Hi folks...

I'm here to write a little report of our National Championship, that was held yesterday in Modena (Italy). I hope some other player will come to tell you what happened in detail.

I've to admit this regional has been the FINAL demonstration of our theorem: VISIT THE HAUNTED CITY IS BROKEN and has to be BANNED. Verena has to be restricted, but it's not the main problem (played 2-3 times in the whole tournament).

I told you this thing as lots of other people did: try to face a well built Empire deck played by good players (not me, I didn't play this year just to invest all of my time to organize the league and the regional) and you'll see what I mean.

I think I'll be able to post the winning list soon.

I start with a picture...a very eloquent picture (they're the TOP8 players...One is missing 'cause left after losing the quarter finals)...

THE DECKS

12 Empire Decks (Verena KIngdom - VTHC decks, 30-70). Nowadays, Empire decks doesn't play on KZ anymore: it doesn't need more than 3 resources to play. Totally destructive.

12 Orc Decks (Control). The only opponent for VTHC decks. Noone cut through the finals.

1 Caos Mill Deck, called "Psycho Chaos" (the player is a friend of mine...It's a HERO ahahah).

1 Dark Elf Mill Deck.

26 players total for a wonderful, competitive and destructive "empire" event.

SATURDAY, June 18

We started the day BEFORE the regional with a "Three Kings Hill" tournament with little modifications, but basically a common 3vs3. 4 Teams: Orcs Control, Empire, Dark Elf/Orcs, someone Caos/Orcs.

Funny event, funny decks.

There's something like a "silent war" between two of our metas: the "Miland" meta (in the photo, standing, the first from left, the second and the fourth) and the "Fiaro" team (the third in the upper line and the three crazy boys kneeling...One is missing from the top 8).

This "inner war" is something funny that occurs in every single tournament...The first guy kneeling from the left is the champion of our national LEAGUE. The guy in the center became the REGIONAL CHAMPION.

The first guy standing from the left is a very expert and powerful player and went to the final...During our league, is the player who collected the most won games (almost any game he played). From a straight "raiting" point of view, is our best player...

Anyway, the war was funny and in the end, Fiaro team won. 1-0 in the team war, good event for everyone else.

SUNDAY, June 19

The war begun at 10,15 a.m.

5 swiss rounds + Top 8. Everyone played at the best of his possibilities: funny games, most of 'em ended with additional rounds. Some 1-1 and 2-1, especially in mirror matches (the Dark Elf MILL against CAOS Mill tie was epic! ).

But mostly 2-0 for empires. During 4th turn, everyone understood what was going to happen...

In the end, the TOP 8 included the 2 big teams (one of the "Fiaro" team was missing, as I said) and another guy (the one that's not on the photo) a relatively new player that's becoming really strong...

8 Empires, Quest centered (one of them was a bit more centered on KZ). Verena wasn't needed. The games where something like CHESS games.

Every single match was around puttin'/killin'/movin' stuff from QZ to BZ to avoid oppo's card advantage...

In the final went Gianluca (the first guy standing from the left, the "boss" of the Miland meta) and the "little" Sabba (it's nickname, the kneelin' guy in the center): it was an epic game!!

First game Gianluca started with: double quest, one with militia, the other with pistoliers...Derricksburg Forge in the KZ, develop in QZ. Pass.

The game ended 2 turns later.

Second game was more balanced...lots of turns, but Sabba got the match in the middle and after he played Lights of Morrslieb, Gianluca conceded.

the final game was kinda epic-dramatic!

Gianluca started badly, Sabba not that good...In the early game Sabba was over the oppo, but Gianluca is a very skilled-expert player and came back with an idea: if it's impossible to overrun the oppo with VTHC (cause Sabba got the 2nd and started the usual "cycle"), I'll get him by...WAR.

Started moving and playin' everything in the BZ (the basic idea of VTHC deck is to put everything in the BZ, then move them back in the KZ when they're useless (after collecting money) and then put them in the BZ again...In this way, the great amount of devs protect you from some of the attack and the oppo cannot draw nor go for resources advantage.

The game went this way...But Sabba didn't make a single mistake and played it perfectly time after time, with a bit of "math" to avoid "surprise attacks"...After lots of turns and a long minute of silence, Gianluca offered his hand to Sabba and said: "You won."

Even if I was the judge and the co-ordinator for the italian community, I'm still a player and the FIARO is the team born where I started playin'-demoing the game, near where I live...I'm kind of "happy" for their results and I'm happy to see a powerful young player as Sabba is winning a difficult tournament like this, especially for the extremely power of its final oppo, Gianluca, that deserves a lot of respect.

In the end it was a great game, everyone was happy.

Thanks to FFG for the support and for developing this wonderful game...

Anyway, please: INCREASE the playtesting and BAN Visit for the Haunted City. I'm AGAINST bans, but this one is needed. It's just a WRONG card. Decks play around her, it's not playin'. It's "Luck" for the one who draws it first.

And restrict Verena: this 2 moves will renew the game's strength.

Thanks for reading. I'll leave you with some pictures.

DB

Me, with the 3rd player "Fabrizio"

Me, with the 2nd player "Gianluca"

Me with the Champion, SABBA

Me with the 2nd player of our LEAGUE "FiarOfTrouble", aka JACK BLACK

Me with the LEAGUE champion, "Mad_Kami"

Sabba with his "fiaro" shirt and pride.

The Fiaro Team (from the left, standing: Mad_Niko, FiarOfTrouble, Mad_Kami, Sabba kneeling)

Here's the Sabba's winner list...

UNITS 21

3x Rodrik Raiders

3x Skinks of Sotek

3x *Willhelm of the Osternacht

3x Kinght Panthers

3x Pistoliers

3x Jade Accolyte

3x Grail Knights

SUPPORTS 11

3x Contested Village

2x *Lights of Morrslieb

3x Church of Sigmar

3x Derricksburg Forge

TACTICS 18

3x Pilgrimage

2x Judgement of Verena

2x Forced March

3x Iron Discipline

3x Long Winter

3x A Noble Quest

2x Ancient Map

QUEST 3

3x Visit The Haunted City

TOT: 53

Winner seems to be a good player, because this deck has few drawbacks and useless cards, and he still won. I wonder how good orc control couldnt beat this deck, same goes for a good orc rush. No Chain Lightnings and Will of Electors, Pistoliers without Shrine to Taal, Jade Acolyte, no huntsmen or other cheap units to get on quest in first turn. This deck could be better.

Mamut said:

I don't know what's the basis of your statement, I trust your idea...But...This deck is the strongest list around. There's not a SINGLE deck that can beat it with a significant ratio: every list has been tested (yours, theirs, whatever).

The winner is a very skilled player yes. But its deck has its portion of the merit.

Let's see your points, I'll try to answer:

- There were 12 Empire decks. 7-8 of them were built by the two times, with some different cards (some play Huntsmen, some Militia, some don't, and so on)...But basically, this is a QUEST deck. 8 of e'm went through the finals. No orc control, no rush, no "powerful" dark elf deck. Nothing more than the deck we're worrying about. 26 players, 12 Empires, 8 Empire in the TOP 8. Quest Empire deck won. That's what's happening around the world.

- Taal? Not needed. This is not a KZ deck. It doesn't play ANYTHING but DERRICKSBURG or, if needed, villages (doesn't not happen that much) in the KZ. Works fine with 3 resources per turn. Single move + dev + what you can drop per turn and control. Stop. If you need 4 resources (Wilhelm or LIghts), just move Pistoliers or animate a "puppy" with "Gandalf" (jade) and you've done.

Taal is not a part of THIS list: doesn't win this way: you win by locking the oppo, that cannot do nothing more than conced, at a certain point.

- Huntsmen is a choice in some lists, as well as Peasant Militia. This is a matter of strong playtesting. Cannot answer with an accurate point of view here: my idea is that there's not enough space for them.

Anyway, you have strong starting hands, with derricksburg: quest + Grail, quest + Jade, quest + Panther.

You don't need nothing more. When you play HUNTSMEN you've started well, ok...But then? No further ability o real boost.

Derricksburg + Quest + Grail is the most powerful overture, cause it's a 4 resources and 3 cards turn 2.

- Jade Acolyte is there.

- WIll of The Electors? This is not a verena deck. Verena has been played 2 times out of 15 games. It's not needed anymore on a regular basys. You just need it against orcs or against some distracted oppos...You leave a single dev in one zone? Or you just don't play devs in a zone because you don't play cards there?

Attack with Willy, move with Forced +/or Quest, Verena. 4 resources for 2-3 cards. Game over.

- Chan LIghtnings? Why? Why do you should spend 2 resources for it when you play 2-3 resources per turn and 1 is needed for Jade to boost KZ or QZ, where needed?

You don' kill stuff. You move it. If you hate rush, just use Acolyte to block and Skinks to shoot. That's it.

Believe me: there are no point of views anymore. Understand it and try it against who you want with CONSISTANT playtesting. You'll get what this deck really is.

Then, ok, you can discover new synergies or change some cards, that's not the point...But this result it's not an opinion.

If you win 90% the games you play against Reanimator, other Empires, Caos, Mill...Well, it can be JUST the player.

I totally agree with you, Cooper.

You did really a good job, your report is great and finally you demonstrated the bloody Quest is really Broken and has to be banned as soon as possibile.

That's it, facts are speaking.

As fanatic orc player like i am, i feel sick... i don't want to see "totally blue tournaments" like this one, it's really disapponting!

Something has to be changed in this game, before too many players start feeling like me.

Nice report Cooper i'm nearly new to the game but watching most valuable players of my country i already understood the power of this quest and of the deck in general (the quest mainly). And seeing 8 players with same archetype of deck in the best 8 places of the Regional will not help too much new players to joining the game (IMHO). I still love the game and my chaos deck but one thing is playing for the fun to do it so you can make decks you like even if they're not the most competitive, one is playing in tournaments (and tournmanets are part of the game where you can challenge really good players and improve your playing skills) when you already knew that 50-60% of decks you will face are same tipe of decks and that if the other player is not totally drunk you can't beat even if you pray all the Chaos Gods

Mamut said:

Mamut, probably you are kidding...

Or maybe you didn't understand what's the base strategy.

This deck is perfect , like other TOP 7 decks, quite similar to this one!

The strategy is to draw as soon as possibile the quest. If you play it down and you have many little creatures to put in the Quest Zone ('cause the opponent could be a control deck and try to remove you units) you can easily control your opponent: why to destroy an opponent's support if you can easily move it into the battlefield? (think about a warpstone in battlefield, what a damage for a rush!)

Why you should spend time and resources removing opponent's units if you can move there wherever you want and whenever you want? You can choose to move all of them in the kingdom giving a lot of resources to the other player when he's drawing just a single card, with a few cards in hands... or you can choose to make him draw as much as you can, leaving him just 3 resources per turn and waiting to see the bottom of his deck...

In other words, with a deck like this, if you play the quest in the first turn, you have 80% of possibilities to win (except in mirror matches, in this case i think it's lower).

I think this broken card is killing the game, and Italian Regional is the evidence.

Mamut said:

I wouldn't call that cards drawbacks or useless. As far as we know the italian players seem to be the ones that take the game most serious than any others. There are regularly whi meetings and tournaments and there are a lot of players present. So you should think about why this deck is so strong and not change some cards that you think are better. It all depends of the whole deck and how it interacts within itself as DB.Cooper already explained.

DB.Cooper:

Thank you very much for this detailed report. It was intersting to read and it would be cool to get something like that more frequently

Congratulation to the winner and finally we are able to see one of those decks that you couldn't post before. I'm interested about the chaos mill deck. Is there a chance that you can publish other decks from the tournament?

The only thing that made me wonder about the winners deck was Skinks of Sotek without at least one copy of Spawns of Itzl. Are they that good by theirself? They are good against some basic orc/chaos units, Shades, Huntsmen and Skaven but I usually play at least 2x Spawns of Itzl when I include them in an order deck. But I guess you already playtested that out.

Its pretty clear that Empire is the best deck and that Visit is likely the most powerful card in W:I right now. It is also the case that the Italian meta seems like a very strong and active one and I'm sure that it is full of quality players.

Still I find it hard to believe the the best possible version of this list would be 53 cards. As you said the most important factor with this deck is to have Visit in play with a unit on it on turn one. Three cards over 50 would not make a large statistical difference with when you are going to draw it, but it will make a difference. I cannot think of a compelling reason to go over 50 cards with this archtype.

Additionally with a list like this I think that there is an argument to remove judgement altogether. As you said it was not used very often during the event and with only long winter you wont be able to use it to destroy more than a single zone if your opponent is playing correctly.

As I stated earlier I do agree that Visit is probably too strong and I know that Lukas mentioned that they would likely be doing something about it in the next FAQ when I was at LCG days. We will just have to wait and see.

Congrats to the winner!

you forgot Map Vitamin, % so is 6 cards over 53 with a Mulligan to play i'm not a teacher of % but i think is not so low

Thanks to DB for the report! Congrats to the winner! I am so jealous of the Italian metagame, I want more players in Calgary!

Anyway, we are planning to mass join the next European Tournament in Germany. I'd like to meet there all the others guys from Poland, France and Spain, all country with great comunities and strong players.

I wanna give you some more information about our inner league.

This year (which is the second one since the game has been played in our country) our league organized 35 tournaments with an average number of player of 14-18 each, for a total ammount of 89 registered players.

Atm the biggest comunity can be found in Milano (Milan) and Jesi (near Ancona), while growing ones are in Roma (Rome), Torino (Turin), Bologna, Fossano (near Turin) and in Napoli(Naples). We hope to get more ppl involved the next year, and I can't hide you that our ambitious aim is to double the number of tournaments and players subscribed to the comunity.

grille said:

Thank you for reading my "chaotic" posts. I thought it would be a good idea to use our regional report to discuss the meta with you, guys. Even if sometimes topics become harsh, the most important thing is to keep in contact and...discussion.

Anyway: here's the Chaos MILL deck. I've to say that the "Chaos Mill vs Dark Elf Mill" match was amazing...1-1 at the end of regular time.

This deck is played by a player whose nick is "Gulug". The deck's name is "PSYCHO-CHAOS" or, better, "PSYCHAOS"

UNITS

3x Sorcerer of Tzeentch

3x Lobber Crew

3x Wight Lord

3x Plague Monk

3x Fledgling Chaos Spawn

3x Doombull

3x ??? (don't remember...some Marauders, I guess)

SUPPORTS

3x Desecrated Temple

3x Dark Abyss

3x Cloud of Flies

3x Contested Village

TACTICS

3x Cloying Quagmire

3x Innovation

3x Bolt of Change

3x Plague Bomb

3x Flames of Tzeentch

QUESTS

3x Prepare for War

Extremely funny deck: he knew the regional would have been "empire/orcs" but he came with it. It's HIS deck.

I hope noone's been offended from our "posts" and I'm sorry if happened, takin' all responsibility.

We want this game to get even better and there's nothing more to do than takin' a tough decision, admit the mistake and go-on. Legends is a funny expansion and I'm sure will have a great impact on the game in the near future, but alone can't do anything...

Adding STRONG cards for other factions it's just a wrong way to deal with a couple of design mistakes: bye Quest, by Verena and we have OUR game.

VITAMIN: the main reasons for the 53 cards are:

1- Verena: Someone pulled it out. But during playtesting, lots of people tended to "under-develop" some zone just because "Empire Quest deck doesn't play verena anymore" or just because "it's better to lose a zone than 2".

In this deck you have 3 different ways to move stuff around and a SINGLE verena can change EVERYTHING: the main idea is to move everything in the BZ, as I said...It seems "crazy" but it's not: if you play rush, everything goes in the KZ until it's dead. Ok. RUSH cannot develop if they want to play what they draw. They draw and put stuff in the BZ to burn...Move in the KZ: get 10 resources, draw 1 card. Game over.

For other decks, it's not that "heavy" to increase the oppo's BZ: I can still move stuff in the KZ after you get 3 and then put 'em back in the BZ after you pass. Jade Acolyte helps a lot 'cause it destroys rushing purposes and speeds KZ up avoiding useless drops.

The deck is QUEST centered, not only as "card", but as "zone".

2- Church of Sigmar: Sorcerer of Tzeentch is a problem. A REAL pain. Destroys rush alone and empire units are not that "big". Chaos has lots of "damage dealing" tactics, but has a problem: loyalty and costs. No "linear" cost curve. 1 more resource is just...too difficult to handle. It's basically "choose a single damage dealing tactic" per turn...One more turn for me is a step closer to the lock.

Then..Mirror. If you wanna compete with it, you have to improve your KZ. If you do it, I'm a step forward.

I definitely think that Verena, in the end, should go out, but I think the right philosophy in a case like this (I mean, in a "high competitive regional" is: "a card that helps me 2 times, can be the winning card."

The single Verena that the champion played, let him go through the finals.

Then, there are tastes, and choices... Thanks for posting. Always appreciated!

For everyone else: thanks for reading and keep reading..:We'll add any other detail as soon as we'll pull it out from our PCs/minds.

And keep asking: we're very happy to answer and discuss.

grille said:

Sorry, I forgot to answer this...

Personally, I like Spawns.

Just a thing...I repeat, as I said, that this year I didn't play at tournaments just because we had a difficult year for organization and I preferred to help with it....But I play from time to time and when they started playtesting and playin' their deck, I started studyin' they're choices and comparing them with mine.

Some time before the regional, I ended up with a list very similar to theirs, but they've a lot more of playtesting than any other player in our area and they're VERY skilled...

Just to say that even if you can trust at least my mind "integrity", I don't know if my explanation corresponds to the EXACT analysis of the Fiaro team.

Anyway: Skinks are strong in this list for two reasons

1- Destroy rush. Kill any little buddy. When rush try to end things up and you have, let's say, Jade Acolyte out, you usually create one "token" to block. This tecnique, understimated in lots of metas, is a key one: you get 2 HP instea of 1 for the ZONE and you deal 1 damage to one attacking unit, basically at the cost of "1".

If the unit didn't die, you finish it with Skinks.

That's just a scenario...But I'm sure you got the point.

2- Costs 2. It's a neutral and it's a good start with a bad hand...Quests has 2 loyalty and if the oppo goes rush, you can open Quest + him.

Another scenario.

Basically it's a 2 cost that always kills a rush unit.

If not neede (against Reanimator, i.e.), it's an easy develop.

SPAWN of ITZL was VERY good with Verena centered decks, were you used to move less stuff than with a Quest centered deck. Verena was based on "erase", VTHC decks are based on LOCKS.

Spawn is a 3 drop unit that it's basically a "BZ only" for its "after attack" effect. A 3 drop unit like that is a lost turn in the economy of a deck that plays with 3 resources per turn.

That's the main reason.
IF you take a look at the cost curve, is basically "locked" at "2". There are 2 4-cost cards (Willy, Morrslieb), considering Grail as a 2-cost card.

It means that each turn you do the same stuff: play a 2-cost unit, develop, move if you can, attack (dealing 1-2 damage) and pass, keepin' 1 unspent resources to boost Panther OR to create a token in your Phase 0 or just to create a token to defend.

Kragg said:

Wolfgang and I will talk about WHI details this week and we think we have some fun surprising events apart from the constructed one.
Can you give me feedback if it would be possible for players to bring their card collection with them to allow strange time limited deckbuilding events?

ofc also with german players I think it wont be a problem for us to bring all the cards, anyway we'll let you know in time, that's for sure!

Great report!

How about decklist for 2nd and 3rd place? Could you give us the lists?

Amarok said:

Thanks!

2nd and 3rd players were from the "opposing" team, I don't know if they want to share they're decks...But...Basically it's the same list with some differences (Militia and Huntsmen for someone)...Basically a TOTAL mirror match.

Ok.

And how about the most powerful chaos deck?

this is the list of 2nd and 3rd player, as DBCooper said, they are from the same team so they got the same deck:

3x contested

3x derricksburg forge

2x light of moorslieb

3x long winter

1x verena

1x ancient map

3x pilgrimage

3x iron discipline

3x noble quest

3x quest

3x huntsmen

3x sotek's shinks

3x zeloat hunter

3x willy

3x peasant militia

3x panther knights

3x pistoliers

3x jade's acolyte

1x talablhem detachment

total 53 cards.

Kragg, thanks for posting 2nd place. You posted only 50 cards instead of 53 cards. Is that correct?

There are some cards in this deck which are questionable to my mind. I find 8 support cards a bit too little (although I know that in your current italian meta there is not much kingdom "development").

Skin of Sotek without Spawn was already questioned. Only the combination of both lizardmen brings control into your deck.

What to do with 1 Talabheim Detachment, Pistoliers and Jade Acolyte? To my mind there are much better choices (Grail Knight, Rodrik's Raiders...).

Nevertheless, it is interesting how the picture of the best current Empire VTHC deck differs from country to country and even from playgroup to playgroup.

you are right about the cards number, i forgot to add rodrik's riders reaching exactly 53 cards.

about your statements, actualy I also do prefer playing both lizards and I'm stil wondering why there is just that single talablhem detachment anyway the jade acolitye is a rly strong cards, he's rly usefull to improve your drawing or gathering resources, to stop attacks and to hit if necessary. pistoliers they got played even w/o taal for their possibiliy to skip between zones.

grail knights are rly strong, expecially in a meta filled with VTHC decks, but as you truely said, every metagroup has his own view of the deck.

They use shinks w/o spwn of itzl in order to be able to kill lobber crew and stunty-smasha. that's why they got them in the deck.

Philos said:

Just to be precise, the 2nd player, as I wrote in the report, is NOT by the same team...It's the "ENEMY" of the winning team.

Anyway, they have 2 different ideas and teching styles.

Let's explain your doubts:

- I've already answered on Skinks.

- 1x Talabheim Detachement is a particular tech...It's the only unit you can save as a "response" to mass-destruction and basically is an added "pistolier".

Jade Acolyte is one of the 2/3 strongest and Basic cards in the deck: I talked about it a lot...It's a quick drop, it creates "puppies" to block rush, attack, draw or get a resource, depending on what you need in a particular moment. It always gets 1 of the 3 resources per turn.

Grail is a good choice (the "Sabba" Team played it), but it's risky: the demonstration is the "Zealot Hunter" Tech: if you start with it and Zealot Hunter comes out turn 1, it's basically a mess.

Pistoliers is strong and powerful anyway: it's not a "weapon" of destruction, but a tactical one: it basically moves your whole strategy. In the early game you need to draw and it goes to KZ, as everything else aside Contesteds/Derricksburgs: in the mid late game you usually move it (if you don't have the "puppy") if you need a resource boost or the opposite if you need card boost when you played it in kz.

Pisstoliers, with Talabehim, are also an auto-save against Verena.

This dack plays A LOT in phase 0 and changes it's "income" depending on the opponent's turn.

- What other supports you would include? This VERSION (the "enemy version") is based on "playin'/Activate the quest faster than the oppo". To do so, you've to include more cheap units (Huntsmen and Peasant, totally absent in the Sabba's deck).

In this way you are more vulnerable, but you have more choice.

Hope it helps.