Before you give the obvious answer- on some level, I get it. The other IR-slinging F-16s are 12.3 with non-IRCCM missiles, so this thing with Magic 2s and AIM-9Ms should be a higher BR. I get it.
But also. 12.7 with zero radar missiles is… an experience.
You’re pretty regularly uptiered to 13.3/13.7 where you’re basically food for the other team. You have no ability to pressure or counterfire on people at range since all your missiles are only effective within ~4km (or more if you’re using AIM-9Ms from top-down). Closing within that 4km in the first place is a chore; if you multipath then half the other team focuses you down, if you go mid- or high-alt then your 60 CMs isn’t going to do much against the onslaught of Fox-3s rapidly approaching your location. And before anyone mentions the F-16A ADF and how it has less countermeasures, or the F-16A MLU and how it has the same amount of countermeasures, and how those are both a higher BR- those work because they have ARH missiles. They can pressure and counterfire on people and get them to go away, for lack of a better term. With this thing your only options are to either multipath or endlessly notch, and to that end you’re completely at the mercy of the competency (and pettiness) of the other team.
Someone I once talked to described this thing as a support fighter; you’re not gonna get much done with it on your own. That saddens me because if it was placed better, or if high tier was less compressed, it could be a really fun plane; a great dogfighter with great close-range missiles that can easily hold its own when it’s not being pressured by endless hordes of radar missiles.
So to that end I have to ask a somewhat rhetorical question: why is this thing at 12.7? Even a slight BR shift down to 12.3 would pretty radically alter the environment the plane fights in and make it a lot more comfortable. There’s even some precedent for it- the Mirage 2000 C-S5 got moved down to 12.3, and the Mirage 2000 C-S4 is at 12.3 as well. The way I see it, the French squadron F-16 could easily also go down to 12.3 without radically altering the matchmaker, especially since even playing as an 11.3 plane in a full uptier, you’d only see a maximum of four 12.3 planes on the other team.