Apr-02-2023: "Dragreus111's First tournament!" tournament reports

The following are words I have to say about "Dragreus111's First tournament! Lets get fired up!", a ranked Burst Standard tournament using 3v3 format.

I recommend the following music for reading the report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUx2Z0SGLeY . This one's a classic, and by classic I mean only I have ever heard it. Might've used this one already? Oh well.

- We had 27 participants today, making this a 5 round swiss. Everyone got to play at least 4 matches, a few of the bladers had byes during one of the rounds. No tiebreakers this time.

- We started around 12:25, and the first round went until about 3:45. The tournament itself wrapped up around 4:45. We had to start a little late because one of the newer bladers had fake parts (Thanks again, Amazon, for continually ruining that for everyone) and needed to borrow. We had 2 running beystadiums at any given time. Not many idle beystadiums this time! geetster99 was present but not participating, so he was there entirely to judge. I did some judging, so did Broyeeto.

- The weather was cold outside, colder than we expected, and we were outdoors. The wind made us generally miserable, without affecting the beys too much. The pavilion we hold these at is right next to a playground, which normally isn't an issue. Today one of the swings was squeaking very loudly. Also the age range of the participants skewed younger today, about 4 of the participants seemed like they were actively using the park or the playground and not paying attention to being called to matches. I didn't dress warm enough and I regret this. I could not get enough sun to feel warm. Will I ever feel warm again? I fell asleep for hours when I got home.

- There were a couple of blader issues during the tournament. One blader felt unwell in the middle, had to leave. Others were generally bad at listening for their name being called, and came close to being marked as disqualified. But one of the most serious issues was one of the younger bladers peeking at the beys their opponent had hidden for the upcoming matches. Now this was two of the younger bladers and they were friends outside the tournament, but I told them not to do that again.

- Because each blader needed to bring 3 beys to each match with no repeat parts, I was generally careful to inspect ahead of time. One blader had fake parts without realizing it. They used the box of loaner parts. They brought those same parts back when they were late to their round 2 match, and I told them to stop bringing the fakes to the matches. One of the newer bladers was borrowing parts and had a DB armor.

- I judged many matches today. Dragreus111 ran 3 beystadiums, so we had a lot of people judging, and backup judges, and a head judge for ties. And oh yes, we had a lot of ties. Two ties in a row only once that I'm aware of.

- 3v3 is one of my favorite formats. Almost no World Wheel Drift today in first stage, and I think everyone was using it in finals. Lot of Wind, Dynamite, Guilty, and more Vanish than I'm used to seeing nowadays. Broyeeto is still rocking Ultimate, and I keep forgetting to mention that OnTheDL has always favored using Xiphoid. Having a solid attack launch is almost essential to success these days, probably because the BB-09 and rules are almost biased towards them. A lot moreso if we ever go back to 2 point KOs.

- I only saw one burst today, although I heard several others in other stadiums. I saw a Guilty vs Xiphoid match where the Xiphoid got slammed into the stadium wall (not pocket) with such fierce velocity that it burst.

- I went 3-2 today. Again. This is extremely typical for me now, we just have a lot of strong bladers in the central atlantic. I will have a few lower ranked opponents, beat one surprising higher ranked blader, and then take two losses to reliable experts who've been keeping up with releases like Broyeeto and geetster99. I gave geetster a little more of a fight today, it wasn't a total slaughter. And I actually brought a Prominence on Keep' with me against Broyeeto, which is fine until my Dynamite gets knocked out and his Dynamite thwarts my Guilty. After the reshuffle he put his Dynamite first, and I was sunk.

- 3-2 is rarely enough to make it to the finals when 8 other people go 3-2, but today the buchholz gods smiled on me and I managed 8th place in the first stage.

- My quarterfinals match against CrisisCrusher07 was less of an absolute slaughter than it normally was. I did get a KO against him at least once. We had very similar decks, Guilty World Drift and Bearing Drift (his Wind, mine Dynamite). Although I got 2 points early on, he was able to counterpick or thwart me with Guilty much of the time. It really boils down to quality of attack launch sometimes, and I just didn't have it today. Another good match!

- CrisisCrusher07 got 1st place! Again! geetster99 2nd. Broyeeto 3rd, and JCMakeEmBurst 4th.

- Having to watch for midair bey contact prior to both beys touching the floor came up a lot during this tournament, just like in the past 3 tournaments, and and I had to void about 5 of battles I was judging because of it, while continually being on the lookout for it. This rule is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Terrible at the last tournament, terrible at this one, terrible at the one before. The rule is trying to defeat sniping, which has been a total non-issue in all the years I have played this game, I literally haven't seen anyone successfully snipe on purpose. Most of the people having this rule happen to them are younger bladers launching too high, or people soft launching. A lot of the time they can't help it, that's just how they launch, and you're going to punish them or their opponents by voiding the battle? I had to void a couple of really solid and expertly done KOs because there was brief midair contact. Instead of trying to treat side symptoms and having the downstream effect of making judging even more of a pain in the butt than it already is, why not consider the downstream ramifications of your decisions? Have a thought or care for the jugdges every now and then. I would rather deal with intentional sniping and just try to address the timing issues with the launch than have to void all these battles.

- TT's recent announcements on 3/21 were a colossal disappointment! Par for the course, really. Maybe they'll give us actual useful information next time. Probably not!

It was fun but I'm very tired and very cold and I shouldn't have overexerted myself today like I did.