This Week in the ITC: Who is leading, what are they playing?

Hello, competitive 40k fans! SaltyJohn here from TFG Radio to take a look at what’s going on in the ITC this week!

Elephant in the room first. This article was originally written and set to go live Thursday, my normal day for publishing this series, but some events occurred that rendered the article inaccurate. You have no doubt heard that the #1 spot in the ITC was, until yesterday, held by Tj Lannigan. Circumstances came to light yesterday morning in a Reddit thread in which stream footage was posted that showed Tj behaving in a manner that goes directly against the ITC Code of Conduct in several ways. I will not go into details, nor participate in conjecture. The situation was reviewed and the decision was made that Tj Lannigan would have his ITC points stripped for the season and be unable to accrue any further points for the 2021 season. TOs are free to allow him to participate in their events, but he will not earn any ITC points. It is an unfortunate turn of events but it was handled appropriately and as swiftly as possible by the ITC and the event TO. I would like to say I am proud of the way Dom Erzengel handled the situation, especially considering it was his first GT at his new location. *previously I stated erroneously it was Dom’s first GT overall, which is not true* I know we are all excited to be playing 40k competitively again, but let’s also remember our actions matter, how we play the game matters, and how we treat our opponents matter too. Be the best player you can be in all regards, not just the best at skirting the edges hoping not to get caught.

1. Ryan Snyder
2. Mate Csaszar
3. Jeremiah Petit
4. Stephen Henry IV
5. Shawn Rodriguez
6. Evan Tomchin
7. Patrick Wyllie
8. Rob Triplett
9. Nicolas Wenker
10. Charlie Andre

So there’s the top 10 early in the 2021 season! The breakdown of armies is pretty diverse in the top 10, and the list eschews the opinions of the internet as to what should be winning.

• 1 Chaos
• 2 Custodes
• 1 Sororitas
• 1 Necron
• 2 Death Guard
• 2 Deathwing
• 1 Space Wolves

According to the general internet hate, you would think that Space Marines would be dominating the top 10 and winning event after event, that Death Guard would be marching implacably across the tabletop scoring points and not dying, that Deathwing players of little skill would be getting 15 points a turn guaranteed and playing games with little to no need for interaction with their opponent, the list running on autopilot while the player napped their way to victory. Fortunately, the meta is far healthier than that.

For all the hate these factions get they don’t seem to be performing overly well in the ITC so far. Only 2 of those factions number 1 leaders have a spot in the overall top 10, Patrick Wylie with Dark Angels (DW/RW) and Nick Wenker with Death Guard occupy the 7th and 9th spots overall respectively. Charlie Andre is in 10th place with Dark Angels. The lists they bring are definitely good, but piloting them well is the key to success and these two have clearly been putting in the effort to win games without using the autopilot setting that so many seem to believe is all you need to win with these lists. If you would like to see their lists search up the events they’ve played on the BCP app, if you have a paid subscription, and you can see their lists.

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Necrons in the top 10 is pretty cool. I have been trying to make Necrons work at least once an edition since I played CronAir at the beginning of 6th edition, but I’ve never met with much success. Kudos to Shawn Rodriguez for making Necrons the dominant faction in his areas RTTs, with 3 number 1 placings the dominance of the Necrons is real in that meta! Chaos and Custodes seem to be two factions average players have been sleeping on so far this edition. Locally we have quite a few Chaos players in the Los Angeles area that attend events as well as Custodes so I don’t find it too surprising that people are making those armies work, they have quite a few tricks up their sleeves. Another faction performing well locally are Harlequins and Space Elf hybrid armies like Drukhari/Harlie lists. Our first event back in over a year was this past weekend, an RTT at Gameology Pasadena, and it was won by Allan, Blackmoor, Hernandez and his Harlequins. For those of you who are proponents of TTS helping you win games, I think Allan’s full number of TTS games played is zero.

Check back next week for more on the comings and goings in the world of competitive Warhammer 40k. If there’s specific content you’d like me to cover, specific events, players, factions, etc please let me know!