Echo opening moves

Hello everyone! 

Today's post will be a step by step guide to castling with Echo, when to do it, and some general decloak tips. Here is a link to the list I have been running.  Recently, I went to a tournament and got 3rd place running this list. I lost one game, and that one was both of us down to just our Ryads, and he was much better than I. I think this list and this strategy has a lot of strength.

Opening tactics are talked about a lot in a general sense of have a plan, know if you want to joust or flank, etc. But, the only real opening tactic I see people talk about is the rule of 11, and I think it would be beneficial to start looking at specific openings for specific list types/pilots.

For those that don't know, the rule of 11 is how many spaces you and your opponent must travel before you can fire at each other. It is supremely helpful in every game you play.

In this scenario, I want all of my guns to be ready for a joust at round 3, and I want to not sacrifice the Cow's (Palp shuttle) position.

This means that the Cow cannot move too far so it can still chase later, and it means that both of my aces need to be close by.

I have used this exact opening around 20 times, and having such a specific plan has really helped me in improvising when an opponent is unpredictable in their first 3-4 turns. The general rule while improvising is that the palp shuttle stops for the stress, bumps to clear, and repeat until your frenemy dies.

Turn 0: 

Now, there are some crucial steps to making the castle work. 

1. The first is to place an asteroid at 3 and 3 with a range ruler. This ensures enough space to own a corner of the board.
2. Place the space cow at a 45 degree angle turning toward the asteroid. 
3. Place your flanker (I like Ryad and Inq) up against the shuttle 
4. Place Echo at range 3 away from the other side of the board, and facing the shuttle.

Turn 1:

Ryad's dial is going to depend largely on what your opponent is doing. For this attempt, I want to engage with all of my guns on turn 3. So,

1. Cow dials in a 1 straight, forcing a bump
2. Ryad dials in a 2 straight, ensuring she will not be harmed this round
3. Echo dials in a 2 straight and cloaks

Turn 2:

Decloak:

Echo decloaks forward and to the left. 

Movement:

1. Palp dials in a 0 stop for a stress
2. Ryad dials in a 3 straight and uses her ability to flip 
3. Echo does a 1 hard left and cloaks

Turn 3:

Decloak:

Echos next decloak is left and back. This puts him up against the palp shuttle

Movement:

1. The shuttle does a 1 straight for a bump
2. Ryad uses her ability to turn around on a 3 straight again
3. Echo does a 1 hard to the right. He then decides to take a focus or barrel roll for the best position. 

I now enter combat of turn 3 with all of my guns facing the same direction from the corner of the map. I can now engage with a lot more flexibility than if I went chasing and had a lot of debris to worry about.

Let's say that Echo was able to get a shot, what does a normal decloak pattern look like while chasing down an opponent? 

The great thing about Echo is that she can stay on a target in one of the most unique flight patterns, so she becomes hard to predict. The strength of this list is the solid kill box that it can create and maintain. In a meta that is shifting toward firing arcs, it is more important than ever to have specific plans to maintain firing arcs on your opponent while minimizing their firing arcs on you. 

What do you think of this type of blog post? Should I work on more of these tactic breakdowns?