As noted in my recent article recapping the roadmap reveals, another Adepticon has come and gone. However, in that article, I didn’t mention something special about the latest iteration: it was the first ever Shatterpoint World Championship! I did a pre-Worlds meta review back in February, so it’s only logical we follow up with a quick post-Worlds list review. The February article already broke down some of the main meta lists, so if we see them again here, I won’t repeat myself too much. Check out the previous article if you haven’t!
Before we begin, let’s do a quick recap on the event format. There were two heats, Thursday and Friday, consisting of four rounds each. Players could only play in one of the two heats. Each heat was cut down to a seeded top 16 bracket. Due to the number of players, essentially all 3-1s and 4-0s got through. However, one unfortunate 3-1 did not make the cut from Thursday and one 2-2 snuck in from Friday. The brackets then started a single elimination phase on Saturday. For those unfamiliar with how a seeded bracket works, I’ve included an image below. It shows the higher seed winning in each game, but of course upsets can and will happen in practice. After three games on Saturday and one on Sunday, each bracket had only one player remaining. The bracket winners then played a final game to crown the inaugural Shatterpoint World Champion.
You Cannot Escape Your Destiny, the premiere rule that requires playing all squads at least once, was in effect only for the heats. During those four games you had to play each squad at least once, then beyond that you were unrestricted.
Within each of the groupings below, individuals are listed in no particular order. Names are taken from Longshanks. Also note that Momentous Struggle streamed worlds, you can check out the games on their YouTube channel!
Top 8
James Howard
We’ve got a good ol’ 2×2 list here (get used to it) and I’m a fan of both teams! I discussed both full mandos and Kanan/Hera in my meta review, so I won’t dive too deep here. However, one slight variation I noticed here is that the Rebel Commandos are in Kanan’s squad. In my opinion this creates a bit of a skewed strike team setup with your most dynamic piece, your tiebreaker, and your two-body support all starting on the same side of the table. There are pros and cons, of course, and it looks like James’ version worked out well for him!
In the cut, James played Spectres once and mandos twice, ultimately getting eliminated in a mando mirror match. In heat 1, mandos were played three times and Spectres just once as James went 4-0. Clearly mandos were the preferred team here, which makes sense given their versatility.
Godlyness-Duncan
Oh look, Inferno Squad! Strap in, we’ll see a lot of that later. We also have Lando/Hunter which, surprisingly, I didn’t cover in my previous article. I think I was trying to spread the love rather than have too much empire, which was perhaps a mistake. Lando/Hunter can cause headaches for Kanan lists because it has multiple ways to wound without attacks (Boba and Wrecker are great at that), expose to take away defensive dashes (among other things) and some scoundrel hate (Kanan, Ezra, and Kallus are all scoundrels). However, I shouldn’t focus too much on Lando/Boba because it was played exactly once in this setup.
Duncan went 3-1 in heat 1, the loss coming with Iden/Vader against mandos. In the elimination rounds Iden/Vader was played for all three games, ultimately falling short in a mirror match.
Will Maurer
When I saw these four squads, I hoped we were in for a change from the standard 2×2 setup. However, we are not. The pairings used here were Hunter/Lumi (first round of heat 2) and Vader/Ki-Adi (every subsequent round). Vader/Ki-Adi brings a ton of punching power. Ki-Adi, Obi2, and the Padwans all have heals in their attack tree to offset the damage from Vader. Between CF: Expose on the ARF and the extra Vader dice, I imagine Will was consistently getting deep down his trees. It’s also an 8 force list, so lots of potential Mind Tricks if/when you need defense. The pitfall I could see here is the lack of ranged attacks, but obviously Will was able to work around that well.
As mentioned, Vader/Ki-Adi was played for six straight games, ultimately losing to Vader/Iden.
Nick Rader
Finally we have some mix-and-match! Nick rocked three different pairings with this group: Maul/Gideon (for the very first game), Gideon/Leia (once pre-cut, twice post-cut) and Kanan/Leia (twice pre-cut, once post-cut). It’s a lot of “good stuff” going on plus utilizing Kallus’ flexible tag options. The ability to flex into a pretty standard rebel revenge list while also having options like Maul and the Moff box means you have a pretty versatile setup.
Between heat 2 and elims, Nick had a 3-0 record against Kanan when rocking Leia/Moff. His two losses came when rocking Maul/Moff (into Hunter/Obi) and Leia/Kanan (into Kanan/Han).
Top 4
Cody Hawkins
This is the second time we’ve seen Ki-Adi and Lumi in the same team, but, unlike Will, Cody actually ran them together! Two dashes on each kill creates a lot of swing potential, and the way you combo them can be quite flexible. You could dash a Jedi twice, dash two different Jedi, or dash a Jedi and a non-Jedi. Ki-Adi and Lumi also bring a lot of healing potential, which is never bad. Mandos are mandos, they good!
Cody was the round 1 bye, so he played three games pre-cut and four post-cut. Of those seven games, Cody rocked mandos in five. His sole loss came against Iden/Vader while running Ki-Adi/Lumi.
DorkEsquire
We see more Iden/Vader, not too surprising. This is the only time we’ve seen a Thrawn/Moff in the top 8, though, which is kind of surprising in a full Empire team. At least, I think so, because then Stormtrooper Sergeant and Dark Troopers are not available to Thrawn, like the version I’ve usually seen. However, Boba and ISB are still pretty good. Going up against this list, I was certainly worried about forgetting Boba’s jump at the end of my primary activations, or the two damage from Imperial Detention on ISB. The perks of playing slightly off-meta is that opponents can be caught off-guard more often.
In the four heat 2 games, DorkEsquire (DE) alternated between Iden/Vader and Thrawn/Moff. The three Saturday rounds were all wins with Iden/Vader before running Moff/Iden in his one loss (against Kanan/Han).
Runner-Up
Matt Bronson
Not only was this a successful list, but I hear the guy who ran it is very handsome, funny, and smart. Nothing special with Iden/Moff, though it was certainly the least popular Iden variant in this top 8. The rebel list is also very standard, save for the inclusion of Han. Han brings incredible mobility, often getting two or three advances in a single turn without spending force. That can be particularly handy when it comes to attacking back objectives on Odds. Dishing out a shove and a pin on one result in his Smug Scoundrel stance is also quite handy in the mirror match since Ezra, Kanan, and Leia can easily dash from their expertise.
Out of my nine total games, Iden/Moff was played exactly once (when I had to or I would be disqualified). All other games it was Kanan/Han, which ultimately fell to Iden/Vader.
Champion
Scott B
More Inferno! OK, I will talk a little bit about that at the end, but right now I want to focus on the other pairing here: what the heck? Who saw Dooku/Armorer being a thing? This is a creative combo with a lot of stickiness. Paz has an awesome clapback aura, Bo brings Protection and Steadfast for up to four units, and Dooku has clapback that, while it may not trigger often in this ranged meta, can be absolutely nasty when it goes off. There are a lot of hard hitters and a lot of mobility. Now, this is all speculation since I haven’t actually played with or against this pairing. For more info, I reached out to Scott himself and here’s the quick rundown he gave me:
The big thing with Dooku is he brings:
- Force battery, eliminates the Armorer issue where at least one activation per order deck will be without force
- Can get to midline objectives and is a tank. He and the trailing MagnaGuard are at least an annoyance to get off a point
- Minor revenge triggers, sometimes makes opponents avoid wounding. Dooku force refresh lets Paz use his revenge trigger as much as he wants, and dashing MagnaGuards can capture or defend points (or wound if positioned correctly)
- Magnas bring needed HP to Armorer lists. Plus, giving cover is an added benefit with mando defense expertise. And people love to target magnas, so the coverts last longer
- Leaving one magna behind lets it deal with the struggle 2 flip, so it can move to a back objective as needed
That all makes sense to me! Thanks Scott for the insight, I’m sure many people will be trying out that combo shortly.
Now, I focused a lot on Dooku/Armorer because it’s cool, but I do have to acknowledge Iden/Vader was the reach linchpin here. In his nine games, Scott chose Dooku/Armorer three times (twice pre-cut, once post-cut) and Iden/Vader six times (twice pre-cut, four times post-cut), including his last three games. Scott ultimately fell to … no one! He was a perfect 9-0 on the weekend. Very impressive! Speaking from experience, I can say he is definitely a great player and a worthy champion.
General Thoughts
Meta Units
I kind of breezed by it, but it’s tough to ignore the success of Inferno Squad. Often it get’\s shortened to just Iden, but really the whole box is doing a lot of work (Hask most of all in my opinion). Unlike LVO, Vader was the preferred pairing at Worlds. The list hits incredibly hard, often just wounding everything in its path. There’s also lots of mobility, healing, and condition control, which are all good attributes. The Infiltration ability on the ISF is also quite handy for Odds, as well as ensuring you can always deploy on your home objectives no matter how funky the terrain is.
Kanan also had a good showing, though maybe not as good as expected. Unlike Inferno Squad, I’m more comfortable shortening Spectre lists as “Kanan” because let’s be real, a lot of the power is concentrated in him. Similar to ISF, Rebel Commandos rock the strong Infiltration ability. It’s certainly clear that “just play revenge” is not a proper counter to Inferno, but we knew that.
Full Mandos had a big showing at Adepticon. Speaking for myself, I was kind of surprised they weren’t super prevalent at LVO, but maybe that’s just down to different events having different people. Regardless, I saw many people suggesting there were fewer ingress points than preferred, so the vertical mobility of Mandos may have given them a leg up over the weekend. Personally, I didn’t find ingress to be that scarce, but I also recognize I usually play with more than average, so I came in with low expectations. Whether or not we’re talking about mobility, Mandos are just generally very versatile. Versatility is especially strong in the hands of great players who know how to leverage it.
Squad Composition
As much as it saddens me, 2×2 is still dominant. For those who are unaware, that’s just my term for using your four premiere squads to create two separate strike teams which don’t mix. As I’ve discussed before, 2×2 just has so many advantages. Other setups give flexibility, but flexibility simply isn’t rewarded much in the current premiere rules. I appreciate people like Nick who go an alternate route, but I’d love to see some changes that make mix-and-match more viable. Hopefully that is part of the May update, but I am not counting on it. 2×2 may be here for a long while.
One (unsurprisingly) common thread in all these lists: wounding power. Sure, Inferno is the poster child, but there’s other stuff too. Mandos hit like a truck, and the Ki-Adi lists are definitely trying to get a lot out of his identity. Even my Kanan list got more killing power with Han compared to the common alternatives. Personally, this meta is a bit too wound-focused for my taste. Maybe that’s just what Shatterpoint is now, but I am still holding out hope that it gets reigned in as part of the May update. Once again, we can only wait and see!
Objectives
Finally, we saw a disproportionate amount of Odds in the top 8. Five of these players brought it, and (I think) for good reason. It’s probably the objective that’s easiest to be bad at, from a list perspective. A lot of lists can flex decently into Sabotage or Shifting, but struggle on Odds. For example, I assume losing the roll-off and having to play Ki-Adi/Lumi on Odds was less than ideal for Cody in his semi-final game. Talking to Scott afterwards, he definitely thought Odds was a big factor in his win. I also talked to DE after our game, since I have seen some Iden/Vader players take Shifting. As a Kanan player, I would certainly prefer not playing Shifting, so that gives Iden/Vader an advantage in that matchup. However, DE essentially told me that he felt Odds gave a bigger advantage to lists that aren’t good at Odds (compared to the advantage of Shifting against lists that aren’t good at Shifting), which I’d agree with. Now that we have First Contact entering the playing field, I’m curious to see how the objective meta evolves. Personally, I worry it may skew things even more, but I need more reps to be certain.
Wrap-Up
There we go, that’s it! If you want to dive into the data some more, check out the Longshanks links below. It’s less than a year until the next Adepticon, so better start practicing if you want a chance to steal Scott’s title!
