Lack of darkshards in new ETC / comp lists

[darkneo89]

Hello everybody,
my name is Francesco and i'm from Italy (so I apologize for my low english skills, even if i think you will understand what i say ).
My question, as a newbe of Dark Elves army (i never played a match with DE), is why it looks like nobody wants/would include darkshards units in their euro lists? I followed the last ETC tournament and i saw a lot of darkshards, at least 20 per army, but now i noticed a drop of this kind of units in new lists. Whats the reason of this meta change? (dark riders RxB too op? ).
Thanks for the answers.

[Daeron]

I'm guessing it's the new book. They got notably more expensive. A point too much perhaps.

[darkneo89]

Uhm, actually i think they used the last book in the tournament! Or anyway the darkshards pricing is the same (i checked some etc lists and they cost the same as the book!)

[Daeron]

Ahh. What units are being seen then? I'm guessing Dark Riders... Maybe bleakswords?

[Thraundil]

In 2014 ETC, mounting a wizard counted towards pool choices, and you would rather spend those points on pegasus riders and warlocks, hence it made sense to have a 'bunker' unit for your foot lvl 4. The most obvious choice is darkshards: you never want your bunker close to the enemy, and darkshards make the most damage from afar out of our core choices.

In the 2015 draft so far, mounted wizards are free as far as comp goes. And generally, if you can mount a wizard, there are very few good reasons not to. Which means we can replace the darkshards with other, more synergetic units for the pegasus heroes which are still a "must".

[darkneo89]

Thank you so much Thraundil, your explaination is very clear! Also the argomentation behind these changes seems really solid!