Competitive Heroscape is not dominated by A+

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by killercactus

OK, so do Q9/Raelin/Rats dominate the tourney scene or not?

I think the answer is that they're the most powerful units in Heroscape, but they don't dominate the tourney scene only because of creative formats and player stigma (meaning players just don't feel like playing them and consent to using weaker units because they're more fun).

And even if there were no player stigma, other armies (ala melee bonding and 4-figure ranged squads) still have a decent shot at beating them)

Personally, I think that 4 figure ranged common squads and, with the growing population of melee friendly maps (roads/LOS blockers/jungle trees) at tourneys, 4 figure common squads in general, are the ones that dominate the tourney scene.
Luckily, there are enough such 4 figure common squads in the game that it's not same-old, same-old all the time (though without melee friendly maps, 4th/10th might feel even more dominant than they already do).
Rats (a 4 figure squad as well!) are nice but their only real role is to keep anti-squad heroes like Q9 and Nilfheim to the point where they have a chance in the metagame. Even then, though, they're not quite on the same level as the 4 figure common squads.
Raelin is just a support piece - albeit a nice one. She's like Dennis Rodman on the 70 game winning Chicago Bulls. They never would've been quite as dominant without him, but he's not the one scoring all the points.

[spider_poison]

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I think Jason also had (at least) one other alias in BullwinkleJMoose. I'm not sure why he stopped using it, and it only has a few posts on it. Jexik told me DA got banned, and so I had to stop in and see what was going on. Sorry, I can't help myself

I don't think Heroscape is dominated by A+ units at all. It's rare to see something below A- to be in a winning army (and certainly the cornerstone of that army), but I think there's enough variety above that to see something different in winning armies.

EDIT: Speaking specifically of Q9, few people bring him to tourneys in the Midwest either. I used to say things like "friends don't let friends play Q9" or roll my eyes and sigh when a friend says they're considering playing Q9 for a tourney. The main reason for this is that I feel Q9 can sometimes create a negative playing experience, especially when a newer player plays a veteran who also has a little luck on his side. In these cases, the newer player can quite literally throw 100 dice at Q9 and do absolutely nothing. Maybe an army consisting of 5 squads of Mass will be more powerful and be more likely to win, but in that matchup any player will at least make some progress and kill stuff. I'm not saying this makes Q9 broken or that he should be banned...this is just my personal reason for refusing to play him. I'm not at all bothered when someone else plays Q9 though, unless it's Jexik, because he should know better

[spider_poison]

Sry, double post.

[dok]

Originally Posted by spider_poison

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I think Jason also had (at least) one other alias in BullwinkleJMoose. I'm not sure why he stopped using it, and it only has a few posts on it.

Yes, that's definitely him. I think he makes a new user ID every time he goes to an event, so that he can give that name out if anyone asks, or something. Under that name, he played at Brawl in Bloomington on January 16, 2010. He played 4th Mass x5 + Marro Warriors + Morsbane (why he didn't play 4thx6 + Morsbane is beyond me). His record was 4-0 with wins over Evernalthanos, Clarissimus and playa1, although the tournament technically wasn't completed.