My Dream for the 2024 Competitive Season

While the Legion World Championships wrap themselves up, I thought I’d take a moment to reflect on what I’d like to see out of Legion’s Organized Play and meta in the coming year.  I’m gonna touch on some OP changes I would like to see as well as a few balance updates I think need to happen (sooner rather than later) for the health of the game.  I’ll begin with the OP changes first before I devolve into the inevitable meta complaints.  This won't take too long and hopefully you can read this article in it's entirety between the semi-finals and finals.

The first of these changes will be a bit of an unashamed plug for my own Carolina Ruleset.  If we’ve learned anything from this year’s World Championship, it’s that ties are not good for the game.  My ruleset not only severely reduces the possibility of ties, but also allows for more games in a day which really helps smaller tournaments deduce store champions easily. I won’t wax eloquent about my format for too long, but I think if AMG moved to this format, or something similar, that the game could benefit greatly.  A re-stated emphasis on objectives would be good for the game and should open up the meta to more unit types.  

The developers tried very hard to set up a number of “non-800” styled events for players to participate in at Worlds.  I think part of the reason AMG is placing so much stock in these alt-formats is because they themselves realize that the official tournament objectives have become rather “stale.”  (Or at the very least, they don’t enjoy playing them.)  It’s been almost four years since we last received new objectives and in the meantime two of them have been nearly nerfed from competitive play (Payload and Vaporators).  I’m not calling for a Legion 2.0, I’d just like to see the objectives updated to reflect all that we’ve learned over the game’s lifetime.  

The second change I'd like to see to Organized Play is a clear roadmap for the coming year.  I’m not going to discuss in detail the format used at Worlds this year, but it’s clear that AMG is showing their true colors (exceptionally green) in how the event is being handled.  The best approach from here is for the developers to take feedback (from qualified EOs), formulate a new event schedule for the coming year and then publish it before the Store Championship kits hit the streets.  

Let players know the value of the World Championship Invite before they compete for it.  Are they getting an invitation to play in a traditional Legion event, or will the event utilize different rules than the entire community does?  I participated in a World’s Open Qualifier where draws were not allowed, for good reason, and was prohibited from allowing an intentional draw to occur while on stream.  Why then should the rules change when I participate in the World Championship?  

I’d like to make one more note about the Worlds format before moving on.  It was great to see the format changed to four rounds of Swiss (simply due to attendance) and I think it’s essential that this change stays.  I think the original format (which was essentially single elimination) showed us that Atomic Mass Games misunderstands the point of the World Championship.  Unless you’re Luke Cook, you don’t go to Worlds to win.  You go to test your mettle, to see how you stack up against the best of the best.  The more Swiss games played, the clearer we can see that picture.  I’d rather play eight games of Swiss at the World Championship and find out my “true” standing than play three games and take a draw because that’s what the format incentivizes.  Folks wanna play 800 point competitive Legion, so let the players play more of it.  

My final Organized Play dream is of a clear and present Head of OP.  For better or worse, Atomic Mass Games needs to accept the fact that Legion has really good competitive bones to it.  Like all healthy games, the staying power comes from a competitive player base that sticks with the game year after year. To this effect,  I’d love to see an Organized Play staff member at each Worlds Open Qualifier this coming year.  They don’t have to run the event, but the presence of AMG should be noticed.  Worlds Open Qualifiers have tournaments for each of the legacy FFG games, as well as ample amounts of MCP and Shatterpoint players.  Sending a staff member to large conventions in order to interact with players and leading community members is good PR.  Yes, most of them will be bombarded by players asking for a buff to Rebels, but my point still stands.  Public representation is essential to a healthy Organized Play scene.  

A commonly occurring theme throughout the 2023 competitive season was “we’ve no idea whether AMG is listening or not.”  A plethora of unanswered emails as well as a lack of physical presence left most of the community relying on the words of well-meaning players with direct lines of communication.  This sort of situation is inexcusable and should not arise again.  Show the community you’re here, you’re available, and more invested in the future of the game than they are.  AMG has a lot of ground to recover and being present would go a long way.  

I am now finished airing my grievances with Organized Play and can return to the favorite pastime of every Legion player: talking about balance changes!  To be frank, some of these are not unit updates as much as they are CRB and game trajectory updates.  The following points will be presented without any clear hierarchy, but rather as a list of tweaks I’d like to see occur as soon as possible.  

Outmaneuver needs to leave the Corps slot.  Be it Situational Awareness Clones, Pykes, or even the lowly Rebel Trooper; enough is enough.  For the health of the game this card needs to become un-equipable for corps.  The possibility of 6+ units in an army to dodge critical results is too high and needs fixing.  According to Bushfacts preliminary World Championships statistics, Situational Awareness is the second most equipped upgrade (heavy weapon and personnel upgrades excluded).  I don’t know how many of those are equipped to corps units, but I do know that number would not include the units, like Pykes, that have that keyword natively.   As my teammate Tyler Pridgen has said: “Make crits mean something again!”

While we’re on the topic of dodging, Exemplar needs to receive the same treatment as the Clone Trooper keyword.  What I mean by that statement is that I believe the Exemplar keyword should read something like as follows: “While at range 1–2 and in LOS of a unit that has the Exemplar keyword, friendly units may spend one aim, dodge, or surge token on that unit as if they had them.  They may not spend additional tokens from other units with the Exemplar keyword.”

The token sharing game has gone on for long enough and to continue down this path will result in every subsequent release needing keywords like “We’re Not Regs” to ensure that they don’t become the next super-powered scoundrel.  I believe this change in combination with the Outmaneuver change will help in simplifying and speeding up gun battles that have previously felt like an absolute slog and joke.  If Padme needs a points update to reflect this change, that’s fine as well.

If we limit the amount of Outmaneuvering and “Exemplar-ing” I think we can safely adjust Vigilance down to the realm of nine-ish points.  The efficiency of Pykes will have been hamstrung, the Clones would perhaps need a little help and the Rebels shall arise from the ruins around them to floss their alien butts to a Nimble victory.  

I would like to see the cover rules for vehicles be simplified and perhaps revert to how they worked previously.  It’s still just as impossible now as it was a year ago to determine whether or not troopers can get cover from speeder bikes.  The issue is exacerbated to comedy when you try playing with a Fluttercraft.  Allow the Speeder Truck, AAT,  AT-ST etc. to measure LOS and cover from their topmost point when attacking.  Doing anything else feels weird because it is weird.  Let vehicles be vehicles and troopers be troopers.  

The 2024 Store Championship/World’s Open Qualifier swag can be better, more dynamic and less card focused.  The new dice colors that we’ve seen at Worlds are a great start.  I want to see limited-run “Top X” game pieces that aren’t just cards.  Give us acrylic status tokens, new order tokens, etc.  I don’t think they’d ever do it, but I'd love to see exclusive movement tools for champions!  A “2024” turn counter would be sweet, as well as order token bags, patches, dice trays, exclusive premium bases and more.  There’s so many components to Legion that aren't just cards, expand your branding!  I’d also really appreciate it if they don’t flood the OP kits with four languages and an absolute glut of cards again.  The amount of extras is so great that it has diminished the cool factor of the ones in your native language.  

I’d like to see the primary tie breaker in Legion be adjusted.  Strength of Schedule has its merits in a 5+ round tournament, but for most three round events it’s worthless.  I’d love to see SoS combined with either kill points or order of loss to come up with a unique and far more dynamic tiebreaker that would allow players to have some control over their destiny.  Nothing is more disheartening than to do your best in all your games only to be shunted from a cut or victory because of “The performance of your opponents in the games that you were not a part of.”  I’m not asking for MoV back (I’m aware of its influence on the Legion gamestate) but SoS can at times feel like you’re at the whim of the valkyries instead of participating in an event.  

Produce more plastic!  Physical Legion releases are coming out at a very slow drip-drip pace.  When I got into the game in 2020 I was a Republic player.  I bought into Shadow Collective in 2022 because I wanted to play new units that I hadn’t used before.  Now it’s 2024 and I just bought into the Rebel Alliance because Republic has only gotten two new physical releases in two years (Infantry Support Craft and Cody) and Shadow Collective is unlikely to get anything else ever.  Star Wars is a massive IP and is practically a money-printing machine for paraphernalia; so give us more units!  We’re still missing most of the Spectre cell, all of Saw’s Renegades, Grand Admiral Thrawn (and his little gray assassin fellow), that CIS shark commander dude from Clone Wars, Friggin’ PLO KOON HIMSELF etc… I understand the variety of reasons why releases have been slow lately, and I feel certain that putting Legion on the backburner is chief among them.  A slow release schedule pushes away both the competitive community and the tabletop crowd.  

Slow it down with the battleforces.  The meta is currently dominated by battleforces and they’re outperforming traditional listbuilding.  I understand that these battleforces have kept the meta feeling fresh during a lull of physical releases, but perhaps it's time we put them on a rotation of sorts.  I don’t want them to leave entirely, but at the very least a few of them could use some addressing (ExD could stand to be limited to 0-2 BX units).  These battleforces have led us into a meta of large dice pools and high efficiency, mathematically best-performing, super flexible lists.  If we could just turn down the volume on these releases and boost some of our older units ever-so-slightly so they can catch up that would be great.  

Also, some more generic upgrades would be great.  It used to be that new upgrades could put wind under the wings of older units, but it’s now been approximately 18 months since we last received any generic upgrades.  Furthermore, some of the ol’ reliable upgrades (Tenacity, Vigilance, Offensive Push) have been priced out of the game.  Just because upgrades are common, doesn’t mean they deserve nerfing.  

Thus ends my wish list for the coming year.  But before I let you go, I'd like to take this moment to give the Crit2Block crew a hearty pat on the back for our additions to the current meta (yes, I realize that writing this is the equivalent to high-fiving myself, but it’s too late now!).  Unfortunately none of us were able to make it to Worlds this year due to jobs, family responsibilities or an aversion to the format.  However we’d argue that our influence was still felt during the event.  

First of all I want to give Richard Lavery a commendation for showing us how to build and win with the Wookiee Battleforce.  While it did not place as well this weekend as most of the community expected, it’s still been and will be a force to reckon with in the coming meta.  Richard is an exceptionally talented and aggressive player and the Wookies dovetail into his skill set perfectly.   

If you’ve had to deal with any Inspiring Capos, Pyke “extra men” or Pykes with Prepared Supplies lately then please accept my apologies.  When other folks put the Pykes back out to sea I decided to simply forgo heroes and make them as efficient as possible.  I was hoping the Argentina crew would slide into the Top 32 and do my list justice, but unfortunately SoS will be what it’ll be.  

Lastly we’ve got to give absolute MAD props and recognition to Tyler Pridgen for cracking the code to Experimental Droids just in time for them to ruin Worlds for everyone else!  By going undefeated at the Cherokee Open, Tyler has placed BX-series Droid Commandos squarely in the spotlight.  Just this last week Tyler received Discord messages from the Forever Champ himself asking questions about the list.  If ever there were a humbling and gratifying conversation to be had, it’s when the two-timing world champion is picking your brain.  

Tyler’s list is gross and those mimicking it are also gross, so please join me in prayer that ExD will be nerfed quickly.  In all seriousness, the buzz around ExD has hopefully generated enough noise to allow for an expedited response.  Within the next few hours we’ll know who our new world champion is, and hopefully Atomic Mass Games will give credence to the wealth of knowledge the community has to offer about running tournaments.  

Until next time, please remember that shooting at Experimental Droids is basically a waste of energy.  Enjoy watching the finals!