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I am glad/mad that GOWK was banned. Glad, because I was getting real sick of seeing only GOWK squads run. Mad, because that starter is a total waste of 15 dollars now.
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I wouldn't consider it a total waste as you still get a decent Dooku, a physical copy of the latest rule book, and a double-sided map.
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EmporerDragon wrote:I wouldn't consider it a total waste as you still get a decent Dooku, a physical copy of the latest rule book, and a double-sided map. So it's a total waste of $8. 
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I like the mini of GOWK... wish the stats and whatnot weren't such an issue. I like trying to beat him, but yeah, it's tough. Still haven't done it. Him against that Luke Snowspeeder squad that won GenCon though, how would that turn out? hmm....
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carnorjax1 wrote:I am glad/mad that GOWK was banned. Glad, because I was getting real sick of seeing only GOWK squads run. Mad, because that starter is a total waste of 15 dollars now. Blame the second part on WOTC. It's their fault and their fault alone that they released the first broken mini in a starter set.
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Rank: Uggernaught
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LoboStele wrote:DARTH BAKER wrote:People do not give themselves enough credit to figure out problems anymore. Banning GOWK was an easy way out of what was going to be a tough problem. I wasn't necessarily going to get involved in this discussion, but I thought this comment deserved some defense given against it. Do you really mean to say that players like Dean, Bill, myself, and many others - all IN FAVOR of the ban - were incapable of finding ways to beat GOWK? That was NEVER the issue. We'd identified all the ways you could consistently defeat GOWK. the Gungan cesta army is one that DID do well, as JohnnyB showed in Chicago, riding to the top with it. However, it was still ridiculously luck based. From what I heard, the game where Johnny beat Bill, Bill failed something like 90% of his saves, and it was STILL a close game. It had nothing to do with figuring out how to beat GOWK. We all knew how to beat him. The question was, could you do it consistently? No. All depended on the dice rolls. Now how much fun is that? There's no strategy involved in it then. Just depending on the dice to be lucky enough for you. Now, as far as getting GOWK back on the table.....the best you can do at this point is to send messages through WOTC's Customer Service line, or to try sending PMs to Peter Lee on the Wizards forums. Other than that, there really isn't anything we as a community can do about it. To top it off, WOTC updated the definition of SSM in the rules insert for Galaxy at War, with no attempt to balance GOWK as a part of that change. Sarah and the team got the stat card for the Elite AT-AT Driver up on the WOTC page within days of the Imperial Entanglements release. My feeling is, if they were planning to fix GOWK, it would've been long done by now. It's not like they needed this much time to do it. I am confused, you said in your fourth sentence that you identified all of the ways you could consistently beat GOWK. Then in your tenth sentence you state the exact opposite that you could not beat GOWK consistently. Then you go on to state that it depended on dice rolls as to how the game ends and that it is no fun when luck is entered into the equation. Are you kidding me? The game between you and I came down to dice rolls and every game you played at Gencon. You were not playing some direct damage squad with push or lightning, and it wasn't some diabolical strategy that you went with either. You did play a proven squad well and ended up beating me, but only by hiding behind a wall, out activating me and getting some good DICE ROLLS! Strategy and tactics were also factors, but acting like dice and luck are not involved in this game by someone as smart as you is absurd. As long as I paid money for GOWK and he occupies space in my collection he is not dead. I did not say anything about you, bill and Dean not being able to come up with ways to beat GOWK, however agreeing to ban him was the easy way out of a tough problem. I would much rather have played 9 GOWK squads instead of the cookie cutter slow cannon squads.
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EmporerDragon wrote:I wouldn't consider it a total waste as you still get a decent Dooku, a physical copy of the latest rule book, and a double-sided map. A Dooku I would never run, a rule book true, and a map that i think one side is illegal in DCI
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DARTH BAKER wrote:As long as I paid money for GOWK and he occupies space in my collection he is not dead. I did not say anything about you, bill and Dean not being able to come up with ways to beat GOWK, however agreeing to ban him was the easy way out of a tough problem. I would much rather have played 9 GOWK squads instead of the cookie cutter slow cannon squads. No offense, but the bolded part illustrates why this isn't a particularly useful debate to be having: you (Baker) don't mind the metagame being GOWK and Anti-GOWK, while other do. Look at the other metagame threads; the consensus seems to be that in this post-GOWK era there are several different squad types that are contenders. I personally think that's a very good thing, a necessary thing for the game to have a chance to continue to grow or have a colorful, competitive tournament scene. Banning GOWK wasn't "the easy way out", it was simply the right way out. As Lobo pointed out, WotC wasn't going to change GOWK or SSM; for whatever reason they weren't willing to errata him. That leaves 2 options; 1) Ban GOWK and allow a new metagame to evolve, or 2) Leave GOWK in, and face either a petrified metagame where entire sets are released with nothing making it into the tournament scene because they don't fit either into a GOWK squad or and Anti-GOWK squad, or substantial power-creep, until GOWK is the new standard for point costing.
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Exactly. 3 sets out after CW released, and you know what? The meta woulf be EXACTLY like regionals. A few new squads may have come up, but compare the about 5 non-gowk to countless gowk squads you would face. Sorry that the map list caused gencon to be boring. But it was no different than Regionals.
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What is wrong, people?! Nien Nunb is still legal!!!
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*ponda baba!! its a house with a flower as a chimney!! YOU ARENT AMBIDEXTROUS!!*
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seibermaki wrote:I like the mini of GOWK... wish the stats and whatnot weren't such an issue. I like trying to beat him, but yeah, it's tough. Still haven't done it. Him against that Luke Snowspeeder squad that won GenCon though, how would that turn out? hmm.... The winning GenCon squad had Luke, Commando - not Luke Snowspeeder.
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FlyingArrow wrote:seibermaki wrote:I like the mini of GOWK... wish the stats and whatnot weren't such an issue. I like trying to beat him, but yeah, it's tough. Still haven't done it. Him against that Luke Snowspeeder squad that won GenCon though, how would that turn out? hmm.... The winning GenCon squad had Luke, Commando - not Luke Snowspeeder. ah, my mistake. Thought it was Luke Snowspeeder for some reason. Still... GOWK vs the Slow Cannon squad, would GOWK win?
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It did at chicago, by getting a points lead and running away. Is that how you want this game to be played.
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Sithborg wrote:Exactly. 3 sets out after CW released, and you know what? The meta woulf be EXACTLY like regionals. A few new squads may have come up, but compare the about 5 non-gowk to countless gowk squads you would face. Sorry that the map list caused gencon to be boring. But it was no different than Regionals. The main difference is there were 5+ factions (Vong, Rebel, Imps, Sith, and other Republic squads) that were viable against GOWK and each other. Vs Speedy Cannon there is maybe 2. Rebel commandoes/YoBuck and some scattered Seps on the right maps. That's it. My issue with the GOWK banning was the reasoning for it was trying to unrestrict the Meta. Problem is it did the complete opposite. The group that pushed so hard to eliminate him didn't calculate that into the 150 meta, and have a track record of hating squads that are dominant due to dice rolls. Problem with that is Rieekan broke the game tactically on a similar level as GOWK. This is the same days as 'Boba shoots Leia and she takes 40" it is now "Boba shoots Leia, she makes one Evade, rerolls the second and makes it". That was what GOWK banning created. Was the figure incredibly broken? Yes the FIGURE was, but the meta was some of the most diverse regardless of whether or not it was anit-GOWK. Now Speedy Cannon eliminates entire factions from viability, and that is the issue here. Speedy Cannon will reign supreme in 150 for the forseeable future. And the reasoning is with GOWK gone the Meta is much more open at the other point levels, problem there is that is/was the championship point level. One person getting lucky in map roll 4 times and then running the table in 200 with Uggernauts hardly makes a meta open. GOWK IN 200 was obnoxious but not nearly as bad as 150. 100 he should have been banned in mostly because nothing in that level is as cost efficient as him+R2 and Dash would have been.
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Moff Ivlis wrote:DARTH BAKER wrote:As long as I paid money for GOWK and he occupies space in my collection he is not dead. I did not say anything about you, bill and Dean not being able to come up with ways to beat GOWK, however agreeing to ban him was the easy way out of a tough problem. I would much rather have played 9 GOWK squads instead of the cookie cutter slow cannon squads. No offense, but the bolded part illustrates why this isn't a particularly useful debate to be having: you (Baker) don't mind the metagame being GOWK and Anti-GOWK, while other do. Look at the other metagame threads; the consensus seems to be that in this post-GOWK era there are several different squad types that are contenders. I personally think that's a very good thing, a necessary thing for the game to have a chance to continue to grow or have a colorful, competitive tournament scene. Banning GOWK wasn't "the easy way out", it was simply the right way out. As Lobo pointed out, WotC wasn't going to change GOWK or SSM; for whatever reason they weren't willing to errata him. That leaves 2 options; 1) Ban GOWK and allow a new metagame to evolve, or 2) Leave GOWK in, and face either a petrified metagame where entire sets are released with nothing making it into the tournament scene because they don't fit either into a GOWK squad or and Anti-GOWK squad, or substantial power-creep, until GOWK is the new standard for point costing. So you would rather have Slow cannon reign supreme for two years and petrify the game until the final game at gencon, instead of playing against GOWK combos? I guess this is where we will disagree on the diversity of the metagame. I believe my points create a useful debate and I appreciate joelker41's point of view.
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I think people agreed he wasn't too terrible at 200. However, by competitive, do you mean barely able to compete with? Because that is what those 5 "counter" factions were. And when I go to a 30+ tournament, and see 75% of squads being GOWK based or Push based, I think something is wrong. And I am not saying that what happened at Gencon is good either, but the choice was a tough one, considering the major update that had to be made in July. Faced with banning GOWK or abusable maps (Teth), he had to make a call. I gaurentee, you would've seen similar "diversity" at Gencon had GOWK remained legal.
The main difference between GOWK and the Cannon squads, is that they depended heavily on map. You were pretty much screwed no matter what if you weren't prepared to fight GOWK.
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Sithborg wrote:I think people agreed he wasn't too terrible at 200. However, by competitive, do you mean barely able to compete with? Because that is what those 5 "counter" factions were. And when I go to a 30+ tournament, and see 75% of squads being GOWK based or Push based, I think something is wrong. And I am not saying that what happened at Gencon is good either, but the choice was a tough one, considering the major update that had to be made in July. Faced with banning GOWK or abusable maps (Teth), he had to make a call. I gaurentee, you would've seen similar "diversity" at Gencon had GOWK remained legal.
The main difference between GOWK and the Cannon squads, is that they depended heavily on map. You were pretty much screwed no matter what if you weren't prepared to fight GOWK. Weren't you also screwed no matter what if you weren't prepared to fight Cannon also? Honestly, I was so lulled to sleep by the sea of cannon squads that when I made it to the game against Deri that I could not switch gears, obviously he could and left gungan parts all over the board.
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Sithborg wrote:I think people agreed he wasn't too terrible at 200. However, by competitive, do you mean barely able to compete with? Because that is what those 5 "counter" factions were. And when I go to a 30+ tournament, and see 75% of squads being GOWK based or Push based, I think something is wrong. And I am not saying that what happened at Gencon is good either, but the choice was a tough one, considering the major update that had to be made in July. Faced with banning GOWK or abusable maps (Teth), he had to make a call. I gaurentee, you would've seen similar "diversity" at Gencon had GOWK remained legal.
The main difference between GOWK and the Cannon squads, is that they depended heavily on map. You were pretty much screwed no matter what if you weren't prepared to fight GOWK. Nowhere in my post did I say they were all counter factions. Malak/Jarael/Dash was the best Sith squad configuration at the time. Same for Jedi Hunter swarm for Vong, and LV for Imps. Again, all at that time they were the best for their faction the only difference is they just so happened to be decent/good vs GOWK (and some were designed to take him down and were born from that era). Rebel Push wasn't nearly as cool before Rieekan so that was a recent development. Rebel Push and GOWK would have been 75% of the squads? It would be hard to predict when only 1/4 (roughly) of the GenCon squads were the speeder and that is with all the 'top' players playing them. Hell Mandos and Darth sion showed up lol. Here is the situation before: Rebel Push beat GOWK like 60% of the time let's say. Vong destroy Rebel push in virtually every matchup. Malak/Jarael/Dash can beat GOWK maybe 35% of the time and Vong maybe 1/4 of the time if Jarael and Dash can get some key shots in. YoBuck can run rings around Malak, Vong, and maybe even Rebel Push if you play right. YoBuck vs GOWK isn't good for YoBuck. Lord Vader crushes Vong (unless you roll that 1 with Thrawn), Malak, and GOWK. YoBuck and Rebel shooter squads can destroy LV decently well if you play well. Speedy cannon would show up and have a shot (via extreme run away tactics) at GOWK, while possibly losing to YoBuck. It was a rock/paper/scissors matchup oriented Meta. Playing against the speeder is an autoloss for anything not named ERC or YoBuck. GOWK could be in for rough matchups against NR is still somewhere in there with maybe Kyle and Kyp.
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joelker41 wrote:Vong destroy Rebel push in virtually every matchup. Not quite. Trust me, it was not a pretty matchup on Christophis. Honestly, I am just going on my experiences. At Chicago Regionals, I saw a LOT of GOWK and Push. I didn't play much, thankfully, because I scrubbed out. But I had a feeling I would be a bit bored if I was winning. And I think you forgot a bit of a key thing: Yobuck was running with GOWK in a lot of squads. I agree with a lot pf people that it wasn't Paper, Rock, Scissors so much as Heads/Tails.
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