Hello, fellow Warhammer 40k fans! SaltyJohn from TFG Radio, and one of the Las Vegas Open Head Judges, here to bring you a wrap up of this week in the ITC!
After last week’s 4000 word article that also resulted in a 20ish minute audio version, we are going to take this week a bit easy. Besides last week’s article having been massive there are a few other factors. First, not a whole lot has happened in the standings since last week and most of the changes I didn’t go over, like the team rankings, are minor changes and linked to the things like the Boise Cup Major (not GT, I got it right this time, see I read the comments!). Another factor is ATC, BAO, and a few regional GTs are rapidly approaching and I think those are going to shake things up further. A third factor, and a selfish one, is I am prepping to go to the Bay Area Open and so my time to do a deep dive article like last weeks is limited. Before going further I want to encourage you to head over to the Best Coast Pairings Facebook Page and Website to check out all the amazing new things they have in store for us with their App!
The BCP team has been working hard to bring us a quality product to help run tournaments and leagues for a long time. Now, we are also getting a product from them that tracks and ranks events! It is in its infancy for many systems but in the future, with further community buy-in, these gaming systems can have a ranking system as useful and insightful as what we have now for Warhammer 40k. One such system is Legend of the Five Rings.
I would like to extend a personal congratulations to Doofus McMeatbag for his stellar performance so far in the L5R standings with a solid 3rd place ranking! In all seriousness though, this is an exciting App for the competitive gaming communities around the world.
Above is the current top 10 in the ITC for Warhammer 40k. Matt Root and Josh Death remain atop the pile. In the team rankings you’ll notice a newcomer to the top 30 that was the 4th place team last year, and second best team on the West Coast, Relentless D. Riding high on preeminent member Brandon Grants win at the Boise Cup the guys at Relentless D have begun their push to come in on the top teams and make sure their presence is felt.
Beast Coast, Canhammer, Frozen North Gaming, Team Draco, and Overwatch Gaming continue to firmly grip those top spots and Relentless D is going to have to work hard to make a move on them, no sneaking into the top 5 through the back door this late into the season. Below I am going to post up the top 15 from the US Regions and Canada. There are some really big names in there, and as discussed last week, some really big names missing off these lists. Some players have yet to really get their seasons going and it is going to be interesting to see how that pans out.
Besides events like the ATC, BAO, and others, we are still waiting to see how the new post-Imperial, and Renegade, Knight Metas shift and change the overall scores at these big events. If you’re planning on making it to any tournaments in the near future you should build your lists with at minimum a Castellan in mind, and most likely with a 3 Knight Super Heavy Detachment in mind. Until we see definitive evidence from big events that IK are, or are not, big meta shifters and contenders you can bet on seeing a few lists featuring them in a big way in the coming weeks! Like I said, this week’s article is short, because we’re a bit short on info. Next week I hope to get the responses from some more of our ITC leaders up in print form and talk about what goes down this coming weekend at the various events. As always let me know what you thought of the article, but more importantly if you are one of the leaders in the ITC and you have something you think would work well in my upcoming ITC wrap up articles let me know!
And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!
Solid article, buddy. I agree, this month is going to be very telling as to what is or is not going to impact the meta. With so many big events back to back the rankings are going to get shaken up, big time!
John,
Just wrapped up day one of the Warzone: Houston Major. Lots of Knights running around. Roughly 20 lists with Knights as a key component in the army. Any IMPERIAL faction that can take them has at least 2.
Basically if you did not build to play against Knights you have a rough road ahead of you this weekend. As a Tyranid player I am surprised to see the other 3 (4 total between Nid and Nid/GSC) shift towards Neurothrope/4+ Zoanthrope smite spam lists with GSC allies. This may be the way to go for my faction to survive in this new monumental meta shift with Knights. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
Shawn “Frag_Panda” Prosser
Although, looking at the rankings, I don’t see a single player with a Knight in their army that has gone undefeated day 1, so that may say something about where Knights will figure into the rankings overall. But certainly armies need to be ready to deal with Knights, in one form or another.
Yeah, been hearing lots of stories f knights having quite an impact on the meta, already. The combo I keep seeing winning is the Castellan, blood Angels and Astra Militarum.