This will be reporting the last tournament for NJ in 2023 along with it being Bladerdoc's first tournament as a WBO Organizer co-hosting together.
The tournament started late it was supposed to start at noon but it got pushed to 12:40 pm due to some people being unexpectedly late to the event. I still decided to host the event despite my physical limitations with myself being diagnosed with metatarsalgia which limited my mobility and made it uncomfortable for me to stand for long periods. The overall weather was a nice 52 degrees, not too chilly or warm. Only one participant dropped out of the 16 people who were to attend the event.
The event started with 3-4 matches happening consistently for the most part with Group A having 8 people and Group B having 7 people while having 7 judges. Since one person was late, I mostly ran a lot of Group A matches at the start until they showed up which made it easier to run more matches for Group B. Group B was pretty stacked with Bladekid, Bladerdoc, and Armor being in the same group in which they were very skilled Burst players with two of them being considered being the best of NJ. Group A had dedicated NJ players such as LegendV3 and megahero going against well-known players such as friedpasta, MrBlade, and ICrazyEater.
I managed to get through half of the matches for First Stage by 2 pm before deciding to take a small break and let Bladerdoc take over to let him get used to running an event and having to deal with the various responsibilities that it entails such as checking footage and calling matches. He went at a fairly decent pace for the most part despite it starting slow. I should have most likely given the other judges a heads-up about Bladerdoc running the matches and putting results in the bracket ahead of time.
The Top 4 of the tournament was the one thing that surprised me more than anything. Group A had MrBlade and ICrazyEater advancing to Final Stage with Seed 1 friedpasta taking upset losses from dedicated NJ players megaheroj7 and LegendV3. Group B had Bladerdoc and surprisingly Mr. EXE advanced to Final Stage with Mr. EXE taking very strong upset wins over Seeds 1 and 3, Bladekid, and Armor with the danger bomb combo (Judgement on Octa).
The semi-final match between Bladerdoc and ICrazyEater was interesting for the most part. Bladerdoc mostly ran a deck of Tact Drift and Judgement Liner' with ICrazyEater using Judgement Xtreme', Lord BDR, and Big Bang Genesis on Bite. Bladerdoc would take a spot in the finals against MrBlade after a very interesting match.
I decided to judge the 3rd place match between ICrazyEater and Mr. EXE. It was a decently close match with ICrazyEater being surprised by Mr. EXE's launching technique with Imperial on Destroy'. However, ICrazyEater would eventually take the 3rd place match with a 5-2 after getting a lot of lucky wall bounces from Mr. EXE's extremely aggressive launching technique.
As the organizer who has co-hosted with Bladerdoc, I will say he ran the event decently well despite me not giving much instruction and not informing the other judges about him running the second half of First Stage. He has managed to input the match results with challonge without difficulty and kept the pace fairly decent despite the slow start the event had. Other things he would have to do such as going over the rules, checking match footage, and talking to younger players/parents will happen over time. Overall, I feel he will be a very excellent organizer for NJ and someone who I can rely on to lighten the responsibility I have taken.
Overall, a very fun and great event to end 2023, and hope to see more things happen for NJ and NYC.
The tournament started late it was supposed to start at noon but it got pushed to 12:40 pm due to some people being unexpectedly late to the event. I still decided to host the event despite my physical limitations with myself being diagnosed with metatarsalgia which limited my mobility and made it uncomfortable for me to stand for long periods. The overall weather was a nice 52 degrees, not too chilly or warm. Only one participant dropped out of the 16 people who were to attend the event.
The event started with 3-4 matches happening consistently for the most part with Group A having 8 people and Group B having 7 people while having 7 judges. Since one person was late, I mostly ran a lot of Group A matches at the start until they showed up which made it easier to run more matches for Group B. Group B was pretty stacked with Bladekid, Bladerdoc, and Armor being in the same group in which they were very skilled Burst players with two of them being considered being the best of NJ. Group A had dedicated NJ players such as LegendV3 and megahero going against well-known players such as friedpasta, MrBlade, and ICrazyEater.
I managed to get through half of the matches for First Stage by 2 pm before deciding to take a small break and let Bladerdoc take over to let him get used to running an event and having to deal with the various responsibilities that it entails such as checking footage and calling matches. He went at a fairly decent pace for the most part despite it starting slow. I should have most likely given the other judges a heads-up about Bladerdoc running the matches and putting results in the bracket ahead of time.
The Top 4 of the tournament was the one thing that surprised me more than anything. Group A had MrBlade and ICrazyEater advancing to Final Stage with Seed 1 friedpasta taking upset losses from dedicated NJ players megaheroj7 and LegendV3. Group B had Bladerdoc and surprisingly Mr. EXE advanced to Final Stage with Mr. EXE taking very strong upset wins over Seeds 1 and 3, Bladekid, and Armor with the danger bomb combo (Judgement on Octa).
The semi-final match between Bladerdoc and ICrazyEater was interesting for the most part. Bladerdoc mostly ran a deck of Tact Drift and Judgement Liner' with ICrazyEater using Judgement Xtreme', Lord BDR, and Big Bang Genesis on Bite. Bladerdoc would take a spot in the finals against MrBlade after a very interesting match.
I decided to judge the 3rd place match between ICrazyEater and Mr. EXE. It was a decently close match with ICrazyEater being surprised by Mr. EXE's launching technique with Imperial on Destroy'. However, ICrazyEater would eventually take the 3rd place match with a 5-2 after getting a lot of lucky wall bounces from Mr. EXE's extremely aggressive launching technique.
As the organizer who has co-hosted with Bladerdoc, I will say he ran the event decently well despite me not giving much instruction and not informing the other judges about him running the second half of First Stage. He has managed to input the match results with challonge without difficulty and kept the pace fairly decent despite the slow start the event had. Other things he would have to do such as going over the rules, checking match footage, and talking to younger players/parents will happen over time. Overall, I feel he will be a very excellent organizer for NJ and someone who I can rely on to lighten the responsibility I have taken.
Overall, a very fun and great event to end 2023, and hope to see more things happen for NJ and NYC.