Teambuilding / Getting Ready For Battle

If you have several teams that you like pretty much equally, and you have a tournament coming up, it can be hard to choose just one to lock in. Which one will give you the best shot of success? Here’s how we decide.

If you’re feeling panicked, we also recommend our article about making last-minute decisions before a tournament. 

Comfort vs. metagame relevance

If you’re keeping a close eye on the metagame, you may have a team in mind that takes advantage of the metagame trends– a “smart meta call”. The issue with these teams is that often you don’t have very much experience with the team because it may be newly built and you’ll have less time to learn how it plays. These teams can often seem tempting in comparison to teams which you know inside and out, but aren’t as cutting-edge. 

Typically, I prefer to pick teams that I am comfortable with and know well. I value having at least a week or two of experience over coming up with something last-minute that seems strong. This is because tournaments can often take a long time, and I’d prefer to be in my comfort zone when I play in them, so I don’t get exhausted by the end of the day. This doesn’t mean that I can’t tweak details the day before, but generally, I want to understand the game plans for the team that I’m using beforehand, and not figure them out over the course of the tournament (which is possible, and potentially a fun tournament experience– it’s just not how I like to play.)

Consistency

In tournaments, my teams should work well in many different scenarios versus many different players, some of which could be quite strong. I tend to pay close attention to how consistent my team is and rely on surprise factor very sparingly. Which of your teams gives you the best options if your opponent has seen your team before, or maybe even heard about your team from a friend who played you in an earlier round? Check out our consistency checklist for more ideas.

Consider your tournament goals

What do you want out of the tournament? Are you aiming to reach a certain placing (maybe to earn Championship Points), to top cut, or even to win it all? Different teams are better suited for each type of tournament run.

• If your goal is to just get championship points out of the tournament, your goal is probably to land in the top 32, 64, or even 128. You might want to consider a consistent and standard team with few risky choices that you know well.

• If your goal is to top cut, your goal is similar to the above player– although the margin for error is a little bit smaller. 

• If your goal is to win the tournament, you may want a team that takes a few risks or advances past what players expect (especially if the tournament is larger). The further you go in a tournament, the more people will be prepared for standard teams, and you want to force them out of their own comfort zone. This doesn’t mean to use surprise factor for the sake of surprising your opponents, but if winning the tournament is your goal, we recommend either being prepared to play the team extremely well or doing something unique.

Further, the type of tournament that you’re going to will also make a difference in how effective each team is:

• If it’s a small tournament (such as an 8-person Premier Challenge), it’s tough to say which strategy will lead you to the top, because the matchups you’ll run into depend on the few other people that attend.

• For a large tournament (Regionals, Internationals, Worlds, etc), players will be more varied but will generally be aware of larger metagame trends.

  • At large tournaments, there’s a smaller chance someone will know you and your team, which means that surprises will be a bit more effective.

  • It is typically more challenging to make Top Cut the larger the event gets. 

  • Furthermore, larger events can be tiring– if you have to play 9 or even 10 rounds with a team, make sure it’s a team that you like. In these scenarios, we recommend team styles that finish games faster.

Wrapping Up

When the clock ticks down, you can only pick one team to bring to a tournament, and sometimes I get lost in the what-ifs– which team would I be sadder to leave behind? The important thing is to feel confident in your choice going into a tournament, so make sure to give yourself time to decide, and to realize what the right option is.