It's not a question of catching your opponent off-guard, exactly, although that can absolutely happen. But even at the highest level of competition play (in fact, very much at the highest level of competition play), players rely heavily on their experience rather than trying to bear the mental load of working through every challenge from first principles. That's why experience is so valuable - it makes the game easier. Tohaa approach and present challenges in a way that's quite unique in Infinity, and this means that even when an opponent fully understands all your capabilities, they're unlikely to be in a position where they can rely on experience to lighten the base mental load of play. There's no gotcha involved, but playing with and against Tohaa means learning a different approach to the game, which generally speaking means the Tohaa player has an experiential matchup in any given game. Call it a 'dark horse' advantage. It's common in a lot of competition games - playing something that your opponent hasn't seen before. It's very possible even against experienced players and can be very satisfying to explore.
What does it explain? I last played Tohaa about a month ago, won quite handily with em. Just coz I'm maining with an army, doesn't mean i dont play others too! (I'm lucky enough to be able to play quite a lot.)
Chill out!I am not blaming you in anything.You are lucky man,luckiest among us all,playing a lot,won recently ITS tournament easyly,got it. We had discussion about how knowing opponent’s army helps to play better.So you mentioned you play many factions,it explains a lot.
Wow, how badly did they mess up the tohaa slides? Was the unit list completely wrong? Are they reworking all the profiles?
And as one of those who cared back then, I am now a happy chap playing both YJ and JSA with extended rosters that wouldn't have been a thing if Uprising hadn't happened. Sometimes things turn out to be good in the long run, even if they appear horrible in the short term. I fully expect Tohaa to be overhauled down the line. Even the French of all people are getting a sort of rework now.
I was here, the only people who cared were YJ players as they were the ones being made fun of because of very reasonable concerns. Just like with Tohaa now. It is NOT ok to shaft your players who invested money on your stuff and then make fun of it.
That´s actually a very good point and i like to abuse that a lot; playing off meta (no matter in what game) comes with pro and cons: The pro is, as u mentioned: some people (not everyone, there are exceptional players that can adept very easy) find it hard to work with something they rarely or never saw before; that´s not something of "using rules no one knows" or "taking advantage of newbies", but the lack of exoerience, what is a off meta strategie/unit/loadout capable of doing. How can i approach it, is there any nasty trick up its sleeve (surely it has to be, cause you are playing it instead of meta). This can be very challenging. The con is: You are playing off-meta. That means, you are basicly always on an uphill battle for not playing the best combination there is. You have to "play better", or in other words: you have to use the potential of your pick to the fullest. But with achiving a success, as you said, it feels so much more statisfying than "another win with THIS comp...."
What uphill battle are you facing when playing Tohaa? Tohaa might not be "meta" based on popularity because they're OOP and more daunting to get into. But they're certainly not "off-meta" because of power level, lmao. The fact that people are not used to how to fight Tohaa does make Tohaa stronger, but their floor of power is way above a lot of other factions (even when your opponent knows how to fight Tohaa).
I did not ment tohaa in specific, but playing off-meta comps in general. Sorry, in case that was miscommunicated. I played (and lost) anough games against tohaa to not misjudge them as underpowered.
To be completely fair, Tohaa doesn't really engage in the current "meta" strategy of using Guided ML, but it doesn't really hurt us because the biggest advantage of Guided ML is an uninteractive method of attacking, which Pheroware covers.
I feel for Tohaa players as it very frustrating to not be able to get models. But from an outsider's perspective, Tohaa seems to and continues to be an extremely strong faction mechanically. They are one of the most resilient forces available and they have access to so many special rules and equipment that at least in tournaments, they are extremely competitive. I do not think the Reinforcement rule will change that fact. For Tohaa, it looks like you will just be able to have a reserve triad that can react to nearly anything. While you don't really get any new profiles or units, the general strengths of Tohaa might be enough. I do look forward to you guys getting new models some day!
Nothing would hurt as 2018. Actually we can say about recent things like: “You call that a hit?..” I would be happy to play even with reworked tohaa. Ok, not a big deal! Simplify them if you need. But still I don’t think “Oh no, players don’t have operative memory to remember special rules of this faction” is a reason to choke them. Faction with one of the most interesting design and lore...
It probably has more to do with not fitting on the design vision CB has and they decided they need more time to work on them, than any underestimation on players ability to remember abilities and special rules.
