How to Win the ITC

The 2016 ITC season is upon us. It is a time of hopes and dreams where 40k players from around the globe look to twelve months of blood, sweat, and toil to reign supreme. Much like an ordinary game of 40k, you need to have a plan before you start. Let us look deeper at the changes for 2016 and how that will affect your tournament plans.

The simplest way to win the ITC is to win 5 Major events.

• Winning an event of any size grants you at least 100 points towards the season standings
• To win the event you will most likely need to be undefeated for at least 5 rounds, granting you another 15 points
• Major events have over 58 players (based on the new 2016 definitions). You are looking at a 20% bump up in points
• And finally only the top 5 scores are counted, so by been dominant on the biggest stage you should have no contest to the title

Simple, yes, but this is not realistic. Last season out of 2000+ participants, only two players won more than one major event.

Let me tell you about plan B.

Get out and play

Where most players fell down in the rankings (self-included) was not playing in enough ITC events over the year. The system is set up to benefit the occasion weekend warrior or the diehard wandering tournament player in that only the best 5 scores count. Here are few examples to help clarify that

My one buddy has no family or weekend work commitments. His job forces him to live out of an airport and has frequent flier miles to burn. So for him to attend an ITC event anywhere in the country is a real possibility. Despite the idea of having 52 ITC events sounds like he should win the title by attrition. This is not the case, as only the top 5 events would count, and the other 46 events would have been good practice.

Another example and one that is painfully real: I have two kids, a wife, and job the demands a lot of time and some on call responsibilities. Finding Saturdays for Daddy to go play with plastic soldiers is not easy. To start the season I took out the calendar and mapped out a plan to at least attend 5 events. After some negotiating and help from the grand parents to watch the kids on certain Saturdays, we have a plan. Good news, I should get full points. Bad news, with only 5 games, I have no room for error or having a bad day.

By playing less than five ITC events, you are giving yourself a zero for those events. Considering the player who finishes dead last gets at least 20 points, that is a huge disservice to you.

Funny story to add to this point: the last tournament of the season I needed to hire a babysitter in order for me to attend. She showed up 90 minutes late, so I missed the tournament. Those 20 odd points meant losing three ranking spots for top player in my faction. Even if I had won a single game, I would vault even higher.

Playing in more than five events is also a huge advantage, as better performances bump the lower scores.

Let us put this to the test

Derek Page, who won the Rattler Cup in our area (more on that in previous posts) looked like this midseason

• Scorched Earth Open      112 points
• Empire Games RTT        90 Points
• Power 9 RTT                 56 Points
• Crusaders Retreat #1      56 Points

At this moment he has (112+90+56+56) = 314 points

Looking at the leader board, the top players have at least 500 points so Derek does not have prayer. That would not be the case as we show here.

Derek does well in his next three events scoring

• Salt River Rumble          87 points
• Imperial Outpost (Dec)   107 points
• Rattler Cup Finals          109 points

Since we only take the top five scores, we replace the two 56 point events with the higher scores.

So going into LVO his new score is (112+90+87+107+109) = 505 points

Now some of you are thinking why bother going to LVO, since it can only hurt his score.

Not true. Let say Derek spends his whole time gambling and goes 0-7. Big deal, the top five scores remain his top 5 and he loses nothing other than the money the casinos won from him.

Last year’s LVO had close to 300 players, using the new system any points earned at LVO are for practical purposes doubled. As long as Derek could finish in the top 10% after the top eight, he would gain 108 points from the event. That bumps his previous lowest score from the Salt River Rumble giving him a new total of 526 points.

Another example for those who languish in mid table obscurity. One of our friends starts the season off well scoring four events quickly.

His score so far is (92+77+51+49) = 269 points

He is averaging about 67 points a game, which means his next event, should get him to 336 points, enough to get him within the top 5 of his underused faction. Nevertheless, life intercedes, the corporate giants that sign his paychecks relocate him Balookaville, and we never hear from him again. That last game he never played counts a zero.

Look for your own sad story by looking at the standings of how many people have 120 or more points after two games and never play again.

You cannot win if you do not show up