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!
The ITC has experienced a few major shake ups in the top 10 the last few weeks. Before we dive into that a quick shout out to the team at Best Coast Pairings for making all this info tracking possible! Paul and his crew have been tearing it up putting out support, not just for 40k but for a ton of different game systems. Check out all their latest news on their Facebook Page. Let’s take a look at the current top 10 before we discuss some of the big changes from previous weeks.
The biggest change in the top 10, if you’ve been following this since Adepticon, is that we have the first change in the top 2 since that time. Josh Death was knocked out of second by top 10 newcomer Mike Porter. With his 249.69 point win from the London GT with his Custodes in the system Mike jumps to just shy of Matt Root and the top of the heap! Geoff Robinson has dropped to 6th from 3rd and with him now being a Games Workshop caster for events I am not sure how much time he’ll have to try and get that top spot by season end. Another notable change is the appearance of Nick, Brown, Nanavati in 4th place knocking fellow Nick, Gower, out of that spot. John Lennon, Bruce Merker, TJ Lanigan, and Mitch Pelham all dropped out of the top ten. Archon Skari, if that’s his real name, joins the club in 9th and Trent Northington catapults into 5th. Trent is riding high on a 1st place showing at the Flying Monkey GT and Archon Skari, who surprisingly plays Drukhari, adds the TBMC GT and Capital City Bloodbath Major first placings to his scores getting him a total of 627.26 points and 5th place!
In the top 10 so far we have people earning big points with Tyranids, Catachans, Custodes x2, Death Guard x2, Aeldarix2, and Dhrukhari x2. With all the yelling of their being Overpowered there’s no Imperial Knights, Blood Angels, and only a single Astra Militarum in the top 10. Dhrukhari continue to perform very well as do Death Guard and Custodes. The outlier here being the top spot held by Matt Root and his Tyranids, seeing as how he hasn’t put up any big numbers up with them lately it might be safe to say Nids are definitely not on the list of great armies but all the other armies listed continue to perform well. I would think that if the IK/AM/BA list were as good as the numbers seem to indicate in terms of win rates we would see more of them in the top 10.
The fact not a single Imperial Knight main is in the top 10, nor a single IK/AM/BA main, but they continue to be according to BCP the winningest faction and most represented faction speak volumes about how they are not OP but may indeed be a gatekeeper after all. The Dhrukhari are certainly a hard counter to Imperial Knight lists in a few ways, meaning a popular and well performing faction is the Paper to the IKs Rock. In the end I think Imperial Knights are good, but they aren’t as OP as everyone on the internet has been crying, but you do need to adjust your lists significantly to deal with a new meta that includes them.
Last week I failed to mention that Steven Pampreen had gotten himself into the top 10. Steven is currently the number one player in the Chaos faction, kicking ass and taking names, still in the hunt for those sweet top 10 spots. The top 10 teams continue to be not only a who’s who of some of the big name teams but it continues to be fairly solidified. I am not sure why there is a duplication of the Warhogs in there but I am sure the great team over at BCP will get that sorted out by next week. The next big thing coming down the pipe is obviously Space Wolves. They are looking like a very flavorful codex. They also look, to me at least, to be a Space Marine based army that has a legitimate shot at being a solid primary faction choice that uses more than just Scouts and smash Characters. It could possibly even be a codex that provides us with our first real monofaction Space Marine build since the Guilliman Gunlines of early 8th edition! It will take some time to tell but I can definitely see the Space Wolf players in the ITC being quite excited about a lot of the cool stuff in the codex. Time will tell!
As always let me know what you thought, I will try to track down a few of the new top spot players for their feedback. NOVA is coming up and I can’t wait to see what the Invitational and Open brings us in the ITC in terms of meta indicators and winning factions/lists.
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Archon Skari isn’t his real name, but he runs a channel called Skared Battle Report, and goes by Archon Skari in all his 40k interactions. It’s kinda like Starcraft having players called “Innovation” and “Scarlett”. Despite these not being their real names, it’s how people identify them in the gaming community.
You mean like how people refer to me as SaltyJohn? 😉
Skari is a great dude and a very solid Canadian player.
But what’s his name!? 😀
His real name is Ridvan.
Thanks Davis! 😀
Great article, John! Wow, a British player jumps into second on the strength of that LGT win. Nice! Going to be an exciting finish to the season.
I’ve been watching Skari’s Drukari videos for the past few years. He’s a great source of info and (perhaps ironically in an ITC context) focuses on fluff about as much as tactics.
Thanks!
I like the hobby as well as the tactical gaming aspect. The narrative reports are more for the entertainment of the masses, however I do a lot more in depth tactical videos and content, especially for the Patreons on a weekly basis.
I have loved playing more competitively the last year or so, and I am very excited to finish off the season strong, might even try to go to the LVO…
Why are you surprised about a Knight player not being in the top 10? The codex was released June 9th and probably didn’t see play until June 23rd. This means it has only been around for about 9 weeks. In a few more months, I would expect to see a number of Knight players in the top 10.
Players can switch armies. I would have expected a few of the more Chameleon-like players in the top spots to pick up a Knight primary and done well enough to jump into the top 10. There was enough movement in the top 10 in the past few months that it would be feasible for a top 30 player to get a solid showing at a GT or Major with Knights and catapult into it. The reality is, while good, IK Primary armies aren’t winning big events. Time will indeed tell and I am sure we’ll see someone playing a Knight Primary for a few events perform well and get boosted into the top 10.
Yet enough players run a detachment of guard cp and blood Angel’s battery plus a knight castellan to note it’s a force to reckon with. Note the Nova invitational. While it is most prevelant and I think wont win.. the amount of top players running it proves enough its validity. Can’t say a pure knight list will break top ten.. one bad match up it is all over. Hello random net lists with haywire didn’t think I’d see you round two then boom..
I’d say wait for October here comes da jump. Jump up the itc rankings amirite? Go waaaaagh I hope you are great!