Tournament Picking, is there a science?
Posted: Thu 04 Jun, 2015 4:37 am
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
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
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.
. I don't like playing IG when I'm out of shape tho so I don't often pick them anymore.