Goodbye for Now
Today marks a week since the end of WTC 2025, where Team Israel has gotten their best result yet and finished 25th out of 42 participating countries! This couldn't have happened without the community support, and every single Team Israel player, past and present!
Some of us have already participated in more tourneys or played more games, even after 13 games of 40K in 6 days, which is the kind of craziness that made us strong to the end with a stellar performance closing off the Swiss phase with 3 wins and a draw, where other countries lost momentum and endurance by end of round 4!
This year marks the end of an era for me as after 6 years of pushing this community forward (mistakes and all), and 3 years of captaining Team Israel - I'm stepping back for an hiatus to take care of my family and other aspects of life. These have been an amazing few years and I can't thank all of you who have made it wonderful and full of a sense of belonging 😁 I'm not quite disappearing into the sunset, but it is time to let go and put the baton in the trusty hands of those with similar positive energy and that come to take what we've built and make it even greater! This won't be possible without the support of everyone else here so I hope you guys will help each other out and push our little community to even greater heights by communicating and working together!
So what's next for Team Israel? As per our charter, linked in the group chat, there will be a captain's vote to pick the next CPT of Team Israel, starting internally from those who have experienced the WTC in the past 3 years and going out if no one is selected internally.
Once voted, the new captain will start working towards building the 2026 team and acting on feedback to ensure we do even better this year! The roster won't be 100% tight until much later in 2026, so I hope everyone even slightly interested will come up, practice with us, and participate in scrimmages and more! The more enthusiasm and hard work - the more likely you'd be picked!
Also, even if you won't make the team - coming as a Coach and helping in any other way is always super appreciated!
Lastly, I have a few parting tips for everyone:
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Next WTC will most likely be in 11th edition - this doesn't mean you should give up on becoming the best you can in 10th as there are skills like Premeasuring or Deployments that always carry on!
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Faction specialism beats meta chasing. I hope 2026 will be the year we fully learn the above - being the best in your faction or list design style will lead to a better result than going towards whatever's strongest. Everyone practices year-round for WTC, and will come fully prepared for beating the meta like this year with Knights or DG, but being a faction specialist means you have put enough time to know your match ups much better than if you jump on a meta faction two months before WTC.
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As an extension of the above, knowing match ups is the most important thing in WTC as it all rises and falls on whether your predictions are accurate. Get games vs. International opponents and learn how to play vs different factions to ensure your list and your predictions fits what the team needs!
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Lastly, and thanks for bearing with me here - sportsmanship is still the most important skill. Never forget that to play 40K at the highest level, no matter how good you are at a macro and micro level, you also need to be a good sportsman.
And that's that for me! Thank you so much for a fruitful and amazing couple of years and for all of your support 💚
See you around in future tourneys and probably even sooner than I envision since come on - how can someone stay away from so many awesome people playing the best hobby in the world? :)
Dor