Hello, fellow Warhammer 40k fans! SaltyJohn from TFG Radio, and one of the Las Vegas Open Head Judges, here to bring you my weekly article on the ITC.
We are now a few short months away from the Las Vegas Open and the end of this ITC Season. We have seen several changes with this season and it’s gone really well. One of the first changes was a change to the scoring system. The weighting of the events and how many points were accrued by players at various events changed and made the season more competitive overall. While the top 10 did stagnate again this season it took longer for that stagnation to set in. I would personally like to see a new category, and thus a new scoring metric, put in for “uber” majors, events of 300+ players.
Another change was the move to faction scoring being based on “pure” faction players alone. Meaning best in Blood Angels, for example, would be open only to players who took 100%* Blood Angels lists, not a %50+1 or %60/40 metric etc. The asterisk denotes that the Blood Angel in question above could use a stratagem to “summon” a Vindicare Assassin pre-battle and still count for being “pure” for faction awards. The same is true of a Thousand Sons player bringing 500 points of 1kSons Psykers and summoning in 1500 points of Daemons and still counting as “pure” 1k Sons for the sake of Best in Faction points. While not perfect the change was wanted by a vast majority of ITC players and has proven popular.
The three factions I am most interested in watching the remainder of the season going into LVO are Space Marines, Sisters of Battle, and Tau. The first two I am interested in mostly due to their new releases and I think it will be really interesting to watch the Meta and Top Tier players adjust. I am curious to see if Space Marines become the new Ynnari and dominate LVO, or they’re more akin to Orks were last year where they were much talked about and feared but faired poorly despite being piloted by some very good players. I find the race for Top Tau player so interesting because of the players in contention. All 3 have done particularly well this year, and I am excited to see if Seigler can hold off Pullen and Swann. If any two of them make it deep at LVO the faction award will certainly come down to who finished best at LVO, which will be fun to watch.
The Hobby Track, while not super new, is something else that has been fun to have this year and last. I have enjoyed watching that evolve over the course of this season as well.
I think it is great that some of the names often seen in the top 50, even top 10, for playing the game well are also seen in the top 10, and 50, of the Hobby side of this too. Jim Vesal being both number one ITC player a lot this season and ITC Hobby Track number 1 is a testament to his prowess both on and off the tabletop in hobby terms. While I am not sure Jim can win LVO and take home both the ITC Overall Best Player prize, LVO Number one, and Hobby Track number 1 all in the same year this year, it would be an awesome story. No pressure Jim.
In the next few weeks keep a lookout for announcements having to do with the LVO. The usual PSA from the LVO 40k Judges video, and accompanying article, will be out in early December. It is an important video and article for anyone attending the LVO 40k Championship event to watch.
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