Tournament Picking, is there a science?

[Tex]

I thought this might be a decent conversation to have.

I also thought that in the future, it might be worthwhile to make the hero selections of tournament players private until the day before the tournament. I think it would be completely fine to have the "overall hero picks" statistic still displayed though.

I was thinking about why I do what I do (in Dow2), today as I was driving, and it struck me that there is probably a rhyme or a reason for it in regards to a tournament play. When I pick my heroes, I am always striving to cover as much ground as possible in the current meta. In some cases I utterly failed at it, but recently, my picks were absolutely golden.

And don't get me wrong, the better player most often wins, but having a good pick on your side helps... a lot.

So are there a few strategies at play here? I believe so. Here's what I have come up with:

1) The "comfort" pick.

Quite simply, a player picks the hero or heroes that they are most comfortable with, even though they might not be the most consistent with this hero. I think a great example of this situation can be found where a player drops the first game, has a pick he could switch to that might be a better counter, but still doesn't because of the need for comfort due to the drop in confidence from losing game 1.

A literal example of this situation might be MRT 14, Noisy vs Hammer. Noisy had the chaos sorcerer in his hero picks, and yet did not use him against eldar.

I think the comfort picks can work, but I feel like it is predictable, and easily counter picked. You need to be the better player in every game if you are the in this category.

2) The "universal" pick.

This is the kind of hero that is seen as having few "bad matchups". Prime examples here are the Lord General, Chaos Lord, Lictor Alpha, Mekboy, and Warp Spider Exarch. There are others certainly, but these would be the most prominent in my mind.

There is some solid logic in these hero choices. This kind of player doesn't really need to worry about "racial" counterpicking, and only needs to worry about somebody who might be using a hero that specializes in taking down their hero (... hehehehehehe....).
I think a great example of somebody who does this well is Dark Riku. He is a proficient player with the Chaos Lord and the Lictor Alpha, and is a pro with the Apothecary. He keeps the apothecary as a comfort pick, and has the Chaos Lord and the Lictor Alpha as generalist heroes who are not easily counter picked.

Certainly these "universal" heroes can take you far, but I also view picking these heroes as a liability, and here's why:

These heroes tend to be popular and played 1 dimensionally, and thus, a broader range of know how is employed against them by a wider range of opponents. Picking the Chaos Lord might give you the superior overall hero choice, but your opponent using a lesser played hero brings up the distinct possibility that he will dictate the flow of the game due to being less predictable.

3) The "spread" pick.

This is where you pick the 3 heroes as a group. The 3 heroes must cover all or most matchups (collectively), so that you know, no matter what you can win game 2 if you have lost game 1. It also helps if you can find a "spread" where at least 1 of the heroes is a "specialist" or, "common-killer".

And just in case I didn't define it clearly enough, a "specialist" or "common-killer" is a hero that has a distinct advantage in a matchup against one of the "universal" heroes.

As I said previously, I was fortunate to have golden choices in MRT 14. I had thought pretty hard about what I wanted to accomplish matchup-wise, and I want to lay out my thought process for anyone who might be interested:

1) What are the most popular tournament heroes, and more specifically, which ones do I lose to? (and which players do I lose to?)
2) Am I aptly skilled faction wise, or better yet, hero wise, to counteract these heroes?
3) Am I leaving myself easily counter picked by focusing on the specific instead of the general?

Then, after asking these questions, here is the web that I started to weave:

-In terms of eldar, my best hero is the Warlock. The Warlock, and eldar, can cover the IG, chaos, and nid matchups pretty well, but I feel like he suffers the worst against orks. He also struggles against the LA and LG (at least I do with him).
i) do I pick the warlock to cover these matchups because I am most comfortable with him and risk 2 common and weak matchups?
ii) do I pick the farseer to cover these matchups, even though I am not 100% proficient with her and she is much harder to use? The bonus being that she is a specialist against the Chaos Lord, she has farsight, which more than evens the playing field against the LA, and also helps her to bridge the disparity against the Kommando Nob, a hero who specializes in the slaughter of eldar.
iii) I ended up choosing the Farseer, and I committed to practicing for a few hours with her to make up for my lack of skill.

-In terms of ork, my best hero is the Kommando Nob. This would definitely qualify as a comfort pick. In terms of being a generalist, I view him as the weakest pick for an ork hero. Orks are typically fantastic against eldar, and the Kommando Nob is the apex of this innate ork ability to dismantle eldar. Orks are also on an even playing field with SM and seem to do well against nids and GK. The Kommando Nob struggles in a host of matchups, typically against offensive commanders, however, if played in a certain way, he can actually does really well. Also, stalk outright counters the Knob.
i) Do I pick the Knob as a specialist and use him solely as a counter pick hero against eldar?
ii) Do I pick the Mek and have a much more universal pick, as well as still having a strong counter to eldar?
iii) Will I need a bit of extra "umph" against one of the best players of all time if I end up locking horns with him?
iv) I ended up choosing the Knob as primarily a counter pick to eldar/wse/holyhammer, but I also committed to practicing his bad matchups so that I could still use him as a "spread" hero.

-In terms of chaos, my best hero is the Chaos Sorcerer. He is very strong against eldar and nids, he does well against IG and orks, but struggles very hard against Bullish Commanders and is in general not a great choice against SM or GK. The CS would definitely qualify as a comfort pick for me and it was very hard to make an argument against choosing him, however, my spread theory eventually dictated that I should.
i) Do I pick the Chaos Sorcerer and use him as a comfort pick?
ii) If I pick the Chaos Sorcerer, I leave myself potentially vulnerable with 2 of 3 hero picks to popular offensive commanders.
iii) Having already committed to picking the Kommando Nob, I feel like there is too much overlap and not enough spread between the strengths and weaknesses of the Chaos Sorcerer and the Kommando Nob.
iv) What is the largest hole I have left to fill in my spread?

(IMO, having the Farseer and Kommando Nob already picked, the holes I had left in my spread were: lack of a brawler, no direct counter to orks, no true heavy melee option, no stand and fight option)

v) I found basically everything that I needed in the Plague Champion, and as a bonus, he is also very much indifferent to who or what he is fighting. Now that I have invested time into learning him, his matchups are fairly even keel except that he is super dominant against ork. The other two heroes I had chosen were actually vulnerable to ork, so it was even more of a great pick in terms of my "spread" approach.

So there it is. Basically how my thought process worked out for MRT14. I hope this helps someone out for MRT15 and feel free to comment or question if you'd like.

Cheers

[Crewfinity]

Super interesting to get insight about your thought process in hero selection, great write-up!

[Tex]

I'm thinking this actually needs to be moved to the strategy section.

Thanks Crew!

[Cheekie Monkie]

Much appreciated article, just goes to show the depth of thought that needs to go into competitive play.

Welp, I guess it pays to play multiple races/heroes to have a genuine understanding of the different matchups and army dynamics. Need more 1v1 players to play against :3

[Torpid]

Yes indeed there is! Well, it's an art, not a science really. Nothing wrong with arts though...

No but really, yeah. A lot of thought does go into it, I always try to universalise everything. I find the HT is the best IG counter and I struggle vs IG atm (maybe I should work on my own IG in IG mirrors so I could use that as a counter) so you'll likely see so long as GM remain as OP as they are atm that I will always pick HT if I go into a tourney. But by going HT over LA I have left myself vulnerable to eldar comparitively as well as the chaos sorceror but I can dominate any LAs that pop up with my own HT and now IG are no problem.

Historically i would go apo because I found him strong vs the CS but I've changed my mind recently and I think the CS shits on SM all across the board. So instead vs chaos I developed a new tactic with the inquisitor. Her holy pyre detects, her servo skull detects and lets you see enemy formations from miles away and I find sentinels very helpful vs the chaos havocs/noise marines that slaughter other IG t1 squads. Her control is very nice vs the CL too. Meanwhile I find the inquisitor bloody brilliant vs orks atm too. Orks are so easy to bleed as IG and the IQ gets assail which deals with T2 sluggas/stormboyz soooo well. The melta pistol is fantastic at dealing wtih deff dreads alongside melta gun catachans or an autocannon HWT and a sentinel missle launcher, you get such bangingly awesome transitional AV all of which wreck shootas/sluggas hard, and you don't have to worry about deff dreads at all. I find if I go LG/LC their AV options aren't quite good enough and I must get a second HWT with a lascannon which I dislike doing as upkeep becomes an issue and I run out of req and can't get ogryns/AK ST out quick enough. As IQ I can HOTW that mekboy and shoot him down if I catch him ever running between bits of cover, that's nice and obv it wrecks the WB but who cares, the WB is piss-easy anyway and is only good for countering other orks in mirrors imo

So HT and IQ... We can beat IG, Nids, SM, GK and the LA (thanks to HT), Orks, Chaos, and the LA (thanks to IQ) but we need an eldar counter here... I am by far most comfortable with the mekboy WRT to my ork play and I like how the mekboy is very good on certain maps too - green tooth gorge, leviathan hive, calderis etc so not only does this fella cover my weakness vs eldar rather well (as his beamy deffgun wrecks eldar t2 vehicles nicely and that big shoota/battery pack combo was made to bleed eldar T1 + more dakka is hilarious vs warp spiders) he gives me map coverage too so that if I'm really struggling to decide what to go hero wise vs my foe's I will just go MB and abuse the map.

So likely in the next tournament unless I get better at the KN, or the RA, or the CS, or the LC I predict I will go HT/IQ/MB.

[Corrie]

Nice write up,

Few things that could be added is specifically what makes a certain hero a better pick e.g you touched on not picking warlock as you have a tough time vs LG which am curious about, I mainly play INQ and I find eldar especially the warlock the most difficult matchup for me, how does the hero choice impact so much that it becomes a favourable matchup for the LG considering overall IG struggle with eldar in general?

[PhatE]

I also thought that in the future, it might be worthwhile to make the hero selections of tournament players private until the day before the tournament

You're not the only one I've suggested this numerous times to Eerie when he was running things because people were swapping their heroes a day before the tournament or waiting on purpose for there to be a good number of heroes already picked or leaving 1 undecided, etc, etc. Names registered should be more exciting then heroes picked so I don't see a reason for the better guys to have an inherit advantage in withdrawing their heroes and then registering new ones a day prior to the event. If they're going to withdraw certain heroes then that's at their discretion.

Good article though. Too true about the Kommando vs Eldar.

[Atlas]

We can totally do the "hidden" heroes thing if you guys want. It's not going to change how I do my recording. In fact, it'll be slightly less work since I don't have to type the heroes into the opening post anymore ;P

As for me, I never really settled on a "main" but if I had to "comfort" pick, I usually pick the Inquisitor. My INQ/IG has a massive weakness to Eldar and a well played SM/GK, which I use the Chaos Sorceror to help buffer from. CS/Chaos in turn has problems with tanky melee heroes, namely CL/FC/HT which I can fall back to INQ/IG on since she can easily shut those kind of heroes down.

That leaves a sort of "open" slot upon which I have some room to play around with. Traditionally, I pick TM since I feel TM/SM is a very "safe" pick with no bad matchups. However, in the event that there is a very skewed amount of certain heroes in the pool (learned through the Hero Breakdown), then II usually swap TM out for a specific "counter" pick for whatever hero I might run into a lot.

Man, it's gonna be great when I totally screw with you people in July.

[Toilailee]

I mostly pick what I feel like playing, usually meaning 1 sm, ork and chaos hero. I guess I mostly comfort pick then by your definitions.

In the early MRTs I did look at my choices more carefully tho and made sure I wouldn't be vulnerable to heroes commonly picked by my main rivals (usually Riku and Pega).
And before one of the early MRTs I got nostalgic and practised my LG play before the tourney and then proceeded to win it by using only him . I don't like playing IG when I'm out of shape tho so I don't often pick them anymore.

In the end tho I think micro or "skill" and strategies are far more important than counterpicks, BUT when the competition is close a counterpick can easily give one player an advantage. Map choice is also important factor in specific match ups (for example I think TM does pretty well vs IG on most maps but doesn't stand a chance on map like quests), which makes counterpicking much harder when the loser of g1 gets to pick map but winner of g1 gets to pick his hero second. That along with vetoes makes counterpicking a real psychological game that can decide the winner before game even starts, especially in the good old days when we weren't limited to 3 heroes for a tournament and competition was tough. People used to get really butthurt about counterpicks and hero/map pick rules.

[Swift]

And I just get stomped with my Sorcerer because I'm crap

Nice insight into how you pick things, and hiding heroes is easily possible, it'll mean likely that players have to submit their heroes privately rather than on sign up.

I've been practising Eldar and mainly WSE as of late, and the largest obstacle is macro, not inherent hero picks. But at a top level, I imagine this is very important.

[Tex]

Nice write up,

Few things that could be added is specifically what makes a certain hero a better pick e.g you touched on not picking warlock as you have a tough time vs LG which am curious about, I mainly play INQ and I find eldar especially the warlock the most difficult matchup for me, how does the hero choice impact so much that it becomes a favourable matchup for the LG considering overall IG struggle with eldar in general?

Well, let us touch on that then.

In practical terms, the LG counteracts the AOE that the Warlock provides with only a 10 power purchase. That right there should sum it up: The main strength of the warlock vs IG is his AOE from destructor and then from immolate. The LG can trump this within the first 2 minutes of the game.

As I was mulling over which eldar hero to pick, the fact that LG is more popular than Inq, and also that the FS is fantastic at dealing with the CL, really influenced my decision. I mean, I would probably be better off with the warlock against the Inq, but I think that also has to do with the Inq being a wanna-be brawler and the warlock can do such a good job of keeping her where she doesn't want to be, along with being able to dole out tons of AOE damage to GM squads.

[Corrie]

I've been playing the lg quite a bit now and yeah the medkits help the first few early engagements but not enough to overcome how the matchup plays out if the eldar gets triple da into double gurdian platforms into wraith guard I feel there's very little you can do, even with med kits and flak jacket, the wraith still kill most of your models in one burst and am pretty sure if it gets a rear armour shot on the chimera it will 1shot it, although the leman global is nice against eldar,I don't think Id ever consider any ig Heros as counter picks to eldar

[Cheekie Monkie]

Yes indeed there is! Well, it's an art, not a science really. Nothing wrong with arts though...

Tex knows the science of tourney picking.

But not the art.

[Toilailee]

Yes indeed there is! Well, it's an art, not a science really. Nothing wrong with arts though...

Tex knows the science of tourney picking.

But not the art.

:DDD