40K: Why We Talk About Tournaments So Dang Much
Let’s get meta and discuss why competitive play is so important to how we talk about Warhammer 40,000.
It’s a well-established fact that the majority of articles I write, and maybe the majority of all our 40K articles, focus on competitive and tournament play. To some people, it may even seem like the only thing I, and other writers here, care about is breaking the game and talking about tournaments and “the meta.” While this is not true, there are some very good reasons why we tend to focus discussions on competitive play; let’s take a look at those.
What People Are Saying
Looking through the comments on my articles I see one topic coming up over and over again. Something like “you only care about tournaments” or “40K isn’t all tournaments” or even “that’s only an issue in matched play, just play open play games, and it’s fine.” Over and over again people ask why we talk about tournaments so much.
Tournaments Are a Small Part of the Game
The Truth is that we understand that tournaments are a relatively small part of 40K. The ITC circuit, which includes most of the larger events in North America and shapes a lot of the Meta we talk about has about 5,000 players that participate in it. Many of these players only attend a single event. Compared to the millions of players worldwide, 5,000 is a minimal number. Smaller local events make up a much larger portion of the game; I’d wager that the majority of players have or will attend at least one local event. Even these events, however, make up a relatively small number of the overall 40K games played. So if it’s such a small part of the game why talk it about it obsessively?
High-Level Competitive Play Creates Standards That Drive The Game
While relatively few players participate in competitive events many, many more players are influenced by that style of play. It happens in some really simple ways. Let’s say your FLGS is running a tournament, it’s not ITC, but for lack of a better system, the tournament’s organizer decides to use the ITC rules, since that seems popular. Now all the players who go to that local event are being influenced by the ITC.
Even players who don’t play in that event at all can still be influenced. Maybe they merely show up on game night, and their friend is going to the event. Their friend wants to test out a list for the event this new player agrees, and now she’s playing according to ITC rules, without ever going to an event. Maybe after that first game she even decides to get in a second game with someone else, since she’s already got an ITC type list to help her friend, now yet another player is being brought into the standards created by competitive 40K.
Having Standards to play by is very important for casual play. While it’s easy to set up a game with a close friend and know what you are getting into, the same is not true when playing strangers. If I go to game night and play someone new, it’s helpful to have some standard we can both go with. This is why matched play and tournament standards are very popular. Most players use matched play rules because it creates easy to understand criteria.
Tournament Meta Gives Us Common Ground
Another reason we talk about tournaments and the “meta” so much is that it gives us common ground to discuss the game. Even at the highest level, the meta is not monolithic. ITC’s meta, for example, is different from ETC meta, North America has a different meta from Australia. At a smaller level, every game group has its own meta, every FLGS and community plays a bit differently. As much as I would love to be able to talk about the meta at each of my reader’s stores, that is impossible.
The competitive meta, for better or worse, has become the lingua franca of 40K.
The high-level tournament meta, even with its fractures, is similar enough to give us a common topic to discuss. The competitive meta, for better or worse, has become the lingua franca of 40K. It’s a common ground we can all come together on and relate at least a little bit. It’s not because I think tournaments are all that 40K is, heck I haven’t personally played in a tournament in a bit, but it’s because if I start talking about some random thing that happened in last nights game with Jim-Bob, it’s not going to be relevant.
Open Play is Impossible To Talk About
A subset of the comments we get about our focus on competitive play are players saying that specific issues are true if you play using open play or matched play rules. Other people ask why I don’t write about Open Play more. The fact is its next to impossible to talk about open play in any meaningful way. This is especially true is you don’t use battle forged armies. Open play is such a free for all of house rules and pick-and-chose rules that I have no idea what your meaning of open play is. It’s like trying to have a meaningful discussion about the rules of Calvin Ball. There is just no real common ground.
I’d Welcome Other Relatable Topics
The tournament meta, its issues and what does well in it remains the most widely relatable topics to discuss. It’s why we will continue to talk about it and dissect it, and do all the other things you love so much. That being said, if anyone would like to suggest some other widely relatable topics they’d like to see me write about, I’d be willing to consider it. So my question to you dear reader is, what else would you like to read about?
Got something you’d like to see me write about? Let me know, down in the comments!
