Honestly, I can say aleast a few of us over were thinking and saying the same thing. Myself, Joelker, Cybit etc. It was pretty damn obvious that with gowk off the table it would go back to speedy cannon. Hell it was still pretty good even with GOWK on the table. I never felt like the gowk ban was going to open up the meta. I was always very astonished when I read posts suggesting it would. I had never see as many people considering playing vong and sith because they had potential in the meta. I think i had about 6 squads in mind for regionals that were all completely different. Top5 in WA was each completely different squad (Obi-push, cannon, throne/dash/DVU, LV swap, and Boba Cannon). Sad that it was 3 rebel, 2 imperial. I think there is a huge advantage to rebel anyway we look at it. We didn't even end up with much GOWK because alot of us felt it would be eaiser to win without it.

I got out of the arguements because it was a tough call for Dean. Something had to be done because it was still a very unbalanced piece which was having a huge negative impact. It was his call to make in the end wotc supported it. Done, I didn't bitch even being on the opposing side. Dean has done alot for the game over the years and I am not going to rag on him because he was trying to help the game for the better.

But this meta really can't be what people wanted. I would take the GOWK meta over this any day of the week. I didn't even like playing gowk but so many of the squads I would play against it were fun.

Mind you the current meta has alot more do with Maps and tempo control abuse. Having the fig with the greatest movement + flight and a new piece granting board wide evade just compiles the problem.

And I can accept that because I wasn't there to see for myself. And I put rebel as generice bcause of the possible divirstity of the squads in that faction that are capable of being fielded in top tier. Most are Cannon or Push vairents, but not fully. This is just form my experince. (others no doubt are different)

Yes he is no longer with the company. I have no other details to share at this time, other than it appears Peter Lee of D&D has taken over in SWs R&D.[/quote]

Well this is interesting news indeed.

I agree 100% about this. I had several people come up to me over the day on Saturday, saw the Speeder sitting in front of me and went "Oh wow, Lobo isn't playing San!" I SO wanted to play San. But I KNEW that if I lost map, I would lose games. Any San squads that I came up with just could not compete at all on Taris or Teth, and not really on Muun Commerce or Starship either. At least last year, Starship was the only one I really had to worry about! So I played San in the 150 on Thursday, and went 2-2, even on my own map sometimes. Now, granted, at least one of those losses was because I couldn't win a single stinking initiative (darn Mara Jedi), but it just more cemented in my mind that I wouldn't be able to win with San, let alone make the Top 8. And I didn't even have to play a Speeder squad on Thursday at all!




Again, I feel 100% the same way. Take Teth, Taris, and Muun Commerce out of the equation, and I almost certainly would have played San this year instead of the Speeder. I actually almost ran a NR squad with Mara, Dash RS, and a Vong Ossus Guardian, since Mara's Stealth could help her survive against the Speeder. But it was still dependent on winning map to some degree. I could do OK on Taris, but Teth was brutal for that match up.


And frankly, to call the decision to ban GOWK hypocritical, or to infer that anyone who called for GOWK's ban is a hypocrit, is just ludicrous, IMO. None of us even new Teth Monastery was coming (except a few select people), and we didn't know what sort of impact it would have on things. If I had known how brutal the Speeder squads would be on Teth, then sure, I might've been a little more leary about the GOWK ban. However, from a straight up mechanics point of view, GOWK was still too powerful. Even on Teth/Taris, the only way for those Cannon squads to win would be to hope on getting a lucky shot on Rex/Dash, or pray to God that GOWK failed some saves. The games would still go to time, with each team picking up 4-5 rounds of gambit, and then seeing who could survive the last round or two, and end up closest to the middle of the map.

But no, I don't think removing GOWK caused the Speeder problems, at least not on it's own. Yeah, I knew the Speeder would make a comeback. But the Speeder wasn't the problem. The combo of Rieekan + new wide-open maps is what made it the gatekeeper this year.

You know what though, I think the fact that a non-Speeder squad won the whole thing (congrats Deri!) goes a long way to show that the Speeder was NOT necessarily as dominant as GOWK was.

Hindsight is always 20/20. No matter what the decision is, we will never please every single person. I think Dean did the best he could with what was put before him. I think this whole last year has really taught a lot of people a lot of things about the SWM game. Chris West seems to be WAY more knowledgeable now about designing new maps. The WOTC design team realized the mistake that was made with GOWK. Hopefully those groups can take those things, and learn from them, and then press forward.

I disagree with this. As we saw in the final round of the championship, map roll was HUGE. It was probably the second biggest factor in the game's outcome (the first being the initiative roll in which Bill smartly set up for a Recon check, but had to groan when Deri rolled a 20 for init.)

I think the people in charge of the floor rules all understand that there is no perfect solution here - they (we) just have to find the fairest options and implement them as best we can. Nothing is going to please everyone, and I do agree with f&t that every squad possibility should have a map that is good for it and a map that is bad for it. It's a big part of the game. Aside from that, maps that allow a particular squad to dominate so completely that nothing can beat it ever when playing on that map probably go too far. I'm not sure that that is the situation now, and I don't believe - gasp! - that what happened in the top 8 at GenCon can be used as a qualification of what is good or bad for the game.



No, you really weren't. It just turned out that what you said ended up being true for GenCon, but I doubt that the reasoning behind your statement at the time was the same reasoning that can be applied to why it was correct in hindsight. If GOWK had been banned in April or May, I do not believe the Snowspeeder would have dominated the field. And let's not forget that only 5 Snowspeeders reached the top. 11 others, possibly more, did not.

I can't speak to Taris, my friend Jason ended up 12th with it (he lost to the 3rd place guy [Frank Baker] in the final round when he rolled a 1 on a key attack, and also lost a game to Deri - them's the breaks).

But I'm not so sure about the accuracy of the rest of the statement. I played the Snowspeeder for the very first time in a skirmish at the Championship. I had no illusions of winning. Jim bought my event ticket to compel me to play after I sarcastically said that's what it would take to get me in. I ran Teth as my map.

Out of the six games I played, I went 3-3. I played my first game on Chancellor's Starship and won. I played game 2 on Teth and lost, totally my fault for not being more aggressive. Game 3 was on Ravaged Base, and I won. I lost round 4 on Teth. I won round 5 on Teth, and lost round 6 on Muunilist.

So I'm not sure that I agree that removing those maps takes away its power. I'm not even convinced based on my own experiences that a map like Teth is what makes it great.

I'm not sure that GOWK would have necessarily won GenCon either; Deri won by building speeder hate into his squad, and could just flat outplay any squads that could hurt his squad most of the time. It very easily could have been an anti-GOWK squad that KOs three GOWK squads (lets say for argument, 5/8 are GOWK) on the way to the championship.

Rest of my thoughts I'll post later, after I've set them up in my own head. Omnus does a pretty good job of it, though.

Also, from the livecast, I believe 10/14 (top 14) was quoted as being speedy cannon or some minor variant thereof.

Perhaps, but IMO I fully believe there would have been a helluva lot more of GOWK squads than there were Snowspeeders. This would have dominated through sheer presence in numbers:

62 Boba BH
55 GOWK
09 R2, Astromech
24 points of filler, probably Ugs and Mouse Droids

Zzzzzzzzz. Seriously. A free ticket wouldn't have even compelled me to play in that venue.

I'm not sure I believe that, mostly because after the 30 or so people who will bring "Tier 1" stuff for competitive purposes, there are lots of people who will come to just play their favorite squad, or what have you. I don't think any real squad (Also, how many Boba/GOWK squads were played at regionals? Hell, I don't think I saw a single one in any of the reports I read) that is not just literally unbeatable will get more then 30-40% of the tourney to play, and even then, there are just a lot of people who will play their fun squads, even in GenCon. It is not nearly as hardcore to most people as it is to say, um, us.

And I'm not sure Speedy Cannon doesn't beat that squad either. Just blow up Boba and run like hell from GOWK. Once again, it comes down to map (which is a point currently being taken out back and beaten). I actually wonder how a Yobuck/Rex/Swap squad would do against Speedy Cannon, Yobuck being one of the few pieces in the game that can almost unequivocally get to any piece (with R2), and at least base it / tag it once. Yobuck should survive the onslaught from the next two pieces, swap with Rex, with some decent rolling, dead snowspeeder. Ah well. Next year, perhaps.

I also think maps are the symptom of the problem...not the core problem. Melee pieces don't have the survivability / cost ratio to deal with getting across the map. Having melee pieces with good survivability to cost ratios (also, the proliferation of damage at a much higher rate then HP doesn't help this) would get more at the core of the issue. Or a range limit, which lets balance be implemented in another sense (imagine if heavy weapon snipers had boardwide range, but those quad shooters had range 12 or some other number. Makes more sense, and gives each piece a unique niche)

Just random thoughts...

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

I have been saying this for months. Finally it is good to know someone else out there gets it, and that I'm not just crazy.

Why is it that when someone won against a GOWK squad they were "playing hate"and it counted as being a GOWK, yet Deri wins with "speeder hate" and his doesnt? Again a double standard.

@ Boris - my point on the maps was that people want the new maps when the come out to be legal (assuming they are good). Their weaknesses will not bare out for a long time adn to think the correct decision will be made is unlikely at best. That leaves us with only making the melee maps legal. The only solution would be last minute changes before gencon, but as people have proven several times over-if they find a "hidden, abusable" map they wont broadcast it (nothing wrong with this). It kinda leaves the maps in a lose/lose situation. I know i for one loved Taris when it came out. It took a good while to see how hard it was to play.

a few Brief points

GOWK had a ridiculous mechanic that broke the core rules, no figure should have that much dmg evasion. At the very least he shouldn't have MotF2. His ban was nessicary. The speeder dominance points the finger at other issues with the game balance, its not an argument to allow GOWK back without an errata.

Speeder Dominance is Map related more than figures. Teth and Taris are this years Geonosis and Mustafar respectively. Whereas Taris doesn't have exposed starting zones it still has a massive open space in the center meaning that gambit can't be taken to prevent turtling. Teth is a shooting barrel. Take the inside, get first round gambit but get hit by fire from teh speeder round 1, or play the outside, get no 1st round gambit and watch your opponent rack up points as he waits for you to advance.

Lastly, my squad was not speeder Hate. It had anti-speeder tech but it handles many squads effectively with its wide range of commanders and abilities.
This squad would not have been possible in a GOWK meta (no Direct Damage).

So,with the above statement you could say both of the issues GOWK and speeder dominance exposed two diferent problems with the game,while one has been fixed, the other problem that has been exposed can be looked into in depth without much of a deadline to worry about and hopefulyl fixed in a way thats best for ther over all game.


It makes me chuckle when folks talk about an open and rescrited meta,i almost feel compled to show them my local meta and challenge htem to only use those pieces.

Dont get me wrong, i am not wanting GOWK unbanned without changing SSM (which can easily be done if upper people would allow it(not sure who that would be at the moment)). I am simply pointing out that the arguments that were used in his banning were false. The meta didnt open up. Theone thing i liked about the GOWK problem though, is that people were using a whole new range of characters that were not and are not being used. With the GOWK ban, a whole slew of figs went back to the bottom of the barrel. At least it was something new.

Well again I guess I am missing something here.

The game is played at 3 point levels.

Banning did open up the Meta at 100 and 200. Want proof an Accurate Thruggernaught squad was undefeated at 200 played by Grand Admiral.

100 was won by a Gowk similar squad (it replaced Gwok with GM Yoda) by Bill

Both of these tourneys had wide open squad choices. So saying that it did not happen is you choosing the stats you want.l

Second the main reason for the ban was the inability to put damage on Gowk plain and simple. You are the one saying things have changed. I am saying things happend just as I have foreseen.

Check some threads out you will see what happened was what I predicted. The game is getting better and things are now being handled to improve the game in a timely fashion. Not every 18-24 months. We will continue to try and make the game better and it does not mean that we wont fail occasionally or miss something.


By the way there is a proposal that has some merit to fixing Gowk.

The changes would be:

Removal of MOTF2 as this does not help anything but the SSM really.

Changing SSM to be similar to force bubble. A successful save stops the first 20 dmg on all attacks.

Soresu style can stay the same because SSM is still more powerful as it works on all attacks and SS only works on ranged attacks.

If SSM only stops the first 20 DAM, does MOTF2 really need to come off? Seems like a bit too much, but mettle with a FP reroll would normally be good enough. Reason i ask is for those like me who still cant hit the save with two mettled rerolls.

This begs another point with the way you said that dean. Lobo brought up a good point about Championship limited maps, but your last post begs the question, do we need to separate the play levels even more? IMO 150 is on the way out. The game is (or do we say was now?) being designed more for 200 and functions much better, but what happens to one format does not mean it will affect the other two equally. Might be something to keep in mind for future problems. I have always referred to 150 only. I dont know anything about 100 and 200 has always been the more open format. 150 has always been prone to the "broken gimmick".

well we had a rather large I would say meeting of the minds and took several opinions on this and that was the most agreed upon fix to him that kept the style similar.

well that is the point we are at a crossroads for the competitive game right now.

Do we stay at 150 points and limit the maps in a championship format?

or do we move it to 200?????

well that is where I think we are.

Just to throw in another idea....

What if for competitive play we had Faction Handicaps?

I've been running the idea around in my head a bit, but the best idea I can come up with is that different factions earn different amounts of points in gambit. This can be adjusted in each DCI floor rules update, depending on how the competitive meta is shaking up.

For example:

- Rebels are currently strong. They only score 3 points per round in gambit

- Old Republic suck, and they always have. Old Republic scores 7 points per round in gambit

- Separatists are doing OK, but not great. 5 points per round

- Fringe are not loyal to anyone. Players cannot score gambit points with Fringe pieces (take THAT, Ugnaught! And whoa, the Geonosian Drone actually gains a competitive niche?)

What this does is that it allows DCI to try to smooth over faction imbalances, and give a leg-up to weaker factions. Would OR be competitive if they scored double the gambit points of Rebels? Who knows?

I know there are weaknesses to the idea:

- it does discourage people from running "fun" or "casual" Rebel squads

- it doesn't fix the map issues

- it may lead to new abusive squads taking advantage of higher gambit points in weaker factions

There may be a better way to come up with a handicap for factions. My other idea was to adjust victory points in tournaments (ie: score more victory points if you win with a weak faction), but I don't think that solves the problem.

Thoughts?

My original complaint over Teth Monastery was over how susceptible it is to door control, which I wouldn't expect to be an issue at regional/national level, but at the local level can be.

It sounds like its openness is also an issue with the Speeder squads?

On top of this, the new FAQ is up, and changes the LOS through beveled corners, so Teth Monastery now has two alcoves where figures can hide and be completely safe from any normal attacks, and most, if not all, abilities and powers.

The faction handicap would be a bit to subjective and open to interpretation. PLus may times we dont see who is the best until things like Gencon. It would also require updates after each set, which could be troublesome. Also, gambit isnt that big a deal. I have no problem letting my opponent get a 1-2 gambit lead if it gives me better positioning because i can generally get it back or i win/lose outright. A couple point difference wouldnt be a big enough change to affect anything.

@Dean - I would be good with either one, but i honestly think with the designs that are coming out and the fact 200 is so much more open in the meta that the shift really should happen to 200pt Championships. I have never had a problem with them running any significant time longer than the 150pt tourneys.

I like 200 more personally, but I know lots of people who are afraid that droids would be very dominant in 200. Loda Cannon might also be able to wreck in that format as well.