It’s safe to assume that I was wrong in assuming that the meta had been more or less solved leading up to the Galaxies Coruscant Invitational next weekend. For as it turns out, FFG had taken the opportunity to make some changes to the Separatist point value PDF when they released the updated PDF’s to introduce the TIE/rb and the Heralds of Hope expansions. The Nantex chassis suffered no small nerf: the worse offender, the Petranaki Arena Ace, has been increased to 35 points base. Not only does this mean that it is impossible to field 6 of the I4 Nanteces in a 200 point list, but even demoting each ship to an I3 Stalgasin Hive Guard leaves the player with only 2 points left for upgrades.
Before we continue any further, it is important to remember that this has not pushed the Nantex out of the meta. The chassis is not unplayable, but has returned to its “fair but not game-destroying broken” status from the January – July point period, although faring a little better as it still has some net discounts compared to its January pricing. 5 kitted out I4 Petranaki Arena Aces or 4 + 5th ship of choice still seem very good, but the Nantex is certainly brought down to the power level of the rest of the ships in the game. Removing an entire body from a swarm that is very good without a squad buff piece doesn’t destroy said swarm, but it prevents it from continuing to dominate the meta. And with the pricier pieces, losing a ship or a bunch of half ships actually mean something more consequential to the one fielding them. All in all, it now seems that the Petranaki’s pose their own alternative to Resistance 5A’s, which makes sense. They’re just as good and appeal to different player mentalities, although the skill ceiling on the Separatist version seems to offer better players a stronger albeit trickier fielding.
That having been said, with the breaking point of a “complete” list’s +20% bonus (be it counting from Bohan’s efficiency model from a chassis viewpoint or +20% of the entire “complete 5 ship list”) removed, the meta that has been so distorted will spring back in the opposite direction. No longer does every competitive list have to consider either countering the Nantex or countering the counters to the Nantex, but they have to be built and flown to adapt to a wider and less boogeyman-centric meta. The I4 spammed across 6 chassis that was able to “ace” efficiency can no longer exert that much jousting, turreting, and arc-dodging potential all at once. Hence, a lot of efficiency options–particularly in the Rebel, Resistance, and Republic factions–will be meta viable again. The same I4 spam across 6 chassis that was able to swarm down dedicated ace lists has lost all that extra area denial, extra spike damage capacity, and yet another body’s worth of health to burn down–seems to now have an even matchup against aces flown by a player of similar skill. This will undoubtedly see the widespread return of conventional Empire, and to a certain degree, Republic and First Order aces.
Though a single event is never enough to draw a multiplicity of conclusions about what is strong and what is not, it does lead to some interesting trends as many try out what has worked or what might have worked in different conditions. I expect Coruscant, although the first large tournament out of this new meta, to be a trend-setter, but by no means be the “final form” of said new meta. It wasn’t until Ryloth that a Boba won a Galaxies Qualifier and not “something running some form of Nantex”, and Ryloth was the last extended qualifier, with extended being the format where Nantex are at their most egregious. Nearly every list in that Ryloth cut dealt directly with the meta, as far long past were the days when one could hope to ignore the meta and simply do well enough to make cut. The meta will still probably remain largely open after Coruscant given that many IRL events are still cancelled, that the online events of respectable size will be specialized formatted ones, and that in this open meta, new expansions will mean more–especially with 4 new ships being released in late November and 3 of them being low-HP high agility ships, exactly the primary prey of Crackshot Spamtex. As an exercise of examining just how expanded this meta will be, let us consider all the lists that made cut at Corellia–back only when those who took seriously the various Tim the Enchanter’s out there decided to field the Spamtex to great effect–and then remember that since then 5 expansions have dropped and been made legal for Coruscant: https://listfortress.com/tournaments/1826. Take a good look at all those lists used to defending against 3 or 4 attacks per turn with hyper-modded defense, at being able to dodge arcs with the assumption that only 4 or so arcs are to be dodged, or just simply hoping to alpha or area deny against efficiency of expected initiatives and ship counts.
I’m glad that the monstrosity that so disproportionately affected the game’s health and state has been amputated, but I’m not sure how I feel about it for Coruscant. For like many of the other invitees, I flew for Ryloth not only what offered its player an easy enough counter against 6 Nantex, but also stood a favorable chance against a lot of the lists that countered Nantex. That list is a relic of yesterday’s meta, but with only a week before the big event, the closest simulation one will get to a 2020 X-Wing World’s, I’m sticking with it. The real cause of such behavior is probably because of that psychological tendency to latch on to whatever has worked in the past despite conditions and environments changing such that not changing overall strategies is a bad idea. But the justification I tell myself is that the list makes it easy to just power through decision trees. “Was that a bad tactic or simply outlier bad variance on top of the right move?” That’s a question that I very rarely ask myself when flying 2-ship Super Kylo, as having to roll green dice, and rolling more green dice than I should, typically mean that I have done something wrong. Other lists might compel the user to trade shots dependent on the game state only to leave them buggered or blessed, but with only 10 hp and high mobility, I don’t have to worry about such engagements nearly as much. It just means that I’ll be extra vulnerable to the matchups that have been opened up with the meta.
This in turn means that I’ll have to practice the list in the new meta to be ready for the event. As such, I’ll cut out any games that I might have planned for experiments or fun concoctions. I’ll still write some thoughts on Automated Targeting Priority on the unique Silencers that can equip it, but it’ll be pushed back and involve fewer screenshots. I’m sure that I’m not the only one not backing off from a selected list for Coruscant, so at least that means things might not be entirely changing. All the same, I hope one of my upcoming practice games involves some of the new options so that I could at least sport a chance during the event proper. I’ll not worry about it too much though, given the limited amount of time I can dedicate to obsessing over X-Wing and the fact that this is the dilemma faced by a lot of people who made cut with extended lists during the Qualifiers.
As a final note, it is interesting how FFG has deftly handled the inevitable emergency nerfing to the grossly blundered costing of the Nantex. On previous livestreams, the developers stated that they use ListFortress entries as datasets to see what performs well, what is being outperformed, and what is wholly absent from tournaments. Even if one were blind to the social media surrounding X-Wing and the community forums (which FFG is not, as they had to intervene to stop the dumpster fire that erupted when people were talking past each other and with a handful largely belittling the existential problem of the Nantex’ costing without even playing the game in over half a year), the entries from online events are present on ListFortress. Yet, FFG cannot explicitly acknowledge the use of Vassal or Tabletop Simulator as those are non-licensed tools/products that simulate the usage of their Intellectual Property: in other words, the whole soft-piracy thing that goes with emulators. But with 2020’s putting an end to in-person events, the presence of an online community to play the game is very much an incentive to buy fancy shelf-pieces, AKA the actual X-Wing products, which one can simulate fielding on a computer and which one can actually field once the pandemic is overcome. It keeps interest alive in the game, an interest that is very much at risk if a certain problem isn’t addressed soon enough. This did pose a problem as FFG is midway through a 3-month massive content release burst.
Max Brooke should probably pick up more social media gigs for FFG in addition to his work for them in game development, judging by the following quote from his expertly-worded announcement article. He affirms that plastic ships on a physical mat are the real and sanctioned X-Wing and does not condone the usage of online replicants. Yet, he in no way condemns online replicants, and in fact, he does uphold the validity of the data that simulated events offer:
“Instead of being a control list, these new, six-Nantex lists are efficiency lists that burn down the opposing ships with amassed firepower. On a purely conceptual level, this sort of straightforward swarm isn’t necessarily a problem. However, this form of it has clearly proven too efficient.
While the six Petranaki Arena Ace swarm hasn’t yet had a chance to win a major event, this has more to do [with] the pause on Organized Play events in many countries as a result of the global pandemic than the efficiency of the list. The six-Nantex list would surely have been a contender at the top tables of events this fall. More significantly to this change, though, the list’s raw efficiency makes it a gatekeeper that has pushed players to seek increasingly niche strategies to tackle it. While some amount of list-based Rock-Paper-Scissors is inevitable, the degree of advantage this list has in a good matchup is too high. We have enough data, both numerical and experiential, to show that the list needs to be brought down to a reasonable playing field with everything else.”
Well played. The chassis that might need the qualifier “fully” before the words “execute a maneuver” perhaps isn’t the best-designed, but that was well played. Also, it would be weird if he went after Vassal and Tabletop Simulator, especially with FFG’s Matt Holland occasionally relaxing through usage with the former.
Screaming into the Void 