Legion’s First World Team Championships

In February 2023 I was approached by an Irishman I never had met before (the incomparable Dave Nolan), asking me to help TO and run a team event for Star Wars Legion. I’ve played in several seasons of the Yavin Base League online, which gave me some ideas of how to run this kind of event, but this was the first time I had even contemplated an event like this in person. Dave has been running the World Team Championships (WTC) events for Battle for Middle Earth (Lord of the Rings) and Bolt Action (a World War 2 minis game) for the last five years in various locations in Europe so he already had an idea of where to start. So we sat down and put our heads together to come up with the format that we eventually used.

The event conception

The thing that Dave wanted the most, though I was a little unsure at first, was having all games played for a match played on the same table. At first glance, this seemed weird since we are used to playing every game on a different table and layout. However, when you think of a team format it makes for a very interesting point to have that the table layout might be really good for your Clone gunline but not so good for your Rebel troopers. This was also a key thing I had to learn from a TO point of view. Some things that I would not be happy to do for a normal singles event do work really well for a teams event.

We decided on teams of four players. Having three or five players would have been more ideal but teams of four was to help with keeping costs down so that people could share rooms with team mates rather than being paired with strangers. To deal with having four players and potentially having a draw if each team won two games each, I decided that we would make the captains play each other and this game would be the tiebreaker. We also introduced the rule that each team would submit five lists with all lists being made public a month before hand (minus command hands). This meant that people could prepare and practice against certain lists if they wanted and but with the trepidation that all that hard work could have been for nothing if a list wasn’t used in the end.

With the captains playing each other, we needed a way to work out who would be playing who. This is where I drew my experience from playing in the Yavin Base League. Each team would tally up their bids and you would have a team bid. The team with the biggest bid would have the choice of being Red Team or Blue Team. Blue team would then reveal a list, followed by Red team getting to pick who plays against that list. Red Team would then reveal a list for Blue Team to then pick who would play. This would leave one list each left over so leaves them as the last match up.

So, now the format was sorted out, but we needed were the teams themselves. I picked a representative for each country based this on either being someone I had met from that country and knew they were very involved for the community or was a bit of a more public facing player. Sometimes, this would also be the only person I knew from that country but then they pointed me to a better representative. It was the representative’s job to organise picking the captains and their team. Representatives can choose how they picked their teams. Some countries may want to run qualifying tournaments if they have lots of interest. Some might just go with who is available and who can afford it or any combination they see fit to pick the teams. Each country could only bring a total of three teams.

I reached out to 20 different countries, and everyone was very positive regarding the whole event and was very keen on the concept. In the end, we had 16 teams from 10 different countries with USA and Sweden bringing the full three teams each! For me, this was impressive and shows how strong our community is that we managed 16 teams in our first year. In comparison, Bolt Action and LOTR had 18 teams each.

All match results were recorded on paper, which I have subsequently typed up into Excel to be viewed publicly. What this also allowed us to do is look at the individual pairings (as players during the tournament were referred by country/team/player references). Unfortunately, we did not record the mission being played as this had been omitted from the match slip. We used Game Uplink for the team pairings and recorded the number of games won as the number of victory points scored. The second tiebreaker used was SoS and the final tie breaker was kill points. We made sure that no country would play itself with the exception being if two teams from the same country after round five where both undefeated. Fortunately, this didn’t happen.

The format was set and finally on a sunny week in February, the players arrived where the grand stage of Granada awaited!

The Results and the Teams

1st- France 1 – 5-1

Teams average ELO ranking: 201.25

Teams average ELO score: 1421.50

The French have notoriously been absent from most appearances on the international scene yet still have managed to have a player ranked 3rd in ELO. They have a huge community even hosting the largest Legion event outside of Worlds with 156 players! Having Tza as the captain obviously gave the team a strong advantage but he still needed strong teammates and it shows with two of them going 4-2. The last player although only winning a single game could have just been in this format the sacrificial lamb. The important part is this is a team effort and they only dropped a single match in the last round where the result didn’t matter as they had won enough games to secure first place! It is also worth noting that all the French lists were Battle Forces – perhaps they’ve been brushing up on our articles while keeping quiet..?

I look forward to seeing more French players attending international events and making a mark in the meta outside of France.

2nd – Germany 1 – 5-1

Teams average ELO ranking: 101.75

Teams average ELO score: 1553.75

Over in Europe , the German community already has a reputation for excellent players. A lot of the players travel to other European countries and place in the top eight at world open qualifiers very regularly. They performed well at Worlds last year despite getting six players paired against each other round one.

These were definitely one of the favourites in my eyes along with France, USA and England to take the event. The only game Germany lost was the first game to France and despite finishing second, I’m sure Finn was still disappointed despite the respectable performance. I expect most of these players to do well at Worlds and will be a team to watch out for at next year’s WTC.

3rd – USA 3 – 4-2

Teams average ELO ranking: 140

Teams average ELO score: 1447

The first of the USA teams and based on the players in other teams not the team I expected to be placed the highest (no offence lads)! All these lists are solid meta choices, and the all four knew exactly how to play their chosen lists. They were the only team to beat the French in the last round, with their captain Wes losing only his final game. A really good finish from four great players.

4th – Sweden 2 – 4-2

Teams average ELO ranking: 430.75

Teams average ELO score: 1201.75

This team was undefeated at the end of day one with some very off meta choices! My favourite being the quad Mando’s. I’ve always wanted to make this list work but never been able to get great success from it but will be looking to try Erik’s version in the future. The other three lists are also not “meta” lists in my eyes but maybe Sweden knows something the rest of us don’t. I do hope to see some of them do well at Worlds to replicate what they have done at WTC.

5th – Norway 1 – 4-2

Teams average ELO ranking: 715

Teams average ELO score: 1088.75

Having played Alexander at Worlds last year I was (quietly) cheering for team Norway to do well over the weekend. The team of four friends brought some solid lists and again did really well with only losing to two of the three USA Teams.

6th – USA 1 – 4-2

Teams average ELO ranking: 73.25

Teams average ELO score: 1577.75

The highest ELO ranking team in attendance with the ‘Forever Champion’ Luke Cook, Lucas and Austin all being strong players making several top 8’s this year alone. Tyler was the surprise of this team however stepping up to replace the original fourth member with only two week’s notice! He also didn’t disappoint by going 4-2 for a team that put in a solid effort over the weekend.

7th – USA 2 – 3-3

Teams average ELO ranking: 86.25

Teams average ELO score: 1476

The self appointed ‘A-Team’ of the USA’s contingent, although they finished in third place amongst their countrymen, showed us they were possibly the most fun! What is interesting about this team apart (from the players all being great guys), is they managed to finish 7th with the captain having lost all his games! I know first-hand that Izzy is a really good player, but he had some really rough match ups against the other captains. However he managed to get all the pairings for his team mates spot on enough for them to get the wins for his team. Also, a big shout out to Brian Baer for going undefeated the whole weekend with his rebel double bus list!

Editor’s Note: That’s me in the front, since I’m clearly the shortest member of the team. It was a really fun event and Andy did a great job. The crazy thing is that I THINK we may have taken third place if I had just won my last game which was against Norway so, sorry dudes! Tyler and I went 4-2 and Brian carried us by going undefeated with his extremely meta list. In retrospect, I think that this format really favored teams with Captains that had “all-comers” lists where matchup nightmares were less of a factor (such as Ewoks, which France used, or GAR which Germany used). If you’re wondering, both my losses were due to my opponents playing better than me, NOT THE DICE! We may have been the last USA team but at least we still finished ahead of England and their damnable tea taxes. Thanks again Andy! – Evan “Doc Velo” Paul

8th – Netherlands 1 – 3-3

Teams average ELO ranking: 640.25

Teams average ELO score: 1120.75

Netherlands look to be off to a great start with their captain nearly tabling Luke Cook, but unfortunately, that was the only win for that round. Must be something to do with Black Suns. Aside from the Clones list, there were some surprising unconventional lists. The Empire list is a very interesting list and I imagine the format also helped with the four wins Johannus got with that list. Upon first look, I would not expect that kind of list to do so well but clearly he knows something I don’t!

9th – England 1 – 3-3

Teams average ELO ranking: 138.25

Teams average ELO score: 1532.25

I might be a little biased going into the WTC with reasonably high hopes for my home team. Despite a good start, they took some key losses on day two meaning they did not finish as high as we hoped. There were some very tough games and match ups for each of the players but expecting nothing less from them, the team did manage to show up to the late night drinking and karaoke instead.

10th – Denmark 3 – 3-3

Teams average ELO ranking: 928.25

Teams average ELO score: 975.5

Denmark’s lists all are very similar to other meta lists from above including bringing Blizzard Force since it had still been doing fairly well in Europe. If anything, I think after this weekend most Blizzard Force players are starting reconsider their choices. Denmark are all fairly new players to the competitive scene and to finish where they did was a great achievement. Lukas was the third person to go undefeated all weekend

11th – Italy 1 – 3-3

Teams average ELO ranking: 631

Teams average ELO score: 1126.5

I had heard good things about the Italian Open that happened last year from a TO who runs events in Italy, so I was keeping a close eye on this team. All of the lists are solid and the players just as much. The games I did manage to catch were all the losses unfortunately. Most the games ended pretty close and the wins they did managed seemed very well deserved.

12th – Denmark 1 – 2-4

Teams average ELO ranking: 760.75

Teams average ELO score: 1057

Denmark also brought the 14 activation Ewoks with Marius only losing his final game of the weekend. If he’d been the captain of this team with his win record, it would have swung at least two games where it went down to tiebreakers. The other lists all seem to be on point for the Meta but maybe the match ups for each of the players where not as favourable as they’d have hoped for.

13th – Sweden 1 – 2-4

Teams average ELO ranking: 803

Teams average ELO score: 1036.5

It has to be said that the Swedish teams definitely took first place with their teams t-shirt design choices and despite this team’s shirts saying SWE 3PO, confusingly, this was team Sweden 1. I had the pleasure of playing the Remnant list the day before and even though he had only stepped in a few earlier after list submissions he knew what he was doing with his list. Their captain, Gabriel, also told me his aim was to go away with at least one win for his team, and they managed to get double that so he can aim for a third win for next year!

14th – Denmark 2 – 1-5

Teams average ELO ranking: 903

Teams average ELO score: 1000

Denmark 2 took a completely different approach to list building to the other Danish teams going with lower activations. The Palpatine list was on stream round one, but Izzy (USA 2) had paired a high impact and critical list and the game was over very quickly. This was a great example of the format that getting the right matchup is just as important as the player’s skill. Other than the first round Denmark 2’s games were actually a lot closer for the rest of the tournament, despite their low finish.

15th – Sweden 3 – 1-5

Teams average ELO ranking: 1011

Teams average ELO score: 907.25

Sweden 3 qualified for having the youngest player at the event who turned 18 over the weekend! Funnily enough, he did not enjoy his tequila shot with dinner on the Saturday night. He did however enjoy the entire weekend along with teammates who stayed up till 4am at the karaoke bar and continued to drink on the Sunday while everyone else shied away from the alcohol. Ah to be young and immune to hangovers again…

16th – Wales 1 – 1-5

Teams average ELO ranking: 803.75

Teams average ELO score: 1029.75

A South African, a Spaniard and an Englishman all turn up to a tournament…well it sounds like the start of a joke but it was actually Team Wales. Ironically, the only Welsh member of the team unfortunately fell ill the day before his flight so TNM’s own Cockles Faulkner was instructed to pack the clone list in question to bring with him to Spain. Jack and Cockles took it in turn to play the list as the stand in member for team Wales in between streaming and judging duties. Despite coming in last, they had an amazing time, with a particularly tense final game on the second day against Sweden 3 with the Swedes taking the victory and ensuring team every team went home with a win.

Social

One of the big things I’m always keen to do after a day of Legion games is hang out with all the players. Even more so when I’ve been running the event and not had a chance to play. Yes, there is a lot of talk of Legion but it’s a chance to actually become friends and learn more about each of the people who go to these events. Olly had organised for us to attend a Mexican restaurant and then a karaoke bar. The restaurant was not ready for the 80 people who turned up (we had a few extras from BfME join us) Then lots of drinking and singing happened until the early hours of the morning. Everyone who attended the meal and the karaoke ended up making great friendships from their Legion opponents and makes such a difference building the international community.

Wrap up

The event ran smoothly from my point of view. I had a great time walking around talking to everyone and we had zero issues even with all the different languages in the room. Everyone at the end of the weekend was already excited about next year and we had not even packed up. There are definitely a few changes I’ll be looking to make based on feedback from the community and players that were there and any issues that we encountered. Primarily I think that the Captain’s tiebreaker will be one we’ll look at changing, along with a few tweaks about how we record the information and results.

WTC will be back in 2025 and will be hosted in England for the first time. If you want to be involved next year, then reach out to me or your country’s representative to express your interest.

If you want to see the country pairings and results you can see all of them here.

If you want to look at the individual pairings and results you can find them all here.

You can also watch the streams on the That’s No Moon Podcast YouTube channel from the weekend here.