Greetings from the touchline of ARH’s first Destiny World Cup!  With the second Group Stage round nearly complete, it’s a great time to check the leaderboard and some insights from the “World Cup meta.”  Dice Commando also features some World Cup analysis in this week’s cast HERE.

Looking for a refresher on the Cup format?  Swing by the “Destiny World Cup info hub” HERE or the #worldcup-chatter channel in the ARH Discord server. 

Round 2 Leaderboard

Although we’re still waiting final results from a couple of best-of-3 matches, the field is beginning to take shape. All these matches mean there is also a tremendous amount of coverage from a variety of streamers including Thyagumm at SWDBR, LandoWonka at Echobase, Rando Mando, and Gameslayer. Norman and Bastmaster have also been capturing matches on their Twitch channels and we may create a home for this content on the ARH YouTube channel soon.

If you’re interested in checking results from individual matchups, you can find player pages for Group A HERE and Group B HERE. 

Group A

In Group A, a last-minute drop by Scotland means each round will include a bye for each team, which will undoubtedly add some suspense heading into the final rounds.  For now, England-South is top of the table at 1-1 with 8 individual wins. Strong performances from Erik have been critical for this squad, with his Aayla/Sabine securing victories in each round – including a wild mirror match against Brazil.

That said, Canada-Rim and USA-MidRim have each posted a victory in their only opportunity, which means they’re entering round 3 without a loss. With bye rounds behind them, each squad will be itching to continue their winning ways.

Elsewhere in Group A, Poland showed up with something to prove, beating England 2-1 and losing some close matches to USA-MidRim. USA-East, despite sitting 0-2 entering Round 3, is aiming to climb back up the table after some very close losses, including back-to-back 2-1 losses for Darteo that each came down to game-deciding unblockable damage on a final turn reroll.

Group B

In Group B, Canada-Toronto has come out swinging, winning all 6 of its Round 1 and 2 matches. Here, OldBenKenobi has stayed loyal to the same Sabine/Asajj/Profitable pairing that Darteo and Vika brought to the party in Group A, while LiquidSnake and SpartacusN7 have alternated between Leia/Daughter mill and much more aggressive pairings.

Close behind are England-Midlands and USA-Missourado, with Moordotz/Norman’s upcoming match (a Round 2 cliffhanger!) on track to determine which squad will advance 2-0 vs. 1-1.

One storyline here? Red/Yellow Troopers!  Missourado’s QuinlanVos has won both of his matches so far 2-0 with a very aggressive Wrecker/PazVizsla pairing, with teammate Norman running his own Bad Batch + Mando squad with Hunter and Bo-Katan. Across the pond, Gameslayer showed up to Round 2 with Enoch and Pre Vizsla to show that villains have game too – and that they’re capable of delivering 12+ damage/round while keeping dice on the table with Enoch, Night Troopers and Mission that Never Ends.

The rest of Group B features three squads who will be working hard for the rest of the Group Stage to crack into the top 2 and earn a spot for the semis. The World team, an early favorite, just missed a win against Canada and is looking up from their spot at 0-2. Brazil managed to edge out USA-Nationwide 2-1 in the second round with strong performances from Filipels and Marcosguijr bringing the Brazilians back after a big opening win by Fablewick‘s trademark lightsaber deck – this time with Huyang and Dooku instead of Ahsoka.

Choose Your Champion

How do these early results compare to the crystal ball predictions from the community? 

Strong early performances from USA-Missourado and Canada-Toronto line up with early predictions, with ~50% and ~35% of community members picking them as finalists. That said, Team Toronto is relishing its underdog status, finding motivation in the fact that they were expected to struggle in the group stage, with the majority of predictions placing them in 3rd place behind Missourado and World.

Although it’s too early to say whether USA-MidRim is on track to live up to the community’s predictions (a consensus pick to finish first in Group A and the third most popular pick for a spot in the finals), Poland appears to be on its way to exceeding a community-predicted 5th place, and a big 2-1 win in the second round means Brazil will be knocking on the door of the top 3 in Group B. Over in Group A, early wins by England-South and Canada-OuterRim mean their 3rd round showdown will likely be an important gate on the road to the semifinals.

For the three squads at 0-2, World and USA-East each have some work ahead of them to live up to pre-tournament expectations which most frequently predicted they’d finish in the top 3 spots of their respective groups), while USA-Nationwide teammates will be hunting for upset targets at each stage.

One other squad who might find some motivation from the “Choose Your Champion” bracket? England-Midlands, who are one win away from entering the third round 2-0 despite being picked to finish 4th in Group B and receiving zero predictions for a spot in the finals.

World Cup Meta – An Early Look

More than anything, the World Cup is an opportunity for community members to compete and root for each other as we continue to play this amazing game. And… in addition to generating lots of gameplay content thanks to our streaming friends, all of these matches have given a glimpse of the early Awaiting Fate meta.

Over the course of 28 matches in Round 1 and 2 with two still to play, we’ve seen 60 distinct characters and 11 plots. The distribution of character factions has been relatively even, with slightly more distinct Blue Villain characters (20%) than any other faction. Interestingly, only 40% of the distinct characters played so far have been Hero, but when we account for repeat appearances among the 119 characters played so far, that figure jumps up to more than 50%. Red characters are slightly under-represented through this lens and it’s worth noting that with Sabine, Aayla, Maul and Palpatine showing up multiple times with their “gains blue after setup,” the lean towards blue is likely even more pronounced.

We’ve captured some other early themes below, but you’re welcome to visit HERE for a peek at the raw data from each match and a birds-eye view of the trends from one round to the next.

• Welcome to “Sabine Season!”  One of the stars of Awaiting Fate, Sabine has been played 12 times – more than any other character. After an initial flirtation with Merrin before her errata, players are quickly realizing that for 13 points, Sabine brings *lots* of consistency, especially when paired with her best buddy the Noti Villager.

• Unsurprisingly, Sabine’s most frequent partners Asajj & Profitable Connection (alternately dubbed “Blue Bean” or “She Hulk” at Casa Casero and played 5 times in the Cup thus far), and Aayla (4) also rank in the “most popular” category along with the humble Senate Guard, who has shown up 6 times – including twice in an amazing 4-wide Relentless Advance deck from Thyagumm – proving that cheap access to red is *very* appealing.

• As noted earlier, troopers are showing up on both hero and villain sides in multiple configurations – including Darth Cluny’s snazzy PazVizla/Jannah – so it’s no surprise that The Mission That Never Ends has been played 4 times.

• In the overall analysis, we mention that we’ve seen more distinct blue villains than any other faction, but 11 of the 12 characters played have only appeared once. The one exception is big, bad Baylan Skoll who has been played 5 times by 4 different players – pairing with Palpatine three times and twice with Rukh.

• Mill is also making an appearance with Toronto bringing Leia, Daughter, and Flexible Leadership to two matches and Poland twice pairing Leia with 2 Patient Padawans.

• One final story to keep an eye on relates to the characters who are either absent or struggling in the early rounds. Bigs like Gorian, Luke, and Jango have a single win despite 8 appearances among them, Capital Ship aficionados Dodonna, Ackbar, and Needa are 0-5, nerfs to Merrin and Carson seemed to have scared off the crowd, and Vader and Obi-Wan – popular since they first appeared in Display of Power – are apparently sitting out the Cup.

We’ll be sure to follow these stories and more as the Cup unfolds!