This Week in the ITC: Adepticon is in the Scores and a Look at the Top 20 in Each Region!

Hello, fellow Warhammer 40k fans! SaltyJohn from TFG Radio, and one of the Las Vegas Open Head Judges, here to bring you another article reviewing the ITC Standings for the 2019 season with the new scoring method in place.

Well, here we are. Another week, another article, and another disclaimer about this article not diving into the totally non-existent drama in Competitive 40k. Seriously though guys, it’s starting to feel a little like the scene is a damn Tele Novella train wreck combined with an Alex Jones dose of conspiracy theories week in and week out. Complete with Reddit threads, TasteyTastes and everything. Let’s try to get a grip maybe? Or keep it to your private chats? Probably not, but I had to try.

Now onto the serious part of the article. I realized that even just a few weeks into my series for this year I have forgotten week after week to post anything about the various region standings! The ITC is a truly global event, competed in across continents and even on the open ocean as Cruise Hammer is happening again this year thanks to the efforts of Ben Schimoller. If you don’t know what Cruise Hammer is you need to check it out, it’s a pretty cool event! The ITC wouldn’t be what it is today without the tireless efforts of the team at Best Coast Pairings. I will try to include periodic updates from them in this year’s articles too.

Ok, here are the top ten in the world as it stands now, with Adepticon fully in and accounted for!

Just about 2 months into the league and we have a really interesting top 10 still! With Jim Vesal leading the pack with three number 1 finishes, including Adepticon, he is representing those Chaos Daemons hard in the early season. A big shock to many players that a Daemons primary army would be outperforming all of last year’s powerhouse armies. Maybe even as big a shock is Daniel Hesters in second playing Imperial Knight primary for the most part. Knights have been seen as a faction on the decline as they have become the true gatekeeper army for the best players, all of whom have tools in their kit to handle them at this point. With an FAQ coming down the pipe from GW anytime now, the future viability of Knights hangs in the balance. If left as they are now they may continue to have decent showings, with slight tweaks they may cease to be a gatekeeper and real competitor, with a heavy hand they may be shifted right out of the top table’s meta. We will just have to wait and see. The Regional rankings are quite interesting too. Let’s take a look at the top 20 of the major regions in the ITC.

The most interesting thread here for me, besides the fact we’re barely into the season and the non-US regions, are logging a lot more activity than this same point in the season than last year, is that world #5 Bethany Taylor is the number one player in both the UK and Europe right now! Well done Bethany. There’s a lot of action in these regions and some familiar names from previous seasons of the ITC. Exzar Exodar is doing well in Canada. Karl Abrahamsson and James Mackenzie are doing well in the European region as well as Scandinavia and the UK respectively. Richard Cozart, Andrew Gonyo, and Colin Sherman are also putting up some big numbers in the USA. Next week I will take a look at the regions in the US and see where the big guys and girls are fighting for domination in the US. Before I leave you with a quick look at the ITC Hobby tracker I wanted to let you know I am going to try and get a few interviews for next week’s article. Let me know who you think I should get and why in the comments!

It’s great to see players in the Hobby Track who are also excelling at the competitive side of the hobby, keep up the great work in both aspects of the hobby! As always let me know in the comments what you thought and what you’d like to see me cover in this series going forward.

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