I've seen a whole bunch of people throwing out comments making claims about the top 8 squads at GenCon and the SWM sets represented there. Here are the numbers of the top 8 squads posted:
Here is the breakdown by set for both total points and number of minis:

There are only 25 (not 26) minis represented. Please keep in mind that this is a single tournament at a single point level. It would be nice to have several high-attendance tournies at each of the points levels. As it stands as profound as this data appears it is in no way statistically significant.

Which squad are you missing? They're all in the WotC tourney article.

Interesting stuff.

Of course, people will draw different conclusions from the data...

It's be nice if it could be expanded out to all the 5-2 squads or even all the squads with winning records.

I think this proves it once and for all CotF was the biggest jump in stats....EVER. I thought CotF was out for last Gencon (didn't go myself though) since it came out around April of last year. People immediately jumped on the SS republic squads and of course Bane.

That set turned the game on its head more than BH or AE.

I doubt it. JWMs, Bane, and General Windu were heavily represented at Gencon 06 as were superstealth - Bacara and Sev. Exar was played in a couple of squads with mutants and ugos. The main Uni figs was thrawn and he was seen in quite few squads over the weekend. Black and Blue got copied quickly

In 2005 Universe was not played alot either (two Vader JH/Witch squads were played and that was about it). Aurra, Boba RS, R2, Anakin, and Kenobi were the most common figs in 05. Of course it was 100 then.

I am pretty sure this year had by far the most variety, not just in the top squads, but in the tournament in general that we have ever seen.

Also, remember, when you look at those sets, what figs were from them that take up so much space. For example, I believe every CotF fig present in the top 8 was a JWM. BHs was represented by only two figs, Han SC and Boba BH.

A&E likely had the most representation overall with different figs as we had two Han SC squads and a Landspeeder squad in the finals.

Very interesting data. Do you have the raw numbers handy as well? Looking at the charts, I notice RS has many more figures than its cost percentage. They were very cheap. On the other hand, BH has opposite percents. The other ones are close enough to show a balance for cost/number within each set. I know I'm not explaining this the way I want, but I'm tired. I swear it makes sense in my head. lol Thanks for sharing something else to chew on.

The raw data is just the squad lists of the top 8. Read the tourney writeup at WotC. (SWM page, archives, Gencon Tourney Report)

Too bad we don't have the data for every squad. It would've been interesting to see the entire tourney breakdown.

Little confused by the numbers. Does the percentage for "No. Minis by Set" count unique minis (which means, with 26 different figures, each figure appearing should be 3.84%) or does it count total instances (so if there were a total of 6 JWMs, it counts 6 times)?

I'm thinking the only figures from RotS to show up were San Hill and R2 AM right?

I'm also thinking Lobot could throw these figures right off.

I am working on it, but it's taking alot longer than I wanted it to. I am squeezing it in during my very rare moments of spare time. To be honest it hasn't been very high on the priority list for me, but I will try to work on it a little faster now that I know you guys want to see that. Maybe I can have it done by the end of the week. Maybe. I'm only about a third of the way through.

There were 3 minis from RotS present in the top 8: San and 2x R2,AM.

updated and clarified. Also I added a raw count of individual characters used from each set, as opposed to mini count. In other words, CF has 2 individual minis (Uggie & JWM), but because there were so many of each of these characters represented at the top8, the mini count shows that CF made up 41% of the minis in the top8.

Plus Wicket, Aurra JH, WFFs, and Boba Enforcer.

The statistics are certainly interesting. But Bill is right when he says that the overall diversity for the tournament was pretty vast. I saw a LOT of different stuff. Heck, I almost got beat on the first round by a squad with 20 some odd Ewoks.

I do believe though, that there is a small factor to be considered here, and that's not necessarily who plays with the newest (potentially more powerful) figures, but who KNOWS how to play with them better. To me, that seemed to be a huge difference in the 3 San Hill squads I faced that day. TimmerB was the only one that really had a grasp on the characters. The other two guys I played did a decent job, but neither of them really grasped the correct concept of how to run the squad, and how to utilize the character's properly. I also find that people who are not familiar enough with the new pieces lose more easily as well because they just don't know how to properly counter them.

For instance, we had a guy at our LGS last week who hasn't been out to play in probably close to a year. He brought mostly CS pieces, including two Destroyer Droids. I absolutely shredded him. Was it because the DDs are that much worse than the newer pieces? No. In fact, he rolled pretty decently on most his shield saves. It was just that he had very little idea of how to properly play against the characters I was running.

So, while I do think there's definitely some merit to the statistics here, and it does seem to show that the competitive scene favors the newer sets, there's certainly more involved here than just the pieces that people used.

Besides, it seems obvious to me that WotC would want players at GenCon to be using the latest and greatest every year anyway. GenCon would get boring if the same squad won every year. In order to combat that, new pieces have to be released that shift the power combos around and such. Perhaps next year JWMs won't be much of a threat at all!

Supply may also play a role here. Imagine 2 squads are roughly equal in the metagame, or 2 figures would work roughly the same. Then imagine that a player does not own all the figures. I believe it is far more likely that the player will use a squad with the current set, or a more recent set because they are just easier to buy/find/trade for.

Of course, the top 8 may not necessarily represent that effect. I think that Lobostele's comment that players may not have as much experience against newer figures may play a very large role.