Ok, so we’re doing this again. Fresh off Galactics, the first real week of ASH Premier data is in the books, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t start with the obvious question hanging over the whole season: does the deck that won the Galactic Championship two weeks ago just keep winning? As it turns out, yes. Emphatically yes!
A quick methodology note before diving in further: We’re working with data from SWUMetaStats.net, which aggregates results pulled from Melee.gg. Other trackers, SWU Competitive Hub among them, are watching a slightly different slate of tournaments, so a number you hear elsewhere won’t always exactly match what’s here, but that doesn’t mean either has it wrong. The win rates themselves, both here and in the Meta Dashboard, are per-game win rates, not match win rates, so keep that in mind as well if there’s slight variance with numbers reported elsewhere. And finally, it’s important to note that these APR figures are cumulative rather than a fresh count every week. There’s a real tradeoff to tracking it this way, which we’ve talked about in the past. It can sometimes mean that a good or poor performance holds on through the numbers if you’re only looking at the aggregate, but on the flipside, you’d get unconnected dips and spikes if you measured individually. So make sure that you check out the trendlines to really get a sense for where things have been and where they’re going over time.
Cad Bane Didn’t Get the Memo
Cad Bane / Blue 30 (Vigilance) put up quite a few entries in Week 1, good for 11.0% of the tracked field — the largest single archetype share of the week by a full two points over the next closest deck, and not empty volume. The season sits at five event wins out of ten for Cad Bane so far, a 56.1% overall win rate, and a 63.8% average matchup win rate that’s the best of anyone with a real sample behind it. One in four of his Top 8 trips has ended in a title.
To that end, this isn’t a new story so much as the same story continuing. Cad Bane won the Galactic Championship, of course, took the field share lead late in the Galactic Open, and now shows up in Week 1 doing the same thing to a more distributed, less curated field.
The Field Behind Him
Cad Bane wasn’t alone at the top, and the company he kept tells its own story. Boba Fett / Lake Country put up the second largest field share (8.95%) but converted almost none of it, six Top 8s and zero wins. Ahsoka Tano / Blue 30 posted a similar shape: third largest share, but only three Top 8s and no wins. Darth Vader / Yellow 30, which took three GC Championship Top 8 seats, kept a healthy field presence but a win rate barely under 50% and no titles either. Big decks, quiet week.
Not everyone with a smaller field share had that problem. Luke Skywalker / Data Vault showed well with seven Top 8s and a positive entry rating. Then there’s the week’s real workhorse story: The Mandalorian / Colossus. Only 88 entries, well down the list by raw volume, but seven Top 8 trips and a win, good for a 14.3% closing rate second only to Cad Bane among the week’s top ten field-share decks. The Mandalorian won the Galactic Open two weeks ago. Small sample, sure, but that’s twice now this deck has shown up big and left with a trophy.
Why Cad Bane Keeps Winning
Let’s put a number on the “is anyone actually answering this” question. Among archetypes at 2% or more of the field, exactly one has a matchup that leans in its favor against Cad Bane, and by the thinnest possible margin. Sure, Boba Fett / Lake Country sits at 50.4% into Cad (a real coinflip) and the one matchup on the board where Cad Bane isn’t the favorite. Everything else trails: Luke Skywalker / Data Vault at 45.4%, Ahsoka Tano / Blue 30 at 47.9%, and Darth Vader / Yellow 30 down at 41.7%. That’s a deck that beats almost the entire field it’s skewing, not just outnumbering it.
That last one is worth pausing on, because Vader’s FWME (that’s the field-share-weighted matchup number estimating how a deck performs against a randomly drawn opponent from the real field, not a flat average across matchups) sits at 49.0%. Still below breakeven against the whole field, not just Cad Bane. The Cad Bane matchup isn’t Vader’s only problem. It’s a symptom of a bigger one.
Ahsoka Tano and Luke Skywalker / Data Vault tell a more hopeful story one level deeper. Neither has a win yet, but both post a solidly positive FWME, 53.3% and 54.0% respectively — a matchup spread that’s actually good against the field, just hasn’t closed one out. Director Krennic / Blue 30 is the inverse case: his FWME sits at a strong 56.2%, good against the field broadly, but his matchup into Cad Bane specifically is a rough 40.1%. A deck can be legitimately solid and still badly allergic to exactly the matchup that decides whether it wins right now.
Which brings us back to Lando. Granted, the sample’s still small, but his 61.7% into Cad Bane is the best real number on the board by a wide margin, and the only one of these actually rising rather than fading. A nice little signal to keep an eye on heading into Week 2.
The Suspension Talk
Ok, I’d be doing this deck a disservice if I didn’t mention where a chunk of the community’s head is at right now. Suspension is a topic that’s been floating with several content creators and in discussion forums particularly from looking at a slice of just this weekend’s PQs, which had Cad Bane at 18.2% of the field, 28% of Top 8 slots, and 37% of event wins — a much steeper concentration than the 11.0% field share in the season-to-date totals above but a lower win rate than the cumulative 50% of wins, and that gap is basically the whole argument for tracking this cumulatively. A single weekend can run hot in a way that looks alarming in isolation and considerably more ordinary once blended into the season total, which is the number that’ll actually tell us whether this sticks. In this case, slicing it one way or the other changes which of the stats look more alarming.
Their read on why is worth taking seriously, regardless of the exact numbers: it’s probably not Cad Bane specifically so much as the blue/red villain toolbox Ashes of the Empire handed him. Chimera, Pre Visla, Marrok — all concentrated, conveniently, in the same narrow color pair, and Cad Bane just happens to be the best leader available for them. Which raises an interesting question: does Talzin or Aurra inherit the same problem if Cad Bane got suspended tomorrow? I haven’t seen anyone with a confident answer yet.
The matchup data only half agrees with that read. Lando’s number backs it up in a big way, that 61.7% into Cad Bane noted above, small sample and all. The Mandalorian is one I’d push back on, though, despite popular opinion of him as a counter. Cad Bane actually holds a slight edge there too, 51.4% in his favor, and the Mandalorian’s overall matchup spread sits below break even. Its win this week looks more like a good bracket than a real answer. Lando’s real vulnerability from what I’m seeing i’s space decks and fast aggro eating him alive before he gets online.
Whether the suspension talk turns into an actual suspension is well above my pay grade, but if the field share keeps climbing the way it did between Galactics and Week 1, don’t be surprised if this becomes the actual headline by Week 3 or 4. And if the win share keeps up at this rate… Well, that will truly be something to worry about.
The Rest of the Board
A few more results worth flagging before I close this one out. Lando Calrissian picked up two wins on two separate builds — one on Lando / Colossus, and one on Lando / Blue 30, which bears repeating is a pretty good take for that leader this week. Dedra Meero / Colossus picked up a win too and Admiral Piett / Blue 30 turned it’s showing into a title with a closing rate worth watching in Week 2, small sample and all.
There you have it. One week in, and the story isn’t a new one. Same deck that closed out Galactics, doing it again in front of a bigger, much less curated crowd. Only time will tell whether the field adjusts to Cad Bane or just keeps feeding him more players to beat, but I feel confident saying next week is going to be about whether anyone can actually solve this matchup picture rather than just out-volume it.
