TFT Legion 2023 World Championship Preview Series – Introduction

This article is the first in our Legion World Championship preview series. In this article I will give a general background and motivation for the series as well as an interview with the current world champion.

Introduction

Star Wars: Legion was released in March of 2018 and had its first world championship in 2019. Since then, the Legion community has grown immensely around the globe. I have been extremely privileged to know members of the Legion community from around the world. While not everyone who plays Legion are “competitive players,” the world championship is not only a celebration of competitive legion but an international celebration of the game and community. Because of the growth of Legion around the world and the financial support from Asmodee and AMG, Adepticon 2023 will consist of players from all around the world and will truly be the first international world championship of Legion. As someone who has played Legion in both North America and Europe, I look forward to the different international communities meeting and celebrating the game together. This series of articles are meant to be a celebration of the Legion community from around the world.

In this series I am going to highlight some of the top players from around the world. I used the current ELO system and contacted the top 3 players in each region who are attending Adepticon 2023 for an interview (ELO rankings are as of the Jan 9^th 2023 update). This is in no way an exhaustive list, so if you think there is someone missing in this list, comment with your favorite players from your region who you think could win it all! In the spirit of friendly competition, I encourage you to root for players from your country/region/playgroup at Adepticon 2023, there will be live streams of the entire event on the YavinBase twitch channel. I cannot wait to see the top players from around the world battle it out head-to-head, but even more I am excited to celebrate the Legion community and meet players from around the world at THE SECOND STAR WARS LEGION WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP: ADEPTICON 2023!!!!!!!

The TFT Legion World Championship preview series will be in 4 parts. This article will serve as an introduction to the series and contains an interview with the current world champion. The interview in this article is a cut down version of the full interview which can be found in this month’s issue of the One Shots magazine. Every day this week we will release a new article for each region. You can find the schedule below and links to each interview will be added to this article as they become available.

The Reigning Campion

Luke Cook: the Forever World Champion

Tell us a little about your gaming history?

Before I started playing Legion, I played a variety of games like Star Wars Miniatures, X-wing, Dust Warfare, LOTR Strategy and War of the Ring. I started playing in local tournaments when I was 7 or 8 years old, and started to travel to gaming tourneys at 11 or 12 years old; that’s when I started playing a ton of matches on vassal too. I have been playing in gaming tourneys off and on since then!

How did you hear about Legion and why did you start playing Legion?

Dust Warfare was a game that Alex Davy worked on and we really enjoyed playing that game, so naturally when we heard a Star Wars version of that game was coming out it instantly attracted us to Legion. Before the full rules for the game even came out, we went to our local store at the time and messed around with the previewed ruleset!

Which factions/battleforces do you collect and play?

All of the main factions I’ve played and dabbled in at least a little bit, I haven’t played Shadow Collective at all though, it’s not really my aesthetic. Rebels are kind of the same but I’ve played them a little bit.

People jokingly call you the “Forever World Champion” since we have had to wait four years for the second world championship. How do you feel going into worlds?

It’ll be a really great event, and I’m excited to face some amazing Legion players from all around the world. I’m a bit rusty as I haven’t played since the last Adepticon so I’m trying to start practicing again to get myself ready for the event! I’m coming to defend my title!! 

Recently Legion had the largest shake up in its history with the new Core Rulebook release. How do you feel going into worlds right after this change?

Definitely rusty. I’ve had a chance to play two games so far and it’s been difficult to get my mind off the old rules. I for sure need more reps to clear my head especially of how the old cover rules work! It’ll be interesting to figure out all the new corner cases of the new rules. 

What is on your Legion wishlist?

I want to see the clone commandos and the Bad Batch in the game. I read all the commando books and always thought they’d be sweet to have in legion. I think another set of battle cards would shake up the game a lot, and maybe that would mean battle card “seasons” or something to balance things out. In a perfect world every unit in the game is viable so I hope for more points changes and other things that move the game closer to that. There’s still a few units that need some love.

Anything you want to say to the community before world 2023?

Thanks to everyone in the community for being awesome. Special thanks to my Dad for getting me into the miniature gaming scene at such a young age. I’m 25 now and still have as much fun if not more, it’s been a great run so far looking to many years ahead! Shout out to the Buffalo crew and GO BILLS!