Are we all talking about the same Jar Jar here? There's the 18 point super annoying one and the 29 point galloping one. They both have their uses in this matchup.

--Swarm Killer--
51 Yoda on Kybuck
39 Quinlan Vos, Double Agent
27 Lobot
25 Rakghoul Warrior
23 Captain Panaka
18 Jar Jar Binks
9 R2-D2, Astromech Droid
8 Mas Amedda

(200pts. 8 activations)
Here was my idea for a Yobuck squad. Get Yoda to deep strike and then swap in Jar Jar. At that point it is a 50/50 chance of you completely killing the opponents squad. If you get Yobuck close enough to the commanders (within 6 sqaures) and swap Jar Jar in, he can Bombad Gungan all to troopers shots to hit Daala, Piet and other commanders. Also you could swap in the Rak Warrior and turn their trooper swarm into a horde of rakghouls. If you are facing a Daala squad with Ozzel, it all of a sudden becomes a severe disadvantage for the imperial player since if the Rak Warrior turns 2 troopers into Rakghouls, the other one trooper that activates on the next round can't kill the 2 raks that just spawned, leaving 1 rak to do his tripple attack and hopefully turn some other troopers (with low def btw) into more raks. I have Quilan Vos in there to hopefully counter other squads that aren't Daala, since I think Quilan is the best beat stick killer for his points (but i could be mistaken). You could bring in a few rodian brutes also or gran raiders with lobot to give your self some other traditional swap fodder.

I don't think there can be other competitive yobuck squads that don't have Dash and General Skywalker. We've had so many more options in all the V-sets that saying "don't bother testing a yobuck squad if it doesn't have Dash and Gen Skywalker" seems to me to be a bit unfair statement, since we haven't seen all the other options out there tested.

Rakghouls sounds like a cool idea, and it's worth exploring. However, no Daala squad with Pellaeon will keep Ozzel in the mix against Yobuck...he'll swap Ozzel out for Tarkin. Sure, you can drop a Rak in there, but that Rak will get shot up before it can do anything.

The option of dropping JarJar in there actually sounds pretty nasty...IF JarJar can get close enough to the commanders to do his thing. But if I'm playing against JarJar, I'll just wait until JarJar has acted and then make sure all my guys are 7+ squares from him, and then proceed to light him up. At that point, it doesn't matter if he makes his Bombad Gungan saves, because they function pretty much like Evade: they negate damage, and do nothing else; he will eventually fail 2 saves, and the "threat" of JarJar will be neutralized.

To add to this, every time I think of playing in a tournament, it isn't based on what I want to play anymore, it's whether I want to compete or not. It's not "should I run a classic solo charge and surprise everyone?" Because I will lose to Daala every time. It's now "should I run Daala or not" because I can't beat her, so I have to play her. And I honestly can't stand playing minis at the moment, because its not fun, at all. I truly want this piece gone. And if she can't be gone, I want her nerfed. And if she can't be nerfed, then I possibly won't play anymore. And I don't know how many people feel that way, but I certainly do.

We've had an interesting discussion thus far about trying to find a counter to Daala in the current meta. What I'm seeing is very few options, and the big question is whether or not those few squads can actually compete with other top squads. I haven't been scared to play against Yobuck in a long time, mostly cause the damage has gone up and I don't typically run swarms. Its the same with Lancers. Any competitive player always takes into account strategies to prevent the Lancer from stomping your squad. There are many counters in place for Lancers and Yobuck. There just aren't many in place now for Daala that all factions can use, and therein lies the problem. Sure if i bring a Yobuck squad with X+Y+Z it can beat a Daala squad, but can that Yobuck squad beat other top tier squads? I really doubt it cause we've been focusing to much in all the V-sets from preventing Lancer and Yobuck squads from ruining the game. This isn't to say a Yobuck squad can't do well, cause it's been proven to do well, but its not winning regionals all the time anymore cause there are counters to it that are widely available.

Daala squads have cheap units that get insane attack for insane damage for thier cost. They have extreme movement breakers which will affect opponents that want to hide their commanders in the back. Most players advance towards gambit which is why the Zygerian isn't truly nessesary to win, cause the troopers don't need to move as far to reach stuff that is already trying to reach them. Daala squads are a 2 pt win it seems for squads that can beat them, and they on the other hand can get a 3 pt win almost all the time. Its the same issue with the Naboo Trooper deathshot squads. It's so hard to kill them all in the time aloted in a regional that you just need to focus on winning on points, rather than trying to get the 3pt win. If anything needs to be nerfed, i think it is the extra damage from charging fire and also reducing the attack power of these guys, cause +20 attack is going to hit even the best tank squads defense and crush them. If their attack is reduced then Tank squads can beat them. Naboo Trooper squads have low attack, and that is the reason they can be beaten.

There's another couple of old favorites I would try. I used to run a double strafe/gallop Republic squad with AniStap and Yodabuck that excelled at taking out swarms like this. It also laid waste to commander lead squads with 80hp or less commanders. Basically one turn early tow Yoda with R2, open a door, gallop everything you can to put Ani in a nice spot (or a grunt if you think you will need Ani more than once). Your opponent can then attack Yoda twice, rarely kill him (obviously you calculate the damage they can do, but 160 with grunts in two activations isn't going to happen). On your next activation, you swap in the Stap, and strafe, or 8 square strafe/80 dmg to one target. It also had Qui-gon JT to boost Ani, who was a decent finisher. I'd update it some to this meta, but I loved playing it a few years ago.

Another would be the swarm killing Imperials with swap and Superstealth. Again, would need an update perhaps (maybe wouldn't even need SS against Daala), but it wasn't that hard to set up massive hits to lots of scrubs no matter how well the opponent thinks they spread out.

A third would be to bring back the double Uggernaught of Gencons past. This could win this game in round 1.

So I don't think we are done evaluating this meta. I'm not saying I don't see a problem with Daala either.

Also, to the person who said that Yodabuck wasn't a viable winning squad because it didn't win regionals the last two years, I must beg to differ. It wasn't run by me in any regionals or at Gencon last year. 2 years ago I ran it at Gencon (no regionals) and took 2nd with it. If run correctly (again, most people won't see this or even know what it looks like) it can win just about any match up. On occasion, you have to go for a 2 point win, usually by killing door control and locking out. It's not a great way to win, but that's the reality. Still, it always has a chance against any squad. The one match up that is very tough is against Mace tank with door control and losing map. Just need a bit of luck on the rolls to win, but this is a tough one short of trying to lock out. Which coincidentally is the squad I lost to in the finals. I also beat that squad or ones like it once during swiss.

No one really plays gungans, at all. Ever.

Cool

The thing I'm still seeing over all this is still a very constricted meta. Play Daala or play Hate. Count me out, I don't want to relive the days of snowspeeder (and that's still before I was fully competative). I played a fun squad at GC that year knowing it would lose and guess what, it still wasn't fun seeing the same stuff every round and do almost the same exact thing. I for one have no interest in playing in that kind of meta, because when it all comes down, this is still a game, and thus should still be fun.

I actually did play Yobuck at Gencon 2013 Bill. Going into the last round I assumed I needed a 3 pt win to make top 8. Could have easily scored a 2 pt win against Hinkbert (we discussed it and agreed that midgame or so that I could easily secure a 2 pt win). However because I believed that I needed 3 pts, I pushed on and ultimately lost because I couldn't do the last 10 to Caedus. And I also made top 4 at the NY regional, losing in a very tight game to Ben Guins and Malgus. So Yobuck is no where near dead and is still certainly a top tier option.

And I have seen Mike in action with the Gungans and it certainly isn't a squad I want to go against as it is very tough and Mike know what he is doing with it. Just like Bryan and his Thon squads and Jim with his Purple Dinosaur squad. I have said it before and will always believe that if you know your squad inside and out, it will give you a huge advantage and allow you to win games that you might not otherwise win.

That being said, this upcoming weekend and the tournies going on then plus the input and games of the entire community will eventually lead us to some sort of conclusion. I certainly don't want to knee-jerk because many of us saw what happens when you do. It can often lead to worse metas than if you had done nothing. When GOWK was banned, it created the Snowspeeder dominant meta, at least until some more stuff came out. While GOWK was running rampant during regionals there was at least a few other squads that could compete. Even in our recent history, you can look to Mace and Weir utterly dominating a regional season and everyone clamoring that they were too good, etc. Weir flamed out, and Mace went on to win Gencon and neither have done much since. Does no one remember the NPE/frustrating games of Mace or the questions of how do I beat a Weir squad?

Now I certainly believe that Daala could be more of a problem, but it still remains to be seen. How would it look if only one person plays Daala at Frostycon or only 1 player runs it at Hamilcon? What would that mean? What would it mean if everyone did it? There are lots of permutations to consider and not just the results. There is certainly a huge difference between winning on a one trick pony or mistake than by clownstomping everyone in a tourney.