What does Tony Kopach sweeping the Nova mean?

So the Nova is over and the first major GT of the 6th edition era is gone. So what happened and what did we learn from it?

Well the previously infamous Tony Kopach swept the entire tournament with what some arm chair generals during the live feed chat box were calling "a sub-par list" for some reason. To be fair at a glance it does seem very bland but I guess that what gives its genius. Here is a copy of his invitational list

HQ1: Njal
HQ(Guard): Primaris Psyker
Elites1: Wolf Guard x4, 4x Terminator Armor, 4x Powerfist
Elites2: Lone Wolf, Terminator Armor, Stormshield, Chainfist
Elites3: Lone Wolf, Terminator Armor, Stormshield, Chainfist
Troops1: Grey Hunters x10, 2x Plasma, Wolf Standard
Troops2: Grey Hunters x10, 2x Plasma, Wolf Standard
Troops3: Grey Hunters x10, 2x Plasma, Wolf Standard
Troops4: Grey Hunters x10, 2x Melta, Wolf Standard
Troops5: Grey Hunters x5, Flamer
Troops(Guard):
Platoon Command Squad
Infantry Squad, Power Weapon (Axe)
Infantry Squad, Power Weapon (Axe)
Infantry Squad, Power Weapon (Axe)
Infantry Squad, Power Weapon (Axe)
Infantry Squad

Now that may not be correct as I do remember him using Long fangs during the actual Open GT yet it doesn't matter. What does matter is that it contains an obscene amount of bodies on the table. Now I always am in the camp that the top 50 players in the country can pretty much take any list and win with it even if it is considered bad so I would expect Tony to win with any list realistically.

Yet since it is Kopach people will always find controversy with it him for some reason. He was helped a lot by the Nova ruleing that Njal's tempest ability auto hits flyer's and that gave him a huge boost that won him many games by itself. There was also some grumblings that he kept using some of the powers incorrectly each and every turn he played. Now I am optimistic and know everyone is human and makes mistakes, especially this close to an edition starting so I would not consider it cheating without any real evidence behind it. Yet I would believe Tony would have used Njal anyway despite the ruling since he is known for running Njal. Yet it does call in to question why he would get a power wrong. I am no SW expert and I cannot even point out the issue involved without further knowledge so I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. If you have a room of 90 people babysitting any game of 40k they will always find mistakes or inconsistencies so it is not that big of a deal.

Realistically Tony proved yet again by winning a major GT (technically two of them) that he is a skilled player.He also used a combo that I myself would consider Top tier which is Guard combined with Space Wolves (or any top marine codex with divination access). This isn't anything new yet what some might find surprising is he won every single game without using a single flyer, a single manticore, or even any vehicle anyway. He won with bodies on the table and control of the first two objectives (which for the most part were quarters and objectives from my knowledge). With large amounts of bodies always able to tie up two of the quarters he was able to play either KP denial by tieing the enemy up all game and eventually winning the war of attrition,  or by winning by an objective. Kind of ironic since in previous years winning solely based on KP's was the cool new thing to do.

So even with an edition change all the top players still were there in the top bracket. Guard was all over the place and daemons did tend to sneak there way to the top table he and there as expected. Necrons came to prove a point and they did by having 2 of the top 4 in the invitational bringing the bots and a good number in the top bracket as well.  Everything people expected was here and there including flyer spam, vendetta spam, nob bikerz, blob guard, etc. If anything we might see a larger number of blob guard/space wolf players popping up to try and use a similar list to Tony's as an advantage (ugh it was something I was planning anyway).

So did anything change? Not really. If anything we now have a template from which to base an army from but only for not long. I would expect more Wolves and Guard combinations but we were going to see that anyway. Just like in 5th once the first 2 or 3 codices come out in 6th the meta will change drastically and we could be seeing completely different armies running around this time next year and lists like Tony's could be considered crap then. Yet I guess we have to wait.....more on this later....