A large amount of the complaints I've heard are from conversations not forums. I guess it is safe to assume many of these players are reading forums and it just seems alot of people are complaining about not being able to beat the piece. I've heard no one in my conversations complain yet about being to win too easily with it. This is the first time I have heard this. I freely admit I do not follow alot of sites and only post here on a regular basis. I call it "whining" because these players are saying it's unfair to play the piece because it is unbeatable. I don't see it that way. I just see it as players crying foul because they are losing. Maybe I'm wrong in that assumption.

Shouldn't the best players playing the best pieces win most of the time? From the outcomes in the tourneys are bad players winning with GOWK? The one post someone copied over from WOTC where Nivuhac posted he came in cold and is a bad player is just his modesty. He even replied saying he sucked to my post on WOTC. That is not true . I was his final match whom barely won and I did not find him to be a bad player. Myself, as I said, I consider average and it didn't benefit me any more than any other squad playing GOWK in my final standings. As I said it is just my personal opinion that GOWK is not as all powerful as everyone is commenting. Maybe it is just my inexperience in playing.

I also want to make sure you do not think I am trying to belittle you billiv. I know you are a well respected player in the SWM community and it is players such as you that keep this game going strong. For that reason I respect you as well. I just disagree with the opinion that GOWK is too powerful and needs to be banned. I hope you have not taken offense at any of my comments because I truly did not try to disrespect you. If I did I apologize. I think most of the people that know me personally or have met me would tell you I'm not like that.

Wow. Well I for one look forward to the results. I would like to know if any bad players use the piece and actually does well, but it doesn't sound like there will be many bad players there

Lobo I officially challenge you to win with Ventress lol.

Heh, trust me, there's plenty of whining that goes around. I can see how it's tough to distinguish the two sometimes. Of course, I (and others) may not feel like we're whining, but that's how it appears to others, so there still could be some truth in the accusation. :P It's nice to be reminded not to whine about things though too. ;)

You can do at your store whatever you guys want to, as long as everybody agrees to it. We play DCI every single week at our one store in Cincinnati, but often times we do things like Dream Team, or Tile Wars, or Dynamic Duo, or Melee only, or stuff like that. We also usually allow people to use the Jedi Cartographer maps instead of the WOTC ones if they want to. It's basically just a matter of getting everyone in your venue to agree. If everybody is OK with continuing to let GOWK be played, then no big deal. Personally, I would probably be OK if people at my LGS continued to play him, as I think that the top players at the store are bored with him anyways, and will want to try new stuff, but it would allow the younger/newer players who still want to use him a chance to continue to do so, and perhaps end up doing better against some of the tougher players. But, funny enough, it's actually been the younger guys at our one store in Cincy that have asked for GOWK to stop making appearances. As soon as our Regional in Cincy was overwith, we've unofficially banned him already for our Thursday night playing, per the request of several of the players. Just depends on your store, I guess. :)



Well, but see, that's the problem, and part of what many of us have said is the trouble with GOWK. I could easily build a squad that can compete with the rest of the field. Heck, my San Hill IE build, which is one of my favorites right now, would likely be my first choice, and it can pretty easily handle Force Push, NR, TBSVs, Palps on Throne, etc. Any of those (sure, some are still tough games, but I think I could run it with success). The problem is, that San squad can't barely touch the GOWK squads. So I can't build a squad that will "compete with the rest of the field" but still be "a squad that can beat him". The two are almost mutually exclusive. Player skill comes into it at that point. I think there are a lot of GOWK players that I could beat while running my San build. But I've already played it against the likes of Billiv15 or others before, and it loses. Quite easily, to be honest.

So, if I were to take that squad to Chicago on Saturday, I'd feel fairly confident about being able to compete against "the rest of the field", but I'd also know that there's probably only about a 10% chance that I'd actually beat the GOWK squads being run by the top players.

I haven't decided what to play yet. Probably won't decide till the night before or the day of. I'd like to try out the new Assaj, as joelker41 suggested, but I haven't come up with a squad design for her yet. We'll see. I'm definitely going though, so you'll hear what I play and how it does in the tourney report. ;)

Packs were officially available today.
(some people found them early tho...)

LOL, except then somebody will just say we lost intentionally to prove the point.

Seriously though, yeah, I understand what you're saying. We'll see. I've been playing around with squad builds around Assaj (no, I don't have her yet, but her stats were spoiled last week), but haven't settled on anything in particular. Will probably bring all my ideas on Friday and see if you or the other guys have any suggested improvements. ;)