Armor Saga: I Really Hate SlingShock Tournament Report

This will be reporting the first indoor tournament for NYC in 2024  along with it being Bladerdoc's second tournament as a WBO Organizer co-hosting together.


The tournament started at 2pm since there were a good amount of people who wanted to practice before the event along with complications of having to do check-in for certain people which anyone who wasn't able to go wasn't able to inform me beforehand.  swaglakitu had to be taken out of the bracket due to suffering being stuck in traffic (Poor swag).  Two new people had to make accounts to join the event which took a few minutes but no trouble.  I also had to make sure to collect all of the entry fees and give them to the owner of Silk Road Gaming.  I also had the out-of-bounds KO and first to 5 points for first-stage ranked clauses in effect for the event.


The event started with 3-4 matches happening consistently for the most part.  I mostly ran rounds 1-2 and 4 before allowing Bladerdoc to run rounds 3 and 5 to see how he deals with keeping an event going.  Unfortunately, my megaphone was dead so it made having to get people's attention in a loud room full of Beyblade X difficult but it was manageable for me and Bladerdoc.  I will say Bladerdoc did a slightly better job than I did in keeping matches going since I had to take care of minor complications during the event.


I was also focused on my performance during the event, mostly running a deck of PW Point and SE Rush in which PW point proved to be the most flexible option in most of my matches.  I lost to KingyGSD in round 4 due to a rare out-of-bounds over-finish from his Cobalt GP combo. I mostly struggled to have a third option in my deck since I wasn't sure what to run.  PF Tapered and DS Ball didn't help me at all with only VT Tapered being the only third option that got me any wins during First Stage. I will say that notable NYC bladers such as Bigburst, Orichalcon, Ajeeblade, and Kingy GSD showed very notable launching techniques and power comparable to some of the players in the community such as JA Industries and Broyeeto.  


The Top 8 was very split with an even number of bladers from NYC and NJ respectively.  It was myself, Sniper, LegendV3, Bladerdoc, Orichalcon, Ajeeblade, Bigburst, and Kingy GSD.  My first top 8 match was against Sniper whom I was somewhat nervous against since I wanted to do well in this event for top 3 at least.  It was a bit of a one-sided battle in which I primarily relied on PW Point to get most of my points and Sniper primarily used WG Rush as a rare anti-attack combo.  I only dropped two points to Sniper before switching to SE Rush to clutch it out with an extreme finish in which I gave a very powerful Hungrybox popoff on Sniper afterwards before apologizing for being very loud.


My semi-final match was against Bladerdoc, the literal anime protagonist of the NJ scene who had won the last 3 NJ events beforehand.  I managed to get a 3-point lead with SE Rush and PW Point but Bladerdoc kept me on my toes with his US Tapered and PW Point.  It came down to SE Rush and PW Point in which PW barely avoided getting extreme finished by the skin of its teeth before successfully extreme finishing my SE Rush in an epic reversal.


Finals was Ajeeblade and Bladerdoc.  It was a relatively close battle with Ajeeblade primarily using stock SE  vs Bladerdoc sticking with PW.  Bladerdoc won after very close exchanges of many over-finishes and one extreme finish to close out the match.


3rd place match was myself vs Bigburst.  I dropped a two-point lead due to my PW Point combo being too aggro.  I eventually clawed back to 4 points with a combination of PW Point and SE though Bigburst kept the score even.  It all came down to SE Rush who’s been putting in more work than it had for me in the first stage and BigBurst choosing to stick with US combo which I managed to win 3rd place after an extreme finish.


Notes about the event:


-For people wondering about why finals look completely different compared to the seeding for the first stage, I did not realize I made a mistake with my round 5 match against LegendV3 in which I listed it as a loss instead of a win which gave a different seeding that I did not notice until after the event ended.


-Another mistake that happened was my really bad tendency to launch before shoot during my third-place match against Bigburst due to nerves which at that point should have been redone unfortunately, that was missed on my end as I did not see the clip until after the event ended.


-Shark Edge, PhoenixWing, and UnicornSting all saw usage consistently throughout the event and I was quite surprised about how US can tank hits well from PW while displaying great LAD.

-I personally like first to 5 points better for X in first stage since its honestly quite easy for a lot of bladers to accidentally extreme finish their own beys during the first battle which can sour the mood to enjoy the game and it gives a bit more leeway for counterplay.


-Bladerdoc did a nice job of keeping matches going during rounds 3 and 5 since I had to handle minor situations that required my attention.  I will say any mistakes regarding rulings that happened were from my end and it’s my job to train my fellow co-hosts and judges to address these issues more efficiently.  I will be sure to make substantial changes so this won’t happen again at future events. He was also able to complete the spreadsheet on his own with minimal assistance.


-Shoutouts to Orichalcon, Bigburst, Ajeeblade, and Kingy GSD since all of them managed to get top 8 at their first X event and showed amazing launching prowess in X.  They really gave the NJ bladers a run for their money and might even be better than us in X at least.


Overall, this event went well despite the mishaps that were unchecked until it ended  and it was an amazing opportunity for me to interact with the NYC bladers.  I hope I get to interact with them again while also making sure I don’t wear myself too thin by doing too many things before the event..


 
Great tournament g, looking forward to more in the future 💯