It was good to have a Beyblade tournament again! It has been a rough couple of months for all of us, and Beyblade helps us stay sane. Thanks to all the parents for bringing their bladers! Thanks to all the bladers for showing up! Thanks to the judges and organizers!
- We had 17 total people so we ran Swiss. Odd numbers of participants are never ideal, but we're glad we got to 17 partcipants. With 16, we would've had to run Double Round Robin, and we generally dislike that format.
- We had 7 noshows. We're not currently enforcing the rules on that, although noshows are especially harmful when we don't have a waitlist. One blader actually gave a reason for not showing up. 6 didn't. Some things never change.
- As far as following the COVID19 restrictions, listed at https://worldbeyblade.org/Thread-Coronav...ournaments , we did... well, we did not do a satisfactory job. That includes the regular participants, the judges, everyone. I'm not going to name names publicly. We collectively did not do a satisfactory job of following the WBO's COVID-19 restrictions. Folks, if we want to have more of these events, we need to adapt to the new rules and realities. Otherwise we just aren't going to have more until it's safe again.
- There were many violations of rule 3, where people were lending or playing with each other's equipment, or touching each other's equipment. Although most of these were consented to by both parties, they were a rules violation nonetheless. There was lending of parts that we didn't learn about until the end. There were also a lot of people engaging in non-tournament free-play with each other's beystadiums and parts, which seems unsafe. This was not good.
- We only had a single group break rule 5, having only one person with you. But this was a group of 3 where they didn't register ahead of time, violating rule 8 as well. TSO took the lead on explaining things to them and they left.
- Rule 6, the six foot physical distancing rule, was... Not Followed. I kept having to yell "SIX FEET!" a couple times during the tournament at certain people. I'm aware of who the relatives are at the tournament, so I didn't try to split them apart. But too many times I had to remind people to stay 6 feet away from each other. I arrived at this tournament an HOUR EARLY and put neon tape marks on the ground 6 feet away from each other so we'd know where to stand safely. Those marks were totally ignored. People were simply too close, countless times during the tournament.
- The beystadiums we elected to put on the park benches, and the bladers on either side would be... "about" 6 feet away, maybe a little less. Most bladers were careful to lean back or step back after launching, although the official rules indicate that both bladers are supposed to step back 3 feet after launching, and many times that simply didn't happen. It was inconvenient due to the built in benches, but still. I can't say the same for all the people who wanted to spectate, they were all way too close.
- Rule 7 got followed... sometimes. I was fairly good about wiping down the stadiums after matches. Some of the other judges were, sometimes.
- Montgomery County has additional restrictions we had to follow, which included face coverings for everyone over age 2. There were no attendees under the age of 2, thankfully. But, collectively, the attendees did not do such a good job of remaining masked. Some bladers and parents showed up not wearing them, and had to be reminded to put them on. Others took their masks down periodically, out of discomfort, or to eat and drink. I tried to explain to people several times that if you need to remove your mask, you need to move away from the main tournament area. It was an unpopular rule to try and implement, and people might be mad at me, but I do not care. Collectively, everyone didn't do so well obeying county regulations for events when it comes to remaining properly masked. If personal comfort is going to override safety concerns for most of the attendees, then we should not be running WBO events until the COVID-19 situation is handled.
- We had a lot of bladers from out of state show up! I have... mixed feelings about this. It was good to see old friends from NY and Pennsylvania. That's right, I consider some of you friends! Maryland has done a tremendously good job in lowering the COVID-19 infection rate, and so has New York and Pennsylvania, where some of the bladers arrived from. But we also had two bladers and two parents show up from Alabama. This is a source of great concern for me since COVID-19 is having a bit of an outbreak in Alabama. I'm not really comfortable with bladers showing up from several states away during this time. We're supposed to more or less stay put in our home geographic regions. I think WBO should consider restricting participation to only people who live decently close to the tournament. It was good to see bladekid again, but driving down from Syracuse NY is also quite a trek. I don't think we're acting safely here.
- One blader who we all recognized made a new account and registered with that one. We had concerns when they showed up, because they weren't registered under the name we all knew them as. We elected to run the tournament with them registered as their normal name, and we discouraged them from opening any more alt accounts, and will get those accounts merged.
- There was a bit of an incident during the tournament, and it wasn't reported to staff until after the tournament was over. People engaged in freeplay (violating COVID19 conditions rule 3, touching and using other people's beyparts and beystadiums, WITHOUT sanitizing them), and apparently someone picked up someone else's new Bloody Longinus and threw it down a hill. And it got damaged. I'm still getting the details. Folks, you weren't supposed to be free-playing with other people's gear, you weren't supposed to be having matches and not sanitizing, and you're DEFINITELY never allowed to throw someone else's beyparts. I'm going to get to the bottom of this and there may be consequences.
- At one point a blader left the tournament. They texted their friend "BRB" and just vanished. They showed up again at the end of round two, just a few minutes before they were going to get a loss for being missing from their match. Originally they were going to be one of the first matches of round 2, but we delayed it to try and find them and avoid giving them a disqualification. Folks, don't leave the tournament without telling an organizer. Don't just disappear. And don't come back with a bunch of food. Eat before you get to the tournament, and use the bathroom before you get to the tournament.
- Drain/Geist Fafnir did quite well. There are a lot of layers that they can very easily defeat using modern opposite spin options.
- Bloody Loningus showed up a couple times, which I found surprising, and it even won some matches, which I found surprising. Nightmare Longinus was used to great effect by a few bladers (Ardmore) and to worse effect by others (me).
- Atomic-S has come up for debate a couple of times as a part to potentially ban in this format. It gives the same LAD and stamina as Atomic, but with a spring that is much stronger than Atomic, nearing that of a dash driver. We opted to follow the rules as written and not implement a last minute ban. There were not that many people using Atomic-S, but it definitely showed up in several combos and did fairly well. It won't handle a proper Drain or Geist all that well, but the idea of a non-bursting Atomic seems... off.
- I got fairly well destroyed during the tournament. 1 win, 3 losses, and the first 3 rounds were losses so Challonge took pity on me and gave me a Bye. Not my finest hour. Those three bladers who beat me are all accomplished bladers and I completely understand losing to them. Also I made silly decisions. I was using Nightmare Longinus on Destroy the first two matches, and they were close, but I got outspun and then got surprisingly burst. I switched to my weirdest combo, expecting more attack types, which was Shadow Orichalcum Generate, but got outspun by Twin Nemesis on Revolve. My final match I gave up and went back to right spin stamina, Deep Chaos 00C Atomic, and won.
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