Welcome to Competitive Innovations in a Galaxy Far, Far Away, a look into Shatterpoint events happening across the galaxy. We’ll explore top matches, the who’s who of Primary Units and what you can expect from the Shatterpoint meta.
If you haven’t checked out Part 1 or Part 2 yet, well, may the force be with you! We’ve been through a rollercoaster from May to August with a rise in Republic, ever persistent Rebels and the Empire striking back in full force! We’ve even seen the occasional smug Scoundrel, Bounty Hunter or Mandalorian here and there… The galaxy is full of surprises, maybe we’ll even see a Separatist or two.
Part 1
- UKGE 2025 Shatterpoint GT – United Kingdom
- GT- La menace Fantôme – France
- Atlantic City Open – United States
- Duel of the Fates – Australia
Part 2
- Grand Tournament Lodz EC1 – Poland
- GenCon – United States
- LoneStar Open – United States
- GriffCon Shatterpoint GT – United Kingdom
Part 3
- Evergreen Open – United States
- Nova Open – United States
- Smite Club Open – United States
Evergreen Open
Check out full details on Longshanks.
The Showdown
Mission: Never Tell Me the Odds
Kenny Brown – Captain Cassian Andor / Kanan Jarrus, Spectre-1
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| Never Tell Me the Odds | |
Scott Nielsen – Cad Bane / Captain Cassian Andor
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| Shifting Priorities | |
Thoughts
This isn’t the first time that we’ve seen Kenny and Scott from the Zion’s Finest podcast throw down in the finals of an event. With Kenny playing Cassian / Kanan in all but one round, I imagine Scott had a good idea what Kenny was going to play here… likely not wanting to risk Anakin / Ki-Adi on Never Tell Me the Odds, Scott chose his Cassian / Cad Bounty Hunter list.
Kenny’s Cassian / Kanan list has all the right tags to take advantage of Agent Kallus’ Imperial Intelligence providing 2-3 rerolls on attack or defense for most of the list. The reliable dice from Kallus, incredible Supporting Units, plus the revenge triggers on both Cassian and Kanan lead to a full package that is reliable and difficult for your opponent to overcome.
Scott’s Cassian / Cad list uses some of the same Rebel units combined with Bounty Hunters to build a list of consistently strong attacks powered by IG-88’s I Engineer Success, Yet… It Eludes Me ability to add dice to Bounty Hunter attacks. Alongside Cassian’s Make Ten Men Feel Like a Hundred to allow the both Rebels supports to punch up on Shatterpoint, most activations here will be able to close a wound. The question becomes, can Scott comfortably wound through Kenny’s revenge abilities?
Kenny Brown – 1st Place
List – See Showdown
Thoughts
Cassian / Kanan and Anakin / Ki-Adi are both incredible lists. Kenny taking Odds here tells me he was planning to play Cassian / Kanan for the majority of the event and he did just that. These are lists we’ve talked about a few times, and the release of Baze & Chirrut has pushed Cassian / Kanan into a consistent top tier spot. I do like the inclusion of Barriss in the Anakin squad as some additional displacement can be very valuable when up against revenge or other defensive Jedi.
Scott Neilsen – 2nd Place
List – See Showdown
Thoughts
Scott played his lists equally throughout the event and looks to have leaned toward his Cassian / Cad list when Never Tell Me the Odds was a possibility. Cassian / Cad is an interesting list, 4 force is a tough constraint to put yourself in, but this list is VERY reliably wounding and Cad Bane’s I’ll Take On Any Job… For the Right Price regenerates 1-2 force on each wound likely giving you more force per deck than most lists have access to.
DrHUGE – 3rd Place
List
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| Never Tell Me The Odds | |
Thoughts
Look! More Cassian and friend + Anakin / Ki-adi. This flavour opting for Princess Leia leading the Jyn box to maximize Spy synergies and mobility throughout the list.
Darth DonovanFett– 4th Place
List
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| Sabotage Showdown | |
Thoughts
While I’m always happy to see Hondo popping up in a list, Darth Donovan did play Grand Inquisitor / Moff Gideon for 5/6 games. Moff’s You Have Something I Want adding an extra die to melee attacks helps the Inquisitor package dig a bit deeper into their attack trees while Long Live the Empire can be particularly tricky when applied to a tiebreaker unit. The reworked Third Sister gets the most of Fourth Sister here, which alongside the Dark Troopers plays a great control game.
Nova Open
Check out full details on Longshanks.
The Showdown
Mission: Shifting Priorities
Godlyness-Duncan – Riff Tamson / Count Dooku
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| Shifting Priorities | |
Samuel Sweeten – Cassian Andor / Jyn Erso
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| Sabotage Showdown | |
Thoughts
Nova brought out some very competitive players and we have Sam & Duncan meeting up in the finals.
Duncan running Riff / Dooku here from his *checks glasses* nearly full Separatist premiere list. Riff Tamson continues to make a splash (ha! I’ll see myself out) paired here with his box, alongside Dooku, Obi, Out of Hiding and the Magnaguard. There’s a good amount of surprise mobility here with the Riff’s Blood in the Water allowing him to jump each time a Supporting Unit makes a combat action alongside Magnaguard’s Protection Protocols allowing one of them to advance each time a Primary Unit makes a move action. The real magic here is in Obi’s Mind Trick which we’ve highlighted a few times can be a game changing ability. Dooku fuels your Mind Tricks with Brave, but Foolish refreshing force each time a Primary or Secondary unit is wounded and adding a dash or 5 dice attack to an allied Separatist Support.
Sam has been piloting Rebels at events for some time, this time bringing a Cassian anchor list all around leveraging Agent Kallus’ rerolls to get the most value out of your Rebel, Scoundrel and Spectre tags. In this case taking Cassian / Jyn, Jyn’s The Time to Fight Is Now means force constraint won’t be a problem and Kallus should be able to provide his rerolls any time you need them. Adding in K-2SO adds another revenge trigger to the mix which combines very well with Cassian’s to ensure K-2’s Congratulations, You Are Being Rescued can trigger within range 4.
Kallus provides Sam a unique way to get around Obi’s Mind Trick as Disarm only removes Expertise from the initial roll, meaning the attacker will still get expertise from the reroll.
Samuel Sweeten – 1st Place
List – See Showdown
Thoughts
Each of Sam’s lists here focuses on the advantages provided by Kallus, alongside Cassian’s revenge trigger and Baze & Chirrut being an overall outstanding support that provides force refresh. Kanan provides a powerful revenge trigger, while Ezra provides a tiebreaker and they both have all the tags Kallus is looking for. Jyn helps with force economy and spy synergy while still providing a strong revenge backing in K-2 and finally Leia adds strong mobility, steadfast from Bodhi and another high value 5-cost Support in Han & Chewie. We don’t often see anchor lists in top spots, but each one of these lists squads with Cassian make a strong case.
Godlyness-Duncan – 2nd Place
List – See Showdown
Thoughts
Separatists were generally accepted as losing in the recent rebalance, with only seeing a couple of nerfs and no buffs for a faction tag that was already struggling. The addition of Riff Tamson continues to surprise, being overall better as a primary unit and better as a box than the community first thought. Duncan took this list to the top with each squad meant to take advantage of Riff’s mobility and attacks along with Nossor Ri’s Riptide to buff every Separatists attack for each Aquatic unit within range 5. This helps each unit punch above its weight class, specifically a unit like the B1 Battle Droids which have an incredible attack tree that they are unlikely to reach down on their own. While I do believe this would be a tough list to pilot, its nice to write about Separatists at a top table.
Scott (Evilhoudini) B – 3rd Place
List
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| Sabotage Showdown | |
Thoughts
Scott’s Cassian / Riff list takes advantage of the Scoundrel tag, bringing both the updated Weequay Pirates and Baze & Chirrut. Both of these supports offer innate steadfast with impactful turns which can followed up with Riff’s Blood in the Water to increase the impact of those turns. Combining with Cassian’s revenge trigger these squads are surprisingly mobile on both your turn and your opponents. The secondary under Riff is a tough choice, with not many generic options in that era – Scott opted for Crosshair here, but I think Wrecker or Jango would be options to look at here as well.
Icemyn – Dean B – 4th Place
List
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| Shifting Priorities | |
Thoughts
Dean played a rather unique all Republic list, with Kenobi, Mace and Anakin all absent. Centered around Ki-Adi’s identity ability Guardians of the Republic, this list takes advantage of the Jedi tag. With each wound inflicted by a Galactic Republic unit providing a heal and dash you add mobility, while helping force economy by reducing the cost of Jedi force abilities when they are near wounded units. We’ve discussed how powerful Obi, Out of Hiding’s Mind Trick ability is and in this case the ability can be discounted while providing some needed mobility to ensure the Mind Trick range 5 is where you need it to be. Combined with Darth Vader, Jedi Hunter’s Your Hatred Makes You Powerful all of these melee units can reliably get down their attack trees offering benefits like free Force Push. Plo Koon adds another Force Push along with Shaak Ti’s Force Repulse for plenty of displacement into highly defensive or revenge style lists. Rounding this out with Kit Fisto’s highly mobile squad, likely to shore up any weakness on Never Tell Me the Odds.
The Rest!
Grand Moff Eric – 5th Place
List
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| Never Tell Me The Odds | |
Smalls5726 – 6th Place
List
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| Sabotage Showdown | |
Redwolf6879 – 7th Place
List
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| Never Tell Me The Odds | |
Rudy (Rudyyy) With 3 Ys– 8th Place
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| Shifting Priorities | |
Smite Club Open
Check out full details on Longshanks.
The Showdown
Mission: Shifting Priorities
Nick (Nesquick) Rader – Cassian Andor / Princess Leia
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| Shifting Priorities | |
Brady Jesson – Cassian Andor / Leia Organa, Freedom Fighter
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| Never Tell Me The Odds | |
Thoughts
Nick and Brady face off in the finals with a good ol’ fashioned Cassian-Off! Both players playing Cassian / Leia, yet different Leias on the second squad.
Nick’s Cassian / Princess Leia list is one we’ve seen before, with Princess Leia replacing Jyn with the rest of Jyn’s box and Rebel Commandos with Cassian. This list offers a ton of mobility on both your turns and when your opponent wounds – with tree revenge triggers available, you would need to carefully analyze the board state before wounding.
Brady’s list is entirely disguised as Ewoks even though there is not a single Ewok among them! Freedom Fighter’s Unexpected Allies ability provides the Ewok tag to all Rebel Alliance units and when combined with Agent Kallus’ Imperial Intelligence means you have plenty of shared tags providing 2-4 rerolls depending on the unit. Leia providing Coordinated Fire: Expose doubles down on the punch, with this list being able to reliably take down the toughest targets.
Brady will need to find opportunities to wound here without Nick gaining too much of an advantage. Of note, Nick and Brady also played each other in round 4 of the swiss with the exact same lists with Brady taking the win then…
Nick (Nesquick) Rader – 1st Place
List – See Showdown
Thoughts
Nick brought a full suite of revenge identities for his list and went for Cassian / Leia 6/7 games. Not often you get a rematch against your only loss at the same event and come out the winner!
Brady Jesson – 2nd Place
List – See Showdown
Thoughts
I really like Brady’s combination of Freedom Fighter, Leia and Cassian alongside Kallus here. I’d put money on this being one of the most consistent lists for wounds out there, with the benefit of a ton of movement utility. Add in some bonus points for not only running Hondo, but Hondo’s box? Here Brady, have all the internet points you want!
Blastromech (Holden) – 3rd Place
List
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| Sabotage Showdown | |
Thoughts
Another example of taking advantage of Riff Tamson with Scoundrels! In this case, the Riff box as is paired with a strong squad led by the Mandalorian. Mandalorian and Dengar make a great team, both being tough bodies to hold points and Dengar’s Being Underestimated Has its Values allows you to reserve both Mando and Dengar for free. Dengar’s Payday ability pulls double duty here, potentially adding another Aquatic tag for bonus dice on Separatists, or adding Separatists do Dengar can access the bonus dice. On the other side we have Kenobi / Kit Fisto, and this is a couple times we’ve seen Kit sneak into a top placement. Kit adds Supporting Fire: Dash on a body that’s less likely to be wounded compared to the ARF Troopers, and is generally miserable to attack into for your opponent. Adding in Fixer here from Delta Squad for some potential free hunkers, a tie breaker and an extra die when you really need it.
Matthew Bucher – 4th Place
List
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| Never Tell Me the Odds | |
Thoughts
General Solo sits as the only revenge trigger that doesn’t allow the unit to dash before the revenge attack has always been the difficult part of his kit… Cassian fixes that and then some! By targeting Solo with Cassian’s revenge first he can advance then trigger his revenge attack which will quite reliably provide some shoves. Han’s Let’s Keep A Little Optimism Here can really impact your momentum gain leading to some surprising struggle swings that wouldn’t be possible elsewhere. Grand Inquisitor / Iden continues to be a strong pairing, with Inferno Squad providing some easy wounds and Grand Inquisitor rewarding you for them. Never Tell Me the Odds is a great choice here, with both list excelling on the mission and can provide a real advantage against certain lists.
Wrap Up – Part 3
Thus marks the end of our Hot GT Summer! We’ve seen the rise of Sharkboy, with Dooku, Cassian and Mando all making their best Lava Girl impressions. With no more releases on the horizon and a few more events before the year is done, I’m expecting a few more lists to pop up and challenge the status quo. I don’t think this meta is quite settled with Empire, Republic and Scoundrels consistently popping up, while Rebels are seemingly climbing to that top spot. It turns out the secret to defeating the Empire (and any other foes you may across) is the same one Disney is using to keep me subscribed to Disney+… Cassian Andor.
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