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Metawatch – Following 2,000 Games Across the 2021 US Open Grand Tournament Series

After the third and final 2021 Warhammer US Open in Austin, TX, in November, the stage was set for an early-December showdown between the best gamers in the world at the Citadel Cafe in Grapevine, TX. Hundreds attended both tournaments, but only two could be crowned Best General and Best Overall.

What did we learn from the Austin event, the Dallas Finale, and the Open Series as a whole? Warhammer’s global events chief Mike Brandt was on the ground, and joins us to share his insights.

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Mike: When the dust settled in Austin and Dallas, over 2,000 games of Warhammer 40,000 awaited assessment across the 2021 US Open events. These games crossed several codex releases and the first Balance Dataslate.

During the event series, we’ve tracked two general metrics – Faction Win Rate and Go First Win Rate (GFWR). Faction Win Rate deals with the relative strengths and popularity of each faction, while GFWR reflects the general health and balance of the core game missions and rules.

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In terms of Faction Win Rate, a noteworthy trend coming off the back of the Balance Dataslate is the impact of top player perceptions. With the overall power of Adeptus Mechanicus and Orks tuned down less than two weeks before Austin, several top players switched factions – notably to Drukhari and Tyranids.

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This contributed to a trend within the results of individual events – not only are stronger factions more likely to do well on average, but they gain the statistical benefit of 6-8 extra “wins” by virtue of more experienced players with larger model collections quickly pivoting to the perceived new strongest factions.

Every tournament is different, and the following data results in part from the unique combination of factors present in a US Open:

  • Fixed terrain layouts that change based on the day

  • Brackets after four rounds to ensure players are paired against competitive peers for most of the event

  • The choice to pursue either win-based awards or hobby-based awards of equal prestige (which may affect the models players choose to bring)

Go First Win Rate – Orlando to Dallas

Go First Win Rate is an important indicator that our mix of terrain and missions is right. A GFWR between 45-55% is relatively healthy, while 50% is ideal.

Across over 2,000 battles, the GFWR at the US Opens this year sat at a nearly perfect 50%, with 1,006 wins to the player who went first and 1,005 wins to the player who went second.

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Based on these results over a substantial number of games, we feel fairly confident the combination of solid terrain layouts and the current mission structure fall within a very healthy range with regard to the inherent advantages and disadvantages of going first or second.

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That said, let’s take a look at the other big focus for data – faction balance.

Faction Balance – Orlando to Austin

The following data encompasses all three of the US Open events. Following the Balance Dataslate, Austin contributed some interesting final shifts to these results. For the purposes of these totals, a few factions were consolidated from the data presented by tournament software Best Coast Pairings:

  • Asuryani, Ynnari, and Craftworlds were combined into an Aeldari category.

  • Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and mixed Chaos Daemons results were combined into Chaos Daemons.

  • Tyranids lists with token Genestealer Cults Detachments to convey Cult Ambush markers for deployment zone protection, which were previously listed as Forces of the Hive Mind, were combined into Tyranids.

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The Balance Dataslate targeted several key factions that have been underperforming (Chaos Space Marines, Imperial Knights, Chaos Knights, and Necrons) and overperforming (Orks, Drukhari, Adeptus Mechanicus). Given the variety of player choices and faction variances in Warhammer 40,000, a perfect 50% win rate balance across all factions is fairly unrealistic. Ideally, though, all factions would fall somewhere between a 45-55% win rate. 

Several trends were illustrated at Austin: 

  • Drukhari performed slightly better than before.

  • Orks performed well, but not as well as at Orlando.

  • Adeptus Mechanicus were not as dominant as at prior events.

  • Imperial and Chaos Knights performed very well, including a top bracket showing by the latter.

  • Chaos Space Marines and Necrons performed similarly to before.

Many other factions saw their win percentage move closer to 50 (down in some cases, up in others).

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In short, the Balance Dataslate seems to have contributed to a positive overall change.

In particular, we’re interested in what causes top players to choose a faction (beyond it simply being a currently “good” or “powerful” faction) and how factors like faction popularity across the entire tournament field affect the overall faction win rate.

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Standout Lists from Austin

Several players took advantage of changes from the Balance Dataslate to bring very different top-performing lists compared with previous events. Of particular note were Richard Siegler’s Drukhari, with which he completed his sweep of all three Best General awards this year; Mani Cheema’s Tyranids, which he brought overseas from the UK and fell short of Best General only after he met Richard in the final round; and Matt Allee’s Chaos Knights, which had a strong finish in the top bracket to help turn this faction’s fate around.

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Each of these lists highlights effects from recent rules releases. The War Zone: Octarius expansions helped the Tyranids, granting them better tools (Hive Guard in particular) to finally crack the top tier of the current meta.

Drukhari points increases and decreases saw a dramatic shift into heavier lists featuring highly durable Talos and Grotesque units.

And mission-focused improvements to Imperial Knights and Chaos Knights enabled a list with both big and small Knight chassis to perform well and take a legitimate shot at a Grand Tournament title.

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Clifton Russell’s Orks list shows that da boyz can punch their weight in the big show with their recent codex refresh.

US Open Roadshow Finale – Dallas

For our finale at the Warhammer Citadel in Grapevine, Texas, we opted for a different format, ensuring a fun and competitive experience for our Best General and Best Overall contenders. Each attendee played four games over two days. Two of these were exhibition matches, and two were competition matches.

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In the exhibition matches, each player was provided with a list written in advance by the Events Team. These were intentionally less optimised than high-performing tournament lists, so the exhibition games were enjoyable and competitive.

After the exhibition matches, the contenders played competition matches to determine the year’s Best Overall and Best General. These lists featured all the brutality and cunning you would expect from a strong tournament list.

Another exciting aspect was the introduction of two new Grand Tournament missions. Our valiant contenders played Secure Missing Artefacts and Recover the Relics on Saturday and Sunday respectively. These missions are a great preview for things to come in Warhammer 40,000 matched play, including a refined primary mission objective system along with further improvements to existing secondary objectives.

After the dust settled, we crowned our inaugural Warhammer 40,000 Best Overall and Best General. Cannon Biggs edged out Sascha Edelkraut for Best Overall, and Mani Cheema narrowly beat Brad Chester in a transatlantic show of force.

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It should be mentioned that upon learning the Best General competition would have three Drukhari players, Brad Chester decided to play his intentionally less powerful exhibition list in all of his games. 

Like the great competitor he is, Brad first made sure that this was acceptable to his opponents (all of whom independently, and even gleefully, agreed to play a ‘non-meta’ list) and the Events staff (who granted the request upon confirming that his opponents agreed).  

Despite using this less than optimal list, Brad earned an upset win over his Art of War teammate Jack Harpster, who was running a brutal Blood Angels army. This victory ensured Brad a place at the top table, facing off against Mani Cheema’s Talos-heavy Drukhari list.  

The Finale game was a nail-biter that came down to the final player turn. In the end, Mani was able to hold out against Brad’s Aeldari assault, winning the game 79-69. Interestingly, had Brad selected the secondary objective Engage on All Fronts (which he was initially leaning towards) instead of Bring it Down, he would have scored an additional 12 points and won the game 81-79. Instances like this show exactly how important secondary objective selection is in matched play.

The final standings were as follows. Congratulations to all the winners.

  • Best General (Warhammer 40,000) – Mani Cheema, Drukhari

  • Best Overall (Warhammer 40,000) – Cannon Biggs, Grey Knights

  • Best General (Warhammer Age of Sigmar) – Bill Souza, Fyreslayers

  • Best Overall (Warhammer Age of Sigmar) – Kaleb Walters, Tzeentch Daemons

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In another great example of sportsmanship, four of our players – two from the Warhammer Age of Sigmar side of the event and two from Warhammer 40,000 – decided to use their armies against each other in a cross-format experiment!

The four players in question had lost their initial competitive matches and decided to see how Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar rules played against one another. Slight modifications, like assigning Toughness to Warhammer Age of Sigmar units, were made, and it turns out that Imperial Knights versus Sons of Behemat is just as bloody as you would expect!

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The US Open Roadshow was an incredible experience. Attendees were universally sportsmanlike, and everyone loved the casual and friendly atmosphere, beautiful armies, and energetic Games Workshop staff presence.

Now that it’s over, we’re excitedly working behind the scenes on the 2022 events calendar. While the US Open experiences will return – bigger and better than ever, with expansion into other game systems, narrative gaming, and even more hobbying – we’re also excited to attend major events around the world as they resume full operations. We look forward to seeing the community at places like the Las Vegas Open, AdeptiCon, UK Games Expo, GenCon, Spiel, Wonderfest Shanghai, the NOVA Open, and many more.

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Until we see you again, we in the Events Team hope you all enjoy a lovely holiday experience, and we look forward to rolling dice with you at Warhammer World and beyond in the New Year.