You have to listen to what I say because I went 3-0 at one 6 player tournament 🙂

You don’t, but like, might be worth considering.

I will talk some about competition and what makes the list I took competitively successful, buuuuuuuuuuuut I don’t think you should take everything I say as gospel. I very well might be over-generalizing based on a small sample size.

The Nature of 3v3s, Aka I think 3v3s might be クソゲ

If you don’t recognize those symbols, Don’t look them up. I will explain. 

The point of a game is to have fun, the objective of the game is to win. This might sound like a distinction without a difference, but to me it’s very important. See, the objective of a game is what you are trying to achieve with the mechanics. The outcome you want to achieve within the realm of the game. This doesn’t always have to be winning. In games like Dungeons and Dragons, the objective can be to tell a story, but in Judgement the objective of the game is to reduce your opponents effigy’s health to zero and win the game. The point of a game is why you sit down at the table, which is often to have fun. Why does this distinction matter? There is no roll for fun. Despite what my evil cackling when Fazeal charges for 1ap might tell you, no game action is guaranteed to produce fun for both players. No list, no game action, no game mode I have ever encountered has ever done that.

All this to say, there are some players who take umbrage with certain game styles. I am not one of them. I delight in the resolution of an Armageddon in magic, and you can catch me in my sickos shirt with my nose glued to the window whenever the yugioh players find a new heinous way to ftk their opponent, and I nod along as someone gets one touched in Ultra Fight da Kyanta 2.

For those unaware Ultra Fight da Kyanta 2 is what is known among the fighting game community as kusoge (the japanese characters in the title). In these games mistakes are punished harshly and swiftly, often with losing the game. This is how they originally got their moniker literally translating to “Shit Game” in japanese. However, I (and many other sickos tee shirt owners) love these games often more than the highly polished good games like your Streets Fighter. This is because to me as long as both players are bought in on the idea that there may be some mischief afoot, a little (let’s be real a lot) of mischief can be fun. 

So when I say Judgement 3v3s is Kusoge, know that it is endearing. It means mistakes will be punished swiftly and harshly, and that you and your opponent should both be aware that one of your warbands is gonna do something heinous to the other’s warband, and there isn’t much you can do to stop it, you just gotta try to win first.

Now That We All Understand 3v3s, What’s the Goo?

Tomas.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Okay but more seriously, this warband is really strong and interesting and I’d love to talk through the picks.

Why Tomas?

We’re in Tomas because Tomas is one of the gods that really encourages you to win the game. That may sound silly, but every piece of Tomas card directly and obviously contributes to winning the game. Your warband bonus benefits you for killing heroes which gives you souls which win you the game. Your effigy power makes it easier to use your assassins crazy powers to send your opponents warband back to the effigy, and diamond armor helps you not die which prevents your opponent from winning.

Why not any of the other gods?

Torin and Ista only give you your warband bonus when you are already losing so they were straight out in a format where recovering from a deficit is rather harsh.Grul is too map dependent for my taste, and Krognar doesn’t feel super impactful on such a small map.

I could see a version of this list in Bruelin with Zhonjya in the fazeal slot and something else in the isabel slot. That list would have a lot more kill power (zhonjya can top out at like 30 some damage in a round) but, zhonjya is much more frail than fazeals leech 1 overheal, heal on kills on tomas, and the difference between dealing 12-18 damage to your target and 18-30 is not terribly relevant. Both of those will usually get the job done. Similarly Krognar serves to make rakkir one of the slippiest models in the game, harder to pin down. Great but not necessary in this small of a map.

The List

Not going to be too exhaustive here, but wanted to touch on all of the models that ended up in the list and what they’re doing here.

Rakkir and Fazeal

The Bad Touch

These two serve similar roles. If one is banned, you’re probably playing the other. Both are assassins that are really good. Fazeal is able to spike damage better and more consistently, and Rakkir is able to be wherever you need him to be thanks to shadow step. Point them at your opponents models and watch them explode. 

There are arguments for other models in these slots. Kain is the one I entertained the longest in building this list, in that he isn’t fate dependent and can still do a lot of damage. However, being a demon is a big downside. Especially since I”m trying to put Isabel in the list with him. Nephenee is also good, but she’s bad at busting tanks. If people aren’t playing tanks in 3s in your local meta, play Nephenee. They will start.

Sharn

Finally, good tanks

She’s got Agi-4 Res-2 and that’s honestly enough to make me take a serious look at her. Get behind me is great for disentangling your assassins from other fighters or moving them into charge distance. Plus Shield slam setting up knockdowns and hammer smash dealing true damage are both benefits you will find yourself taking advantage of.

This could be Marcus, but I think stand behind me is secretly one of the best abilities in threes, for reasons I will explain when I talk about

Kruul

Buy, Swap, Bloodlust

Kruul is nuts. Bloodlust is really strong in threes, because it allows you to shift a model (usually fazeal or rakkir) from taking ⅓ of your total actions to taking 4/9 of your total actions and almost 5/9 if you use sharn for stand behind me. Additionally remember what I said about harshly punishing mistakes? Kruul’s bloodlust lets you defer that action point to later in the turn, giving your opponent more time to move their models and make mistakes, which you can then punish.  This power being on a soulgazer who can rip souls off enemy models and also moves a soul when he dies and can set up a curse for fazeal is absolutely wild. The fact that you’re playing three orcs so can oops into orc ball is something, but I’ve rarely had it be relevant.

Isabel

They will look to her and whisper “save us from the undead menace”, and she will say, “lol, lmao”

Isabel seems like a strange pick for a tomas list, however her nature as a solid jack of all trades means that she’s great for filling in for whoever gets banned and can also be used against demon / undead heavy lists as a ban magnet. For example, if your opponent was on a more traditional Tomas list with Fazeal, Kain, Rakkir, Masuzi, Sharn isabel will either eat a ban that is better directed at fazeal or kruul, or she’ll remain legal and be able to put your opponents demons on notice. So many demons and fazeal were tearing up our local meta that she seems in retrospect like an obvious meta call, but when I was first building the list, she was in there as a sort of back up character. The idea being that if you needed a soul harvester, she was okay at that and the same went for a supporting tank and a damage dealer. As I played the list more I found that I was really only taking her into demon heavy lists, where she performed above my expectations as a damage dealer. Noticing this I made sure that my list was both in a position to take advantage of having isabel tag along and also in a position where there was really only one model that I would be boxed out of when playing against other isabels that were out of god.

How does it Play?

Like a well oiled killing machine.

Generally your gameplan is to use your effigy power turn to swing the advantage in your favor, then use your high damage, high mobility assassins with their finely tuned support tools to keep the screws to your opponent, doing what you can to deprive them of fate, activations, levels, souls, and living champions. Typically this swing comes in one of the first two turns, but if you detect you won’t be able to make it, it’s fine to fire it later. The latest I’ve ever used it is turn four, but that isn’t a hard rule or anything, just games tend to end in four-5 turns. 

Pick/Ban

It’s hard to say for certain since I only started documenting with this tournament, but my guess is that kruul and fazeal are the most common ban targets, with rakkir and isabel being more niche bans. I’ve not had anyone in recent memory ban sharn, but I could see someone trying a ranged warband considering it.

I tend to look for really high damage dealers and high res-tanks as ban targets. Damage dealers because while yes you’re harder to kill than most, you aren’t rocking someone to make you truly unkillable like Doenragar, Skoll, Lugdrug, or Markus. While isable isn’t a necessary ban for you, she is still strong against you, so she’s worth looking at as well. 

I prefer going second with this list. I think that it’s better to know what you’re going to be working with before banning if possible, and also I am very good at playing reactively to what my opponents game plan is.

Turn 1

3s is weird and that the early game is pick/ban, the mid game is turn 1 and the late game is turns 2+. As referenced in kruuls little joke, I’ve become a huge fan of the buy swap bloodlust. Often passing a hunters knife over to my melee beater and then using them to kill a monster on a later activation. Sometimes if my opponent looks like they’re gonna pick up a monster kill i’ll just bloodlust and walk forward, so then I can kill my opponent’s model. The turn 1 kill isn’t common, but I’ve done it more often than you’d expect.

If kruul is banned, you’re probably looking at picking up a monster kill with your primary beater and setting up for a kill or double kill on turn 2

Turn 2

Call your effigy power. Get it twisted you will win.

But for serious, on turn 2 if you’re setup for some good charges, calling your effigy power can basically guarantee a kill if not two. The only case where I would consider not doing it is if one of your models got killed in turn one. Kruul can either give your beater bloodlust or sharn can pull them closer and knock down a target. Then you just send in the cruise missile to clean up the job. If you’re playing kruul, I wouldn’t force a soul harvest at this point, but if one’s available I’m not against the concept. More often I’m looking to set one up to close the game out next turn.

Turn 3+

Then you just send in the cruise missile to clean up the rest.

From here it’s just picking up spare kills and spare souls. Kruul, Isabel, and Sharn are all good enough at soul harvesting that you don’t mind doing it with them, and rakkir and fazeal at this point are probably ahead enough in levels that they’re twerking all over your opponents warbands.

The Doen Svet Contingency. 

It is possible that your opponent brought a list that can only be described as “Ooops all tanks” This proves, like I said, moderately problematic. Rakkir is okay at busting tanks, but without Masuzi he can kinda struggle. Fazeal is also good especially against high-agi models, but won’t be able to one touch like you’d be able to against warbands with lower res. Ideally you want armor shredder on whoever ends up being your primary beater, and then you’re gonna have to manipulate the monsters to put as many attacks on these guys as possible. Tank-heavy lists often struggle to close out the game because they’re reliant on a moderate damage dealer and soul harvesting, so you really just have to get out ahead of them. Keep their damage dealer down and their soul harvests hampered, but you will likely be fighting somewhat of an uphill battle. 

Itemization

Because your warband is really fate hungry and you ideally end the game without a model dying, itemization tends to only happen during the first turn, or when you can pick up a monster kill to heal or deny your opponent the levels.