My last meta review was all the way back in February and was intended to give some insight into what one could expect at the world championships. It was a good time, and a lot of those lists are still pretty good. However, I don’t want to wait until February 2026 for the next review. Since we got a big update in May, why not check in to see how the early meta is shaking up?
For this review, I searched Longshanks for rated events of 20+ players and 4+ rounds that had happened since the update. I also tried to avoid league-related events, such as end-of-league tournaments, since those can be a bit different from regular play. All in all, here is the list of tournaments that I will be considering today:
- UKGE 2025 – Shatterpoint GT
- GT- La menace Fantôme
- Battle for Breath Shatterpoint 2025
- N0-GT 2 Valencia Open
- Duel of the Fates – Shatterpoint GT
- Grand Tournament Lodz EC1
One fun coincidence here is that we have six events from six different countries! It’s great to see Shatterpoint happening all across the globe, and hopefully the diversity gives us a well-balanced, wholistic view of the meta.
One final note before we dive into lists – premiere rules can make things deceiving. Unit X might be in the winning list for an event, but it may have only been played in the very first round. I will mainly try to focus on the lists that are actually being played (and winning) at top tables. Lightly used units can still have a purpose, such as threatening a bad matchup for certain archetypes, but there are a bit too many hypotheticals involved with that sort of analysis for me to feel confident in it here.
Return of the Jedi
Bad MFs
A couple different variants of this are floating around, but shown above is the one that won UKGE after winning the last five games (6-0 record overall). Personally I would probably swap 212th in for my 4pc clone support, because I love shoves and Coordinated Fire: Pin, but Commandos have Scale and good defense, which both help this list a lot.
There’s cliche that persists across many sports: defense wins championships. Mace/Obi is an incredibly defensive list. Perhaps it’s common knowledge by now, but Knowledge and Defense is an ability that I absolutely love. Mace complements that in two general ways. First, he provides ample amounts of force, allowing the clones to spend for Defensive Maneuver even late in the game when they’re injured. Without that force, you usually either lose some mobility (by doing the Take Cover action) or hunkers, neither of which are ideal. Second, spending hunkers to heal and dash usually makes Republic characters much less defensive. If Mace’s Protection and Steadfast bubble is active then that can let this team spend hunkers more freely without sacrificing as much defensively.
Once you do manage to knock someone out of position, this list also features some great movement effects to get back on objectives. Supports being able to move either Snips or Rex via their reactive is pretty dang useful. The counter to Obi is often trying to wound his friends, but that will be pretty difficult here.
Masters at Work
Once again, there are a few different variants of the Ki-Adi/Obi duo, so I’ve chosen to showcase the one from the winning Australia list. This particular pairing went 3-0, which includes the last two games in a perfect 5-0 performance. Personally, I’m not a big 501st guy. However, they are good at wounding, which works well in a Ki-Adi list. Furthermore, CF: Strain fits better here than Supporting Fire: Heal or SF: Dash from Fil’s Clones and ARF, respectively.
Compared to Mace/Obi, we lose some defensiveness, but we gain a lot more proactive options. Ki-Adi and Shaak Ti both bring diceless displacement options while retaining strong movement abilities. Thanks to Ki-Adi, force shouldn’t be too much of an issue, even in the late game.
One similarity between the first two lists we’ve seen is Rex. That’s pretty obvious, I’ll admit, but I want to dive a little deeper. As mentioned, both lists can be pretty easy on your force. But we don’t want to be ending our decks with extra force. That’s the part of Rex I want to address! In addition to all his other useful abilities, Rex opens up a force sink for these Republic lists. If you’ve got excess force, spamming I’m Always First, Kid is not a bad way to go at all.
Kill, Kill, Kill
Straying a bit from our last two examples, this particular variant of Ki-Anikin (as sophisticated people call it) didn’t win an event, but it was the only version to show up multiple times.
This wasn’t intentional, but for these first three lists, we’ve slowly been swapping out defensive pieces for more aggressive pieces, now leaving us with something that goes HARD. When Anakin clicks, he is spectacular. Ki-Adi offers a strong partnership by moving an additional person when Anakin wounds and by making Anakin’s abilities cheaper. There has been a lot of talk of Ki-Adikin being the new meta monster, but from my experience, I don’t quite buy that. I think Anakin has extremely high highs, but also some pretty low lows. At the end of the day, he has to wound to be explosive, leaving him vulnerable to revenge and to dice variance. Over the course of a long event, I generally think there will be a game where things don’t click, making Anakin the king of X-1 records.
Seeing so much of General Obi-Wan in the meta, I would also think that hurts Anakin. Knowledge and Defense helps people run away from the double tap. However, Poland is a long-established Obi hotbed, and that’s where Anakin had his best showing, so what do I know?
Non-Republic
Built on Hope
When people want to wound you, hit back with some revenge! This particular flavour showed up in two of the 5-1 lists in Poland, though for one of those players it was actually their one loss. Nevertheless, Cassian is certainly a big part of the meta, so I had to include a list with him.
Cassian’s revenge mechanic doesn’t grant an attack, but moving anyone on the board (other than the wounded unit) is incredibly useful. Being able to reactively move K2 to lock down an objective (pun intended) can shut off some big plays. Similarly, Leia loves the extra range for her revenge attack, which can easily get two shoves. I would personally swap Chewie for Ezra, opening up the option for a reactive tiebreaker move, but Chewie is still a solid piece.
One thing I do want to highlight is that revenge lists can be good even into lists that aren’t super woundy. Almost every list in the game will want to get a wound or two at some point, so giving them more to think about is never bad. And, to be clear, this list does more than revenge. Offensively there are a lot of consistent shoves and Shatterpoint turns can be absolutely explosive thanks to focus synergy between Cassian and Commandos/Leia.
Furry Friends
Admittedly, I was surprised to see Chripa pop up with some success in a couple tournaments (including being part of the winning list in Canada). Given the lack of uniformity in this meta, a couple occurrences of Chirpa is enough to warrant inclusion here! I should note, however, that Leia/Logray is arguably more popular still, but I already covered that list in my last meta review.
3PO and Endor Leia were two of the biggest winners of the May changes. The former because he got huge buffs, the latter because she’s one of the few units left that offers a widely available CF: Expose. Between that and Chirpa’s extra dice, this list can pack a punch offensively. And make no mistake, a range 5 Steadfast bubble is also a pain to deal with. I’d keep 3PO in the Angry Trilling stance as much as possible.
Now, this list does have a distinct weakness – squishiness. Steadfast isn’t as useful if you’re wounded, and nothing here has defense that I put any higher than average, other than 3PO being unshootable. Chirpa can certainly cause some problems with his revenge, but that’s inconsistent due to its inherently random nature and his lack of ranged attack.
More Mandos
Mandos didn’t get touched in the update and they continue to be a strong force. The Mando/Armorer variant showcased in my last meta review is still a solid all-rounder, but the version now popping up a couple times in top lists actually swaps Mando for Maul.
By adding Maul, Mandos lose some valuable revenge but get help in a couple of other places. They can move Bo over to The Armorer’s squad, sidelining Paz for the more consistently valuable Gar Saxon. Maul also helps the force economy of the list, which is especially helpful for coming out of the gate strong. The Armorer helps with the late game, but early on Mandos often want to pay for movement, and five force can get tight. Maul can have explosive turns without using a single force, which helps a lot.
This list wasn’t super popular, but it did pop up a couple times and was used by the Spanish champion to win their final game. Time will tell whether Maul or Mando wins out for the preferred build, but right now I’d try and be prepared for both.
Mission Selection
The chart above is a simple count of how many times each mission was brought across the six events examined. Data was missing for a couple of players, but overall the trends are clear: Sabotage and, to a lesser extent, Shifting are the main attractions. Odds and Contact combined were only brought by about a quarter of players.
The preponderance of Sabotage is almost certainly driven by the rise of the Republic in the meta. Granted, it’s a very neutral objective that most lists enjoy, but Republic really likes it. Primaries such as Ki-Adi, Mace, and Obi can all be a bit slow in the first struggle, so knowing exactly which objectives will be active is a big deal. Conversely, they really don’t want to play Odds or Contact because it’s harder to get to the midline. Attacking the backline is very important on those objectives, and Republic often doesn’t have the speed to do that in the first struggle (though Rex helps a lot there, just another reason he should be an auto-include).
If you are intimidated by the Republic meta, I have some simple advice: take more Odds. And I guess have lists that are good at it too, of course. It will make life much harder for the most common Republic primaries and makes struggle one much easier if you win priority. I didn’t do game by game analysis here, but my previous work on the worlds data showed that players who brought Odds had an advantage over players that didn’t. Now, back then Kanan and Iden were also more popular, and they liked bringing Odds, so there are some correlation vs. causation questions there. Speaking of Iden, can’t she remove hunkers? Hmmm, that seems like it could be useful these days …
Wrap-Up
There’s no getting around it: Republic is having a moment. I won’t try to argue they aren’t good, because they are. Choosing two of Anakin, Mace, Obi, or Ki-Adi leads to some strong lists, but let’s also not get too carried away in the doom and gloom. There’s certainly a shiny new toy effect going on here. Republic was perceived to be bad for a long time, but lots of people also like the faction. Now that they’re “good again,” it’s no surprise they are showing up in huge numbers in the first month and a half post-update. They have a lot of strengths, but they also have some clear weaknesses. If their dominance continues, then it should be possible to find counterplay.
Another thing to be aware of is upcoming releases. Dates are volatile, but as of me writing this, the next three boxes are expected to release in August. They will no doubt throw a wrench in the meta. We already have spoilers for the Jyn box, and I can safely say that it will help Rebels a lot. Baze and Chirrut specifically complement Cassian extremely well, and he’s already a character that has a big meta presence (and is still significantly underplayed, I’d argue). Delta squad will give Republic more options, but seeing as they aren’t Jedi they probably won’t play well with Ki-Adi, one of the current poster boys for the faction. And Riff will, fingers crossed, breathe some new life into the Separatists. What about the droid attack on the Mon Calamari?
It’s early days, but the meta is still wide open. It was hard putting together this list of … lists. Lots of different things are doing well rather than just a couple lists being repeated … repeatedly. Oh no, I’m running out of words to use! Perhaps it’s time to sign off then. Go out and make lists you enjoy and know well, you’ll probably have success!
While you’re here, I have some news for you. In the next month or two I plan on doing a mailbag article. If you have a Shatterpoint related question for the mailbag, please submit it to zeusjus@thefifthtrooper.com or message me on Discord.
