The Age of Orc is over, the time of Elf has come
- Jock Wright
- Jun 24
- 5 min read
What races are up, and what races are down as we explore the Home Nations meta
Yesterday we looked at what squads were amongst the runners and riders for Home Nations III. Today we take a look at the Home Nations meta, and what races coaches have chosen to take to the biggest tournament to use the Polish ruleset, other than Eurobowl itself.
As Scotland Captain for the upcoming Eurobowl I’ve spent many an hour poring over the ruleset, chatting with fellow captains and swapping notes on what we think we can expect to see at Eurobowl in Warsaw this autumn.
As the ruleset evolved, and hat tip to the Polish hosts for doing a sterling job in this regard, it became clearer with time that Elves were going to be a key feature of the Eurobowl meta this year. Elves as a genre of races have plenty of agency and the ability to turn a game on its head in a pinch when a result is needed for the squad.
Some Eurobowl Captains in the back channels were mooting the fact they’d be fielding all four elves in their Eurobowl line-ups. The question we’re here to look at today, is did the coaches competing at The Home Nations get the memo? Let’s find out!
The Bowl
With some of the very best coaches in Europe competing at Home Nations along with the nature of the ruleset, ultimately it should be no surprise that elves feature heavily in the Bowl.
Some interesting notes on the racial makeup of the Bowl:
All six nations chose to field Dark Elves
Five of the six nations have at least three elf rosters, whilst England and Italy have all four!
The most popular non-elf team, with their generous tiering, was Necromantic Horror
Fifteen races in total are represented across the Bowl teams, and as you’d expect no stunties.
The five most popular races selected in the Bowl make up half of all race picks, suggesting a settled meta.
Two interesting choices to watch over the course of the tournament will be AndyDavo of Wales taking Norse - perhaps a berserker with a mighty blow, tackle will stop the myriad of elves in their tracks.
Whilst PeteW of England is repeating his Hungarian party trick by taking Ripper Black Orcs. He went undefeated in Europen in Budapest, so the question will be; with the much improved Ripper, and his Bullseye, can Pete navigate a field of elves who will look to dance round the Blorcs, or will he grab hold of them and squeeze them to death with Ripper and a dirty player goblin? Time will tell.
Although the biggest controversy of the Bowl - Team Ireland are not fielding Chaos Renegades, what gives Caolan?!
Below you’ll see the race distribution for the Bowl.
The Open is well, far more open!
With a Home Nations record of two-hundred and seventy-two coaches, across sixty-eight teams in attendance at the Open it should not be a surprise that the range of races is far greater than the Bowl with twenty-eight different races represented across the field. The motivations to play are far more varied in the Open and we have stunty coaches to prove it!
However, don't let the stunty coaches lure you into a false sense of security. Like the Bowl, the Open is teaming with Elves ready to deploy Elf BS to frustrate the humble bash coach in an attempt to compete for the silverware. In response to this expected agility meta there will be plenty of Humans, Nurgle, Orcs and others to try and counter the prevailing elf meta.
Some key stats:
The eight most popular races account for 55% of the field, so whilst the field has broad race representation it’s not evenly distributed.
High Elves are by a long stretch the most popular race fielded in thirty-seven squads (54%) deploying the dodgy claws in the hope to rustle up some wins
There are seventy-seven elf teams in the squads and a quarter of the teams have at least two elves in their lineup
Whilst the elves are swiftly followed by Necromantic with twenty-one squads looking to dominate with an oppressive team with a generous pack
There are five stunty coaches, but no love for Flings, Gnomes or Ogres as these three races go entirely unrepresented
Aside from the three big race picks it can be said that the other races are fairly well represented as a third or fourth race pick amongst the squads. So hopefully it won’t be mirror central, but maybe it just might.
The other thing to note in relation to the seeding we released yesterday is nine of the top 18 seeds have fielded at least two elf rosters in their squads. It raises the curiosity and question; do stronger coaches play more elves?
Based on this data it feels like a reasonable suggestion as the top quarter of seeds average 1.5 elves within their squad versus 0.9 elves of the bottom quarter of seeding.
One race that’s suffered a reversal of fortunes from the second season to the third is Vampires, which will see only two coaches playing at the Home Nations. In last season’s rules they were far more relevant and Bowl Captains across Europe considered Vampires a vital pick. However it's clear the changes to Vampires have meant they’ve fallen out of favour with coaches, and maybe, for now at least, Tournament Organisers (TOs) are not giving them enough love to make them attractive enough to be seen as a competitive race.
Below you’ll see the overall race distribution in the Home Nations Open:
We’ve talked about races, what about rosters?
Obviously what the distribution of races look like is interesting, but the question that leads on from beyond what races have been picked is how coaches have chosen to skill their teams. With an elite tax, stacking and star players available it will be interesting to look at the different approaches.
We don’t have time to go through rosters now, but you’re in luck! Keithabixx, former Team Ireland Captain, and I are going to do a live roster reveal of the Bowl, and maybe some of the Open if we have time.
Not only that but we’ll do a live draw of the first round of The Home Nations for both the Bowl and the Open. If you’re set to play at the Home Nations, you won’t want to miss out seeing who you’ve got the in the first round*
Nothing goes wrong when you do such things live on TV, right? Tune in on Monday 29 June at 8pm (UK) on Keithabixx’s stream: https://www.twitch.tv/keithabixx
*like all good T&Cs in small writing at the bottom - Round One will be subject to redraw if teams, for whatever reason, don’t turn up to registration on the morning of the tournament.
Comments