2022: Online Year in Review
/2022 was a dramatic year in online Warlord. From the first ever Strategic to a new wave of Nothrog dominance, from the craziness of Build-a-Warlord to tried-and-true classics like Campaign, we covered the depth and breadth of what Warlord: Saga of the Storm has to offer.
Congratulations to all of our tournament winners, and good luck in 2023!
January Strategic: Nothrog Win! Bubble, Icefall, Jackalofmourn, Oeagle, Rollo, Slyfox, Wod,
February Class in Session: Oeagle with Cleric Seer Sargok
March Ancients: Graham with Ginerva of the Moon
April Build-a-Warlord: ChrisVac with Vak’ar’r’ko’ko, Nothrog Seer
May Good, Bad, and Ugly: WOD with Contal, Fo’ttr’ak’ka, and Pinion
June Peasant: ChrisVac with Menhetiri
July Turncoat: RayneBlythewood with Nothrog Ginerva of the Moon
August Build-a-Warlord: Midge with FatTok, Nothrog Necromancer
September Worlds: Celtic with Fo’ttr’ak’ka
October Campaign: Temperance with Captain Dukat
November Jautya Syne: Temperance with R’Veeka
Celtic did what he’d been threatening to do since Quality of Life Ancients 2021 and took down our biggest tournament of the year, Online Worlds, with Fo’ttr’ak’ka. Nothrog had been winless up through November of 2021, and Celtic was at the forefront of the 2022 Throgaissance.
Nothrog won 7 out of the 11 events, Mercenaries won 2, Free Kingdoms and Deverenians won 1 each, and Dwarves were carried to a technical win in GBU by Nothrogs. Elves were shut out.
Of the 9 events with individual winning Warlords, 6 were won by Clerics, all but 2 of whom were Seers. Necromancers took 2, and our lone Rogue Scout took 1. Fighters were shut out of online play, though Lord Winter and Kothkah both took down in-person events.
ChrisVac and Temperance led the way in tournament wins, with 2 apiece.
2022 Online Circuit
On the leaderboard, Midge (240) dominated the year, winning BAW 2 and making the finals in BAW 1, Jautya Syne and Campaign, the semi-finals in Classy, GBU, Peasant and Worlds and quarter-finals in March Ancients. The only tournament Midge didn’t make the cut in was Turncoat–truly an incredible performance.
WOD (217) narrowly edged out Graham (215) for 2nd, with a series of strong performances: winning GBU, placing 2nd at Worlds, making the semis in Turncoat and BAW 2, and quarters in Syne
Graham (215), Celtic (210), Rayne Blythewood (209), ChrisVac (195), Temperance (194), Oeagle (191), Slyfox (173) and Sangington (158) rounded out the top 10.
What’s to Come in 2023…
2022 was a wild year chock full of alternate formats and wholesale madness like Strategic and Two-Headed Highlander Open Multiplayer. In 2023, we’ll be going back to basics to celebrate our marquee format: Ancients. With it’s gigantic card pool and evolving meta, Ancients deserves more than 2 tournaments a year, and this year it will get at least 5. That’s not to say we don’t want to keep things fun: we’ll alternate Ancients with some alternate formats, and we’ve introduced Achievements to spice up Ancients deck building for those who are interested.
One of our goals in 2023 is to make sure the Online Circuit provides everyone with a way to engage—frequent Ancients tournaments will lower the barrier of entry for new players; Achievements will allow the deck building fiends to get experimental, and a faction-by-faction leader board will make it easier for those who want compete for top slots to do so. So get out there and play some Warlord!