Please forgive the title, that bloody word leaves nothing but arguments in it’s wake, but it’s fun to throw it out there sometimes. For all the discussion of the use of the word Meta and how correct or wrong it is I’m going to use it a fair bit. I much prefer the terminology that Alex Birt uses which is “competitive environment” as it needs less explaining, but it’s long winded to type and this post will have a high enough word count as it is.

This year it is being hosted by Croatia in Zagreb, a city I have always wanted to visit and home of a lot of filming of Game of Thrones. Some of you may be aware that I’m very much a “I read the books first” fanboy of Thrones so I’m looking forward to maybe seeing a bit of Kings Landing while we’re there.

It’s that time of year come round. List submission has been done and the lists are made public for the European Team Championships (ETC), possibly the most competitive event in the world of X-Wing. I went last year and will be referring back to the article I wrote about the event’s meta then, and looking at how our game has evolved in the last 12 months.

For those who don’t know what the ETC is allow me to explain. A team consists of 6 from any given country. This is kind of the World Cup of X-Wing, except we aren’t all grossly overpaid sportsmen with entourages, we are a bunch of guys taking the cheapest flights possible to stay in hostels and play a game that has a somewhat lower commercial value…

It’s not officially an FFG event, it’s part of a much larger gaming event. There will be people from all over the world playing a whole bunch of table top games. X-Wing is just one of those and is now in it’s third year. Poland are the defending champions.

Of the 6 players two will represent Scum, 2 Imperial and 2 Rebel.Unique cards may not be used across the factions. So Boba crew in a scum list would preclude an Imperial player (who has possibly lost their mind) running Boba in a Spray. Teams pair into each other in a slightly hard to explain pairing manner which I’ll talk about another time. Either way, as a format it’s about getting the most out of the 6 games your team plays per round.

It’s particularly interesting this year as we have perfect knowledge of what X-Wing is, wave 14 has landed, the game is to all intents and purposes finished. In many ways this is a last hurrah for X-Wing as we know it.

After getting home last year I said that this is the most competitive event in the world, and I suspect that is still the case. Every one playing at it is “above average” and normally does pretty well at events, everyone is bringing things that they believe can win. One thing to emphasise is that lists do not have to take on all comers. Due to the way the pairings are managed it is possible to have very specialist lists come in and do a job. Last year the game was dominated by triple jumpmasters, and my Corran Poe list was a (totally accidental) really hard counter to them, pretty lousy against most other things but really good against triple jumps. So there are some lists that you’ll rarely see doing well at in a store event that could go on to do exceptionally at the ETC.

Last year there were 8 teams, 7 different nations and one United Nations team. The UN guys are heroes, they put a team together to make up the numbers so that there are no byes. This year there are 12 teams, 11 plus the United Nations, which is great, hopefully the event will grow again next year. The format is 7 rounds of swiss then a top 4 cut.

Croatia England France Hungary Ireland Italy Poland Scotland Serbia Spain United Nations Wales

A year ago I proudly went and represented Wales, eligible due to my maternal grandfather being Welsh. This year I am going for Team England (eligible cause of my other 3 grandparents I guess), along with OJ Hemmings, Martyn Chivers, Dale Cromwell, Rob Ramm, and captain Oli Pocknell. I am very proud to have been selected.

Team selection is a weird one, due to restrictions on lists players have to be selected based on what they fly well and other people not flying those same things. You can’t take Nym Miranda and a scum alpha strike with Nym in it so there are restrictions. This year the big cards that factor into that are Nym and Fenn messing with Rebel selections, they feature all over the place in top tier lists. However the event provides a really good snapshot into what people think is good and what they choose to fly.

A lot of people were asked if they were available, but unfortunately the costs and timing of the event mean that a lot of those (more deserving than I!) were unable to attend. I just don’t really spend money on anything else, and have no need of wife points/child care to manage.

All the lists can be found here.

Last year across the 8 teams there were 27 different chasis flown across all three factions. That was back in wave 10. This year that number is 39, so it’s evident that the new ships introduced in the last 12 months have had a significant impact on the competitive scene. Last year this was ridiculously dominated by the Jumpmaster, the spread is a little more balanced this year, with the dual faction Scurrg being the most popular.

If we break down the factions by the same criteria to have a closer look here’s what we find about the shape of the game, starting with Imperials.

It’s pretty diverse, the Reaper has clearly made an impact in the short time it has been available, coming in as the most used ship in the Imperial faction. Krennic is obviously pretty good, and Vermeil is excellent.

The TIE SF comes in second, and this has by far the most popular pilot in the tournament, Quickdraw. It’s no surprise that a ship which has become the linchpin of Imperial lists for the last 12 months continues in that roll here. I imagine if teams were allowed to take more than one QD then there would be significantly more available. QD is one of the ships that features in the most popular list in the tournament. Yorr Aces hits the table for 4 countries. Considering how successful it has been in recent months I am surprised by how low that number is.

Five Vaders seems somewhat high, he fits into the points in a lot of places, and is proof of how important high pilot skill is. He’s a risk normally due to TLTs being in a lot of places a lot of the time, but where you avoid those match-ups to a degree he’s a top pilot to have on the table.

Last year RAClo was in 75% of the teams, this year that number has dropped to 25%, a swing that reflects a lot of things, one I suspect to be the Return of the X-Wing, I’m sure regular readers can appreciate my “disappointement” in his apparent demise. But the long and short of it is that RAClo has been hugely strong due to how it plays against two ship builds, but since Saw’s Renegades landed there has been a marked step up in 3 or more list builds.

Talking of Saw’s Renegades onto Rebels.

The Auzituch seems pretty popular, huh? That’s not all Lowhhrick, Quad and Triple Wookies both feature this year, not a surprise cause it’s a really solid ship. The Sheathipede again has made a significant impact, and it’s not a one pilot ship! It’s good to see the T-65 making a bit of a resurgence, in no small part to that Renegades box.

Unsurprisingly joining Lowhhrick at the top of the tree is Miranda. Last year she was the only ship to make every team, so dropping down to 67% is a big hit for her. Again she’s probably a victim of the return of the X-Wing. When 15 red dice are pointing at you a turn, regen doesn’t seem that great anymore.

Could this be the reason that Ghost Fenn only appears 3 times too?

Poe has massively dropped in popularity in recent weeks, I suspect Jam on the Reaper has made him a less appealing prospect. Nym features heavily, primarily with Miranda as you’d expect. As one of the ships that can be multi faction Nym is a big deal in the game at this event, across both factions he appears a total of ten times. Fenn, the other pilot with a chance of doing that comes in with 9 appearances.

While crossing over, its time to look at the mad cap world that is Scum. It’s safe to say that in the last few months Scum have taken an absolute pasting. A certain World Champion aside there has not been a lot to write home about for the bounty hunters, pirates and vagabonds of the Star Wars universe, which is reflected in the sheer variety of Scum lists featuring. Only one archetype appears more than once, which is the high PS alpha strike.

The JumpMaster Chassis is still hugely popular, sure, the numbers are skewed a bit by Lloyd Boman of team Ireland running 4 of them! Dengar still gets a fair bit of love and the Scurrg, again featuring 3 pilots looks in a good spot. Ventress and Ketsu again shape up as popular ships, they’re versatility and strength against nearly all comers makes them a strong shout.

No doubt the Khiraxz and Star Viper have had a boost from Guns for Hire, and the Y-Wing? Well it’s the original home of the TLT, and as the rules state you can have 2 lists so long as they’re different the addition of guidance chips to four Y-Wings makes it a different list to four without. It’s a solid call as a list, if a somewhat interesting interpretation of the rules..

Between the Contracted Scouts and the Syndicate Thugs the scum are dominated by generic pilots. Ventress remains popular, finding herself into half the lists that could take her. Anyone want to take a bet on Lattz being in as many lists?

Finally in the analysis: Most popular upgrade? Yup. Twin Laser Turret.

So what does this tell us about the state of X-Wing 1.0 as it says goodbye to the world? I think it says it’s pretty healthy. Sure there are the big bads, the lists that aren’t as fun to play against but there’s variety and it’s great that most of the ships in the game are present at an event like this. 6 years, 14 waves, a whole bunch of stuff, I think FFG have done a pretty good job spinning all the plates. There’s been stuff less good for the game, there’s been stuff that’s never seen use, but it’s grown as a game and a community, and in a couple of months there will be an end to what we know and some thing new and I believe even better will become a new obsession. Plenty of tournaments between now and then though.

You might have noticed a single Boba Fett there, yeah, that’s me, that’s my contribution. Boba and Guri are going to Croatia. The joy of the madness of the current game is that when it comes to Scum, anything goes. And it kind of fits the them, after all what does a dragon do except spray fire?

The ETC is the first weekend of August and is going to be streamed. There are going to be some amazing games to watch, so pick your team, cheer them on and if your country is represent yet try to come along next year!

Next Time: BACK TO NORMAL STUFF

If your looking for X-Wing events head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar