Update to all. I have successfully made my ship shard interesting again at least for me, but hopefully to the others as I am the ONLY one running a Thrawn with a completely HMF free squad and I can get to #1 and stay in the top 10-20 consistently depending on how far I drop and how much time I have to climb before payout.
I can't take credit for the squad as I found it online but the game play variations I have made to counter the other players' counters are to my credit. KRU, Gauntlet, HT to start. Reinforce with Cassian at the right time to nuke HMF and if successful, (a pretty big IF), I win coz the rebel squad is a one ship wonder as we all know (which is why it is sooooo boring!)
There is a lot of RNG involved and not a sure win in the least. If I miss HMF when I make my play to nuke it I almost always lose. I just grimace when the RNG is ridiculously in favour of the defender whether that be a defender thing, a who paid the most money thing, a who has the 'meta' ship thing or (most likely, I hope) my imagination.
Anyway, I have no problems with this thread morphing into a 'C'MON' CG get on the ball with ur character/ship releases! I'm also bucking the meta in arena running a powered up Padme in the top 100 now. I actually don't have JKR or DR yet and I'm at +3.5 mil GP. Such BRUTAL farms if you don't pay money, which I don't.
500 gems in a day for top 100 arena and #1 in ships ain't bad at all for F2P.