A hot topic since early 2017 has been the Zeta lead of Darth Maul, aka Zaul.  The addition of the Zeta leadership improved many characters in Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes, but none as much as Darth Maul. Before the Zeta Maul was a squishy toon who was a nice play against Jedi and really not terribly useful outside of that. But the Zeta leadership and addition of the Daze debuff to his AoE attack changed everything for the Episode I Sith Lord turned Clone Wars and Rebels bad guy. The addition of the Zeta turned Darth Maul from (barely) good to greatover night.

If you believe the SWGoH forums, the Zeta Darth Maul leadership was the worst thing that happened since 9/11. But while the addition of R2-D2 and the emergence of the Rex lead seem to combat the Zaul lead nicely, I am here to tell you that rumors of Zaul’s death have been greatly exaggerated. I wondered myself if this was all true given I am unable to put the time in to compete for #1 in my shard on weeknights this time of year. Last week (Monday through Thursday) I saw my finishes at an average of 9th place after months in the Top 5 almost every night. Of course Little League practices and games each night prevent me from being glued to my phone each evening at 7 pm, so whatever I can do to climb the ranks before 5 pm each night is going to have to be good enough. However, Friday night we had the night off and the weekend was unusually calm. Thus, I was able to lock in the top spot in my December 2015 shard on Friday, Saturday and Sunday running my Zaul, Nihilus, Emperor Palpatine, Savage Opress & Zylo team.

Looking at the Top 20 in my shard right now, 9 are Zaul leads, 7 are Rex leads, 2 are Wedge leads, 1 is a Nihilus lead and one a zQGJ lead.

My takeaway from all of this? Maul is not dead, nor is he close to dead. He remains viable in the Squad Arena and will likely continue to remain viable for a while, especially if you are maxing him out along with the toons around him. However, he is not OP anymore. Rex leads, Wiggs/Chaze/R2-D2 and Zeta Qui-Gon Jinn are all viable and I have even seen a few Darth Nihilus leads (which I beat with ease). So for those who complain on the forums all day about how terrible the world is and how bad SWGoH is becoming, you can relax. And for those of you just wondering what to do next I suggest we sit back and see what happens next. Either way, the playing field is a bit more even today than it was before.