Quick Fire #3: The 2022 SCPT Finals
Lots of hype and a few (very spicy) predictions
Hey y’all, welcome back to the newsletter. I’ve been out of the country and thus unfortunately away from Twilight Imperium for most of the summer, but nowhere is far enough to escape the the gravitational pull that is the 2022 Space Cats Peace Turtles Tournament Final! It starts at 13:00 UTC / 9:00 EDT ( i.e. 2 hours from when this will be posted) and I really encourage you to check out the stream here. I’ll be tuning in all the way from Kenya (at least until my flight ) and I hope to see you in chat! Additional congratulations to Matt and Hunter for recently making Twitch Partner! A huge accomplishment on their part and an excellent sign for the burgeoning e-sports community that is Twilight Imperium.
Lastly, before I get into some quick predictions about the draft and the game, I want to shoutout NekroDiesTwice, one of my oldest Twilight Imperium friends, who I have had the pleasure of losing to all too often, and is competing in the finals. Give ‘em hell!
The Draft - Sponsored by Milty
If you aren’t familiar, the tournament this year is using what is known as Milty Draft, by far my favorite method of drafting for competitive TI. This video from a previous tournament (2021 Invitational) used the same method if you want to walk through it, but essentially, players do a snake-draft and pick either a faction, slice, or a speaker order (which also determines your neighbors). So for example, you might pick Sardakk, then the blue slice, and then speaker position three.
The Faction Pool - The Good, The Bad, and the Winnu
This is an interesting faction pool. In my mind you have basically three groups. First, is the solid factions in Titans, Sol, Nomad, and Yssaril (perhaps a bit below the rest). These are factions anyone is generally happy to play, with strong fundamentals and good kit. Additionally, all of them except Yssaril have a strong play for custodians round 2.
Then you have the more challenging factions in Sardakk and Arborec. These are both huge fan favorites, and I expect chat to rally behind them being chosen. They do represent a bit of a “I’m going for the meme win” though, and I’m not sure this is the pool where you want to be the only one starting down a peg.
Lastly you have the wildcards. Winnu is super-strong but a bit of a glass cannon and target for heat. Mahact is weird and can depend on the other factions at the table greatly (Winnu and Yssaril commanders as Mahact? Yes please!) but has lots of upside potential. I would never pick Mahact in this pool just out of comfort level (I’ve only played them once1 ) but I know others might disagree.
The Slices - One, Four, One
Part of what is interesting here is, unlike other Milty drafts I’ve seen, there are exactly six slices, meaning the last person to take a slice will have no choice in the matter. The slices that stand out to me the most here are blue and green.
Blue is phenomenal. I think any faction would be happy to have it. The only downside is the wormhole next to home, but it is far from unique in that regard.
Green is, well, probably the worst in my view. You have almost no resources if you don’t take Primor, a wormhole next to hope, and a gravity rift between you and mecatol. Not ideal.
The rest I think are okay. Certainly some might be more attractive to specific factions than others (Sardakk in purple to unlock the commander for example) but overall I don’t think any standout above the rest.
Predictions
Lastly, I want to make some fun predictions about this years draft and tournament. Just something to test my knowledge and analysis of the game. I’ll be including confidence markers, and some of my predictions will be <50% meaning that while they probably won’t happen, I’m probably placing an above random chance on them. Come back in a day or two to see how I did.
Draft Predictions
A lot of these are inspired by the interviews. I think these players are very careful about being seen as the threat (hence the Winnu avoidance). Additionally, I think they’re smart and experienced enough to think through the longer implications of the draft (see #4 and #10).
Winnu will not be one of the first 3 factions chosen (90%)
Nomad and Titans will be 2 of the first 3 factions chosen (85%)
Blue will be the first slice picked (75%)
At least one player will not pick the highest speaker order available (75%)
Green will be either last or second to last slice pick (70%)
Winnu will NOT be picked in the draft at all (70%)
Most players will pick slice over faction (65%)
Titans (if they’re played) will be in Green (30%)
Arborec will be chosen (25%)
Someone picks second speaker over speaker (15%)
Game Predictions
Lastly here are some predictions about the actual game.
Custodians won’t be taken round one (90%)
The tournament game goes over 12 hours (80%)
Assuming no structure objective, diplomacy is chosen round 1 (70%)
Nomad or Sol will win the game (50%)
The game will go past Round 5 status phase (50%)
Also if you do end up watching the stream, check out this Bingo card made by BradleySigma in the SCPT Discord. I hope to see you in chat!
I actually won this game, giving me my only faction with a 100% win rate. That being said, ego aside, it was a pretty casual game, and I got very lucky, and I think its hard to attribute any of my win to being Mahact. I didn’t get another players token in my fleet pool the entire game.