Hello fellow Legionaries! Tyler Carnes coming from the Indianapolis Garrison to write a recap of my experience from the World Team Championship 2024, hosted in Granada, Spain. The tournament took place this past weekend (February 3rd & 4th) and was streamed by the lads from the That's No Moon Podcast, based out of the UK. Feel free to check out some of the coverage over on their channel! Another huge shoutout to the whole WTC staff for organizing the entire event encapsulating a number of other game systems, and to Andrew Terrell (TLD: AJST) for TOing the Legion event.
Before I dive into the Legion event itself, I wanted to briefly touch on my personal traveling experience. This was my first time in Spain, and the country was absolutely splendid! Being 60 degrees and sunny every day is the absolute perfect weather I could possibly ask for. Brian Baer and I traveled together and, before reaching Granada, the two of us spent nearly a whole day in a small town called Nerja. The sights in Nerja were outstanding, and we even found a little hidden cove that seemed to be a cool little hiding spot off the main beach. The architecture in Spain is otherworldly and is totally different to anything that I could see in the states. It's so fascinating being able to look at a house/building and say to yourself "wow, that is 400+ years old." Once in Granada, we took a trip to the world-renowned Alhambra, which is something I'd highly recommend looking up and seeing at some point in your life. The trip itself was perfect, and I would love to return here someday!
^The cove we found in Nerja^
The format of the tournament was obviously quite different to any standard Legion tournament. 16 teams of 4 players competed for the opportunity to call themselves the team champions of the world. Each team locked 1 list from all 5 Factions (yes, SC is a faction) nearly a month in advance. Before the beginning of the first round, one of the lists would be completely scrapped and the remaining 4 were locked to specific players for the remainder of the tournament. Notably, there was no character duplication allowed across the team, meaning Bossk couldn't show up in both of your Empire and Separatist lists.
Your initial reaction might be "Teams of 4? How exactly does that work?" Well, once 2 teams would get paired to play, the designated team captains would go through a pairing process in order to match up each of their players with someone else on the other team, where those paired up would play a game using their locked lists. When pairing, captains did not pair themselves via this process because the 2 captains were always required to play each other. The way a team would win a round is simple: the team that had the most individual game wins over the other team won the round. The winner of the captain's game was used as a tiebreaker in the event of a 2-2 split. This effectively meant the captain's game counted for 2, which sounded more interesting on paper but played out a lot less exciting in person. This left a pretty sour taste in a lot of mouths, as the captain's game each round was vastly more important than all of the other player's games. Nevertheless, it left for an interesting format, and something that can easily be improved upon in the coming years.
The last tidbit I'd like to add, which was BY FAR my favorite part of this tournament: every round that a team played used an identical set of 4 tables for all 4 games. This meant that every player on a team was playing on the exact same map as their teammates. This added a lot of extra thought that had to be put into each matchup.
"This map looks great for my Yoda/ARC list, but terrible for your Black Sun spam."
"That perch is amazing for my Cad Bane, but it's also a great hiding spot for his Sabine Wren."
This is by far the most balanced way to have 2 teams square off. There's no "gotcha" moments since everyone is dealing with the same set of circumstances across the team. Now, this is logistically VERY difficult and grueling for any terrain maker to do. I applaud the folks at WTC for the fact that they were able to even pull this off. This made things super fun and interesting and made post-game chats with your teammates exciting since we all knew what "that one rock" was. All of the tables were fairly balanced, with some being lighter/heavier than others, but nothing abnormal whatsoever.
Here's a breakdown of which factions were taken out of the 16 total teams. A max of 16 lists using a single faction could be taken, and only 16 total lists could be omitted across all 16 teams because of the previously mentioned list-locking format:
Shadow Collective - 10/16
Separatists - 12/16
Empire - 13/16
Rebels - 13/16
GAR - 16/16
GAR was the only faction that was represented by every team, which isn't a complete shock if you've kept up with the way the meta has been moving. Overall, there was an incredibly even spread across every faction (which is kinda the point). For better context, here's a rough breakdown of the popular list archetypes that people brought for each faction:
GAR
Yoda Gunline x9 (1 with Anakin, 5 with Padmé)
Anakin/Padmé with Pykes x3
Wookie Battleforce x2
Separatists
Experimental Droids x5 (2 with snail tank)
Double (or more) Magnas x4 (all with a mix of Bossk and/or Cad Bane)
Shadow Collective
Black Sun Spam x3
Pyke Spam x3
Rebels
Ewoks x3 (2 had 14 activations)
Cassian/Ahsoka x4
Empire
Commander Vader/quad bike Blizzard Force x2
Kallus and/or Iden and Bounty Hunter(s) x6 (all with Boba, 2 with IG-88)
To Yoda or not to Yoda, that is the takeaway. GAR seems to be suffering a bit from general lack of diversity, sure, but I had no idea Yoda would show up in 60% of their lists. This fact is so funny to me: if anyone has been keeping up with the ebbs and flows in the meta for the past year, you'd see a VERY dramatic shift from GAR players using Anakin at nauseum to now playing Yoda nearly the same amount. For reference, if you read my NOVA recap article from September 2023, Anakin was in 15/20 GAR lists compared to a mere 4 for Yoda. There haven't been any changes/errata since then, so what's changed? Our perceptions. The meta was still evolving back then, as it was still <4 months removed from the rebalance of May 2023. Ewoks were undiscovered yet as they had recently come out, and Anakin was the obvious faction-favorite for a plethora of reasons. Anakin is amazing, there's no denying that, but Yoda can play any set of objectives better than just about any unit in the game. This playmaking ability is outlandish and nearly impossible to counter by your opponent. Expect to see a LOT of Yoda going forward into Worlds and beyond, at least until the faction diversity opens up more.
CiS find themselves in a similar position to GAR as the lack in competitive diversity is glaring. Experimental Droids brought a super cool concept to life and proved that point changes aren't always the clearcut answer to improve the validity of a given unit (those BX Commando Droids in Experimental Droids are absolute filth). The problem that CiS is having that their faction counterpart isn't is the fact that their force-wielding options are not cutting the mustard the same way that GAR Jedi are. I would namely accredit this to the changes Deflect received last May, meaning the defensive viability of already fragile Maul, Ventress, and Dooku got significantly worse. If it isn't EX Droids, you're bringing a plethora of Magnaguards and whatever else you want to fill around them. Their Bounty Hunting options are both extremely viable, but Magnas remain the constant throughout the everchanging equation. Will Geonosians make a splash? Lists had to be locked for this event nearly a month in advance, which drove a lot of people away from playing them. I believe that they have a LOT of untapped potential and open up a lot to CiS players than what originally meets the eye (namely viable deployment options).
With a faction like Shadow Collective, I don't think we will ever see a plethora of diversity, which is fine. They are a snapshot in time of a specific event, and their options will always be limited simply due to the lack of characters that can be added to their lists. Pyke spam and Black Sun spam were the 2 most popular archetypes, with everything in between being shades of grey in my opinion.
Rebels and Empire also somewhat find themselves in a similar position. They have a wide assortment of units to choose from, with a couple of strong standard archetypes (Cassian/Ahsoka and Kallus/Iden Bounty Hunters) and then are accompanied by a very strong Battleforce (Ewoks and Blizzard Force). Blizzard Force is certainly more well-rounded than Ewoks, but both can find themselves in very favorable matchups against the more standard gunlines they'll see. Empire can build some very efficient long range gunlines that counter Yoda or Anakin dodge spam matchups better than any other faction, but simultaneously find themselves lacking the raw dice required to handle something like Droids or Ewoks very well. Rebels generally lack raw dice quantity compared to Empire but can mitigate it more with their objective play.
Unfortunately, because of the way pairings and such were recorded online, we weren't able to see any faction win percentages or individual records. However, from what I know firsthand, our very own Brian Baer of Team USA-2 went undefeated on the weekend. The captain of the French Team, Antoine "Tza" Granet (currently ranked 3rd in the world when referencing TFT's world ELO rankings), also went undefeated at 6-0 running the vaunted 14 activation Ewok menace. His performance, when factoring in the tiebreak system, was a huge factor when you all see where the Frenchies finished. Feel free to check out all lists being run here, though unfortunately you won't be able to see any player names through the GU link.
For this next section, I apologize in advance if I mess up any of the player names or lists! Not having any of the player names in Gameuplink makes finding the players associated with each list very difficult.
Top 3 Teams
3rd Place
Team USA-3
Team Record: 4-2
Total Wins: 15
Empire (Team Captain) - Wes Wagner (TLD: Shadowfax)
Rebels - Michael Smith (TLD: GMSmithers)
Clones - JJ Wood (TLD: Warchitect)
Shadow Collective - Liam Kelly (TLD: Liam "Gheudface")
Three Florida-men and now honorary Florida-man Michael Smith got permission from Liam's mom to form one of the three teams to represent the USA. Spoiler alert, this was the only team to actually defeat the eventual champion, so we somewhat won, right? These guys brought an assortment of good things: Pyke spam (s/o to Liam, who also went undefeated at 5-0-1), Yoda/Chewy, Cassian/Ahsoka and an Empire scalpel gunline backboned by Boba Fett. Just a really solid assortment of lists equip to handle just about anything thrown their way. As much as we don't want to associate with their Floridian antics, seeing as this was the highest rated USA team at WTC, we will accept them with open arms!
2nd Place
Team Germany
Team Record: 5-1
Total Wins: 11
Empire - Dennis (TLD: Octobaer)
Clones (Team Captain) - Johannes (TLD: johannes0637)
Separatists - Janne
Rebels - Richard (TLD: Richard)
Ah, the Germans. These guys seem to have a stranglehold on any team event that Legion puts on. This same crop of gents have turned the Yavin Base Team League (played on TTS) into their own little playground. In real life, they were every bit as successful. Their team captain, Johannes, brought the ever-reliable Yoda gunline. Dennis brought his Kallus/Double bounty, which is especially good after Kallus' gargantuan price drop during the last update and Contingencies 2. Richard sported a Cassian/Ahsoka gunline but opted to reduce some of the corps-beef and throw Leia and K-2SO in instead, which opens up his objective play substantially. Lastly, and certainly not least, we have the spiciest list we've seen yet. Janne piloted a Grievous/Asajj/Bossk list backed by 5 B1's equip with the E-5s heavy weapon. I adore how hardy this list is, with 8 combat-effective activations. There is no medical droid, which would be my first personal addition after bringing so many non-droid wounds, but clearly Janne made this thing work. The order control is easy since, without issuing any orders from cards, he will have 5 faceup B1's and a faceup commander token on his T-Series. Congrats again to these guys for grabbing silver!
1st Place
Team France
Team Record: 5-1
Total Wins: 15
Rebels (Team Captain) - Antoine "Tza" Granet (TLD: Tza)
Clones - Nicolas "Noki" Lemery
Shadow Collective - Victor "Anetrotro" Pihouee
Separatists - Maxime "Maxx" Clergue
These guys definitely put the "W" in "Oui!" (It's a corny pun, I'm not a stereotypical arrogant American I swear!). Speaking of W's, France's captain Antoine "Tza" Granet led the team with his aforementioned undefeated Ewok horde. Noki broke the Galactic Republic pattern by not having Yoda, instead touting a Wookie horde accompanied with 3 of the Battleforce exclusive Fluttercrafts. Anetrotro, who bested me during our matchup with France, brought some party buses filled with Black Suns and 3 squads of Swoop Bikes. Lastly, my droid brother Maxx rocked Experimental Droids with a couple beefed up BX droids and shockingly a couple Droidekas as well. It's not every day we see some Droidekas do well, but in a meta where you will see a lot of anti-red save armies with small yet efficient dice pools, those shields get seemingly more difficult to chew through. Congratulations again to your World Team Championship Winners: Team France!!
What an event to attend right before the World's Tournament (held this March in Chicago, IL at Adepticon). A lot of the players from this event will be in attendance for the World Tournament, which goes to show the level of competition that was present and playing. While I adore the game of Legion in its most raw form (standard solo 800pts), there is a totally different mindset one has when playing as a part of a team. You instantly feel more invested in the games going on around you and feel a greater sense of camaraderie with your peers, since you aren't battling each other and are rather working together. Team tournaments, while challenging logistically to coordinate, are some of the most rewarding events you can participate in. A huge shoutout to my teammates of team USA-2: Brian "weebaer" Baer, Izzy "Izzboticus" Gambliel, and Evan "Doc Velo" Paul. Despite the A-Team not claiming a medal this year, we'll be back for gold next time around!
(Pictured, left to right: Tyler Carnes, Brian Baer, Izzy Gambliel, Evan Paul)
Thanks again for anyone I forgot to shout out or anyone else who attended and went undefeated, and as always, may the Force be with you!
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