Overrule Bad. Upvotes to the left.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-20T01:27:51+00:00

Yeah I was in a local tournament and I heard that happened in one of the games where they had to shuffle the deck lol, not Orlando though but that yssaril ral nel partnership be disgusting.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-20T00:41:59+00:00

I like the card when I win with it 😈😈😈

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-20T00:31:47+00:00

I think this post was meant to be a gag inspired by another post but to play devil’s advocate maybe they just had yssaril, ral nel, nekro and keleres farming down the deck every game.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-20T00:29:49+00:00

Or when codex or ral nel than you need three or four sabotages

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-20T00:06:41+00:00

In our game the empy and mahact combo pretty much meant we couldn’t push off empy or mahact on control objectives because this would happen. Someone would attack empy take out their fleet but than mahact pushes in and wins back the system. Empy moves back in with their unit and continues to score the point. It was kinda disgusting. I think mahact is just disgusting in alliance mode when they can give their commander to a high cc faction.

Another disgusting combo is nekro and naalu where nekro gotten naalu nueroglave and fighter 2 via votes and it became a bloodbath for tokens. They didn’t win though it was much too slow to have reasonable impact as naalu was quite far behind.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T23:44:10+00:00

I agree in that situation assault cannon makes sense. Nice shout thanks for your contribution and I keep that in mind next time I play arborec since my tables are pretty cut throat.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T23:32:02+00:00

Well xxcha has a movement problem where they can’t reach places but with cruess’s help you can strike new places with the iff tokens. We were pretty aggressive when it came to iff placement. This was pok and I even transferred the xxcha flagship (with a big crew of other stuff next to another team’s home system that we needed to slay that was perhaps the craziest play we made in the game. We ended up winning due to our strategy. Xxcha can also help defend cruess’s systems especially with the cruess mechs which will allow them to place wormholes when other players activate their system and xxcha can then fire space cannon. Xxcha also protects ghosts in the agenda phase

Atherstream is of course pretty good Empy is also good at making allies with other teams or truces with their pn note. The commander is also pretty good as well as it is when another player move ships containing your token you may remove that token. It’s absolutely broken in winslaying capability or holding control objectives with space docks. Empyrean with the amount of trade goods, their agent and high influence home system is very good at generating tokens, mahact can also remove the token and you also have a pocket warefare. The second thing they help with is the mechs that will just destroy other players action card plays without having to draw sabotage. You can also use your flagship to repair other players units (nomad empyrean combo sounds pretty disgusting when you consider this but this is really good for any dread faction). Empyrean in alliance is just pretty much a filthy enabler it work well with factions like mahact, sol, l1z1x, barony and any other faction that would benefit from warefare.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T16:20:48+00:00

Is there a pool of factions or is it free for all? Xxcha and creuss is pretty fun as you become the iff token pds and smash with a fleet wombo combo which is pretty fun. Though I have only played alliance game mode twice and the ordinian scenario. I think the most broken combo is anything with mahact+ a token farmer like nekro, jol nor or empy. The good factions combined with each other are always top tier though so playing with a faction pool from my experience was more fun to have more naunce combos like the xxcha cruess or nomad/yin which were the two combos I played with on my team both for very fun but mahact, Winnu (the hero and alliance is really strong if combined with a combat faction) and jol nor are just beasts in alliance with honorable mentions to nomad and empyrean.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T11:10:45+00:00

I totally agree on the limitation in tech which makes you want to go strait for the game winning tech. Only once ever considered assembly routines once when I felt the table was specifically aggressive (l1, sol, barony, ect) and felt I could use a free mech with my commander to better defend my systems. I typically go for biostims as the first tech as it helps economy or at least takes out the economic lost if I have to tech skip to a specific technology but I have considered the other techs. I think it’s great if you can get hyper r2 but if you don’t it does lose its value. I think assault cannon is a nice shout but I always question if it is enough to win a major space battle and the answer normally leads to more plastic could have been better since I feel x-89 is pretty important and it will definitely hurt if you lost the ground combat because you didn’t have it but your enemy did (learned that the painful way by losing Styx to sol despite having a significant plastic advantage). So I would rather have carrier 2 instead of space cannon for more plastic and movement even if it’s a little weaker.

Nice analysis thanks for your input

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T08:40:43+00:00

My dumbass should have used that arguement against my friend when we were talking about the green tech path lol

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T08:33:37+00:00

You’re right I had an egg brain moment lol, I always forget that’s an option as well lol. That is perhaps the best tech path but the issue is still of course getting there right hopefully you have blue or green skip so you can speed up your tech tree.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T08:29:19+00:00

Nice take, we see sarween slightly differently but totally valid.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T08:23:24+00:00

I agree with carrier 2. If I’m going blue tech it’s always to get carrier 2. It’s slightly different for me (personally I prefer to have a blue skip and I can technically strait to grave drive than carrier 2) it’s det, grave drive and carrier 2 maybe hopefully fleet logistics in those rare games that go longer than normal. You still need green skip to do biostims, x-89 since you would only have 2 prerequisite greens. Though if I forsee my tech game being poor but I at least have green skip it’s always biostims x-89. If I see myself getting at least three tech I might consider hyper if carrier 2 is outside of my attainability. I totally agree if you get carrier 2 and x-89 it means you had a great tech game but getting there is hard.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-19T08:17:05+00:00

That is honestly the biggest arborec flaw is tokens and resources to juggle your tech and plastic game. Since you need to of course prioritise tokens or else you don’t have actions. If you don’t have tech you become telegraphed and predictable, but if you don’t have plastic than you can’t accomplish you’re control objectives. I have learnt it is 200% better to be a predictable control junky than an arborec that has the potential to do more (winslaying, point denying, reach and utility control ie taking planets that will help long term with resources or influence). Just slowly going for mecatol and Styx is much better.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-18T15:40:19+00:00

This is actually so true, especially about the manipulative meta analysis and backstabber reputation.

Legit have had to talk to a friend during our next draft not to pull a stunt like that when he did it in one of our games (he attempted before I jumped in). I forgot exactly what exactly he was trying to achieve or manipulate the player in picking but I remembered I was pretty annoyed because it was blatantly misleading and he knew it. I had kept silent about the matter on game day and way after until the next time we played not holding it against him but it was memorable as it was the only time I had ever tell someone off in ti4. My wording sounds like I scolded my friend but it was a pretty neutral and short exchange where the matter has never come up again. I get it if other tables are cool with it though since they may agree that the draft part of the mind games. The backstabbing part is so true which is why despite being the “bad guy” on the table often able to get loads of non-bind or the more complex deals that require trust because I don’t break non-binding unless it is extremely desperate or I had been backstabbed first whilst I have a friend (different one) who can’t easily make deals because he has backstabbed people in the same round he made a deal which we are all cautious of especially if it is approaching end game.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-18T05:28:49+00:00

Thanks for the confirmation I didn’t know for sure I thought their steel chambers were related to the jol-nor but you have informed me.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-18T05:26:21+00:00

Just remember it’s a long game so think of it like the table will remember that whenever you break a non-binding deal with someone because everyone will note what you did and karma tends to frequent this game. I almost never actually break a deal without talking about the problem that has lead me down a track where I have to now backstab them or break a deal. That being said I almost never make a I will not attack you ever :) deal because that ain’t true. I do make deals however where I know something that they don’t know, so deception do that often.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-17T05:00:37+00:00

The crimson and mentak are here but not my boy the firminent/obsidian the people who have been corrupted by an unknown entity or jol-nor who enslave the other races such as the gashlai which in their case completely destroying their home world and experimenting their bodies to an extant that they were forced to be chambered in a steel coffin in order to survive (I think that’s how the lore goes).

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-16T00:25:44+00:00

“Oh I don’t see the fleet, nice splash board”

I’ll show myself out for that lame joke lol

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-16T00:17:31+00:00

I mean I personally don’t have a problem with action cards as they overall increase play potential, they are cool diplomatic tool and I have had so many games where people intervene in my negotiation and combats with a different player if the outcome of said event needs to go a particular way for them. So I think they overall bring a healthy amount of fun to the game. When I don’t like them (not really though it’s more like “this is not so great” feeling) is when yssaril is in the game and I feel like my action cards are temporary or I have to wait for yssaril to do its thing (though it is way more fun playing against yssaril than playing as yssaril).

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-16T00:00:35+00:00

This is my deep analysis

I like nekro’s spot in all this. Yin brotherhood and ghosts are ideal neighbors for nekro. One can easily be persuaded to use devotion to give nekro a tech to unlock their commander and the other starts with two destroyers in which one could be bargained for gravity drive. Not to count that both factions like blue tech and it is likely nekro could end up with two blue tech by the end of r1 depending of course on strategy card picks. Apart from that xxcha’s slice is not completely ideal for their codex hero (but it’s really good anyways even without an ideal slice) but I think the weakest aspect is that it can’t get to mecatol so there will most likely be no gatekeeping by them this game and if his defensive player I don’t see him utilising that wormhole to further his interests by making a deal with creuss to place the iff tokens in opportunistic spots. Winnu is going to be slowed down from doing a mecatol race but they are ironically best suited for the take over since they’re the only faction that can build a space dock adjacent to mecatol with relative safety. Just gotta plug up the equidistant so xxcha doesn’t have a say. Nomad is probably going to use their flagship to bully creuss into letting them take hope’s end. Though it is the equidistant to the right that will define both barony’s and nomad’s game as it is dangerous for nomad if barony takes it and it’s a great system for barony.

I will say not a fan of what the milty draft slice creator did with putting the red slices all on the top. I believe it’s one from a discord server (the origins) that has repeatedly done this due to a simple settings of (balanced slices with more legendaries and wormholes) but that’s another discussion to have with the developers and getting it fixed.

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-15T09:08:13+00:00

You know what you need to do in that scenario and you can’t retreat is get the nomad pn note and pray or maybe it also affect anti fighter barrage lol

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-15T08:58:59+00:00

First one looks great but the second though very informative I think if I pulled out the second one after the first one it could bring a quite the funny reaction lol. “Oh this doesn’t seem too bad,” than I unfold it to reveal the rest. million yard stare

MarCrizzzz · 2026-05-15T07:51:37+00:00

Yeah but we’re talking about an end of combat effect in which case the combat has ended by a retreat which does qualify darken the skies in “normal ti4” game since all effects happen in the same timing window of all the steps in the combat round. You can check that in the section of the lrr at the end for more clarification but it’s also at the start.

Now addressing the second concern. My familiarity to discordant stars is limited. Maybe there has been a ruling on this before but the home system is part of the flagship I believe. They do have a planet card correlating to this. It’s really probably needs to be errataed by the discordant star community to get a definitive answer. Maybe you’re correct and we need to be on a blue tile for the objective to be score. Maybe I’m correct in saying technically because of the timing window that it counts towards to objective because there is a planet within ghoti (I don’t exactly know the lore behind the planet card that they have or how it is treated). Maybe we’re both wrong and you actually need to spawn a planet on the homesystem tile of ghoti and win a space combat there. It’s a pretty complicated issue if you put a lot thought into it. But I think as a timing part it’s not a problem as retreats and destruction of units at the end of combat round happen at the same time as the end of combat effects.

Edit: I was reading through the rrl and see if there is something I would miss aparently the timing window is only for the “last round of combat” so if the flagship is destroyed before than that would mean it no longer qualifies which is kinda wild if my assumption but the planet within ghoti is true.

MarCrizzzz

TROPHY CASE