TLDR: How do Gremlins stack up as a faction in competitive play?
Long version:
Me and a buddy have been playing a casual game every week at our LGS, but we've run into a snag. I own four crew boxes(Hamelin, Colette, Ophelia, and Wong) along with a few extra models(mainly Slop Haulers and Brotherhood of the Rat), while he owns four as well (Colette, Kaeris, Pandora, and Titania) plus a few extras as well. We both love the models and lore behind them. Now, I usually play Gremlins as I don't like Hamelins play style, and colette tends to be a mirror match(I really only got the Nightmare version cuz I like the Carnival aesthetic) and it's gotten to be where I do good more than I do bad playing them.
Here's where the problem comes in, because he feels like he loses more than he wins he's checked on the internet and found that Gremlins are the best. Like seriously, he says that they are sweeping tournaments and are just overly efficient. His main problems are Reckless, Heals(slop haulers and Lightning Bugs), and Dumb Luck. He especially hates Francois, which I agree is an incredibly efficient model. Anywho, he feels that I am destroying the fun in the game by playing Gremlins as they are Cheese in his opinion and he will never be able to win at a reasonable rate as long as I play them.
Things came to a head last night as on turn 2, my Francois recklessed, walked then charged. I then went on to Dueling Blade her, hit, declare dumb luck, and even with a negative on the damage flip from accuracy do max damage, straight up one shotting her. We had a heated discussion where basically I said I'll try to get some other sets that I'm interested in and I felt it was over after that, however he sent a text later that night with screen shots of http://usa.malifaux-rankings.com/ showing that the top USA player is also the top Gremlins player and that Gremlins have a higher average player score than other factions. Once I started looking at all the data presented there, I felt it showed a different picture. I told him that it was obvious the average scores were skewed by unranked accounts, that the top 8 players in that list only really includes one gremlin main, and that looking through a bunch of the reported events I'm not seeing many events that Gremlins swept. Anywho, any evidence I give him is just "confirmation bias" and I'm defending my cheese. He now doesn't want to play anymore.
Am I playing cheese?