After a stellar 1-2 performance at a small RTT this past weekend with my Necrons, I thought it was time to take a break from the Necron articles for one week to bring my amazing readers a closer look into the top echelon of competitive 40k players. Now, as I am sure some of you can tell from reading my past articles, I am a glass half full kind of person. When my (currently) favorite army started to lag behind in the power curve I took it in stride, and when the Admech Codex dropped with some absolutely silly rules I reminded people that the FAQ would be coming shortly. However, I cannot, in good conscience, let the current state of the game of 40k continue on without acknowledging a serious issue facing 40k players everywhere. The entire competitive 40k community is being strictly controlled by a small group of elite 40k players/content creators whose only goal is to ensure their names are the only ones at the top of the ITC rankings.
Wake up my fellow 40k enthusiasts. Do you think it is a coincidence that EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND there is some tournament drama? Do you think that because this is a game that revolves around unbalanced rules and dice rolls that there will inevitably be some misunderstandings? Oh no, those simple lines of logic are not for the observant among us. It is extremely suspicious that after every single one of these tournament scandals the 40k content creators flock to cover these incidents faster then the runners we all saw during the Olympics.
The huge amount of money these content creators are raking in show us the real controlling powers within the 40k competitive community. Follow the money people. It’s a well kept secret that these content creators are all part of a secret cabal that includes ALL of the tournament organizers who submit scores to the ITC. That is how they control the narrative of competitive 40k. By keeping the narrative focused solely on certain tournament players transgressions it becomes easier to control the competitive 40k community as whole.
It is all about the illusion of control. This evil shadow organization wants the middle table players to think that they have a some control over where they place in a 40k tournament. Wake up sheeple. That tournament was decided well before the start of the first round. Sure, some players who do this for a living, or have been playing since some of you were toddlers, seem to be winning a lot of events. Maybe their years of practice, or their dedication to their livelihood to the game of 40k, is making them earn those podium spots? Yea right.
Now, not all of the top players are in league with this secret shadow organization that is controlling competitive 40k from the darkness, but, undeniably, some are. These secretly managed players always seem to be involved in some tournament scandal or another, but they are extremely relaxed about it most of the time. Almost like they are playing a game with no real consequences. Or, a more likely answer, they know they will be taken care of by the secret cabal running competitive 40k?
Obviously the first part of this article was satire. I need to point this out to some people out there so there it is. While it may seem like competitive 40k has a “scandal” almost every weekend the truth is much less exciting. There are a ton of 40k tournaments happening every weekend with more and more happening as this hobby gains more traction, and the majority of them have zero “scandals”. I have played in many events this year from Majors to RTTs, and all of my opponents have been awesome people to hangout with. One of these players was even involved in his very own scandal! He was an awesome opponent by the way.
Unfortunately, many content creators decide to go for the easy click baity content in covering 40k “scandals”. A lot of this content is very good and brings up real issues that our growing community will need to deal with before we get to the esports level of popularity, but some of it places competitive 40k in a negative light. It is easy as a casual, or new, player to look at these issues in the competitive 40k community and choose to not sign up for that local RTT. If a local scene does not have great ambassadors to the competitive side of this game new players are going to be hard to come by in the future. Nothing will do a better job of killing the competitive side of the hobby faster then not introducing new players into your tournaments on a regular basis.
Go ahead and run that Incursion level tournament for the newbies to show them tournaments are a great way to get into the hobby. If you are not into running an event and find yourself playing someone in their very first tournament game make sure you are a good ambassador to competitive 40k. If you aren’t there might not be any competitive 40k to play in the future.