Just wanted to take a moment to thank GSP for streaming Mustafar. It was absolutely awesome to be able to watch a hyperspace tournament over the weekend. Shout out to the cast of the podcast to. You guys have had near endless energy to just will the X-Wing community into continuing these past few months. Also the lists you bring to your own tournaments are actually kinda neat. That Vader Maarek Vermiel Mauler list in particular is badass and I kinda want to run it with the Tie Brute(s) mixed in now.

Watching a couple rounds of the event legitimately re-energized my interest in X-Wing again. Hopefully there will be more community hyperspace tournaments in the future! I think it is a massively underutilized format given its extraordinary potential and there is for sure a portion of the community that is hungry for more hyperspace.

Unironic Thanks Gold Squadron.

HYPErspace

Have not posted in years. But this level of diversity just made me want to watch the whole Gold Squadron replay in the following evenings !

40 minutes ago, Fanfan said:

Have not posted in years. But this level of diversity just made me want to watch the whole Gold Squadron replay in the following evenings !

This. Haunting their channel awaiting the first videos. 😎 🍺

I agree.

Honestly the first online tournament where I cared enough to watch the whole cut.

As the pilot of the Han + Kallus + Jake, I do not recommend. VCX's are frustrating bricks to fly.

1 minute ago, 5050Saint said:

As the pilot of the Han + Kallus + Jake, I do not recommend. VCX's are frustrating bricks to fly.

Man they can be fun though right? My time with Luke Hera Braylen was kinda enjoyable. Has similar vibes.

Hopefully we can get a few more big hyperspace tournaments. Once op resumes I hope they keep the systems opens in hyperspace format. It really helped to get people to try it.

I find hyperspace to be a more enjoyable experience and cant wait for the ships/upgrades to be shuffled around.

Most impressive.

Looking with a critical eye, for imbalances, 3/4 of those lists have an I5 in. Tbf, Malarus barely counts.

In the context, I don't really mind it.

Hyperspace improved a great deal in the last rotation.

I like how First Order can build just about anything and be at least pretty good.

8 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

Looking with a critical eye, for imbalances, 3/4 of those lists have an I5 in.

Also, out of the 6 Scum in 32, 5 brought boring Boba.

2 hours ago, Managarmr said:

Also, out of the 6 Scum in 32, 5 brought boring Boba.

The lack of interesting Scum lists is quite saddening. They do exist, I'm fairly sure they can compete, but it is tricky to build and laborious to hone, without Boba or Fenn. Particularly in HS, where shenanigans are in short supply

So, lazy mode on- build round the high Init. Because that's just easy to see and 60% of the time, it works every time.

I don't see much in that list of lists that I feel I couldn't do a job against without them.

The lack of faith is disturbing

Taking it further, on List Fortress, nearly every single Scum list was Boba plus Koshka/Emon/Dengar. A few without him that did not do well, Fenn + 2x Bounty Hunter, Dengar + Spacers, a mixed swarm...

I'm not surprised they struggled, looking at the list details.

No one brought the Bus.

No one put PerCo and CC on a Bounty Hunter.

No one thought outside the box on Fangs. (Beside that pair of known quantity lads in the Scyk list)

No one brought Nom Lumb.

I could go on....

6 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

I like how First Order can build just about anything and be at least pretty good.

Somewhere along the way, we realized that we start saying this every time a faction finally gets good generics.

2 hours ago, Managarmr said:

Also, out of the 6 Scum in 32, 5 brought boring Boba.

Well, this was known. July didn't do much to rein him in.

Points soon?

8 minutes ago, svelok said:

Well, this was known. July didn't do much to rein him in.

Points soon?

Witness 128pt Boba in extended. He does not care what he costs. Errata the stress cost back onto Slave 1. Pin him down, cut him, he bleeds.

8 minutes ago, Cuz05 said:

Witness 128pt Boba in extended. He does not care what he costs. Errata the stress cost back onto Slave 1. Pin him down, cut him, he bleeds.

I don't think he does particularly better than average in extended, though? On the list of things to fix before the average bad ship becomes playable but not the emergent disaster he is in hyper.

But anyways Slave 1 is a red herring just take off his crew slot.

7 minutes ago, svelok said:

I don't think he does particularly better than average in extended, though? On the list of things to fix before the average bad ship becomes playable but not the emergent disaster he is in hyper.

But anyways Slave 1 is a red herring just take off his crew slot.

I dont think he does particularly better in HS either tbh. Its just that everyone takes him. Plenty of him outside the cut too.

Removing the crew slot is pretty much a kill shot, rather than a nerf. Slave 1 is not a herring, it's an important, minor adjustment. He can still be strong with it fixed, he does not need to die.

Going a bit further, take Boba away, what happens to Scum? They disappear from HS, receive widespread price cuts/ship additions, return at peak efficiency with unnecessarily discounted ships and the cycle begins again.

I genuinely believe that meta thunk is just as much of an obstacle to balance as how much things actually cost. But it has always been thus. The confirmation bias begins at the squad building stage and then ease of play overshadows quality of play.

2 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

I dont think he does particularly better in HS either tbh. Its just that everyone takes him. Plenty of him outside the cut too.

I disagree, I think Boba is quite oppressive in hyper, in a relatively thin oppressive class also containing named inquisitors. Though I can't prove it without citing N=1 at you.

But the prevalence of Boba is itself kind of damning, too. If a pilot performs well while being popular, it suggests he's even better than is let on, because lots of "bad" players are taking him and losing and dragging down the average; plus the higher the number that show, the harder it pulls towards the average (until reaching 100% of lists).

2 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

Removing the crew slot is pretty much a kill shot, rather than a nerf.

Maybe, but is that so bad? Boba has been dominant in multiple metas with multiple builds. Since launch, he's been dramatically too good in the metas he was allowed into for... like 50% uptime? At some point experimental measures are warranted, no? Worst case he's bad for a season where we're still trying to avoid covid anyways.

But also, has anyone genuinely experimented with naked Boba ever? That might be a neat timeline. Fat Han is among my least favorite ships in existence and naked Han among my favorite; it might be really interesting to play with for a season.

2 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

Going a bit further, take Boba away, what happens to Scum?

I don't think this is true. At a minimum, Fangs and Scyks are still cool and good. I don't think Jumps are that good but at least people seem to think Dengar is usable. There's room for more buffs and more pilots of the YV in hyper. The Falcon, which has been buffed exactly once since release, too. And justice for the humble Z95!

None of those things are big unknowns, where we have to lower the cost not being sure if they're good or not. People have tried. Plus nerf a few things - Inquisitors, Holo, whatever else is high performance - seems fine?

Like, we both know scum players will make threads about how swarms aren't the 2ship 13 upgrade combo lists that first edition promised them but that's really the only obstacle, at least in this format.

Turns out the famous Fort Hyperspace is pretty much Boba and FO?

Imperials don't even want to play?

Meh, I'm fine with that actually.

3 hours ago, svelok said:

I don't think he does particularly better than average in extended, though? On the list of things to fix before the average bad ship becomes playable but not the emergent disaster he is in hyper.

But anyways Slave 1 is a red herring just take off his crew slot.

Why remove the crew slot? Just knock Slave 1 and Maul out of Hyperspace. And, make Slave 1 scaled initiative pricing, while you're at it. It's not worth 5 points on anyone but Boba.

44 minutes ago, svelok said:

Like, we both know scum players will make threads about how swarms aren't the 2ship 13 upgrade combo lists that first edition promised them but that's really the only obstacle, at least in this format.

Wasn't one of the go to lists at the start of 2nd Edition a scum swarm? Drea + Tugs + L3 + Z95s? Scum used that until every thing in that list except the Zs went up. The problem with swarming in Hyperspace as scum now is that they don't have a force multiplier. FO pretty much had FOcho until the Xi came out, and now there are plenty of options to build with with Hask or Malarus helping them along. We see Warthog swarm because they have Convergence Fire and the Stay Alive bonus from Wart. We see droids because they have plenty of team synergies to employ. We don't see TIE swarm because Howl doesn't exist. Once the TIE/rb drops, we will likely see a resurgence of TIE Swarms with Lyttan Dree.

Scum can take Fangs + Scyks, but not much else is strong. If Drea was in Hyperpspace perhaps they could make something, but other than that, Scum is a very independent faction. Their abilities are self-serving, not providing for the swarm mentality, lending to the fewer ship lists. Perhaps the Marg Sabl Closure + Scum TIEs can provide some swarm capability as strain tokens serve the whole list, not just a single ship/pilot.

18 minutes ago, svelok said:

I disagree, I think Boba is quite oppressive in hyper, in a relatively thin oppressive class also containing named inquisitors. Though I can't prove it without citing N=1 at you.

Fair. I don't math well, so can't disagree with your reasoning. I clearly have to agree that he is above the curve in HS. It's just my opinion that an errata on Slave 1 would balance him to the point of strong but not too strong. But I'm well into subjective projection at that point.... I feel like he's not as oppressive in general atm, more just in terms of Scum list building, where he obviously squashes all other considerations.

If an errata to Slave 1 isn't enough, then a couple points on his pilot card as well would help people at least think about not taking him, even if it doesn't limit him an awful lot.

Justice for the Z95 indeed. I'm not sure what saves it. The named pilots, apart from Bossk, have such odd abilities and the generics will always struggle to compete with cheap Scyks/MTGs.

The Falcon lacks the tools it needs in HS. I'm unconvinced any further price drop is necessary or helpful, it's a weird piece that is somewhat reliant on what you put on/with it. A few specific upgrade additions might push it along.

The Bus is already good value. Extra pilots available and a further nerf to Boba should encourage it's use. It's from there that interesting things start happening. I will absolutely not reject further reductions on it, purely from a selfish perspective

29 minutes ago, svelok said:

Like, we both know scum players will make threads about how swarms aren't the 2ship 13 upgrade combo lists that first edition promised them but that's really the only obstacle, at least in this format.

I fully agree that much is dependent on Scum players thinking outside swarm/Boba.

A 2.0 Khiraxz, with some new illicit/mod nuance would be nice. Or perhaps the Y Wing. Both can encourage non swarm/ace squad builds. Even if they do encourage simple beefy spam. This is the sort of area where building Scum HS lists tends to fall down and leave you back with flimsy 3ag and/or a big truck to hang them off.

24 minutes ago, funwok said:

Turns out the famous Fort Hyperspace is pretty much Boba and FO?

Imperials don't even want to play?

Meh, I'm fine with that actually.

I don't think we have nearly enough data for statements like that.

Empire absolutely has options.

19 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

Why remove the crew slot? Just knock Slave 1 and Maul out of Hyperspace. And, make Slave 1 scaled initiative pricing, while you're at it. It's not worth 5 points on anyone but Boba.

This would do it, but taking Maul out would harm other crew ship options. Slave 1 should certainly be scaled, with a big jump to I5. Simply removing it from HS should be a bit of a no brainer and would achieve much. As noted, outside HS, these things are much less of an issue.

Just now, Boom Owl said:

I don't think we have nearly enough data for statements like that.

Empire absolutely has options.

The performance of Vader, Maarek, Vermeil, Mauler is massively encouraging. I see the crit tricks, but nailing one or two ships to the wall with crit chains doesn't carry a poor list.

45 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I don't think we have nearly enough data for statements like that.

Empire absolutely has options.

Context mate!

The largest and most hyped Fort HS tournament of the year (at least for fans of Fort HS) and the most popular faction in the game has heavily lost confidence in their own. I call that delicious.