Usually people like to run Darth Sidious with the Lancers to Pawn them. After the lancer gets Pawned, it's HP then gets reduced to where the Kel Dor will be a threat. Now most good Lancer players will try to avoid this, so the Kel Dor really then becomes an area denial piece or just makes the Lancer player have to think really hard how he's going to use his Strafe.

Also, if someone is able to get some Accurate Shot in their squad to put some damage on the Lancer, then the Kel Dor becomes a little more useful.

Sincerely,
Jester007

The basic problem is that the Lancer has a lot of bad matchups so unless you think all you are going to see are the good ones, it isn't worth running. Lancer loses alot to nom bombs (which are popular as the vong are popular again). It has tough matchups against the NR as the Kyle/Han disruptive combined with the great mobility of Ganner makes it a tough match. Accurate shot gives it a hard time as it is hard to hide the lancer out of line of site of an accurate shooter and still be within range to do anything. The aforementioned Kel-dor is a problem. The lancer squad really is a squad where in the right meta is really good and if it doesn't fall your way is really bad. Most people would rather play a squad that is about the same no matter what the matchup is to avoid the auto-loss or really bad matchups.

I doubt it. People are very easily willing to pay for what they think is good. You see plenty of Boba BH, mouse droids, NR squads with lots of VRs, etc in large tourneys. If the lancer squad was as good as some people claim it is then people would play it.

Learning exactly how strafe works can be big. There are a lot of nooks and crannys that you can hide stuff in so the lancer can't beat you. A kel dor is not the answer. If you can outact it an r7 and crumb works much better. Lock doors till you can attack and prevent the pawn/lancer turn in one phase. Keep crumb beside your squishy commanders to keep them from dying.

Digging in vs the lancer just helps it get setup.

I agree with urbanjedi (as well as defer to him for Lancer expertise), there are a lot of counters to the Lancer, including but not limited to the Kel Dor. Riposte and Djem So is of course good, and any squad with Death Shots has an advantage as well. I always love playing against Lancer with Luke RC and Crix Madine, since most players will use Pawn before the Lancer takes it's own turn (mostly because it can be tough to get LoS to a good landing spot if you do it the other way, especially without exposing Sidious too much), so Luke gets Cunning +20 on the Djem So. Then at the end of the turn the lancer takes 10 damage and dies, so it doesn't even get its own turn.

Another thing to remember (from another experienced lancer user):

Many people forget you don't have to strafe. I can pawn just to fly over that Kel-Dor (or death shot shooter, or riposte/djem-soer) without attacking, then strafe on the normal Lancer turn killing whatever I need to behind enemy lines. It's always hilarious to watch their face when you harmlessly fly right over. You have to have strafe on or off for the whole turn, but if you choose to just fly over - that's typically only the pawn. And regardless, you can still do the regular attack if you go 12 or less squares, and you can do that + the strafe on the normal turn. If you have twin going on that's still 120 damage to a single fig, 40 to everything else in the path.

Oh, and also people tend to forget a Keldor really doesn't do much if an opponent is using Whorm and not Grievous. I just played a match vs Deri the other day and he brought a Keldor. I strafed his Keldor out of range of a mouse, and laughed as I did twenty damage (no twin) to the Keldor, leaving it alive and decimating the the rest of his squad. Good thing I didn't roll a crit.

There are lots of challenges to the Lancer. They can be overcome too. At Kokomo Regionals I played against a deathshot Mandos squad, a vong Nom Bomb squad (twice), a NR disruptive with riposte squad, and a Djem-So squad, and I beat them all. Of course out activating was key - Weeks comments about that are true. But I made it through a field where every squad I played had a "Lancer Counter", and I still won.

Lancer is still strong - but there are many other strong squads now too. I look forward to seeing what the future of SWM holds.

The trick is forcing you to either strafe Luke or make a less than ideal move (like not strafe at all that round). If the threat of Djem So prevents you from making a move that would normally devastate my squad, then I think that makes it quite a good Lancer counter. Positioning is, as always, key.