Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 14: The Day The World(s) Stood Still
130 Plays11 months ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your hosts Nick Sperry, Andrew Kouba, and local guest Sam Graebner discuss the overall fallout of a big Adepticon 2024 and the crowning of a new World Champion! They break down their experiences, the competitive field from LCQ to final table, and look ahead to X-Wing in 2024. Congratulations to Illy, from Germany, on winning Worlds!
Take a look at the data we reference:
LCQ Insights: https://www.pattern-analyzer.app/tournament/rollbetter/1351/insights
Worlds Insights: https://www.pattern-analyzer.app/tournament/rollbetter/1350/insights
Watch Worlds replays on GSP: https://www.twitch.tv/goldsquadronpodcast
Become the ultimate supporter of 312 Squadron and get awesome perks! Including quarterly rewards like tokens and cards, unedited recording sessions of the podcast with early access, and MORE! Check out our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/312Squadron
Support our partner StrataStrike by using this link and checking out with code “312Squadron” for 15% off store-wide! https://www.etsy.com/shop/stratastrike/?etsrc=sdt
Hey, join the conversation, hop into the Discord! https://discord.gg/xknEegJw67
You can follow us live for weekly content on our Twitch channel: http://twitch.tv/312_Squadron
Like our page on Facebook for updates on future and current things: https://www.facebook.com/Squadron312/
Catch replays and edited content on our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@312squadronChicago.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Host Intros
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. My name is Nick Sperry. And I'm Andrew Guba. And I'm Samuel Graebner.
Adepticon Excitement and Recovery
00:00:10
Speaker
Hey, Sam, we got a new guy here. What's up, Sam? Hello. It's good to be here. Yeah, I'm excited to have a couple of locals that were joining me at Adepticon who can just speak about their experience. A lot to talk about. Worlds slash Adepticon just happened. We're fresh off of it on the latter end of our recovery mode here. It's a lot of X-wing, a lot of gaming, a lot of being on our feet.
00:00:38
Speaker
for days on end, having a good time. How has your recovery been for you guys? Have you guys even thought about X-Wing or is it the only thing on your mind because you've played so much?
Post-Event Insights and Decompression
00:00:50
Speaker
Well, I managed to avoid thinking about X-Wing for most of Sunday afternoon and a few days after that. This is the first time I've had a chance to sit down and go through world's data and actually look at some of the insights. So I am ready to go, but I definitely had to take a few days to just like decompress.
00:01:11
Speaker
I have not recovered. I've been just list building. I've been so excited about the game. I felt actually like...
00:01:21
Speaker
regenerated or reinvigorated after I've gotten reinvigorated all the rate rejuvenated. Yeah, I refreshed. No, I've been super excited.
Adepticon Adventures and Mishaps
00:01:33
Speaker
I've been theory crafting and I've been going back listing watching all the streams for all the games I missed to get caught up on it digging into the data. It's been so much fun. Yeah, it's been interesting for me because I've had like
00:01:49
Speaker
Adepticon went from being what I expected it to be to being my much needed distraction. A lot of you guys now know, but some of you maybe don't know when you listen to this, you will know, that my new car that I've only had for a few months broke down on the interstate on the way to Adepticon on Saturday morning. It's so brutal.
00:02:06
Speaker
The engine was smoking and every light was turned on. I had to get a tote. Everyone was going 80 past me, just like anybody that would pass my car. I was like a shake violently. Just the vibrations, a lot of semi trucks and everything. And, you know, that was a really crappy experience. And so I showed up to the con and got shout out to Peter, one of our locals who now lives in the burbs. He rescued me, picked me up and took me to the convention. And thanks to you all.
00:02:31
Speaker
hanging out with you guys specifically, but that the entire community, I was able to just kind of really needed the decompressor and play in the side events and just have a good time. And so in a way the convention kind of saved me.
00:02:44
Speaker
because I would have not been in a very good mental place with the stress and just the distraction of like, oh my God, what am I going to do with this car? I got to have it repaired. Who knows what's wrong with it?
Community Support and Reflections
00:02:55
Speaker
And it's going to be a very expensive repair. The engine is damaged. The coolant pump broke. There were a lot of problems because of a previous issue with the owner of the car before I bought it. They had their car serviced, but the coolant hose was not clamped.
00:03:13
Speaker
to the engine properly and so it broke because of that it just took too long.
00:03:18
Speaker
pass my warranty conveniently for it to happen. So I'm paying dearly for a mistake. That wasn't necessarily my fault, obviously. We're like close to $4,000. But I just came fresh off our livestream streaming X-Wing, two games in Nickel City X-Wing draft league. We decided to do a subathon with giving away everything, cards, dial covers.
Adepticon Event Highlights
00:03:40
Speaker
And we got so many donations. Stephen Weiland of the team
00:03:45
Speaker
USA of the XTC champions of the XTC this year matched up to five hundred dollars in donations as well on his end. What a nice guy. What a nice guy and everybody that donated a guy and subscribed. It really helps because it just really helps soften the blow of having to take care of this thing. We've used this car for all the events we've streamed to get the equipment to where it needs to go. It's just a vital part of that. And you guys have helped me get it back and not take
00:04:12
Speaker
to a massive hit to my bank account. So it really means a lot. So I just wanted to shout that out and put that my recovery has been interesting because I'm still trying to figure out exactly when I'm getting this car back and what the timeline is. But a little once again, the X-Wing community is one of the greatest communities out there. They come through. It's true.
00:04:31
Speaker
So let's talk about Adepticon in general, our experience actually at the event, not on the way to the event, like in my case, we won't be talking about that much more.
00:04:44
Speaker
The side events, the people, the community swag, there was so much of that. What stood out to you guys? Sam, I'll start with you. You played in the LCQ, so you played early, like you played Thursday. What was that like, and is this your first Adepticon? It is, right? Yes, so this was my first Adepticon, first Worlds, first major X-Wing tournament. I showed up and I played every day. It was a blast.
00:05:11
Speaker
came Thursday for the LCQ, did not do as well as I wanted to do, unfortunately. But we got into the Unconventional Warfare League, got into the Sunday Swiss side events, and just gamed. Just played X-Wing all weekend. It was amazing. Shout out to Mike from Virginia. Didn't get your last name, but had a good time playing some games with you, played against a fellow named Dale, had good games with some locals, generally just
00:05:41
Speaker
Gamed my brain out.
Community Connections and Friendships
00:05:43
Speaker
It was great. You got a lot of personal one-on-one time with Jenden, didn't you? I did. I had a lot of Jenden time. Yeah, we'll talk about Jenden in a bit because obviously he stood out and cut as well. So Andrew, how about you?
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, I, I would say meeting all of the people is the number one thing that stood out to me. Met so many cool people from all over the world, which was absolutely wonderful. It was so great meeting like Louis from the UK. Uh, it was really great meeting Brady and Dwight from Canada and playing a couple of games with them. And it was also just great meeting any, any of the fans that came up in and talked to us.
00:06:28
Speaker
throughout the whole weekend. I apologize if I don't name you here, but too many to name. And it was just also great seeing all of our friends that we see at these tournaments come back around to and being able to just say hi and chat with them.
00:06:46
Speaker
and hang out with them has been just one of the most rewarding things about X-Wing and Worlds. Someone had mentioned that it felt like a big family reunion, and I would definitely agree with that. Yeah. That's a good way to put it. The X-Wing community is like a second family.
00:07:04
Speaker
you guys have become a good part of. I mean, it's interesting when you when your life evolves and your your friends or friend groups changes like all the way you're going from college used to have a ton of friends and then it evolves. You lose some friends, people enter. But like with X-wing, it's like one of the most natural ways that I've been able to like gain friendships. And it's just like very close friends. Andrew, you and I have been close friends for several years now because of X-wing.
00:07:28
Speaker
It's just so weird to think about that. Ian, Sam, you're all right. You're on the stage. No, I was, hey, you know what? Samuel was one of the reasons why I had the list I did for the LCQ. Couldn't have done it without him. Yeah. I like to refer to it as a community in a can. Wherever you go, you've got a shared language with folks, and you can just step right up and start playing. That's great.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's great.
Event Dynamics and Prize Systems
00:07:58
Speaker
So many people came up to Andrew and I and gave us just really nice, kind words about how much they appreciate the content in the podcast. And for a while, obviously, I know that people listen to this podcast. I just know that. But sometimes you're like, do people actually listen to this? Just the back of your head. And then all these people are like, oh, I love the cast, all of the podcasts. They're like, oh, my gosh.
00:08:23
Speaker
Wow, this is crazy. People from all over the world are telling us that they listen to our podcast and watch our live streams. It's awesome. We see the numbers of who listens or how many downloads it gets, but then when you start putting faces to it, it's like, oh, wow, yeah.
00:08:40
Speaker
It's incredible, all these people out here. Honestly, I saw someone had written their Discord name on the back of their badge, and I was like, that is a really good move. Oh, that's super clever. I'm going to be doing that next time, because there's so many people who I know by their Discord names, but not their actual names in person. Yeah.
00:08:58
Speaker
Um, do you guys want to dive into the X-wing side and we can kind of just like talk about, you know, everything we notice with the side events. Um, so we'll, I'll ease into talking about the data from like the LCQ and worlds obviously, but just.
00:09:15
Speaker
So there are a lot of interesting cool X-Wing side events. I just played an unconventional warfare, which was like it was like a $60 buy in. You got to play from day one that you could play all the way to the last day on Sunday and you could get up to 24 tickets price tickets each day for playing your four games, six tickets a game. And each day it unlocked a they got a card. So if you built your list a certain way, you got to unlock extra abilities for your ships.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, which was cool and dynamic way to play the game are cool, a little additive, but not to, you know, not fundamentally different from how we know it already. There was also world's prep on Thursday, you know, happening at the same time as the last chance qualifier. And then there was a duos kind of in Sunday, Swiss kind of added events, duos. You could actually have a teammate and you built a smaller list. Each person controlled a couple of one to two ships.
00:10:12
Speaker
And that seemed like nine, nine points each. But you could go cross faction with your teammate, which seemed really fascinating. Like, I'm sure there was a ton of combos that people made or just in interactions that came up that probably have never come up in a game of X-Wing before that the duos event seemed like it was pretty cool. Yeah, lots. Lots of people were excited to play in that. They actually had a huge wait list for the for the doubles event and.
00:10:40
Speaker
They at the last minute were able to open up some tables to bring some of those people in as well. Yeah, I I was I was really it was very laxed and fun, honestly, even though I'm a competitive player, I really, really enjoyed just like embracing the attitude and the vibe of just playing X-wing surrounded by a bunch of gamers and getting tickets and you could get.
00:11:02
Speaker
But honestly, the dice I have for those watching live, like I have, you know, some of them in front of me like these champagne dice. There was these new marble dice that resembled the corset dice, but these cool etch markings like these dark kind of almost streaky markings on them. And they're there. I mean, yeah, they're a lot brighter to the marble dice. Everyone was kind of I think felt like they were off them at first, but they've really grown on me. I like them a lot.
00:11:28
Speaker
Yeah, they have a sheen to them, but it's one of those things where you have to kind of tell somebody or explain it to them like, hey, this is what's different. And then you'll notice. But I don't think if somebody somebody would think like at first glance, I was playing with corset dice and listed until they took a closer look or compared corset dice to them because they are. The tint of them is different in terms of the shape of green and red, a little slight differences, but it's certainly at first glance, it doesn't look.
00:11:51
Speaker
I was super excited to get the sparkly dice. I got as many as I could get my hands on. And I'm excited to just roll them and watch them sparkle. They look so good. Yeah. Andrew and I got teased with them at LVO. We got the innovation prizes. If you play games, you got a pair of them. So I was like, ooh.
00:12:08
Speaker
I really want more of these. And for those of you that don't know, these dice were unreleased to 2020 world's dice. And because of the FFG, AMG handover, AMG didn't have access to the FFG goods for years. And so I was like, maybe this is just leftover supply. I doubt we're going to get more of these. And boom, they were able to give them out at worlds and in droves, like tons and tons of them, buckets of them.
00:12:36
Speaker
I was super excited to see them in the world. Yeah, they're a great part of the prize wall. I will say before getting into the data that when I was I was doing kind of man on the street interviews with folks and one of something that came up multiple times.
00:12:55
Speaker
If I asked a question, if you could add one thing to the game of X-wing in 2024, what would it be? And they said, better prizes.
00:13:09
Speaker
And they were referring to worlds, which obviously the next worlds won't be until next year.
Judging and Event Logistics
00:13:14
Speaker
But even though we had a prize wall with some pretty sweet stuff like these dice that we love, I started to think about it and I realized that the participation prizes for Swiss last worlds was like, not only was there a prize wall, but there was like full punch board, cardboard, like custom stuff that we, the only thing you got for Swiss for this year was a standardized Soutier Fell from Battle Over Endor with a misprinted stamp
00:13:39
Speaker
on the back. So obviously different. I think it's a noticeable difference in terms of just like it is weird to kind of bust your ass to when a world's invite is lucky enough in my case to actually be able to win one. And I'm not somebody that's like foaming at the mouth for participation prizes for something like this. But when you take a step back and look at it, it is a little disappointing because I missed out on that last year.
00:14:01
Speaker
it would have been cool to get some cardboard this year. Instead, we got a misprinted card. So it's like I do think that maybe there could have been a little bit of a better attempt to supplement all the people that showed up. And we're talking hundreds and hundreds of people to play in this event to give them a little bit more than a Suitsurfel card. Yeah.
00:14:22
Speaker
That's just my I agree. Last year, I do remember I think we also got last year, we did get a misprinted ion cannon turret card as well. It was like it was an ion cannon. It was an ion cannon card, but it was the ion cannon turret artwork, right? All art. And it was very confusing because everyone's like, that's an ion cancer. It's like, no, it's an ion cannon. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, it was. Yeah, because I remember that last year as well. However,
00:14:50
Speaker
Another reason why the X-Wing community is one of the greatest communities and why I'm not worried is they had a black market prize wall, uh, where Louis from the UK brought tons of prizes. Other people contributed to it as well. And so you could turn in your prize tickets for very cool alt art cards, lock tokens.
00:15:16
Speaker
They had, uh, dial covers. They had like really nice, some of, some of the metal like quality, um, Onyx squadron from Australia had these amazing trading card packs that had pilot alt art, uh, pilot cards in there with this really cool neon design. Those were incredible. And they had, uh, range rulers, you know, all the, all these other awesome game components.
00:15:43
Speaker
that you could use, and that really added to it. Huh? They were farming tickets. Yeah, I mean, I mean, they were exchanging tickets. Yeah. Louie at the end showed me he had like like a gallon Ziploc bag that was full of tickets that he turned into gallon Ziploc bags of dice and something that he's taken back to the UK for their their tournament scenes.
00:16:07
Speaker
I love that. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to to do any business with those gents, but that. Oh, I got so much stuff there. Yeah, it was it was incredible. And then also, I mean, not only that, there's a really cool gift exchange in X-Wing where, you know, I 3D printed some dial covers and some token holders, things like that with 312 Squadron on them.
00:16:30
Speaker
And other people from around the world were giving me their art and stickers and a bunch of alternate art cards. And Dwight from the Natty Squadron was giving out laser cut bomb templates that have little handles so you can pick up your bombs without bumping everything. Bumping everything, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:16:57
Speaker
So the last thing I want to call out, and then I promise we'll look at LCQ data, is the overall structure of the judges. Just something I want to call out I thought was very interesting. There were a lot more judges than I remember seeing the previous year.
00:17:20
Speaker
And they were very much on top of it. I want to give them props. Chris Allen, you know, kind of leading the judge team. They were very attentive. They were all over. You know, it did not take long to get a judge call. There were some rules kind of put in place or suggestions, recommendations made that I thought were strange, I guess. One of them was recommending to all players to not help their opponents when it comes to marking, moving, touching.
00:17:48
Speaker
ships to call it to recommend calling a judge if anybody was going to make a clear maneuver that was at all close. However, the judges were also instructed when making checks to not touch players components or ships.
00:18:07
Speaker
So my first, you know, judge call the first round, I had a bullseye check that was very close and he kind of held the ruler four inches above the ship and made a judge call that way. And I said, can you actually do it properly? Because it was important game, like every game and, you know, at worlds. And we marked the ships, but I had to do that twice. I had to ask the judge to properly check the second time the ship got bumped and then made the call anyways, which was.
00:18:32
Speaker
by the judge, which happens, but it was inconvenient. I got to be honest, I'm not going to, you know, come off like I'm I'm bitching much about, but I did not like that. I did not like that. The judges were kind of instructed in the players were instructed not to help and like properly check things by holding things down. I get moving and scooching and bumping things as a part of the game.
00:18:52
Speaker
If a judge does that, I've been a judge. I've done that before. It sucks. But it's it's easy to do. It happens. It's a mistake. I would much rather the judge try to make the judge call correctly and accidentally mess up than to just half ass a call. That's important because they were not allowed to even properly check, you know. Yeah. No, absolutely. Logistically, it seems odd. Like the game is so much about trying to be specific and
00:19:22
Speaker
correct about where you're placing things like you kind of need assistance from the other person in order to make it happen. And if the judges aren't allowed to touch your stuff, how are you supposed to make it happen in the first place? Yeah.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, again, it's not me trying. It sounds like I'm calling it out. I just I just think that that's not good. I mean, yeah, I will say it does feel like the judging this year has been a lot more strict than it ever has been. Yes, it was for sure. If you had an altar, you lost your game like automatically forfeited no matter if you had the official component or card with you. You know, I thought I on the first one I heard of people, they got warnings
00:20:06
Speaker
My second game you got it for right second my first game then it was starting to be game loss But yeah, I got the first round was warnings. I got all these cool, you know, I mauler backstabber Tomax I had like a full alt art squad with the official card right behind it sleeve. I showed the judge I had everything he's like, I don't care and it's like Okay, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I Get it. I get it
00:20:30
Speaker
But also, we are at an event where everybody is giving each other alt-art cards. And in the history of the game that's been around for about 12 years, it's never been a thing that has been so strictly enforced. I know that technically you're not supposed to use it, but no one's prepared. Because even at GenCon, when they were going around and taking pictures, it was that as long as you had the other card.
00:20:56
Speaker
It was fine. Yeah. Again, it's a Lucasfilm, you know, thing and legal stuff. I get it. Yeah. Right. But he's taking pictures. Why can't I use my cool card that looks right? Because I did hear that, that it was not an AMG call, that this may have been this may have been a light like a lawyer, like a legal licensing call.
00:21:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, those are some things that I noticed just all around the competitive aura.
LCQ Data Analysis
00:21:26
Speaker
The tilt was very much there because people were not really helping each other. I just you know, I like I like helping my opponent with stuff. You know, I don't know. That's just the way I play. Some people probably were fine with that. It wasn't the end of the world, but I didn't like that personally. So, you know, some things, some areas that maybe we could address, readdress or improve or
00:21:46
Speaker
maybe take another look at in the future. The all-time thing I get more so because you just throw your hands tied, your hands are tied. But when it comes to like not checking things properly and stuff like that, I think there's definitely an area to improve that for next time. If we're able to.
00:22:02
Speaker
But let's talk about the LCQ. You guys will see in the notes, I have the pattern analyzer, an amazing site, shout out to pattern analyzer, break down the data from the last chance qualifier. It includes the top squads. If you go to insights, you can see the faction distribution and performance and overall records per faction.
00:22:24
Speaker
So we won't get too into the weeds, but the way the LCQ worked was that to get the world's invite to get into the main event, you played four games and you were had to go for now to get in. One person went three and one in the number seven seed and got in. But everyone else, you know, it was the guarantee. Yeah, for I've just four games and 108 people for the LCQ as well. It was brutal.
00:22:51
Speaker
It really was like the I lost round one and it took a lot to not be crushed by that. Like, yeah, after after having another crime is kind of crappy. Same. Same for me. I lost mine on the last die roll of the game. The. Yeah. But, you know, it was fun after that. It's like, all right, now I'm on vacation mode, you know.
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's that's that's tough, though, because usually you have a chance to you get one more chance. Yeah. Even even the main event, you could technically lose two games. Yeah. And still make it to the next day. You just have to win out from there. But I get it. You know, the LCQ, it's just you just can't. You can't play as many games. It it sure is the last chance. It is the last chance.
00:23:44
Speaker
So, Sam, you know, you just talked about your first round, but overall, like, what was the competition like? What did you see a lot of? And then we'll match that with the data that we see your anecdotal kind of experience. You don't have to do a bat rep for every game, obviously, but just like how was it? Sure, yeah. Anecdotally, there was a lot of empire. I faced empire in my first round one. I faced empire in round three. It was all over the place. A lot of new stuff. I ran Gendin. I faced Gendin round one in a Gendin rack.
00:24:14
Speaker
Ask Mirror. Oh, the my opponent in round three was playing new TIE fighters. There was Empire everywhere. And I think the the new SLS really pushed that. Yeah, the new SLS battle over Endor is is proven super competitive just with most of the stuff that is in it, especially for Empire. Empire won out big time with the new toys that they they got.
00:24:43
Speaker
Um, I mean, so looking at, looking at the faction distribution for the LCQ, um, the biggest chunk of the pie is empire. It's, you know, it's a Sam, you saw a lot of empire. There was a lot of empire 27%. If I round up 26.92 technically was empire. And then not shocking the other big slice of the pie, 25% is rebels. Both of those two factions are the beneficiaries of battle over end door with the new stuff.
00:25:08
Speaker
And and there we have it. You know, there are those two. And then we get a really interesting distribution from their resistance, making up the third largest at fourteen point four percent. And then the Republic is number fourth played overall, which is really strange to me. Thirteen percent. Then you get. You get scum, FOCIS, and then for some reason is an undefined at eight point five five percent who would undefined be.
00:25:35
Speaker
undefined is just people that didn't submit their. It's just probably a mixture of those four factions. Right, exactly. So total lists, twenty eight, twenty eight players playing empire, including you, Sam, twenty six playing rebels, and then it drops down to just fifteen for resistance and then you get fourteen for Republic. So that that's a little bit the percentage is a little misleading because 14 Republic list is still a lot.
00:26:03
Speaker
But again, when Rebel and Empire 2826 respectively, you definitely have to notice that. And then single digits for everybody else. First order five separate just to scum five. So. And yeah, two of the five made it in, made it into the the main event.
00:26:23
Speaker
Yeah, so and then looking at the faction record here I find it really funny looking at just like the win rate because again, this is skewed but Eight games a separatist. They had the highest win rate with their just two lists report. I've wanted to yeah 70% win rate. Yeah
00:26:42
Speaker
It's that's just so funny Scum and villainy so it's so why does this this is honestly this data is a little is very misleading because The less factions that play it or that the less people that play these factions Their win rate will be higher if they just write okay And so yeah, I'm in separatist being five and two respectively played their win rates are the highest sixty two point five for separatists with
00:27:06
Speaker
eight games in scum with 20, five and one and two overall for Separatists, 11, one and eight for scum with a 55 percent win rate. And then you do Resistance Empire Republic.
00:27:20
Speaker
In that order and then at the bottom because of the amount of games played rebels lost the most They had a forty three point six nine or forty three point seven just round up to forty four. Yeah percent win rate 45 and 52 I really wonder from a list building perspective for rebels if people were just not playing
00:27:45
Speaker
fully like you look at we're gonna look ahead a little bit to the world's lists and they are optimized they are SLs they are new stuff powerful stuff i really wonder if people playing rebels in the last chance qualifier were just like didn't didn't have their best foot forward i guess we'll say i think you kind of you kind of see the same breakdown as what was happening in worlds like in their faction
00:28:13
Speaker
I think he's right, though, like you're it's if you go to, you know, you basically in our live chat district foundry says it was basically also he was like a store champ. And when you take the people who've won an invite in the list that they played to win their invite and then you take the people who would just show up to a store champ with their list, those lists overall will be more unoptimized than the folks who have. Yeah, I mean, invites.
00:28:37
Speaker
That is fair enough. First, first off, there's a lot more Han or not Han, but a lot more Falcons like Lando's in the rebel list than there are in the in worlds. So there's 30 point 30 percent or 31 percent of people last chance qualifier were bringing the Falcon versus 20 percent.
00:28:59
Speaker
in Worlds. Yeah. I think that's for Rebels, at least. And I'm not sure if Pattern Analyzer breaks out the Falcon between Resistance and Rebels. Do we know about that?
00:29:14
Speaker
Oh, looking at you Lando resistance Falcon, for example. Oh, it does. OK, excellent. Yeah, he was he was in one list, though. This is what I'm sure. Yeah. But then like Kat Solis was.
00:29:30
Speaker
This is interesting. Yeah, like it's just it's what I'm looking at based on if I click show more. Let me just a little bit more of the picture here. But a lot of and a lot of unique pilots across lists like Vanessa Doza was in three instances. Faroff was only in three instances. Lee Mackay only in three. Bodek only in one instance. Morna in three. So the count. I don't see anything getting above by. Well, we have Rear Admiral Chirino. Here we go. Twelve.
00:29:59
Speaker
Uh, I will say 10 minute 10 instances 23 for Tomax. Jesus. Yeah. If you want to talk about a pilot that had a monster weekend, both the LCQ and the worlds, it is Tomax Bren from the TV pack.
00:30:15
Speaker
23 out of 27 LCQ Empire players brought Tomax, and then looking ahead a very similar ratio brought into the world. He's one of the best three points in the game. Sam, you and I were like, I think Tomax is like, honestly, you just always put him in an Imperial list now, and that's pretty much what we saw.
00:30:34
Speaker
Every empire list should start with Tomax hands down. Yeah. And you know what the tech is against those lists is other imperial lists. That's the best counter, ironically. Yeah. Jenden eight instances, including your list. So me down at one hundred and ninety something.
00:30:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's it seemed like people in the LCQ wanted to play new stuff and they brought rebels an empire as a you know, made up a big, you know, more than 50 percent of the pie and rebels underperform or just did not perform very well because, you know, besides battle over end or wedge and like Gemmer, there isn't really anything that that stands out as capable of dealing as much damage. Yes, we also have these B wings, which we'll talk about, but
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah, versus the gendons and the soon tiers and the scimitar ones that were all over the imperialists from LCQ all the way through worlds.
00:31:34
Speaker
Yeah, BOE wedge, though, very, very strong like lead Lando, the new Lando, I think some people tried, but, you know, he's kind of a difficult one to wrap your head around instantly. One more thing I wanted to mention before we the most striking distance difference for me between the LCQ and worlds before we wrap this up is 11 percent of rebelists in the LCQ had a fang fighter.
00:31:59
Speaker
versus in Worlds, 44% of Rebelists had a Fang Fighter. So at Worlds, there was 20 Rebelists that had Fenrao and 15 that had Bodica. Only one list in the LCQ had Bodica. Hmm. Yeah. And just looking at two had Fenrao.
00:32:25
Speaker
Yeah, looking at who made it into from the LCQ into the main event. Jammin, Ben Benjamin, Ben Dettie, Mr. Jammin, based out of, I believe, an upstate New York or that area. He so I met him for the first time. I've known him for years on Discord.
00:32:45
Speaker
And he brought his scum list that and won the whole thing, won LCQ with it. His SOS was very high, 2.06, although in a four rounder, SOS doesn't mean as much. But I just want to just do a very quick rundown of his list as he brought Cad Solas and Tor Fun in the fangs. Cad had cutthroat Beskar and Mandalorian Optics.
00:33:08
Speaker
Tor Fun had Fearless, Beskar, and Mandalorian Optics. So often setting up double modded shots, getting close with Fearless and also being able to take advantage of Concordia. Dace Bonarm, basically a really good and defensive, punchy piece with, because of Lando and Overtune modulators, it gets to basically re-roll his dice almost at all times. It's a very offensive Dace.
00:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, and he can use it for defense as well as the hawk can certainly die quickly. Two Y-Wings, Lee Makai with a dorsal and plasma, and our Lee's with ion cannon turret plasma.
00:33:45
Speaker
and our five TK and then Basque with in the Z 95 with marksmanship and expert handling. That's a six ship list scum. Not often are we seeing six ship lists? Usually it's just five. But Ben is played this list with so much success online. It translated in person. It's good to see. And I just want to in terms of scum, shout out Kat Pat Kat. Yes, I wanted to as well.
00:34:12
Speaker
Yeah, go ahead. What what what an amazing story of of trying to win LCQ's with scum the whole year and then finally making it to the LCQ and winning it and getting in on that. Yeah, trying to win a world's invite from the store champs. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she was number five overall. So undefeated for an O and Kat Kat is a big Afra fan and took Afra.
00:34:42
Speaker
With Lando as well for the rerolls, the child BT1, Babu Frick over to modulators and then old Terok in the thing fighter with fearless crack shot. Beskar reinforced plating dirge with fearless proton cannons, contraband cybernetics, Lima Kai with dorsal plasmas and Basque as well with the marksmanship and dead man's. Yeah. Yeah. And she's made huge strides as a player over in the last year. So yeah.
00:35:08
Speaker
Kat, I just played Kat yesterday on Nickel City X-Wing and lost to her by three points. It was a great game. She's yeah, she's she's a good player. The Patrick family knows how to play X-Wing, especially. Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. And then there's there's just, you know, some empire. We got some Republic, but a lot of empire here.
00:35:30
Speaker
We saw some soon tier get utilized. SSP Vader is kind of the staple Vader now because of the objective play. You need to kind of cover all your your bases with objectives. SSP Vader is just better for that is action economy. Tomax is in all of these lists. My actions is better. Yeah. So honestly, usual suspects beyond the scum list, in my opinion. But obviously, just a shout out to everybody who made it.
00:35:59
Speaker
including a surprisingly Nathan I.D. who won Adepticon 2021, was in the LCQ. Dude is one of the best X-Wing players I know. It's great. He made it through, but I was just surprised to see him playing the LCQ. This goes to show, you know, just because you don't have a world's invite, it doesn't mean you're bad. It's hard. It is very hard. I mean, look at some of the players in this field. I was going to say it was a very competitive, yeah, competitive season for sure. Absolutely.
00:36:26
Speaker
X-wing's hard, guys. It is, man. It is hard. And it's draining with all the tokens and marking and ships, 10 plus ships on the board at once. It's a lot. You know, it's a lot. Just says what it is. Let's talk about the you want to talk about the World Championship. I do. And I think there's one very important thing that came out of the World Championships that I I know that Andrew and I have talked about before. And I think it's very important and everyone should care about.
00:36:53
Speaker
The dorsal turret versus R4 debate with Zori Bliss has been solved. Just take dorsal, guys. It's that simple.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah, no, that is that is definitely not the most interesting thing to come out of. He's got jokes. I was I you set that up very well. I was expecting a very spicy take. Let me I got I got him locked and loaded. Don't worry. They're just coming later. You know, there's a reason why I scrubbed out around one of the LCQ and the people who took dorsal turret made it into the top 16 cut. Yeah.
00:37:29
Speaker
I mean, again, Tom X brand just having a monster tournament is my biggest note for this thing. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:39
Speaker
You guys might be surprised that we don't go in as as much detail about, you know, everything in the world that in the world's in the world championship. And it mostly is just because there is some of it's not surprising. And that's not me. That's not me saying like, oh, we shouldn't talk about it. But I just want to make sure that we talk about the big picture stuff and less about the specifics about every top cut player and everything like that faction breakdown wise. Again, empire rebels are one and two.
00:38:08
Speaker
Empire with the most twenty two point eight rebels at twenty two point two. And then we go resistance and third as well. So going back, if I look at the last chance qualifier and look at these breakdowns, it's the same. And then Republic is fourth. And then it's fourth was a surprise. Yeah. Resistance being third is really wild to me. That's not one that I'm like. And I had it had the highest win rate. Mm hmm. It had almost 50 percent. It was the right call.
00:38:37
Speaker
I don't think it's that surprising. It's not surprising to me because I still think that it is poised. It does very well against it. It's quietly been a really good faction this matter. Exactly. Yes. It's so quiet. It does. Sorry. No, go ahead. I was going to say it does well against rebels and it does well against against Republic.
00:39:00
Speaker
Yes, the biggest thing that came out for me from the store championship season after, before Endor came out, was the arc of the metagame from arcs being really good to arcs being countered really effectively. And that was all resistance-based.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, but well, as we'll as we'll spoil it, it didn't stop them. Did not. Yeah, it's hard to stop them. It's hard to stop four point hyper efficiency medium base with double mods and high initiative all the way up from three, four to five turns out with selfless turns out arcs good and cherry tokens. Sorry, I'm not done.
00:39:39
Speaker
and veteran turret gunner rear arc shots as well. Am I missing anything else? Yeah. Or the fact that you can you can build your own flavor of arc lists that we've seen. Right. There are there were six Republic lists in the top 16 and they're all kind of a little different. Oh, God, I'm really afraid to look at how many I'm going to throw up. I'm going to find oddball.
00:40:05
Speaker
Well, they're all going to be, you know, it's all oddballs. Yeah. Well, I know. I know. Oddball is an 88 percent usage rate, which is low to be forty four, forty four oddballs out there. Foolish not to take out ball, but you could do oddball with seven ships. You could do a ball with six ships. You could do.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, it looks like six. End of statement. Yeah. Well, but but but are those six ships going to be? We're trying to keep you in the game, Andrew. Are they going to be torrents? Are they going to be, you know, why wings? Are they going to be Z95? Yes, like. Yes, correct. Yes.
00:40:46
Speaker
Yes. The answer is mostly all of the answer is yes. I'm just looking at everything else here. These ship usages. Oh, we got Juno Eclipse was in two lists. That's cool. Well, we know one of those. I didn't play that.
00:41:03
Speaker
No, that was my list. Yeah, that was Nick's fun list. Oh, it was my fun list. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do like, you know, but no, it's OK. My, my, my, my world's list that lost by barely any points every game was the boys, Merrick, Tomax and Vader, which is a super good list, which is like didn't couldn't counter what I was dealing with as well as I thought it would. But anyways, just going back to looking at the rankings here, top performers,
00:41:34
Speaker
Um. There's a lot of Republic and a lot of Empire and and then there is. A four ship scum list because old power is incredible. A wild man is super good at this game and has played it for a long time. And then just looking at this top 16 here, a little bit of resistance and a little bit of rebels, but it's mostly Republic and Empire.
00:42:03
Speaker
And I want to shout out the winner of Worlds, Illy, from Germany. Young guy, good looking guy, got a good list, got two Y-Wings in the list. And why are his features important? Because, hey, when you shout out, you've got to be good looking to win X-Wing. Ollie is a good looking guy. He won 2019.
00:42:24
Speaker
Oh, so that's what I've been doing. Nicholas God is a good looking dude. Yeah, maybe maybe that's what we don't have going for us. We just need like to beautify ourselves. Right. And there's dice rolls will go our way. Everything will be fine. Be easy. Let's just kick back and let your ships fly for yourself. You know, the the Venn diagram of attractiveness and next wing players is just a circle. Let's just be real.
00:42:48
Speaker
Here you go. Let's just let's gas everybody up at the same time. I think is the best way to do it. Sure. So Illy brought a a republic list with the three arc 170s. But then instead of having like Anakin or Padme or anything, he brought two Y wings matchstick with ion cannon turret and ion bombs.
00:43:10
Speaker
and broadside with ion cannon turret and proton bombs. And it's a lot of health in this list. Let me do the math really quick, hold on. So oddball has 10 hit points. Wolf, that's 19. And then that's 24 for matchstick. No, it's more than that. It's 27, because it's eight hit points for the Y-Wings.
00:43:34
Speaker
And then slider is four. So that's thirty one rod side is another eight. So that's thirty nine. And then Jag is another nine. So that's what forty seven. Yep.
00:43:49
Speaker
or 48 of you have six turns, really five or six turns to burn to get through all of that. That's yeah, it's a six ship list. You got the three medium bases. You got ion tech. You got bomb tech. The only thing you don't really have is an ace, which the Republicans demonstrate they don't need because they take up so much space.
00:44:08
Speaker
More importantly, with the Y-Wings, they have that anti-crit tech ability with the plated hull. True, a pilot card, so it does make them a little better at those objectives too, which we had seen last year.
00:44:20
Speaker
These ion cannon turrets just give you, I imagine, give you so much control. Absolutely. Yeah. You saw that in the final where the ion cannon turrets ionized Jorge's torrents. So they weren't they weren't facing at Illy's arcs for two turns at the end. Oh, yes. Sorry. Sorry. The barrel roll evade greatness that they get to do, not BS. Let's let's not be salty.
00:44:46
Speaker
But the ion cannon turrets were a critical piece as well. Ion is incredibly good. I first hand learned even in the rebels list with Gina and Braylon how good those ion cannons can be, those ion bombs can be as well.
00:45:03
Speaker
Yeah, those bee wings are wild dropping bombs on the sides of their faces. Also, I mean, the game before Illy's game came down to a road roll with Paul Hever. So it was also just a chance that it could have been a rebel. It was a road world away from it being a rebel, a rebel republic game.
00:45:25
Speaker
That was a very close game, so Illy, Illy winning a road roll from the tie and then winning the whole thing is pretty awesome. Scary, wild story. I mean, can you imagine your heart racing like that? Not even having a chance to win versus winning at all because a road roll is just so wild. The last last year's Nicholas God and Andrew Cox had a tie at the end of their chance engagement game final match, although this was I believe they were salvage scramble.
00:45:52
Speaker
or salvage or was they're playing. They were playing. They played scramble in the finals. So yes. Scrambles in the finals. They played salvage against. Oh, yeah. That's Paul. Yeah. Paul Hever. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that now. Yeah. So I want to give a shout out to the runner up Jorge Castaneda, who is a local and by local, I mean like local of the United States because we're talking about the countries right now in terms of worlds. I've I've
00:46:16
Speaker
I know Jorge fairly well. I've been a lot of events with him. He's the sweetest guy. He's so good at the game. His great online presence and shows up to all the West Coast tournaments played him at LVO as well. And he beat the crap out of me with this exact list that he brought, which was Triple Arcs kickback.
00:46:33
Speaker
With the diamond Boron munitions failsafe SOC acts with the dead eye shot barrage SOC and boost with predator So just the synergies of everybody taking tokens for each other and rolling out of every shot no matter what you roll I would love to be able to roll blanks and not care and take tokens for my friends Jorge was representing Mexico though in in world. I Pretty sure he doesn't he live in the United States
00:47:00
Speaker
I don't believe so. He does. OK. I'm pretty sure he does. I mean, he he's he's at all these. There's I mean, unless the man makes a lot of money, he's at all these West Coast events. He's like, well, I mean, Mexico is not that far from California.
00:47:14
Speaker
But yeah, but it would be easy to make all those events. So we'll we'll do an editor's note to to to verify that information. I'm pretty sure I thought or hey, Liz from Washington. But I will double check that information. We'll make sure you get that right. But either way, I know that I cast data obviously is not a it's a Mexican last name. So we'll figure that out.
00:47:35
Speaker
Um, but yeah, uh, Jorge, super sweet guy. Um, I will say just ultimately having Sam and I talked about this a little bit.
00:47:47
Speaker
For a for an entertainment value, it's not a very good matchup. Watching triple arcs versus triple arcs, Republic versus Republic, when there are seven factions in the game and the entire meta has kind of gotten to this one final game in a season and you get one faction with a lot of overlap, not total overlap, but a lot.
00:48:07
Speaker
And this is no knock to either player bringing the list that got them there. Absolutely not. But it's kind of like kind of we would have wanted a little bit of a different matchup just from the entertainment stream side of things like Republic versus Rebels or any other faction besides. Republic. So that's it would have I think this proves a point.
00:48:31
Speaker
In some ways, them facing off against each other with triple arcs versus triple arcs that, hey, four point arc 170s are not only very good, but they're maybe worth looking at adjusting and nerfing to an extent for when we get our next points change. Because you don't want, as a game designer, I wouldn't want to see the same faction play against each other at a final table. It's possible and it happens, but I wouldn't want that when I'm designing for seven factions.
00:49:01
Speaker
I would have hoped to see rebels or empire with some BOE in there as we had predicted. We didn't get that. We got this. It's just it is what it is. But that's just that's just my observation. I just think that, you know, I think it proves the point either way. But yeah, what do you guys think?
00:49:19
Speaker
It's an interesting narrative for arcs just over the course of this tournament season. The fact that it came down to this at the end, I think is fascinating. I agree from a viewership standpoint that like I said this, I'm a bit of a freak. I enjoy arc mirrors. They are interesting to me, but that's from a minutia and tactics standpoint, not a like, oh, it's fun to watch these giant spaceships clash against each other sort of thing.
00:49:48
Speaker
So I found it fascinating. I think that the breakdown like Jorge's list is is very cool to me and was part of my testing gauntlet. And I think it's going to be assuming nothing happens to the arcs moving forward. I think it's going to be a big part of our meta game. Yeah. But.
00:50:08
Speaker
I don't know. I tend to think that from a game design standpoint, having one thing that you're going to have one thing be the best thing no matter what you do and having arcs as the best thing is not the end of the world. It's a simple, not simple list, but it's a straightforward list that is trying to accomplish straightforward things.
00:50:30
Speaker
It's easy to grasp from a new player perspective and it's got a lot of depth and nuance to it from a veteran player perspective. Arcs are fine. Hot take. They can be destroyed.
00:50:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I mean, here's the thing. There's a difference between saying, oh, well, that you kill them. It's like, well, yeah, I mean, anything could die and they can certainly die. Don't get me wrong. The plasma torpedo attack is super good against them, creating them any any a lot of the damage deck is not very nice to them. There's a lot of things. But I think it would be a disservice to just not change absolutely anything after this.
00:51:04
Speaker
Uh, at the worlds with these guys, I think, you know, oddball could go up to five and yes, and you could encourage a different type of list building because the problem. I disagree with the part of what you said, Sam, because it right now people are kind of just pushed into you should do three arcs plus eight points of something else. Like it's kind of like the obvious thing.
00:51:25
Speaker
At least two arcs, but in a lot of, in most cases, three. I don't describe two. So you don't have to. But I don't I really want to get to the point where if we if we nerf everything in the game, like everything just becomes a little bit more expensive, then you really actually have to think about the list that you're building. And I think we've gotten away from that a little bit with certain factions with rebels with the new stuff. It's not that way because there's new stuff.
00:51:50
Speaker
But with like Republic specifically, I think it's the easiest culprit to pick on. It becomes very apparent as to what you should be putting in your list that it's not even interesting. It's boring. It's like the list building is just a formality. You just have to print out your list to hand in. It's not like you're actually really doing anything, except Italy brought his why wings, which is cool because he actually list built, but still for yours. Yeah, I mean,
00:52:18
Speaker
Right. There's a lot of three arcs plus something. I mean, there was also a seven ship or public list that that was doing well in worlds to didn't make the top 16, but it did show that there are other ways to build the faction. I think right now there's just some pieces in Republic that are under costed.
00:52:40
Speaker
Um, if you can have, you know, as much health as the Republic faction offers with multiple tokens and evades and stuff to just, just how beefy it is, I think just means that it needs to go up. I mean, I'd say oddball is the number one offender here. Cause when you, when you really only have five or six turns to get through all of that, um, oddball forcing you to.
00:53:10
Speaker
Spread the damage around. Yeah, when you lead with jag and or wolf is is going to be the main culprit in that because the one thing that you can't do afford to do anymore is spread that damage around and this is a hyper efficient listed doing that.
00:53:26
Speaker
at the same time it has access to control pieces, it has access to some pretty heavy hitting pieces as well. So I do think in the future that Oddball should go up points at the very least.
00:53:42
Speaker
Yeah, extra extra shield target lock ability with red focus so you can get double modded shots if he bumps, which is so wild. It's very good. VTG born for this selfless, which is even isn't even Republic talent. Right. Yeah, that's the I mean, the selfless is the main culprit in the list for sure. Yeah. So I think the oddball nerf is enough to me.
00:54:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's just they could just it's it's as somebody who plays a faction that is a little bit simpler. It's so wild to see what those things can do. Yeah, spending, you know, being able to spend each other's target locks, spend each other's tokens, multiple instances. You know, in one die roll, you can spend multiple tokens at once.
00:54:28
Speaker
And the other thing is I honestly, one thing that would make born for this a little bit more fair to me is if the ship using born for this took a strain instead of the ship giving the token, the ship using it takes the strain. Yeah, I would think would be a much more reasonable way to have designed that because then it gets punished for taking the token, which I think is fair. I think it's right. Yeah, that cat's way out of the bag by now.
00:54:55
Speaker
Yeah, we are stuck with what we've got.
00:54:58
Speaker
I think it's yeah, we're stuck with what we got. I think they've made some mistakes with the design space of some of these things where they just don't stop. They just kind of keep giving a good thing, good things. And, you know, we've talked that we've covered this before. I it sucks, but we deal with it. We have it now. It exists. Not changing it. So but yeah, I just it's just one of those things where they've certainly it's certainly I don't know if you go as far as to say abused, but it's it's proven itself to be incredibly difficult to overcome. And it is a world championship archetype.
00:55:27
Speaker
Because it is something that you have to, you really have to design around when you're building a list. Yeah. Is, will it be able to do enough damage to these lists to win games? Yeah. And they're capable of not only soaking up damage, but they do a lot of it in the process as well. That's right. And are surprisingly good in objective format. Yes. Yeah. I mean, all the medium bases really, really can dominate some games.
00:55:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So just just doing a quick count here. The top one, two, three. OK, the top eight overall. I'm going to count really quick. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one.
00:56:16
Speaker
Twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven as standardized cards, standardized pilots in the top eight. But standardized pilots are you know, they're they're meta warping. They're popular. They're good. They're so good. They're incredible in the future.
00:56:33
Speaker
They are the future. I personally, you know, want a balance between the two in terms of list building where you customize your own pilots and then have some standardize. I am not interested in playing a game where you can only play standardized cards. I will probably stop playing X-wing. That actually happens. Not to say that I think that will happen. Yeah, I don't think that they're not interested in that. Right. But I'm not interested in that. I think that's bad for the game, if that were the case. But they are very good. They have their place in the meta.
00:57:00
Speaker
And in a lot of cases, like in Jorge's list, all but one ship were all standardized. So, yeah, power levels there for sure. That was one of the big takeaways I had this weekend. Yeah. Siege of Coruscant battle over Endor are proven very strong. Tomax has his place in every imperial list, as we've said. I wanted to go over, I'm trying to find, here we go.
00:57:28
Speaker
Duncan Howard's list. Duncan Howard, one of the best X-wing players anybody knows. If you've heard that name, you expect him to be at top tables in every event. And he did a great job playing at Worlds. He made top. I think it was top 16 is when he lost or.
00:57:50
Speaker
Yeah. Top 16. And he brought the list that you brought, Sam, correct? It was the four ship Imperial Vader, Jenden, Tomax, but you had Vizier. He had Faroff. Is that correct? That's the that's the biggest difference. He did not take Palpatine and I watched at least one of his games and saw how he used Faroff and was very impressed. Obviously, like the skill ceiling of this list is really high and the floor is really low.
00:58:18
Speaker
But Faroff gave you or at least gave him a higher floor than Palpatine did or Vizier Palpatine did. He was able to use Faroff as a actual objective grabbing piece, a brawler, just an all rounder that really shown at least in the limited amount of time that I watched him. Yeah, triple zero Faroff.
00:58:46
Speaker
Gets in your face, takes a, usually, you know, you're, if you don't want to give them a calculate, so you take a stress and then you get picked apart by two ships that are almost never stressed. Exactly. Yeah, that's a lot of damage. So it's, uh, uh, SSP Vader, Colonel Gendin, and the, uh, TIE Defender at I-6 can fire that five dice proton cannon double modded if he spends a shield against that fifth die. TBE Tomax, of course, and then, as you said, fair off the triple zero. Um.
00:59:13
Speaker
But yeah, so looking at just the overall spread in the top cut, again, I'm not gonna get too detailed. Besides Old Para's list, which we'll talk about, it's a lot of majority republic, a few empire, and then it looks like a resistance list. Two resistance lists. Mm-hmm.
00:59:42
Speaker
Old Parra from Poland brought a four ship scum list headed by Fenrao with clan training. Beskar reinforced plating and shield upgrade. So a more defensive Fenrao, but still can set up double modded shots if he gets close on the initial maneuver. That is the Mandalorian Mandalorian is really held back by just a low
01:00:08
Speaker
Load out value. He only has 10 load out. Yeah. He took the child razor crest, which he hid contraband or rather false transponder codes under and contraband cybernetics. That that extra force, though, really gives it some staying power. Another defensive build and his ability. Yeah. Like.
01:00:30
Speaker
His his ability to if there if while he defends or forms an attack, if there is one or more enemy ship in his front arc at rain or if he is in the front arc of one, I think it's two or more or is it one or more? I can't remember. It's two, two or more. It's multiple. He gets to change an eyeball or a blank to an eyeball. And so with the child, he can roll. He can get out of a lot of shots and stay more defensive. I commented on it, commentated on a game with ESP.
01:01:00
Speaker
where he was going up against the rack list against the guy who just won to take her up in Corrento. And he false transponder coded the decimator and proceeded to do 13 damage to the decimator in a single engage with a four ship list. It was ridiculous. That will do. Yeah, that will do. You also had dirge with proton cannon, smartsmanship and codes as well. So two jamming texts in that list, one that hides and decides to reveal it.
01:01:30
Speaker
And Cad Bane also in the road class with Kira. So you can ignore obstacles. If he has it locked, sink lasers for the third attack die, ion bombs for that control and Mark's able closure, which works with Kira. As long as you fly through that obstacle, you can strain someone at range one to two. Yeah. And, and definitely was utilizing that strain quite a bit. Yeah. So old par also made top 16.
01:01:55
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, overall, taking a step back, looking at everything, there's a few things that I can confidently say. Siege of Coruscant has remained a top tier meta choice and has performed. It just continuously performed at every tournament that probably it's been at. It's been there.
01:02:16
Speaker
Battle over Endor not only was new and exciting, but was used and used to high to a high level with the B wings that you know, cheap foreign five point B wings that have triple mods. They can have focus evaded target lock to be able to fire double modded proton torpedoes and homing missiles if they choose to do so, as long as they have each other at range one to two and their stress.
01:02:41
Speaker
So and dropping bombs at the side. They drop bombs at the side. Yeah, which is incredibly difficult to to counter in terms of. Absolutely. They are. They are really hard to deal with when they get to do that. They're very good and very good. We'll be seeing a lot of them. Also, new wedge is also very good. Yes, new wedge setting. You can find ways to get double mono pro torps. And also is just a lot more defensive because he gets the focus token on the attack hits. So.
01:03:10
Speaker
One of the downsides of playing the non-standardized wedge is that it, you know, you use all your mods on offense, but it can, it can burn down quickly. This wedge stays on the board a lot longer, also has a shield upgrade.
01:03:28
Speaker
I really think coming out of BOE as well, Gemr Sojin is probably one of the most impressive pieces I've seen on the board. Same. Not splashy, just efficient, really powerful, impossible to kill. Like this card is, I think my pick for like most impactful thing coming out of BOE moving forward, we're going to see a lot of rebels with Gemr.
01:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Gemmer definitely is is hitting above his weight for sure. The bullseye adding an eyeball result, there's been a number of times where he's doing damage. Yeah. Oh, I thought he was just there to never to never die and play objectives. I don't know who's actually he can. He can do both. It's all value. He can. Yeah. He can. Yeah. Do do objectives. I've also seen it because that that that bullseye shot, you know, turns any two day shot into a three die one.
01:04:24
Speaker
especially when there's a lot of arcs running around. Medium bases. Yeah, it's true. Medium base is easier to get in bullseye.
01:04:36
Speaker
But, yeah, I just want to quick addendum. I learned that Jorge is he he was representing both team. He represented Team Mexico in the XTC, but he is from the Seattle area. OK, gotcha. So, yeah, representing Mexico, but lives in the US. All right. Yeah. Yeah.
01:04:55
Speaker
But yeah, so just overall was a good worlds. As you know, before we kind of wrap up, I know that this is gonna be a slightly longer episode, because this is a big thing to talk about. There were some...
01:05:07
Speaker
I don't know if I'd say drama, but I check out the X-Wing subreddit sometimes because I have Reddit now. I used to never use it. Reddit is a weird place. It wouldn't take everything you see on there for face value. Take it with a grain of salt. But some people were, I'm going to say, concerned that X-Wing was not on the roadmap in the panel discussion that Atomic Mask Games had.
01:05:30
Speaker
at Worlds, where just for reference, the last year, a year ago during their panel, they they spoiled the store champ kit and some, you know, potentially no future product, including Battle over Endor, which we just got for this event. Yeah. So.
01:05:47
Speaker
You know, it's obviously the game's not dead. You see how many people showed up. There's certainly even if the game were to be, quote unquote, complete, the community is going to keep this game going at a very healthy level for a while. I'm not concerned about that, but I am 100 people.
01:06:03
Speaker
I am starting to realize that at the very least, X-Wing, TMG is not the priority for AMG as of right now. It's not at the forefront of the most important thing that they're looking at in terms of business and sales. And obviously, if it were, then they would have talked about it to some extent at Worlds. They didn't. So what do you guys think that means? Sam, I guess I'll ask you first.
01:06:30
Speaker
I'm not panicking. I think that we just had a major release that shook up worlds to a huge extent. I think that while it was a long time coming, we didn't have a release for a little while from the bombers up to Endor. We still got Endor. We still got worlds or Endor for worlds. I'm not panicking. We have more stuff probably in the pipeline like there is.
01:06:59
Speaker
They are they are not killing the game. I don't know. I look at all of the panic around X-Wing and I just I'm I'm OK to let AMG steer the ship for a little while. They've they've done a pretty good job. I know that's controversial, but I'm I'm impressed. Yeah, I I don't feel that that that I mean, yeah, that take I guess is controversial, but I don't I feel similarly I will say that
01:07:29
Speaker
AMG is just really bad at PR. They're not good at communicating with their fan base. From what I saw at Worlds and from what I've seen online too is that I believe that X-Wing is probably their most played Star Wars game.
01:07:52
Speaker
out of all of the different war games that they have. The one thing I saw was that the X-Wing community and the X-Wing player base was so strong this year more than anything. And I have no idea what's going on at AMG. My theory is that X-Wing is in such a good place right now that they might
01:08:21
Speaker
feel that they're not worried about it because the community is so strong there, that they can focus on building new communities elsewhere, which is why we're not seeing anything new. It would be nice if they were just at least hinting at down the road, we're going to have something coming up.
01:08:45
Speaker
But no, I don't see X-Wing going anywhere. I think X-Wing is in a far more stable place. I feel better about it now than I did even coming through Last World when they had announcements of new products and things coming out.
01:09:02
Speaker
Anecdotally is as well. I'll say like I've encountered I'm a new player. I've encountered a lot of new players, especially at Adepticon. Like there are there are people that are gravitating towards the game again. And I think that is because of the fact that the community is so good and the game is healthy. I think that's a very good point, Andrew. Yeah. And I'm for those who that.
01:09:29
Speaker
Listen to this later. I have been live streaming our recording sessions for folks who want to watch us on Twitch, which you guys can catch us usually on Tuesday nights or Wednesdays. We'll every other week we'll be recording our episodes. But I'm getting just usually don't reference the chat in our recordings, but.
01:09:48
Speaker
Interesting from Jared, who says his friendly local game store and told him that all Star Wars X-wing skews were canceled for this year. And that two prequel starter sets showed up on the skew list a few weeks before they were listed as canceled.
01:10:07
Speaker
So really, I am reporting just the facts or, you know, I believe the store. I don't think they'd make that up. That's obviously there's no way to to frame that in a way where, oh, well, you know, that just means there's more product coming. That sounds like they're not releasing product for X-Wing this year. New product, rather, if or or there are significant delays that would result in waiting almost a year to get anything. So, yeah, you know,
01:10:35
Speaker
That's obviously not a good sign, but if that's if that's true, I can't you know, I can't confirm that now that that is true, but that's what he's heard. I think that that might be OK. Like, it's not it's not great. You always want new things and stuff, too, but.
01:10:55
Speaker
You know, I'm all right. That's getting canceled. That's bad. That's definitely. Sure. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. Because those are for other factions. We don't have star sets for. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Which just means, again, they don't necessarily have faith in the sales side of it right now for the game. I don't think the game is making a lot of money or as many rather the parent company. I mean, it's a lot of these games don't make they'll have a high profit margin. So is this surprising to anybody? No, not really.
01:11:26
Speaker
Hello to, again, referencing the chat here, I usually don't, but hello to the Gold Squadron, who's rated us after their podcast. Again, in case those who missed it, there is a report, a rumor, a source that I...
01:11:39
Speaker
Star Wars X-Wing SKUs have been canceled for this year, at least in the near future. Can't say it's for the whole year. I also don't have, you know, it's a friendly local game store that has indicated that that that they've seen some new SKUs for starter sets for the prequels come up. Jared is the one in the chat that let me know about this and that they were canceled.
01:11:58
Speaker
So, um, this isn't me for those of you just jumping in. This isn't doom and gloom time, but it's just, uh, we're talking about both sides here. Um, we're talking about, uh, the optimistic side about what we just experienced. We're talking about things that we're hearing or, you know, even facts. Um, it wasn't on the roadmap. The skews have been, you know, potentially sounds like some have been canceled or maybe still significant delays in production. Um, so.
01:12:27
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I mean, it is, it is, I think a reality that it can be very just frustrating to be a X-wing player at times when there is, you know, a massive lack of communication. It's really the lack of communication that is, that's the issue that's spawning a lot of like these rumors and stuff. Yeah. And it would be easier just to know, to set expectations one way or another.
01:12:53
Speaker
Yeah, there is somebody again, we're talking about Reddit who had decided to go on AMG stream and say, is, is this it? Is the is it over? You know, is there anything for Xwing and AMG responded saying we don't have anything planned for Xwing? You said, well, is that is that mean it's dead? And they like I think they muted him, timed him out or banned him. I don't remember. AMG had to deal with a lot of people, some people being toxic about the state of Xwing and their private discord.
01:13:20
Speaker
I never joined their Discord and they had to ban a lot of people. They did that to a decent amount of people in their Twitch chat as well before Worlds. Honestly, I hopefully I wouldn't I would feel really bad if I joined one of their streams asked, do you have anything about X-Wing? And even if it's annoying for them or they've seen it too many times, I would hope that that wouldn't warrant me getting banned.
01:13:42
Speaker
for just mentioning one of their games. I don't think that's the case, but there's a narrative out there that AMG has had trigger happy when it comes to people to ask asking about X-Wing. I do think some people may be twisted a little bit to sound like they were still reticent in the way that they asked it. It sounds like sometimes people, you know, usually when you get bands, you do something. You've done something to deserve it. Sure.
01:14:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They muted the whole question and answer. I wasn't there. I don't know. I'm not going to say I don't believe you, but I do think as Andrew pointed out, the communication style and approach for atomic mass games is by far and away the thing that they are so bad at. I mean, I can't hold back when when, you know, being honest about this, they
01:14:28
Speaker
are bad at doing that. And I think to get some better standing with the people who still love the game and are playing, which is a lot of people, by the way, tons, they need to improve and they need to, you know, they've admitted when I interviewed them that they have some areas they need to improve. They didn't call out, you know, communication specifically, but it's it is clear that they I think we have cut them enough slack now that it's time that they improve that we hold them to a high standard.
01:14:56
Speaker
because this is a Star Wars IP we're dealing with. This isn't, you know, a backyard, you know, volunteer game designer kind of thing. This is a big this is a big thing. It's a big leagues, folks. Star Wars is the big leagues. You know, your grandfather's space, a plastic space. Yeah. But yeah, so.
01:15:20
Speaker
It's just interesting to talk about, do I think the game, here's my take. I know I just ranted and rambled. My take is, do I think the game is dead? No. Do I think the game will have more product in 2024? I'm leaning no right now. I'm leaning, but I can't say definitively, but I'm leaning no. Is that okay? Do we need new ships? No, I don't think we do need new ships.
Future X-Wing Enhancements
01:15:43
Speaker
Do we need new pilots and stuff or maybe some new upgrades? I think that would be nice.
01:15:46
Speaker
I would like to see, you know, new pilot more pilot card packs or whatever. Yeah, graduate stuff from extended into standard like a Star Viper for scum, for example, or the Lambda shuttle. You know, do stuff like that.
01:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I was good. Yeah, absolutely. I was gonna say, I think we're at a point where if we go a year without new ships, that's fine. I thought there was some hope with the unconventional warfare. The fact that they were even designing like new side event games and new ways to play X-wing was pretty promising for me. When I was doing the unconventional warfare, I did see a lot of potential with that.
01:16:22
Speaker
as a way to augment the current scenarios and objectives. So if there are scenarios and objectives, but you get universal bonuses for bringing a certain type of ship or perfection, or you could create a series of universal bonus effects that you randomize in conjunction with the objectives could lead to a lot more interesting and innovative gameplay, things like that.
01:16:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that would also do just as much of a job of spicing a backswing as a new new products Yeah, I'm seeing I'm seeing from the audience Points changes I think having a schedule for points changes if the game is not marked as quote-unquote complete aka They're still gonna support it which I have reason to believe that they're going to do that. I've no reason to believe they're not With Armada getting a store champ kit. I will so we'll cure about x-wing soon. There will be a world's for excellent
01:17:20
Speaker
It would be nice to be like every two months or every every two months every two twice a year We will have a points change around this time I just feel like sometimes with x-wing things have kind of just been knee-jerk into action
01:17:35
Speaker
all the way back to when the game transitioned to 2.5, things were just kind of thrown against the wall and be like, here we go. Here's all the changes. Points change right before Worlds. You know, hey, Battle of Rendor points are up, but there's also other points changes. It's like, whoa, I just want my expectations. Like, I just want to know what to expect. I don't know if that's unreasonable, but it's certainly not something that I can afford to do now. Even if it's like little tweaks like we did before Worlds. I was going to say, I liked the little tweaks change.
01:18:03
Speaker
The big sweeping change that we had last year where the arcs went down to four was fascinating and led to a cool tournament season, but Han was too oppressive and there was a lot that was not super enjoyable about it, so I enjoyed the tweaks. I don't know that I would want
01:18:24
Speaker
like often frequent heavy points changes that would make the game. Well, I mean, we haven't we barely had got we got one in one point one point two five points changes in the last year. It's true. So, yeah, I think once every six months would be great. That's a long time, six months. But that's just me. That's not my wish list.
01:18:47
Speaker
I think a lot of people I've talked to, they want everything to just be more expensive. And I think that really makes the game healthier with list building and makes us think about different things that maybe we don't play as much. With the scenario packs, I think it kind of gives them a really interesting space to live in this game, as we've seen them be very popular. Battle over Endor is far and away the most competitive scenario pack to play.
01:19:16
Speaker
at a tournament. There's just so many good options and efficient fun pieces to use. Yeah. Way more than we've even seen in Siege of Coruscant for both factions and Battle of Yavin, you know. Yeah. Any anything else, guys, before we wrap up here? Arc's good. That's my note. Soontir fell is. Yes. Busted in half. And it's very fun to fly. Excited to play more with Soontir this year. That's my takeaway, too.
01:19:46
Speaker
This week I'm looking to I really want to try the rebel side.
Closing Remarks and Thanks
01:19:50
Speaker
I want to try Tycho looks like a lot of fun Yeah
01:19:56
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode of our world's coverage for episode 14. This episode is brought to you once again by Strata Strike. You can go to their Etsy page and you can buy so many different things, including amazing gaming components for X-Wing like incredible precision wood carved template trays, templates, tokens and more. You can use discount code three one two squadron. That's three one two capital S lowercase Q U A D R O N.
01:20:25
Speaker
for 15% off your entire purchase, not just for X-Wing components.
01:20:30
Speaker
If you want to catch replays from world's gold squadron podcast, my crew over at GSP did an incredible job covering everything from the LCQ to final table. So I strongly encourage you to go over to GSP to watch their vods, the replays of those games. They will be up on YouTube and not too, not too far from now from when this episode, uh, airs. You can also make sure you follow us on Twitch to catch us live, including for our live podcast recordings.
01:20:57
Speaker
edited content on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, like us on Facebook, and jump into the conversation with us in Discord. Thank you to our patrons, lastly, for making this possible. You guys are amazing, really helps us continue to do what we do. You can learn about how to become our biggest supporter in the episode description. We cannot do it without you. My name is Nick Sperry. And I'm Andrew Kuba. And I've been Samuel Graebner. And thank you all for listening.
01:21:26
Speaker
and see you next season.