Mark’s World Championships 2024 Recap

Intro

Happy New Year and welcome back once again to Path to Glory! Now that we’re back from our bit of a holiday break, we are getting back into the swing of things content-wise. I figured that, since we didn’t do the nitty gritty of my game-by-game Worlds experience on the podcast, those of you who are interested in that sort of thing might enjoy a breakdown in article form. Since we already covered a lot of the Worlds prep on the podcast episode, I won’t go into huge detail here. Suffice it to say that I am not the usually the type to play the S-tier thing, especially when it is generally quite linear aggro (it is not lost on me that the abbreviation for Blazing Assault x Reckless Fury is BARF). Given the short prep time with the new edition, I simply chose Kainan’s Reapers as a comfort pick for Worlds, but would not necessarily recommend them as a high-tier competitive option, as I felt they were in the first edition. I guess we’ll see if that changes with the recent balance updates, but for now I think our favorite tax collectors are sadly better left on the shelf. However, that line of thought may be food for another article… All of that said, I was personally quite proud of how I played at Worlds. Despite the result, I am pretty confident that I actually played better than I did last year, and I still had a great time both during the tournament and the associated social aspects of the event.

Event Goals

As I described on an earlier podcast episode, I think it’s really important to set realistic, achievable goals for yourself at an event, and to make sure you have some smaller benchmarks along the way. So, for this event I set for myself a range of goals, each of variable difficulty, to make sure I was keeping myself focused, yet grounded. This list is as follows:

Stretch Goal: Win the Whole Darn Thing (Not Achieved)

This certainly is not a minor goal, but I firmly believe that I am capable enough to win any event I attend. You can call it confidence, cockiness, whatever you like, but I talked about being realistic and I really do think that anyone who can go out and win that golden ticket to qualify for this event can be the one to bring home the trophy at the end, myself included. It’s a stretch goal for a reason. It’s absolutely not easy and will sometimes be influenced by factors beyond your control, but there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the best. In fact, I think it’s great motivation.

Primary Goal: Make the Championship Bracket (Not Achieved)

In addition to the sense of achievement of making it to the bracket round in a sea of great players, making the top cut at Worlds (at least 2 years into them running the event) has also come with the reward of an invite to next year’s WCW. In case it wasn’t clear on the podcast, I have had a blast at Worlds so far, so of course I want to make it back. Having that invite 12 months in advance last year was a huge sense of relief. I didn’t feel pressured in any way to spend money traveling to tournaments and it allowed me to not sweat event prep as hard as I might have otherwise. In fact, NOVA is the only golden ticket event I have attended for Underworlds in either year, and I obviously came up short of winning it this year. While Gerard electing not to take his ticket from NOVA would theoretically have transferred it to me (Graham, who finished 2^nd, had already qualified), the reality is that I would not have outright qualified for the 2024 WCW had I failed to make it out of my 2023 pool, which is a sobering thought considering (spoilers!) I sadly did not make top cut this year. Maybe this will compel me to attend some more events this year (there were a couple I had considered going to despite not needing the ticket that I didn’t end up pulling the trigger on), but I just hope it doesn’t lead to me putting undue pressure on myself at those events. I want to be able to fully enjoy them.

Secondary Goal 1: Win at least one Bo3 (Achieved)

Despite the fact that I often say to start very small with things like remembering certain reactions, plays, etc., I think it’s fair to say that I have enough experience that I should expect myself to do those things as second nature, even playing a brand-new edition of the game. However, the relief of getting that first mark in the win column at an event is huge. While you obviously hope that comes sooner in the event rather than later, winning a set at Worlds over the course of the event is, as you might expect, a much taller task than doing so at a local or even national tournament due to the caliber of player required to qualify for the event. Additionally, I was under no illusions about what I had chosen to bring to this tournament and the kinds of warbands/deck pairings that I would likely run into. As I covered in my review article, I firmly do not believe this reincarnation of the Reapers is capable of being a high-tier competitive pick anymore. I’ll stop short of saying they are unplayable, because that is not the case, but I think it is pretty clear that they are below average in the second edition, particularly from the standpoint of fighter stats. While I like to win, there is enough “Johnny” in me (some might argue too much) that I want to win in a unique way, so I set this goal for myself as a point of pride that I believed I would feel good about how I played if I could beat even one of these fantastically strong opponents with a warband I consider to be underpowered. I don’t consider this to be an attempt to “stunt” on folks, so hopefully it was perceived as I intended it to be, which was for me to take my favorite warband to Worlds in a brand-new edition and do everything I could to bring them to the top.

Secondary Goal 2: Win a Bo3 against Gorechosen (Achieved)

Taking it one step further, I really wanted the satisfaction of beating at least one Gorechosen player. This is not meant as a slight towards anyone who chose to use the warband, it was clearly the strongest choice and gave the best chance of winning. It’s more that, barring some insane dice luck, I felt it would reflect that I’d played a really good game if I were able to beat a Worlds-level player using the warband, particularly given my perceived power level of what I had decided to bring. While I don’t want to dedicate too much time to whining about Gorechosen, I think it’s fair to say that, on release, it was the most broken thing I’ve faced since I started playing the game (early Direchasm) when taken in conjunction with some of the nonsense in the Reckless Fury deck. First edition pre-nerf GSP might give them a run for their money in terms of power level, but, for all the overpowered stuff I’ve seen in my time playing the game, I think that’s the only time I’ve personally felt something was close to what we were preparing to contend with at this event.

Secondary Goal 3: Don’t get 2-0’d (Achieved)

Given what we talked about with our last goal, I think this one actually was kind of ambitious. As you might’ve heard from the podcast episode, top level players were walking away from unnaturally brief 0-2 losses with the simple, yet reasonable explanation of “I got Dromm’d.” Leading up to the event, you could imagine that an unfortunate dice spike might mean an extremely rapid tabling in that matchup, and what could you do if it happened twice in a row? More generally, I take a lot of pride in being considered a “tough out.” If you’re going to beat me, I want you to really feel like you worked for it, so this is actually a goal I set for myself at every event. It’s also great encouragement to learn from Game 1 losses on the fly rather than waiting to do a postmortem once it is too late.

Secondary Goal 4: Have fun (Achieved!)

This last one is cliché and obvious and all those things, but if you’re not having fun at an event, I think it’s time to consider what you are doing there. I’m not just talking about all of the social aspects outside of the games, but I mean you need to be having fun playing the game itself. Since GW made the unpopular decision to essentially have us playtest a new game at Worlds rather than play the hyper refined meta at the end of the first edition, this, for me, changed my outlook tremendously. Why should I stress over winning if none of us are going to be at that hyper-tuned point in this game yet? Of course, I still wanted to win, but you can appreciate how it might feel different in this kind of game environment. So, before every game I told my opponents something along the lines of “hey, we’re here playing a brand-new game and we’re going to make mistakes. If the game state hasn’t changed, I’m cool walking things back and making sure we each play our best game.” This is generally something I like to do at every event, especially because the stress of a timer to play what can be a very complex game will often lead you to act out things incorrectly, even if you are doing the right things in your head. I’d much rather both players walked away from the table feeling like they had the chance to play their best game (whether I win or not) than win and have somebody feel like they walked away getting “gotcha’d” because I wouldn’t let them do something they’d intended to do in the first place. I often get the sense my co-hosts feel I am too lenient in this regard, and perhaps I am, but I just know how bad I feel when somebody restricts me in this way if I feel like the moment hasn’t really passed and I want to change something up a bit. I really don’t want people to feel that way when they play against me, and I hope the folks I played against enjoyed our games.

Decklist

Alright enough of the sappy stuff, let’s get into the details! If you’ve poked around online, you’ll know that I paired Blazing Assault (BA) with Pillage and Plunder (PnP) with Kainan’s Reapers, as shown above. While I considered Countdown to Cataclysm (CtC) as one of my decks, I ultimately felt this was the best set of surges I could put on the table, which is critical for getting down upgrades to make up for the warband’s woeful stats. BA contributed its wealth of damage and accuracy bonuses, but the mobility that it and PnP offered together were key. [Commanding Stride], [Illusory Fighter], [Great Speed], [Wings of War], and [Explosive Charges] all deserve special shout-outs as essential pieces in the deck that could actually get me where I needed to go. Hilariously, I played [Explosive Charges] once into an opposing Pillage and Plunder matchup and my opponent didn’t know what it did. Not a slight to them at all, more just a commentary on how a card can be more useful for some folks than for others. Why would you need it when your warband already moves 3 or 4 hexes on these new boards? Must be nice. While I didn’t necessarily agree with the FAQ ruling used at the event that [Wings of War] can’t extend your charge range if you don’t already have a legal target (they’ve since fixed that, thankfully), it was still extraordinarily useful in terms of letting me make charges targeting a different fighter from the one who was previously in range or for getting into Range 1 for an extra point of damage from uninspired Kainan or Khenta. [Hidden Aid] deserves a special note as well, since it not only serves as an accuracy and defensive buff, but further synergizes with the warband in that it can proc Ranks Unbroken By Dissent for some surprise grievous.

Still, a lot of the deck felt like a “look what they need to mimic a fraction of our power” moment when I played into elites with actual stats. If I had to make some changes (besides playing with a stronger warband and deck), I have since dropped [Perfect Strike] for [Hostile Takeover], which I initially read incorrectly and thought needed to be done in a single round, not just over the course of the game. With a healthy mix of Range 2+ attacks natively and an inclination to charge with Kainan as infrequently as possible, I would guess I likely met the condition for this one in most games. Still, I felt the surge package I picked was perfectly serviceable, so much so that I have also since been inclined to run a 13^th objective here with [Torn Landscape]. While not having that card in the PnP mirror is actually nice in some respects, the ceiling would have been appreciated into the all-out aggro matchups, and my surges were generally free enough that I saw (and/or scored) most or all of my deck in nearly every match anyway. In fact, I would frequently hold [Strip the Realm] in hand all game because I needed the ceiling, when maybe I could have just pitched it in an end phase or errant Focus action to pick up [Torn Landscape] to compensate, had it been in the deck. Perhaps my inclination to run a 13^th objective is further commentary on some of these initially printed surge cards being too easy to score, but again that is a topic for a different article… Otherwise, you could perhaps quibble over a power card or two, but I think the deck itself was perfectly functional, it would just have benefited from more ceiling in a world where there are realistically very few things you can do to stop your opponent from scoring.

Pools Day 1

Round 1 – vs. Yury with Gorechosen BA x RF (Loss: 15-16, 14-12, 14-16)

Unfortunately, Round 1 was something of an omen for how much of the tournament would go for me. I immediately pull the boogeyman of Gorechosen with Blazing Assault and Reckless Fury, only to lose in devastatingly close fashion. A mistake I would not repeat in later Gorechosen matches, Yury (a Worlds qualifier last year as well) was able to Call of Blood me earlier in the first game on some fighters I had elected not to move in my first Mortek Advance. While you’d still hope a few more of those early 2H swings miss (particularly in cases where the attacker is flanked), I was at least in the mix all 3 games, particularly when my Round 1 Dire Ultimatum prevented potential charge-out status from being reached. I believe I managed to score [Strip the Realm] each time here, as the games went more or less how I anticipated coming into the tournament, with big beefy boys charging all over the place and not needing to stand on tokens to execute their gameplan. I died pretty hard in all 3 matches, but was, as I expected, able to score most or all of my deck in each match. I think I might have killed only one 3-Bounty fighter in the set though, as the survival tech from Reckless Fury, combined with Final Frenzy, was a bit too much to overcome. I believe Kainan went down in both Games 1 and 3, and that 3-Bounty swing was the difference when compared with the Game 2 outcome. Still, I learned a lot about my deck in this set (being the first time I actually played it), and the experience of playing against Gorechosen, particularly with respect to Call of Blood and managing their blood tithe. which I think ultimately helped later in the tournament. Additionally, it was during this set I received confirmation from the judges that I could choose to inspire a fighter before using Mortek Advance, which I kind of suspected would be the case, but would later open up my mind to more possibilities for triple token squatting in my first turn if I deployed treasure tokens and fighters correctly.

Round 2-  vs. Michael with Cyreni’s Razors CtC X ES (Win: 17-16, 16-11)

Surprisingly enough, Michael and I were approached to play on stream in the second round despite both having lost our first. My understanding is that they really wanted to show a matchup that didn’t include Gorechosen, which, as you might imagine, was a relatively infrequent occurrence at the event. In any case, we were both happy to do so and I like to think we put on a pretty good show. Despite being the youngest WHU competitor at the event, Michael played an extremely composed and calculated game, which I greatly respected considering I typically would lump myself into that same category of player. Knowing from his pairing that he would be packing more passive scoring than me and would make [Strip the Realm] difficult by standing on treasure tokens, I basically decided I was going to harass him with Kainan as much as possible. It would be hard to take him off tokens in his own territory, but I figured that claiming some kill bounty and using Mortek Advance on the back end to try and protect the neutral territory token would be enough to carry the matchup. Fortunately, an early [Commanding Stride] allowed me to do exactly that in the first game, but it was still difficult to stem the tide of scoring because I’m just too slow to reach his back line tokens very effectively. I felt pretty in-control of the first game, yet still only won by a single glory point. The second game I think, had the dice cooperated, Michael would have had me beaten. We had this great sequence early in the second round where I overran onto a token, delved for [Claim the Prize], then used [Illusory Fighter] to get Kainan safely tucked away in my territory (or so I thought). He broke out the [Hidden Paths] with inspired Alathyrr to chase me down, but unfortunately missed a lethal 3H attack into the big guy. If that attack lands, I think he takes it to Game 3, but that allowed me to stay in the game until the third round, where it basically came down to whether or not Hakor would eventually be able to kill a defensively-buffed Cyreni off a treasure token, which, thanks to Unrelenting Assault, I got to try my hand at 3 times before finally succeeding, wrapping up a 2-0 win, but a decidedly close one.

With the shipping snafu at the beginning of the event, this wrapped up Day 1 for me with a record of 1-1, which was familiar considering I lost my first game at Worlds last year as well when I managed to turn it around and win my pool, so I was still feeling relatively confident heading into Day 2.

Pools Day 2

Round 3- vs. Sebastian with Daggok’s Stabladz BA x CtC (Win: 16-13, 19-20, 19-14)

I’d had the pleasure of playing against Sebastian at last year’s Worlds since we were in the same pool then as well, and our games were a lot of fun both times. I have to say, poor Sebastian could not land a Krule Stab to save his life in the first game and a half or so. I don’t know how many times he rolled for it, but he was mathematically long overdue by the time he finally got one inspired. However, as good as the warband’s inspired stats are, I think it lured him into a bit of a trap in this matchup. There were a number of times where his action step would simply be used to make a move adjacent to one of my fighters so he could try for the stab. This was, I think, ultimately his undoing, particularly in Game 3, as this strategy opens him up to an immediate 4-Damage clapback from Kainan with Ranks Unbroken by Dissent if I am able to get adjacent. For example, in Game 3, he got Hurrk inspired in this way almost instantly, but I then immediately used a [Commanding Stride] or [Illusory Fighter] (can’t recall which) to plop Kainan next to him and murder him since he was giving up support, which also got my own inspires going. While I managed to get him in the second round, the upgrades I got off the Hurrk bounty set up a good-odds swing to kill Daggok in the first round as well, which would have basically been an insta-win had it not whiffed. I will note that, whether as a result of bad dice luck or the less efficient turns taken going for the inspire, I believe this was the only set where Kainan never died, and your opponent failing to claim that kill Bounty is, I think, a huge determining factor in how the warband performs these days.

Round 4- vs. Graham with Grymwatch PnP x CtC (Win: 21-15, 21-14)

While I would consider Grymwatch to be the stronger of our two warbands overall, I think this was actually a bad matchup for Graham. Knowing he would want to be on tokens, I was able to leverage my superior movement economy to scramble onto tokens early, denying him some key delves while also typically denying him from scoring [Torn Landscape] and [Broken Prospects]. He also used the warscroll ability which lets him use his raise/inspire ability twice in the first round of both games, so I simply damaged, but did not kill his key non-leader fighters during that round. I’m ok if he’s bringing back Master Talon or something, but I’m definitely not interested in giving Gristlewel extra charges. On that note, I’m sure it also helped that, while Gristlewel hit far above his fair share of attacks, most of the rest of Graham’s team couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.

Round 5- vs. Daniele with Thricefold Discord BA x RF (Loss: 14-13, 14-17, 11-15)

With my eventual SoS, I was pretty certain that 4-2 would get me into the top cut, but of course I really wanted to get that 4^th win on this one since it was the last game of the day and I didn’t want to have to stress leading into the 6^th game the next morning. Obviously, you’re probably already aware that Daniele went undefeated for the event, but I like to think I gave him a run for his money. The first game started extremely poorly for me dice wise. Vashtiss got that instant full whiff you want to inspire Lascivyr, who is just an absolute menace in general (but especially for Reapers since I have to bunch my morteks up anyway and just generally have a lot of extra bodies he can ping). Attacks were pretty one-sided in the first round, and I think he reduced damage off Evasive on both of my first two hits of the game, which set me back a bit on my kill bounty and inspirations. However, the dice decidedly reared in my favor the next couple of rounds and were enough for me to eke out a 1-glory win despite an atrocious start. I thought I might’ve had him Game 2 as well, but a really nice use of his warscroll push ability denied me [Strip the Realm]. He just generally outplayed me that game, but I sadly don’t have very detailed notes on it otherwise. Game 3 was just one of those games that hinged on the little things: the board roll-off (the silly “wideboard” is another topic I’d like to discuss in a different article…), card sequencing, round roll-offs, etc. In Round 1, his only way of getting onto the only token easily accessible to him leading into the end phase to deny [Strip the Realm] was [Sidestep]. He tried to use his warscroll push, but we got clarification from the judges that he must push each of the 2 chosen fighters, not just one, and, because he couldn’t resolve one of the pushes to get them further apart from each other, he wasn’t able to use the ability. I was thrilled with this until, of course, he revealed the last card in his hand was that [Sidestep]. He won the Round 2 roll-off and, after his Action step, I am pretty sure I basically had no choice but to set up an adjacent attack with Kainan (I believe off an [Illusory Fighter]) so he wouldn’t have to charge and hope that Daniele did not have [Fury of Aqshy] in hand. Of course, this comes down as well and, in conjunction with a backbreaking play of [Reckless Attitudes] (I believe later in the same round) that forced out a Focus action, essentially sealed the game before we went to the third round. Game 3 was the first time in the tournament I felt I needed to take risks and play the odds about what cards my opponent might have in their hand if I wanted to win. While those risks obviously didn’t end up paying off, I think the fact that I felt compelled to make those plays speaks to how good of a player Daniele is. He built a great deck and played it pretty flawlessly, as evidenced by his ultimate result. I like to think I didn’t make many major mistakes in this game, but I do wish I had taken more detailed notes after the fact to do a proper postmortem.

Unfortunately, this left me sitting at 3-2 with a must-win game looming the following morning. While you try not to let the nerves get to you about that kind of thing, I would have much preferred to just rip that 6^th game right then rather than stress about it overnight.

Pools Day 3 (Last Game before Brackets)

Round 6- vs. Dan with Gorechosen BA x RF (Loss: 7-24, 14-13, 12-16)

As you might expect from the score, Game 1 was the first time I really felt “Dromm’d” at the event. While Yury still leveraged some of the very powerful things that Dromm did in our Round 1 matchup, Dan hit quite the dice spike in the first round of this game, leaving me without Kainan as well as two Morteks by the end of the first round. Not much you can do at that point, but of course we had to play it out for scoring. I believe I was tabled just before the end of the second round. Games 2 and 3 at least gave me a reasonable fighting chance. Dan did well to deny me [Strip the Realm] pretty consistently, but with some ability to fight back, both games were competitive throughout. Like the previous round, a couple small things shifting could have changed the tide in either Game 2 or 3, and I think we both played pretty well. Ultimately, just not quite enough kill bounty available between Final Frenzy and [Utter Ignorance], and Kainan going down (I think early in the 3^rd round) essentially marked that divergence point of winning and losing. Dan was a great opponent though and did his country proud with what I believe was a 5^th place finish for the event.

While a couple folks did manage to sneak into top 16 at 3-3, I was not quite so lucky in my pool, as we knew going into the 6^th round (if not even as early as the 5^th) that you’d need to be 4-2 or better. In fact, due to some odd pairings in the last round given that we couldn’t have repeat matchups, we actually had Zack miss top cut at 4-2 due to SoS tiebreakers since Derek, Yury, Dan, and Daniele were all 4-2 or better and with higher SoS. While I’d really hoped that Derek and I would get a chance to play each other for that last spot (and so I could exact vengeance on him for beating me last year), I still think I gave a pretty decent showing overall. At least that pressure was off leading into the consolation games.

Worlds Bracket

Round 7- vs. Damian with Gorechosen BA x RF (Win: 10-12, 18-11, 20-5)

Much as was the case at last year’s World Championships, Damian and I had the pleasure of facing each other in our first “doesn’t really matter” game of the tournament, which always creates a great environment for conversation and just generally enjoying the game. Of course, I was hoping to be done with facing this exact warband and deck pairing at this point in the contest, but it did afford me a chance to exact vengeance on it. I decided to take a different approach to the matchup this time and not bother hitting stuff unless I was dealing at least 3 damage (or whatever was enough for a kill/overkill). Despite not quite resulting in a win during a very denial-focused Game 1, this set me up for success in Games 2 and 3 when I finally got the early whiffs I’d been hoping for from Gorehulk and Dromm all tournament. These set up extremely hard punishes thanks to Dire Ultimatum letting me take my two-shots without severe potential for disruption (barring some pretty suboptimal uses of Enrage). In Game 2, I think it was Dromm who was dealt full damage in the mid-first round. Damian went for the early Final Frenzy, which did extend his life but ultimately removed the chance at reasonably inspiring early in the game. I think dice were relatively fair that game, but just him missing that first 50-50 had severe consequences. As you might imagine from the Game 3 score, this was the true low spike in elite aggro dice I had been waiting for all tournament. I chopped down Gorehulk in 3 turns (I believe I went first, so used one doing my traditional guard+Mortek Advance stuff) and I don’t think Damian hit anything in the first round. It was the only game all tournament where I killed both 3-Bounty fighters in the warband. While obviously there was dice luck involved there, I felt pretty vindicated that, when I finally got those early whiffs from my opponent, I was able to swiftly capitalize. You can probably imagine how good it felt for the matchup to finally go that way, even though it was a bit “too little, too late.” Credit to Damian as well for continuing to be a fantastic sport even during what I’m sure was a very frustrating Game 3 from his perspective.

Round 8 – vs. Skyler with Ylthari’s Guardians PnP x RF (Loss: 17-20, 19-15, 12-16)

As was the case when Skyler and I played at NOVA in 2023, we sat down for a very close, mentally-taxing Bo3 here at Worlds. This was the first time I had gotten to play against the Guardians in the new edition and Skyler had crafted a really unique deck with PnP and RF (in fact, he was the only one with the pairing at the event) that really amped up their elusiveness and survivability in the matchup. While scoring-wise I felt I was doing a good job keeping pace in the first game, the warscroll teleport for the Guardians proved to be extremely disruptive in this matchup, as it meant I wasn’t able to farm much of his kill Bounty due to his ability to position himself far away from Kainan at a moment’s notice. I’m simply too slow to keep up and it definitely showed in the first game. That said, I realized going into the second game that I needed to focus a bit more on denying his scoring rather than denying charges, which was a bit of a different path to what I had become accustomed to doing in other RF matchups throughout the tournament. Not that I wasn’t playing to deny things like [Arena Mortis] and [Unrelenting Massacre] in my earlier games, but they were often a secondary focus when compared to things like “how do I stop Gorehulk from double-tapping Kainan right off the bat?” The critical moment in that second game was being able to pull off [Strip the Realm] early on, not only adding 3 glory to my side, but also enabling me to get my deck cycling and my upgrades churning to make up a bit for what I am lacking in stats in this particular matchup. In Game 3, there was basically a 3-turn sequence where the game was, I think, decided. Towards the end of the first round, I had a chance at both a kill on Ahnslaine and a [Broken Prospects] score, but the latter wouldn’t work without the former, as I needed the inspiration to get the extra hex of movement to land on my 3^rd treasure token via Mortek Advance to delve. Unfortunately, I whiff the 3 Hammers into 1 Dodge to set it up. This was also compounded by the Guardians landing three consecutive hits into 2-Shield ([Impossibly Quick]) Kainan, at least two of which were straight 2 Hammers into 2 Shields. Net result, I was not able to cycle my deck quickly enough and lost Kainan early in Round 2. Despite what I think I can fairly describe as bad dice luck overall in this particular game, I am still kicking myself that I forgot about the Range 3 attack on Ylthari that took him down, because I had [Healing Potion] in-hand and could have saved him had I realized the threat. Despite a couple chances to eke my way back into the game, I unfortunately was not able to claim any kill bounty in this third game and so lost a very hard-fought Bo3 to Skyler here, but ultimately it was a very satisfying set to play in the new edition with the two of us getting to show off some more interesting tech on less linear gameplans.

Round 9 vs. Guillaume with Ylthari’s Guardians ES x CtC (Win: 18-17, 14-21, 21-12)

While it resulted in a loss, the set against Skyler gave me some critical insight into how the Guardians actually function (particularly the strength of that warscroll teleport) that carried over well to this set, despite the fact that Guillaume was playing for a more passive strategy with ES x CtC. We pushed pretty close to the time limit for the Bo3 here simply because this game gets to be very complex and cerebral when we’re not just running at each other trying to rack up kills. As I’ve said in the past concerning V1 (and it definitely applies to V2), this game is at its best when we’re playing Flex vs. Flex, and this set was no exception. After a really great back-and-forth at last year’s Worlds, I think we actually surpassed it this year in a fantastic Bo3. Unfortunately for Guillaume, he was not able to escape his Kainan Curse, as the third game in this set was very one-sided in my favor dice-wise. Still, the give-and-take of me trying to delve tokens and stop him from holding while he tried to stand on those treasure tokens was extremely fun and engaging, especially when balanced against some key uses/the threat of use of our warscroll abilities. Most notably, Ranks Unbroken by Dissent helped me secure kills in back-to-back turns with a one-shot on Skhathael to open the second round of Game 3 which, augmented by my dice luck, was enough to tip the scales in my favor to take the Bo3.

Round 10 vs. Rafal with Headsmen’s Curse BA x RF (Loss: 14-10, 11-21, 15-16)

With as much experience against this deck pairing as I had at this point in the tournament, I feel like I was generally doing the right things, denying [Unrelenting Massacre] (which I can’t recall if he had) and [Arena Mortis] as often as I was able. I’d also generally prioritize inspiring the 2-Shield Morteks when he chose them as his condemn targets and tried to keep them safe. Unfortunately, I think this was really the set where Rafal showed me the true strength of the pairing itself besides simply what Gorechosen was able to do with it. [Utter Ignorance] going onto the Wielder basically traps 3 glory (and 3 bone tithe) behind a “not worth it” amount of activations to try and bring him down and each ~50% attack that hit felt super impactful. While Game 1 started out pretty abysmally for me, the dice turned in my favor for Rounds 2 and 3, leading to actually escaping with the win there. However, Game 2 could not have gone worse. I don’t know how many times I swung at the 1-Dodge Scriptor, but I can tell you that I just could not hit him. It still felt a bit like getting “Dromm’d” even with a different warband doing it to me. Thankfully, we were able to conclude on a very tight, back-and-forth game which basically came down to the last attack. Ultimately, Senha’s (or Karu’s, I can’t recall) boney head was added to the basket, but it was a really great game. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t quite threaten the Wielder enough with all the survivability tech to pull it off and finish above .500, but at least I did win more individual games than I lost (15-13 overall) for the tournament.

Conclusion

Overall, I’m actually really pleased with how I played this year, despite the ultimate result. In case it was not clear, whether you are winning or losing, Worlds is a ton of fun. From the competitive side, I don’t think the competition gets any stronger, but the real joy is getting to meet up with a bunch of folks from around the world that you might only know from their online presence. I’m never short for praise on the way the Underworlds community comports itself and Worlds is maybe the best representation of that camaraderie and welcoming atmosphere. While I am disappointed that we were subjected to a brand-new and indisputably unbalanced version of the game (as well as with the hiccup with the delivery of product at the outset), the events team did a great job communicating with us and trying to make up for the unfortunate situation we found ourselves in. If you’re on the fence about trying to qualify for next year, I’d encourage you to give it a go. While I recognize that it is a big commitment both financially and in terms of your time, it does live up to its status as the highlight event of the year. I know I’m itching to requalify, so hopefully I’ll see some of you on the way there!

Whether you’re planning to win Worlds, a Grand Clash, or even just your local store’s tournament, we wish you the best of luck on YOUR Path to Glory!