Its always fun to see the data. Overall I would say there were a lot of lists so thats always good. I rather see a dynamic meta, then a stale one with just a few good lists.
I'd say that low bids mean that the balance between blue and red is in a perfect spot. If red player was indeed too powerful, we'd see people bid for red and they don't. 2-3 point "bids" essentially mean people create full 800 points lists and sometimes have some leftover points with nothing sensible to spend them on, which is pretty natural. In general players should be incentivized to take as many units as they can fit within the point limit. Any mechanic that gives massive advantage to one of the players before the game even begins and depends entirely on one, relatively minor choice in list building is problematic, no matter the game. It's even more problematic if the result is binary - and it is. If you already sacrificed 10 points to get that blue player advantage and another player sacrifices 11, he gains all of the advantage and you're left feeling stupid for not spending those 10 points. Before you know it, you end up with 25+ bids and that's just not healthy for the game. There's simply no reason whatsoever for any sort of bid advantage to exist in the game. It's just not a good mechanic from the game design perspective.
I agree 100%. To me low bids means players feel they have a list that can handle playing blue players objectives OR choosing their side of the edge/final card elimination. Huge bids always felt like outliers to me because it meant that you had a list that you were playing to a VERY specific set of battle cards or playing your army in a way that your opponent can't compete. I played Red player all 6 games of LVO. Blue player still had the advantages, using their cards, in one game hitting vaps and turtling/focusing on killing enough points to lock the victory. I think having red choose board edge is perfect. With 4 cards being revealed, blue/red both have a chance of getting something they want, blue player using the battle cards that favor their list and red getting that final card elimination. I think where we are at with game setup is perfect. It means that players are more focused on what their army can do and not pregame shenanigans.
These are great takes. I think after we get more data from the next Invader League we'll have a better idea of the balance of the bidding system. I think everyone agrees that it has for sure improved from where it was before!
Is that a good thing if bids are essentially irrelevant and you should just roll off for red or blue? What does that do to builds that historically have relied on tailoring a battle deck to be successful? All this does in my opinion is create incentives to build lists that don’t care about the battle deck and don’t care whether they are red or blue.
The main reason there was no armor as being there playing, everyone brought anti-armor for the most part, so why risk bringing vehicles that would get wiped out right away. The empire lists struggled against Wookies and Magna in round two, I know my Vader, double IRG, triple dew list got smacked back to back in round two by a melee wookie list then a ranged wookie list.
I'm not surprised vehicles weren't represented that much. Meta is very hostile to vehicles right now, mostly due to CIS. This goes all the way back to the poor design of the ion keyword in the original core set. Generally you don't want mechanics in your game that are extremely powerful against some stuff and completely useless against everything else. They're very difficult to balance. You need to put an appropriate price tag on those mechanics in order to make sure that whatever they counter doesn't disappear from the game entirely but if you do, then the players who invest in them will be at a severe disadvantage in most games unless the things those mechanics counter are very common and taking them is effectively unavoidable. As a result, what we've been seeing since the very first wave is that ion keyword was practically dead. Any heavy weapons that had it were just not cost effective and seeing one on the table was a rarity. I don't recall ever seeing rebel troopers with MP-57 or BARCs with ion gunners for example, even though I've seen both units with every other heavy weapon option available to them. I predicted that the day we see an ion weapon that is cost effective against non-vehicles and spammable, we're going to see some serious balance issues. Lo and behold, we now have ion cannon spiders that are just a bit too cheap and just a bit too spammable. They do have some serious drawbacks (such as the need to keep reloading), but they throw 6 dice at range 4, which coupled with precise 2, linked targetting array and strategize creates a powerful combo. They can produce 4-6 hits consistently at great range which is excellent value for a 73 point unit and they're good enough to take against any opponent. Unfortunately they also have impact 2 and ion. Two of those and your heavy vehicle that costs as much as a jedi will lose entire activations. If that wasn't enough, there are 2 more weapons available to CIS with impact on them that are worth taking just for their firepower alone - B2-HAs and Magnaguard RPS-6s. Most CIS lists will include at least 2 of these 3 types of units, and usually at least 2 of each type. As a result drawing a CIS opponent as a vehicle-heavy player might result in an auto-loss. It's a bit better for cheaper vehicles (sub 100 points) but ions still hurt even on AT-RTs and such. There's a reason why the only top 6 list with a heavy vehicle in it can use the firepower of the said vehicle outside of it's activation and can also hoard dodge tokens to be used specifically against ion attacks. That helps a lot but facing CIS still sucks even for that list. It might get better if spider ion cannons get a serious price increase but the long term soluton would be a thorough rework of the ion keyword which is long overdue.
Have you joined the Discord? It's a great place to learn about the large events. Also, I recommend you follow the store pages of places in your area who do host Legion (I have to travel 3+ hours to play at a store tourney where I live, so I feel your pain)! Discord link: discord.gg/7C33k5ZZ
Not really. With all the new units I have seen a lot of lists at my local gamestore who run 8activations. Examples: lists with dooku+maul, double AAT and lists with 3spider droids and 2/3 magnaguards
So. I went back in the video and saw that too, and I’m flabbergasted. I swear on my painted minis I changed NOTHING to my formulas or inputs, and it’s correct now (and was before I shot the video). Proof we’re living in a simulation????
Sample size is irrelevant with tournament games. What people see performed well at the last tournament is what people assume the best armies are and will play those same armies or try to make a counter army to those armies. People don't care about theoretical best armies of a format. They care about what will win them the next tournament they attend.
I don't know that I agree that sample size is irrelevant, but you make a good point about how what is popular is often greatly influenced by what did well at the last big tourney!
Its always fun to see the data. Overall I would say there were a lot of lists so thats always good. I rather see a dynamic meta, then a stale one with just a few good lists.
This is the content I live for. Great video!
I'd say that low bids mean that the balance between blue and red is in a perfect spot. If red player was indeed too powerful, we'd see people bid for red and they don't. 2-3 point "bids" essentially mean people create full 800 points lists and sometimes have some leftover points with nothing sensible to spend them on, which is pretty natural. In general players should be incentivized to take as many units as they can fit within the point limit. Any mechanic that gives massive advantage to one of the players before the game even begins and depends entirely on one, relatively minor choice in list building is problematic, no matter the game. It's even more problematic if the result is binary - and it is. If you already sacrificed 10 points to get that blue player advantage and another player sacrifices 11, he gains all of the advantage and you're left feeling stupid for not spending those 10 points. Before you know it, you end up with 25+ bids and that's just not healthy for the game. There's simply no reason whatsoever for any sort of bid advantage to exist in the game. It's just not a good mechanic from the game design perspective.
I agree 100%. To me low bids means players feel they have a list that can handle playing blue players objectives OR choosing their side of the edge/final card elimination. Huge bids always felt like outliers to me because it meant that you had a list that you were playing to a VERY specific set of battle cards or playing your army in a way that your opponent can't compete.
I played Red player all 6 games of LVO. Blue player still had the advantages, using their cards, in one game hitting vaps and turtling/focusing on killing enough points to lock the victory.
I think having red choose board edge is perfect. With 4 cards being revealed, blue/red both have a chance of getting something they want, blue player using the battle cards that favor their list and red getting that final card elimination. I think where we are at with game setup is perfect. It means that players are more focused on what their army can do and not pregame shenanigans.
These are great takes. I think after we get more data from the next Invader League we'll have a better idea of the balance of the bidding system. I think everyone agrees that it has for sure improved from where it was before!
Is that a good thing if bids are essentially irrelevant and you should just roll off for red or blue?
What does that do to builds that historically have relied on tailoring a battle deck to be successful?
All this does in my opinion is create incentives to build lists that don’t care about the battle deck and don’t care whether they are red or blue.
Completely agree. Low bids are a sign that the red/blue balance is correct.
@@TeamRelentless Are there dates for the next invader league? Wasn't sure if it would happen with real tournaments coming back online.
Yes, more spreadsheets!
The main reason there was no armor as being there playing, everyone brought anti-armor for the most part, so why risk bringing vehicles that would get wiped out right away. The empire lists struggled against Wookies and Magna in round two, I know my Vader, double IRG, triple dew list got smacked back to back in round two by a melee wookie list then a ranged wookie list.
I'm not surprised vehicles weren't represented that much. Meta is very hostile to vehicles right now, mostly due to CIS. This goes all the way back to the poor design of the ion keyword in the original core set. Generally you don't want mechanics in your game that are extremely powerful against some stuff and completely useless against everything else. They're very difficult to balance. You need to put an appropriate price tag on those mechanics in order to make sure that whatever they counter doesn't disappear from the game entirely but if you do, then the players who invest in them will be at a severe disadvantage in most games unless the things those mechanics counter are very common and taking them is effectively unavoidable.
As a result, what we've been seeing since the very first wave is that ion keyword was practically dead. Any heavy weapons that had it were just not cost effective and seeing one on the table was a rarity. I don't recall ever seeing rebel troopers with MP-57 or BARCs with ion gunners for example, even though I've seen both units with every other heavy weapon option available to them. I predicted that the day we see an ion weapon that is cost effective against non-vehicles and spammable, we're going to see some serious balance issues.
Lo and behold, we now have ion cannon spiders that are just a bit too cheap and just a bit too spammable. They do have some serious drawbacks (such as the need to keep reloading), but they throw 6 dice at range 4, which coupled with precise 2, linked targetting array and strategize creates a powerful combo. They can produce 4-6 hits consistently at great range which is excellent value for a 73 point unit and they're good enough to take against any opponent. Unfortunately they also have impact 2 and ion. Two of those and your heavy vehicle that costs as much as a jedi will lose entire activations.
If that wasn't enough, there are 2 more weapons available to CIS with impact on them that are worth taking just for their firepower alone - B2-HAs and Magnaguard RPS-6s. Most CIS lists will include at least 2 of these 3 types of units, and usually at least 2 of each type. As a result drawing a CIS opponent as a vehicle-heavy player might result in an auto-loss. It's a bit better for cheaper vehicles (sub 100 points) but ions still hurt even on AT-RTs and such. There's a reason why the only top 6 list with a heavy vehicle in it can use the firepower of the said vehicle outside of it's activation and can also hoard dodge tokens to be used specifically against ion attacks. That helps a lot but facing CIS still sucks even for that list.
It might get better if spider ion cannons get a serious price increase but the long term soluton would be a thorough rework of the ion keyword which is long overdue.
You've got me convinced!
Sorry, I thought there was going to be a link to the lists that were in the tournament, or did I hear wrong?
The description has a link to the data sheet, the second page of which has every list linked.
How do you find out about tournaments? I’d love to participate in them but haven’t not been able to locate any
Have you joined the Discord? It's a great place to learn about the large events. Also, I recommend you follow the store pages of places in your area who do host Legion (I have to travel 3+ hours to play at a store tourney where I live, so I feel your pain)!
Discord link: discord.gg/7C33k5ZZ
Are you still doing more playbooks? Maybe a laat one???
I do intend to do more Playbooks, yes! Life has just made Legion take a backseat for me for a bit. :)
~Mbweha (Ben)
LAATs are bad, the end. haha ;P
CIS average activations
Not really. With all the new units I have seen a lot of lists at my local gamestore who run 8activations. Examples: lists with dooku+maul, double AAT and lists with 3spider droids and 2/3 magnaguards
It's 10.08 for CIS. I believe I misspoke in the video and said the CIS when I meant GAR-my bad!
Your graphic in the video shows the average activation for CIS day one as 9.76.
Even 10.08 seems way low, but not completely unbelievable.
I know some exist, and you probably see them locally, but 12-13 act CIS is far more common, especially competitively.
So. I went back in the video and saw that too, and I’m flabbergasted. I swear on my painted minis I changed NOTHING to my formulas or inputs, and it’s correct now (and was before I shot the video).
Proof we’re living in a simulation????
Sample size is irrelevant with tournament games. What people see performed well at the last tournament is what people assume the best armies are and will play those same armies or try to make a counter army to those armies. People don't care about theoretical best armies of a format. They care about what will win them the next tournament they attend.
I don't know that I agree that sample size is irrelevant, but you make a good point about how what is popular is often greatly influenced by what did well at the last big tourney!