X-Wing Tactics: Top 10 Upgrades in the game!
Welcome starfighter pilots. Today we go over the top 10 cards in the game.
Greetings all, Ed here from NOVA Squadron Radio! This week I decided that this we would help out the newer players to the game and educate them on what upgrade cards are really good in this game right now. I decided to go back to my days of the old ‘This Week in 40K Podcasting’ articles and do a top 10 list of the current upgrades cards in the game!
Upgrades, Upgrades, Upgrades!
Upgrade cards, where would X-Wing be without them? While I am a firm believer that the stats, dials, and pilots really make or break a ship, the endless combination of upgrades you can use to augment those ships is almost as equally as important. Where would Soontir Fel be without Push the Limit? Or any of the named TIE Phantom pilots be without Advanced Cloaking Device? As much as the ships themselves are key to the game, so are the upgrades you chose to place on them. In the case of some upgrades, ships take on a whole new purpose and fly almost completely differently with these new upgrades. Choosing the right cards for your ship can take a good ship to an amazing ship. So let’s explore some of the more commonly used upgrades in the competitive lists and what makes them so popular.
Honorable Mentions:
So, trying to narrow this list down to just ten cards really proved to be a challenge for me. There are so many good ones out there after all. And what separates the average to good cards from the great ones really comes down their point cost and what they add for that value. So there came to be some really good cards, commonly used by top X-Wing players that just did not make the cut that I felt needed to be at least mentioned before we dove into the true top ten list.
Autothrusters
So the only reason this card did not make the top ten list is because it has not been officially released just yet. When this card hits the game it will change everything! The dominance we have seen with the large-based turrets ships will soon be called into question as the long dormant TIE Interceptors will return to the competitive game. While ships like the A-Wing and the Aggressor will most likely see some benefits from this card, Soontir Fel with a Focus and Evade token and Autothrusters will be an extremely hard nut to crack, and darn near impossible to kill. So when this card hit the scene, expect to see our old buddy Sootir to follow on the top tables at your local events! You have been warned.
R2-D2 (Crew and Astromech)
Everyone favorite quirky astromech, he has been a really amazing card from the beginning of this game. While thematically he is great on Luke, adding this little guy to Corran Horn as a droid or on to the Falcon with his old buddy Han as a crew member, it is really an amazing combo. Paul Heaver unlocked this little card to its upmost by winning Worlds 2014 with a Fat Han and R2D2 in tow as an answer to ‘other’ Fat Han lists. While his points may seem a little steep at first, when you realize the vast number of shields you can get back for those four points, it really is a no-brainer.
Rebel Captive
The competitive meta has really shifted to a stress meta, in case you haven’t noticed, where passing out stress tokens is a solid answer to several problem pilots in the game. Say for example the named Phantoms, Dash, Fat Han, and so on. Rebel Captive is really just an amazing three points to spend on a ship like the Phantom or the Decimator. Nothing is better than punishing a high pilot skilled pilot, who most likely will be the first ship to shoot at you due to their high PS, with a stress token. And, without the restrictions of a card like Mara Jade, you have the opportunity to start piling on stress tokens to an already stressed ship. Action economy is a big part of winning this game and removing those actions is so very important.
Advanced Sensors
So this card has dropped a little in popularity since the days of Paul Heaver’s first World Championship in 2013, where ‘Biggs Walks the Dogs’ lists were rampant in that post Worlds meta. However it is still a very useful card. The ability to do things like knowingly overlap a ship to get that key block or to swing that all important K-Turn and still have the ability to perform actions is truly a powerful ability. Action economy is an all-important theme to winning in this game and the more tokens you can build up and use, the more you can mitigate that ever fickle dice rolls. Not to mention the maneuverability it adds to a B-Wing with the ability to Barrel Roll before you reveal your dial is just outstanding.
Ok, so now on to the top ten upgrades, in reverse order:
10. Gunner
We all have those days, where the dice just are not friendly. Sometimes what we wouldn’t give for a do-over on those attack dice. Well, for five little points you can! This single crew card, while a bit steep in the points cost, adds so much to any ship you add it to. Han Solo with Gunner is basically four chances to get the maximum out of his dice, and that is just gross. But there are other, better, combos you can pull off with this crew member as well, namely Fire Control Systems. We first started seeing this with the old Buzzsaw Shuttles of the Wave 3 meta, but saw it get even crazier with the Buzzsaw Phantoms of Wave 4. Gunner can help you to ensure that each and every turn, you are landing hits and taking ships off of the board.
9. Fire-Control Systems
So on the surface this card might not seem all that great, after all it only applies the Target Lock after you have shot at a ship and you cannot use it that turn. And while that is true, when you point this at ships that will most likely take some time to kill, Say a Phantom or a Decimator or the Falcon, and you are able to then pile on a Focus Action with your previously established Target Lock then next turn, the power of this card is then revealed. This will be a common theme with these cards, but action economy is supremely important in this game and this card adds the ability to add more actions to your ships and therefore making it a far more efficient killer.
8. Lone Wolf
With the rise of the two-ship builds in the current meta, Lone Wolf has really come to the forefront as an amazing card. Anything you can add to your ship that helps you to manage those dice rolls is vastly important in this game, and the rare ability to re-roll defense dice really pushes this card over the top for me. Sure, it is a unique upgrade and can only go on one of your ships, but it will be on a centerpiece to your list and will not only make it more effective in the combat phase, but in defense as well. Plus, when combined with something like C-3P0 for example, you have the ability to get the free evade from golden rod and then re-roll the die and get another.
7. Predator
Similar to Lone Wolf, the ability to pick up attack dice and re-roll them really helps take the edge off of those bad dice rolls. Also it allows you to save for actions for things like Focus for example as this operates similar to Target Lock. And, as it is an EPT and not an action, blocking a ship with Predator does not prevent it from using it, making it better then Target Lock in a lot of ways. The added bonus of being able to pick up two against pilots with a PS of two or less was a nod to help kick the TIE Swarms off of the board as the dominate lists out there, but it will works well against Blue Squadron B-Wings or Bandit Squadron Zs as well. Overall, anything that lets you reroll dice is most likely a good card. This one happens to be a great one!
6. Veteran Instincts
Without a doubt the single most under-costed card in the game! What Veteran Instincts does for a ship for the low, low cost of one point is just insane. Whisper and Echo are now PS 9 and 8 respectively thanks to this card; Han is PS 11 and can snipe out any Phantom before it has the ability to recloak. In the meta we play in today, the higher the PS, the better. This little card has the ability to take a good ship and make it a great ship, all for one point. Now, if you are taking a PS 4 ship to a PS6 you might not agree, and I would argue that you’re putting it on the wrong ship then. PS 9 (better then Echo), PS 10 (Better then Whisper) and PS 11 (better than almost anybody) is without a doubt a very powerful ability and should not be taken lightly. All of it made possible with this one little card.
5. Ysanne Isard
In my honest opinion, this one single card took the Decimator from an okay ship to an amazing ship that is viable in the competitive scene and all thanks to her. Similar to what C-3P0 did for the Falcon when it was released, Ysanne did that in spades for the VT-49. The ship has one glaring weakness in its stat line and it is those zero evade dice. The ability to help plug that hole with a free Evade action in the combat phase, meaning even if the ship overlapped that turn it still get the free Evade action, helps to overcome that really big hole. Not to mention that since the Evade action is taken in the combat phase, you can do silly things like Push the Limit and then Engine Upgrade to boost out of arcs in the combat phase. Crazy! This card should be a given on any VT-49 builds, period!
4. Millennium Falcon + C-3P0
Ok, so I may have cheated just a bit with the number four spot by including C-3P0 and the Millennium Falcon upgrades in the same spot. But to me, these two upgrades are really one four point upgrade that made the Falcon the unstoppable force it has risen to be. With the ability to mitigate two damage per turn, this combination of cards really drove the Falcon to the top of the competitive scene. A Falcon carrying these two upgrades became far more durable than they ever were before. And it is only getting stronger as the two ship builds are becoming far more prevalent in the game, meaning those two damage it gets to fluff off per turn hurts a lot more. Any good Falcon build starts with these two upgrades and moves on from there.
3. Advanced Cloaking Device
No one single upgrade raised more controversy upon its release the Advanced Cloaking Device. It can be argued that this one single card changed the entire meta as we knew it. In a meta where TIE Swarms and the four ship Rebel build were king, they quickly fell from grace and gave way to the meta we know now. Where would the TIE Phantom be without this card? Without the ability to shoot and then re-cloak, the TIE Phantom is less of a monster on the field, less effective, and I would argue, less taken by the top players. It forced the meta to have to adjust to it and to the TIE Phantom. We started taking the higher PS pilots just to be able to take shots at those Phantoms while there were at their weakest. It gave rise to builds like the Fat Han and allowed the turreted ships to really rise to the top of the competitive scene. Without this one card, we are playing in a very different meta right now.
2. Push the Limit
A staple of any good list that can take advantage of it, this card changed the way we looked at Action Economy in the game. For three little points combinations like Focus and Target Lock, or Evade and Focus all became possible. This one card made ships like Soontir Fel or Darth Vader all the more powerful by unlocking the ability to take three or more actions per turn. And in a game where Action Economy can make or break you, this one card easily became a shining light, a card that you always debate putting on a ship that can take it. Now sure, it doesn’t always fit on every ship, ships that do not have a good dial with a lot of green maneuvers to blow off that stress. But the ships that have the good, maneuverable dials will almost always have PTL to make them all the more powerful. We talk about it a lot on the show, but I truly believe this one card to be one of if not the most powerful card in the game today.
1. Engine Upgrade
So, as much as I love PTL and all of the great things it adds to the game, one card edged it out just a hair in its power level. Engine Upgrade changes any ship it is on for the better in almost immeasurable ways. And while not all that great on small based ships, Darth Vader and Corran Horn aside, due to the cost of EU in respect to their low costs, on large based ships it is just amazing, especially if that large-based ship has a turret. Suddenly you now have a turreted arc dodging ship with the ability to fire at enemies and ensure it will not receive shots back. Fat Han at PS 11 is now out maneuvering pilots like Sootir Fel or Whisper, Fat Decimators pulling the Isard plus PTL plus EU combo in the combat phase, or Dash with the ability to Boost and Barrel Roll all while ignoring those pesky obstacles. The list is almost endless of builds that benefit from a turreted ship with the boost ability. I truly believe this one card makes the above list work and function at the top level and without it; they would not be nearly as dominate in the meta. And that is saying a lot!
So that’s it, that my list. Care to disagree? Have a card you believe should be on this list and isn’t? Let me know in the comments below.
If you are a new player looking to get into the more tactical end of the X-Wing Miniatures Game, or an old pro looking to up your game, why not check out our podcast, NOVA Squadron Radio! Every two weeks we review what’s new in the world of X-Wing Miniatures. We break down those top lists from the big tournament, interview X-Wing personalities from around the world, and review all of the new ships, cards, and combos that are all the rage in the meta today!
