[08/21/22] Vancouver Burst Limited Report: Driger V2 for a Limited Time Only

It was also the first time that we used this particular venue. The venue was a large room located inside a shopping mall centre. Given the hot temperatures outside, the air conditioned indoor venue was a nice location for the tournament. The tournament took a total of 2.5 hours for 10 Bladers, which was a bit over my estimate but I think the tournament was well paced.

Pre-Tournament
I arrived early at 11:00 AM, and met some other participants who had also arrived early. While we initially considered using the provided tables for the tournament, we opted to play on the floor to prevent potential hazards. To avoid playing directly on the floor, we placed folded up folding tables on the floor, and then taped down the stadiums onto the folding tables to prevent the stadiums from moving.

Although 14 Bladers registered for the event, 2 dropped the day before, and 2 dropped the day of, reducing our total count to 10. Thus, we changed from Group Round Robin to Round Robin. While 9 Bladers arrived early during the registration period between 12:30PM - 1:00PM, 1 Blader was running late and arrived right at 1:00PM.

Challonge
Challonge did not seem to work well on my mobile devices, so I brought a laptop to keep track of the tournament. This turned out to be a good call, as it was able to access the mall internet, and I could tally match scores live. Although none of the Bladers yet had Beyranks on the WBO, I seeded Bladers roughly based on age and skill level.

Judging
My thanks to the assistance of LonebagelFafnir and Journeez who also acted as Judges. Between keeping track of the Challonge and judging matches, I did not have much time to prepare my combinations. I was taking my own matches a bit too lightheartedly, and used several terrible Hasbro combos.

Format Accessibility 
Hosting a new format for the first time (not to mention being the second WBO tournament in the area) presented some issues. Many players in the area had newer collections or were just getting into the hobby - thus while everyone there had Burst Standard format ready decks, many lacked 3 Beyblades that were legal, let alone viable, in the Burst Limited format. For example, one Blader only used a deck of Hasbro SpeedStorm Beys and was crushed in First Stage.

What the tournament's meta became was what I would call a "Beat Driger V2" meta. While Driger V2 counters exist and were brought by Bladers, these were not very effective against Driger V2 - perhaps due to skill and knowledge gaps - but what remained consistent was Driger V2's high winrate. Ideally, I do not believe any Beyblade tournament should be - attempting to play around 1 particular Layer.

Our first place winner, AUTOSEBB, was able to go 8W-1L in the First Stage and win the Final Stage, mostly using Driger V2. On the other hand, our second place, ClubAmador2012, was able to go undefeated in the First Stage without Driger V2 at all. Driger V2 is not a guarantee win, but its dominance could be felt.

Ties
I had gone into the tournament with the belief that I would not need to judge close Spin Equalization ties. To my dismay, Driger V2 and Geist Fafnir was a tie-heavy matchup in both First Stage and Final Stage. As reflected in the Winning Combinations for this tournament, both Layers were in the top 4 - all but 1 of the finalists used both. Judging this matchup was painful.

Stadiums
LoneBagelfafnir had very kindly lent us three B-09 stadiums for the tournament. I had brought a Nado and HyperSphere stadium for free play, which was also supplemented by extra DB stadiums from ClubAmador2012.

After two tournaments using Takara Tomy's B-09 stadiums, I have mixed feelings about Hasbro's Pro Series stadium. On one hand, I personally believe that the gameplay of the B-09 is much more preferable to that of the Pro Series stadium. On the other hand, if LoneBagelfafnir did not lend us his stadiums, this ranked tournament would not have been possible. No one else in Vancouver had access to that many B-09 stadiums. While the Pro Series stadium may not be ideal, it stands as an alternative to encourage ranked tournament hosting.