Jump to content

Seraphon the new Adepticon Champions


Recommended Posts

22 minutes ago, Calebexnihilo said:

It is literally a top 10 played army but has a bottom 10 win percentage.

https://thehonestwargamer.com/age-of-sigmar-stats-1st-april/

 

Win percentages are sort of a trap. If we looked purely on those, then Phoenix Temple would be the best faction in the game ;) The more it is played, the more dilluted the percentage becomes as it starts taking -all- the players into account. New and old alike. The more it is played, the larger the amount of people who don't know what the heck they're doing. *

Look at Stormcast and Nighthaunt as good examples of just that. Clearly capable of regularly achieving five victories, as shown by their statistic, but sit at a 49% and 45% Match win regardless.  If we also account for Seraphon having a complete lack of 5/5 wins on that chart, and they don't have a single 100% match win to drag their own statistic up.  It's also worth noting that a Seraphon list that doesn't bring a Slann is an entirely different (and much less threatening) beast than your standard Slann-lead list, and it is safe to presume at least a handful of players are bringing Carnosaurs instead due to personal preference, which is a fast way to gimp yourself before even showing up to the table.

So the discussion should really not revolve around win percentage, but instead look at why Seraphon is failing to achieve a perfect run. Are they too predictable? Are they hard-countered by the inevitable Nagash/Daughters list they'll meet? 

 

*Note that Daughters of Khaine shows up as an extreme outlier, since it is played by a lot of people, yet retains an incredibly high winrate. No idea why, but this might be where the "play to win" players went, or it might be a much easier faction to play for newer people - alternatively the faction is just OP broken, but I'd look at the former before I'd consider the latter ;)

Edited by Mayple
  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Mayple said:

So the discussion should really not revolve around win percentage, but instead look at why Seraphon is failing to achieve a perfect run. Are they too predictable? Are they hard-countered by the inevitable Nagash/Daughters list they'll meet? 

Agree, but it is the best indicator that we have of real world results. Our own metas at local gaming clubs are too narrow. These stats are great info.

Seraphon Bad: No spell lore. No good melee units. Unreliable shooting. Too many redundant buffs. Only 2 viable battalions. None of the stuff new armies have (terrain, endless spells). Entire units and battalions were rendered invalid in the last update.

Seraphon Good: Summoning. Movement shenanigans. 

Kill the slann (7 wounds) = no summoning

Turtle an objective = no movement shenanigans.

 

What Gould did is amazing! He is a great general for getting Seraphon to the top of Adepticon…. but it doesn't suddenly render "power creep" null.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll be honest, I don't know what your overall point of view is.

Are you saying: "Yo, Seraphon are bad, and this guy did good with bad army." 
Or are you saying "Yo, Seraphon are good, and this guy did good with good army"*

(Also add "re-rolling everything" to the list of Seraphon good ;) They're exceptionally good at getting access to that )

 

*Both versions would be notable because Seraphon doesn't normally get much of a competitive spotlight. 

Edited by Mayple
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Nullius said:

Chai would have crushed him if the game didn’t get cut short. The final game of the tourney shouldn’t have a time-limit. Anticlimactic. Also, you tell me who hold this center objective? Daughters? Or Seraphon?

the only mistake Chai made here was accepting that his opponent had taken this objective turn 1. And excellent opponent, no doubt. But won due to luck and a small oversight. I guess at that level of play even a small slip-up is damning.

32B4E9D0-39F8-4D3C-B615-3083D3DC088D.jpeg

Either that circle is slightly off-center and should be a bit to the right from where it is, which pulls another skink or two in and a couple of witch elves out, which actually does put it in the Seraphon control (Seems there are 12 in for both in the picture), or the objective marker was slightly out of place, in which case, they would have measured from the marker, and the Seraphon player was in control. Either way, I don't think you can really call it a mistake or take that away from the player; the seraphon player would have adjusted his movement a bit to get more models in if he had been measuring perfectly. That said though, yeah, If the game goes all 5 rounds, the seraphon army gets wiped, and as long as DoK can take 2nd turn in at least 1 more round, they'll almost certainly win the game. Also, in round 2 when he teleported the skinks to the right; if he didn't roll the 5/6 to move after teleporting, and then also roll well on the charge, he couldn't have scored on round 2. Luck was a huge factor in the game.

I do think Seraphon can be competitive even as things stand (Especially with Razordon spam), but it doesn't have the consistency or resilience of lists like DoK or Nagash. In the interview, the seraphon player even admitted winning the event involved a lot of luck. I don't mean to take anything away from the player; obviously, takes a great player to win a huge tournament like that, just that it's not 100% skill or the strength of the army. It takes a good army, a good luck, and excellent play to win any event. He took a lot of risks when he needed to, and they paid off because the dice went his way at crucial moments.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey guys,

I’m the DOK player that lost that game haha.

i had never played a top player with seraphon, and my god is that army freaking strong. 

It was also Sam and I’s First time playing relocation orb which was funny.

Sam played a very good game and picked up on everything I did wrong (mainly turn rolls). I thought you only scored 3 points if you held the objective twice in a row. So when turn two priority arrived and the objective came to my backfield I thought I should assert my dominance in board control. 

I dropped khinerais around the objective to stop teleports and went in for the kill on the evocators and ripperdactyls.

when he got bottom of turn and rolled a 5 on his teleport I knew it was going to be game. By the time we finished turn 2 we had 45 minutes left and I knew I was toast.

I certainly wish we could have gone to turn 5, but both of our movement phases took a long time. Simply because positioning was so important. The dice rolls were pretty fast even though we both were rerolling hits, wounds and saves.

as for the objective on turn 1 on that picture it does look like it’s a bit off center and it would have made a pretty huge difference since he got the objective by 1 model. When you’re playing the game you don’t realize that.

to get back on topic, seraphon is an absolute beast of an army. Being able to summon 20 skinks per turn is bananas. The bastiladon with full rerolls hits wounds and saves? Ignoring rend entirely! Saving mortals on a 4+ that’s absolutely amazing! 

In any case congrats to Sam and his run, it’s not an easy list to play.

 

 

  • Like 19
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

UpI play DOTA which has a big professional scene. What you often see is that DOTA hero's with low win rates in 'pubs' (non-proffessional and mostly low skill games) are played a lot by the pros. These heroes are very powerful in the right situation, but are really hard to execute properly and tend to die very easily when you get it wrong (like me most of the time!)

I think seraphon and a few others like khorne and maybe KO seem to fall into the same kind of bracket. Not nearly as killy as they look like they should be, so the average player probably won't do that well. But really really good players who can use all the movement&summoning shenanigans to get objectives are able to win big tournaments like CanCon and ACon. 

I think this is quite different to armies like BCR and IJ (or saurus seraphon). They have a similar win rate but really don't seem to have the tools necessary to play that way.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think some people here really underestimate a decently thought out saurus list compared to the summon spam, Certainly not got the longevity, but what does that matter if the opponents lost enough from a first charge. 

Good to see the stats getting a bump up thanks to a great weekend of play. 

Funny to see regarding the stats how just cause I (and maybe others) didn't go to the Justice Series, I had another event on the same weekend, Seraphon ended up not represented.

Was it 5 wins? stats aren't fully up to date so wasn't sure.  

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Mayple said:

Win percentages are sort of a trap. If we looked purely on those, then Phoenix Temple would be the best faction in the game ;) The more it is played, the more dilluted the percentage becomes as it starts taking -all- the players into account. New and old alike. The more it is played, the larger the amount of people who don't know what the heck they're doing. *

Look at Stormcast and Nighthaunt as good examples of just that. Clearly capable of regularly achieving five victories, as shown by their statistic, but sit at a 49% and 45% Match win regardless.  If we also account for Seraphon having a complete lack of 5/5 wins on that chart, and they don't have a single 100% match win to drag their own statistic up.  It's also worth noting that a Seraphon list that doesn't bring a Slann is an entirely different (and much less threatening) beast than your standard Slann-lead list, and it is safe to presume at least a handful of players are bringing Carnosaurs instead due to personal preference, which is a fast way to gimp yourself before even showing up to the table.

So the discussion should really not revolve around win percentage, but instead look at why Seraphon is failing to achieve a perfect run. Are they too predictable? Are they hard-countered by the inevitable Nagash/Daughters list they'll meet? 

 

*Note that Daughters of Khaine shows up as an extreme outlier, since it is played by a lot of people, yet retains an incredibly high winrate. No idea why, but this might be where the "play to win" players went, or it might be a much easier faction to play for newer people - alternatively the faction is just OP broken, but I'd look at the former before I'd consider the latter ;)

DOK are an expensive army to buy, leading me to conclude that it’s largely people who are pretty serious about the game who own the majority of 2000 point DOK armies 

Edited by Nos
  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Dr Ben said:

UpI play DOTA which has a big professional scene. What you often see is that DOTA hero's with low win rates in 'pubs' (non-proffessional and mostly low skill games) are played a lot by the pros. These heroes are very powerful in the right situation, but are really hard to execute properly and tend to die very easily when you get it wrong (like me most of the time!)

I think seraphon and a few others like khorne and maybe KO seem to fall into the same kind of bracket. Not nearly as killy as they look like they should be, so the average player probably won't do that well. But really really good players who can use all the movement&summoning shenanigans to get objectives are able to win big tournaments like CanCon and ACon. 

I think this is quite different to armies like BCR and IJ (or saurus seraphon). They have a similar win rate but really don't seem to have the tools necessary to play that way.

I'm a fairly new Khorne player and still haven't played the new book yet (running Nurgle in a tourney this weekend) but I'll say being able to move in your opponent's hero phase is HUGE.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think Seraphon lucked out in missions too. Relocation Orb is wacky for everyone, but there was no Three Places of Power or similar, which Seraphon can just get stomped on, depending on the opponent. 

Not to downplay his run, which was impressive of course. Anyone who says Seraphon are a bad army are crazy, they have all the tools necessary to be a top table army, just depends on player, opponents, etc.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Calebexnihilo said:

Seraphon needs an actual battletome. 

Power creep is real. 

For sure. Not long until they do ;) Looking forward to seeing that.

I disagree. As far as battletome vs non-battletome goes, sure, but non-battletome armies can often manage themselves just fine.  In a general sense; not at all. It does seem to be the word of the month though. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tier 2 lists are still capable of winning events with the right pilot and the right lucky matchups. 5 games and 100+ players can mean no hard matchups, or only one hard matchup, it's the way our game works. Nothing more to it!

Edited by ianob
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, ianob said:

Tier 2 lists are still capable of winning events with the right pilot and the right lucky matchups. 5 games and 100+ players can mean no hard matchups, or only one hard matchup, it's the way our game works. Nothing more to it!

Thunderquake is not a Tier 2 list by any definition. It can easily defeat  the gatekeeper lists, and competes with some of the best lists in the game.

I will grant you that his version of Thunderquake wasn't totally optimized, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, PJetski said:

Thunderquake is not a Tier 2 list by any definition. It can easily defeat  the gatekeeper lists, and competes with some of the best lists in the game.

I will grant you that his version of Thunderquake wasn't totally optimized, though.

It’s tier 2 by my definition, but tiers are always subjective :)

That said, ignoring tiers, Seraphon lose to:

Anything with shooting (so Skaven, Stormcast, and more)

Eels

Nagash

DoK

Sylvaneth

 

If you lose to all of the top and most popular lists that are played, you yourself are not a top list.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, ianob said:

It’s tier 2 by my definition, but tiers are always subjective :)

That said, ignoring tiers, Seraphon lose to:

Anything with shooting (so Skaven, Stormcast, and more)

Eels

Nagash

DoK

Sylvaneth

 

If you lose to all of the top and most popular lists that are played, you yourself are not a top list.

Why would they lose to eels? Eels don't have the tools to dominate that matchup at all. They can also straight up counter Skaven's shooting - I should know, it is the single most played, and varied matchup I have against Seraphon, and the battletome made no changes to that aspect of the army - Lightning cannon buff is irrelevant as a follow-up point because it is ridiculously easy to avoid in a Seraphon/Skaven matchup. 

Otherwise I agree with the stated matchups. Although most factions in the game (other top tiers as well) also struggle against those (Dok, Nagash), while Sylvaneth is close to a hard-counter to Seraphon specifically. So it is not that simple to brush Seraphon aside just based on that, especially since we've already seen DoK lose to Seraphon in a top player vs top player matchup, meaning it is not at all an automatic loss. 

That leaves Nagash. That one goes either way. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, ianob said:

It’s tier 2 by my definition, but tiers are always subjective :)

That said, ignoring tiers, Seraphon lose to:

Anything with shooting (so Skaven, Stormcast, and more)

Eels

Nagash

DoK

Sylvaneth

 

If you lose to all of the top and most popular lists that are played, you yourself are not a top list.

---Doublepost---

Edited by Mayple
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, ianob said:

It’s tier 2 by my definition, but tiers are always subjective :)

That said, ignoring tiers, Seraphon lose to:

Anything with shooting (so Skaven, Stormcast, and more)

Eels

Nagash

DoK

Sylvaneth

 

If you lose to all of the top and most popular lists that are played, you yourself are not a top list.

I'm not sure we are talking about the same list, since I have never had any trouble with any of those when playing Thunderquake.

Stormcast is the only hard matchup you listed, and only if they are playing the (unpopular) Anvils and Astral Templar lists. Everyone is still playing the terrible Gavriel list that is trivial to counter.

Edited by PJetski
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, ianob said:

It’s tier 2 by my definition, but tiers are always subjective :)

That said, ignoring tiers, Seraphon lose to:

Anything with shooting (so Skaven, Stormcast, and more)

Eels

Nagash

DoK

Sylvaneth

 

If you lose to all of the top and most popular lists that are played, you yourself are not a top list.

 Where did you get this from honestly it seems arbitrary, sylvaneth yes, Eels?? No if anything enough skinks derail this list really quickly, Nagash and DoK are really scenario dependent. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 4/4/2019 at 1:59 PM, etlm1987 said:

 Where did you get this from honestly it seems arbitrary, sylvaneth yes, Eels?? No if anything enough skinks derail this list really quickly, Nagash and DoK are really scenario dependent. 

I guess I just play a lot of competitive AoS? 

I mean, there’s a reason Seraphon aren’t running roughshod over the meta. They’re weak and lose to most of Tier 1. It’s a great achievement for someone to play their list well and with good matchups on the day anything can win an event, but it doesn’t mean Seraphon are suddenly in a good spot because they win something.

Anyway look, I don’t want to get into an argument on the internet about this. If you think Seraphon are great against the whole of Tier 1, bring them to some majors and let’s see their incredible matchups start showing up in the stats!

Edited by ianob
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, ianob said:

I guess I just play a lot of competitive AoS?

That doesn't make your points more valid. I also play a lot of competitive AoS, and I disagreed with most of what you stated ;)

5 hours ago, ianob said:

They’re weak and lose to most of Tier 1.

This was disproven earlier. Repeating it doesn't revalidate it. You could make counterpoints, for sure (and by all means, additional perspectives are good), but this one doesn't do it. 

5 hours ago, ianob said:

but it doesn’t mean Seraphon are suddenly in a good spot because they win something.

You're right. They were already in a good spot ;)

5 hours ago, ianob said:

If you think Seraphon are great against the whole of Tier 1, bring them to some majors and let’s see their incredible matchups start showing up in the stats!

This is a bit of a cop out, no? Also a bad way of proving your point. No one is going to do that, and you'll be able chalk it up as evidence that you're right. *

So ignoring that, let's re-itterate:

Seraphon are strong. They've always been strong. That they're weak is a misconception that derives from people repeating (unknowingly) that false information to others. We should strive to avoid continuing that loop. 

 

*Don't feel obligated to reply if you're not up for it :) I'm just clearing up misinformation. Got no beef. Although you're likewise free to engage if you want to. 

Edited by Mayple
  • Like 2
  • LOVE IT! 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...