Reckoning Rumble 6v6 Tournament Report

[trh382]

The Reckoning Rumble ran March 15-17 during EU Prime time.

The action got underway Thursday in the team ranked queue as the competitors dusted off their 6v6 skills in skirmishes with other teams and their guild mates. By Friday everyone was ready to go and the mixed faction Solo Ranked queue started popping by 5PM altdorf with veterans and new players both showing up to duke it out. The Infamous Black Orc Skrodius made an appeareance on a mainly order team to fight in Caledor Woods against his usual friends and allies and several folks new to ranked kept the queue going well into the evening.

Eight teams registered in the competitive tournament including the veteran captains Advar, Simtex, Mat, Blakokami, and Bejkon as well as two new captains Tubaad and Nika. Knutkrusher rounded out the competition with a pick up team to fill the bracket. Each team chose their composition in advance and played their comp throughout the group stage.

Advar's team ran Kobs, Ironbreaker, Slayer, Witch Hunter, Archmage, and Runepriest, a set up which the team has played played extensively and had considerable success using. By combining the Archmage and Witch Hunter morale pump they can launch more frequent kill attempts and more quickly generate powerful defensive morale counters to the opposition's kill attempts. The Slayer provides the core DPS pressure with its powerful offensive kit. The Archmage healer provides additional kiting and disruption support while staying well back to avoid the opposing melee blob. The Ironbreaker provides extensive crowd control and buffs the Slayer to help the team sustain until the M4 combo is ready, but can also drop a devastating 2400 damage morale itself. The Knight and Rune Priest round out the team with their core support kits full of crowd control, buffs, healing, and protection.

Simtex's team ran an old school ranked 1-3-2 comp with a Black Orc, Marauder, Ranged Squig Herder, Sorceress, Shaman, and Zealot. The triple DPS allows for almost unbeatable damage drops against enemy tanks and dps with the composition chosen to provide the kiting and disruption necessary to survive with only 1 tank. The squig herder, played by the infamous Teefz, uses its extensive kiting toolkit to stay out of danger. The Marauder sets up positional kills or disrupts enemy pushes with their pull. The linchpin of the composition's defenses is the Sorceress BBBE influence staff which has a powerful detaunt proc that enables the Sorceress to survive through heavy pressure even without guard. The tanky Chosen has the tools to survive damage pressure without crossguard while providing auras and the Shaman and Zealot round out the comp as the most mobile healing duo.

Blakokami's team ran a straightforward frontline beatdown squad with a Swordmaster, a Kobs, 2 Slayers, a Shield Priest, and a Rune Priest. The comp focuses on unrelenting melee pressure to overwhelm the opposing healers. The shield priest adds melee pressure and a incoming heal debuff while maintaining high aoe HPS with sigmar's radiance. The 2 hand Swordmaster provides additional offensive pressure with spirit damage and winds and the standard KoBs/Rune Priest support back bone rounded out the team.

Mat's team played the Destruction frontline beatdown squad with Chosen, Blackorc, Choppa, DPS Dok, Zealot, Chalice DoK and swapped Chalice/DPS dok for a Second Choppa and a Shield DoK in the playoffs. The Choppas focus on outputting insane aoe pressure while also steadily building to a dangerous M4s. The shield DoK adds the additional melee pressure and provides slows and additional damage for the Choppas through Covenant of Celerity. The DPS DoK/Chalice DoK version of the composition was an experiment that adds some additional life tap options and fewer front line targets, reducing vulnerability and enabling more aggression from the single Choppa. The Black Orc adds even more melee pressure and CC avoidance to keep the choppa's on target while the Chosen/Zealot provide the core support auras and buffs..

Bejkon's team ran an unusual triple tank composition with Chosen, Blackguard, Black Orc, Marauder, Zealot, Shield DoK. Their composition was designed to provide no obvious frontline targets and brings three guards to solve the issue that a standard 2-2-2 comp with a shield healer has where a frontline target is always unguarded. The Shield healer damage and slightly more offensive specs on the tanks help the team make up for the lost damage from dropping a DPS. The composition aims to grind away at their opponents and eventually find openings with punts and KDs to secure a kill.

Tubaad and Nika both ran standard double Slayer compositions with similar strategies to Blakokami's team. Tubaad's team ran a Book Priest to make their front line less vulnerable to opposing melee comps and Nika's team ran an IB buff the slayers and an Archmage instead of a Warrior Priest to add morale pump and other utility.

Advarka's team went 3-0 day one by successfully executing their controlling strat against the enemy melee teams while exploiting timing windows and M4 drops to secure kills. The melee teams all found solid levels of success against the other comps, although they struggled to pressure the kite heavy 1-3-2 comp from Simtex. Blakokami's team had the most success of the double melee teams against Simtex, battling him to a draw in the first round. Mat and Blakokami both put Advar's team on the ropes in several spots, but eventually lost to the WH/SL combo.

The two newcomers, Hirzodrin and Tubaad played a close back and forth round one with Hirzodrin's team coming out on top 2-1 in the match after dropping game one 7-2.

Team Bejkon went 2-1 on the day for 3rd place as their melee grind strategy proved too tough for Tuubad and Knut's teams to punch through. Mat's team also went 2-1 after dropping a hard fought round one to Advar. Top 4 was rounded out by Simtex's team who narrowly beat Blakokami's team on second tiebreakers for 4th place.

Saturday saw another round of Solo Queue madness and the Faction tournament attended by the Greenskins (Advarka) Empire (Mat) Dwarves (Bloodbrotherr) and Dark Elves (Gravord). The Greenskins carried the day with a full Orky Choppa comp running 2 Blorcs, 2 Choppas, and 2 Shaman. The Dwarves played the mirror Double Slayer comp but fell to the WAAAGH. The Dark Elves ran a grindy quintuple melee comp with two Black Guards, a Witch Elf, a DPS DoK, a Shield DoK, and a Chalice DoK. The most interesting comp of the day was the Empire comp which attempted to protect a Bright Wizard with two snare heavy KoBs, two shield priests, and a Witch Hunter. While the shield priests both need guard much of the time, the witch hunter and the BW have many tools to escape or evade damage. The empire strategy proved effective against the dwarves who had difficulty catching the Mat's Bright Wizard but the Dark Elves and Greenskin teams were able to break through the snares and secure kills on their fiery opponent. The finals pitted the Dark Elves against the Greenskins where the Orky WAAAAGH proved too intense for the Dark Elf squad to sustain through.

Sunday included more fun Solo Q and the friendly tournament where 5 teams - three new and two veteran played a fun round robin tournament. Two of the newcomers - Gersy and Draneol - played a grindy 2 game match with Gersy's witch hunter comp eking out 2-1 and 3-1 game wins.

The Competitive top 4 was resolved Sunday with the format moving to best of 5 matches with an option for teams to adjust group composition. Bejkon and Simtex adjusted their teams for the top 4, both opting to move to more standard 2-2-2 compositions. Bejkon dropped their Chosen tank and added a Witch Elf to play a more standard Single Target comp. Simtex's team dropped their Sorceress for a Blackguard tank and then swapped their marauder for a choppa in the bronze medal match. Teefz remained ranged giving their team the ability to double guard their melee and adding a punt to enable more guard disruption opportunities.

The first semi finals saw Mat's melee squad punching through Bejkon's rearranged 2-2-2 and securing a win in 3 games. Simtex and Advarka played a very close match with Advarka's team eventually grinding them out with 2 wins, 1 loss, and 2 draws. Careful play from Advarka's long range healing duo allowed them to mostly neutralize the menacing teefz while the Witch Hunter built to his inevitable M4 kills.

Simtex's rearranged 2-2-2 with Choppa/Squig Herder came out ahead of Bejkon's adjusted Choppa/Witch elf team to secure 3rd place. In the finals Mat's team regrouped from their round 1 tournament loss to advarka and came out swinging with a game 1 win. Despite the slow start, Advarka and co battled back and kept the the menacing Choppa duo under control, securing three wins in a row to win the first Reckoning Rumble.

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to all who attended as well as Hazmy for coordinating the official RoR prizes.