Monday, June 4, 2018

Choosing a Roster

Hello Guild Ballers, today I am going to ramble about picking a team. I've been going through Guild ADD recently and haven't settled on a single guild yet to practice. The best way to get good with a guild is by picking a six man team and playing as many games as possible. This allows us to find what players we like and don't like in that line up, and what match ups are bad for that team. I am going to go through my thought process when I am picking a guild and my six.

When I am picking a team I look for which guilds have the best ability to reward an aggressive play style, the way I prefer to play. I thought about all the guilds I have played throughout the three seasons, and arrived at union being one of my favourites because of the diversity within the guild. With a large pool of players, a Union team should be able to be made to fit my playstyle.

Starting at captain... There is three choice Blackheart, vRage, and sBrisket. All of them play aggressively which checks off my big box of approval, but only one can be picked in a six. Blackheart has a lot of flexibility and helps both a football and beat down game but is unfocused, sBrisket scores goals but lacks flexibility so she is a pass for me, and vRage has a strong focused toolkit for beatdown. So far I have narrowed my choice down to two, both of which will be in the tournament 10, but need to pick one to be the main captain. I like to have a balanced team of goal scoring and beatdown, so I am picking to have vRage as the main captain. He has a more focused role on the team and I can use Unions inherent strength as a guild to have a balanced team.

Mascot choice... This is harder for Union then any other guild because they all are really strong. I like my mascots to bring a strong trait or play that can help the team in a pinch. Pride is the new hotness in town for the Union. Having counter charge on a mascot is insane, and his survivability deters people from wasting attacks on him.

I like to have a tough to take out model to form a scrum with. Benediction fills this role perfectly, plus he extends the range vRage can use his character plays to affect the game. Benny brings two inch reach, the best rule in the game, and efficiencies built in to him through character traits. As a result he doesn't need to use any of the teams resources to do be valuable.

Next I want a payoff player, one that has synergies with vRage that I can plan my game around. This spot is for Gutter. She brings AoE damage output, chain grab, and good kick on a resilient body. Every turn I should reliably have her contribute meaningfully towards a victory.

I have 4 players in my team and I don't have a real goal threat. My options in union are Mist, snakeskin, or grace. Snakeskin is a good piece to kill the ball with but struggles to score if the opponent has possession of the ball. Grace brings utility and fuels herself. Mist brings two inch melee, has synergies with two other players on my team, and is the only true striker option out of the three so she is going to be my pick.

My last line-up spot is a hard choice here. So far every player is influence hungry except for Benediction sometimes. I could go with a battery to supply my team with influence, or a player that I don't use unless I have to. Minx is a great battery and brings snare for the team. Decimate is an average player that I know exactly what I am going to get out of her influence if I allocate to her. Ultimately I chose Decimate over Minx to play test. If my team feels too influence strapped after a few games this will be the first swap I make. After a few games played I have found second wind incredibly useful and Decimate is good at counter attacking, but am still uncertain which one is the better pick.

Playtesting the team for some games I have found that Grace is incredibly useful in the Alchemists match, and Hemlocke to be a great pick against many teams. This brings my six up to a tournament 8, which will be 9 by bringing Blackheart as a second captain. Having Blackheart forces the opponent to respect that the game could be a fast football style game at the captain choice. To bring my self up to a 10 I will throw in Minx. Minx being a battery helps Blackheart's game, but gives me the option to switch her in for Decimate in the rage team if I feel that it is stronger in the end.

I hope that some people can apply some of this when designing their rosters. The most important part is to practice a Six that you like for a lot of games before making any major changes if any to the team.


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