Happy tournament, cannon fodders!
We are about to begin the fourth day of Kodabear's Tournament 2017. With 26 days remaining, the top three alliances have already established considerable distance from the rest of the pack. Valiant Crows [vCrow] leads the early race with nearly 27 days total, currently occupying a dozen different tournament squares. vCrow is followed by Order of the Orc [HORDE] at 21d 5h, and their opponent Skeleton Boar [SkB] at 20d 17h 30m. HORDE and SkB have swapped positions several times in the first few days of skirmishing.
The remaining top 10 alliances are less separated:
4. Eight Hand Crow 15d 15h 30m
5. Murder of Crows 13d 20h
6. Hogwarts at Illyriad 10d 15h 30m
7. Harmless? 10d 9h
8. The Colonist Empire 9d 22h 45m
9. Illy Training Ground 9d 22h 30m
10. Roman Empire 8d 21h
As I wrote about last week, one of the emerging themes of this tournament is Metagame Mischief: Camping the Square. Now that the tournament has begun, let's take a closer look at who has deployed metagame tactics on the tournament greens. Pack up the RV, little cannon fodders, we are venturing into the great outdoors!
We are about to begin the fourth day of Kodabear's Tournament 2017. With 26 days remaining, the top three alliances have already established considerable distance from the rest of the pack. Valiant Crows [vCrow] leads the early race with nearly 27 days total, currently occupying a dozen different tournament squares. vCrow is followed by Order of the Orc [HORDE] at 21d 5h, and their opponent Skeleton Boar [SkB] at 20d 17h 30m. HORDE and SkB have swapped positions several times in the first few days of skirmishing.
The remaining top 10 alliances are less separated:
4. Eight Hand Crow 15d 15h 30m
5. Murder of Crows 13d 20h
6. Hogwarts at Illyriad 10d 15h 30m
7. Harmless? 10d 9h
8. The Colonist Empire 9d 22h 45m
9. Illy Training Ground 9d 22h 30m
10. Roman Empire 8d 21h
As I wrote about last week, one of the emerging themes of this tournament is Metagame Mischief: Camping the Square. Now that the tournament has begun, let's take a closer look at who has deployed metagame tactics on the tournament greens. Pack up the RV, little cannon fodders, we are venturing into the great outdoors!
Let's Go Camping...
#1: Valiant Crow [vCrow]
#3: Skeleton Boar [Skb]
#4: Eight Hand Crow [eCrow]
#7: Harmless? [H?]
#20: Broken Lands Express [BLX]
Strendur's Army
It should come as no surprise that vCrow was one of the first alliances to deploy camping in 2017. As I highlighted in the pre-tournament camping article, Darkone [vCrow] and her alliance dominated the metagame in the Tinker's Tournament. What is surprising is the lack of scale to vCrow's camping operations. At only two squares, they are at less than 1/3 of their 2016 maneuvering, although the tournament is yet young. MadMano [vCrow] seems to be running their two active square camps.
Kubluntu has led the metagaming charge in 2017, along with his cleverly disguised alt, ubluntu. Skeleton Boar has currently amassed four camped squares in Elgea. With more than half of their seven squares depending on camping, it seems clear that Skeleton Boar has used clever metagaming to propel itself into the top three.
Four more alliances have launched square camps: Eight Hand Crow, Harmless?, Broken Lands Express, and Strendur's Army. The eCrow settlement in Chulbran appears to be a terraformed square monitor. Broken Lands Express [BLX] has made a triple city move in High Hills. Their metagaming attempt is rumored to be in impending danger. Strendur's Army [~SA~] does not appear to have made hostile moves on the nearby tile. The main teleported city and four satellite settlements might be some kind of equipment scavenging operation owned by Scavenger [SA].
Most entertaining is the Shardlands square camp owned by Harmless?. The once-mighty tournament power denounced square camping on the eve of Kodabear's tournament. CEO Starry's condemnation of Kubluntu's metagaming was quickly followed by a [H?] square camp appearing in Shardlands.
The Night Is Young
So far we have only seen a taste of metagaming in 2017, but it has already altered tournament fates. Stay tuned for more excitement as the square campers come out of exodus cooldown and begin to dominate their chosen squares. Those plains tiles will be especially painful to hold for anyone but the campers. It's truly remarkable to me that more alliances don't use this obviously effective tactic, and that no alliances appear to counter it aggressively.
Time will tell, cannon fodders. Time will tell.
Misbehave. Kill lots of stuff.
<^^^^^^^^||==O Skint Jagblade
Misbehave. Kill lots of stuff.
<^^^^^^^^||==O Skint Jagblade
Yes very surprising that there hasn't been any retaliation considering most of these camped cities cannot send armies for a week after landing so basically their troops are sitting ducks unless they can afford to reinforce with large troop numbers. Missed opportunity me thinks.
ReplyDeleteWell, there are a few operations in the works so stay tuned. The BL alliances
ReplyDeleteare enforcing the 'unspoken' rule and no exceptions will be made. You were warned.