Having 18 players at LowerHuttACon2013 over the weekend, and inputting everyone's squads and results into the system (you can see our results here: http://www.bloomilk.com/forums/default.aspx?g=posts&t=12329), made me think about the game as a whole. I think we're in a very good place, because:

A More Fun Competitive Game
I think everyone will agree that the v-sets have markedly increased the number of competitive squad types, and in my opinion a lot of what the v-sets have introduced are actually more fun to play with/against than the squad types that Wizards left us with. I wasn't playing then, but as I understand it, most of the tactics at the highest level of the game as Wizards left it revolved around either:
i) Killing a lot of your opponent's pieces quickly (Lancer and Yobuck) so you can control the game.
ii) Out-activating your opponent, then setting up for a big end of round strike that your opponent can't do anything about (Rebels, Imperials)
I remember Brandon, who lost the GenCon 2010 final (the last GenCon before the v-sets came in) saying that as soon as the two players revealed their squads, and his opponent (Echo24 playing Han cannon) had more pieces than he did, he knew that he wouldn't be able to win the game - so in effect the game boiled down to who had the most pieces on the board. I know there are people out there who don't like things like Bastila, Poggle Bombs, Naboo Deathshots, and Mace, but there are so many options now that you can go a whole tournament without seeing any of these things. The last two GenCon champions squads both won without either activation control or mass killing ability. We saw three Cad Bane Bounty Hunter squads at LowerHuttACon, two of which made it to the top four, and they seem like a positive addition to the meta as they're all about getting into confrontation and speeding up the game. There are lots of potential squads you can bring to a tournament now, which is great, and lots of them are fun to play with and against.

But Old Concepts Are Still Really Good
For all the different options that the v-sets have introduced, Dr Daman won every game he played at LowerHuttACon with an Imperial squad which does utilise a couple of v-set pieces (Admiral Pallaeon and Morrigan Corde - neither of which I suspect are on peoples' "broken" list) but basically plays the same as a pre v-set Imperial squad - he out-activates his opponent, runs an Amanin Scout 18 squares, hits really hard with a huge damage dealer (Cad Bane with Opportunist), auto-wins initiative with Thrawn, then moves Cad back to safety. For all the power that the v-sets have introduced to some squads, it's still very hard for many squads to deal with an opponent who can control the key points of the game (activations, initiative, movement) and which makes the main attacker very, very hard to track down. You can have all the attacking power in the world and still not be able to deal with Cad Bane systematically destroying your squad.

Don't Give The Tool More Credit Than The Master
We went through the tournament with relatively few upsets. The player who arguably under-performed, based on past performances, was the player who's been out of town for a while, and hasn't played much recently, but decided to turn up on the day - his friends put together a squad for him which he didn't see until the start of the tournament. It happened to be the squad that's been raising a few eyebrows on another thread - the Malgus, Caedus, and Vergere combo. I'm sure if he had practiced with it, his performance would have been better since he's a strong and experienced player (he made the Top 4 at last year's NZ Nationals), but that really underlines the fact that the options at the competitive level are relatively balanced, and that hard work at understanding your squad and practice is a much more important factor. Noone even bothered bringing Mace and he wouldn't have done well, the one Bastila squad finished around 8th, Naboo deathshots finished in 9th, and Zannah finished near the bottom of the table. The squad with Drones finished 2nd, but that's because one of the most skilled and well-prepared players ran it. In other words, player preparation and skill was a much more important predictor of results than squad choice.

So good work designers - we're loving your work over here in New Zealand.

Haha, tbh I think most people around here agree-but our position isn't conducive to starting threads to rage and be heard.

I think that the game works best as a 200 (although 150 and 100 work fine too) point, 1 on 1 game, in a tournament style. If you have a group of players who are doing this, and who all have the same expectations that they're trying to build the best squad they can and are playing to win, the v-sets slot in beautifully. I think the people who find the v-sets too powerful would also find the power squads from before the v-sets too much. There are so many options at the casual level before the v-sets anyway - they might not be as well balanced as the competitive options are now - but they're around. It's the competitive game that needed expanding - that was the v-sets stated intention, and that's what they've achieved.