It all depends on what people decide to play with on the day of Gencon. The people playing the squads are more important than the squads themselves. That said, I think it's a toss-up between Separatists (Lancer), and NR (Solo Charge).

I think it's really, really hard to tell. There's a very small gap between how good Lancers, Solo Charge (Mara/Ganner/Han/Anakin), Skybuck, and various Imperial squads are. I think that those are probably the 4 squads to beat. That doesn't mean they'll win, though; in 2009 Slow Cannon was the "squad to beat", but it's not what won the championship. A squad that was designed to BEAT Slow Cannon is what won.

Rebels didn't win a single Regional, but I've been playing around with and tweaking some ideas with them that just might be able to take on the top 4. If someone can devise something that can get a >50% win percentage against those 4 squads while also doing reasonably well against anything else it sees, I think that will be the deadliest squad there. But I also don't think we'll see what that is until the day of the Championships.

It also, of course, comes down to some amount of luck and a large amount of player skill. So somebody might build a Sith squad that's a stroke of genius and is the best squad in the field, but just not have the luck or the chops to follow through with it. So it's really hard to say.

Out of those options, though, if I absolutely had to pick one, I'd throw my vote behind Solo Charge. I won with it in Maryland, and I think it can take on the other 3 big squads reasonably well. I think it also has less bad matchups in the rest of the field, so it doesn't have to worry about getting paired with some terrible autoloss in an early round, like Lancer squads have to worry about a little bit more.

Fringe!

I also think it will be NR. Lancer squads are great, but have a couple of bad matchups. Even the best Lancer players will tell you that they need a little luck on the draw to avoid them. Lancers are so good in most games that you have to include them in the conversation.

I voted seps, simply because they have such firepower and not to mention lancer, that, and i have newfound issues with NR.

I voted Imperials since I saw how much damage the Echanis could do at the Michigan regional. That squad is scary fast. NR I would have stood a chance against, that Imp squad finished me in 10 mins.

We discussed this on the SHNN Episode 78 tonight. I picked Republic.

I went longshot, with OR. Bastilla is going to be a spoiler, lol.

I see quite a few Seps and Rebels in the tops, though.

I voted for the Seps-lancer.

Maybe it's time to break out "Luke Grandmaster"...

Well Tim, I am a little biased as well. Last year at GenCon I played Rukh twice over the course of the weekend. I don't think there is anyone in our community who would say that I am a better player... or even close to as good a player as he is. The one game where our squads were relatively equal in strength... or at least no bad matchups in that game, he controlled the game from the start. While it wasn't a rout, after the first few rounds I could see the writing on the wall. He won in the manner he should have.

The other game pitted my Vader Scourge squad against his double lancer. Without getting into too much detail, I set up well and employed a sound opening strategy. In a couple of rounds he had lost both lancers and I still had everything. From that point on he outplayed me significantly, but I played well enough to close out the win. My point? If a mid-level player such as myself can beat a top player like Rukh (a common sight in the final 8 each year at GenCon) just because of the matchup, it is something to be considered.

But, because I also see Tim in that elite category of players, I will allow that I may have overstated my point.