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@Tinbane:

Just regards to the Nick Sean issue I believe is being cited (in game cheating) vs illegal lists, and you're free to disagree with my philosophy, but here it is:

Nick cheated in his game against Sean (last lvo, like a year ago) - he took FNP saves all games on a unit of plague drones from a herald that died on turn 2, and didn't realize it until Sean questioned which one had died on turn 4 or 5. When Sean pointed this out he made Nick pull most (or all?) of his remaining plague drones, which Nick did. This is the cheating that's being referred to. More materially, Nick and Sean were the only players affected, and Sean won this game. They both settled it at the table, with full knowledge of what had happened, and agreed and submitted their score. Further, Nick received no points for LVO because he didn't even place - there was nothing for me to do in this situation.

A list over points, and you can use Geoff's as an example, or Nick's from Templecon, was not something discovered until after. Nick was 5-10 points over due to taking an upgrade he didn't use, similar situation. When I found out, Nicked owned up to it, and I told him I was taking his points. He agreed and accepted it and apologized - and that was that.

Another example - Tony Kopach from 3-4 years ago. Wins NOVA, his list is 3 points over. He gets mercilessly harassed for a year or two and nicknamed "3po" as in 3 points over. He gave back his prize to my knowledge (also keep in mind this was prior to my time as Captain, I don't even think I was on the ETC team yet). An illegal list is an illegal list, and it has consequences. I don't feel Geoff is a bad person for it - mistakes are made, but he also shouldn't accept his 2nd place finish - purely my opinion. Whether it mattered or not, a requirement of the game is to show up with a legal list. His was not, ergo, imo, he lost all of his games. It sucks, but it is what it is. I've done it once too (6-9 months ago?) at an RTT locally. When on an email chain someone asked for my list and I sent it out someone went "you've got one too many of these models dude". I then apologized in the email thread and at the next RTT, took my licks, handed back my award , and gave up another certificate from an earlier one I hadn't cashed as bounty on me during that RTT. Because even though I smashed all of my games and I'm confident that model had no material impact, it doesn't matter - I did not show up with a legal list, and as such I could not win my games.

When you have an illegal list you have impacted *all* of the players at the tournament, and when they submitted their score with you they expected that you won the game as a legal participant, which you were not. At the ETC when an illegal list is submitted - not even played with - the entire team is docked points, up to a match loss in the first round. Mistakes happen, and I don't think less of Geoff for it, but if Geoff were the one sitting in 6th, and the 5th place person was found out to have an illegal list at one of his points-earning events, I suspect the reaction would be different, and people would be telling me "insert reason I'm favoring Geoff and not being fair". In this case, as in Nick's, it didn't have a material impact on qualifications - which is great. But since the topic of claiming he was "skipped over" (despite these just being the rules of how the team is made, only top 5 qualify), I felt it important to point out he wasn't even skipped over - he was misranked to begin with. And since when is it a bad thing to be ranked 14th in the nation for something? That's still something to be damn proud of.

Also, I'll be making a Team America Qualification thread in here this weekend after the feedback received and RITides has been gracious enough to agree to sticky it, so keep an eye out for that, and feel free to suggest any other changes/improvements you'd like to see made for this upcoming year.

If the reason Geoff didn't make the team is because of one Vanguard model I find that ridiculous when another player who made the team did the rule wrong for a major advantage. It doesn't matter it was one game when all the stakes are on the line.

From the first post, only the top 5 players automatically qualified - the rest were voted on / chosen to fill out the team.

I think announcing the process upfront for this year is a very good idea, but you simply can't just go with the top 8 - you might end up with 4 SM and 4 Daemon players, but can only take each army once for the ETC!

So, some element of choosing is needed, unless you just went with the top 8 finishers who had different armies... but that would be hard to quantify since some folks play more than one in major events in a year.

Regardless, being able to discuss the process openly is great! Looking forward to the info thread for this year's, Target

 Dozer Blades wrote:
If the reason Geoff didn't make the team is because of one Vanguard model I find that ridiculous when another player who made the team did the rule wrong for a major advantage. It doesn't matter it was one game when all the stakes are on the line.

Please read the previous posts - it merely moved him in the rankings, he had not qualified with or without the points from BAO.

Another thing is I think a country like USA should pretty much always rank in the top five. Look at teams like Germany and Poland. A captain should have at most 3-4 years then it's time for some change imo. This keeps it from turning into a good old boys club with perpetually the same players each year.

Well agreed on us hopefully placing / eventually winning, 'Murica right

Target also posted that either this or next year is his last (I think that would make it 3 - 4 years for him?). Again it's just great to see the process being so transparent... now if the ETC could stream their games just like the LVO

 RiTides wrote:
Well agreed on us hopefully placing / eventually winning, 'Murica right

Target also posted that either this or next year is his last (I think that would make it 3 - 4 years for him?). Again it's just great to see the process being so transparent... now if the ETC could stream their games just like the LVO

That will make it 2 to 3 years for me, which was always my intent.

iNcontroL wrote:
yes I at my first tourney taking the war convocation accidentally had 1 extra vanguard. A number of mistakes was made by people on your list as well including nick nanavati (spelling?) screwing over sean at a tourney with improper rules as well... but you don't count that against him because he is obviously a fething talented player and friend. I don't get that excuse from you because we aren't friends and I haven't made it into the clique yet I guess.

Please for god sakes don't embarrass us more by posting stuff like I cheated a major tourney and thus cannot be counted for the team when your entire team snorts cocaine and feths hookers at tourneys while also accidentally cheating from time to time... it's a fething joke.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
ok that script to make me sound less mad and more nerdy is awesome haha

hahahah, the salt! poor baby.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Another thing is I think a country like USA should pretty much always rank in the top five. Look at teams like Germany and Poland. A captain should have at most 3-4 years then it's time for some change imo. This keeps it from turning into a good old boys club with perpetually the same players each year.

Team America has garnered a reputation for cherrypicking their friends behind closed doors. A lot of the big tournament players and TOs on the west just kinda roll their eyes at the whole ETC setup. There's some petty politics involved with a lot of the east coast tournament scene that I've heard about. Until that changes, I don't think there will be much interest on the west coast.

 DarkLink wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Another thing is I think a country like USA should pretty much always rank in the top five. Look at teams like Germany and Poland. A captain should have at most 3-4 years then it's time for some change imo. This keeps it from turning into a good old boys club with perpetually the same players each year.

Team America has garnered a reputation for cherrypicking their friends behind closed doors. A lot of the big tournament players and TOs on the west just kinda roll their eyes at the whole ETC setup. There's some petty politics involved with a lot of the east coast tournament scene that I've heard about. Until that changes, I don't think there will be much interest on the west coast.

Definitely seems to be the case.. I mean how does Kurt get on the team and not even place in the top 20 of potential candidates...

Maybe in the future, all team members must be picked out of the list of top qualifiers.

Knowing a little inside about the selection process, the attempt to create east west negativity is sickening. Those saying the east coasters engage in petty closed door politics sound foolish, and are only hurting both the future health of the team and the health of 40k in the US in general.

Mad props to the east and west coasters who've been criss crossing the country to build bridges and attend as many big events as possible while sharing brews and good times with their fellow Americans, though.

Kurt team has won best general/best overall the last 2 years at adepticon. His team routinely does well at the ATC when they attend. Kurt performed well at the etc he qualified for last year. He's a guy that the "vote" is designed to pull in. Someone super good for the team and consistent.

Additionally 5 player spots are no contest you win you're on. If west coast players want on they just need to win. This qual system was announced at the beginning of last year if I remember. I know I wanted to push for it when the system came out but this year was a no go for me due to family reasons (only attended 3 gts).

This is easily the most transparent and open method they've ever had for the etc. It's also a solid systen for creating a team that should compete well. And honestly looking at the team all I see is top finishers I see all around the country all year. Seems like it worked. Guess we'll see in august.

The "closed doors" argument is kind of odd since everything is being shown here publicly? Kurt is obviously the exception, but again, you can't just go with the top 8 finishers - you need a team that can run 8 different armies at an elite level, with no overlap. Even with the process shown here, there are some serious overlap issues this team will have to overcome to do well at the event.

 DarkLink wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Another thing is I think a country like USA should pretty much always rank in the top five. Look at teams like Germany and Poland. A captain should have at most 3-4 years then it's time for some change imo. This keeps it from turning into a good old boys club with perpetually the same players each year.

Team America has garnered a reputation for cherrypicking their friends behind closed doors. A lot of the big tournament players and TOs on the west just kinda roll their eyes at the whole ETC setup. There's some petty politics involved with a lot of the east coast tournament scene that I've heard about. Until that changes, I don't think there will be much interest on the west coast.

Hmmm... so, East Coast bias thing is getting old: So I went through and bolded the events won by team members.... give you a hint, it's most of them.

Target wrote:
Sidenote, after typing out the list of events I got the urge to categorize them by region:

West Coast
Las Vegas Open 2015 - Won by Sean Nayden
Tshft Open Won by Gareth Hunt
Bay Area Open - Won by Alan Bajramovic
Broadside Bash -Won by Alan Bajramovic
Storm of Silence - Won by Chuck Arnett
Know No Mercy - Not seeing results outside of a 14 player event won by Steve Sisk- this shouldn't count

East Coast
Da Boyz GT -Won by Nick Nanavati
NOVA Open 2015 Won by Aaron Aleong
Battle for Salvation GT Zach Pawilowski runner up Alex Fennel
Killadelphia - Won by Matt DeFranza

Midwest
Adepticon 2015 Championships Won by Nick Nanavati
DarkStar GT Won by a Wes S, Gonyo was runner up
Renegade Open Trent Northington
Michigan GT Won by Ben Mohlie
American Team Championships - Won by Team Happy including Aaron Aleong
Adepticon Team Championships - Won by And They Shall Know Fear, including Aaron Aleong, Gonyo, and Nick Nanavati
Alamo GT Won by Justin Curtis
Railhead Rumble GT won by Goatboy/Matthew Alle
WarGames Con - Won by Alan Bajramovic

actually evan last year the adepticon team event was won by Sean nayden, kurt clauss and tony kopach... get your facts straight before you try and post on internet forums...

Yeah kurts a little pansy anyway fudge that guy. Also hes my best friend so I just you know put him on the team, cus thats what i do sometimes behind closed doors. And theres nothing anyone can do to stop me.

I think Evan is open-sourcing that, and some of it is a bit dated (wrong years) but it's fairly close. It also underpins the improvement it will be for me to make a post on here for this year so everyone can see results, but also submit them to me (yay less work). Keep in mind I always use only the competitive track, ordered by w/l or bp, whichever way they pair. If you're checking online, make sure you don't get confused with renaissance/overall tracks.

Know No Mercy GT was a new one this year:
Steve Sisk 1
Geoff Robinson 2
Tim Hosker 3
Julio Rodriguez 4

For a few of these I'm cut/pasting from my sheet - excuse the misordered, it's because I use a vlookup to do it, and as such I order the names alphabetically. Just hitting the ones I saw that looked incorrect above:

TSHFT Open
Ben Cromwell 2
Chance Townsend 4
Paul McKelvey 3
Sean Morgan 1

Storm of Silence
Baxter Sequin 2
Chuck Arnett 1
Jeremy Veysseire 3
Sean Morgan 4

Adepticon Teams - my team, led by Brad Townsend, actually came in 2nd (Brad, Me, Nick, Phil). Kurt's team came in first (Kurt, Max, Sean, Tony Kopach)

Alamo GT:
Ben Mohlie 1
Brian Delgado 3
Matt Allee 2
Nick Gower 4

Battle for Salvation
Alex Fennell 2
Carlos Kaiser 3
Matt Schuchman 4
Zach Pawlikowski 1

Michigan GT
Aaron Aleong 3
Brad Chester 2
Justin Curtis 1
Stephen Vincent 4

Darkstar
Andrew Gonyo 3
Chase Garbner 1
Michael Jeffries 2
Tyler Devries 4

Know No Mercy was a 60 or so 6 Round GT. Where the top 16 moved on to day 2 and the rest played in a 1 day RTT. Steve Sisk went 6-0 beating Geoff on the top table.

OrdoSean wrote:
actually evan last year the adepticon team event was won by Sean nayden, kurt clauss and tony kopach... get your facts straight before you try and post on internet forums...

Yeah kurts a little pansy anyway fudge that guy. Also hes my best friend so I just you know put him on the team, cus thats what i do sometimes behind closed doors. And theres nothing anyone can do to stop me.

Duly noted, so other team members won the event... my bad.

And yeah, that was mostly Google-fu.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Julnlecs wrote:
Know No Mercy was a 60 or so 6 Round GT. Where the top 16 moved on to day 2 and the rest played in a 1 day RTT. Steve Sisk went 6-0 beating Geoff on the top table.

All I could find was the ITC results, which only listed 14 players.

Yeah, we won best general for teams but that's only because we kurt, sean, max, and tony's team crushed battle so bad they got the overall.

And in all fairness to the system Andrew actually put a system in place to keep people from qualifying just from team events. You actually need to score points in a singles event to unlock team event points (hence kurt and i's lack of points this year)

 Julnlecs wrote:
Know No Mercy was a 60 or so 6 Round GT. Where the top 16 moved on to day 2 and the rest played in a 1 day RTT. Steve Sisk went 6-0 beating Geoff on the top table.

Thanks Julio. It was actually a only a 56 player (we had 4 no shows), 6 round event. As you said, 16 people chose not to drop after day 1. The rest went on to compete in a 3 round RTT on day two since they were out of the running. 2 of the final 16 ended up dropping after round 5, so only the 14 that finished the event were listed in the spreadsheet (per ITC rules) and collected ITC points.

The spreadsheet clearly states that 56 players started the event in the field that identifies the number of people that start round 1. I'm not sure why Evan would make the comment he did above without actually reading the results? Since I had to verify with Andrew I would think that would be adequate verification.

 punchdub wrote:

 Julnlecs wrote:
Know No Mercy was a 60 or so 6 Round GT. Where the top 16 moved on to day 2 and the rest played in a 1 day RTT. Steve Sisk went 6-0 beating Geoff on the top table.

Thanks Julio. It was actually a only a 56 player (we had 4 no shows), 6 round event. As you said, 16 people chose not to drop after day 1. The rest went on to compete in a 3 round RTT on day two since they were out of the running. 2 of the final 16 ended up dropping after round 5, so only the 14 that finished the event were listed in the spreadsheet (per ITC rules) and collected ITC points.

The spreadsheet clearly states that 56 players started the event in the field that identifies the number of people that start round 1. I'm not sure why Evan would make the comment he did above without actually reading the results? Since I had to verify with Andrew I would think that would be adequate verification.

Because the spreadsheet on the ITC results only includes 14 players, I'm guessing the top players who played day 2: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UklxN9IB09-a-6yES0d1Kya1e4cobmmgtJJMS8_uux4/edit#gid=111303906

It does say 56 on the top line, but I was just looking at the player list.

 FTGTEvan wrote:

 punchdub wrote:

 Julnlecs wrote:
Know No Mercy was a 60 or so 6 Round GT. Where the top 16 moved on to day 2 and the rest played in a 1 day RTT. Steve Sisk went 6-0 beating Geoff on the top table.

Thanks Julio. It was actually a only a 56 player (we had 4 no shows), 6 round event. As you said, 16 people chose not to drop after day 1. The rest went on to compete in a 3 round RTT on day two since they were out of the running. 2 of the final 16 ended up dropping after round 5, so only the 14 that finished the event were listed in the spreadsheet (per ITC rules) and collected ITC points.

The spreadsheet clearly states that 56 players started the event in the field that identifies the number of people that start round 1. I'm not sure why Evan would make the comment he did above without actually reading the results? Since I had to verify with Andrew I would think that would be adequate verification.

Because the spreadsheet on the ITC results only includes 14 players, I'm guessing the top players who played day 2: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UklxN9IB09-a-6yES0d1Kya1e4cobmmgtJJMS8_uux4/edit#gid=111303906

It does say 56 on the top line, but I was just looking at the player list.

Not sure what to say. I completed the form as told to do. Any player who drops an event does not get credit. Listing someone who dropped would give them credit. The form clearly says 56 players. Thanks.

@punchdub

Just to be clear, I think there is some confusion of ITC results versus mine. In mine I took exactly what we discussed in our email exchange, and yours is listed as 56 players, with the correct top 4. I think Evan is looking at the ITC ones?

Not sure why it matters, or seemed to be perceived as a slight that someone looking at a score sheet listing 14 players assumed that was the whole field. I stood corrected, and frankly, don't really care. My apologies, I suppose.

@target - yup, all good, just commenting on Evan's comment that the event shouldn't count

 DarkLink wrote:

 Dozer Blades wrote:
Another thing is I think a country like USA should pretty much always rank in the top five. Look at teams like Germany and Poland. A captain should have at most 3-4 years then it's time for some change imo. This keeps it from turning into a good old boys club with perpetually the same players each year.

Team America has garnered a reputation for cherrypicking their friends behind closed doors. A lot of the big tournament players and TOs on the west just kinda roll their eyes at the whole ETC setup. There's some petty politics involved with a lot of the east coast tournament scene that I've heard about. Until that changes, I don't think there will be much interest on the west coast.

Please point to facts instead of conjecture. Each of the captains didn't know each other within three years prior to awarding their successor as noted below:

Captain #1 - Massachusetts (2 years)
Captain #2 - Ohio (3 years)
Captain #3 - Maryland (on 2nd year)

As far as team selection goes, here's the history. You should read this thoroughly to understand the systematic expansion of the qualification system as the independent tournament circuit has grown.

2010 Year 1 - Captain #1 - Invited people from three different states (OH, NY, MA) not knowing 1/2 of the invitees. Put up two slots for those who won at AdeptiCon in the Championships and Gladiator (additional states represented were PA and TX). GW stops hosting all GTs this year and creates a vacuum with only one large event being AdeptiCon.

2011 Year 2 - Captain #1 - Invited same team. Had replacements with top two finishers from AdeptiCon Championships. (states represented included OH, MA, NY, TX, PA, MD). Tournament circuit is starting to form in it's infancy.

2012 Year 3 - Captain #2 - Decreased veteran team member qualifications to top three finishers at the ETC. Expanded qualifiers to WargamesCon, DaBoyz GT and AdeptiCon and wild card system. (OH, IL, NJ, TX, MD). AdeptiCon, WargamesCon and DaBoyz GT were largest independent events.

2013 Year 4 - Captain #2 - Maintained veteran team member qualifications to top three finishers at the ETC. Qualifiers given to WargamesCon, NOVA and AdeptiCon and wild card system for next four team members representing OH, WA, IL, VA, NJ, and TX. WargamesCon, NOVA and AdeptiCon were the largest independent events.

2014 Year 5 - Captain #2 - Maintained veteran team member qualifications to top three finishers at the ETC. Qualifiers given to WargamesCon, NOVA and AdeptiCon and wild card system for next four team members representing OH, WA, IL, NJ, VA, and TX. While WargamesCon, NOVA and AdeptiCon are the largest independent events, others across the nation are starting to grown more to have larger attendance

2015 Year 6 - Captain #3 - Maintained veteran team member qualifications to top three finishers at the ETC. Expanded qualification system to include a larger number of events and eliminated overall event winners from automatically qualifying. States represented OH, IL, IN, NJ, VA, CT.

2016 Year 7 - Captain #3 - Eliminated automatic veteran requalification. Expansion of qualification system includes all events over 50 players with the ability to reject events with obtuse rules. States represented include OH, IL, IN, NJ, VA, CT, MN.

The qualification system has expanded to be inclusive for all events and has adapted to the ever changing and growing independent circuit. Everyone has an opportunity to be on the team.

So the question is - if there is such a bias to the west coast or any specific group, why don't the groups questioning the system go out and win events to qualify? There are plenty of opportunities, yet - it doesn't seem to happen. Why is that? Player experience and skill might have something to do with it. Isn't it ironic that 5 of the top 8 players at LVO are Team America 40K team members and the overall winner is part of the UK ETC team. What's that say?

Interestingly, there is a push from people both within and outside of the team to have the captain select the entire team. Yet the current captain has resisted this as well to give the opportunity to everyone to qualify. What would you say to those that want to select the entire team?

Quick note - last line should read "2016" and "Captain #3" - this line represents the current year and my 2nd year that we'll attend the event for in august.

States include:

OH, IL, IN, NJ, VA, CT, MN

So among 8 people, all must have different armies. Jesus that sounds like a pain, especially with there being very few armies that are upper tier. And they have to be pure too? Jesus.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
So among 8 people, all must have different armies. Jesus that sounds like a pain, especially with there being very few armies that are upper tier. And they have to be pure too? Jesus.

Nope, not pure. But if you include anything in your army from another race, that race is now locked out for everyone else. So that means 1 culexus per team. Or War convo can potentially eat up BA/Cult Mech/Skiitari/Culexus/Knights for the entire team. You can quickly run out of books.

It's pretty interesting actually and you see way different armies because everyone isnt running a mish mash of the top 4 books.

Wow, I would love to be in an event like that. Gotta step up my game lol