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Episode 9: New Year, New STUFF?
87 Plays1 year ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your hosts Nick, Andrew, and Manny dive into their New Year’s resolutions, speculation on the Battle of Endor pack, and how we cope with losing in a competitive environment.
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Transcript
Introduction and New Year's Resolutions
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. We're back. My name is Nick Sperry.
00:00:08
Speaker
I'm Andrew. I'm Emmanuel. You sure are. And we're happy to start off. We're happy to start off the new year. I know there's limitations on how you say happy new year at this point. But for you all, I do want to wish you all a happy new year. And we're back for episode nine of the 312 Squadron podcast. Guys, there's a lot to talk about, but I do want to ask you all about your new year's resolutions. OK, so Manny, let's start with you.
00:00:36
Speaker
What is your resolution? And it's in being good at X-wing, unfortunately, on the table. Does it have to be extra related or just could it be anything? Oh, I'm just joking. Yeah, no, it could be anything. It doesn't need to be all. I don't want to try to read.
00:00:50
Speaker
at least a book every month. That's the goal. But and hopefully be able to climb a V6 at the end of the year. If you're not into climbing, then that's going to fly over your head. So yeah, there's that like a battery. Sounds like a battery. You're going to climb a battery. No, it's like it's it's how like the routes are rated. Oh, cool. That sounds because six is higher than one.
00:01:16
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. Wow. You, you can do math extremely well. I can't everybody. I've got that guy over here. It's your dears. It's your dears. No, I'll never get good at math. What about you, Andrew?
00:01:32
Speaker
My resolution was to remember people's names the first time I meet them, and to be better at doing that. The first time? Yeah, I mean, because I'm not, I forget names pretty quickly, like if I'm meeting someone for the first time, you know, if you go around and introduce them, like people introduce themselves and just, it's been hard for me just to remember people's names.
00:01:52
Speaker
I can
Career Goals and Personal Reflections
00:01:53
Speaker
remember their faces, but I'm taking a concerted effort to like actually just try to remember people's names. Uh, cause that's just something that I'm not good at. So, and that it's always embarrassing when like you, you've met someone like spend a whole, you know, day with them and then you meet them again and you can't remember their name. Yeah. I can totally understand. Usually I'm just too busy avoiding to be socially awkward. Uh, and that's why I usually forget their name.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah. And I'm a pretty outgoing person as it is, but it's just, it's always been hard for me. I just don't have, I don't know. I just don't have that. And it's not, you know, and I, I'm never offended if anyone forgets my name, but I don't want to like offend people because most people I meet are actually like really important to me. So that's why I want to like be better about remembering their names.
00:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's a big one. I feel like without being the cliche like, oh, I'm going to go on a mental health journey, lose weight, make more money, stuff like that, I definitely want to get, I want to feel like I am making serious progress in my career. I want to be able to see, maybe start to see with more clarity where my future could be in the next few years.
00:03:09
Speaker
I'm really hard on myself, though. I feel like I take a step back. I'm pretty happy with my life. I'm really hard on myself, though. I feel like it's easy to get... And this actually ties into what we're going to talk about later. But I feel like it's easy to get caught up in what's happening now and in the moment. If something's frustrating or stressful, that is pretty fleeting. It's easy to get stuck on maybe... Immediately, your life doesn't feel so great. But ultimately, very fortunate.
00:03:39
Speaker
that have a good supportive family. I have good friend group. We have 312 Squadron, which has grown immensely. We have the podcast here, obviously, along with that.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I think I need to do I think my New Year's resolution TLDR after this long race is to just be a little bit better about like maybe looking at the bigger picture and maybe not stressing out as much. Cheers to that. There you go. All right. So
Las Vegas Open Experiences
00:04:06
Speaker
we were we were at the Las Vegas Open this past weekend, at least from when we're doing this recording. That's right. And by we I mean, Andrew and I went and we played on the Friday Heat. We got it on Thursday.
00:04:20
Speaker
on Friday, day one, heat one. And I probably have played the worst I've ever played at an X-wing tournament, structured tournament, like ever. I'm fortunate enough to have a World's Invite already, so I felt like I could take the pressure off and play something different. And I'm glad I did. Andrew, how'd you do?
00:04:38
Speaker
I did well, I was actually very happy with how I played. It came down to the end for me. I did my last game on stream and I was going up against our good friend Justin. We were both two and two, so one of us was going to make it to day two. We both had the winning in and unfortunately that game got away from me.
00:05:01
Speaker
I felt like I had a pretty decent opening. My list had to do more damage on that initial engagement and just didn't get there. And it was just hard to recover from there. But Justin played well, and I was super happy for him and stoked that he was able to do it. And then I got ninth place in the Red Dye Redemption in the next day playing for fun. So it was a good time all around.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, I was able to play a lot better in that. I went three and one in that, which felt good. Just kind of. Yeah, you were you were seven in that or. Seven. Yeah, seven. Yeah.
00:05:37
Speaker
That's always good. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Yeah. So for those of you guys that didn't know, LVO was interesting. I'm not going to use this as an excuse, but it certainly was a bit of a distraction. You know, long story short, there was a technical issue. GSP was there to stream. They weren't able to set up their stream with their computer. I had brought mine to do some team league stuff because we're running our three one two team league. And I do a lot of admin stuff every day for that.
00:06:04
Speaker
And that's what I use when we travel and stream X-wing in person. It's an incredible computer. And we were able to hand it over and lend it to GSP so they could stream LVO. But day one, I was trying to help them get it set up and play at the same time. And I would have to leave my opponents sometimes and have the judges like wait around with them and give us extra time.
00:06:24
Speaker
And it was very stressful and I certainly wouldn't want anybody to have to deal with that kind of distraction while playing competitive X-wing. And I appreciate the judges and my opponents being so cool about it. They're super understanding and I'm glad it worked out. I'm still a part of the GSP fam and I love those guys and
00:06:43
Speaker
you know, if worst case, if I didn't have my laptop, they would have probably had to buy one from like Best Buy or something. But it would have just been such a hassle. So thankfully, we were able to get Xwing covered at LVO and 3.1.2 played a pretty big role in making that happen.
LVO Highlights and Evolving Meta
00:06:57
Speaker
And we got a lot of recognition and support, followers, subscribers to our Twitch channel. So.
00:07:03
Speaker
I just wanted to thank everybody for all the love. And yeah, that was that was kind of an unforeseen kind of circumstance that we had at this LBO. So, you know, I'll gladly trade that for playing poorly. But I mean, it was great that you were there at least and you had the expertise and the equipment to jump in and help out. So.
00:07:21
Speaker
Yeah, I'm glad I'm glad it all worked out. I have all the footage transfer the hard drive. We'll get that over to GSP shortly. Yeah, it's good. It feels good to be able to contribute. You know, that's what it's what I'm here for. I'm glad I was able to help the guys get the stream set up. You know, speaking of Elvio, we'll talk briefly about, you know, kind of what we saw and ultimately Doug Howe with his first order.
00:07:42
Speaker
Winning list. I think it's safe to say there was a lot of rear Admiral Churnu and a lot of bombers. Yeah, Republic arcs and clone clone friends and smaller bases alongside them. Yeah. Empire in the Republic. Yeah. Those were the two big factions for sure. Quite quite a bit of rebels, but not rebels with Han. I think we were seeing seen some other rebelists start to come out.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah, we saw I know Mitch Hurst made cut with looks like it was Luke Ben hot in key of Enzi. But yeah, we saw a Thomas anonymous product ghost, Kenan Jarrus, which is pretty cool to make cut with that. Yeah.
00:08:20
Speaker
Velvet Buddha with double decimators and two bombers. It was a death fire and a Tomax. And then we had one, two, three, four in the top. It's like six seeds. I'm looking at here all with triple arc lists, although one had Daniel Lim did have double arcs, not triple arcs in his Republic list. Close enough.
00:08:43
Speaker
Doug's list. I just want to... Doug won LVO. Congrats to Doug. Doug is a good friend of mine and an incredible X-Wing player. I've had the pleasure of playing him at the highest stakes before. You learn a lot about the game and playing him. Just a good dude. And he won with Silencer Kylo. He brought us a seven-point Kylo with Protox or Kudos, Advanced Optics, Lone Wolf, and Instinctive Aim.
00:09:06
Speaker
That's such a powerful combo. Yeah. And then he brought three tie FOs and an SF. So Lieutenant Gaelic with heavy laser cannon, proud tradition and an F.O. Commander Mallory is, of course, the hyper efficiency that she has with magpulse warheads. La Hughes and the SF had special forces gunner barrage rockets in marksmanship.
00:09:28
Speaker
And then lastly, DT 798, I like to call borch because it's like scorch, but with an inversibility, you take a strange roll next or die with a regen and deterium power cells. That was the list. Super simple for two point five. This is a pretty simple list, especially with upgrades. Really impressive. Yeah, it's got a lot of offensive output. And if you can get into good positioning, it can it can be deadly.
00:09:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's solid. But yeah, solid list. And it's nice to see. You saw you've seen the evolved meta around Doug's list and you just see Doug's list, which is certainly not what we're used to seeing in top cuts. But
Impact of the Battle of Endor Set
00:10:06
Speaker
he used all the pieces that are capable of doing a lot of damage. However, it's a very high risk list. So you can't just take that list and win with it. He is. Yeah. There's a lot of skill involved in keeping Kylo alive because that is the game. You lose Kylo at any point. Probably the game. It's pretty much over. Yeah, it's pretty much over. Yeah.
00:10:24
Speaker
I love it, though. Anything stand out to you that, like, besides, you know, just like the usual, you know, meta evolution, Andrew? Yeah, well, you know, I would say that it was that first one only really seeing one Han in the list and seeing a lot of republics. I think now we're one. I think we're seeing a lot of republics because it can counter Han. But I think we're seeing a lot of people starting to move away from Han and rebels and onto something else.
00:10:49
Speaker
So whether we'll see a lot of Han come back at Worlds, because maybe all of the Han pilots also have their Worlds invites already. I mean, a lot of people at LVO did too. That did kind of surprise me seeing the shift in the meta to a more Republic and Empire-dominated one than the Rebels one that we've seen for the past couple months.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's there's enough ships and enough firepower that it makes playing Han pretty difficult. Mm hmm. Yeah. I think a lot of people it's it's still a grid list. And like, you know, even here, it's still made, you know, still made day two. It's still a good list. But I think a lot of people have played it so often that they figured it out. They figured out how to set up. I know, you know, every time that I go up against, you know, I'm actually kind of happy to see it.
00:11:38
Speaker
now because I won, I designed my list to combat Han and Republic. That's something that I know what to expect. I know where Han's going to be, what what those ships are doing. Right, right. So.
00:11:54
Speaker
Speaking of, well, speaking of Falcons, I guess, Battle of Endor, we've gotten more information on Battle of Endor now. We're not going to go into the weeds of reading off of repilotability, but I want to talk about the impressions that what we've seen is given us. And I definitely think this is going to make white an appearance at Worlds, which is coming up very soon.
00:12:18
Speaker
on March 20th at Adepticon in Shamburg. It looks like Battle of Endor is going to be, in terms of the two factions, Rebel Empire, probably the most balanced in terms of the power level you see on both sides. Whereas Battle of Yavin gave us a lot more, I think, strong meta Imperial pieces with some good Rebel pieces. From what I've seen, it looks like we're going to get a little bit of this, a little bit of that for both Rebels and Empire. There's a lot of really interesting
00:12:47
Speaker
Potentially powerful stuff in this pack. What do you guys there's hoping? Yeah, I mean, I think that'd be great Yeah, but I still get an expansion aware one side Did us not get all of the powerful cards? Yeah, it's uh, unfortunately, I think you know
00:13:05
Speaker
First Order Resistance are asking for their pack. We get a lot for Rebel and Empire now. Well, you know, maybe, maybe soon we'd get a scenario pack for the sequel factions as well.
Shift Towards Four-Ship Lists in Meta
00:13:15
Speaker
Give me a T70 with an extra shield upgrade for some odd reason.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, well, there are extra shields and holes in the Battle of Endor pack. And lots of really like these standardized cards are packed in with self-serving abilities. Yeah. First time we've ever seen a double red linked action. A Lando in the Falcon has a red coordinate to link red focus. But every time you do a red action, you can roll a die to try to remove the stress.
00:13:46
Speaker
So it could be to a white linked coordinate focus. You roll a hit or a crit for both, both, both of those roles. Yeah. Very high risk, high reward. Yeah. And, you know, there's going to be B wings, which will be nice. Maybe we get we get maybe maybe a three or four point B wing, probably four. So they get a way to be part of it. Stabilize foils for the B wing. Yeah. Yeah. Probably not about probably don't think so. I don't think so.
00:14:15
Speaker
Part of me is excited just for new content. I mean, it's just nice that we got information on this, let alone, you know, we got a release date towards the end of February. I think it's like the third week of February is when we should expect to see it. That that put us a little at ease, but at the same time.
00:14:33
Speaker
This is happening right about a month before less than a month before Adepticon. So you know, we're going to be cramming in trying to find a way, you know, as everyone's kind of decided, I think this would be my world's list if there weren't any new content coming out. Now this is coming out. So there's going to be a lot of rethinking a lot of practicing trying to cram in time with these new pieces to see maybe this is the list that I bring to try to win it all with to try to go as far as I can.
00:14:58
Speaker
Any other thoughts on Battle of Endor predictions? Do you guys think that maybe they'll be aggressively pricing these things? Like, could we see these tie defenders be seven or less, six or seven? I know some people would freak out. I would freak out. Well, yeah, I was going to say I don't know because one thing that just on what they've released, these ships have way more abilities than the standard cards that we're used to seeing.
00:15:25
Speaker
like really do these are more like the bomber pack we kind of started to see that they they had a lot more new stuff and a lot more new abilities that were packed into them than battle of the oven these are like extra loaded even on top of that granted
00:15:42
Speaker
Even the i1 Sapphire 2 has got tons of text. The complications have gone up quite a bit. It's cool and it's exciting. But yeah, I don't know if these are going to be aggressively priced because these all have a lot going on.
00:16:02
Speaker
It's it's it is a lot. The power creep seems very possible. Yeah, there's a lot of potential power creep. I I have to be honest, this is a criticism I have. I'm sorry for those of you that don't like to hear it. Sometimes less is more. I like like the battle of the avantai fighters. I know that Mandy, you hate Mahler and backstabber, but it's pretty simple. Like Mahler has editor and afterburners.
00:16:26
Speaker
And backstabber has like crack shot, disciplined and afterburners. And then there's like an insane amount of wombo comboing on these Battle of Endor cards. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say already, guys, you don't need to keep going further. Yeah. Mahler and backstabber. That's enough. You know, that was that's like people were flying those immediately. I just hate them because of the whole upgrade. But that's besides the point. Yeah, I agree. There's way.
00:16:54
Speaker
There's way too much on these cards. Also, there's new abilities, new effects. I'm not against it, but it definitely seems like a lot for a single expansion. Yeah. I mean, now they've only released four. These could just be the four pushed cards. Everyone else could be normal. Yeah. But these are the ones that AMG is like, hey, we really want these to be a part of the meta, and we're excited about these.
00:17:22
Speaker
So, you know, that's also possible that the other that the other cards are going to be more in line with, you know, what we saw with Battle of the Avon, where there's a couple of handful of standouts and a handful of, you know, they're good, but they're not, you know, there's going to be a whole lot of like, there's some kind of effort, those patrons and stuff, and everyone's watching the stream right now. There's going to be a lot of like, I'm holding up my phone as a card, like rolling dice and then like having to pick up your card and like read every part of it to see like what interaction you can do like that.
00:17:50
Speaker
There's going to be, if you bring multiple of those ships for battle, that door and your list, there's going to be a lot of hold on, hold on, hold on. Uh, let's see. This one, this is a friendly ship, more friendly ships than enemy ships. So this one is, uh, if there are one stress token, you can again, um, this one was, I can spend a high ball results, reroll.
00:18:09
Speaker
It's like, oh, I was going to say, right. So like just looking at Sapphire to like while you while you're defending, you have to check if you're focused to roll in additional offense side. But while you attack, you have to count the number of friendly ships at range zero to one and also of the defender and then count and then count the enemy ships, which is more. And then you can reroll one of your blank results. Yeah. Because then you have to like get the blank result. Then you also have reckless. So.
00:18:39
Speaker
Like there's tons of these little tiny decision making like decision points that you have in just one card. And this is with us being experienced players. You're getting into the game. You're new. I don't envy being in that position playing with it or against it with it. If it's casually pairs, but it's still a lot of I think it's very intimidating to have that much to have to focus on with one.
00:19:01
Speaker
pilot when the average ship count is already five to six ships right now. So I also. Yeah, it is a lot. I also wonder, though, if we are seeing more of these like really loaded standardized cards, if the next point change, we might be moving away like we might be moving towards a four ship meta coming up.
Dealing with Losses and Maintaining Positivity
00:19:21
Speaker
Yeah, I enjoyed the more force ship oriented meta when it was a thing. Although, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to dig too deep into this. Has 2.5 ever have like a force ship? Yes. The last iteration was four. There was a lot more force ship lists.
00:19:42
Speaker
I'm not including squads that have a large spaceship and have to have like four ships in them. I don't count that as the same as just like four small ships. Easy lists with four ships. There was definitely. Yeah, there were definitely four ship lists. Empire was really the only faction that Empire and scum were the only empire and separatists. I mean, we're the only factions that tried to do like swarm stuff like Django dirge. Yeah.
00:20:12
Speaker
So last met it was all about the proton torpedoes. So you you had four shape rebels, but everybody had proton torpedoes. Oh, pro-torps. Oh, yeah, that was that was that was a big one. Where the. Republic was was the. Yeah, I think. Yeah, they had five or six.
00:20:34
Speaker
Though that was another five, six ship faction. And the last meta. Yeah. Yeah. Born for this and stuff was at the last worlds, which is before the points change. Yeah. There was there was like born for this. But you because I remember like a lot of the smaller ships got pretty nerfed. I was trying to think of what Duncan Howard, I think, was only doing for ship rebels or for ship Republic with that. Oh, F.O. F.O. was was a and the last meta was for ship.
00:21:03
Speaker
Duncan brought a four ship list to Pax. Right. Yeah. But yeah. But then the last minute to F.O. was it was another four ship faction. There was TLDR or more four ships in the last iteration of the meta than kind of what we have now, whether it had a large base or not. But still, if it did have a four ship list, I take that back. F.O. was five ship. It was five ship because they had they all took the shield upgrade.
00:21:33
Speaker
Yeah, for the most part, it was all the FOs. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Another another here nor there. I do. I do think just making bold predictions, they'll be priced aggressively to sell to be played because that's you know, they want to get those on the table and those packs sold for worlds and beyond. So definitely be sure to for those, you know, just a PSA those at home. Definitely order from your friendly local game store. Put a preorder and they'll be happy to do it.
00:22:03
Speaker
or game stores alive that host our events, that host our casual play, they are the best. So most of you I know are doing that, which is just if you needed a reminder. Just a reminder.
00:22:14
Speaker
Yeah. Well, at least as to the main topic here. So I was thinking Joe was joking with with Justin Williamson, who made you had played on stream. Andrew had mentioned earlier who he made cut for an LVO and him and I were practicing a lot like in between eats like our day off. We played a couple of practice games, trying to get him prepped for his top cut game. And just thinking about like, OK, like
00:22:41
Speaker
You know, again, like I said earlier, I beat myself up sometimes, and I was thinking about going, you know, going 0 and 3 and dropping and seeing other people who maybe, you know, finish a day going 0 and 5 or, you know, last place at a side event or whatever and how we cope.
00:22:58
Speaker
with being in a competitive environment where we're playing this game. It goes beyond X-wing, but we'll just focus obviously on X-wing as the example. Being in a competitive environment and losing, and not just losing a game, but losing several games, having a bad day, finishing your last place or in last place, dropping because you're just not doing well. How we cope with that, I'm super competitive. Yeah, same.
00:23:23
Speaker
One of those things where like, you know, the whole like it's what it's too easy to just be like, oh, it is what it is, you know, like, yeah, obviously it's not that big of a deal. But how do you guys cope with having like a bad game or having a bad day where you don't play well, you make mistakes, things just don't fall your way with like your dice various, whatever.
00:23:43
Speaker
Oh, do you go first, Andrew? Oh, okay. So I, I have some pretty good experience with this. Uh, I've had a lot of variance in, in X wing and it's, it's pretty crazy when you are, when you're doing well and you feel like you should be doing well, uh, and you're practicing and you've got a lot of games in, uh, under your belt. Cause it's different when, you know, if you go in and you have been playing for a while or you're a bit rusty and then, or you're trying a new list.
00:24:13
Speaker
And you go into a tournament and you don't do as well. But like when you actually are, are playing all the time, you're competing and you want to win on that high level and you feel like you're prepared and you feel that, that you're prepared to win like these tournaments and then you go and you have a bad time.
00:24:30
Speaker
Last time I did this was at the miniature mart store open and I lost every single game that I played. Always against good opponents but losing every game really humbles you quite a bit.
00:24:45
Speaker
I would say it feels bad in the moment. Me personally, X-Wing is a game that has high variance. And I've said it again, and I still believe it. It's a game that to me, one mistake can compound and compound and compound, or one bad turn can just lead into a series of bad decisions. And you can have these games where you feel like you've not only fallen off a ladder, but you're just hitting every rung on the way down for, you know,
00:25:14
Speaker
100 and for 75 minutes when it rains of course. Yeah, it's OK like to to feel like salty or bad in that moment. I never want to let my opponent think that it's anything that they did because they're here to compete to. And, you know, it's a game where someone's going to lose that game or draw, which then everyone's mad.
00:25:39
Speaker
But one of you has to walk away with that win. And so as long as it was played well, that's all you can all for. But in that moment, I think you can absolutely have the right to just be salty. I have to remind myself, and sometimes I text Zoe, my girlfriend, that, hey, just so I'm really mad about my plastic spaceships.
00:26:02
Speaker
or I tell her I'm doing my pouty dance just to make it sound ridiculous on the outside and to bring it to a point where you realize hey this is a game I'm supposed to be having fun I'm doing this because I actually enjoy it and it gets you out of that headspace a little bit but I think it's okay in the moment to to feel those feels
00:26:20
Speaker
For me, I try to use it and say, okay, if I lose, what can I take away from this? Is there anything I can learn from my next game? And really just as I've played more, I've learned just take it one game at a time. And then two, when I come from a really bad day where I've lost all my games,
00:26:40
Speaker
I let that fuel me. I kind of let that fire me up for the next time, the next tournament. And after that, I lost every game in St. Louis, came back, and for the next tournament we did at the Windy City Trials, I got second place. So, and had a great day.
00:26:59
Speaker
And that's, that's just kind of where, where you gotta be at. So if you can, if you can learn from it, as long as you're learning from it, then it's not a waste. It's not a bad game. And because of the variance next wing, you're just going to, some days it's not going to go your way. And even if you're prepared, have some bad days in this hyper competitive sport, but just don't let get to you too much.
00:27:20
Speaker
What about you,
Managing Frustrations in Games
00:27:21
Speaker
Manny? Me? I'm going to share all my story from last year's gem con. So I got extremely frustrated by second game where I was going up against triple arcs. And I kept getting tons of crits on wolf that was soaked up towards oddball.
00:27:46
Speaker
And I was so frustrated in that game that at the end of that game, I dropped and I really went to our hotel's gym and just released all my kind of frustrations there. I think I say it's healthy to have an outlet. To me, it is to lift heavy stuff and to put them back down.
00:28:12
Speaker
Um, and as long as I'm not taking out, at least I'm not taking it out on my opponent. I feel it is a couple of valid. And at the end of the day, it is a children's tabletop game. So it's not worth something to be too mad over. Yeah. Just taking that step back and just realizing, Hey, I'm playing, this is, I'm playing a game right now with my fabulous friends.
00:28:42
Speaker
I don't know if you've ever seen that one YouTube clip of the Russian hockey player where he's just like, why do you have to be mad? It's only game. Why do you have to be mad? It's a very funny clip. But yeah, that's like, that's immediately what I just think when I get frustrated in this game. Why do you have to be mad? Only game. Oh, man.
00:29:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you got to know that every person who for these competitive tournaments, especially at Worlds and especially Worlds is your first tournament, everyone there plays on an extremely high caliber. Everybody there has been grinding all year at their store championships, too. You're going to meet people from all over the world. And it's cool that we've all come together because we love this game so much.
00:29:29
Speaker
And every opponent that you're sitting across the table from you has probably done just as much prep as you have. And even if they haven't, they're still probably still very good. And there's nothing wrong against about playing this game. And even if it's not going your way, you're just getting better every time.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah, I've had a couple people at LVO walk up to me and be like, dude, what happened? Oh, yeah. Oh, I did. And there's kind of an expectation, I think, built by me for myself. And I think just because people have seen me at tournaments and seen how I've placed recently at some bigger events and that I'm going to do well. And I expect myself to do well.
00:30:13
Speaker
You know, it's funny to think about like, oh, like what the what the heck happened? You know, like that's a lot of pressure, though, to put on yourself. Like, yeah. Oh, I was going to say, no, I can absolutely empathize with that, that, you know, if you're if you're at what everyone else expects to be a quality, a tier quality of player, you're not allowed to have a bad day. And also, I mean, that's funny just because everybody else at Elvio is also like at that tier, too. Like.
00:30:42
Speaker
There's still a lot of heavy hitters at LVO. So I mean, it's it's it's going to happen to somebody eventually. And then also, too, when, you know, I mean, you were going in with with an off medalist. Everyone there was flying pretty much on medalists. Yeah. You know, there's there's like going in to have fun versus everybody you're playing is there to win it. Like that's a totally different different mentality, too. So I don't even think you can compare yourself at the same or at the same level.
00:31:12
Speaker
There there was a moment. This is so not me, but this is how I coped with. This is playing out against Ray and like two T-70s in Zori. And I had Vader at range three of of Ray barely. I didn't think Ray had a shot, but that like just had had like maybe an eighth of an inch of like Vader space. Just a little bit of it.
00:31:35
Speaker
and rolled like four hits, and Vader rolled four blanks. And I'm like, okay, so I've already taken four damage. And then a single-modded shot with an HLC at range three, again, Vader's rolling four dice, defense, kills Vader. And this was like 10 minutes into the game. And I was like, okay. And then so I was like, oh, this is nice, that's good. And I like basically like,
00:31:58
Speaker
like played through the rest of the game, be like, all right, this guy is going to take a got to pick here. And then I'd like something horrible would have to be like, oh, that's not good. OK. Like just basically like just going through the motions. Like I already knew the game was over. And instead of me getting like dwelling on just it just being such a horrible start and just a game I knew I had no chance of winning. I just like.
00:32:20
Speaker
I went through the motions until it was apparent that I couldn't damage anything. I tried so hard. And so I was like, all right, I'm just going to concede. Good game. I appreciate the game. Thanks so much. And just packed up my stuff. And he felt really bad because it was such a horrible game for me. And I was just like, you know what, man? I could be mad at it just not being my day. But I'm not going to do that.
00:32:43
Speaker
I've just decided that like after the first game and now this game, I'm going to play one more game. And if I lose that one as well, which I lost by like two points, I just, you know, it's fine. It's just going to be that way. And it sucks, though, because I. I tell myself that like this is, you know, you're not supposed to be having these games. And but what I will say
Importance of Sportsmanship and Community
00:33:10
Speaker
this, though, something that I'm actually
00:33:13
Speaker
I think it's important, the context is important is that I looked at my three games and I made a couple of mistakes, a couple of boo-boos.
00:33:22
Speaker
But I like I set up in position of my turn zero, the way I would start engages, like everything I did, I look back and like that's probably the way I should have done it anyways. Yeah, it just didn't work out. I just lost. Yeah, as much as much as this is a as a skill game, as much as we also don't want to blame the dice, I try not to. I don't want that to be my first move. You know, sometimes it can come down to dice. You can just get really unlucky.
00:33:52
Speaker
You know, we've all had experiences where that like three hull, three agility ship lives forever and is indestructible. And we've all had the games where the most important piece just like vanishes off the board in the first engagement. You know, we've seen it from our side and we've also watched it for my opponent. Like I felt bad before when I know that I'm winning a game just purely because my opponent is just incredibly unlucky.
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah, it sucks. So you have to like apologize to her. Yeah, no. I mean, well, you want to, but at the same time, like, yeah, like I'm just, you know, I know that they're also in their own private hell in that moment because I've been there, too. And I know, you know, I just want to like, that's kind of some the fun thing that also can bring players together at X League, too, where you can, you know, reach across the table and say, hey, man, that was that was bad. Like that, that was rough. I've been there. I know. I'm so sorry. Yeah, I I had a moment the side event where
00:34:49
Speaker
We were playing scramble and I was playing Vader rack like rack rat maternal with rack Vader crew, right? Yeah. And he had Kylo in one hole and he once traded with Kylo and scrambled. And then I just.
00:35:04
Speaker
Vader'd him and killed him. And I was like, that's just so unfair. Like, I just was a side event. And I was just like, it was fine. They were like pissed. But it's just like, it just feels bad to have those things. Those circumstances happen in a game where you're just like a game effect. You're dead.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, man. But yeah, it's also just like coping with like you said, like coping, there's there's losing, and then also beating somebody in ways that feel bad as well. Like where just like you feel like the game is just being played by one person, the other person's more of a victim.
00:35:38
Speaker
of circumstance, or just of skill level, or sometimes just variance, and you just help and apologize. Yeah, you're not going to get away from that. Oh, stop. He's already dead. You're not going to get away from that in X-Wing. Because it's like I know that probably some of our listeners have had this experience where they have a new player, or they're showing the game to their best friend. And they're like, oh, I'm going to play these TIE fighters. You have all these really cool, powerful ships. And then just accidentally, even though you're playing
00:36:07
Speaker
really loose to show them the game accidentally, just curb-stomping them. And you're like, I promise this is a fun game and it's not like this. You know? You always get the best roles against the players that you don't want to cream. It's like, I'm just trying to show them how to play the game. Why am I rolling all crits? When I play Frankie, I accidentally one-shot his ships. And it's just ridiculous.
00:36:35
Speaker
it's uh he keeps coming back so i must not be that that beat of a person otherwise x-wing does that he just might be a masochist that's why no no no i mean he's he's done so much better and in tournaments i honestly think that it's just he's competitive too and just it lights a fire you know in him and that's good that's good i mean
00:36:57
Speaker
But yeah, ultimately, it's important to apply yourself set high expectations, but don't behold yourself to them in a sense where it becomes unhealthy that you are end up getting stressed out because yeah, game, you're playing with somebody else. I know it's adversarial in nature. It's a dog fighting game. But if
00:37:16
Speaker
It's so competitive. It's kind of creating an environment where people are on edge and they're getting frustrated, physically frustrated with bad body language. I think it's important to take a step back and either reset or take a quick break.
00:37:32
Speaker
But yeah, like Manny said, hitting the gym, sometimes in the middle of an event, you're not going to drop and go to the gym at a hotel nearby. So if you can't do that, which is usually the case, it's I think it's important to just maybe take a step back and just take a deep breath.
00:37:48
Speaker
And another really important thing that saves a lot of tilt is make sure you drink a lot of water and you eat something. Yeah. You know, being angry is really bad for you. Yes. Also, you should be you should be bringing food anyway to these like these events and be snacking. One thing that we looked up like
00:38:09
Speaker
I think that this is for chess. I think it definitely applies to X-wing chess. You are, you're burning 182 or 186 calories per hour. When you're playing chess, I believe that's probably the same for X-wing. I think it takes a lot of the same mental like calculations to do chess and X-wing. You're doing complex spatial reasoning on the fly and memorizing everything about game states and everything like that too.
00:38:39
Speaker
Because I've had games where if you go home, you wonder, like, why am I sweating, like, playing a plastic spaceship game? Or why am I, you know, like, so exhausted? And it's because, no, you are actually using a ton of energy. So, yeah, hydrate and bringing snacks is so vital to how you are going to perform in that game, too. Definitely. Absolutely. I think this is a really good topic of conversation because
00:39:06
Speaker
It's something maybe a lot of people don't actually sit down and think about, like, how was I for myself today? How was I for my opponent? I try to be the best possible opponent that I can be. Yeah, same. It's important to make to strive to be the kind of opponent where you're even if you beat the crap out of somebody in a game of X-wing, they're like, that guy, that person was really nice. They were really cool. We had a fun game.
00:39:32
Speaker
That's always going to be fun. And ultimately, you can only control what you can control. Just try to play your best to try to win. Just conflict of interest in some ways there in terms of how we feel.
Anticipation for X-wing Worlds
00:39:42
Speaker
But yeah, it's being ambassador for the game and representing it well.
00:39:47
Speaker
you know, versus like, man, like that gaming community is kind of toxic. But man, the X-Wing community, everyone's so nice. People like even competitively, like I'm having fun, I'm learning. Like that's that's what we always talk about how much we love the X-Wing community. It's because. Yeah, I. Yeah, I. Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
No, this community is so great. I've been so fortunate to meet so many cool people from all over the country and all over the world playing this game, which I think about that all the time, how I would have not met any of these people if I didn't decide to pick up this game. And that's so cool. Anything else on this topic, Manny? Anything else to chime in?
00:40:27
Speaker
Nope, nope, I'm good. The community's great. Yeah, just a solid group of general. I will also leave on this. If your opponent is tilting and you can visibly see that they are, this is my personal rule. If I win a game, I will let my opponent determine whether they want to shake my hand or not after, or if they want to interact with me after.
00:40:55
Speaker
You know, I'll wish them a good game, but I'm not going to force them to talk about it or to interact with me if they're if they're feeling salty unless they want to. Yeah. Be the listener. Yeah. If you're if you win, if they want you to be, don't be the guy. Never be the person that it's like you. Yeah. When you did this, I was confused why you did that. You should have done. Yeah. You're the worst person if you decide that that is the course of action you should take. Yeah. Don't don't contribute.
00:41:25
Speaker
Have some self-awareness. Exactly. But if they ask, like, what do you think it would have done differently? Have a nice, honest conversation and avoid any sort of language that could make them feel like they weren't thinking or being smart. Or ultimately, like, there's no place for that. But yeah, I mean, every player is different. But that's a good point. Be there for them.
00:41:51
Speaker
You know, honestly, I've like Adam shout out to Adam who Andrew and I both played in the side event and actually maybe the main event at one point. I think I play. Yeah, I we both played him in the main event and the side event too.
00:42:07
Speaker
He bought me a beer after the game we had, and he was using the list that I brought to Gen Con, although he had a different, the other Tomax, but, and, you know, like, he's just, it was just super cool. What an awesome guy. Your opponent a beer if they beat you, but just a really nice guy, and he's a fan of ours, and it was really nice to meet him in the games with him.
00:42:31
Speaker
And this was his first tournament, too. And it played really well for it as well. And so I'm really looking forward to meeting him again, too. Yeah, absolutely. The next big event we talk about usually this segment of part of the podcast, we talk about upcoming events. Well, we've kind of blown through everything. Store chip season's over. Yeah. We're about to hit that deadline in about a week.
00:42:53
Speaker
And we're looking ahead to two worlds. So that's a that's a big one. Registration is already opened. And if you're listening to this now and you haven't registered for any of the excellent events, it could be too late as the last chance qualifier currently, I believe, is waitlisted. And all the side events currently are sold out of worlds. And there are there's a couple side events that are open. The story, the story driven ones are
00:43:21
Speaker
OK, but not like the prep ones or right. Yeah, the prep ones, the prep ones, the first the prep ones. Yeah. Are sold out and the last chance so far. It looks like they're both waitlisted. Definitely make sure you book your accommodations and waitlist if you if you haven't already at this. By the time this episode comes out, I hope you you all have if you have an invite, you you we have been told by AMG that they're.
00:43:47
Speaker
won't really be, there shouldn't be anything selling out in terms of the main event, having a world's invite, but I would still register as soon as you can. Oh, honestly, I'm probably registering after we finished recording the podcast. That's a good idea.
00:44:03
Speaker
Oh man. But yeah, I'm excited for Worlds. The best part about Worlds is I get to see all the people that I host for our leagues that I talk to regularly on Discord who live all over the place.
Closing Remarks and Thank-Yous
00:44:14
Speaker
And they all come together, including Greg from Nickel City X-Wing, all the folks that I get to see or talk to kind of in flashes, all in the same place we all get to hang out. It's so cool. And I'm really, really excited to be able to
00:44:28
Speaker
to spend a few days rolling dice with people from all over the world and friends that I've made the last few years from all over the world. Always the best part of it. Bonding direct swing. It honestly is. Is there anything else before we kind of close out? We start to close out this episode. Anything you got Andrew or Manny?
00:44:49
Speaker
Nothing good. I was going to say, I hope to see everybody at Worlds. Can't wait. Come say hi if you see us. Yes. Yeah, please do. I'll have some swag for folks. I just got a ton of stuff in the mail, including new stickers and everything. Can't wait to show it off. But it'll be 3D printing stuff for my opponents. Oh, yeah. That 3D printer is going to be working overtime, for sure.
00:45:11
Speaker
So thank you, everyone, for listening to this episode. We are so excited to be back. Happy New Year. Of course, Larry David would argue that the statute of limitations has expired or Happy New Year. But I'm going to say it anyways, Larry, I'm sorry. I'd like to also thank Strata Strike for sponsoring us and continuing their support for us. You can use coupon code 312Squadron. It's a capital S, all one word, and then lowercase, Q-U-A-S.
00:45:37
Speaker
DRON for 15% off your purchase of anything on their Etsy store. And I want to thank our 312 patrons. Our Patreon has launched with massive success. I want to thank Adam, Brendan, Michael, Justin, Mark, John, Joshua, Daniel, Alex, Steven, Matt, Peter, Andrew, and Scott for supporting us on our Patreon.
00:46:03
Speaker
Without you all, we wouldn't be able to continue doing what we are doing and setting our sights even more high in 2024. Make sure you follow us on Twitch to catch us live when we're streaming games, including X-Wing in person, our team league games, and everything beyond. We, of course, are streaming, posting our podcasts on all major platforms. Check us out on Facebook and like our page. Join our Discord. Check us out on YouTube. Oh my gosh, I'm tired.
00:46:31
Speaker
We appreciate you all very much. Thank you all. My name is Nick Sperry. And I'm Andrew. And I'm Manny. And we hope you have a great February and we'll see some of you at Worlds. Happy 2024.