This report was provide by Wayde Stover, a regular attendee of DSM X-wing events, and one of the original bumpmaster players (three JumpMasters, all built to block and deal auto-damage) out of the Midwest.

I started running triple Mindlink Jumpmasters last summer. I originally built them out as 3 bumpmasters to troll my brother who was flying primarily Interceptors. It didn’t end well for him. I knew they were powerful as munitions platforms, but I was starting to realize that they were also powerful as control ships, especially in a meta that was relatively ace heavy at the time. When Deadeye was nerfed a few weeks before 2016 worlds, and Defenders and Dengaroo eliminating swarms from the meta, I knew that control-oriented Mindlink Jumps had a shot to do well in the meta. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to ’16 worlds due to the all the technical difficulties during signup, but the week after Worlds I took my list (now with a single torpedo carrier) to second place at Omaha regionals. A couple months later I took the list (with a couple tweaks) to top 16 at the Minnesota regional. This was about the time that Mindlink was starting to catch on as a powerhouse, and in the lead up to ’17 Worlds, Mindlink Jumps went from being under the radar to a meta cornerstone.

And this was my conundrum. I really like flying unexpected lists. When an opponent hasn’t prepped for you, you have that much more of an advantage. I had a few non-Jumpmaster list ideas that I had been playing with, and having some luck with, but they all had pretty big weaknesses despite having curveballs that could throw off opponents. About 3 weeks before worlds, I settled on Jumpmasters for one final hurrah. Heck, I figured I might as well finish the season with them since they had been working for me up to this point.

I really wanted to stay with only a single torpedo, but I was deathly afraid of Kanan Biggs, and that second torpedo does really help with any of the Biggs lists running around right now. In the couple of weeks leading up to worlds I had a stretch of games where I lost 4 of 5. I had to step back and figure out where I was going wrong. A friend on Vassal told me I was probably flying on autopilot, and another told me that people are learning how/what to fly against Jumps. I think both are true and it was what I needed to hear to really evaluate and step up my game. I was leaning too much simply on the high efficiency of the Jumps, and not my piloting. It also led me to the addition of Seismic Torpedoes, which really felt like a game changer for my list. After a handful of games testing the Seismics, I was feeling pretty good about the list.

The list:

JumpMaster 5000 — Contracted Scout

Attanni Mindlink

R4 Agromech

Feedback Array

Seismic Torpedo

Intelligence Agent

Anti-Pursuit Lasers

JumpMaster 5000 — Contracted Scout

Attanni Mindlink

R4 Agromech

Plasma Torpedoes

Guidance Chips

Intelligence Agent

JumpMaster 5000 — Contracted Scout

Attanni Mindlink

R4 Agromech

Proton Torpedoes

Guidance Chips

Boba Fett

The Matches

Looking back, the whole tournament was a blur, and I know I am going to butcher some of the details, so feel free to leave a comment with any corrections you have.

Round 1

Miguel – Spain

Dengar Asajj

With Miguel being from Spain, I was pretty pumped to be setting up across from an international player right off the bat. He was running Dengar Asajj, with Fearlessness on Dengar and Push the Limit on Asajj. I had played a couple variants of this at Omaha, so was feeling pretty good about my chances. We lined up across from each other on the right half of the board, I targeted Asajj 1st, getting a couple shields off, then switched targets to Dengar once I was able to block him with one Jump and get the other two ships behind. A turn or two later I had a really good round of shooting to kill Dengar, and he conceded as I still had 2 full Jumps and a nearly dead Jump (running and generating focuses) left to deal with Asajj.

1-0

Round 2

Steve – MN

Biggs Braylen Miranda

The details of this match are a bit hazy. I just remember flubbing the approach and not being able to get both my torps off in the opening engagement. I think I opted not to use Seismics to clear a lane, which in hindsight I should have done. At one point I was able to get the Seismics off to finish off a 1pt Braylen before he could shoot and stress me, but we ended up going to time with a 1 or 2 pt Jump keeping distance from a 4 or 5 pt Miranda. Steve didn’t want to risk taking any crits and I was resigned to taking the loss and conserving a half-ship’s worth of MOV.

1-1

Round 3

Tony – NOVA

3x x7 Deltas + Dark Curse

When I came to the table and saw this list I was almost resigned to the thought of taking a second loss. At PS1, x7 Deltas are tough to deal with when I only have 2 torpedoes in my list. They are exceptional at shrugging off my turret shots unless I can get range 1 turret shots with multiple ships. I set up in the bottom right and he set up toward the middle left on his side. I cleared a rock with Seismics on my approach and was able to set up both torp shots for the opening engagement. To my surprise, and thanks to some sub-optimal green dice on his part, between the two torps and the primary shot from the bumpmaster, I was able to remove a Defender before it shot. The bumpmaster then took out Dark Curse in 2 turns with APLs and Feedback Array, and the 3 Jumps together were able to arc dodge and TL + focus their way to victory, securing the 100-0 win. Moral of the story: just because a matchup may seem like an uphill battle on paper doesn’t mean it will be. You never know what the dice are going to do. Had I not removed that Delta on turn 1, it is a completely different game. Against this list, I don’t want to be blocked, and that is much easier when I only have 2 Defenders to worry about rather than all 3.

2-1

Round 4

Aaron – IA (OCX)

Yorr + 2x Upsilon

This was one of the lists where I wasn’t sure what to expect until I saw it doing it’s thing. He set up in castle formation in the top left corner and I set up in the bottom right. Turn 1 he does hard stops with both of his Upsilons, passes the stress to Yorr, still getting his actions. Yorr then does a 1 straight, bumping into the Upsilons, clearing both stress with Inspiring Recruit and potentially granting a TL to one of the Upsilons via Systems Officer. I know castling can get a bad wrap, but I thought this was brilliant, and was looking forward to the challenge of how to crack it. I moved in slowly with my Boba ship approaching to the right, the Plasma ship toward the center in the bumpmaster to the left. He held the castle up to the engagement round, where Boba started to peel off, and the Plasma went straight in to get the torps off, and the bump starter to peel off to the left. The next round, he breaks the castle in the direction of the Boba Scout and pretty easily takes out the Plasma scout. At this point the Boba scout is running while the bumpmaster starts turning back in toward his formation. I am at least in good enough position that while if he chases Boba, the bump can get uncontested shots on his squad. Eventually he breaks chase off the Boba scout, and turns toward the center of the map, but it’s too late. The bumpmaster is behind his formation and slowly whittling away at his ships. I start to be worried about time though since he we are both at 1.5 ships by now, so I start to do the math. Fortunately I have my two most expensive ships left, and I have killed his most expensive. He eventually turns back toward Boba to get the kill, but I am able to get Yorr to half with the bumpmaster, and dodge two arcs in the last turn of combat. My 35 pt, full-ish health Jumpmaster gets me the win by 3 puts against his 2 half-health ships.

3-1

Round 5

Jesse – TX (Apollo Squadron)

Triple Jumps

I wasn’t looking forward to the mirror match, and like the x7 Delta list, I went into this one telling myself I could afford a loss if it came to it. His list had 5 total torpedoes, so it could easily out-firepower me, and he also had the interesting twist of Overclocked R4 with Inspiring Recruits on one of his ships. To my surprise, Jesse took init out of fear of my bumpmaster. This was perfectly fine with me since in playtesting it seemed like it is probably better to pass init in the mirror as it is easier to reliably get target locks for opening engagement torpedo shots. Jesse set up in a forward-facing castle formation to the top left, and I was spread out on the bottom right. He moved his Overclocked jump out ahead and bumped with the other two. We both slow-rolled to the initial combat. After using Seismics to clear a path, I was able to set up the torpedo engagement with one Jump while avoiding any return torpedoes. From there it simply became a clustered knife fight, with me getting the 1st kill on the Jump I torpedoed in the opening. Overloclocked actually did a lot of work for him, as he was able to spend his focuses on attack, then redistribute focus to his team for defense via Mindlink. Positioning worked for him too as he was able to keep turning left and clearing stress. Fortunately I eventually landed a Damaged Sensor Array (no actions) on his remaining non-overclocked Jump, and the Overclocked Jump had enough stress that both his ships were action-less for a couple turns. This allowed me to pull ahead in the damage race since I was still getting constant focus + TL and both of his ships were actionless. Eventually we went to time and I had at least a ships worth of MOV up on him for the win.

4-1

Round 6

Daniel – IL

QD Backdraft Pure Sabacc

Now this was a cool and scary list. The main premise was that QD and Backdraft had FCS and Targeting Synchronizer, so they could all share target locks amongst themselves, making for very accurate shots. I set up bottom right and he set up top left. He approached with Sabacc out in front and the TIE/sf’s trailing, while I lead with the Bumpmaster and the torp boats trailing. I wasn’t quite able to set up the torpedoes for the opening engagement, but wasn’t too concerned as the primary turrets on the Jumps are really good against lightweight frame, especially since most of his actions were target locks. It also doesn’t help that Sabacc blanked out on his 1st defense roll and instantly took 2 damage. The next turn I traded my bumpmaster for Sabacc and was able to keep his TIEs blocked up while whittling away with my turrets. Having the second Intel agent really helped here. Eventually QD fell, and I was able to sloop both of my Jumps out and set up the torpedo kill shot on Backdraft for the win.

5-1

Round 7

Matthew – CA (Hella Squadron)

Miranda Dash

By this point my brain was feeling pretty fried, but I felt like the matchup was in my favor. Lone Wolf Dash is much easier to track down than PTL Dash. I set up in the bottom right and he set up straight across form me. Miranda started cutting across the board at an angle while Dash skirted his board edge. I rushed my ships in, taking pot-shots at Miranda while knowing Dash was the ship I wanted to kill 1st. This may have been wrong, but I really didn’t want to worry about the HLC ripping me apart while I was working on Miranda, who can run like the best of them. I was eventually able to corner Dash with my bumpmaster to set up my Plasmas, with Protons the following turn. Unexplicably, I didn’t move my TL for my Proton carrier onto Dash after shooting, then also didn’t acquire the TL before shooting that next round. I blame my brain being mush after a long day. It takes a turn or two longer to finish off Dash than it should. At this point the bumpmaster is dead and I am about to lose another ship. Fortunately my remaining ship is able to keep up the pressure on Miranda. I am able to do enough damage to force Miranda to regen, and stay close enough to force her not to try to SLAM, as her hull is whittling away and she can’t afford to take an uncontested shot. Miraculously I am able to keep up in the attrition battle long enough to force her to try to PS kill me. She ends up at range 1 and opts not to regen as I am at 1 and she needs to finish me off to avoid dying herself, since she is at 1 or 2 now. She attacks and rolls two hits. I roll evade focus, and convert to 2 evade. Safe. Return shot is 3 natural hits for the win. I definitely made some very dumb mistakes this game, and was bailed out by dice. So now I am heading into day 2 with only 1 loss. I’ll take it!

6-1

Day 2 – Round 8

Seb – UK

4x TLT

As we were setting up Seb told me straight up that he couldn’t win this match. I was inclined to agree that it would be an uphill battle for him, but the fact that I only had two torpedoes meant his chances were still better than against some of the other triple Jump lists out there. He set up a square formation in the middle of his board edge and I set up on the bottom left, since there was more room to operate there than on the right side. He turned away and I turned my formation toward the middle of the board, taking out the big rock he had placed there to create a clear path. A couple torps and a Boba’d TLT later I was well ahead and coasted to the win.

7-1

Round 9

Nathan Eide – WI

100 pt Corran (Biggs Ashoka Corran)

So here I am with one loss and one round to go. A win here and I am guaranteed a spot in the top 16 cut. That was my high end goal this whole tournament, so I’m feeling pretty good. Given that, and the fact that Nathan is an incredibly skilled player, this feels like my personal Worlds final. There is also the fact that Nathan knocked my buddy Justin Brown out of the top 8 at Hoth, so I feel the need to avenge his loss. 😉

Having talked to Justin (who ran 3x Jumps at Hoth) and having watched the video of their match, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on how Nathan’s list works. Simply blocking Corran is not enough as long as Ashoka is focused and can pass an action to Corran at the start of combat.

The rock placement looks similar to how it did in his top 8 Hoth matchup: A cluster toward the left side, and rocks in the corners. I set up with my Jumps along the center of my edge, facing left. Nathan sets up in the top left corner in a castle formation. He castles for a couple turns, which gives me time to slowly move my formation into the bottom left corner. Then I sloop around with my bumpmaster and remove the large rock in my way, which sets up a wide lane for my ships to move through. He breaks his castle and starts heading across his board edge.

Next turn I move quickly up the left side and he turns in toward me. Corran and Biggs take pot shots at my Plasma boat, and I return fire onto Biggs. Thanks to some good dice in my favor, I am able to get Biggs’ shields down in that opening engagement. Next turn I 3 bank the Plasma jump onto the rock that Corran is hiding behind, and move the back Jumps into position to get range 1 shots onto Biggs without bumping him. These moves pay off as Corran bumps into my Plasma boat and Ashoka into Corran. Bigss is left hanging at range 1 of my other 2 Jumps, who now have TL on him + Mindlink focus. Biggs dies that turn. Things are looking good, but I know a good round from Corran could swing the game. The rock-parked jump then does a 2 sloop to set up a torp shot on Corran, while the Proton boat moves into blocking position, and takes a TL on Corran even though he is in place to block Corran.

I knew that Ashoka would likely not bump this turn, but I wanted to dare Corran to BR off of the blocking Jump, knowing he would take a range 1 focus + TL shot from the blocking Boba jump, and potentially a torp shot as well from the Plasma Jump. Rather than BR, Corran used Ashoka’s ability to focus + evade. I was able to get the Plasmas off strip Corrans shields. Unfortunately my bumpmaster was out of range so I couldn’t Feedback Array, and the turret shot missed. Next turn Corran runs (of course) through the remaining asteroids and Ashoka drops seismic, hitting my whole squad. Ashoka then peels off across the top edge of the board while I turn my squad around to the right to set up the next engagement on Corran.

A couple turns later has Corran back at full health heading across my board edge with Ashoka coming down the left board edge. My bumpmaster is now leading the pack, and does a 4 forward to shoot over into Ashoka’s path. I know I need to keep Ashoka away from Corran, and that I am much more likely to kill Ashoka than Corran as time is running out. I get the block on Ashoka, and the APLs hit. The Captured Tie doesn’t keep me from Feedbacking and all of the sudden Ashoka is at 1 hull.

Next turn I am able to hard 1 + BR with the bumpmaster and there is no where for Ashoka to go. She tries to 4-forward, but can’t clear and dies on the APL hit. Meanwhile Corran is blocked by one of the other Jumps and I am sitting good enough to take the win on pts.

8-1

Top 16

Justin – Singapore

Dengar Tel

I’ll be honest, this list didn’t really scare me when I first saw it. It wasn’t a whole lot different than Dengar Bossk, which I generally have had good luck against. I set up my Scouts in the bottom right and Justin set up Tel in the middle of his board edge and Dengar in the top left corner. I spent the 1st round jockeying for position around a couple asteroids on the right side of the map. Turn 2 I did a 3 bank + barrel roll to block Tel, but even though I was trying to keep distance from Dengar, he was able to 3 bank to get my Boba Scout into range. He fired both torpedoes at the Boba Scout and I think I miraculously only took 4 or 5 damage. I shot back at Tel, first with the bumpmaster’s turret, then with the Protons. (The plasma Scout was the blocker due to poor setup on my part). He rolled just enough avoid the crit on Tel. Tel fell a couple turns later, and I finished him off again with a Feedback Array. At this point I had a nearly full bumpmaster and a half-health Scout left to do work on Dengar. I knew my best bet to pull out the win would be to lock him down with the bump and APL/Feedback him to death while plinking with my other ship while he could. This lasted for about a turn or two as we maneuvered into a 50/50 situation where I had to guess if he would do a green move to the left to get a K4 TL, or a white move to the right and run. There was no way I could block both due to a pesky asteroid in the way blocking any potential barrel roll (this is why Seismics are so good, to get rid of those pesky asteroids). I misjudged and blocked his green left turn, which allowed him to slip past me with with hard right 1. From here he quickly looped back into the fight and finished off the limping Jump while keeping distance from the bumpmaster. There wasn’t much I could do other than get really lucky with dice. After a couple rounds of jockeying, I turned in toward Dengar for one last go. He pushed a weapons failure crit though and I called it.

I think there were a couple things I did wrong in this game. In hindsight, it probably would have made more sense to go after Dengar first. Granted he’d get a couple revenge shots off, but it’s much easier to manage an endgame with a 2 attack Tel than a 3 attack Expertise Dengar. Speaking of Expertise, I underestimated how quickly he could push Damage trough. His average dice were netting max damage after Expertise and K-4 mods, and that can burn any Jump down real fast. My other fatal mistake was assuming Justin would be greedy and go for the green move in the 50/50 situation. In hindsight, it was absolutely the right move for him to turn away and get some distance. Overall, Justin played the list flawlessly from a tactical standpoint. It was really a pleasure to play against him and watch him fly that list so precisely.

Man, what a tournament. Between all the games, having out with old friends and meeting new ones, this was definitely the most fun I have had at an X-wing tournament, and if you are ever able to make it to Worlds, you should definitely take the plunge. You won’t regret it!

Thanks for your insight Wayde! Check out our local tournaments or the occasional Monday night to find Wayde working his next exciting list!