Since ARC-01’s release at the beginning of August, I have been gathering data from traditional IRL tournaments (online play not included) with a minimum attendance of eight players and using ARC ruleset only. I used these thresholds because smaller events are usually located in less competitive environments, while mixed content naturally complicates the analysis of the new cards’ impact.

    Not many major competitions happened since the release, as those are weighted toward the second half of the season's calendar. Most of the data comes from local tournaments and Regional Championships, which leaves a room for a lot of new things to be discovered. That brought us to a total of twenty events so far, with many more to come!

Empire

    Starting with arguably the strongest and most developed faction in the game, the ultimate question was: "will minor adjustments allow reworked commanders to challenge the unholy trio of Jerjerrod, Sloane and Thrawn?". Similarly to Rebels, having a lot of material available caused a situation in which some commander options became less effective compared to the others. For that reason, the intent of ARC-01’s relatively minor changes was to enable some competition within the Empire as a faction, without boosting the faction itself. Looking at the data, it seems like the goal has been mostly achieved.

    It was never unusual to see Motti and Vader around, but a minor points drop apparently was enough to lead some people into giving them another chance. Both appeared in the Top4 a couple of times and both even managed to take a tournament victory in smaller local events.

    Palpatine and Screed is a different story. Despite a little rework which could potentially open up the field for a new playstyle, The Senate and Cyclops surprisingly weren't very popular. Sure, Papa Palp won a pretty meaningful Gdańsk Regional Championship (you could watch it on our YouTube channel here, but according to the testimony of the champion, the Emperor wasn't a crucial component of his list’s success. In the other competitions Palpatine's and Screed's appearance was almost anecdotal.

Darth Vader TIE Advanced

    And so was with TIE Advanced Vader. Rivalry for the 4th ace spot in Imperial squad balls is still huge and replacement of his keywords, although thematic, apparently has not found useful utilization yet.

    With all of the above it would be fair to say that the Empire kept its identity and its character was not significantly changed by the ARC-01 release. A couple of revised Imperial warlords did join the party and strengthened their position a bit. Does that mean the Empire is shattered by inner conflict and has lost its place as the leading faction? Probably not yet, but the future is uncertain and its enemies are growing stronger…

Rebels

    The Rebel Alliance for years has offered a broad variety of playstyles and archetypes, however that doesn't mean it lacked pieces deserving some love from a development perspective. That naturally led to a point where some tweaks to existing stuff was the preferred solution over the creation of entirely new content. Does it mean the players are not excited to use refitted "old guard" Rebel Heroes? According to data; not at all!

    A new life sparked inside two commanders who were rather dormant in the past few years - Draven and Sato. Draven briefly had a moment in the sun with his release in RR2, but enthusiasm was quickly extinguished by the rework in errata shortly afterwards. It wouldn’t be too exaggerated to say that he never really made his debut. The second admiral, Sato always existed, but was always in shadows, striking from time to time in some exotic setup. He was running his guerrilla warfare like a true Rebel.

    Patience however seems to be paying off. These gentlemen are probably in their prime, having the time of their life. They are the only Rebel commanders to win tournaments so far (Sato x3, Draven x1), plus they frequently finish in the other top seeds - especially the Raidman. Will their current state persist for long? Probably not, but more about it later on. For now - let them enjoy their piece of cake, it's just good to see them back.

    Moving on to Ladies (Where are my manners? - I should've gone with Ladies first) the contrast is quite apparent. Leia exists, seen some tables, but besides a few appearances and getting second place twice - she remains kinda niche. Better than past few years, but nothing too impressive.

Mon Mothma (new)

    The most surprising thing however is Mon Mothma's case. Many players predicted her to be one of the strongest pieces of the whole ARC-01 release. Meanwhile it turns out her popularity fluctuates around Leia's levels, while her results are even worse (single 3rd and 4th place). It’s difficult to say what the reason for it might be. By default she fits the MSU archetype, which has its tides - ebbs and flows (currently in the ebb phase), but even then she was expected to be a consistent presence. Nevertheless, I believe players will warm up to her eventually, we probably just need to wait a bit for it.

    Let’s head full circle back to Gentlemen, though this time to the ones occupying tight cockpits. Han and Luke came back, to some degree, being used mostly with... yes, you are right - Sato and Draven. Friends off the table and friends on the table, frequently taken to a squad balls together. Present in successful Top4 lists, even winning ones, at least a few times.

    Alliance players seem to have a good time playing around with these revised toys, temporarily putting aside the faction’s tested, reliable solutions. It will be interesting to see how the situation within the faction evolves in the later stages of the season.

Republic

Arquitens-class Light Cruiser

Venator Star Destroyer Imperator Refit

    In contrast to Imperials and Rebels, GAR received some entirely new RR1-style content. Recently the whole faction was leaning heavily towards squadron builds, so I was curious to see if ships with an armament-related profile would restore the all-ship archetype internally. The last couple of months brought us three tournaments won by Republic fleets, two of which were indeed based on squadless concept. The only issue is...

... that none of them contained the Arquitens or the new iteration of the Venator. What's more both models didn't even manage to reach the Top4 of any event. Going through the data I was desperately trying to find any trace of those pieces. Remember the Attack of the Clones library scene, when Obi-Wan tries to locate Kamino? That was me.

    And so I found some Arquitens, but barely, however no sign of life from the Imperator Refit. Paraphrasing Kenobi; maybe the archives are incomplete? Uploading lists to a T4/Longshanks is not always mandatory, so surely some data is missing. However what are the chances that an unrecorded 5% to 10% of data hides precious GAR deposits? It's probably low.

    The Republic Navy has some issues, but thanks to brave, dedicated players, it tries to keep up and still finds its way on competitive tables. For now - they remain old fashioned ways, but the future has many secrets to uncover (wink, wink).

Separatists

Quarren Prototype Gunship

Munificent-class Command Frigate

    For a long time after its release, it was CIS who suffered the most. Remember the 2022-2023 season? There was a natural dominance of Galactic Civil War factions, occasionally followed by some decent GAR performance. Then next year, pretty much the same; Imps, Rebs and Reps, laughing at your Asajj officer, bragging about their brand new Matchstick and Salvokin. Last season was much better, but not too innovative. Playable archetypes fluctuated around Grievous squads and Mar Tuuk bunkers, responding to meta changes rather than the attractiveness of the faction itself. Today it looks like that state is gone.

    Separatists are frequently chosen, it doesn't matter which region of the world we speak about. They make it to the top of the ladder, they win competitions, they display a lot of variety.

    Quarren Prototype and Command Munificent perfectly filled a gap which existed for years. Each of the ships landed in the Top4 seven times. Two out of five tournaments taken by Seps included them in the winning list (Muni x1, Quarren x2). They don't dominate, but they are useful, they deliver, they seem to be exactly where they’re supposed to be.

    It’s a nice contrast to GAR, who tasted it some time ago after the RR2 release (who's laughing now, Jedi scum?). It is all however still ultra-fluid, so we should be reasonable and take it easy for a while. In the meantime, let's enjoy the moment, seeing Droids winning effectively, with grace of Federer. Roger, Roger.

Summary

    Like all types of releases, ARC-01 raised a lot of hopes along with several concerns. This is what new things do by their nature, as they change the environment we all got used to. The point of mentioned changes in the world of wargaming is usually pretty clear - content has to fix things, entertain the players and provide variety. The result is never perfect, as such subjective assessments give no accurate measure, but it could be satisfactory up to some degree, visible in the community's approach.

    That part is usually reflected by the data, however as usual in statistics, there is always some room for interpretation. I wanted to address this particular point in the following summary.

    First the material analyzed in this article displays barely a quarter of the season. It’s only been three months after ARC-01’s release, mostly filled by local tournaments, with very few Championship rank events and almost no Majors (besides the Canadian ones). Twenty competitions of such weight are nowhere close to giving us a permanent view about how the state of the game will end up looking like. We can observe the patterns and clues, sure, we can notice some interactions, but there is still a long journey ahead.

    Secondly; the discussed ARC-01 expansion is still very fresh. The fact that most of the larger events of the season are yet to come, keeps the meta in a testing phase. We do know that people apparently feel much more flexibility and freedom when it comes to list choices. Speaking of things that are playable right now, we don't really know what will prevail, or disappear and what is yet to rise. We will have to wait and see whether players continue the current patterns, or whether they are only a temporary affair due to the excitement around the release.

    All that said, we still shouldn't be too enthusiastic about current "winners" (CIS ships, Sato, Draven) and too sad for current "losers" (GAR ships, Mothma or Screed). Especially with the example of Rebel commanders, it is hard to believe that Sato and Draven will replace Ackbar or Agate for good. 

    One thing for sure is that we are currently observing a huge variety of units hitting the tables. Armada offers a crazy amount of possible playstyles and archetypes, which is currently giving me a serious headache as a player preparing for the European Championships. It is however objectively good for Armada as a system, making it engaging and interesting once again.

    It’s good to see the game is still popular as the upcoming European Masters will be the largest European tournament since 2019!!! gathering old friends and new recruits around starfield tables. Can't wait to see you all at future events!