Hello, Competitive Warhammer 40k fans! SaltyJohn from TFG Radio coming back to FLG with my weekly article on the ITC Standings.
After helping run the Las Vegas Open for Frontline Gaming as the 40k Champs Head Judge I usually take a small break from 40k, including writing these articles. It usually lasts about a month. This time around my break from writing was a bit longer due to a lot of reasons, but I am back so let’s jump right in by looking at the current Top 10 in the ITC!
My favorite thing about the early days of any ITC Season is the plethora of new and/or unknown names that pop up into the ITC Top 10! It seems like a lot of the top players also take a short break from playing 40k post LVO. This makes sense because LVO is the end of the ITC Season and some of these big-name players could really use a break before heading out to take on the quest to the top once more. The one exception to this right now is Ryan Snyder who is sitting in 5th place! Ryan was in and out of the top 10 last season for several months and ultimately was one of the best Custodes players in the world last year.
This absolute mad man has already played 6 events this year! A strong 8th place finish at the Frontline Gaming Cherokee Open in 8th is nothing to sneeze at. The current number one in the world is Quinton Johnson. Quinton has been around a lot in 40k the last few years, this young gun is not to be underestimated.
I have been seeing Quinton do decently at tournaments for a while now and with a hot new Tau codex in his hands, he is tearing it up. Not surprising that both Ryan and Quinton had good scores at the Cherokee Open and are in the top 10 of the ITC. That event gave out a lot of points for this early point in the season. Quinton, great job coming in 2nd at Cherokee, keep it up!
James Marsden is in second place currently. With the current world’s number 1 piloting Tau you would expect the number 2 player to be playing another current top-tier meta buster of an army right? Crusher Stampede, Tau, perhaps Custodes. Nope! James is playing Necrons!
Winning the Attrition Grand Tournament in Great Britain James Marsden took a great Novohk Necron list the distance and scored himself a massive 200.13 ITC points in his battle to the top! I don’t think many of us would have predicted the 2nd place player in the world right now would be playing Necrons, but here we are! Does this mean we’ve all been sleeping on Necrons and they are actually much better but they need the right pilot? No, I don’t think so, which makes James’ performance so far this season all the more impressive!
Two giant bricks of Flayed ones backed up by the Silent King himself in Novokh dynasty? Seems legit. The bad news I need to tack onto the good news of a Necron player being in second place is that the rest of the top 7 are all playing either Tau or Custodes. Out of the top 10, there are only 3 non-Tau or Custodes players currently. 1 Necron and 2 Tyranids.
I am not seeing an end to Tau and Custodes dominance in the Competitive meta any time soon. Perhaps the new Tyranid codex will bring some balance to the meta, perhaps it will bring balance by being the new super dominant army that ruins everyone’s day! There might be some Balance Datasheet love coming our way to try and return a semblance of balance to the competitive meta but I wouldn’t count on it being earth-shattering enough to truly knock Tau and Custodes off their pedestal. While the new Craftworld book has some play, especially the Harlequins, it just doesn’t seem to have the ability to beat both Tau and Custodes. Which, does seem to be the overall issue in the game at the moment. It’s hard for pretty much everyone to build a list that can beat both Tau and Custodes, you can build to beat the one, but then you lose to the other. If you’re looking for some fluffy content to listen to while you build that new Tau army check out this episode of Pod Save the Imperium, all about the Tau Ethereals and what the real source of their power is.
This weekend there are a few big tournaments and most notably Adepticon! Games Workshop will be having a big preview night at Adepticon so it will be fun to see what they have cooked up for the rest of the “year of Chaos”! Next week I will discuss Adepticon, and changes to the top 10 overall, if any, and maybe get an interview or two in with some of these new names in the ITC Top 10.
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