The Twilight of the Twilight
Six weeks of Planetary Qualifiers for the Twilight of the Republic Meta have been wrapped up and are in the books. While there is still one more weekend to go there are some clear conclusions and interesting things that have come out of this season.
** Special thank you to SWU-CompetitiveHub for collecting data on qualifiers throughout the season.
Han Solo – Audacious Smuggler
Double Cunning has been a force to be reckoned with since the beginning of the game. Seems fitting that with the suspension of Boba Fett – Collecting the Bounty that Han Solo – Audacious Smuggler would take his place.
Han Yellow posted the most wins of the season through week six with 31. This represents over 24% of the total winners. Not including the base aspect just makes the numbers rise as there were Han Green, Red and Blue winners as well. That pushes the Han wins to 44, or just over 34% of total winners.
The conversion rates of top 8 to winners is also likely significant. When Han Yellow is just over 16% of top 8 decks, but 34% of the winners it shows a level of dominance in the top 8 cut.
While not invincible, having over one third of the winners is a pretty staggering win rate. Additionally one of the reasons given for the Boba suspension was that people were winning with him in every aspect combination which is exactly what we are seeing here with Han. The Boba numbers though were much higher with 40% of the top 8 and 55% of the winners.
Clearly over half of qualifier winners running the same leader is a problem and an unhealthy meta. Is twenty points lower at 34% of winners also an issue? No word yet on any kind of suspension for Han, but absolutely something to keep an eye on as we move into the Jump to Lightspeed meta.
Sabine and Aggro in General
Many people had hypothesized that with Boba getting suspended that Sabine would just take over and run rampant over the meta. While Sabine, especially paired with Energy Conversion Lab, is still a top tier solid deck this is not the case. Sabine Green has notched respectable numbers with just under 15% of top 8 spots and has been just under 12.5% of qualifier winners.
Aggressive decks in general don’t seem to be a force beyond Sabine. Yes there are some Anakin decks out there, represented by under 5% of PQ winners. Overall though the meta seems to have mostly landed in the tempo and midrange areas. Garbage Roller’s Meta Monday tracking shows eight decks in those spaces compared with just three between aggro and control.
Tarkintown
This could end up being remembered as the season of Tarkintown. It represented over 27% of top 8 bases with Energy Conversion Lab and generic 30 point Cunning both coming in at just over 21%.
Jango Fett, Cad Bane, and Quinlan Vos all combo well with Tarkintown with either their ability to do points of damage to units or because they are leveraging cards like ISB Agent to do that first point anyway. The epic action on Tarkintown after that first point of damage allows the unit to be cleared out and established an early board control state.
The Jump to Lightspeed bases may provide some interesting alternatives, but for now expect Tarkintown to remain an extremely powerful force in the game.
Rogue Decks
At the other end of the spectrum from Han, Sabine and the Tarkintown decks, there have been a number of off meta rogue decks that have been able to take down Planetary Qualifier events. Tarkin Blue, Gar Saxon Yellow, Mace Blue, etc. Some people are having a ton of fun taking things into large events that are unexpected and doing well with them.
Finn, however, is still not good in Premier play.
Conclusions and the Future
Towards the end of the Shadows of the Galaxy meta, Boba Green was a problem and was slapped with a suspension. Han1 Yellow certainly is a force to be reckoned with but may not have gotten to that similar level yet. Equally Tarkintown is a base with a very powerful epic action but is even more unlikely to see any kind of change to its play status.
Jump to Lightspeed is right around the corner. Space will matter more and the meta has the potential to be shaken up a bit.
… Or Han Yellow is just even better at that point and he gets banned. We’ll see.