With the new Admiral Daala, there are some really good squads floating around out there. The old Admiral Piet can give the opportunist to troopers, Daala gives the movement breaker and if you want init control, look no further than the imperial pieces that were supposed to break Thrawns hold on the Imperial top squads, those being Disra, Flim, and Grodin Tierces clone. So has Admiral Daala finally done it? Are the Thrawns finally not auto-includes in every competitive squad?

Closer, but I'm not sure we're quite there yet. She definitely opens up some interesting options. I think there are some older pieces that haven't seen use that might actually work pretty well now. I'm interested to see some of the non-obvious builds that players come up with.

It's kinda nice that she makes the low end commanders better for taking out enemy fodder too.

From a casual players point of view Thrawn is still there best commander but he is no longer used in every imperial squad. Unlike some factions I don't believe Imps have an auto include anymore. Which is good for Imperials. I look forward to the days when every faction has this sort of diversity.

How about her with Gary and gloom walkers

The fact that this discussion is even happening is obviously a good thing. Daala definitely creates some very powerful squads, obviously precluding Thrawn. The thing is, she works best with swarms, and there are plenty of counters to swarms out there already. It's really a meta call; if you go to a tournament and don't think you will see much strafe/gallop/whatever swarm counter being played, then a Daala swarm couldbe VERY powerful, and would be a competitive option without Thrawn. Of course, strafe/gallop does really really well against even Thrawn-based Imperial squads, so if you DO expect to see a bunch of those squads, then you probably wouldn't want to be playing Imperials anyway. One of the reason Imperial squads have done so well this year is that Yobuck has been practically non-existent at regionals and Lancers haven't really appeared either. Of course, we just released a bunch more strafe/gallop options, which should help rein in the Imperial power we've been seeing lately.

So to answer the original question: Maybe! It will depend a lot on the competitive meta. But now there will be a certain environment in which a non-Thrawn Imperial squad can compete. We will just have to wait and see if that's where the meta goes. It's been unthinkable in the past, though, so we're definitely on the right track. And most importantly I think we did it in a way other than just making something outright better than Thrawn. Daala is a genuine Thrawn alternative, not a Thrawn replacement.

As a mainly Imperial player I gotta say that sadly no.

Imp Trium, however failed experiment was meant to stop us from using Thrawn. Daala is MUCH better but she won't see a lot of competetive use. Imperial faction needs another movement breaker -it's as simple as it is. Whatever will it be, it's gotta be much different that our old, overused swap. It's very difficult to say what exactly they need- either existing breakers (levitate would be great I suppose) or something completety new. Either way it should be something that good that would convince me to leave old blue guy in the box ;)

Aside from giving that character Rival: Thrawn, which could become overused and contrived, or Prideful 32. What's to stop the breakage of using the new movement breakers you're asking for with swap....