This is more or less the same idea proposed in
this thread, but it's still cool that other people are thinking about it. I replied to the original thread, but seeing as how I am more mature (hopefully) and experienced with Beyblades/tournaments I'll toss my opinion out there again.
The way I see competitive Beyblade, there are three main components in deciding a match:
- Parts/Customization: Involves owning or borrowing the necessary parts/equipment to be a "competitive" Beyblader and knowledge of how to optimize these parts to build the most powerful customs you can. Obviously a Blader who has access to all of the parts on the Competitive Customs list and knows which combos perform better in which areas will have an advantage over an understocked or less knowledgeable player.
- Prediction: Involves making an educated guess or prediction of what Beyblade your opponent will use next, and choosing your own Beyblade accordingly. Factors that contribute to this include knowing or observing your opponent's "behavior" in tournaments (what type of combos they tend to use) and knowledge of how matchups work.
- Application: Involves using launching techniques/applying your knowledge to the actual battle. Examples include Sliding Shoot vs. Tornado Stalling, launching Defense types aggressively, Gattyaki, Weak Launching, etc.
And the best Beybladers must be proficient in all three of these to win consistently; having only one or two of the three is not enough to be successful. An example (albeit one that unfortunately uses myself) would be
my performance in Beydays 2012: I was relatively well stocked vs. the opponents in my Block and could put together top-tier combos, even though it was my first tournament I observed what my opponents used and predicted fairly well, but my application was utter carp. Angry Face, most notably, was able to exploit that when he beat me with a (technically) stock Thief Phoenic.
Using this ruleset, from my understanding, both Beybladers show their opponent and the Judge up to three combos they may use during the battle. There are then several rule variations that could potentially be retooled to emphasize one or more of the three components I mentioned over another (Note for all of these examples I'm using the hierarchy round < match < battle, where each match is what is
currently considered a battle (best 3/5) and a battle can be either two or three matches):
- Can Beyblades be re-used during a battle? - Despite the three-Beyblade system easing prediction to a more literal "rock-paper-scissors" game, if Beyblades can only be used once in a battle, it makes prediction much more stressful. If you pick a bad matchup, you won't have that potentially useful Beyblade to bail you out later. If Beyblades are reusable then the system is much more forgiving of poor predictions.
- Can Beyblades be disassembled in between matches? - This is important for parts that are useful for multiple combos (Metal Faces, RF, Dragooon, BD145, B:D, Wyvang, etc.) and people who don't buy a ton of duplicates, if any. If someone wants to use Bahamdia Dragooon BD145R2F and Girago Dragooon B:D but only has one Dragooon they will have to choose which combo to use for the battle. If they can disassemble they can use Dragooon on both combos, as long as they are the exact same combos presented to the Judge/opponent earlier (maybe they could be written down or something?).
- Will the winner be decided through match wins (best 2/3) or through round wins (like a Team Battle)? - Depending on how this system is scored it could put more emphasis on application. If it is cut-and-dry, best 2/3 matches, then prediction becomes more important to get your opponent in a bad matchup. If it is scored like a Team Battle, players have more of an incentive to try and fight their way out of a bad matchup, because even if they still lose 2-3 they will only be down "2-3" rather than "0-1".
The last factor I can think of how this would take a lot more time than a normal tournament now, so I think if this is ever implemented it should be a trial run like the F230CF/GCF ban. Depending on the decisions made about those rules I listed above this ruleset could be beneficial.
I'm reading way too much into this...