Guardcon This Weekend

This weekend is Guardcon in Auckland run by the City guard. Traditionally this is the biggest Fantasy event of the year, and I suspect it will go close to being so again this year. I’ve been lucky enough to finish 2nd at this event twice in the past four years but I’m not attending this year – in fact I don’t think any of last year’s Top 3 are playing in 2011.

Being the largest event, Guardcon has a big effect on the final rankings and I expect this year to be no different. It’s very hard to gauge how things will go as the Comp system being employed will undoubtedly have some influence. The TO listed a series of guidelines for Comp which I understand was based off the ETC pack (but with further constraints). This resulted in some confusion as a lot of people (quite rightly in my opinion) read the guidelines as hard caps and submitted their lists accordingly.

Unfortunately that was not the intent of the TO and as a result 75% of lists were rejected first time around. It therefore makes it hard to determine what races will do well.

I’m going to go out on a limb and predict who I think will do well. Looking at the list of players it is hard to go past either Mal Patel (Lizards) – current #1 and NZ ETC Player – or Reid Pittams (I suspect Dark Elves) fighting out the top spot. I would have put Peter Williamson there as a change but given how poorly he (his list) performed a Home-Con it’s hard to see a dramatic turnaround. It’s hard to see a smokey coming through to beat both Mal and Reid.

Look forward to seeing the results Sunday evening while I’m holed up on my couch watching the Mighty Vodafone Warriors do battle versus Manly in the NRL Final.