So the format has changed for this year. You will have to look at the website for the actual information but to summarize you cannot repeat casters. Ie if you play krueger day 1 you can’t play him any of the other days. This puts an interesting twist from a meta perspective. Who do I play what days?

I’m personally in the play skill camp. If you are an average player you fear being out played by superior players. I believe the best strategy for these players is to “bring the heat” early so to speak. Basically approach each day like there is no tomorrow and play your best casters. This allows to play a powerful list against people of equal skill giving you advantage if they tried to mise. Against a more skilled player you hope they played a weaker list and you can beat them with your superior caster.

For a more skilled player I would formulate my 1k casters then work backwards from there. You assume you will play the strongest players on the last day and need quality casters against them. Day one you basically hope to not draw another very skilled player and then out play your opponents. This plan assumes you can go deep into the tournament with skill. The first plan relies on you using up your resources to make a deep run.

Although I advocate these strategies I think a 3rd could also be effective. Every faction has atleadt one really solid caster at any point level. Play that caster with a dummy alternative list that you don’t plan to use but could alter your opponents. I think this could also work but the above caster selections may be strictly better.

In warmachine it’s much more difficult to define a metagame for any given tourney. I do think there are general trends like a lot of khador and more warmachine than hordes. However mist people aren’t going to switch factions for a tournament so meta really involves caster selection.

My next post will be an educated guess on each factions lineup for gencon master format. Feel free to chime in with what you beleived each faction should bring to the table

best of luck