Basic Information
The Anger Games was announced for 2023 with signups opening on January 8th at 1700 EVE with team and roster submissions due by March and the tournament taking place over three weekends in April. For more info, check the reddit post or click the link below.
I have also put together a quick and dirty comp builder in google sheets that can be copied and used to throw together several dozen comps quickly for the early testing stages located here.
First Thoughts
I think it’s terrific having another tournament scheduled already. My brain (and my blog) were both missing having some juicy new ideas to dig into and Soth and co have definitely put in a few new changes to the ruleset that could bring a few shifts to the meta. We also have a few new ships to toy around with, and seeing that this will all take place on thunderdome, we have the accessibility that every pilot of every team will have the skills and isk to pick any ships or comps they want to fly.
Rule Changes
As far as rule changes go, I want to start with the less impactful and move to the more impactful.
I would consider the shift to a 7 minute timer + 3 additional minutes under lower resists and a win condition at a 50 point differential to be a minor change. It will help speed up some matches that are clear blowouts. It will also change up some of the calculus on high control teams that may lose the ability to keep ships up late game if the comp can’t start to snowball an advantage early.
The next relatively minor change is shifting to 150 point from 100. With going back to a 7 man format instead of the 10 man AT format as well, there’s a little math involved to determine which ships are increased or reduced in point cost, but the effect only requires an initial reset of expected baseline point values.
The removal of the duplication rule will definitely increase the viability of some specific hulls (I’m looking at you Gila) that synergize particularly well with themselves, but less so with others, but is likely to decrease the overall diversity of ships seen in the tournament and also changes some of the bans needed to counter comps, particularly the Deacon ban.
As for ships. I’ll be interested to see how teams value the Khizriel and Alligator (the Mekubal and Mamba are both trash tier given their stats and point cost so I could only see them being meme fielded as there would be better alternatives in every scenario). Both ships can be run in either shield or armor configurations with the Alligator looking like a potential faction BC form of the now up-pointed Eos and the Khizriel looking like a cheap Sleipnir variant with ludicrous falloff ranges with Barrage.
Module changes are relatively minor, but links are weakened without the bonus of allowing mindlinks and battleships are now only able to fit one plate or two shield extenders which does remove some specific use cases where more were being used. Remote Cap Transfers are limited to only the logistics ships outright killing the tinker setup options. And we see the now standard script and fitting limitations on ECM, Damps, and Disruptors. Sentry drones are back to being relegated to T1 only while mobile damage drones can be of faction variety. Finally, don’t forget to update your fits with some of that juicy top tier pirate ammo as it is again allowed for this tournament.
Points Changes
I want to make a few initial observations here before I start going in to build comps and test ideas. These thoughts are always subject to change, but I’ll call out anything that strikes me as great value or a terrible waste.
Leshak – 53 points
A Leshak for the same price as any faction battleship feels like a relative steal particularly when there is no flagship rule to help faction battleships with their core officer modules.
Marauders – 47 points
These feel like an absolute steal given they are a whole 6 points cheaper than the pirate battleship alternatives and equivalent with faction battleships. Particularly the Paladin and post-patch Vargur offer powerful comp options if they’re relatively cheap.
Redeemer – 45 points
Again, a terrific battleship pick with great utility and damage. Likely to be a strong option in many areas.
Eos – 42 points
5 points more than any other command ship and 7 points more than an Alligator. Also, without the capability to field faction sentries for damage, this ship is still usable but I don’t quite feel the cost increase is warranted.
Tech 3 Cruisers – 32 Loki, 30 Rest
These ships are relatively cheap compared to some of the previous iterations on a points per slot basis (a 14 point equivalent of the 16 points from the AT) and could see some viability for their general capabilities (ECM Tengu, gunboat Proteus and Legion) and the Loki is still a potential monster in some iterations.
Recon Ships (excl. Rook and Curse) – 25 points
These are now the AT equivalent of 11.7 points which is flat out bonkers considering we’re also looking at a 7v7 format. I fully expect to see these picked up and utilized as heavy control. We may end up seeing some Lachesis vs Lachesis action with scan res rigs to win the initial damp war.
Everything else
Most other ships make sense. I don’t quite understand the need to up-point a Vengeance by 2 points compared to the rest of the AFs, given its power level was only slightly above that of the rest but enough to make it the solo go to armor AF historically.
Cynabal and Gila are a bit down in price making both potentially viable or even potent options in some setups. On the other hand the Exequror Navy is up in price by a few points as is the Augoror Navy so we may see some Stabber Fleets or Omen Navies used as alternatives.
Conclusion
I can’t wait to start adding in some comps and ship fits to go with this new tournament and I think the meta will shape up pretty well. I’m curious how teams will be able to test the 7 minute timer challenge during practice or scrims as it could play a relatively big factor in many control setups. But overall, the points and rule sets seem reasonable with some notable opportunities. Let me know what you think as well.
EVE Tourneylytics 