Aug-22-2021: "Silver Spring/mfb is cool" reports

Here is tournament report for "Silver Spring's Dynamite Battle"

- I think I might be shifting between dimensions as the days go by? A couple of days ago the place was called "Silver Springs" when I checked Google, but today it's called "Silver Spring". A real Berenstain Bears situation there. I just need to stop worrying about it, it's Silver Spring currently and I don't need to worry about it.

- The weather was still kinda bad. Some rain later in the day, but mostly oppressive heat and humidity. I'm really starting to think summer tournaments are not good for me.

- We had a 30 person 5 round swiss. We only ran 3 beystadiums (Crisis prefers to use boxes instead of mats) and they were not always running matches. It ran late, especially when AJL Blader and I had a 14 round tie-a-thon in round 5. The second tournament started late, and people had to leave. I think all the parents are a little vexed with us. We're sorry, bladers and parents, sometimes these things run longer than we expect!

- I was just a backup judge this time. I judged a few matches. That's cool with me, I was still a bit fried after last week's tournament. I'm looking forward to 2 weeks off before the next tournament. I don't HAVE to go to every tournament in the region... but they're a lot of fun, any stresses aside. I really do enjoy Beyblade.

- This tournament operated on the Burst Standard choose one play one format in the first stage. After 3v3, the ties (There were MANY ties) felt especially time consuming. I should know, I had a lot of them.

- I still had extra deck boxes after my last tournament, and gave them to people who missed that tournament and wanted them.

- There was one very unfortunate miscommunication during signup. One blader checked in, but Crisis apparently didn't hear him when he called his name during roll call, and he didn't get entered into the bracket. I didn't discover this until midway through round 1, and by then it was too late. It was a really unfortunate miscommunication. We all have to be very careful during roll call I guess. Bladers, if you don't see yourself in the Challonge bracket, and you're signed up, please talk to the organizer immediately! This was a real downer, I tell you what.

- One blader was late, too late to be added. Traffic was bad both around Baltimore and Virginia today. Sometimes the world just plays us like that.

- The finals were mostly filled with very experienced bladers. Not the ones you expect though. A lot of really good bladers went 3-2 with lower buchholz values. And the finals were difficult.

- AJL Blader took third place again, he has been doing exceptionally well in Burst Standard tournaments. I realize it can be discouraging to get the same place many tournaments in a row, but third is nothing to sneeze at: it's literally better than 27 other people. That's a dang good accomplishment. I'm convinced we'll see him get first place in a tournament sooner or later. Hang in there, AJL. You've been consistently around third place since you started a few months ago, you'll get it.

- I went 4-1 in the first round. My combos relied heavily on Bearing, which is COMPLETELY SAFE TO USE on Dynamite and Roar. It's just too safe. And in some situations even Bearing can beat same spin. I was expecting to lose to same spin Destroy' but I did not. Some of those matches were very close. I ran Roar Fafnir Tapered Bearing Bearing-0 for 3 rounds (lost the third to SPN_Z3RO), and then switched to Dynamite Belial+F Over Bearing-10 when I got to foes I considered extremely dangerous threats, beymaster15963 and AJL Blader. I know a lot of people don't like or use Roar but it works, and I've seen it work well in the finals. Crisis used Roar Bahamut, and he beat me, so... clearly, Roar good.

- I stopped using attack types in deck format. I replaced my Rage Longinus in deck with a Tempest Solomon on Ignition'. It was great against a lot of same spin and opposite spin low mode combos. Considering how bad I am at attack launch lately, this was a good call.

- My deck was not too creative. Dynamite Belial+F Over Drift-10, Vanish Fafnir Giga Bearing-6, Tempest Solomon (MCC) Ignition' 1S. Some people said I should've switched my Giga and Over, Giga supposedly being better on Drift. Perhaps! But it worked. Here's the thing about me and Drift: my Drift, either because I do not launch too terribly hard (Yami-strength) or because of oddities in myself or the tip itself, does not regularly yeet itself into the pockets. I am either good at using Drift or have a good Drift. Who knows.

- Every single one of my finals matches was extremely close. OnTheDL has great parts and combos but had some difficulty on Savior attack launches. AJL Blader and I went back and forth with different combos but I think I managed to defeat his Dynamite combo (my Drift vs. his Zone'+Z... or was it Bearing?) with sheer launch strength and maybe a little luck. And CrisisCrusher07 and I had extremely close matches. I got second place, and hey, I'm happy with that. One day I'll get another first, but I'm patient. It doesn't have to be now or even soon.

- Some bladers had fake parts, but I think we found them before the tournament began. Seriously, please rename the fakes thread to "Is this Beyblade fake?". No one can easily find the fakes thread in the flightyellz's guide.

- We had an error in match reporting in round 2. OnTheDL won her match, but their opponent elchoncho17 was marked as the winner, and this wasn't discovered until round 2 had already ended. This is bad because it kind of screws up all the matching going forward. It's sort of a weird situation because once the first stage was over that match was corrected, and OnTheDL went to the finals.

- The Burst Standard meta is less than ideal. The ties take forever. I had a 14 launch match against AJL Blader in round 5. By the 6th launch I just sort of broke down sobbing. I was tired, my caffeine had run out, and the ties were just demoralizing. Neither of us cared about winning, we just wanted to end the match. But the rules state we cannot intentionally lose a match, neither of us were going to break that rule. It was a trial for us; we'd already locked up our finals spots more or less (I might've missed the finals if I hadn't won it, or my Buchholz may have been high enough, I think it was) so it was really more of an exercise in how frustrating the ties on high LAD combos in Burst Standard are right now. Drift and Bearing and Zone'+Z are a curse. This tournament made me miss 3v3 so much.

- I'm so tired. What else is new? Beyblade tournaments are exhausting. But they're fun.

We gotta do something about the single bey format!

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Here is tournament report for "Tournament names are irrelevant mfb is cool":

- Because of how long Burst Standard ran, this didn't start until 5:45. Some parents were justifiably mad, some bladers had to leave early. It was Group Round Robin with 13 participants. It only took around 75 minutes to complete the tournament.

- friedpasta was memeing the whole time and I was already tired and then I heard the memes and I became much more tired. Please, no more memes. Don't let your dreams be memes.

- I went 5-1 in the smaller group. I had some surprising success with Meteo L-Drago on F230CF, and Earth Eagle BGrin. Basically, two tired combinations that gambled on spin direction. And surprisingly it worked, I was able to avoid some of the KOs and get some wins that spun long past the driver itself stopped spinning.

- This put me in the top 4. Which... is sort of a mixed bag. For the past 3 or so MFL tournaments, I have done just well enough to make it to the finals. And what do I have to face when I make it to the finals? Yami! TSO! Ardmore! Just a total nightmare of people who know MFB extremely well and have no problem completely destroying me in the finals. And Yami and TSO had no problem completely destroying me. Yami at least let me keep some dignity as we threw our MF and RSF attack combos against each other, and I scored a few points at least. TSO wrecked me entirely I think.

- Part of my problem is that I left those BGrin and F230CF combos in my deck box for the finals. Hey, you know what DC? No. Take those out after first stage. Your Gravity MF was fine, you have a perfectly decent RB defense type for MFL finals. Maybe add in a stamina combo that doesn't rely on tips like CF or BGrin when you're in the finals, probably a decent MB or TB combo.

- What surprises me the most about MFB is how much more satisfying it is compared to Burst. The near ties do NOT require a slow motion camera to judge. The KOs are plentiful and entertaining in BB-10 Beystadiums. The destabilizations are fun and meaningful. The contact between beys makes a satisfying clunk noise instead of a scratchy plastic chipping sound. And Zero-G, which I've been fortunate enough to have been in two tournaments for, it just a complete and total delight. I don't know the parts as well and I don't have as big a collection, but I consider MFB to be far more fun than Burst apparently. I'm starting to see why so many people want to 3D Print MFB layers. I wish TT hadn't given up on MFB partway through Zero-G.

I really want to play more MFB. I should invest in MFB infrastructure to help tournaments keep going.
I agree, ties are not fun at all. 3v3 was faster paced and the times weren’t numerous. I feel bad for the finalist though, once the finals hit lots of people switched over to MFB and didn’t really watch.

On a side note, MFB looks like a lot of fun. I definitely would like to watch one in the future if I can’t participate because of my lack of MFB.
Congrats on second-place Crab!