The following are words I have to say about "Mike Nightwing's Blader's Kingdom 7!", a tournament utilizing Nightwing's Blader's Kingdom format.
- I have previous tournament reports for BK 2, 3, and 5. I've given them to Mike. I didn't post them on WBO because they weren't WBO tournaments. If anyone wants the links to them I can send them, or if WBO staff want to let me post them in this thread then I'd do that.
- We had about 26 people pre-register, and maybe about 20 or so. I don't remember the exact number. This particular format in general benefits from having an even number of bladers, so no one is spending time during the first round waiting for others, at least.
- The weather was exceptional because it was 80 degrees and also we were indoors. Mike had a fan on so, it was fine inside. I think it'll be okay in summer. In winter, I'm not sure it'll be warm enough? Only one way to find out.
- Let's talk about that venue! mike.Nightwing owns or leases a... how do I describe it. It's not a storefront. It's a converted warehouse in a business park??? I'm sure Mike has posted plenty of pictures by now, but it's defintely different. High ceilings, not much of an echo problem but the noise didn't dissipate much. It could use some wall hangings and carpet. Or rug. Something to take the edge off of the concrete.
- For additional tournaments at this location, I intend to bring more chairs for the parents and bystanders. Maybe some more tables. We really did need more tables and chairs.
- Time was not a stressing factor in this tournament, which I think worked against us. Mike controls the building so we can take as long as we want. There was the 90 minute open stage, followed by the finals double elimination. We got underway at 12:30, and the finals started around 2:30. The finals unfortunately lasted until 5:11. Some people were planning on a mini 2v2 tournament afterwards but by that time all but 6 people had left and everyone was mostly out of steam. I think people took the finals too slow, honestly.
- I didn't have to lend out any parts today, people more or less knew what was going on by this point. I noticed a few duplicate armor rings, that tends to be the one that people miss.
- For this tournament we got 8 coins. I think that helps solve the "I ran out of coins" problem we kept running into during BK2 and BK3. I know at least one person ended up running out of coins, but most didn't.
- I didn't make it to the finals today, the cutoff for that was around 11 coins. And by the end I had 5. Almost everyone I faced only wanted to wager 1 coin. Two people took me up on a 2 coin challenge, but they ended up winning, these were close matches. I would say I won about 3 more 1 coin matches, and maybe lost 2. That'd put me at 5. I didn't actually do that many battles, because the ties were taking a long time today.
- I ran into a low coin problem late in the first stage, and I couldn't dig my way out of it. Because of the way these tournaments are structured, there is generally only 0-2 people available for you to challenge at any given time, and it's rare that there are ever more than that past the start of the first stage. So you have to take who you can get. You're also not allowed to refuse a challenge from someone you haven't fought before. If you're challenged, you're stuck, you have to battle them. And if they don't agree to do more than a one coin wager, then depending on your coin situation this blader or bladers might have locked you out of any chance of making it into the finals. Almost everyone I saw today was only doing 1 coin matches. In my last 3 matches I REALLY wanted to do higher wagers like 2, 3, 4, or even 5 coin matches. It's all I had. And my opponents refused, so 1 coin it was. Did it work out for me? No, I didn't make it to the finals. Did it work out for them? No, they didn't make it to the finals either mostly. When you've got a low or even middling number of coins at the end, you HAVE to go for the big plays. I just want to give a shoutout to maxrod for challenging me to a 4 coin match in Blader's Kingdom 5 right at the end. He had 4 left, I had 12, and I accepted anyway, because it was fun. Whereas most of my opponents today (except for Garishi and I forget who else but one other person) wouldn't go higher than 1. Be brave, Bladers! You must gamble if you seek the finals!
- I wound up playing in the TT Wide beystadium 3 times today. It turns out I hate that thing, it's not fun. It's bad for attack, it's bad for stamina contact, and it's not ideal for 2 bladers. A few matches in some of the weirder Hasbro beystadiums, and I think a match or two in the Haspro beystadium. I didn't play in a DB or B-09 all day. And honestly, I miss that. I'm a bit tired of the goofy beystadiums at this point! I miss the B-09. Gods, I never thought I'd end up saying that.
- For the finals, instead of having a pool of 4 different beystadiums like he normally does, Mike randomly decided which of 3 beystadiums (Haspro, DB, or Dash) would be used. He rolled Haspro. You know, after a whole tournament of Haspro, I'm just a little tired of it. Attack still works good on it but most decks in the finals only had 1 Guilty in it. We're still lacking a really solid right spin attack layer. What's to say? Savior and Ultimate are comparatively not good. Anyway, I miss the variety in the finals.
- My first round deck consisted mostly of Dynamite on Drift, Roar Fafnir on Bearing', Prominence on Moebius, Vanish on HXt+', and World on Zn'+Z. I got mostly bodied by Dynamite on Bearing, Vanish on Drift. There were some very close matches, but you can't win them all.
- Dynamite on Drift is great in a B-09 or a DB or less so in a Haspro. But in other stadiums it can be a real liability. My last couple of BK tournaments I'd been running it on Bearing'.
- No finals for me today. I helped judge some matches, we had an awful lot of ties today, and they were a pain to judge because Haspro beystadium. Eventually they didn't need my judging for them so I went and played Sonic Mania on one of the TVs for a while. I got 5 chaos emeralds, made it all the way to Flying Battery Zone, and still the tournament was not over.
- We've discovered an issue with the format. You're allowed to direction switch 1 direction switching beyblade once each shuffle, but this presents a problem when you have 2 or 3 direction switching beys in one deck. And oh did they ever. I'm talking Master, World, and Astral in the same deck. What the heck! That was ridiculous! Anyway the finals took forever.
- We had a lot of ties today. That's not a problem we can solve, that's just built into Beyblade.
- It was a lot of fun. I didn't witness any problems with the self-judging, there were occasional disagreements over ties, and everyone was just generally honest and well behaved. We didn't have any incidents that I'm aware of.
- I could use a break from 5v5 format. It's fun but the cracks are beginning to show, and when matches go up to 5 they can take a lot longer. I wish some bladers would hurry it up a bit, but when that kind of planning and thinking helps you win, well, I can't argue with results.
- JCMakeEmBurst came in first place, and oooooh did he ever earn it. He got knocked down to the lower bracket in his first finals match, and then Did Not Lose after that. He had to beat geetster99 TWICE at the end to win. And he did. He EARNED that. Also there were a lot of ties but he still did very good.
- Please, for season 2 of Blader's Kingdom, do something about the direction switching. Either forbid it, or permit only one direction switching layer per deck, or only one direction switching chip per deck. I seriously worry about what we're going to face in BK8 and the invitational.
It was fun, but I miss B-09s now and that really takes some doing.
- I have previous tournament reports for BK 2, 3, and 5. I've given them to Mike. I didn't post them on WBO because they weren't WBO tournaments. If anyone wants the links to them I can send them, or if WBO staff want to let me post them in this thread then I'd do that.
- We had about 26 people pre-register, and maybe about 20 or so. I don't remember the exact number. This particular format in general benefits from having an even number of bladers, so no one is spending time during the first round waiting for others, at least.
- The weather was exceptional because it was 80 degrees and also we were indoors. Mike had a fan on so, it was fine inside. I think it'll be okay in summer. In winter, I'm not sure it'll be warm enough? Only one way to find out.
- Let's talk about that venue! mike.Nightwing owns or leases a... how do I describe it. It's not a storefront. It's a converted warehouse in a business park??? I'm sure Mike has posted plenty of pictures by now, but it's defintely different. High ceilings, not much of an echo problem but the noise didn't dissipate much. It could use some wall hangings and carpet. Or rug. Something to take the edge off of the concrete.
- For additional tournaments at this location, I intend to bring more chairs for the parents and bystanders. Maybe some more tables. We really did need more tables and chairs.
- Time was not a stressing factor in this tournament, which I think worked against us. Mike controls the building so we can take as long as we want. There was the 90 minute open stage, followed by the finals double elimination. We got underway at 12:30, and the finals started around 2:30. The finals unfortunately lasted until 5:11. Some people were planning on a mini 2v2 tournament afterwards but by that time all but 6 people had left and everyone was mostly out of steam. I think people took the finals too slow, honestly.
- I didn't have to lend out any parts today, people more or less knew what was going on by this point. I noticed a few duplicate armor rings, that tends to be the one that people miss.
- For this tournament we got 8 coins. I think that helps solve the "I ran out of coins" problem we kept running into during BK2 and BK3. I know at least one person ended up running out of coins, but most didn't.
- I didn't make it to the finals today, the cutoff for that was around 11 coins. And by the end I had 5. Almost everyone I faced only wanted to wager 1 coin. Two people took me up on a 2 coin challenge, but they ended up winning, these were close matches. I would say I won about 3 more 1 coin matches, and maybe lost 2. That'd put me at 5. I didn't actually do that many battles, because the ties were taking a long time today.
- I ran into a low coin problem late in the first stage, and I couldn't dig my way out of it. Because of the way these tournaments are structured, there is generally only 0-2 people available for you to challenge at any given time, and it's rare that there are ever more than that past the start of the first stage. So you have to take who you can get. You're also not allowed to refuse a challenge from someone you haven't fought before. If you're challenged, you're stuck, you have to battle them. And if they don't agree to do more than a one coin wager, then depending on your coin situation this blader or bladers might have locked you out of any chance of making it into the finals. Almost everyone I saw today was only doing 1 coin matches. In my last 3 matches I REALLY wanted to do higher wagers like 2, 3, 4, or even 5 coin matches. It's all I had. And my opponents refused, so 1 coin it was. Did it work out for me? No, I didn't make it to the finals. Did it work out for them? No, they didn't make it to the finals either mostly. When you've got a low or even middling number of coins at the end, you HAVE to go for the big plays. I just want to give a shoutout to maxrod for challenging me to a 4 coin match in Blader's Kingdom 5 right at the end. He had 4 left, I had 12, and I accepted anyway, because it was fun. Whereas most of my opponents today (except for Garishi and I forget who else but one other person) wouldn't go higher than 1. Be brave, Bladers! You must gamble if you seek the finals!
- I wound up playing in the TT Wide beystadium 3 times today. It turns out I hate that thing, it's not fun. It's bad for attack, it's bad for stamina contact, and it's not ideal for 2 bladers. A few matches in some of the weirder Hasbro beystadiums, and I think a match or two in the Haspro beystadium. I didn't play in a DB or B-09 all day. And honestly, I miss that. I'm a bit tired of the goofy beystadiums at this point! I miss the B-09. Gods, I never thought I'd end up saying that.
- For the finals, instead of having a pool of 4 different beystadiums like he normally does, Mike randomly decided which of 3 beystadiums (Haspro, DB, or Dash) would be used. He rolled Haspro. You know, after a whole tournament of Haspro, I'm just a little tired of it. Attack still works good on it but most decks in the finals only had 1 Guilty in it. We're still lacking a really solid right spin attack layer. What's to say? Savior and Ultimate are comparatively not good. Anyway, I miss the variety in the finals.
- My first round deck consisted mostly of Dynamite on Drift, Roar Fafnir on Bearing', Prominence on Moebius, Vanish on HXt+', and World on Zn'+Z. I got mostly bodied by Dynamite on Bearing, Vanish on Drift. There were some very close matches, but you can't win them all.
- Dynamite on Drift is great in a B-09 or a DB or less so in a Haspro. But in other stadiums it can be a real liability. My last couple of BK tournaments I'd been running it on Bearing'.
- No finals for me today. I helped judge some matches, we had an awful lot of ties today, and they were a pain to judge because Haspro beystadium. Eventually they didn't need my judging for them so I went and played Sonic Mania on one of the TVs for a while. I got 5 chaos emeralds, made it all the way to Flying Battery Zone, and still the tournament was not over.
- We've discovered an issue with the format. You're allowed to direction switch 1 direction switching beyblade once each shuffle, but this presents a problem when you have 2 or 3 direction switching beys in one deck. And oh did they ever. I'm talking Master, World, and Astral in the same deck. What the heck! That was ridiculous! Anyway the finals took forever.
- We had a lot of ties today. That's not a problem we can solve, that's just built into Beyblade.
- It was a lot of fun. I didn't witness any problems with the self-judging, there were occasional disagreements over ties, and everyone was just generally honest and well behaved. We didn't have any incidents that I'm aware of.
- I could use a break from 5v5 format. It's fun but the cracks are beginning to show, and when matches go up to 5 they can take a lot longer. I wish some bladers would hurry it up a bit, but when that kind of planning and thinking helps you win, well, I can't argue with results.
- JCMakeEmBurst came in first place, and oooooh did he ever earn it. He got knocked down to the lower bracket in his first finals match, and then Did Not Lose after that. He had to beat geetster99 TWICE at the end to win. And he did. He EARNED that. Also there were a lot of ties but he still did very good.
- Please, for season 2 of Blader's Kingdom, do something about the direction switching. Either forbid it, or permit only one direction switching layer per deck, or only one direction switching chip per deck. I seriously worry about what we're going to face in BK8 and the invitational.
It was fun, but I miss B-09s now and that really takes some doing.
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