The Coruscant™ Invitational

Welcome to Coruscant™. This seat of power will play host to the climactic ending of the X-Wing™  System Open Series and bring eight competitors from around the world together in the Coruscant™ Invitational at the 2017 Star Wars™ Celebration in Orlando, Florida on April 13-16th. 

The Coruscant Invitational is the final competition of the X-Wing System Open Series, a string of events around the world celebrating the game and community of X-Wing. While the first eight System Opens will feature large tournaments open to all fans of the game and Star Wars, the Coruscant Invitational is an exclusive eight-player tournament featuring the champion of each System Open and a special format that will challenge and test each player’s mastery of the game.

The Pilots 

The Coruscant Invitational is an exclusive event that invites the most skilled and proven pilots of the System Open Series. Each winner of a 2017 System Open will receive travel, hotel accommodations, and a full pass to the Star Wars Celebration in Orlando, Florida on April 13-16, 2017. Should a pilot win more than one System Open, the second invitation (as well as travel, hotel accommodations, and event pass) will be passed on to the player finishing in second place at that System Open. Any other issues or vacancies in the culminating eight-player tournament will be filled at the sole discretion of Fantasy Flight Games.

77-Plus Format

The Coruscant Invitational will feature a unique new format called 77-Plus, which will lead to some very interesting squadron compositions. Each player in the Coruscant Invitational will bring 77 points of a squad for each faction, in honor of the 1977 theatrical release of Star Wars.

At the Coruscant Invitational, players will then draft mini-squads to complete their squads. Various members of the X-Wing community and Fantasy Flight Games staff have been selected as mini-squad creators. They will compose mini-squads, worth 23 to 28 points, using a specific ship from each faction. To ensure squad legality, when choosing their pilots and upgrades, no unique cards can be used in these mini-squads!

Most exciting of all, one of the mini-squad creators could be you! We have left the mini-squads for the B-Wing, the TIE Advanced and the Scum Y-Wing to be created and voted on by the community! See our first voting article for more details on how you can see your mini-squad in the hands of an Open Champion.

The Draft

The drafting portion of the Coruscant Invitational will consist of three phases. The System Open Champions will be randomized and placed into eight “Chairs”.

In phase 1, chair #4 will select which faction will be drafted from first. From there, in ascending order of chair number, the champions will select mini-squads from that faction’s pool. Once a mini-squad has been drafted by a player, it cannot be selected again!

In phase 2, chair #5 will select the faction that will be drafted from. In descending order, the champions will draft mini-squads from the pool in order to complete a second squad.

In phase 3, the Champions will draft in descending order of the number of competitors in the System Open they won. In the case of a tied attendance, those tied champions will be placed in a random order.

This drafting structure will force players into a lot of different strategic choices throughout their process of squad building, drafting, and gameplay. Are you going to field a high risk Imperial ace  backed by Emperor Palpatine , while the mini-squad portion of your squad is going to be committed to a lower pilot-skill ship? If you want a blocking element in one of your faction's squads, are you going to include that in your 77 points, or will you gamble on having to draft a mini-squad that could fulfill the role? If you’re forced to pick a mini-squad that does not have much synergy with the rest of your ships, how will you adapt your strategy? 

The Tournament Structure

The eight players at the Coruscant Invitational will be divided into two groups, even or odd chair numbers, and then play three round robin matches in random order against the other players in their respective groups. At the end of three rounds, the player with the best record from each group will advance to a final match to decide the Champion of the Coruscant Invitational! Margin of victory, and then higher chair number, will be used as tiebreakers if records are tied.

At the beginning of the first match, players will evaluate their opponent's squads, and then simultaneously select which of their squads to field for their match. For the second match, players will choose from their two unused squads. The remaining squad must be used in the third match.

For the final match, each player will choose one of their opponent's three squads to impound. Then, players will select which of their other two squads to fly in the match. The Champion must not only be an accomplished pilot, but also have the ability to predict their opponent’s moves and exploit their weaknesses.

Prizes

The eight Coruscant Invitational players will already be receiving the awesome prize of attending Star Wars Celebration 2017, and get to compete in a unique and exclusive event. However, they won’t be leaving Orlando with just amazing experiences. The winner of the event will gain the Greatest Prize in Gaming—a chance to cooperate with game developers to inspire a new card for X-Wing! In addition to a variety of prizes, attendees will also receive an exclusive Coruscant Invitational playmat to commemorate their participation in this elite competition!

Join the Celebration

If you’re not one of the lucky eight who are playing in the Coruscant Invitational, you still have a chance to have an impact on the outcome of this event! Check out how you can create and vote on three of the mini-squads, and follow along during all eight System Opens as we celebrate Star Wars, X-Wing, and the connections they have created around the world!