[Squirrelloid]

Eriu plays totally differently from the rest of those nations, because its all about abundant thugs.

I really can't comment about the balance of various nations under vanilla, tbh. Pretty sure Marignon's position only gets better relative to the other nations though. (An ExNx bless on Marignon is great for its diversity, and it doesn't even have to be a large bless. E4N6 is enough to matter. You can even splash more minor blesses if you want more diversity. Regardless, with E/N all you're missing that you really care about is D for diversity. If you are going for an X9 bless, it should be E9)

I don't understand why 'tournament style' means no CBM. I accept that it isn't CBM, but your logic doesn't follow.