From May 20th through June 5th 2020, we opened the Season 3 community vote and the IACP steering committee asked for all of you to make your voices heard by sharing with us which Season 3 changes should be kept by the IACP and which needed to more work in a future season. Voters could either choose to approve a change or not approve a change. We also asked you all to share with us your thoughts about the current state of IACP and what you want to see from us in the future, both in the card changes we introduce but also in our core philosophies and how we do business, and we will be sharing that feedback as well in an accompanying article.
The preset bar for a card to be approved by the community has been and remains a 70% approval vote. This season we had 34 community members who chose to cast their vote, which means that a card needed a minimum of 24 votes to be approved into long-term IACP play. Additionally, we tried to make it clearer this season what that an approved vote meant that players were okay with a card becoming a permanent addition to the IACP official changes document, with no further changes being made to the card unless a rebalancing was drastically required. I believe it is because of that clarification that this season has had some of the closest votes we’ve seen compared to previous seasons as voters were more careful about what they voted to approve.
All Voting Results
| Proposed Change | Approval Percentage |
|---|---|
| Scout Trooper (New Elite Deployment Card) | 79.4% |
| Royal Guard (Changed Elite Deployment Card) | 88.2% |
| SC-2M Repulsor Tank (Changed Elite Deployment Card) | 88.2% |
| Tusken Raider (Changed Elite Deployment Card) | 91.1% |
| 4-LOM (New Elite Deployment Card) | 79.4% |
| Preservation Protocol (New Command Card) | 76.4% |
| Zuckuss (New Elite Deployment Card) | 79.4% |
| Findsman Meditation (New Command Card) | 82.3% |
| Boba Fett (New Elite Deployment Card) | 82.3% |
| Mandalorian Tactics (Updated Command card wording) | 100% |
| Dengar (New Elite Deployment Card) | 85.2% |
| Obi-Wan Kenobi (Changed Elite Deployment Card) | 73.5% |
| Yoda (New Elite Deployment Card) | 85.2% |
| There is no Try (New Command Card) | 78.8% |
| Biv Bodhrik (Changed Elite Deployment Card) | 94.1% |
| Close and Personal (New Command Card) | 85.2% |
| Saska Teft (Changed Elite Deployment Card) | 88.2% |
| Iron Will (New Command Card) | 88.2% |
| Get Behind Me! (New Command Card) | 94.1% |
| Parry (Changed Command Card) | 88.2% |
The committee held back two Season 3 cards from approval voting, Fury of Kashyyk and ISB Infiltrators, as the steering committee felt that they were still not competitively viable enough to warrant a permanent spot on the official changes document, but would like to revisit these cards for a future season.
Aside from these 2 withheld cards, I am happy announce that every Season 3 card on the ballot did reach the necessary 70% vote threshold for approval. For reference, all Season 3 cards (current version 3.2) can be viewed here: http://ia-continuityproject.com/iacp-official-documents/
First I would like to talk about two cards that the Steering Committee is especially happy to see get approved, Boba Fett and Yoda.
Boba Fett – 82.3%
Boba Fett is an iconic Star Wars character that deserves an elite place in the Star Wars: Imperial Assault pantheon of figures, and for 2 seasons now the IACP steering committee has endeavored to make Boba an appropriate IA badass without making him brokenly overpowered or an NPE for his opponents. If Boba has taught us anything, it’s that designing a powerful yet balanced figure at 13 points is extremely difficult to get right, and that also comes through in the comments from the community, as we had many comments on Boba’s deployment card, with equal numbers of comments saying he was still overpowered, underpowered, or just right, signifying to me that he is a complex figure that can create immense value in the right hands, but unlike something like Spectre Cell is still very beatable by a skilled player playing against a novice or intermediate player using Boba.
It is great to see Boba get approved with a >80% vote after so many tweaks and adjustments that had to be made since his debut in Season 2. We also updated Boba’s command with an aesthetic change to make it easier to understand what the card can and cannot do, and all 34 voters approved this improvement to the card’s readability.
Yoda and There is No Try – 85.2% and 78.8%
Like Boba but to a lesser extent, Yoda has gone through some revisions since he first debuted at the start of season 3, dropping down to 4 points from 5 and gaining the powerhouse defensive ability Force Deflection. Much like Boba, we got just as many comments from people saying that he was perfect and a ton of fun as we did comments saying he was overpowered and an equal number of comments saying he was underpowered. This is a good sign to me because it means we’ve made a figure that can provide a lot of value if used correctly, but who’s power level isn’t obvious without knowing how to use it well. With Yoda’s recent victory in the Season 3 Celebration tournament under the usage of Nova Open Champion Ryan Janway, along with more modest results for the Dagobah hermit in the very same event, Yoda is bearing out to be a figure that encourages list building with with figures outside of just the strongest ranged Rebel queen pieces, rewards skillful play and positioning, and at worst provides an extra Focus and card filtering in a Force User list for just 1 more point than Gideon Argus.
While nearly 85% of voters approved of our new Yoda, his command was slightly less popular, with 2 less voters approving it compared to the number that approved Yoda himself. The common comments seemed to be that there were just other ways of accomplishing similar effects that didn’t cost a 2 point command card slot, like Kanan Jarrus or Farmboy Luke offering rerolls, Ezra doing the same for his own attack dice, and other less narrow command cards that added dice to an attack or defense roll. However none of these abilities have quite the same level of flexibility (attack or defense) or reliability (die setting instead of rerolling) that Yoda’s card offers, and the card still easily surpassed the required 70% vote for approval.
Although every Season 3 card did end up reaching the 70% of votes required for approval, several cards in Season 3 got less than an 80% approval vote that we like to see for most cards, meaning that at least 1 for every 5 voters did not approve, so I would like to discuss those here and what that means for the future of these cards.
Obi-Wan Kenobi – 73.5%
Obi-Wan went through a significant change in the final update to Season 3 that came out in late April, receiving a buff to his Alter Mind ability as well as a brand new ability that allowed him to control when he was defeated and how many VPs he gave up by cancelling an opponent’s attack. However, there was a lively discussion on the Zions Finest slack channel that even with these changes, Obi still didn’t feel like he was worth 7 points compared to the 3 other rebel force users with the same deployment cost, Ezra, Kanan, and Ahsoka, as well as Diala at 8 points. Because it was already late in Season 3 and we had already made 2 updates to the season, we asked folks to reflect that in their community votes and to convince others to do the same.
Obi received 1 more vote than the absolute minimum 24 votes needed for approval. Because of this, we are going to be keeping him on the official changes document as-is through the rest of season 3, whereas if he had not hit the approval threshold, he would have been removed during that time period while we reworked him for a future season. However, we will be closely monitoring Obi-Wan’s performance during these next months (more info to come on exactly how we will be doing that).
4-LOM and Preservation Protocol – 79.4% and 76.4%
Folks seemed to really enjoy 4-LOM’s trait swapping ability, but some found his health to be a little low for his points cost. Several people also voted not to approve because they didn’t have enough experience with or against him, which is an absolutely acceptable reason not to approve a card if you’re not sure about a card just by reading it.
For 4-LOM’s command card, nearly a quarter of voters were left a bit underwhelmed, despite it’s resemblance to another extremely powerful command card, Miracle Worker. Most disapproving comments mentioned that 4-LOM’s fragility made it hard for them to want to risk including his command card in their deck’s in case he died before drawing the card, and the abilities it removed were the things that made 4-LOM appealing to include in a list in the first place.
We expect 4-LOM to be more of a niche role-player in Mercenary lists, either partnering with existing Hunters, or his BFF Zuckuss, to maximize his damage output, or focusing on traits that mercenaries have fewer options in, like Droids, Spies and Force Users, rather than being a ubiquitous mercenary staple figure.
Zuckuss and Findsman Meditation – 79.4% and 82.3%
4-LOM’s partner in crime. Interestingly, Zuckuss’ command card, which had been reduced to 0 points in the season 3.2 update, was more popular than Zuckuss himself. Based on the written feedback, I believe that good number of folks that didn’t approve of Zuckuss just felt they didn’t have enough experience with him. Again it’s important to note here that we are only counting votes to approve against the total number of voters, so any vote that isn’t to approve a card is basically a vote against the card, there are no neutral votes in this case.
Many people did comment positively on Zuckuss that he felt strong but not too strong, and that especially his Shared Calculations was an excellent new tool against those pesky white dice dodges. His Stun Net ability was also quite strong on a Hunter rolling green/green/yellow, and actually led to us having to re-evaluate how liberally we give Stun abilities to figures that can deal a high amount of damage as well. At this time the committee is confident in Zuckuss as another solid addition to the list of Mercenary Hunters that has interesting cross-synergy with Droid lists.
Elite Scout Troopers – 79.4%
Most players seemed to like the new Scout Troopers, and those that commented in favor of them seemed to REALLY like playing with them, but there were more than a few comments that their attacks felt just a bit too weak for a 4 point figure, even when their Exploit Weakness ability had been turned on.
This had been discussed within the committee when we were discussing which season 3 cards weren’t ready to go to approval voting yet, but we decided to just see what all of you felt about the cards instead. For a brand new figure to the game, and considering how controversial their Camouflage ability was on release, so far the scouts are doing okay and aren’t causing any problems. For now are okay with leaving as-is based on the community’s feedback.
I want to thank everyone who took the time to vote on all of these cards. Community participation and investment is integral to the long-term success of the IACP project. All of you that want to see Imperial Assault continue to grow and evolve as a fun and competitive game are the reason that we do this.
Again I will state that though ideally an approved status on a card means no future changes are needed, the committee can and will pull approved cards for adjustment IF there is a substantial need to do so in order to get a card to a desired level of playability, but we will do so after giving the community time to play with the card that they approved unless the overall health of the format is being threatened.
We will also be posting a part 2 of the community vote results, which will have the results from all of the other questions you answered about what you want to see for the future of IACP and how you want us to go about getting there, so stay tuned for that article.