World Champion sets the trend at US West Coast Nats
Sokka takes maximum points in swiss with the best decks of the tournament
Cascadia 2024 - US West Coast Nationals
3rd - 4th August 2024
Seattle, WA
56 Players
9 rounds SSS, Cut to top-8
Watch the Swiss and Top Cut streams on the SindarinRP twitch channel.
More than fifty players gathered at the Mox Boarding House for the final in a series of five North American nationals, making it the largest nationals tournament of the season so far. On the line was a free ticket to worlds as well as a must have playmat for any player with an affection for warm beverages. For Sokka, there was also the possibility of “doing the triple”—having already taken first place at Canadian West Coast and US East Coast Nats—with his favourite decks of the season (Boring Lat and Charlotte AgInfusion).
So, what did these fifty or so championship hopefuls bring to the event? And how did they fare?
Faction diversity mostly followed the established pattern, with preferences skewing towards Shaper (25) and HB (22). However, for the first time since the 24.05 banlist update, we saw a decent number of players choosing to play NBN (11). This was predominantly Azmari (7)—which arguably doesn’t count—but there were a handful of other yellow IDs in attendance as well.
Although not perfectly balanced, the faction spread was about as diverse as you could reasonably hope for.
Purple ID preference was split between the three main HB Identities—Asa (6), PD (6) and Sports (6). Asa had a disappointing day (44% WR [12/27], 0/6 conversion), as did PD (48% WR [13/27], 2/6 conversion), and Sports was neither here nor there (50% WR [14/28], 1/6 conversion). Thule (3) was less popular but more successful (64% WR [9/14], 1/3 conversion).
Outside of HB, Azmari (7), Ob (7) and AgInfusion (5) were the most popular Corp IDs. Azmari achieved a 66% [19/29] win rate, which might seem impressive, but this is actually less than we’ve seen at other tournaments, and it’s notable that none of the Azmari players were able to secure a place in the Top Cut. Ob had an even more disappointing day (44% WR [11/25], 0/7 conversion), but can take some consolation in winning the majority of games against Esâ (5/7)—which has historically been a very poor matchup for Ob. AgInfusion also did well against Esâ (winning 6/6 games), and made a tremendous showing overall—with a 83% [20/24] win rate, and 2 of 6 making it into the Top Cut.
In total, the HB win rate was a lacklustre 49% [49/100], compared to NBN at 65% [32/49] and Jinteki at 76% [34/45]. Weyland trailed at 45% [24/53], with only the three Outfit players managing to achieve a positive win rate (57% [8/14]).
On the Runner side of things, we saw a sudden drop in popularity for Kit (5) matched with a spike in popularity for Esâ (11). Possibly, players were concerned about Asa—against which Esâ has a much better matchup than Kit—or Azmari. Whatever the reason, outside of those specific matchups, xi met with mixed results. The Eco-Insurrectionist only achieved a 39% [20/51] win rate, but with 2 of 11 players still managing to secure a place in the Top Cut.
Despite having a higher win rate (50% [10/20]), it’s still difficult to say if Kit would have been the better pick, given that no Kit player managed to make the Top Cut. Hoshiko (3) found herself in a very similar position (50% WR [7/14], but 0/3 conversion). Sable had a strong conversion rate (2 of 4) but a fairly unimpressive win rate (44% [7/16]). The only obviously performant Runner ID was Lat (61% WR [20/33], 2/7 conversion), who did particularly well against Azmari (60% [3/5]) while holding his own against PD (50% [2/4]).
The overall Corp WR was 56% in swiss, and a roughly equivalent 53% in the Top Cut. This is another data point in a pattern of Corp dominance that has been persistent since American Continentals. At recent tournaments, the Corp WR has climbed even higher—peaking at 61% at Swedish Nationals. In fact, when you look across all the major tournaments of 24.05, there are only two runner identities that have managed to maintain a positive WR: Arissana (at 52%) and Lat (at 57%).
A reasonable chunk (about +3% WR worth) of that 57% is Sokka—who went 19-1-1 with Lat over three nationals level events—but we probably shouldn’t try too hard to separate the power of the deck from the proficiency of the player playing it. Whether these identities are winning games because they are being piloted by some of the best players in the world, or whether those players are winning tournaments because they picked the “best” IDs is a moot point—the answer is quite simply “yes” (to both). Lat won “the triple” because he was piloted by Sokka, but Sokka picked Lat because he recognised something in The Ethical Freelancer that meant that he could go almost undefeated across three of the most competitive events in North America.
So, should we all follow Sokka’s trend and start sleeving Lat? If you aren’t sure what else to play then it’s certainly worth considering.
Standings:
Sokka (The Future Perfect) - AgInfusion [7-0-0] / Lat [7-1-0]
Solomir (House Hippos) - Thule [5-1-0] / Sable [4-3-1]
HAMS (House Hippos) - NEH [5-3-0] / Esâ [4-2-0]
aBrick - AgInfusion [4-2-0] / Esâ [4-3-0]
Man in the Moon (Muntal Bost) - PD [3-3-0] / Arissana [5-1-0]
Paillu (QtM) - Sports [4-2-0] / Freedom [3-2-0]
Penguin - PE [4-1-1] / Sable [2-2-1]
Tak - PD [3-2-1] / Lat [3-2-0]
Raw data analysis is available here
24.05 meta analysis is available here
Congrats to Sokka for the triple!
Notably, Man in the Moon can finally play a new Corp deck if he wants to!
What, no comments about the fact that Ken players had the largest showing of Criminal IDs? They may not have made the cut but they have generally better records than the Sables that did, suggesting it was the players' corp decks that let them down.