1) Larger hero pool.
 
2) PVP

If you have alpha strike (triple Defender or better firepower) or you cannot catch Manaroo, kill Dengar first.
If you do not have alpha strike, or if you can easily catch Manaroo (Dash + Engine), kill Manaroo first.
Try to avoid shooting Dengar when he has arc, as that just gives him an extra shot. This means sometimes you do NOT attack.

FCS brobots I assume? It's difficult to do that against a good advanced sensor brobot player. In the days when 4 unmodified red dice was actually good, that list was a good match against imperial aces.
Four bases is considerably different to pass through than two brobots as it takes up much more space and it's something people don't really appreciate unless they were playing long ago and remember Lambda shuttle spam. Two Adv Sensor brobots will probably try to bump each other to park in front of you, thus it's only half the depth of a lambda diamond.

I don't think you're doing anything wrong.
My philosophy is that if I compute a tournament result like this, I will save it. It's just more versatile and robust. It allows manual edits, and it's more able to resist breakage if the pairing system changes in some future version of the rules, it allows tools to process it more easily, etc.
It's debatable what penalties should be associated with (the player, the round, both?) but they're still part of his database (I saw SQL queries in his code). I hope it's sqlite but I didn't check.

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

I love me some Runebound, but I will be the first to admit it does have flaws. Not what the OP mentioned really (Excluding expansions, they are always welcome to extend the life of the game).
 
The most glaring flaw is that the absolute best strategy for being able to deal with the major threat is the most boring one in the game. Ignore quests and instead do nothing but run supplies and get gold to buy items to make you more efficient at gaining gold to buy gear, weapons, armor, etc for extra combat discs. There are very, very few skills in the game that trump having extra discs in combat, to the point having a diverse skill set with great combat options but weak or no discs will still have you get creamed in the final encounter where as someone with no skills at all but good combat discs will almost always win the throw down because their combat damage and defense are superior. Using this play style, players who can manipulate travel dice or have higher speed right out the gate have a clear advantage. Is it fun to play this way? Not at all, but it is the playstyle that offers the maximum chance at victory and skill cards should be made that really are more worthwhile for combat choices. There is a skill, for example, that makes all your attacks unblockable. That is a great skill and is worth the time to gain, many others though offer only a small increase or new and not so powerful ability that makes spending the time gaining them instead of gold and gear a poor choice.
 
An option could possible be to increase physical damage by 1 for every strength skill, magic damage by 1 for every magic skill, and defense by 1 for every agility skill you have on your character for all combat that are added toward any similarly thrown discs making skills very valuable indeed, even the ones you wouldn't normal invest the time in gaining because of the increase in survivability and damage dealing aspects of your character. Make it so that you can only use the printed attribute total on the character card when using such a feature to keep it from being terribly broken and suddenly taking time to acquire skills places them on par with mid level equipment but better than poor equipment and not as good as high level equipment.
 
I would have to try a few games with this rule in effect to see how it plays out though. It might be terribly broken, but as it stands right now just running for gold and milling the store deck for the best items is already incredibly broken during most end game scenarios as is. At least this way it would make the game more fun for me and my group who have gotten hung up on gold gaining instead of questing for skills in games as of late.
 
Edit: As an example for the combat encounter using the optional rule I mentioned. Let's say I have 2 strength skills, 1 magic skill, and 2 agility skills. I toss my discs and the results are 2 axes, 1 wing, 1 shield, and 1 doubler. All added up I have 4 physical attack (2 axes +2 strength) and 3 defense (1 shield+2 agility), no magic attack (No disc face with magic attack so the bonus isn't applied from my skill cards). The doubler would only effect what is on the token and not the skill bonuses so I could jack the physical attack up to 6 (4 axes+2 skills) or the defense up to 4 (2 shields +2 skills).

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

Once in dogfighting range, if the Miranda moves first it can set dial to bomb with zero guesswork. A conner net on an Imperial Ace is very potent. Sabine Crew makes things even worse.
 
Here is the K-Wing's maneuver options for Advanced Slam.
 

The intentional draw rage was directed at players though. Players do what it takes to win an event. FFG added it, and you can't blame competitive player for using it.

The intentional draw rage was directed at players though. Players do what it takes to win an event. FFG added it, and you can't blame competitive player for using it.

So I pressed F5 and it all it does is adjust the keyboard backlight.

So I pressed F5 and it all it does is adjust the keyboard backlight.

edited: Rephrased for politness :-)
 
A lot comments here from people who don't understand the UK meta.
 
1) The bigger the event, the more likely you will see it dominated by cookie cutter lists. Oddities do well in small, local events where you know the meta very well, but they quickly get countered in larger events because you will have a greater chance of seeing your hard counter.
  2) The majority of UK events are larger than, or have a wider catchment area than, all but the largest US tournaments and this is why their meta is less flexible. But "US nationals is huge", you say. Sure, but it's special. In the UK almost any random event is within 1 or 2 hours travel of 50+ million people so you are strongly encouraged to bring take-all-comers lists even in regular play.

edited: Rephrased for politness :-)
 
A lot comments here from people who don't understand the UK meta.
 
1) The bigger the event, the more likely you will see it dominated by cookie cutter lists. Oddities do well in small, local events where you know the meta very well, but they quickly get countered in larger events because you will have a greater chance of seeing your hard counter.
  2) The majority of UK events are larger than, or have a wider catchment area than, all but the largest US tournaments and this is why their meta is less flexible. But "US nationals is huge", you say. Sure, but it's special. In the UK almost any random event is within 1 or 2 hours travel of 50+ million people so you are strongly encouraged to bring take-all-comers lists even in regular play.

edited: Rephrased for politness :-)
 
A lot comments here from people who don't understand the UK meta.
 
1) The bigger the event, the more likely you will see it dominated by cookie cutter lists. Oddities do well in small, local events where you know the meta very well, but they quickly get countered in larger events because you will have a greater chance of seeing your hard counter.
  2) The majority of UK events are larger than, or have a wider catchment area than, all but the largest US tournaments and this is why their meta is less flexible. But "US nationals is huge", you say. Sure, but it's special. In the UK almost any random event is within 1 or 2 hours travel of 50+ million people so you are strongly encouraged to bring take-all-comers lists even in regular play.

It's obviously not working. As I said, they need to get some really good people on it full time and not as unpaid volunteers.

It's obviously not working. As I said, they need to get some really good people on it full time and not as unpaid volunteers.