Take a look at our definitive Power Rankings for the last few months of Star Wars: Legion! https://thefifthtrooper.com/star-wars-legion-unit-power-rankings-august-2020/

Rex is a good commander but he is only the most used because he is the cheap option, as soon as the generic commander arrives i think you will find that people are taking the generic commander and 2 operatives, probably Padme and Anakin from what we have heard (maybe Padme and R2 if you are taking a tank)

26 minutes ago, 5particus said:

Rex is a good commander but he is only the most used because he is the cheap option, as soon as the generic commander arrives i think you will find that people are taking the generic commander and 2 operatives, probably Padme and Anakin from what we have heard (maybe Padme and R2 if you are taking a tank)

Anakin is a Commander.

8 minutes ago, Lochlan said:

Anakin is a Commander.

Ah yeah i had him mixed up with Maul, from what we have heard about Anakin i think that it may be a good idea to have another commander on the field with him so i would still chuck the clone commander in there as judging by the imps and rebels the generic officer is going to be more useful that a naked squad of basic troopers.

31 minutes ago, 5particus said:

Rex is a good commander but he is only the most used because he is the cheap option, as soon as the generic commander arrives i think you will find that people are taking the generic commander and 2 operatives, probably Padme and Anakin from what we have heard (maybe Padme and R2 if you are taking a tank)

Rex is more than just a cheap commander, he is so well designed around the faction he is in. He is only going to look more appealing when the ARCs come out as well. For his cost he brings, Tactical 1, so easy aim tokens to share, a decent armour save, a buff to the clone bubble's courage value, scouting party, the best command cards the republic has access to, and when he can actually get into the fight, some decent fire power. Rex's only weakness is that he is range 2, and maybe a Cody or other commander will come out later, with just as much token generation and range 3 so they line up better in the gun line, but right now, that is Rex. If anything the generic commander might just add more command cards to a Rex list, and only be taken once more potent Operatives come to the republic, and you need to shave off some points. But the 35 point difference in the Republic army isn't netting you much.

The fact he is cheaper than some other commanders in other factions with the the keywords and command cards he has boggles the mind. He genuinely should probably be at least 10 points more expensive for what he brings to an army.

Just now, Nithorian said:

Rex is more than just a cheap commander, he is so well designed around the faction he is in. He is only going to look more appealing when the ARCs come out as well. For his cost he brings, Tactical 1, so easy aim tokens to share, a decent armour save, a buff to the clone bubble's courage value, scouting party, the best command cards the republic has access to, and when he can actually get into the fight, some decent fire power. Rex's only weakness is that he is range 2, and maybe a Cody or other commander will come out later, with just as much token generation and range 3 so they line up better in the gun line, but right now, that is Rex. If anything the generic commander might just add more command cards to a Rex list, and only be taken once more potent Operatives come to the republic, and you need to shave off some points. But the 35 point difference in the Republic army isn't netting you much.

The fact he is cheaper than some other commanders in other factions with the the keywords and command cards he has boggles the mind. He genuinely should probably be at least 10 points more expensive for what he brings to an army.

I would agree that his main weakness is range 2 not 3, i personally always seem to push him way too far forward and he dies too early. also the guys at my FLGS always seem to target him even if he is at the back

49 minutes ago, Nithorian said:

Rex is more than just a cheap commander, he is so well designed around the faction he is in. He is only going to look more appealing when the ARCs come out as well. For his cost he brings, Tactical 1, so easy aim tokens to share, a decent armour save, a buff to the clone bubble's courage value, scouting party, the best command cards the republic has access to, and when he can actually get into the fight, some decent fire power. Rex's only weakness is that he is range 2, and maybe a Cody or other commander will come out later, with just as much token generation and range 3 so they line up better in the gun line, but right now, that is Rex. If anything the generic commander might just add more command cards to a Rex list, and only be taken once more potent Operatives come to the republic, and you need to shave off some points. But the 35 point difference in the Republic army isn't netting you much.

The fact he is cheaper than some other commanders in other factions with the the keywords and command cards he has boggles the mind. He genuinely should probably be at least 10 points more expensive for what he brings to an army.

I find 5 HP with absolutely no defensive abilities (outside Red defense dice) combined with courage 2 to be pretty big downsides for a "combat commander" that wants to get to Range 2.

That definitely doesn't make him bad, in fact I think he's great! But these are downsides that exist and that you have to work around when Rex is your only commander.

3 hours ago, 5particus said:

Rex is a good commander but he is only the most used because he is the cheap option, as soon as the generic commander arrives i think you will find that people are taking the generic commander and 2 operatives, probably Padme and Anakin from what we have heard (maybe Padme and R2 if you are taking a tank)

I disagree. If clones could use any of the 90 point commanders from other factions I would still choose Rex every time. He is the best 90 point commander in the game by far.

Rex is undercosted at 90 points (hes at least 10 points undercosted). His cheap cost is what lets clones get away with being a 10-11 activation army when theyre supposed to be an 8-9 activation army. R2D2 and arc troopers arnt helping either.

Quote

I find 5 HP with absolutely no defensive abilities (outside Red defense dice) combined with courage 2 to be pretty big downsides for a "combat commander" that wants to get to Range 2.

Its not a downside if thats the norm for a 90 point commander. I wouldnt consider Rex a combat commander either. Iden is a ranged combat commander. Rex not so much. Rex is more of a ranged support commander. Hes not a super solo commander like Iden and he needs to support and rely on other units. And hes exceedingly good in that ranged support role for the bargain price of only 90 points. I definitely think hes one of the top 3 commanders in the game if not the best commander in the game.

7 hours ago, Khobai said:

I disagree. If clones could use any of the 90 point commanders from other factions I would still choose Rex every time. He is the best 90 point commander in the game by far.

Rex is undercosted at 90 points (hes at least 10 points undercosted). His cheap cost is what lets clones get away with being a 10-11 activation army when theyre supposed to be an 8-9 activation army. R2D2 and arc troopers arnt helping either.

Its not a downside if thats the norm for a 90 point commander. I wouldnt consider Rex a combat commander either. Iden is a ranged combat commander. Rex not so much. Rex is more of a ranged support commander. Hes not a super solo commander like Iden and he needs to support and rely on other units. And hes exceedingly good in that ranged support role for the bargain price of only 90 points. I definitely think hes one of the top 3 commanders in the game if not the best commander in the game.

Okay I keep hearing about these 10-11 activation lists.... How? I've played gar since release and have played exactly one game above 8 activations

I honestly don't really disagree with this list at all. I may have switched 1 and 2 but that is just quibbling. Basically the clone standby ball is the baseline of the Meta imo.

3 hours ago, 5particus said:

Naked squads are next to useless for all factions, except for securing the rear most objective the Phase 1 clones cost 12 points more than rebel troopers, that is a **** of a lot of points.

I've thought this since I started playing legion, glad someone here finally said it. Personally I refuse to take any squad without a heavy weapon.

4 hours ago, 5particus said:

There is NO Republic or CIS Meta yet, why do people keeps saying this? there have not been ANY offical tournaments since about March. I dont think that there have been any Large tournaments since the Phase 2 clones or B2's came out, let alone Padme or the ARCs (which are still not actually out yet). TTS does not count as an offical tournament as they allow the use of units that havent even been spoiled yet let alone released.

All of you guys theory crafting and saying "wah wah clones are too OP i want them nerfed, wah wah wah" need to grow the **** up and stop complaining.

All of your naked phase 1 clones sitting behind a power unit feeding them tokens bull is nice but never actually works.

Naked squads are next to useless for all factions, except for securing the rear most objective the Phase 1 clones cost 12 points more than rebel troopers, that is a **** of a lot of points.

There is always a way for your opponent to get around the clone ball, mostly through range 4+ attacks or armor or going around the LOS blocking terrain next to them. Or you can just go to the other objectives, since all of the Clones are going to be on about a quarter of the table from what you all seem to think

Learn to play the game then start complaining about things that actually happen in game instead of just complaining when another faction gets some new units.

We just had Gencon online and we have had Invaders league (60ish plus) going. So you are correct there have been no in person tournaments nor sanctioned ones but there have been tournaments with large groups of players defining the current Meta. Gencon was played with current units and Invaders league gets to also use the upcoming units. If you want to ignore large groups of people playing the game and giving you data, that is up to you but it is there. The online versions of this game actually define the meta faster as a tournament player may be restricted to what they own or can find, and online player is less restricted there.

What theory crafting? Actual tournament data with actual playlists etc. In additional I haven't seen any rules made up or house rules and even when they use the new units the rules of play conform to the RRG.

A couple naked troopers absolutely works and for the clones best of all. Not only do they generate token sharing, they let you take objectives as cheaply as possible. If you hate naked clones and trooper units I gotta wonder do you like R2D2?

I don't think you have had the opportunity to play against many clone balls. Yes you might have a map dependent option to use vision blocking terrain, but you have to use it, the clone players gets to use it. Clones can take armor as an FYI and if you do as well I am betting on the clone tank with R2D2 supporting it over the other players armor. Why would the clones just be in 1/4 of a table (which if you measure out a range 3 ruler and assume at least one length of movement actually means they have scope of control for 50% of the table and that's with barely moving) As for range 4 weapons, just go ask the Imperial players how they fared in a tournament with the clones, you actually need 5+ weapons to hit the standby token.

I don't disagree with the article at all that created this post and you shouldn't either.

8 hours ago, 5particus said:

Learn to play the game then start complaining about things that actually happen in game instead of just complaining when another faction gets some new units.

Since you obviously know and play the game better than top players who compete for first place in large tournaments (real life as well as online), I'm looking forward to you beating the crap out of all the "Meta" Players on the next large tournament 😝 .

2 hours ago, Uetur said:

We just had Gencon online and we have had Invaders league (60ish plus) going. So you are correct there have been no in person tournaments nor sanctioned ones but there have been tournaments with large groups of players defining the current Meta. Gencon was played with current units and Invaders league gets to also use the upcoming units. If you want to ignore large groups of people playing the game and giving you data, that is up to you but it is there. The online versions of this game actually define the meta faster as a tournament player may be restricted to what they own or can find, and online player is less restricted there.

What theory crafting? Actual tournament data with actual playlists etc. In additional I haven't seen any rules made up or house rules and even when they use the new units the rules of play conform to the RRG.

A couple naked troopers absolutely works and for the clones best of all. Not only do they generate token sharing, they let you take objectives as cheaply as possible. If you hate naked clones and trooper units I gotta wonder do you like R2D2?

I don't think you have had the opportunity to play against many clone balls. Yes you might have a map dependent option to use vision blocking terrain, but you have to use it, the clone players gets to use it. Clones can take armor as an FYI and if you do as well I am betting on the clone tank with R2D2 supporting it over the other players armor. Why would the clones just be in 1/4 of a table (which if you measure out a range 3 ruler and assume at least one length of movement actually means they have scope of control for 50% of the table and that's with barely moving) As for range 4 weapons, just go ask the Imperial players how they fared in a tournament with the clones, you actually need 5+ weapons to hit the standby token.

I don't disagree with the article at all that created this post and you shouldn't either.

OK lets have a look at Gencon online. Top 8 had 2 GAR, 2 CIS, 3 Rebels and 1 Imperial, not exactly overwhelmingly in favor of GAR is it, top 4 had one of each faction. the Guy who won it used GAR , OK so he is a good player that knows how to use his Army.

Top list had standard Rex, naked R2 and a Saber, with 6 corps troopers supporting them cos GAR has nothing else at the moment. Those corps troopers were 4 phase II's all with Z6 and 2 naked Phase I clones, not the other way around like every one seems to think it is, everyone on here seems to think that it is 1 or 2 super jacked squads of phase II troopers and then 4 or 5 naked Phase I squads behind them feeding them tokens, this is obviously not the case.

next we get to activations as everyone also seems to think that GAR can have 10/11 of these super powerful activations. All of the top 8 clone wars faction players had 8 or 9 activations. All of the GCW factions players had 11 or 12 activations. still not seeing these 11 activation lists.

100 players is not large amounts of data either. every FLGS that had an official tournament has to send the data in to FFG so that they know what the faction breakdown was and they ask for all of the lists and where each list came. this is for every tournament worldwide, do you honestly think that 100 players over 2 online tournaments over the last 5 months equals several hundred players a week every week for the year before, if you do then you are an idiot.

yes up to 2 naked troopers works fine but everyone on this thread seems to think that GAR has 4 or 5 naked P1's in the list just to token spam, that doesn't work. and yes R2D2 is amazing, even if i don't get the VP he has pulled away way more than 35 points just to stop him, one of those naked troopers as an escort is one of the few ways that i have found naked troopers to be useful.

If you want to win a game of Legion you have to either table your opponent (hard to do generally) or you have to get victory points, to get victory points you have to get to multiple areas of the table that are usually more than range 2 apart. if you want to keep all of your clones together so that they can all share tokens then you can only go after one or two victory points when there can be up to 5 objectives to go after (6 if you are using bombing run but then you would start with 3 of those) this means that if you stay in your clone ball then you may kill anything that comes near you but you will lose the game on VP. If you want to go get those other VP then you need to split up your forces and therefore brake up the ball.

If someone is hiding a P1 unit around the corner from your forces feeding tokens to a unit in the open then go around the other side of the building and hit them in the back, or just kill the unit in the open as they probably don't have much/any cover.

you want to know where the imps can get range 4 or 5 weapons, look at the literally the most common units in the Empire, the shore troopers have the T-21B and the Mortar, both of these are range 4. the Stormtroopers have the DLT-19, the HH-12 and the RT-97C. That is 5 options in just the Corps units, if you cant find long range weapons in the Empire then you obviously are not looking.

If you want range 5 then you have the Strike teams, and now you have Iden and Del Meeko to hit things at range 5 or beyond.

I do disagree with the article posted, mostly for the reason that i gave above about player numbers.

10 minutes ago, SailorMeni said:

Since you obviously know and play the game better than top players who compete for first place in large tournaments (real life as well as online), I'm looking forward to you beating the crap out of all the "Meta" Players on the next large tournament 😝 .

where did i say that i could do that, you can't call it a META when there have only been 2 pseudo tournaments (online barely counts) in the last 5 months, come back when we actually have 20+ tournaments being played every week around the world and then when the data actually exists then maybe we can talk about it.

8 hours ago, 5particus said:

There is NO Republic or CIS Meta yet

I agree and I think that TTS is a sub-Meta. Does anyone own as many Phase 2 Clones as they had in their TTS lists?

The lack of Luke/Leia in Rebel lists is an aberration as is the lack of Empire lists in general. Everyone wanted to play with new stuff so certain units are perhaps more powerful but underrepresented on these TTS tournaments.

I’d also say that if Phase 2’s need Rex to do their job well and vice verse then those units may not be the most powerful in the game in a bubble. They have great synergy which is important, but I’m not sure I’d rank them as high.

Given the data, I think the list is good. Here would be my totally unprofessional non-TTS head to the store for a casual game rankings (I.e. what I don’t want to see on my opponent’s side):

10) Leia

9) AAT

😎 Saber Tank

7) Cad Bane

6) R2/Padme

5) Phase 2’s

4) Sabine

3) Tauntauns

2) Dooku

1) Operative Luke

Next week wit( new releases I’d probably put ARCs #1, BX #4, and bump everything else back accordingly.

Oops, forgot Iden and Cassian 🙃

3 minutes ago, smickletz said:

10) Saber

9) Cassian

😎 Iden

7) Cad Bane

6) R2/Padme

5) Phase 2’s

4) Sabine

3) Tauntauns

2) Dooku

1) Operative Luke

On another note, Operatives are basically designed to be powerful stand alone units that don’t necessarily depend on the make-up of the rest of your army. You should obviously craft the rest of your army around optimizing them, but when it comes to power rankings I’d say they have an advantage. If you had to draft an army from the units in all the GenCon lists, would you really take B1s before Operative Luke???

28 minutes ago, smickletz said:

On another note, Operatives are basically designed to be powerful stand alone units that don’t necessarily depend on the make-up of the rest of your army. You should obviously craft the rest of your army around optimizing them, but when it comes to power rankings I’d say they have an advantage. If you had to draft an army from the units in all the GenCon lists, would you really take B1s before Operative Luke???

If I am a CIS player, yes

1 hour ago, 5particus said:

OK lets have a look at Gencon online. Top 8 had 2 GAR, 2 CIS, 3 Rebels and 1 Imperial, not exactly overwhelmingly in favor of GAR is it, top 4 had one of each faction. the Guy who won it used GAR , OK so he is a good player that knows how to use his Army.

Top list had standard Rex, naked R2 and a Saber, with 6 corps troopers supporting them cos GAR has nothing else at the moment. Those corps troopers were 4 phase II's all with Z6 and 2 naked Phase I clones, not the other way around like every one seems to think it is, everyone on here seems to think that it is 1 or 2 super jacked squads of phase II troopers and then 4 or 5 naked Phase I squads behind them feeding them tokens, this is obviously not the case.

next we get to activations as everyone also seems to think that GAR can have 10/11 of these super powerful activations. All of the top 8 clone wars faction players had 8 or 9 activations. All of the GCW factions players had 11 or 12 activations. still not seeing these 11 activation lists.

100 players is not large amounts of data either. every FLGS that had an official tournament has to send the data in to FFG so that they know what the faction breakdown was and they ask for all of the lists and where each list came. this is for every tournament worldwide, do you honestly think that 100 players over 2 online tournaments over the last 5 months equals several hundred players a week every week for the year before, if you do then you are an idiot.

yes up to 2 naked troopers works fine but everyone on this thread seems to think that GAR has 4 or 5 naked P1's in the list just to token spam, that doesn't work. and yes R2D2 is amazing, even if i don't get the VP he has pulled away way more than 35 points just to stop him, one of those naked troopers as an escort is one of the few ways that i have found naked troopers to be useful.

If you want to win a game of Legion you have to either table your opponent (hard to do generally) or you have to get victory points, to get victory points you have to get to multiple areas of the table that are usually more than range 2 apart. if you want to keep all of your clones together so that they can all share tokens then you can only go after one or two victory points when there can be up to 5 objectives to go after (6 if you are using bombing run but then you would start with 3 of those) this means that if you stay in your clone ball then you may kill anything that comes near you but you will lose the game on VP. If you want to go get those other VP then you need to split up your forces and therefore brake up the ball.

If someone is hiding a P1 unit around the corner from your forces feeding tokens to a unit in the open then go around the other side of the building and hit them in the back, or just kill the unit in the open as they probably don't have much/any cover.

you want to know where the imps can get range 4 or 5 weapons, look at the literally the most common units in the Empire, the shore troopers have the T-21B and the Mortar, both of these are range 4. the Stormtroopers have the DLT-19, the HH-12 and the RT-97C. That is 5 options in just the Corps units, if you cant find long range weapons in the Empire then you obviously are not looking.

If you want range 5 then you have the Strike teams, and now you have Iden and Del Meeko to hit things at range 5 or beyond.

I do disagree with the article posted, mostly for the reason that i gave above about player numbers.

A couple quick quibbles....

ARCs and BXs were not legal for GenCon online, which skews the data considerably (especially ARCs).

Invader League was 192 players (over 11 rounds), not 100, and is the largest and longest (by rounds) tournament on record.

Yes, TTS is somewhat different than real table Legion. But it isn't meaningless, either; it is an excellent approximation for the game, tactically. In general I think you will find that most top-ranked TTS players also perform well at real events and vice versa.

59 minutes ago, Jedhead said:

If I am a CIS player, yes

It would be interesting to draft a factionless army, 800pts, out of the units represented at the two tourneys.

Knowing the abundance of R2s would he be a first or second pick? What about Phase 2s?

but, yeah, CIS is pretty dependent on B1s of course.

42 minutes ago, Orkimedes said:

A couple quick quibbles....

ARCs and BXs were not legal for GenCon online, which skews the data considerably (especially ARCs).

Invader League was 192 players (over 11 rounds), not 100.

Yes, TTS is somewhat different than real table Legion. But it isn't meaningless, either; it is an excellent approximation for the game, tactically. In general I think you will find that most top-ranked TTS players also perform well at real events and vice versa.

My point is that even if you do count the 2 TTS tournaments that is what 250 ish players/lists and im gonna guess that quite a few of them played in both. now im gonna guess here and say that prior to Covid there were 20 tournaments every weekend around the world, that is probably a low estimate if anything. now over the last 5 months (covid) those 20 tournaments a week would be 400 tournaments, each with a minimum of say 8 players that makes 3200 lists, on the low end of the estimation. when these tournaments send their players lists into FFG or anywhere else this is what where we get the META, from the lists that are the same that are performing well.

You cannot say that a META exists after just 2 tournaments in the last 5 months.

when playing on TTS you don't have to worry about actually owning the units that you are playing with, in real life (which is what we really care about) Phase 2's and B2's have been out of stock for ages so not that many players have enough to create all these wonderful lists that they can play on TTS. (same goes for ARCs, BX droids, STAP and Republic AR-RTs to an extent)

3 hours ago, 5particus said:

OK lets have a look at Gencon online. Top 8 had 2 GAR, 2 CIS, 3 Rebels and 1 Imperial, not exactly overwhelmingly in favor of GAR is it, top 4 had one of each faction. the Guy who won it used GAR , OK so he is a good player that knows how to use his Army.

Top list had standard Rex, naked R2 and a Saber, with 6 corps troopers supporting them cos GAR has nothing else at the moment. Those corps troopers were 4 phase II's all with Z6 and 2 naked Phase I clones, not the other way around like every one seems to think it is, everyone on here seems to think that it is 1 or 2 super jacked squads of phase II troopers and then 4 or 5 naked Phase I squads behind them feeding them tokens, this is obviously not the case.

next we get to activations as everyone also seems to think that GAR can have 10/11 of these super powerful activations. All of the top 8 clone wars faction players had 8 or 9 activations. All of the GCW factions players had 11 or 12 activations. still not seeing these 11 activation lists.

100 players is not large amounts of data either. every FLGS that had an official tournament has to send the data in to FFG so that they know what the faction breakdown was and they ask for all of the lists and where each list came. this is for every tournament worldwide, do you honestly think that 100 players over 2 online tournaments over the last 5 months equals several hundred players a week every week for the year before, if you do then you are an idiot.

yes up to 2 naked troopers works fine but everyone on this thread seems to think that GAR has 4 or 5 naked P1's in the list just to token spam, that doesn't work. and yes R2D2 is amazing, even if i don't get the VP he has pulled away way more than 35 points just to stop him, one of those naked troopers as an escort is one of the few ways that i have found naked troopers to be useful.

If you want to win a game of Legion you have to either table your opponent (hard to do generally) or you have to get victory points, to get victory points you have to get to multiple areas of the table that are usually more than range 2 apart. if you want to keep all of your clones together so that they can all share tokens then you can only go after one or two victory points when there can be up to 5 objectives to go after (6 if you are using bombing run but then you would start with 3 of those) this means that if you stay in your clone ball then you may kill anything that comes near you but you will lose the game on VP. If you want to go get those other VP then you need to split up your forces and therefore brake up the ball.

If someone is hiding a P1 unit around the corner from your forces feeding tokens to a unit in the open then go around the other side of the building and hit them in the back, or just kill the unit in the open as they probably don't have much/any cover.

you want to know where the imps can get range 4 or 5 weapons, look at the literally the most common units in the Empire, the shore troopers have the T-21B and the Mortar, both of these are range 4. the Stormtroopers have the DLT-19, the HH-12 and the RT-97C. That is 5 options in just the Corps units, if you cant find long range weapons in the Empire then you obviously are not looking.

If you want range 5 then you have the Strike teams, and now you have Iden and Del Meeko to hit things at range 5 or beyond.

I do disagree with the article posted, mostly for the reason that i gave above about player numbers.

If you want to argue you don't have enough data to make a decision fine. However I would point out that invader league season 4 showcased Tauntauns and Shoretrooper, the previous Meta. It seems to have a good track record and had a huge number of players to pull data from.

Scroll up on the thread, how many people have said having 4 to 5 naked troopers is the way to go? No one actually said that, they looked at the Invaders league and saw what has been winning. If you want to use the Gencon stats then point out 2 of the top 4 were GAR and the winner so saying they are the META could be very fair. The top two lists of invaders league were 10 and 11 clone activations and the top list of Gencon was a 9 activation clone list. Is it people are just playing the new thing or what is actually better? All of them have a single non upgraded clone trooper unit. Of the top 8 lists in Invader league 7 of 8 were clones and were somewhere between 9 to 11 activations. You saw one person mention a 10-11 list (I didn't) and then used it as justification about what we are all saying. That probably is not enough to characterize all of us.

Who said you can't find a range 4 weapon with the empire, can you scroll up and quote that please because I can't find it? What I am pointing out is if the empire wants to poke with range for weapons they won't usually hit the standby token in the back and now they are the ones sitting in the corner waiting for Rex to play his 2 pip and hit back harder at range 4. If we have Meeko hitting at range 5 then Clones have ARCs hitting at range 5, I know who wins those battles because we have the data.

Basically the article is spot on based upon the data available and it even gives is justification. The clone token sharing ball is the Meta you have to be prepared to deal with now, specifically with those impervious ignoring arc troopers. I have ideas on how I want to deal with it and hint, it isn't shoretroopers or Taun Tauns.

1 hour ago, 5particus said:

My point is that even if you do count the 2 TTS tournaments that is what 250 ish players/lists and im gonna guess that quite a few of them played in both. now im gonna guess here and say that prior to Covid there were 20 tournaments every weekend around the world, that is probably a low estimate if anything. now over the last 5 months (covid) those 20 tournaments a week would be 400 tournaments, each with a minimum of say 8 players that makes 3200 lists, on the low end of the estimation. when these tournaments send their players lists into FFG or anywhere else this is what where we get the META, from the lists that are the same that are performing well.

You cannot say that a META exists after just 2 tournaments in the last 5 months.

when playing on TTS you don't have to worry about actually owning the units that you are playing with, in real life (which is what we really care about) Phase 2's and B2's have been out of stock for ages so not that many players have enough to create all these wonderful lists that they can play on TTS. (same goes for ARCs, BX droids, STAP and Republic AR-RTs to an extent)

I know plenty of people that have been able to buy 5-6 Phase IIs. You can't balance a game around stock. Arguably it is much worse if a low stock unit is ahead of the curve, because then it becomes "pay to play." TTS is actually a better indicator of true unit balance and meta when there are stocking shortages because people aren't artificially limited by their collections or their purchasing power. It encourages more experimentation. The fact that many of the top 8 lists in Invader ended up being nearly the same, in a sandbox where players have no artificial limits on their experimentation of builds (and I assure you, the top players experimented plenty) should be a huge red flag.

If six B2s was an overpowered list, somebody would find a way to get six B2s and bring them to a real tournament. Wouldn't it suck if that wasn't you just because someone else was willing and able to buy six B2s on eBay for $100 apiece and you weren't?

Additionally, the international nature of TTS is very relevant. With things like RPQs (or Primes or whatever they are called now) you get sort of a fish bowl effect; people tend to play with the same local people repeatedly, and those same small groups of people compete in their local Primes. Player skill, rather than strength of list and unit mix, tends to be the single most important factor in local events.

In large international tournaments like Invader, you get a bunch of people from a bunch of different countries, communities, and metas that come together and play each other in one giant tournament. The starting pool of perspectives is much larger and more diverse than nearly every real life tournament except arguably Worlds. The results of a single 200 person tournament are much more meaningful than those of 20 completely separate 10 person tournaments.