A couple of days ago I wrote about my first reactions to the July points changes for Empire and First Order and this time I want to look at a couple of the good guys instead: Republic and Rebels.
If you read my last blog you'll know that I'm coming at these changes from the context that I don't think much will change overall at the top end of the competitive metagame, and you'll also know that I thought both these factions were languishing at the bottom of the faction totem pole.
Have these points changes breathed new life into the Rebels and the Republic? Is there hope in the galaxy again?
GALACTIC REPUBLIC
I don't understand what has happened to the Galactic Republic in this points change. Already struggling to achieve anything in the game they've had all the stuff that was almost good receive a price increase, while all the things that were nowhere near good enough got a little bit of a discount but not enough to change the fact that they still aren't good enough.
Ric was ineffective at his old cost but went up as much as Whisper? Ok
The Jedi were already reeling from the December points increase and the few good ones went up anyway? Ok
But on the other hand, all those overcosted named Torrents with rubbish pilot abilities got cheaper. I mean you still have no reason to play them but now you'll spend slightly longer deciding not to use them.
It's not all terrible news... Obi Wan and Plo didn't go up by a lot of points and the other Jedi didn't move in cost at all. The Delta 7B title actually got cheaper for Jedi Knights and Ahsoka Tano, though I'm still not at all convinced that 52pts for a Delta 7B Jedi Knight compares well to a basic T-65 or T-70 at 40/42, even with the Force point. And anything beefy based in ARCs, Y-Wings and Torrents still works fine it's just not really the metagame for bringing those sorts of beefy 1 Agility ships to and I feel like Resistance in particular does that sort of thing better.
The one chink of light that I want to talk about is Y-Wing Anakin. The internet would have had you believe that he was meme-level bad in his Y-Wing but I've been tinkering with him recently and he's actually ok. When Dengar popped up as a great wingman for Boba a little lightbulb pinged into existence above my head that said "if Dengar is good... why isn't Anakin good?" and that was the start of my experimentation. I think you have to keep him cheap and not get caught up in trying to leverage his I6 into being an ace because he's just there to fling his Proton Torpedoes before he dies, but he's good at scaring aces away and trading for something big.
You have to have this in mind when choosing his wingmen as you know they're going to need to carry the mid-late game for you when Anakin is gone, but I was already having some decent success with Anakin at his old points and the 5pts discount surely helps people put him onto the table and finding that out for themselves. Think of him as 'Jedi Redline'.
Oh, a little shout out for the R4-P astromech which I really like at 2pts and I think you'll wind up taking it quite a lot over the generic R4 astromech. Anakin would have it for his Y-Wing, for instance. And I do like the Blue Squadron Torrent with Dedicated at 27pts. I think that's going to prove to be better than Tucker in a lot of squads.
But yeah, this points change is really rough on a faction that was already on its knees and Republic players have to really hope that the LAAT, V-Wing and ETA-Actis are really good when they arrive later this year. Yoda may have chastened Luke for always having his eyes on the horizon but if I was a Republic player I'd be looking to the future too because there's not a lot else left for them in the present.
REBELS
Not long ago the Rebel fleet was taking 2nd place at the World Championships but in 2020 it's fallen a long way very quickly. This has been partly due to the points increases that chipped away at just how much you could fit into a Rebel Beef squad but I also thing wider changes in the metagame have been really unkind to Rebels. The extremely cheap TIE/fos, Scyks, Vultures, Academy Pilots, Techno Union Bombers that we're seeing now have been a MASSIVE problem for the Rebels. It just takes way too much energy to destroy these little bothersome generic ships, and while you're trying to push through all their green dice your B-Wings and Y-Wings and T-65s etc are taking much more damage in return because the one things Rebels don't have is a lot of high Agility ships.
I was sure we'd see a price cut on the Phoenix Squadron A-Wings to give Rebels their efficient little fighter but instead we've seen the Baron of the Empire leapfrog the A-Wings down to 28pts.
We didn't see the change I expected but instead we've got a raft of very unexpected discounts, especially on large ships, that don't really help the Rebel Beef archetype at all but may open the door to bringing the 'Pancakes' style of two large turreted ships back to the fore.
This, unfortunately, is where my expertise and knowledge fails me. I've never been a big turrets player so I'm going to be the last person to work out the combination of pilots/upgrades/playstyle that best unlocks the potential for these squads. Whether it's going to be the YT-2400 that breaks through of the VCX-100, or both, I'm not sure. Will you want Ezra's cheaper force point in the Gunner seat, or Bistan's double tap attacks? Do you need to run them light or can you max everything out and just 'run & gun' your way to victory?
I'm not really the right person to predict the future on this, although when I look at what's currently seeing play I do think all the 3 Agility swarms are potentially a really problematic gatekeeper against the return of large ships. If you can't keep some of those little guns from shooting at you every turn your large base will melt from under you very rapidly. My gut says it will be the YT-2400 that has the best chance of sniping ships from range and staying alive, but then again the Ghost is a much smaller investment to put onto the table in the first place.
In this regard: clouded, my vision of the future is. But regardless of whether something like this actually turns out to be great or not, I think in the short term you're going to see a lot more players trying large bases out (both Rebels and Scum saw some big large base discounts) so it's something you need to prepare for.
Away from the big ship discounts in Rebels there were a couple of other changes that I liked. E-Wings are almost cheap enough now and as one of the rare 3 Agility ships in the faction I think the Rogue Squadron in particular could be worth a try. I'd actually flown Miranda Doni before the points change and been pleasantly surprised by how good her ability was so I think she's better than most people realise. You don't need to load Miranda up with 80pts of torpedoes and bombs any more, just give her a decent support crew like K2-S0 and maybe a set of bombs and just let her do her thing - with her ability she's hard to kill if the enemy focuses on her but can actually deal serious damage if they don't. The little cut to Sabine Wren's TIE Fighter is nice too, and I note she's one of the few ships that still wants Composure (she can fail her preposition and get Focus, then k-turn/bump/barrel roll after moving).
Auzitucks are still rubbish, though, and to be honest I'm fine with that. They're the most boring ship in the game so keep them on the shelf!
