Zions Finest - A Star Wars: Shatterpoint Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

First off, rest in peace James Earl Jones. That good man with the greatest voice has gone home. We added as appropriate of a tribute as we could on short notice. That is why the format for the episode is slightly beatified, as we included some of the iconic moments of Darth Vader from the original trilogy in tribute to the master.

Second off, JK had an awesome idea to do box reviews, but with a twist. We looked at each of the upcoming boxes with the specific question of: where will this fit? Will it hit with a splash, a ripple, or an ignominious belly flop that somehow goes not with a bang but with a whimper and slinks to the bottom of the pool and someone should probably send in a lifeguard. Are we wrong? Most undoubtedly. Listen and come tell us why.

Go listen to Episodes 1 and 2 of the Clan of Two. Those guys are awesome and we are thrilled to have them joining the field.

Here is the Longshanks link for the Grand Tournament happening in Montreal at the end of October. It's in Montreal! That alone is reason to go! If you are in eastern Canada or the northeastern United States you should put this on your calendar. It will be glorious.

The ZiFi Invi. has one spot left, and the swag will be legendary.

Why, you ask? Because this outing also ends in an episode of patricide?!?!?! Why don't you listen and find out!

In this episode, Kenny is joined by Ryan Munsell and his son Donovan to discuss their stellar performance at the Evergreen Open. They made it to the cut running Spectre/Batch (Ryan) and Dooku Mando/Empire (Donovan). Ryan has some excellent excellent excellent thoughts on Spectre and its matchups. Enjoy! (Here's a link to Dylan's commentary of the final with the winner, Geoff.)

The Shattered Mirrors event⁠ is happening Sept. 20–22 in Lansing, MI. Message Paul on the Slack with any questions. It will be an awesome format and an awesome event. There is also a standard premier tournament.

⁠Dion's Finest September Tournament⁠ is happening on Sept. 28. We sent up some Vader-2/Luke and Obi-1/Dooku alt-arts. You should go. Dion is awesome.

⁠The ZiFi Invi. Open with WiFi⁠ is happening on October 19. We're at 22 of 24 players. Prize support will be awesome, including a custom range 2 ruler and x1 offense and x1 defense dice from the AMG GT Packet ... and more! Come have fun with us. Message me if you are coming from out of town and need a place to stay.

... maybe that's not the comparison to make. Anyways! Here's the concluding discussion of our tier-making conversation. We have a bit more fighting on this one, mostly because there are some pretty serious thoughts with figures being too high ... or too low. Enjoy it!

Next week will be the one-year of Shatterpoint, which shall be glorious.

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But not today! Join us for part two of our tier-making session. This time we discuss Secondaries. There's some movement, and a bit of fighting (again, an acceptable amount).

Here's the link for DION'S FINEST! A showdown tournament happening in Minnesota (at FFG's (old?) headquarters)!

Here's the link for the UKGE Grand Tournament. It was a great event capped at twenty-four players. Many thanks to the Gaos for doing such a great job running it.

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We made a huge mistake. We foolishly thought we could do a tiering of the entire set of released material for Shatterpoint, and to do it in a reasonable time. People wouldn't shut up, so we had to break it up. We are going to be releasing Part One now, which is our visiting and revisiting of support tier rankings, and we will be releasing Parts Two and Three this week. There is an acceptable amount of fighting in this episode--mostly because people besides Kenny and JK are constantly wrong.

Sorry for the weird pause at 51:30. Scott was too quiet and got cut off by the noise gate. Just skip ahead 30 seconds.

Hop onto the Slack to tell us why we're wrong. We would love to hear why the Weequays are not hot garbage. I will also post the tier list for quick consumption in a thread.

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We love you all! Have an amazing week! Come to Utah for the Salt Lake Open and the Shatterpoint Grand Tournament on August 3!

Welcome to Episode FIFTY! In this episode, Kenny and Scott discuss the Top 8 cuts from the five largest premier events in the last six months: Polish Nationals, CanCon, Adepticon, Galactic Conquest, and the ZiFi Invi. (Longshanks links included). These are all the standard premier listbuilding tournaments with sixteen or more players in that time period.

They discuss how the meta has shifted over the last six months, what lists are consistently rising to the top, what could form a stable core for premier lists going forward, and give some preliminary thoughts on the summer's releases and how they impact things.

Utah is having a Shatterpoint Grand Tournament! It's happening at the Salt Lake Open (a large wargaming convention in Utah) which supports a local veterans group. Abi is TO'ing the event and it will be awesome. Tickets have gone on sale and we would love to see you there! August 2nd and 3rd (Friday and Saturday). More details are in the #shatterpoint-op channel on the Slack.

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Sorry I tried to make that work. And sorry it's so long. What is wild is that we only got through about half of what we wanted to discuss. We will talk more about the logistics of the tournament in the future.

In this episode, Kenny, Matt, and Scott talk about the lists and the meta of the ZiFi Invi. They talk through their lists, why they built them like they did, and what they were hoping to accomplish with their matchups. They then summarize (as quickly as possible I swear) how their swiss and top-cut matches went, and then give some general thoughts on what did well (Gideon), what didn't do so well (Mama and Dooku what the heck) and if the Republic has arrived with the Batch.

Some notes!

The Tablebound Open is happening in Courtice, Ontario on June 22, 2024. Check the link. It's going to be a 1K (!!!) Shatterpoint tournament, which is wild.

The Boise Boys are running the Boise Shatterpoint Premier Cup on June 29, 2024. It's starting at 10 AM at ABU Games in Boise, Idaho. Check the link, and here's the Longshanks link. We are incredibly grateful to them driving down to the ZiFi Invi. and are sure that this tournament will be excellent.

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DON'T SAY WE NEVER GAVE YOU NOTHIN.

In this episode, Kenny is joined by his brother Aman who drops some serious knowledge with respect to the Mama Dooku list, with a particular focus at breaking down the fundamentals and talking about piloting the list in a thickening meta. Aman, as always, has excellent insights and you will love his commentary here. We wanted to drop it so soon after our last release (and as part of a flurry of recent episodes) for those prepping for the ZiFi Invi.

Listen to Hello There and subscribe to their Patreon.

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THE ZIFI INVI. IS IN DAYS, PEOPLE. DAYS!!!

It's Episode 48. It's the week before the ZiFi Invi., and that means that it's time for sweaty tryhard episodes talking about meta archetypes and where they fit for competitive tournaments.

In this episode, Matt is joined by none other than Jesse Eakin from Hello There to talk about their mutual masochism: their love of the Republic. Jesse is bona fide with respect to the Republic. He has taking them through competitive tournaments and done well, and he shares his insights with Matt as to approaches with the Republic--especially in light of the new stuff that has come out recently.

You dadgum better be listening to Hello There.

Join the Slack! See you this weekend!!!

Hello and welcome to a mid-week bonus episode of Zions Finest! In this episode, Kenny is joined by Dan (RedWolf) to talk about the Batch, listbuilding, play patterns, and matchups. Dan has been running the Batch a ton recently (and went 4-0 at a well-attended local tournament) and has some great insights.

We will have two episodes releasing next week in preparation for the ZiFi Invi., and maybe a third. Who knows?! We're nuts. We love you all.

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