Fleet Counters for the Modern GAC Meta
March, 2025 Edition
A long, long time ago, in a reddit post far, far away, I wrote a whole thing about how to counter Leviathan.
I was wrong.
And I’ll tell you how… shortly. First though, let’s talk about GAC fleet defense. There are 9 common fleets you’ll see (okay you may see others but anything outside of these 9 probably sucks - and if it doesn’t please tell me because I want to know about it!)
The Journey Fleets:
This is arguably the best defense money can buy. Except it’s not, because Prof and Levi have easy, high banner counters. Exec is fucking baller with P1 though. By far and away the hardest fleet to counter from this bunch. Still doable though.
Popular Fleets for Defense:
The above six fleets are also popular on defense. And they’re… fine. Mostly. Negotiator is one of the best defensive fleets in the early to mid game, but it’s a losing play in the endgame (I’ll explain). You may notice how I named my Executrix fleet… that’s because this is FAR BETTER as a one-shot counter to P1 Exec than it is on defense where profundity eats it for breakfast. Same with Chim. They just don’t hold up. Raddus and Finalizer can both surprise with holds, and Mal is a competent play (though I prefer it on offense).
For what it’s worth, my defense is Leviathan, P1 Exec, and Raddus. This typically gets me at least 1 hold, and usually results in low (comparatively) banners for my opponent vs. my other fleet defense options.
So let’s discuss those options, shall we?
Leviathan Counters:
Up top is the standard Levi Defense fleet. And below are the two teams I use to counter Levi. Or rather, the team I use to counter Levi, and the team I used to use to counter Levi.
Words cannot express how effective the Endurance counter is. Important factors: Anakin needs to be faster than Marauder. Having a high relic Snips helps a lot with her survivability. I have been told Wedge is a good 2nd reinforce if you need buff block, but I’ve never needed him and if you decide to bring a 2nd reinforce to this fight, you need to also bring Phantom because someone has to eat the sabotaged hangar and then this becomes a kind of shitty lower banner fight. F. That.
Play is predictable (yay): Right out of the gate you want to special with Fives against the B28, use the Endurance’s third ability (the crosshair symbol attack) on the B28, basic with Anakin on the B28, and then use Marauder’s third ability to attack the B28 while granting Anakin stealth. They’ll take some turns in there - don’t even worry about it.
After that your goal is to start killing things. Fives’ basic will cleanse taunt off the B28, snips reinforcement will deal high damage and cleanse taunt of the B28, anakin’s special will hit everyone and put buff immunity on the B28… seeing a trend? Kill order is typically the B28, the sith fighter (they reinforce it first), and so forth.
I want to put some respect on the name of BigSimpConnor on youtube. Okay I don’t want to put respect on that name, but the man figured out this counter and his video explaining it is excellent:
He explains it all much more clearly than I ever could. I ramble too much.
This is a HIGH BANNER COUNTER. That’s the name of the game here. If you one-shot all of their fleets, and they one-shot all of yours, using high banner counters will give you an edge. This is also an EASY counter. Thank god. Because that prof counter is annoying AF and has a lot of RNG factors. F that. Bit Dynasty, the legend that he is, explains it (and all of the bad RNG possibilities) here:
Yes this guide is for the old levi, but it’s basically the same counter now since prof isn’t affected by the levi buffs at all. Note that my fleet above shows three reinforcements, but the proper counter only uses the Mk.6. The others are alternate reinforcements which are okay, but not as effective. Using the Mk. 6, however, means you don’t have it in your Levi fleet, where it is critical!
This is also a HIGH BANNER COUNTER but it’s very RNG-succeptible, complicated, and unreliable.
“What about the mirror match, Kahz?” The mirror is a 100% win rate using (in this order) scimitar and the mk 6 as reinforcements. EASY! But it’s lower banners than either of the above counters and thus terrible. Also if you’re using the mirror, that means your Levi isn’t on D, and you’re giving TWO easier fights to your opponent: the fight against your worse-than-Levi fleet, and the fight they get to use their expected Levi counter against.
I HATE MIRROR MATCHES!!! They’re just recipes for how to lose.
Profundity Counters:
Standard Prof D on top, two excellent counters below.
The Executrix counter is the highest banner counter to Prof I’m aware of (other than the zero reinforcement mirro), it’s pretty easy to pull off, doesn’t suffer from RNG very much, and uses ships you don’t need anywhere else (unless you also need Executrix for a P1 counter - grr). Personally, I go for the prof counter over the P1 counter because it’s more reliable and you have more P1 counter options. While, in theory, this is a 76 banner counter, in practice your ships all get beat up a little, so 72 is a more realistic result.
Skelturix breaks it down:
The other, somehow even easier counter, is the P1 Exec, and that’s so effective that almost no one puts Prof on defense anymore. As you can see, I run triple attacker, but using HT in the starting lineup in lieu of XB is fine as well (same for defense). I don’t imagine anyone needs a guide on how to stop the crap out of Prof with P1 Exec. It’s basically a free fight; just not as high a banner one as the Executrix counter.
And you can mirror Prof v. Prof with zero reinforcements for a whopping 77 banners, but that locks you out of a high banner negotiator counter, so it’s situational at best (that video is linked below, under Negotiator counters, and I’ll explain why down there).
P1 Executor Counters:
Assuming Prof is NOT on defense, the Executrix counter is an excellent off-meta counter to take down a very stubborn P1 Executor running the triple attacker lineup shown here. It’s a great counter (and fun!), This is high banners, but it’s also a bit tricky. As before, BitDynasty lays out a bunch of ways this can play.
If their prof IS on defense, then you want your Executrix to take that down, meaning you need an alternative P1 Exec counter. Shockingly, Profundity still puts in the work! Note also that if the enemy P1 is low star, OR if they run HT in the starting lineup in lieu of XB, the odds of them killing one of your initial TIE fighters in their opening salvo drops dramatically, making the Exec counter significantly less successful. Thus, Prof becomes my preferred counter for its reliability. The hardest matchup is against a lower star P1 (surprising, I know) due to its slower speed. Bit Dynasty breaks it down again. The man is the best. Please give him some views and subs and stuff. I’m happy to shill for him. He’s a gem. Note that you really only need a single reinforcement, but which reinforcement to bring is kind of conditional, so you won’t be getting the highest banners here without taking a bit of a gamble. Still, a one-shot is always better than a 2-shot.
So if they have all three journey ships on defense, and you bring Endurance, Executrix, and Profundity on offense, and you guess correctly on which ship to bring for the prof v. P1 counter (Ghost, probably), you can win all three fights with 76 banners.
Of course, I did mention how Prof isn’t usually on defense, right? So what is there instead?
There are also two flavors of Galactic Republic counters to P1 Exec that I was told I was remiss in omitting when I first released this guide:
As I mentioned earlier, when Exec with P1 has a low star P1 (like mine) OR has HT in the starting lineup (as pictured), it doesn’t hit so hard on the opening slavo and that can mess up the ‘Trix counter. So what to do in that circumstance? Endurance again! I still prefer Endurance for the Levi counter over this one, but it is a great option if Levi isn’t present on D, freeing up your Prof for a zero reinforcement counter against another Prof or a Neg. Once again, Bit Dynasty crushes it with the strategy:
If P1 is running 3x attacker and you want to use your Trix to beat a Profundity instead, then this same fleet with Negotiator capital rather than Endurance is also a solid option. Both of these GR fleets are lower banners than the other counters I’ve listed, but depending on what the enemy gives you to fight, they’re good to keep in your back pocket. Which Bit Dynasty covers here. Give the man some views and sub to his channel!
On a personal note, I have not had as much success with the GR counters to P1 as others have reported to me, but I also don’t run them as often - it’s a negative feedback loop.
Honorable mention vs. P1: Finalizer can win in a 1-shot with good RNG, and is my preferred clean up for 2-shot battles.
Negotiator Counters:
Did I say “counters?” Plural? Silly me. There is only one counter I will ever use vs. Negotiator and that’s the 3-ship Profundity counter. It beats the shit out of any flavor of Negotiator fleet for a whopping 77 banners. This is the highest banner counter in the game against a meta fleet.
The Gerbil has a video on this:
Note that while he doesn’t need reinforcements, he still brings them. That’s a mistake which costs him 2 banners. Also note: This is an old video. The Prof vs. Exec counter won’t work this way if they have P1. The Prof vs. Prof counter WILL work, but if you’re in a situation where they have prof and neg on defense, you will get higher banners going prof vs. neg and ‘Trix vs. Prof than you will with Prof on Prof violence and some unknown alternative Negotiator counter (there isn’t another super high banner neg counter that I’m aware of).
So let’s loop this back around. You may recall that I recommend (and use) Levi / P1 Exec / Raddus on defense.
Why do I use Levi on D if it’s countered so easily by Endurance of all ships?
Because no one knows about this counter, and so many people are married to negotiator that they won’t run it anyway. The LSB for Neg means a lot of people have the fleet to support endurance, but that sunk cost fallacy of Neg makes them use it instead. And if the use it on D, they’re setting the stage for you to 77 banner clear them with Profundity. Win/Win for you.
What about P1 Exec? It’s such an easy counter to profundity!
Yes, but P1 Exec is otherwise a very strong defensive fleet. If they don’t game plan a specific counter for it, they won’t beat it. And we already have high banner counters to prof ready to go.
And Raddus? Isn’t that listed in your “this is so easily beaten I’m not even going to explain it” section?
Uh… yes. It is. But you’d be amazed how often it gets a hold or two. People burn their strong fleets on the journey ships and then don’t have proper counters left to take down Raddus.
And on offense? What fleets are your go-tos?
Well if I’m facing myself (I hate mirrors, but still - gotta game plan for it)..
Levi: I’m taking this down with Endurance. If Levi isn’t there on D, that means I can run either Endurance or Negotiator with the same fighters.
P1 Exec: I take it out with Executrix. If P1 Exec isn’t there, then I have the same fleet usable with Chimaera to take out a lesser enemy.
Raddus: Profundity eats this for lunch. If I needed Prof for a Negotiator or Prof mirror, then I’ve got Negotiator or Chimaera to wreck Raddus with. And if, for some reason, any of these counters fail, you have Mal, Finalizer, and Home One on hand to clean up. Note: Home One kinda sucks without the MilF. Emergency use only.
Remember: You don’t need to be perfect. You just need to be better than your opponent.
Good luck out there!