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I'm talking non-team tournaments. The biggest ones are:
BAO
NOVA
Did I miss any big ones?

The upcoming ones are
Gencon
SoCal open
LVO
Did I miss some?

Want to look them up on BCP

AdeptiCon has a huge individual tournament, not just team tournament. Although the team tourney is not to be missed

There are many others too, your list is mostly the tournies run by Frontline Games (plus Nova and GenCon). I don't think GenCon actually has that big of a 40k tourney, despite being an absolutely massive convention. It's well worth attending regardless of that, though, as it has basically everything else nerd-related you can imagine

The generally accepted "big 3" singles events are LVO, AdeptiCon, and NOVA. Each boasts over 200 Singles players, with LVO taking the crown at something like 512 spots that will likely all sell out.

The "big" team events are AdeptiCon and ATC, each of which host hundreds of players.

There are a number of mid-sizers that clear 100, which probably warrant "big," most notable of which are BAO and I imagine FLG's upcoming SoCal Open.

GenCon is a sub-100 tournament, and while quite well run by a passionate organizer, probably not a "big" until they figure out space allocations with GenCon better (Which I understand to be the main thing holding them back).

There are of course dozens of GTs under 100, many of which are amazing events which have been going on for years. Size isn't everything

I'm purelly looking for accurate meta results.
So the big tournaments, where the lists have to persevere through a lot of matches and win despite RNG.

Adepticon is always in March or April depending on how Easter falls. So you are going to have to wait a bit to get results from that.

MVBrandt wrote:
The generally accepted "big 3" singles events are LVO, AdeptiCon, and NOVA. Each boasts over 200 Singles players, with LVO taking the crown at something like 512 spots that will likely all sell out.

The "big" team events are AdeptiCon and ATC, each of which host hundreds of players.

There are a number of mid-sizers that clear 100, which probably warrant "big," most notable of which are BAO and I imagine FLG's upcoming SoCal Open.

GenCon is a sub-100 tournament, and while quite well run by a passionate organizer, probably not a "big" until they figure out space allocations with GenCon better (Which I understand to be the main thing holding them back).

There are of course dozens of GTs under 100, many of which are amazing events which have been going on for years. Size isn't everything

Thanks MVBrandt. Should not have an issue next year for Gencon. We got some plans set up to help boost the numbers for the event. We'll be making the info public once we get it all nailed down.

The Renegade Open is up-and-coming. Should be near/over 100 players this year.

DCannon4Life wrote:
The Renegade Open is up-and-coming. Should be near/over 100 players this year.

Yeah, very good things comin' out of Renegade every year; considering trying to find a way to make it myself this go around.

The thing about looking for meta feedback is that GW is updating things so fast that I'm not sure how useful tourney results more than several months old will end up being. The lists that dominated at Nova weren't the same as what owned at the very start of 8th edition.

That's a welcome thing, though, since it means GW is addressing problems with the ruleset as they arise!

 RiTides wrote:
The thing about looking for meta feedback is that GW is updating things so fast that I'm not sure how useful tourney results more than several months old will end up being. The lists that dominated at Nova weren't the same as what owned at the very start of 8th edition.

That's a welcome thing, though, since it means GW is addressing problems with the ruleset as they arise!

Another element to note is that Andrew's list was FAR from the most powerful list there.

Lists DO NOT WIN TOURNAMENTS AND NEVER HAVE. There is a minimum barrier of entry to being a top competing list. Past that minimum, it's 90% player and 10% avoiding a really bad streak at a really bad time in a game.

Yeah, I've been following high end 40k play for over a decade, and I think the thing that always surprised me was how unique winning lists tend to be. Sure, there were always a few paint by numbers lists winning events, but in bigger tournaments, with 5+ rounds, it's more about having at least some sort of answer to everything, while getting lucky.

A hyper powerful list with a single blind spot runs a really good chance of hitting that blind spot in an 8 round event.

I think you got your percentages backwards.

I don't know tbh.


I took a not entirely competitive list and rolled amazing and still got a WLL record.

Good lists will win sometimes even if the other player does well.

I talking about the top tier players.

 Primark G wrote:
I talking about the top tier players.

I'm pretty sure I'm feeding a troll but sometimes I'm bored at work

So, are you saying top players are 90% list and 10% player? Cause that's adorable.

Lets just all agree there is no list that is good against everything, but there are lists that are good against most things.

If your running one of those you have a huge advantage over other players at a tournament.

Your chances of bumping into a counter list is a lot smaller, and it is a lot harder to make a critical mistake if your list doesn't rely on a one trick pony.


Being a better player is still not always an answer because dice rolls themselves can counter that.

In a system with 3 things to think about its hard to balance properly when one of those things is random.


List building...... Dice Rolling...... Player skill

It's not paper rock scissors since the dice rolling is random so how do you balance it for competitive play? You cannot completely balance the game.

Just accept it for what it is, have fun playing, and don't take it too seriously.

So I heard it takes a Phd to play ravenspam.

I'm glad you mentioned Ravenspam. While that cancerous build has thankfully been remediated, at ATC there were a number of players who fielded it and lost repeatedly or barely squeaked out wins ... while one player in particular who is comparatively superlative went almost perfect and tabled everyone.

There's a barrier to competition in terms of list and how it relates to the meta, but there is no "best list." Once you're at the point that you're bringing a list that *can* win a tournament, the game becomes largely about player skill. This is why since the competitive scene started to become what it is today with the advent of longer-run, w/l/d-focused events in 5th Edition, the same players who were consistently winning or losing only 1-2 games at any event they played in back then are STILL doing so now. That is why when Tony Kopach played in 5th and tended to go 8-0 or 7-1 or so at most events, he still does so. That is why when Andrew Gonyo played in 5th and tended to only lose one or two games at an event, he still does so. The same is true for several dozen top performers who've never been the ones taking "the most broken gak." In fact, case in point is NOVA. Andrew's list is very strong, but isn't at all the same as the guard list that won BAO, and wasn't the "broken" list at NOVA (SuperChicken + Malefic Lord spam won that honor by a mile and didn't win either the Invitational or GT).

Good players consistently win ... they also consistently bring a list that is at least good enough to let them consistently win. The amount to which that is not well understood by players who fixate on what list is the "Best" list is a mixture of frustrating and entertaining. Unless everyone is playing on wide open boards with gak missions, the game doesn't come down to the math of what a list does or doesn't do. It's ultimately won and lost at the higher levels of play by careful decision making, good thinking, above-table play, and ... since it is a dice game ... just a little bit of luck (explicitly the kind of luck defined as "getting lucky enough to avoid a cold streak during the wrong time of the event").

They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

 Primark G wrote:
They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

yes no one can win with trash, but list is not what determines tournament outcomes because everyone on top has a solid list. So unless your argument is that list matters the most because you need to bring a decent list in the first place. Then sure, but in an environment where that is a given that argument has very little merit.

 Primark G wrote:
They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

I think that's exactly what I said. It is equivalent to a football player in today's NFL needing a basic level of athleticism and physical size in order for their acumen and skill to matter. No amount of "being good" will make a 5'4 130 pound dude functionally able to compete in the NFL. No amount of "Being good" at 40K will help a bad list do anything other than beat other bad lists. But for every Gronkowski there are plenty of UFAs crushing their way to the Hall of Fame with less than "ideal" size and athleticism, and the same is true for the players who consistently perform well regardless of what "NFL-grade" list they're using.

MVBrandt wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

I think that's exactly what I said. It is equivalent to a football player in today's NFL needing a basic level of athleticism and physical size in order for their acumen and skill to matter. No amount of "being good" will make a 5'4 130 pound dude functionally able to compete in the NFL. No amount of "Being good" at 40K will help a bad list do anything other than beat other bad lists. But for every Gronkowski there are plenty of UFAs crushing their way to the Hall of Fame with less than "ideal" size and athleticism, and the same is true for the players who consistently perform well regardless of what "NFL-grade" list they're using.

That's a nice sentiment and it may be true for 8th (still too early to tell) but it definitely wasn't true in 7th. The top 5 lists in any major tournament could be predicted to 99% certainty every time towards the end of that ruleset's run.

I'm hoping 8th pulls ahead of that. Good luck to GW.

Audustum wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

I think that's exactly what I said. It is equivalent to a football player in today's NFL needing a basic level of athleticism and physical size in order for their acumen and skill to matter. No amount of "being good" will make a 5'4 130 pound dude functionally able to compete in the NFL. No amount of "Being good" at 40K will help a bad list do anything other than beat other bad lists. But for every Gronkowski there are plenty of UFAs crushing their way to the Hall of Fame with less than "ideal" size and athleticism, and the same is true for the players who consistently perform well regardless of what "NFL-grade" list they're using.

That's a nice sentiment and it may be true for 8th (still too early to tell) but it definitely wasn't true in 7th. The top 5 lists in any major tournament could be predicted to 99% certainty every time towards the end of that ruleset's run.

I'm hoping 8th pulls ahead of that. Good luck to GW.

Just because the lists were relatively limited in variety, doesn't mean it wasn't the players who were responsible for winning. IT is not as if a ton of other people were not bringing those lists or similar and still getting beat by those same top players. What you are saying is akin to saying, with 99% certainty people with Gronk's athletic skills will be the top players in the NFL. Now 7th had a very narrow field of solid lists that were available to compete with, but it still held true that given that everyone is using a solid list, skill is what separates the best of the best from the pack. There is this wide spread belief among armchair quarterbacks that if they brought the lists that x top guy uses they would win majors too. That simply isn't true, it isn't anymore true than those same guys in any other competition.

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

I think that's exactly what I said. It is equivalent to a football player in today's NFL needing a basic level of athleticism and physical size in order for their acumen and skill to matter. No amount of "being good" will make a 5'4 130 pound dude functionally able to compete in the NFL. No amount of "Being good" at 40K will help a bad list do anything other than beat other bad lists. But for every Gronkowski there are plenty of UFAs crushing their way to the Hall of Fame with less than "ideal" size and athleticism, and the same is true for the players who consistently perform well regardless of what "NFL-grade" list they're using.

That's a nice sentiment and it may be true for 8th (still too early to tell) but it definitely wasn't true in 7th. The top 5 lists in any major tournament could be predicted to 99% certainty every time towards the end of that ruleset's run.

I'm hoping 8th pulls ahead of that. Good luck to GW.

Just because the lists were relatively limited in variety, doesn't mean it wasn't the players who were responsible for winning. IT is not as if a ton of other people were not bringing those lists or similar and still getting beat by those same top players. What you are saying is akin to saying, with 99% certainty people with Gronk's athletic skills will be the top players in the NFL. Now 7th had a very narrow field of solid lists that were available to compete with, but it still held true that given that everyone is using a solid list, skill is what separates the best of the best from the pack. There is this wide spread belief among armchair quarterbacks that if they brought the lists that x top guy uses they would win majors too. That simply isn't true, it isn't anymore true than those same guys in any other competition.

Brendan said in a sense what I was going to say. There were large #s of those top 5 lists at nearly every major event finishing in the bottom and middle areas of the tournament.

Whether the game possesses a wide variety of what constitutes a minimally competitive-enough list is functionally divorced from the reality that regardless of what the meta IS, it's almost always the same group of players who consistently perform well within it, and has been for all those still playing from as far back as 4th/5th editions.

I don't think you can much of a case of Ravenspam requiring lots and lots of skill at ATC since there was no +1. Sure some people lost games with it but that didn't take away from its effective power level at that time.

MVBrandt wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

I think that's exactly what I said. It is equivalent to a football player in today's NFL needing a basic level of athleticism and physical size in order for their acumen and skill to matter. No amount of "being good" will make a 5'4 130 pound dude functionally able to compete in the NFL. No amount of "Being good" at 40K will help a bad list do anything other than beat other bad lists. But for every Gronkowski there are plenty of UFAs crushing their way to the Hall of Fame with less than "ideal" size and athleticism, and the same is true for the players who consistently perform well regardless of what "NFL-grade" list they're using.

That's a nice sentiment and it may be true for 8th (still too early to tell) but it definitely wasn't true in 7th. The top 5 lists in any major tournament could be predicted to 99% certainty every time towards the end of that ruleset's run.

I'm hoping 8th pulls ahead of that. Good luck to GW.

Just because the lists were relatively limited in variety, doesn't mean it wasn't the players who were responsible for winning. IT is not as if a ton of other people were not bringing those lists or similar and still getting beat by those same top players. What you are saying is akin to saying, with 99% certainty people with Gronk's athletic skills will be the top players in the NFL. Now 7th had a very narrow field of solid lists that were available to compete with, but it still held true that given that everyone is using a solid list, skill is what separates the best of the best from the pack. There is this wide spread belief among armchair quarterbacks that if they brought the lists that x top guy uses they would win majors too. That simply isn't true, it isn't anymore true than those same guys in any other competition.

Brendan said in a sense what I was going to say. There were large #s of those top 5 lists at nearly every major event finishing in the bottom and middle areas of the tournament.

Whether the game possesses a wide variety of what constitutes a minimally competitive-enough list is functionally divorced from the reality that regardless of what the meta IS, it's almost always the same group of players who consistently perform well within it, and has been for all those still playing from as far back as 4th/5th editions.

I'm not as convinced of this. When I spent much of the last year tracking wins and builds what struck as the common factor among the "good players" is that they had the least deviance from the 'standard' format of a build. You can only superficially say that the same lists were at all ends of the tournaments. Most of the middle placing lists would take the basic meta idea and put some twist on it, so we could call both lists "Renegades Barrage spam" (as an example), but they'd only be actually the same superficially. The bigger a twist, usually the worse the players' score fell.

So it's just as indicated that the 'top' players were those simply the least likely to deviate in list building from what I affectionately call 'standard' science'.

The football analogies are nice, but I'd compare this more to Chess.
The athleticism and talent of sports athletes plays a much more disproportionate role in their games than any quantifiable 'talent' does in 40k. What you're trying to say is that, all is largely equal at the upper crust and talent largely determines the break. That's much more like Chess. You should look their for analogies.

It doesn't work entirely though because we have people who might very well be far more 'talented' that are bringing inferior lists or playing inferior armies, which is impossible in Chess.

Points well made just look at ETC lists.

Audustum wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
They have to bring a solid list so that's a higher order requirement.

I think that's exactly what I said. It is equivalent to a football player in today's NFL needing a basic level of athleticism and physical size in order for their acumen and skill to matter. No amount of "being good" will make a 5'4 130 pound dude functionally able to compete in the NFL. No amount of "Being good" at 40K will help a bad list do anything other than beat other bad lists. But for every Gronkowski there are plenty of UFAs crushing their way to the Hall of Fame with less than "ideal" size and athleticism, and the same is true for the players who consistently perform well regardless of what "NFL-grade" list they're using.

That's a nice sentiment and it may be true for 8th (still too early to tell) but it definitely wasn't true in 7th. The top 5 lists in any major tournament could be predicted to 99% certainty every time towards the end of that ruleset's run.

I'm hoping 8th pulls ahead of that. Good luck to GW.

Just because the lists were relatively limited in variety, doesn't mean it wasn't the players who were responsible for winning. IT is not as if a ton of other people were not bringing those lists or similar and still getting beat by those same top players. What you are saying is akin to saying, with 99% certainty people with Gronk's athletic skills will be the top players in the NFL. Now 7th had a very narrow field of solid lists that were available to compete with, but it still held true that given that everyone is using a solid list, skill is what separates the best of the best from the pack. There is this wide spread belief among armchair quarterbacks that if they brought the lists that x top guy uses they would win majors too. That simply isn't true, it isn't anymore true than those same guys in any other competition.

Brendan said in a sense what I was going to say. There were large #s of those top 5 lists at nearly every major event finishing in the bottom and middle areas of the tournament.

Whether the game possesses a wide variety of what constitutes a minimally competitive-enough list is functionally divorced from the reality that regardless of what the meta IS, it's almost always the same group of players who consistently perform well within it, and has been for all those still playing from as far back as 4th/5th editions.

I'm not as convinced of this. When I spent much of the last year tracking wins and builds what struck as the common factor among the "good players" is that they had the least deviance from the 'standard' format of a build. You can only superficially say that the same lists were at all ends of the tournaments. Most of the middle placing lists would take the basic meta idea and put some twist on it, so we could call both lists "Renegades Barrage spam" (as an example), but they'd only be actually the same superficially. The bigger a twist, usually the worse the players' score fell.

So it's just as indicated that the 'top' players were those simply the least likely to deviate in list building from what I affectionately call 'standard' science'.

The football analogies are nice, but I'd compare this more to Chess.
The athleticism and talent of sports athletes plays a much more disproportionate role in their games than any quantifiable 'talent' does in 40k. What you're trying to say is that, all is largely equal at the upper crust and talent largely determines the break. That's much more like Chess. You should look their for analogies.

It doesn't work entirely though because we have people who might very well be far more 'talented' that are bringing inferior lists or playing inferior armies, which is impossible in Chess.

Did you ever consider that those players are closer to the "standard" is because they are the ones that get copied in the first place? I know many top players and they are frequently innovating lists that win events and then get knocked off and are not as successful? I also disagree I think you underrate talent quite a bit. IN both chess and 40k. Being able to read ahead in games is to some extent a talent. Everyone can get better with practice, but not everyone will be Bobby Fisher. Reading the opponent is a talent, memorization of rules is a talent, etc. There are a lot of areas where people just are not equal. The concept that anyone can be as good as the top guy in any arena is a myth.


Then those with talent are separated by practice, most top players play way more 40k than the rest of us. For instance I'm lucky to play once a week on average, usually every other week. (so 2-4 games a month) Many top guys I have know play more than that in a day, multiple days a week, they play against other top players, against varied builds etc.