out to be truly extraordinary.

I agree with this. The depths of extended haven't been fully plumbed, and there is still room to find more interesting lists out there.

I thoroughly enjoy what people are learning from HS lists. Watching them become very powerful has been a joy, even if I like Extended.

The balance team for 2.0 really has its head on straight, its working really beautifully right now, each step is getting better. Now its just a bunch of pilots that are way overcosted, the generic balancing is quite good. (This was the premise of my audacious balance concept, balance the generics first as a benchmark for valuing, do the named pilots next, and then finally upgrades. Make nerfs/buffs as needed)

I'm thoroughly happy with how they agreed with me that most generics needed a decrease, a whole bunch of generics are now an exceptional joy to fly.

Hyperspace format isn't necessarily better than extended for new players. Consider that new players have fewer options available to them to begin with, so when some of those options get removed, it can hit them harder. for instance, my first list is a Nantex list. With "ensnare" now being so expensive and no longer hyperspace legal, I can field a 200 point extended Nantex list, but I'm 1 or 2 ships short of a decent hyperspace legal list.

Even if I had decided to get the separatist box to start me off, it would have been awkward since the "main" ship in the box is no longer hyperspace legal. Buying the republic box would have a similar problem for people starting in that faction, with the two cheaper ships not being legal. The point being, the monetary barrier to entry is actually higher for hyperspace, because you need more specific stuff. Meanwhile the game being "more balanced" or "more skill dependent" doesn't make it better for new players to compete in, as new players are the ones who haven't learned all the necessary skills yet.

Now I'm not complaining about hyperspace format. It might take a little more money to get a list I can use in Hyperspace, but I still plan on doing that, and now I have reasons to want to play extended as well, even though my faction didn't even exist in 1.0, so I'm pretty happy about that.

in closing, I believe that players should try to keep lists for each format, and should try to show respect for each format. Remember that new players may actually not be able to create a hyperspace legal list right away, or they may have ships/upgrades that they've never had a chance to use.

I feel sorry for the new players who picked up Guardians of the Republic, thinking it would give them a solid backbone / starting point for their 2nd edition lists...

I throughly enjoy HS, but i have to pick up the OP about faction diversity. ~25% at UK SOS was Scum, and there was more Boba in the cut than some other factions. Which highlights that Boba Slave 1 Maul is basically 1.0. 😢

Sugarcoating that isn't necessary.

Having said that negative, i am still really positive about HS, and much prefer it to Extended. Simplicity, less card combos (in general!), less degenerate stuff (Nantexes, trip Imp Aces).

1 hour ago, Darth Seridur said:

I throughly enjoy HS, but i have to pick up the OP about faction diversity. ~25% at UK SOS was Scum, and there was more Boba in the cut than some other factions. Which highlights that Boba Slave 1 Maul is basically 1.0. 😢

As with v1 though, the top 16 only had 2 Boba's in, as the masses of Boba hit a wall of people who had figured out how to beat Boba/Fenn. Timo's winning list was the Boba list that was different, and people had not hit the event with a plan for it.

2 hours ago, Rich P said:

As with v1 though, the top 16 only had 2 Boba's in, as the masses of Boba hit a wall of people who had figured out how to beat Boba/Fenn. Timo's winning list was the Boba list that was different, and people had not hit the event with a plan for it.

Cut performance can be matchup luck.

Swiss performance being 5-1 for SOSes, seems a more sensible measure. And the stat quoted on the 186th podcast about the # of Boba vs the number of lists in some other factions feels alarming.

4 minutes ago, Darth Seridur said:

And the stat quoted on the 186th podcast about the # of Boba vs the number of lists in some other factions feels alarming.

Care to share?

4 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I feel sorry for the new players who picked up Guardians of the Republic, thinking it would give them a solid backbone / starting point for their 2nd edition lists...

I don't have too many issues with Hyperspace, even if they did remove my beloved Wedge Antilles and Soontir Fel.

But not making the V-19 legal at all seems completely absurd to me. If you're worried about Gold Trooper spam, then ban GSTs (though I really don't think they'd have been a problem). Taking away one of the faction's core ships and a backbone of list building seems very unfair.

Imagine the uproar if the basic TIE Fighter wasn't Hyperspace legal...

Won 93-64 vs a very competently flown Boba / Maul / Fenn yesterday with 3 Bounty Hunters + 2 seismics and CCs. The trick is to neutralize the huge range 1 advantage of BobaFenn design and still get shots. Fearless range 1 mod lists have a different challenge vs multiple 3 attack secondary firing arcs that they have to chase. It's arguably one of BobaFenn's biggest counters if the enemy has rear arcs and some speed to them or decent reposition.

50 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Care to share?

More Boba in the cut than any other individual faction.

[13 Bobas in cut]

10 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

I don't have too many issues with Hyperspace, even if they did remove my beloved Wedge Antilles and Soontir Fel.

But not making the V-19 legal at all seems completely absurd to me. If you're worried about Gold Trooper spam, then ban GSTs (though I really don't think they'd have been a problem). Taking away one of the faction's core ships and a backbone of list building seems very unfair.

Imagine the uproar if the basic TIE Fighter wasn't Hyperspace legal...

They had to make an especially tough call with the Republic and CIS ships this time around. The intent seemed to be to limit each faction to just five chassis and with those two factions getting new ships with wave 7 something had to be nixed. (Yes, same with the First Order but the Xi is a scaled down take on the Upsilon which hasn't had a 2.0 release.) Each ship brings something unique to the table so what do you cut? Ultimately FFG chose to removed the ship from those two factions that can only be purchased in the squadron boxes and there are pros and cons just looking at it from that angle. I personally love Torrents. I ran a four BSPs list for my league's recent season tournament. So I'm not overjoyed that my hyperspace lists have to say goodbye to those sweet little V-19s for now but this does force me to puzzle out new list ideas which I honestly enjoy.

41 minutes ago, Darth Seridur said:

More Boba in the cut than any other individual faction.

[13 Bobas in cut]

And yet, quite beatable....it appears that against the majority who haven't yet figured out to to fly against it, the list does well. But once highly skilled players are in the mix with safeguards (the Plasma Torps Duncan built into his CIS swarm was a brilliant call) it becomes above average at best. Pointed this out elsewhere; Sure, Boba's won a System Open and made finals in another. But apart from that, a look at the most recent two pages of double digit player Hyperspace events shows him winning only 5 out of 22 events. Nowhere near Ghost Fenn or Nymranda levels of oppression. Just something to learn how to fly against, that's all. Which is why Hyperspace is turning out to be really beneficial; archetypes are being identified more quickly, which compels new players to have to learn how to deal with those archetypes. Top players already got this as evidenced by the performance after cut.

10 hours ago, ClassicalMoser said:

I particularly think that the devs' idea here was to tell us "you must un-learn what you have learned." The conventional wisdom that has always weighed in heavily no longer has such bearing. Howlrunner isn't a must to get mileage out of your TIE/lns. Talents other than Crack Shot can be worthwhile. Rebels can win without Wedge. Falcons do pull their weight. Generics can kill aces reliably when flown well. These observations are no less true in Extended than they have been proven in Hyperspace.

Just because you can fly the limited choices against the other limited choices doesn't make the limited choices good against unlimited choices. How much mileage do those TIE/lns without Howlrunner get against Crack Shot Wedge? Do you put Crack Shot in the list because nothing else is worthwhile or because you've only got one point for a talent?

Duped it up.

I think hyperspace is just the superior test of skill. Tighter balance, fewer hard counter combos and therefore need to plan for the same. Your planning against strategies more then lists. Planning more against archetypes, not pilot/upgrade pairs. You can realistically know exactly what to expect you'll probably run across, and have time to practice with it, and** still have to be wary of a tiny tweak or two to keep you on your toes. Just plain old plan your moves, plan your action, hold on to your butts. Get some synergy, and if not that just bulk, and get out there.

Hyperspace is like a list builders cage match and extended is like trying to be a sniper in a flat open field of nuclear land mines.

Over the past year, the best games I've played in terms of interesting situations, good close matches, and freedom to mostly play what I want, have all been in these recent months in Hyperspace only matches. I don't feel like I'm playing rock-paper-scissors anymore. And I feel like the skills I've mustered over five years actually matter. Like, I'm super consistent on being able to out play a less experienced player or player-list pair. And in equal experience it comes down to some very clear pivotal turns. And against better players I can knuckle down and get a hard earned win or an equally hard learned improvement.

I think the above video is kinda getting at that. My satisfaction is greater, and I'm more likely to buy in to Hyperspace.

@Cloaker

I dont disagree that top players can beat Boba. That is why they are good.

The point is how much he skews things: being far above the norm and giving some very easy mode play which shouldn't be in HS.

Hence why how many Bobas make the cut matters.

How many win events etc is irrelevant.

Example: 2017 Worlds cut was dominated obscenely by Mindlink lists. But won by Justin Phua with Dengar Tel. Mindlink was correctly nerfed afterwards as 12/16???? in the cut meant it was judged to be a problem.

Do you fly FO? Because if you do and you want to have friends who fly Boba/Fenn hate you, just fly 5 SFs with Mag-Pulses. Either the Omega Experts at Init three to also spread wreckage on lower initiative CIS Swarms, or the Zeta Survivors Init 2 with FCS. The SF dial, combined with the turret for MPW, 30 health behind 2 agility that doesn't have to joust, two charges, range 1-3 landing 3, 4 or 5 depletes with crit still landing and a jam token as long as all you do is get one hit through....yeah.

It's the greatest NPE in Hyperspace, period.

Please don't blame me when that list takes off.

So yeah, there are lists so far in HS that look good and are performing well, but they can be beat by thinking differently.

18 minutes ago, Darth Seridur said:

@Cloaker

I dont disagree that top players can beat Boba. That is why they are good.

The point is how much he skews things: being far above the norm and giving some very easy mode play which shouldn't be in HS.

Hence why how many Bobas make the cut matters.

How many win events etc is irrelevant.

Example: 2017 Worlds cut was dominated obscenely by Mindlink lists. But won by Justin Phua with Dengar Tel. Mindlink was correctly nerfed afterwards as 12/16???? in the cut meant it was judged to be a problem.

8 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I thoroughly enjoy what people are learning from HS lists. Watching them become very powerful has been a joy, even if I like Extended.

The balance team for 2.0 really has its head on straight, its working really beautifully right now, each step is getting better. Now its just a bunch of pilots that are way overcosted, the generic balancing is quite good. (This was the premise of my audacious balance concept, balance the generics first as a benchmark for valuing, do the named pilots next, and then finally upgrades. Make nerfs/buffs as needed)

I'm thoroughly happy with how they agreed with me that most generics needed a decrease, a whole bunch of generics are now an exceptional joy to fly.

Maybe the devs are actually thinking the same way. It looks like you've pegged the first step.

6 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I feel sorry for the new players who picked up Guardians of the Republic, thinking it would give them a solid backbone / starting point for their 2nd edition lists...

It did - when it was released. There's been more since then.