Tomb Kings FTW

[ClassicFlava]

Swedish comp is not including legions AFAIK

[Kremmet]

He wasn't playing Undead Legions; he was just running Lore of Undeath which is a base game lore now as per the FAQ. So no, there's no asterisk next to his triumph. He won fair and square with basic Swedish TK.

[smashthedean]

Yeah, I seem to remember his Hierophant dying at the end of the final round and him having to make some crumble tests, but it didn't end up hurting him too badly.

[MexicanNinja]

Yeah, I seem to remember his Hierophant dying at the end of the final round and him having to make some crumble tests, but it didn't end up hurting him too badly.

That's what I thought as well.

[Guest]

He wasn't playing Undead Legions; he was just running Lore of Undeath which is a base game lore now as per the FAQ. So no, there's no asterisk next to his triumph. He won fair and square with basic Swedish TK.

My mistake. Guess the report I read was wrong.

[King Mekhet]

My mistake. Guess the report I read was wrong.

He basically used TK's really light comp to absorb the hit for taking Lore of Undeath, then ramped it up into a summoning engine. Undeath is a mediocre lore...right up until you start overwhelming your opponent with it. Try playing a level 4 Undeath at a low point level when your opponent is only running a level 1-2...it's savage. With a casket / hierotitan to boot you can easily raise up hundreds of points of stuff during the game.

 

It worked for him because his list had very few vulnerable points, and essentially fought his opponents with units he raised up for free while he shot/magicked them from range. An interesting and effective strategy. Didn't hurt that none of his opponents seemed to have any idea how to fight against Tomb Kings.

[orkdork]

He basically used TK's really light comp to absorb the hit for taking Lore of Undeath, then ramped it up into a summoning engine. Undeath is a mediocre lore...right up until you start overwhelming your opponent with it. Try playing a level 4 Undeath at a low point level when your opponent is only running a level 1-2...it's savage. With a casket / hierotitan to boot you can easily raise up hundreds of points of stuff during the game.

 

Yeah, bummer that he basically found a hole in the comp system as opposed to made TK work.

 

How often are master's events won by way of breaking the comp system?

[Kremmet]

He didn't "break the comp system" or somehow cheat his way to victory. He used TK and did find a legitimate way to win large events with them: summoning attrition. Hell that's even what the TK do in the fluff so I don't know where this attitude that his victory somehow doesn't count because he brought an allowed lore to his games.

 

Would Undeath be comped harder given the chance? Sure, but likely not hard enough to cause the current US Master to lose his position. The guy won fair and square making the best of what is considered to be one of the weakest armies out there.

[Romes]

Yeah, bummer that he basically found a hole in the comp system as opposed to made TK work.

 

How often are master's events won by way of breaking the comp system?

 

First it's worth noting that Jacob was far enough ahead of second place that even if he'd paid a 40 comp undeath tax instead of a 24 comp tax he would still be ahead for general. This means that even if the tax on his list had been 16 higher, he still would have won. 

 

Having talked to him about the event, the big advantage the list had was not lack of familiarity with tomb kings, but rather lack of familiarity with how to deal with lore of Undeath being used by a player attempting to maximize it's potential. Undeath punishes the "wait and see" mentality that many players adopt when dealing with a new build across the table.

 

Second, Swedish encourages players to take experimental builds that would otherwise be sub-optimal but are comp efficient. This increases list diversity, which is not same same as "breaking" the comp. I took an experimental build too, though mine backfired.

 

Third, as far as the event history, there have been 2 national master's events thus far. Last year it was won by middle of the road, mostly infantry, mixed arms, a little bit of everything, high elves. He built a army that was efficient (not broken) and played it well. Note that he was ALSO on table 1 round 6 this year, with basically the same inoffensive build. It's easy to judge a game from a third party viewpoint afterwards to look for mistakes, but the people rising to the top here are good players taking solid lists.

[McNathanson]

Guys please don't get defensive about the "deservedness" of the win.  Regardless of whether he found an under-comped build, had great dice all day, or just outplayed everyone, the win is equally well-deserved.

 

To me it seems that Lore of Undeath was clearly "undercomped" in his army, based simply on the fact that LoU is vastly better or worse depending on the surrounding army build, yet it received a flat comp score based on number of LoU spells known.  So you get -6 for a spell in an army with a single L1, and -6 in an army with 2 L4s, yet clearly the effect of that spell isn't flat.

This is the nature of an imperfect comp system!  Finding and exploiting that imperfection is just as valid a skill as correctly anticipating meta, designing against the scoring system, or any of those "meta" skills.

 

At the end of the day, I'm happy to see a win by an unique list created by an individual player (the player who is playing it, I hope!), rather than a win by a netlist created from the latest overpowered book from GW!  And it's definitely not just a matter of list: as we all know, you can't win at that level without being a really good player and having some decent luck, regardless of your list, so clearly the winner is a very rounded overall player.

 

Anyway, good job That Guy!

Separately, I'm hoping Swedish adjusts Undeath penalties somewhat to account for its changing efficacy depending on army context.

[orkdork]

He didn't "break the comp system" or somehow cheat his way to victory. He used TK and did find a legitimate way to win large events with them: summoning attrition. Hell that's even what the TK do in the fluff so I don't know where this attitude that his victory somehow doesn't count because he brought an allowed lore to his games.

 

When I say "breaking the comp system", I don't mean "cheating". That's reading a lot into what I said :( I'm in no position to judge the guy's win, and certainly don't mean to pass judgement on him.

 

The comp system states that: "The main goal of the system is to evaluate the strength of an army". When I say "breaking the comp system", I'm referring to finding a build where the system is off by a lot in terms of the list. This has nothing to do with fluff or cheating or even legitimacy. Ideally, the comp system absolves us of the exhausting "am I building a cheesy list?" question that nobody likes.

 

So let me rephrase my question:

 

"How often do master's winners see their list comp drop by 2+ points in the following comp-pack update?"

[Kremmet]

Right, the second part of my sentence was in reference to a lot of what I'd been hearing about his win (like the people saying he cheated with proxies and the like).

 

To answer your core question, ideally everytime. Swedish comp is a system of group heuristic alterations based on what the winners of events took. It tries very hard to not base all judgments on non substansive statements like what unit/army/color of dice is "cheesey" and instead uses collected data to alter the comp. This makes it so the winners of large events tend to see their lists taken into account for how the comp should evolve next year thus allowing for a dynamic meta with armies constantly in flux.

[King Mekhet]

Right, the second part of my sentence was in reference to a lot of what I'd been hearing about his win (like the people saying he cheated with proxies and the like).

 

To answer your core question, ideally everytime. Swedish comp is a system of group heuristic alterations based on what the winners of events took. It tries very hard to not base all judgments on non substansive statements like what unit/army/color of dice is "cheesey" and instead uses collected data to alter the comp. This makes it so the winners of large events tend to see their lists taken into account for how the comp should evolve next year thus allowing for a dynamic meta with armies constantly in flux.

 

Which is to say that, like ETC, Swedish is a sort of "meta whack-a-mole" that retroactively hammers lists based on previous performance. Might not be the fairest approach, but it does encourage a dynamic meta with better list diversity which is a good thing in and of itself.

 

Let me also mention that "breaking the comp system" is a key part of these high-level Swedish events, by design. Swedish is a system that encourages creativity in list design as much as it does play on the battlefield. Essentially you're looking for synergies that are efficient under the comp pack, and which you can make up for the deficiencies in through skillful use on the tabletop.

 

The only part I think is kind of crap is that he took Best Overall as well, despite playing with proxied models. That's pretty garbage, if you ask me. Not his fault in the slightest, since that's the way the comp pack was written. The award was so skewed in favour of battle points that painting and sports became little more than tiebreakers.

[Kremmet]

 

The only part I think is kind of crap is that he took Best Overall as well, despite playing with proxied models. That's pretty garbage, if you ask me. Not his fault in the slightest, since that's the way the comp pack was written. The award was so skewed in favour of battle points that painting and sports became little more than tiebreakers.

 

I fully agree with you there except for one quibble:  he didn't have to play with proxies.  The dude had all the summons painted and ready to go, but the horsemen were a big pain in the ass so, in the spirit of game pace, he asked his opponent whether he would mind just putting out Glade Riders instead.  His opponent fully accepted this as the better of the two options and they went on amicably to play.

 

The way "Overall" was scored was a load of [big bad swear word] though.  While I think sportsmanship scores at events like that are a bit of a crock as they encourage chipmunking (which did happen) and can more effectively be solved outside of tournament-affecting scores, the way painting was handled was a travesty.  It basically gave you a "free" 20-0 victory except anyone putting in even the barest of effort received at least 10 points as well.  Embarrassing.