Competitive state of the faction

[Ogid]

I've just discovered the web where the results of the competitive events in UK are noted: https://www.malifaux-rankings.com/#/ and just wanted to share the link. Do you know there a web like that for other regions? I'll also leave here a very interesting analysis made by mythycFOX.

1 hour ago, mythicFOX said:

Of the 20 UK M3e tournaments on Malifaux Rankings (http://malifaux-rankings.com), plus this weekend's Nationals;

• Ten Thunders:  6
• Arcanists:  6
• Outcasts:  3
• Ressers:  2
• Bayou:  2
• Guild:  1
• Neverborn:  1

If you look at the podium places of the four Grand Tournaments which have been held, which are the well attended competitive two day events, it's as follows;

• Thunders:  5
• Arcanists: 3
• Outcasts: 2
• Ressers: 2

Or if you want to exclude the Welsh GT from the beta period it's;  TT 4, Outc 2, Arc 2, Res 1.

UK Nationals (7 rounds, >80 players) top 10 were;  4 Thunders, 4 Outcasts, 1 Arcanist, 1 Resser.

Now we can argue about the right way to count events, and if we should count from a time when the beta was still tinkering around the edges or not, but I really don't think it's honest to present the narrative that TT aren't doing really well at both local and national levels in the UK.

I was really expecting better results for NVB, this faction has the same competitive results as Guild (OMG we suck lol) with no podiums in the 4 grand tournaments held in the UK. A detail to take in count, in the UK double master isn't allowed in most (all?) tournaments. I don't know if that's something relevant for NVB.

Any thoughts?

PD: The only possible conclusion is Zoraida and Stitched Together need to be nerfed ASAP

[Myyrä]

3 minutes ago, Ogid said:

PD: The only possible conclusion is Zoraida and Stitched Together need to be nerfed ASAP

I would like to point out that Zoraida was already kind of nerfed before the UK nationals.

[mythicFOX]

Just to contextualize the above a little re the UK meta;

We only play single master (what GG0 calls Singles), most of the events listed will be single master, certainly all of the GTs and the Nationals were.  This is done because we found the game to be less fun, and the meta less diverse, with multiple masters.

Worth noting that a good number of these event will have occurred in a context where models new to M3e which didn't have rules published until recently will not have been available. For example; Nekima's totem, False Witnesses, Agent 47, etc.  I expect these hit Neverborn and Guild more disproportionately than the other factions which may be depressing their results.

 

[Starrius]

I feel like neverborn is just not figured out yet a lot of factions have clear cut for specific roles and neverborn feel sideways in design and so need more thinking about.

Aster I feel that work well

Nekima but i think that's just because i love her

 

Zorida even with the changes to GG0 she is still good imo

Titania i feel vs certain match ups she is a pain

Pandora I think is a nightmare waiting to happen

Dream is a solid master with summoning and stitched together just do a lot 

[Scoffer]

34 minutes ago, Ogid said:

I've just discovered the web where the results of the competitive events in UK are noted: https://www.malifaux-rankings.com/#/ and just wanted to share the link. Do you know there a web like that for other regions?

We use the same ranking service in Russia https://rus.malifaux-rankings.com/#/ and as you can see, Neverborn are performing pretty well here. 

[Ogid]

3 hours ago, Scoffer said:

We use the same ranking service in Russia https://rus.malifaux-rankings.com/#/ and as you can see, Neverborn are performing pretty well here. 

Ty!

Yes, they seem to be performing better in Rusia; the recent events with more than 10 players since  July

• Bulba Cup(Minsk), 16 players (ARC, NVB, GUI)
• Malifaux 3rEd Moscow, 14 players (NVB, GUI, BAY)
• National spb 2019, 29 players (NVB, ARC, OUT)
• Delayed Action Jossium, 12 players (GUI, ARC, ARC)
• Souless Alley, 12 players, 12 players (OUT, ???, TT)
• Novosibirsk Malifaux 3ed, 12 Players (TT, NVB, OUT)
• Fluffy Ass, 11 players (NVB, ARC, GUI)
• Tyrant Cup, Ekb, 14 Players (NVB, BAY, OUT)

First places: NVB 4, ARC 1, GUI 1,  OUT 1, TT 1

Podiums: NVB 6, ARC 5, OUT 4, GUI 4, BAY 2, TT 2.

How is the meta there? Both GUI and NVB are doing much better and TT is doing much worse.

[Scoffer]

4 minutes ago, Ogid said:

How is the meta there? Both GUI and NVB is doing much better and TT is doing much worse.

Multiple masters are allowed on most events here, DMH masters are usualy allowed as a single-master option. 

TT is the least popular faction here and it lacks high skilled players. 

[Daniel Walker]

6 hours ago, Scoffer said:

Multiple masters are allowed on most events here, DMH masters are usualy allowed as a single-master option. 

TT is the least popular faction here and it lacks high skilled players. 

We just have two very skilled NVB, as you know) xD

But the one is Dreamer main player (shame on you)

But we really have mostly multimaster meta.

Titania + Euripid

Zoraida + Marcus

Pandora + Nekima + Titania

Dreamer + Pandora

Zoraida + Euripid

[Daniel Walker]

But also there are a bit very strong single-master lists like: Nekima + Angel Eyes + two shamans, Lucius +Angel Eyes + two shamans + Agent, Savage is very strong keyword. 

Also, I want to summon @Domin and @karukame here.

[Regelridderen]

Playing either Dreamer or Pandora, I can surely say, that every loss I take is purely because I’m a crappy player.

 

[karukame]

31 minutes ago, Daniel Walker said:

We just have two very skilled NVB, as you know) xD

But the one is Dreamer main player (shame on you)

Still salty about Russian Nationals tournament, lul? 

Dreamer is just great, thats right. Even as single master he has a lot of flexibility, and cause he is pretty much independent summoner you can easily add to your list additional Master to counter your opponent. 

Still, i dont think neverborn THAT good overall. In single master rules, as for me, Pandora and Lucius are just weak (at least till we get this tasty new keyword models in play). Nephilims and Feys are also pretty mediocre, and in high competitive meta with strong players i feel limited to few keywords if i am planning to win.  Dreamer is the Best boy so i dont get much choice here lol. 

So if you ask my opinion, in current state of Russian meta, if there will be single master rules, then the top tier will be like Dreamer, Zoraida, Collodi and maybe Euripidus. Good thing that we are not limited to this,and my Dreamer almost always has Nekima or Pandora at his side. 

[darksoul281]

Hi

Im Daniel, this weekend I participated in the UK national tournament, the two masters I was playing were zoraida and the dreamer, of the seven games I won 4, tied 1 and lost 2, among them I lost against the player who was fourth in the tournament that I used asami, my position in the tournament was 20 and in my community we have Felix Linar who is the player who won the national, to all this I mean that I more or less understand enough to comment on certain things, first Zoraida is possibly one of the best masters of the game and the best of the faction, his ability to steal cards and control the board is impressive with the range he has, compared to nekima, he is not a weak band at all, with speed that it has, the damage and the ability to do missions would say that it could be the top 3 of the faction and secondly I would say that Lucius, since it also has a huge robbery capacity with the changelines to be able to take other models that requirea lot of card, besides the agent is one of the best offensive henchmans of the game, along with thoon they have an ability to remove enemy miniatures with the huge tome trigger. I want to clarify that the dreamer did not consider it in the top because in a tournament if people do not play a little fast it will never give time to explain the mechanics of the band and that snowball effect. I intend to make a post of my games and comment on how they were, although I don't know if you will be interested because I have not been a top.

Greetings

[Maniacal_cackle]

What do people think competitive lists for Dreamer/Zoraida look like, if they're some of the top masters?

I am starting to lean strongly towards 'elite' crews (such as Dreamer with teddy, bowman, widow weaver, Zoraida, 2 daydreams) (or Zoraida with Rider, Bowman, and three Swampfiend beaters). This is partially because the elite models are just so damn strong, partially for pass token advantage, and partially for faster tournament play (and less models to think about).

[Ogid]

Wow, lots of very interesting info in this thread, ty guys!

So, how it feels a double master meta? is it more or less variate than a single master one? Are the games generaly more or less one sided?

Do you have any Marcus player there; how does it performs in NVB?

1 hour ago, darksoul281 said:

I intend to make a post of my games and comment on how they were, although I don't know if you will be interested because I have not been a top.

Go ahead! I'm interested in knowing how it was and the crews you used. We don't have any UK NVB report yet, plus position 20 is not bad at all!

 

[karukame]

7 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

What do people think competitive lists for Dreamer/Zoraida look like, if they're some of the top masters?

For Zoraida lists you better ask Daniel Walker, he has some mindblowing techs with that Master (especially in tandem with collodi if It is allowed. :)). 

As for Dreamer - he is really strong as single  master as well.  Here is few of my rosters for him, of course you still need to adapt them to your opponent and schemes. Sometimes you just pick Pandora as second Master to hard counter your opponent. 

 

 

[Nagi21]

Neverborn are good but not strong enough to do everything with one master (unlike some TT masters *cough*Shenlong*cough*), which doesn't surprise me that the single master format is not good to them.  Going through I could give my various speculations for the various masters and their state competitively:

Nekima - The Nephilim faction (release issues aside) is very strong right now I feel, what with the grow and black blood synergy being much more accessible and synergetic than prior editions.  Ironically the weakest part of them seems to be the master herself.  A height 3 defense 5 model with regen 2 has issues surviving between activations, and with no other defensive triggers, can get blown up fairly easily in a lot of matchups.  The other issue is that her damage kit doesn't really compensate for this, because while she has a stat 7 attack, a 3/5/6 damage track is only slightly better than a mature nephilim, and shove aside is not really the trigger you want on something you would think is designed for deleting dangerous models and not cleaning up weak minions (why a basic sword and greatsword have better attacks than a named blade...).  She runs into issues particularly vs TT and their various minions able to tear them apart at range.

Zoraida - Zoraida is great (obviously) but the actual swampfiends are in a strange place.  Juju is not a particularly strong beater, nor a particularly tanky one as with effective 13 wounds and defense 3, even minor damage is going to pile up on him at short range.  Grootslang is nice, but at def 5 and 0 defensive tech, he can die easily in a fight without question.  The rest of the keyword seems to be built around getting around quickly and scheming, which is fine but can run into issues vs some crews making her a vulnerable single master choice.  She seems more at home as a 2nd master to a lot of crews, although I have seen an interesting crew with mostly nightmares and The First Mate with her that has potential.

Titania - Probably one of the more well rounded masters in the faction.  Her mid to high tier minions are fairly strong, but suffer from AP resource as most of her crew doesn't have very many bonus actions that are usable every turn.  One issue she runs into is effectiveness with OOK models.  The underbrush she relies on can be a detriment to a lot of models.  Also part of the issue prior to last month, is that she was in a very weird place with search the ruins as a scheme.  She also runs into issues with crews that either ignore concealment, or crews that churn out focus on a lot of things.

Pandora - She really suffers in single master play, as she is somewhat scheme pool dependent.  Not that she can't play into them all, but certain combinations can force an uphill battle.  Her crew is also somewhat more specialized and slower to react than the rest of the faction.  Versus Arcanists, I find that she has a lot of strength vs most of those masters, however she suffers into crews that have high willpower or long range attacks.  Normal play she is very strong provided you can account for the faction you're picking into, but unless you are going to commit to high cost independent models in the bad matchups, she should not be a single master choice.

Dreamer - Suffers slightly from the same high wp matchups that Pandora does since that can cripple his summoning.  However, the crew is much more well rounded and able to take on most crews on at least even footing.  Dreamer/Zoraida is a popular choice, and stitched are one of the best minions in the faction.  Played correctly, Dreamer should be your best choice in the single master category, as aside from some edge cases (Tara comes to mind), the nightmare toolbox has the most versatility.  Even in normal play, Dreamer should be something considered vs every faction.  He can be somewhat tricky to master however, which leads me to believe that issues with his winrate are a result of misplay rather than crew balance.

Marcus - Much better in Arcanist keyword than NVB.  He does gain some interesting beasts and of course the dreaded butterfly jump upgrade with NVB, but I have seen him much more effective on the blue team.  Could be an interesting blindside in regular play, but not as a single master pick.

Lucius - I can't comment on this as I've only seen him used by guild players dipping into Mimic and not the other way around.  He does seem like he'd be a good suprise pick as a Neverborn player to someone expecting a different matchup in regular play, as most players don't immediately think of Lucius as Neverborn, but taken in single master, he'd be the same as Guild lucius with slightly better upgrades in my opinion.  Lucius is a strong master (when mastered) so that's not the worst thing...

Euripides - Anything I say would be theorycraft at this point.  Looks strong, we'll see.

 

[Maniacal_cackle]

@Nagi21, when you say single master... Do you mean single master (as in you can't hire two masters into one crew) or single master (as in you must use one master for the whole tournament)?

I had assumed most people were referring to single/double master as referring to hiring two masters in one crew.

[Ogid]

Ty for the lists @karukame!

I've been also toying with the idea of a double master Dreamer/Nekima (not tried yet for the lack of that master and time to play tho), however I'm curious about some choices.

Why Coppelius in that double master Nekima's crew? I've always thought he performed better in lists with more minions around and more Lucid Dreams (like your second one) to use his healing mechanics and his good Moderate/Severe damage.

How does it works going so low in Lucid Dreams? The list where I thought in including Nekima had more Lucid Dreams from the begning to try to get rid of weak card faster and give her more oportunities to use her big Moderate and Severe damage. I usually try to at least include 4 Lucid Dreams sources with dreamer (counting chompy) minimum.

Don't be shy and post some of those techs and lists!

1 hour ago, Nagi21 said:

Neverborn are good but not strong enough to do everything with one master (unlike some TT masters *cough*Shenlong*cough*), which doesn't surprise me that the single master format is not good to them.  Going through I could give my various speculations for the various masters and their state competitively:

This is also how I feel the faction works. NVB has a lot of cool tools, but it's when you use them all when you can really make it work.

I suspect purple Marcus is legit, but it's going to be a while until I can playtest him well. ARC Marcus has the upgrades which are quite good but NVB has more tricks. Plus ARC versatiles will probably get tonned down a notch in the first Errata; Miners and Swarms are staples for a reason.

[Maniacal_cackle]

5 minutes ago, Ogid said:

Why Coppelius in that double master Nekima's crew? I've always thought he performed better in lists with more minions around and more Lucid Dreams (like your second one) to use his healing mechanics and his good Moderate/Severe damage.

How does it works going so low in Lucid Dreams? The list where I thought in including Nekima had more Lucid Dreams from the begning to try to get rid of weak card faster and give her more oportunities to use her big Moderate and Severe damage. I usually try to at least include 4 Lucid Dreams sources with dreamer (counting chompy) minimum.

Coppelius is a great stand alone scheme runner. I think Unhinge is a red herring on him. You take him because he can run schemes and defend himself if need be. Shifting sands is insane on a leyline or power ritual (corner deployment).

And I personally often only take 3-4 lucid dreams, so my question is the opposite. Why so many minions in the second list xD

[Ogid]

True! I forgot how good he is at denial with Shifting Sands; that plus the initial push to give Nekima a head start could be a good reason to include him.

[karukame]

1 hour ago, Ogid said:

Ty for the lists @karukame

Why Coppelius in that double master Nekima's crew? 

How does it works going so low in Lucid Dreams? 

Copellius here is replaceble. But its worth to mention that with initial push, on every setup beside Corner we create big danger zone with Nekima.  If you want to calcullate this her dead zone is about 14 inches (so she can make move, Charge, Charge and trigger with another attack on different target.). Copellius extend It to 18, and even on standart deploiment its already 26 inches, that making opponent feel really uncomfortable on the map. 

And Copellius is good overall. Just dont throw him in your opponent face straightforward. Also he prowides anoter ranged wp duel with 6 stat. 

Of course if you feel so you can exchange him for madness/stiched and daydream to get more Lucid. But in that list i dont need a lot of Lucid cause i use it only for summoned Stiched. 

And if you want to enchance your dexk with Lucid fast enough to make It count - i think you should take about 6-7 Lucid Dreams on start, cause like 2-3 of this 6 will be high cards for Sticheds to use in defense/offense

[Daniel Walker]

Here are some lists that I really like 

[Nagi21]

2 hours ago, Maniacal_cackle said:

@Nagi21, when you say single master... Do you mean single master (as in you can't hire two masters into one crew) or single master (as in you must use one master for the whole tournament)?

I had assumed most people were referring to single/double master as referring to hiring two masters in one crew.

I assumed they were talking about picking a master and doing that the entire tournament.

[Ogid]

Ty again!

 

1 hour ago, karukame said:

And if you want to enchance your dexk with Lucid fast enough to make It count - i think you should take about 6-7 Lucid Dreams on start, cause like 2-3 of this 6 will be high cards for Sticheds to use in defense/offense

Yes, the Lucid Dreams heavy list I like the most is Serena Coppelius and minions (3 Daydreams, 1 Alph, 2 Stitcheds), so 7 LD from the get go with the posibility to generate 2 extra in one turn with the RJ (2 Alphs). It makes the deck hot quite fast and both Coppelius and Serena have good damage tracks to make good use of it and are good fighting around so many minions; there are other cool tricks like Serena Hole in the world trigger into Unhinge.

 

@Daniel Walker. The Angel double BBS + Agent 47 is a very dangerous gunline, I had one like that noted to try; good to know it works

However, what brings Euripides as a OOK hire without more Savages in a Zoraida Crew? Do you usually take those elite list into pools that require few interacts or you can pick them into pools heavy in schemes and just pick off the scheme runners before going for the other crew? I'm not used to those Elite crews.

 

As in your meta seem to be a lot of  Eurpides and Lucius, what do you guys think about this list? I like how it looks but I won't be able to try it in a while:

• Lucius, The scribe, Euripides, Primordial Magic, Geryon (Inhuman Reflexes), Changeling, Changeling2, Changeling3, Black Blood Shaman. Cache 0.

I don't like the cache 0 at all... maybe it'd be a good idea removing 1 changeling, the PM or the BBS tho.

The idea is doing a lot of indirect damage with Eurpidies and Changelings (and Lucius) copying Runed-Etched Ice; which may create serious roadblocks and set up a lot of healing for Geryon and Mobility for Euripides. With so many pilars the Incorporeal from Primordial will be quite good (and will make the Geryon harder to kill). BBS is there to pulse focused, grow into a mature and have another good minion to obey. Plus Changelings and Lucius may obey 2 top notch minions (Geryons and Mature).

[Daniel Walker]

28 minutes ago, Ogid said:

However, what brings Euripides as a OOK hire without more Savages in a Zoraida Crew? Do you usually take those elite list into pools that require few interacts or you can pick them into pools heavy in schemes and just pick off the scheme runners before going for the other crew? I'm not used to those Elite crews.

Euripides is just very good model itself. It is fast, mobile, very good beater. He can be horrible for crews that are walking inside the bubble. My record is 15 MV duels during one Euripides activation. In our meta you can only play Elite crews because everything else dies very fast. (But I found one Pandora list with 13 models that can actually work) 

Quote

As in your meta seem to be a lot of  Eurpides and Lucius, what do you guys think about this list? I like how it looks but I won't be able to try it in a while:

• Lucius, The scribe, Euripides, Primordial Magic, Geryon (Inhuman Reflexes), Changeling, Changeling2, Changeling3, Black Blood Shaman. Cache 0.

I don't like the cache 0 at all... maybe it'd be a good idea removing 1 changeling, the PM or the BBS tho.

I think now its better to summon @Domin he is really fan of Build The Wall mechanic. I think it is good list, but the third changeling should be dropped.

Quote

The idea is doing a lot of indirect damage with Eurpidies and Changelings (and Lucius) copying Runed-Etched Ice; which may create serious roadblocks and set up a lot of healing for Geryon and Mobility for Euripides. With so many pilars the Incorporeal from Primordial will be quite good (and will make the Geryon harder to kill). BBS is there to pulse focused, grow into a mature and have another good minion to obey. Plus Changelings and Lucius may obey 2 top notch minions (Geryons and Mature).