Just played a one vs one with both me and my opponent playing Advent Rebels. The game was going well for both sides, and there was a tremendous amount of tug and pull. But the entire game shifted when my opponent pulled out two (2) Iconus Guardians with Repulsion.
No matter what I threw at his fleet, mine would simply be decimated, and I have absolutely no idea how or why. I've heard of this technique, but I have never heard of it being entirely effective, especially since the counter to it is to spam LRF. I did just so, having a fleet of over 30 Illuminators with Deceptive Illusion (so well over 60 illums) and about 20 defense vessels to counter his corvettes. For some reason, my illums weren't even firing; like they were incapicated or out of range the entire time. I'll be honset, I forfeited after my fleet was AGAIN destroyed within about a minute.
So, my question is pretty obvious: How do you counter repulsion effectively early on? The easy answer is strike craft, but with Advent, that is no cheap endeavor, especailly when the enemy fleet consists of nothing but corvettes that can simply run your carries down and destroy them.