Reverse the Whip Army Archetypes

[NecroBlade]

I love Delta.

But real quick to the point of this thread: something I meant to bring up before was that part of the struggle is this is largely subjective. Even trying to classify the armies with different archetypes has resulted in a lot of head scratching. There are definitely some unfavorable qualities to what the meta for the format has become, but it can be difficult to define them well.

[Garenex]

Originally Posted by NecroBlade

But real quick to the point of this thread: something I meant to bring up before was that part of the struggle is this is largely subjective.

Necroblade said it right, in that this is largely subjective, and partially based on people's personal thoughts and feelings towards competitive Scape and the Main Event (such as, how competitively are they playing, vs just wanting to play a game of Scape).

Originally Posted by dok

Reverse the whip has always been, and remains, a super super weird way to decide the most prestigious event in the game.

Imagine you meet someone who is familiar with competitive gaming in general, and who is familiar with Heroscape in a I've-played-some-home-games sort of way. Imagine you told them there was a competitive HS scene with a championship and everything. Then they asked you how the championship worked. If you described RTW, or especially alternating RTW, you would get some very weird looks.

I've found the opposite to this, though I don't have too much to base it on, other than my own reactions and in talking to a few other people, but I've thought the alternating RtW format genius, in that it is the best format currently utilized to show who is the best Heroscape player, in that Main Event, while keeping there from being one best army that trumps everything.

Does this mean there could be a better one out there? Certainly, though I don't know if it has been developed yet, which is why I think Dragon Ruler's suggestions below are spot on.

Originally Posted by Dragon Ruler

We can also run a side tournament for those who prefer not to play in the Main Event.

I would love to see people propose specific Main Event formats. Also, we are looking to extend first round games to 75 minutes to reduce the number of games that go to time.

Regardless, what happens with the format, I hope the effect isn't a "cheapening' to the achievement of winning the main event, which is why I think a side tournament during the Main Event is a great idea. The Con overall, should be open and inviting to all players, and give everyone a chance to come out on top in one of the tournaments, but I hope winning the Main Event remains a pinnacle to strive for (I type, while reminding myself that this is a game for 8 year olds!)

[dok]

Originally Posted by Garenex

Does this mean there could be a better one out there? Certainly, though I don't know if it has been developed yet, which is why I think Dragon Ruler's suggestions below are spot on.

It should come as no surprise that I have lots of suggestions. Some have even come up in this thread recently. Others I have brought up privately with organizers and others.


That said, this is the "reverse the whip army archetypes" thread, not the "suggestions for scapecon main event" thread, so I don't want to derail things by discussing alternatives here.

Originally Posted by Garenex

Regardless, what happens with the format, I hope the effect isn't a "cheapening' to the achievement of winning the main event, which is why I think a side tournament during the Main Event is a great idea. The Con overall, should be open and inviting to all players, and give everyone a chance to come out on top in one of the tournaments, but I hope winning the Main Event remains a pinnacle to strive for (I type, while reminding myself that this is a game for 8 year olds!)

I agree, having one event designated the championship is fun and in a way takes some of the pressure off the other events to be hyper-competitive.

[vegietarian18]

Time to be brave and start classifying Scapecon 2021. I'm starting with a brief overview of the 2021 meta and then classifications of memorable armies for me.

2021 was home to the infamous "7-card" armies that really pushed the RtW meta in new directions. There were so many variants on these builds that I think it necessitates a split of Splash into two categories: Splash and Toolbox. (OEAO told me this in 2019 since he was a few years ahead of the meta.)

The simplest heuristic for Splash vs. Toolbox is typically that Splash armies rely on Raelin and weaker pieces for a specific synergy of those pieces to put together a gameplan that may be unintuitive to first time players. Toolbox armies have fewer support pieces like Raelin, but deploy a variety of strong tools that counter other pieces, such as Phantom Knights, Syvarris, Warriors of Ashra. These are really two completely different armies to play with or against, although both require using limited commons well.

Both of these archetypes did very well, obviously. Major Q23 brought home title for the Toolbox army, and many Splash builds had success. I think Toolbox was helped by the larger point total that allowed for a more complete toolbox.

Other army types had success as well and I don't think the meta is in any way limited to these builds. But they allow talented players to have a lot of control over their games so people have been gravitating towards them.

Now, into the armies.
------------------

Earl of Sandwich (Phantoms x2, Capuans x1, Crixus, Syvarris, Tarn, Theracus, Kyntela) (Made Day 2, 6-0 Day 1) - Toolbox. Quintessential toolbox army here. Tons of pieces, none super strong, requires great timing of when to deploy each piece. Some very fun ideas like stepping Syvarris Kyntela back next to the seemingly filler figure Kyntela.

Major Q23 (Dwarves x2, Darrak, Phantoms x1, Concan, Tandros, 1x Rats) (Winner) Toolbox.
Another quintessential toolbox army. The Dwarves give it a consistent core but even they are a tool with their hitting power against large/huge.

Chris Perkins - (Raelin, Kozuke, Rhogar, Warriors of Ashra x1, Mezzos x1, Johnny Shotgun Sullivan, Guilty, Otonashi) (Top 4) Splash. It has the most cards but that doesn't mean they're tools, a lot of the cards are tricks even though you use them all. This is almost the minimum viable army of the Splash archetype, pushing it to its absolute limit in terms of no multiple commons, and many very bad figures traditionally, but it makes it work by relying on the tried and true concept that underlies many splash armies: build a wall of junk, shoot people over it, and have something that hits hard once your opponent tries to catch what's shooting at them. Really incredible armybuilding here. I have no idea how Chris came up with this one.

vegietarian18 (Heavies x2, Ornak, Nerak, Iskra, MBS, Mindflayer, Marcu) (Top 4) Mediocre but Whole. I struggled with labeling this one even though it's my own army, but I honestly don't build these armies with these archetypes in mind. Even though this is 7 cards only two of them really get order markers. This does not have the challenges that many Splash builds do, but instead requires you to execute on the gameplan of an Ornak Heavy Grut Utgar hero hybrid build well.

HoundsRule (Gladiatrons x2, Moltenclaw, Sam Brown, Hounds x1, Eldgrim) (Top 2) Splash. Tough one to classify but I lean towards Splash here because it has a cogent gameplan from game to game, of protecting Moltenclaw with the squads and letting him sweep. But man I do not know how he executed it so well.

Dysole (Moltenclaw, Greenscales x1, Monks x2, Raelin, Rats x1) (Made Day 2) Bread and Butter. A little bit of a trick way of doing it, but it's a two squad army.

JohnnyFrisbee (Theracus, Tandros, Skahen, 2x Cutters, 1x Heavies, Nerak, Otonashi) (Made Day 2) Toolbox for sure.

Viideosayg (Raelin, Mezzos x1, Syvarris, HSB x1, Cutters x2, Phantoms x1) (Made Day 2) Close, but I lean Toolbox.

Son of Chompy (Romans x2, Roman Archers x2, NGS, Valguard, Marcus) (Made Day 2) Short but Good.

MegaSilver (Romans x2, Redcoats x2, Marcus, MBS) (3-3, missed Day 2) Short but Good.

Boromir96 (Blastatrons x4, Taelord, Heirloom) (3-3, missed Day 2) Ping.

-------------

I will get these edited into the OP later, along with some other updates to the OP, to reclass some of the old Splash armies as Toolbox, and write blurbs for each.

[Cleon]

For Uniques Mostly, I actually got top 8 with that Braxas/Hydra build.

What do you think of this year’s top 16 for archetypes?

[Sir Heroscape]

Posted in the Discord (and PM'd a couple of you)...and not sure if someone has already thought of this...but I was just thinking, a potential solution to some of the frustrations of this format for the championship...could be...

Day 1 should be 6 rounds of RtW (only 4-2's make Day2) and then Day 2 you play your army all rounds.

That does 2 things:
1) Helps "remove" anyone with a crap army that snuck their way into Day 2 and now they likely lose in the earlier rounds of Day 2 and

2) Helps "remove" anyone with a strong army during Day 1 because odds are they didn't/couldn't make Day 2

There is the off chance a stronger army somehow makes it Day 2 and then cleans up...but experience would tell us very few "meta" armies ever pass through the gauntlet of Day 1

I think Day 1 can still be RtW to help glean the best players/armies into Day 2 and then Day 2 should be showing your metal with what you've brought. I think this could help the issue we've seen, because now you need to build something you can win with for ALL of Day 2.

[Chris Perkins]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

Posted in the Discord (and PM'd a couple of you)...and not sure if someone has already thought of this...but I was just thinking, a potential solution to some of the frustrations of this format for the championship...could be...

Day 1 should be 6 rounds of RtW (only 4-2's make Day2) and then Day 2 you play your army all rounds.

That does 2 things:
1) Helps "remove" anyone with a crap army that snuck their way into Day 2 and now they likely lose in the earlier rounds of Day 2 and

2) Helps "remove" anyone with a strong army during Day 1 because odds are they didn't/couldn't make Day 2

There is the off chance a stronger army somehow makes it Day 2 and then cleans up...but experience would tell us very few "meta" armies ever pass through the gauntlet of Day 1

I think Day 1 can still be RtW to help glean the best players/armies into Day 2 and then Day 2 should be showing your metal with what you've brought. I think this could help the issue we've seen, because now you need to build something you can win with for ALL of Day 2.

Edit: I mis-understood the proposal initially. The strike-through text below was based on that misunderstanding.

To be frank, I'm not a fan of this proposal. I have 3 main issues with it:

1) It allows someone to bring crap to just make Day 2, just like some people ran A-tier armies just to make day 2 when RtW was only on day 2.

2) I think the most skillful part of the status quo is having to play your opponent's army on day 2; it's much easier to just know the units you brought than knowing a broader range of units at a high level, so to me this removes some of the best skill aspects from day 2. "Playing what you brought" just isn't as hard as playing your opponents army.

3) Less experienced players will almost never get to play their own army, which I've got to assume would be less fun for them.

[Sir Heroscape]

Originally Posted by Chris Perkins

To be frank, I'm not a fan of this proposal. I have 3 main issues with it:

1) It allows someone to bring crap to just make Day 2, just like some people ran A-tier armies just to make day 2 when RtW was only on day 2.

2) I think the most skillful part of the status quo is having to play your opponent's army on day 2; it's much easier to just know the units you brought than knowing a broader range of units at a high level, so to me this removes some of the best skill aspects from day 2. "Playing what you brought" just isn't as hard as playing your opponents army.

3) Less experienced players will almost never get to play their own army, which I've got to assume would be less fun for them.

#1. I disagree. That makes no sense. If they Bring crap just to make Day 2 then they know there’s 100% chance of not going anywhere past R1 of Day2, so there’s no incentive to build a crap army if you know you absolutely can’t win with it Day2.

#2. This is the biggest contention point for RtW. While I agree with your point in principle I disagree in practice.

#3. I don’t understand this point. I proposed Day1 stays the same and Day2 is you only play your army…so they’d be playing their army just fine.

[Chris Perkins]

Originally Posted by Sir Heroscape

#1. I disagree. That makes no sense. If they Bring crap just to make Day 2 then they know there’s 100% chance of not going anywhere past R1 of Day2, so there’s no incentive to build a crap army if you know you absolutely can’t win with it Day2.

#2. This is the biggest contention point for RtW. While I agree with your point in principle I disagree in practice.

#3. I don’t understand this point. I proposed Day1 stays the same and Day2 is you only play your army…so they’d be playing their army just fine.

Oh, I think I mis-interpreted your proposal then.

I took "6 rounds of RtW" to mean 6 "reverse" rounds, but based on your comments I think you mean you wanted to keep alternating RtW on day1.

Ignore everything I said then. I'll have to think about the new proposal some more.

[Sir Heroscape]

Correct, keep day 1 the same, just make Day 2 where you play your army the full-time.

[Dysole]

I think it's much more likely to have a very good army make day 2. You just need to beat it one out of three times. There's a lot of solid builds you could make where that is a very real possibility that would likely wipe anything in the B/B+ range.

~Dysole, who thinks RtW is not the best format for the championship

[Grey Waves]

I agree with @Dysole . If day 1 is alternating RTW and day 2 is you play your own army, then an army can conceivably win the whole tournament with a 9-1 record (assuming 6 rounds on day 1 and 4 on day 2). That means that someone could, in theory, bring something uber strong like Q9 rats and Raelin, manage to beat their army once on day 1 (say Q9 had a bad whiff one game), and then clean sweep day 2 with little competition. With the current structure of the main event, an army has to have between a 3-7 and 7-3 record in order to win the championship, which basically prevents any army that's significantly unbalanced (on either end of the spectrum) from winning the event, or oftentimes even making it to the top 4.

I do agree that RTW has its flaws, but I don't think changing the event in the manner suggested is a step in the right direction. Still think it's a really good format for the main event though - if the main event had remained just 'bring the strongest army', then it would have gotten stale years ago.