GAC: Going up against a GP/GL heavy opponent

I see a lot of threads here on the forums about how it's no fun when you get matched up against someone with many more GLs and/or the same number of GLs but many more total squads. It sure seems like you're in a disadvantageous position. Worse, it often feels like the situation is, "If my opponent shows up, then I lose; if they don't, I win."

Not only do I get it, but if you're in Kyber4 or Kyber3, I'm someone who puts you in this situation on a regular basis. I have all the GLs, Profundity, Exec, a roster of over 9.5M, and decent (though not exceptional) mods on my best squads. If you're wandering in and wondering how to beat me, you might look through my GAC history and find that I very rarely change up my defensive squads. You'll see a time or maybe even two each month where I forget to hit entirely. Then you'll see a bunch of times where I attack once and then never again.

What you'll never see from me is a full clear.

I don't like GAC. I'm fine that it's part of SWGOH, it's just not my cup of tea. Unfortunately there are crystals involved so I have to win a round now and again. But I hear so many heartbroken calls about losing to people like me slumming it one or two divisions below where it seems we belong, so I'm going to give you some advice on how to beat me.

Those times I attack once and then Never again? They're not random.

Sure, sometimes life is busy, and that will seem random to you, but that's part of a larger pattern: I'm just never going to spend much time on GAC.

That's why you see my defence stay static. That's why you never see a full clear from me -- ever. That's why you'll see me win without clearing a territory sometimes.

It's because I never, ever, ever spend much time on GAC, and even when I feel like I really need a win (which doesn't happen often) I will do little more than absolutely necessary to get the win.

If I see that you've cleared a full territory of mine -- even one -- more than 90% of the time I will let you take the win.

To the people who come along after it will look like I attacked once the night before and never came back. But the truth is that I do log into the game regularly, and I almost always have a chance to do that around lunchtime, with a couple hours left to go in the round.

If I see that you also attacked only once and are still behind, I'll probably never check again. Most of these will be no-effort wins for me, so why would I bother?

So strategy one would be if you see a history like mine, attack once with a team that is likely to lose banners -- take it up against QGJ or something -- and kill the squad then leave things alone until the final hour. If it's me or someone like me the fact that you only attacked once even though you knew you were still behind tricks us into thinking you're a low-effort GAC player as well (remember that as low-effort players we won't have chanced your GAC history to notice this isn't true). I probably wampa'd something, so it's easy to score well but behind my single attack, thus lulling me into a false sense of security.

Come back later with little time left in the round and stomp a few of my easier defensive squads -- YOU WIN! And it wasn't random. It was your strategy and your crafty cleverness, the way that you actually took the time to identify a low-effort player and use that against them. CONGRATS!

But if you won't be around at the end of the phase, then this will also work against me, and who knows it might work against other low-effort GAC players as well:

1. Put at least one GL on defence in each of the visible territories.
2. Put at least one Omicron squad on defence in each of the visible territories
3. Clear out one entire territory of mine
4. Clear all the easy squads to beat in the remaining visible territories

This isn't too demanding. It may not be easy, depending on your roster, but if you have 4+ GLs you can do this since I don't even remember how many GLs I put on defence, but it sure as heck isn't as many as 3 in any single territory.

The goal here is to just make GAC take time. Make it take more time than I want to spend on this game mode. Make me think about what the counter is to this GL or that Omicron team.

It's not that I'm not smart enough or that I don't have the roster pieces. I honestly just don't care that much, so I've never put effort into learning them. Put me in a position to need to think and spend time on GAC and guess what? You won.

Sure, what you'll see on the scoreboard is that I attacked once and never came back, but don't let that fool you. You have a strategy, and you used it, and it worked: the crystals weren't worth the effort on that day, against you as an opponent.

CG has decided in its wisdom it wants all players to win approximately 1/2 their GAC rounds and lose 1/2. I could do that at Kyber2 with my roster, but it would require me to GitGud at a game mode that I just don't find entertaining enough to try that hard.

So instead I let myself ride the boundary of K3 and K4 and pick up wins only when it's easy and quick.

It seems like it's random: but it's not. Be a pain in the tuchus. Keep your score low until near the end of the round. Place GLs on D and clear a full territory or two if you can manage whatever is in back. Then keep going and hit the easy squads that are left, even if they won't clear a territory for you.

Your score doesn't have to be beyond what is possible for me to match. It just has to be beyond what I feel like bothering to match.

Do that, and then when I never come back for a second attack, smile. You didn't get lucky. You learned to understand your foe and used their weaknesses against them.

Chug a ginger ale or eat a chocolate bar: you earned it. Because the one thing that's certainly true about all the people with 5M GP and 3GLs that beat me is that they didn't get lucky. They just put in more work than I wanted to match.

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