We’re about one month removed from the May 2026 unit update, which obviously means it’s time to do some way-too-early meta analysis. For context, when I did a similar article last year it was two months after the update and Cassian was still “significantly underplayed” in my estimation, even accounting for Baze and Chirrut not being out yet. That is all to say, we don’t really know anything yet, but I won’t let that stop me!
I don’t care much for looking at overall win rates, I don’t find those too useful, but we will check in on some large events that have happened plus a special new project I’m working on.
The Meta Tracking Survey
Overview
Following the release of the Morgan and Baylan boxes, I expect we won’t see any more changes or releases before Worlds 2027. As such, I thought it would be fun to track how opinions changed between now and then regarding the top lists. Some questions I want to explore include:
- How did opinions change between May 2026 and February 2027?
- Was there a point in time where opinion began to coalesce? Can we figure out why?
- How well does it match up with eventual bring rates and performance at worlds?
To do this, I wanted to have a survey where the same people would respond each month. I put the call out for some self-declared “competitive” players and performed the first survey at the end of May, before the first GT with the updates. The assignment was simple: respondents had to input five pairs of primaries and rank them. Any given primary could be included in multiple pairings.
Today I’ll discuss the results from the May survey, essentially the first impressions, then we will check back in the fall and again right before worlds to see how things have trended.
May Results
The inaugural survey had 16 responses. As much as I hope everyone will respond every time, I realize it probably won’t always be 16 exactly, so I’ll present the results in terms of “per response” for the sake of comparison. It won’t matter much for this first survey, but it will in the future.
Before we check the pairings themselves, let’s quickly take a look at which characters appeared the most. Ki-Adi-Mundi leads the way as the only character averaging more than on appearance per response. Even though he wasn’t touched in the May update, he’s been regarded as very good for a long time and was partly held back by Delta squad being so dominant for the republic (and they don’t gel well with Ki-Adi).
Looking at the top five, three characters are either new or recently changed. While they may be benefiting from the “new shiny toy” effect, that doesn’t explain everything. Baylan is new yet only appeared 0.25 times per response, less than the newly nerfed Boss (0.38 appearances per respondent).
Of course, I did say that the pairings were ranked. Applying a simple system where 1st place gets 5 points, 2nd gets 4, and so on, we can get a points total for both characters and pairings. Looking at points instead of appearances, though, the top 5 looks very similar for characters. Veers and Padme switch spots with the former climbing from 6th to 5th and bumping the queen down. Vader and Kit also swap places, showing Vader was usually ranked quite highly when he appeared, at least relative to Kit.
Moving on to pairings, 36 unique pairings received at least one point. Even the most popular pairings appeared on less than 70% of surveys on average. Looking at points compared to appearances, the differences are only minor. Ki-Adi gets the honour of appearing twice in the top 5, Anakin too I guess (spoilers). We’ll talk more about Vader/Mundi and Morgan/Veers a bit later, but for the moment I wanted to highlight Hunter/Boss. I am surprised by how popular it is, partly because it just got nerfed but also because I don’t think it was the best Boss pairing even pre-nerf. It still brings a lot of offensive consistency, though, which is certainly a theme of the top 5.
So this is what a handful of players thought soon after the balance pass, but what are people playing at events? To examine that, let’s look at five events from the past few weeks from across five different countries.
Tournament Results
UKGE (UK – 32 players)
Kicking things off, we have our biggest event of this sample, a juicy 32 players! James took top spot as the lone 5-0, playing Vader/Moff in four games. James also brought Never Tell Me the Odds, which has been an effective strategy in the past. Arahane was running a Ki-Adi anchor, losing in the “final” with Ki-Adi/Kit(which was forced to fulfil their destiny). Helen played Vader/Boss in four games, only losing to the aforementioned Arahane (running Vader/Ki-Adi). Jaye brought the revenge, doubling up more often than not (three games with Talzin/Leia, two with Ahsoka/Armorer). Phil played Maul/Baylan in four games whereas Dan rocked Morgan as their Dathomirian of choice (three games paired with Talzin, one each with Maul and Asajj).
Overall, the top finishers feel skewed towards aggro. Revenge showed up a bit, mostly through Talzin of all people, but perhaps not enough to keep the killing at bay. The wounds for many of the top players (shown here as APS) are above 5 per game, which is high!
Top Deck Games GT (US – 20 player)
The New Jersey GT had a cut after top 8 on day 1. In keeping with tradition, I’ve cropped to X-1 or better. In the top 8, Eric eventually prevailed over Dean in the finals for a perfect 7-0. Eric played Moff/Thrawn in six games, as he is wont to do. Like his British counterpart, Eric also brought Never Tell Me the Odds. Coincidence? Maybe, kind of, but also not really, perhaps. Dean played Vader/Ki-Adi in six games, too. General Josef favoured Grievous/Lumi, playing it in five of six games. Rock used Ki-Adi and Vader in five games each, though not always together (one game of Ki-Adi/Plo, one of Vader/Padme). Trevor was a bit more balanced with two games of Morgan/Veers and three of Jyn/Han. Evan used Morgan as an anchor, mainly with Veers. Chris did not end up playing in the top 8, but on day 1 they ran a Boss anchor, doubling up on the Lumi pairing in the fourth game.
Similar to the UK, I’d say the US GT seems skewed towards aggro. However, there is a big exception with Moff/Thrawn at the top. Eric has played that list for a long time so good to see that knowledge with a list is still incredibly important. One interesting tidbit is that Morgan was much more popular in the American event. I don’t know if this is a matter of regional release availability or rather a random quirk, but thought I’d mention it.
GT du Sud (France – 24 players)
Two weeks later we get another double header. Starting with France, I’ve cropped to X-2 or better since it was a six round swiss event. JudgeAssault won with a republic flex list, using three different pairings twice each (Obi/Hunter, Obi/Ki-Adi, Ki-Adi/Vader). Unlike our prior winners, he brought Strategic Positions for his mission. Bryan favoured Cassian/Kanan, playing it in four games whereas PosteBoy used their Cassian/Jyn only twice and opted for Morgan/Veers in four games. Gauthier brought balance to the force, running Ki-Adi/Vader and Kanan/Han three times each. Ryudan preferred Armorer/Mando to Baylan/Maul, rocking the former in four games. Davide went with Grievous/Lumi for four games while Coyotemetal took a different approach to Separatists, running Dooku/Riff four times. Cyril travelled the path of balance and used Vader/Ki-Adi and Morgan/Veers three times each.
This was the best event for rebels, getting a couple lists near the top of the leaderboard. This is also the second time we’ve seen Maul/Baylan appear, so perhaps that is the early pairing of choice for the old man. Similar to Eric, JudgeAssault has been playing Obi1 for a long time, so good to see experience paying off.
Battle for Breath* (Canada – 16 players)
*As a note, this was not a GT, so that may have had an effect on the lists chosen. However, it seemed useful to include it anyway, so make of it what you will.
Finally, we have a smaller five round event to cap things off where the perfect 5-0 eluded everyone. Kyle took the top spot on tiebreakers, being 4-0 going into the final game. He used Hunter/Boss for three wins and Mace/Padme in the other two games. Similarly, Sean won all three of his games with Morgan/Veers but split the two Moff/Thrawn games. Dylan preferred Kit/Padme, and for seemingly good reason as that brought in all four of his wins. Brad used Grievous/Lumi for three games and Lando/Leia for the other two. Wait, Lando? And I thought his value was getting worse all the time!
Well, earlier in this article I downplayed Boss/Hunter a bit, but clearly Kyle disagrees with me there since he used them to great effect. This was Padme’s best showing so far, but still a very small sample. I expect both her and Kit to see some more play as time goes on. Both can be tricky finesse pieces but they have high ceilings and work well together, as Dylan demonstrated. Morgan/Veers and Grievous/Lumi should be familiar sights by now, both seem to be emerging as popular choices.
Duel of the Fates (Australia – 27 players)
Full results can be found here
These lists come from a land down under. Where women glow (tiebreak?) and men plunder (the force?). Can’t you hear the thunder? That’s Tobias with the perfect 5-0! He played Mace/Padme for each of his last four games. Similarly, Danny used the same pairing in four games, only playing Hunter/Boss in one game (the lone loss, to Tobias). Wade also played one list four times, in this case Anakin/Ki-Adi. Olek was a bit more balanced with three games of Vader/Ki-Adi. Ryan favoured Cassian/Leia, running that three times.
Obviously Ki-Adi-Mundi was brought a lot by the 4-1+ players. I bet he would be worried about the droid attack on the emus. However, Mace/Padme had the most overall success. Padme’s box has tons of tricks, but can be quite force hungry. Mace helps shore that up while also bringing some defensive buffs.
Summary
Comparing the tournament and survey results, there is certainly some overlap. Vader/Ki-Adi and Morgan/Veers were quite effective. Hunter/Boss and Kit/Padme also did well, though with a small (and very Canadian) sample, eh! Mace/Padme got some love in the survey, appearing three times, though I don’t know if that was just the Australians.
Thrawn/Moff was not in anyone’s top 5 for the initial survey, thought I imagine that will change going forward. It been around for a couple years now, never quite breaking it though, but now may be its time to shine. It takes some getting used to, but people who have put in the time are getting results with it. To a lesser extent, Lumi/Grievous seems to have levelled up following the buffs to B1s and B2s. It’s can be a bit of a glass cannon, but Lumi helps offset that. She also makes the wounds even more effective and combos well with the Super Tac free reserves.
Flipping things around to look at pairings that were popular in the survey but not in the events, Kanan/Leia didn’t make much of an impact. Rebels in general struggled, though maybe they would have struggled less with Kanan/Leia? Who knows, but something to keep an eye on. Other popular survey pairs were Hunter/Padme and Obi/Kit.
One big, general takeaway is that the republic is in a very good spot. It’s a big faction with lots of good toys, and many different republic lists are succeeding. They probably have the best chance to succeed outside of the standard 2×2 list format, too. JudgeAssault showed off one approach en route to a GT win in France. Empire is also hanging around. It’s got a couple standout lists, but there are enough pieces there that I could imagine some other combos making a splash at some point. Rebels and separatists aren’t gone, but they aren’t doing as much. I would think people are a bit tired of rebels and less excited to play them after all nerfs, no buffs. Separatists at least have Grievous/Lumi for now.
Wrap-Up
I cannot stress enough that things are still early and sample sizes are still small. Even when we get further down the line, I prefer to use tournament results more as an indication what to prepare for, rather than gospel as to what the absolute best lists are. Finding something you are comfortable with is very important. Looking at the event winners above, the most important thing is being a good player with a list that you can pilot well. So go out and get reps!
1 Response
Great article thanks