SPOTLIGHT DECISION
DECISION SUMMARY
Going into the final round, captain A faced an opposing roster of Aeldari, Death Guard, Tyranids, T'au, and Custodes. Her own five lists — Necrons, GSC, Sisters, CSM, Imperial Knights — read favorably across most matchups, with one structural concern: Necrons into T'au at −2 (a calibrated ≈30% win). She had two structurally distinct calls available: anchor the strong matchups by deliberately putting GSC into T'au (her team's only +1 read there) to free Necrons to take the +2 Death Guard call, or spread the pain by accepting a flatter set of mostly-even pairings.
She chose the anchored optimal. Hungarian-optimal under her stated ratings. The team won the round 4-1.
MATCHUP MATRIX · AT DECISION TIME
Captain A's matchup reads on the WTC −2 to +2 scale (see legend below the matrix). ◆ = chosen pairing. ★ = Hungarian-optimal under stated ratings (matches in this case).
► The WTC −2 to +2 scale is what captain A actually used. The percentage column is a calibrated translation for cross-comparison with aggregator data — illustrative until tied to empirical win-rate data.
COUNTERFACTUAL · WHAT ELSE COULD SHE HAVE CALLED
The "spread the pain" alternative was Necrons→Death Guard, GSC→Custodes, Sisters→Tyranids, CSM→Aeldari, Knights→T'au — a rating sum of +4 against the chosen +6. Calibrated, that's 2.80 expected wins versus 3.10. The trade is real: she would have surrendered roughly 0.30 of expected wins to put Knights into T'au at −1 instead of GSC into T'au at +1. In tournament play with rounds scored as 3-2 wins versus 4-1 or 5-0, that's a meaningful structural difference — fewer 5-0 sweeps, more close calls.
Sensitivity: the chosen call is robust. Any single matchup rating could shift by ±2 steps before the optimal flips — meaning even if she had badly mis-read one cell on the five-point scale, the call holds. The Necron-T'au matchup itself is particularly robust to her being wrong about it: it could be a 0 instead of a −2 and the optimal still doesn't change, because the gain from Necrons going into Death Guard at +2 dominates.
The interesting analytical question is whether captain A's ratings were calibrated. The chosen sum of +6 rests on Necrons-Death Guard at +2 (calibrated ≈70% win) and four +1 matchups (calibrated ≈60% each). Aggregator data from the prior month put Necrons-Death Guard closer to +1 (≈60% win) across 200+ recorded games. If +1 is closer to truth, calibrated expected wins drop from 3.10 to 3.00 — still optimal, still the right call, but the upside is smaller than her read suggested.
RESULT
| TEAM A LIST | TEAM B LIST | RATING (CAL. %) | RESULT |
|---|---|---|---|
| Necrons | Death Guard | +2 (≈70%) | WIN |
| GSC | T'au | +1 (≈60%) | WIN |
| Sisters | Tyranids | +1 (≈60%) | LOSS |
| CSM | Aeldari | +1 (≈60%) | WIN |
| Imperial Knights | Custodes | +1 (≈60%) | WIN |
| TEAM RESULT | 4-1 WIN | ||
The Sisters-Tyranids loss was the variance outcome. At a +1 read, the team-A list was favored but not crushingly so — a 60-40 game can flip in 4 of 10 plays. Captain A took the optimal call and saw it through despite the lost game; the team's record line — 4-1 for the championship — does not communicate how thin the margin actually was. Two more variance hits in the same direction and the line would have read 2-3.
POST-MORTEM
This decision is in the archive because it does two unrelated things well at once. It demonstrates correct throw logic — the difference between a captain who throws because she's quitting on a matchup and one who throws because the resulting assignment dominates the alternative. Captain A is firmly in the second camp, and the math supports her clearly.
It also illustrates the calibration problem. Whether her decision was right is not the same question as whether her ratings were right. The team's 4-1 result is consistent with a much wider range of underlying matchup truths than her stated +6. If her Necron-DG read had been +1 instead of +2, she still calls the same assignment, still likely wins the round, and would have learned nothing about her own calibration. Outcome-driven feedback in pairing decisions is famously thin — most captains never get the volume of repeated decisions needed to know if they're reading matchups well on the 5-point scale, let alone calibrating to win-rate ground truth.
One thing the archive cannot answer: whether captain B's reciprocal pairing was avoidable. Under blind-script protocols both captains commit simultaneously, so captain B was making her own optimization independently. If captain B had a different read of the matchups — perhaps undervaluing the Sisters-Tyranids matchup as a giveaway and consequently positioning Tyranids elsewhere — the assignment captain A faced would have been different and her optimal would have flipped. Without captain B's matrix it's impossible to say what her read was.