Wide Open Meta: Exploring Star Wars Unlimited in Early Twilight of the Republic
November 22, 2024
No Comments
Read More »
This week, we continue our dissection of the match and list data from LVO. We are going to look at some stats by list archetypes. Small sample caveats apply, but it would be boring if we didn’t use those small samples to jump to some outrageous conclusions, wouldn’t it?
You can find Part One of the LVO data series here: LVO Data, Part One
“There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.” – Mark Twain
For each list archetype, we will hit a couple things: win/loss (overall, cross-faction, and mirror), battle cards cut, and bids.
Before we dive in to list archetypes, I will refresh your memory on the overall cross-faction win/loss number, because everyone always asks about that one: Rebels 26, Empire 24. Empire and Rebels split roughly 50/50 when they faced each other.
We’ll go in descending order of popularity on the list archetypes.
Let’s dive right in, with the two most popular ones first, shall we?
Overall record: 39-25
Mirrors: 25-13
Cross Faction: 14-12
Objective: Sabotage
Deployment: Long March
Condition: Limited Visibility
If you are curious about the win/loss breakdown between Wonder Twins (Luke/Leia) and Flyboys (Luke/Han), it is 26-17 for the former and 11-6 for the latter.
Ouch… take a look at those mirror match numbers. In general, Rebel lists with Luke dominated mirror matches (Rebel on Rebel). There were 22 Rebel on Rebel matches where one player had Luke and the other didn’t; in those matches, the player with Luke went 17-5. I don’t want to do too much causal analysis there, because that is still a relatively small sample, but I’ve believed for awhile that Rebels lack an anti-Luke tool besides Luke himself. Wookiees provide some relief, if a bit unreliably.
I’ve made it kind of a personal quest to cast off the shackles of Skywalker, but I just can’t do it. I’m perfectly comfortable with non-Luke character combinations in Empire match ups, but Rebel mirrors against Luke are just really uncomfortable.
The cross-faction matches were more even: 14-12. That is basically 50/50 in this sample size. Empire has a lot more anti-Luke tools (Boba, IRG, Vader, Palpatine), and at least one of those elements are generally in every competitive Empire list.
Hot take: Luke Skywalker is good.
I don’t think anyone should be cutting Sabotage. It is a strong blue player advantage, since it tends to stalemate, and blue wins ties; including ties of zero points killed. The pressure is on red to make something happen on Sabotage.
Personally, I cut Recover with my twins list, because Boba. I think now that Pathfinders are a thing, you would cut Key Positions if you are fitting them into a twins list… otherwise still cut Recover.
The deployments are whatever… definitely should be keeping Disarray in your deck. Other than that, I think any of the others are fair game to cut depending on your play style.
Between Coordinated Bombardment and snipers, Limited Visibility is an easy cut for conditions.
Overall Record: 24-22
Mirrors: 11-14
Cross-Faction: 13-8
Objective: Breakthrough/Intercept Transmissions (4 times each)
Deployment: Disarray (7 times)
Condition: Limited Visibility (10 times)
The most popular Empire configuration, these lists were mostly similar, though there were a couple exceptions (one added bikes, one ewebs, and one added an AT-ST). If you cut the “non-standard” Veers/Boba lists and just look at those that had Veers, Boba, Corps, and Snipers, the overall record jumps to 21-14 (the “non-standard” lists were collectively 3-8, so they bring the record down a bit). If you further cut it down to “standard” lists that also included a comms relay, they were 14-8 overall. There has been quite a bit of debate about how necessary or effective a comms relay is as part of a Veers/Boba list (due to Coordinated Fire). I don’t think this alone answers that question due to the small sample size, but it is an interesting data point.
Veers/Boba also had the best cross-faction record of any Empire configuration besides Palpatine.
None of these are terribly surprising; cutting Disarray and Limited Visibility makes a lot of sense. The objectives were a little more perplexing; Boba Fett is great at Breakthrough. Veers/Boba is somewhat disadvantaged on area control objectives compared to Vader, Palpatine, or Luke lists, which means you should generally be cutting Intercept or Key Positions. The impact of bounty leans towards cutting Intercept, since that extra bounty VP tends to wash out, but I think you could go either way.
Overall record: 18-23
Mirrors: 14-14
Cross faction: 4-8
Objective: Sabotage
Deployment: Disarray
Condition: Limited Visibility
The faction breakdown is kind of interesting. Veers did okay in faction mirrors (better than Veers/Boba, in fact), but got trounced in Rebel matchups. That could just be the sample size washing out, but that could also have something to do with Luke.
The unit mix on these solo Veers lists was fairly interesting. Four had AT-STs (they went 6-11, in case you were wondering). The others were some kind of gunline lists. If you exclude the AT-ST lists, Veers gunline lists actually did okay for themselves, finishing an even 12-12.
Again with the Sabotage. I don’t get it. I think almost any solo Veers configuration wants to be cutting Recover.
Disarray and Limited Vis make perfect sense as cuts.
Overall record: 15-20
Mirrors: 10-10
Cross faction: 5-10
Objective: Sabotage
Deployment: Disarray
Condition: Minefield
Welp, the Dark Lord of the Sith didn’t have a very good showing at LVO. There are a few reasons for this, I think. A very significant one is variable (and short) game length. Vader is a slow, high impact unit. He takes time to make his presence on the battlefield felt. I firmly believe the game was meant to be played to six turn completion, for a variety of reasons; but Vader is one of them. Vader makes most of his impact on turns 4-6 (generally)… if you aren’t even getting to those turns, you are really hamstringing him. I don’t personally think Vader is bad, but his value definitely takes a hit in games where you aren’t assured of playing a full game.
Vader is also somewhat difficult to play and generally more vulnerable to turn zero mistakes than Veers/Boba. I don’t think this makes him bad, by any means.
There was also some jank in here: triple sabs, triple Royal Guard, etc. You could actually also break these records out by jank: Vader lists with multiple IRG or Sabs: 5-10. Other Vader lists: 10-10.
The weird Sabotage streak continues… Vader should cut Recover or Breakthrough. Sabotage, Intercept, and Key Positions are Vader’s best objectives.
The Deployment and Condition choices make more sense. Disarray is clearly bad for one commander lists (particularly if that commander is slow). I think you could cut almost any condition except limited visibility, which you almost certainly want if you don’t have snipers.
I’m lumping lists that included Han and some combination of Leia and/or Chewie together, because anything less just creates really small sample sizes.
Overall record: 12-20
Mirrors: 6-12
Cross-Faction: 6-8
Objective: Sabotage
Deployment: Long March/Disarray
Condition: Rapid Reinforcements
Yikes. I mean this category is basically Rebel lists not featuring Luke. I’m not sure how much more to say about that than hasn’t been said.
14 games is a small sample, but the Han/Leia/Chewie archetype appears to have done well enough against Empire opponents.
On the Adepticon stream, we should play a drinking game; every time you see a list that cut Sabotage, take a shot. Clearly people need to practice Sabotage and get more comfortable with it.
The Han/Leia/Chewie list category is eclectic enough that I don’t know if you can say you should be cutting anything in particular, besides not cutting Sabotage.
Overall record: 9-12
Mirrors: 3-8
Cross-Faction: 6-4
Objective: Breakthrough
Deployment: Long March/Advanced Positions
Condition: Limited Visibility/Minefield
I should note that two of these lists had T-47s, which collectively went 1-6, bringing this number down quite a bit. If you exclude the T-47s, the remaining three Leia lists were 8-6, which is much more respectable. I actually think there is some potential here, but the sample size is rather small.
I don’t think there is much to draw here, given how different these lists were from each other and the small sample size.
Overall record: 8-1
Mirrors: 5-1
Cross-faction: 3-0
Well, this was only two players, and neither of them cut the same thing. Womp womp.
Only two Palpatine lists? Seriously? Obviously they did just fine for themselves. I would personally love to see more Palpatine on the table; I think he is a natural counter to Luke, between Give in To Your Anger and the natural synergy with Royal Guard.
Palpatine should be cutting Recover or Breakthrough and Disarray. Condition I would say is to taste, depending on how many snipers you have. A lot of Palpatine players cut Long March, but I actually think Disarray is substantially worse for Palpatine.
Overall record, lists with snipers: 94-77
Lists without sniper strike teams: 31-48
Well, I think that kind of speaks for itself. That’s definitely a large enough sample to be meaningful.
To further elaborate on that stat, there were 54 matches where one player had sniper strike teams, and the other did not. The player with snipers went 36-18 in those games.
Sniper strike teams are a cheap way to get a bonus activation, unlikely to be useless, difficult to kill, and generally neutral on activation timing. Most competitive lists often also favor one other spec ops choice (Wookiees, IRG, or Pathfinders), and snipers are a way to “pad” your token pull for those units.
Overall record, lists with heavies: 8-20
I’ll just leave that there.
Overall record, lists with support vehicles: 24-38
Vehicles just aren’t in a great spot right now.
That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed our look at some win/loss record and battle card data for the various list archetypes.
Copyright © 2024 The Fifth Trooper. All Rights Reserved.
