Imposter Syndrome
Hey, I'm an X-wing player that likes Quad TLT Y-wings.
Recently I've been playing (and winning) with 4 TLT Y-wings, also known as Thug Life. Just today I took it to a 5th place with a 3-2 record in a 22-people tournament at Ludotrotter. And while the list is old, in the current meta it's absolute bonkers. It eats up Captain Nym's for breakfast. This bomb-meta is a way better environment for it then the ace-wing meta when it was first released.
Recently I've been playing (and winning) with 4 TLT Y-wings, also known as Thug Life. Just today I took it to a 5th place with a 3-2 record in a 22-people tournament at Ludotrotter. And while the list is old, in the current meta it's absolute bonkers. It eats up Captain Nym's for breakfast. This bomb-meta is a way better environment for it then the ace-wing meta when it was first released.
But there is a bias against the list. After all, it is a very "easy" list. And I admit, it's probably not the most fun list to play against. And it's very luck-dependant. With that I don't mean dice-luck, because the list is very variance-friendly, more on that later. What I mean are match-ups. Today I faced 3 Dengar-Nym lists, a real staple list here lately. And I ate them up. Easily winning 100-0 or 100-25. But I also met a list with 2 defenders and against three-agility ships TLT just doesn't work. So match-ups are a luck-factor and just two or three bad match-ups can keep you out of a top cut.
On variance the list is amazing. TLT has two 3-red dice attacks, which average to 1.5 hits without focus and 2.25 hits with focus. So most of the time you will beat any amount of green dice, especially when you start to get a feel for TLT-math.
On variance the list is amazing. TLT has two 3-red dice attacks, which average to 1.5 hits without focus and 2.25 hits with focus. So most of the time you will beat any amount of green dice, especially when you start to get a feel for TLT-math.
What I tend to do with TLT (tips to beat me here guys!) is look at how many agility the enemy has and try to get at least that amount by spending focus tokens if possible. During the second TLT-shot, if no-one is shooting after you ALWAYS spend your focus. Also try to focus fire on one enemy. 2 damage might not hurt an enemy ship that much, but a combination of 3 or 4 TLT-attacks can do up to 8 damage and that's devastating for almost all ships.
So why the imposter syndrome? Occasionally when you play against someone and win or lose they will start talking about Thug Life being a boring list or even a NPE (Negative Play Experience) or how it's too easy in the current meta and that you don't need any skill to win with it. Or how it's because their dice that suddenly don't work anymore. Sure, I get 3 3-hit attacks in a row (spending focuses), but you kinda forget about the string of 1-hit attacks I had last round dude. After all, it's all their dice!
Honestly. Maybe if you can't beat a low benchmark like this it's either your list or your play that went wrong. And please don't try to make me feel bad about your loss. You're kinda ruining my day too.
This post is not advocating more people to play quad TLT's. I do encourage you to try it out as a benchmark against your list. And I will keep watching the meta and might bring this to some bigger tournaments in the future, because it's fun!
As a last point I want to do a shout-out to Faan Langelaan (new UK National Champion) and Rasta Maice (the runner-up). I'm really looking forward to watching that match on twitch.
I was playing with Dash when TLT in general and this list in particular had its debut. I stopped playing Dash because of it. It's very lethal against low agility ships.
ReplyDeleteYou should still play it though! You should not change your list just because it exploits an obvious issue in current meta lists. If they don't want their asses handed out to them, they need to take care of that gaping gap in their defenses. Nice blog!