Corp players choose violence at East Canada Nats
Lat one of the few to survive against a field of opponents with murderous intentions
East Canadian Nationals 2024
20th July 2024
Toronto, Canada
37 Players
5 rounds DSS, Cut to top-8
Only a week since the prestigious Intercontinentals Invitational, and a month since it’s partner event in Calgary, Toronto hosted one of the first major post-continentals tournaments in the form of East Canadian Nationals. On the line was some unique prize support, in addition to a free ticket to worlds and the title of National Champion of Eastern Canada.
Faction preference skewed heavily towards HB and Shaper, although neither did particularly well on the day. HB was the lowest performing Corp faction (55% win rate), and, despite being the best performing Runner faction, Shaper only managed a 46% win rate.
PD was the go-to identity of the tournament (11 of 37 players). While it achieved a solid 59% win rate, those wins did not convert as well as you might expect into cut placements (18% conversion vs 22% baseline).
Shaper players preferred Kit (8) and Lat (6) to Arissana (2), but Lat performed the best—in fact, he was one of the very few Runner identities to achieve a positive win rate (59%, 50% cut conversion). The only other Runner identity (of statistical significance) to perform well was Zahya (3 players, 53% win rate, 33% cut conversion).
NBN was the least popular faction (four players), but had the highest win rate (73%), buoyed by the three players that chose to bring Azmari (82% win rate). The one RH player at the tournament also did exceptionally well (75% win rate) as did the four PE players (64% win rate). All-in-all, the Top Cut was dominated by these three flavours of murder. Exactly what led to so many of the best players in Toronto choosing to send a wake-up call to the Runner remains unclear, but it obviously worked.
Bucking the season’s downward trend, the overall Corp win rate at the tournament was 59% (increasing to 64% in the cut). Whether this is just a blip, or a spark of vitality being injected into falling Corp win rates by new kill strategies, remains to be seen.
Final Standings
Jon - Azmari [8-0] / Kit [4-4]
Ark1t3kt - PD [6-2] / Zahya [4-3]
Mikhail - PE [6-1] / Kit [4-4]
chouxflower - PE [5-1] / Lat [2-4]
cocoro - RH [3-1] / Lat [3-2]
Brandon (TAI Breakers) - Azmari [4-1] / Hoshiko [2-2]
HexNet - PD [2-1] / Hoshiko [2-1]
Zeebag - Sports [2-2] / Lat [3-1]
I am clearly misunderstanding something very important about this meta. I thought the thing keeping the Azmari decks (which I have reps with and love) in check was that they are somewhat unfavored in Shaper-heavy metas, but clearly this has shifted.
Aren't Canadians supposed to be polite?