The following are words I have to say about "Silver Spring's 2021 Finale!", a ranked Burst Standard tournament following the release of Greatest Raphael.
- The weather was a little windy but very cold. It's December, it's just too cold for this. I've started getting gray hairs. It warmed up bit during the tournament, still cold.
- This venue finally closed their existing bathrooms and set up a port-a-potty. Not great. I think they just wanted to shut down the building to save on heating bills.
- We had a 35 person 6 round swiss, followed by a 8 person single elimination finals. This tournament took us a little under five hours to complete. We began shortly after noon, and it went until about 4:45 PM.
- I was one of the judges at the tournament today. There were 3 beystadiums total, and we had a lot of judges around. It could have gone faster if we'd done 4 beystadiums. But we didn't.
- I didn't see a heck of a lot of Greatest Raphael being used during the tournament. Before, sure. During, no. It may have happened. Personally, after some mulling around with it, I realized that even though it came out during DB, it doesn't behave like a DB layer; it's locked into high mode and it doesn't have nearly as much burst resistance as every other DB bey. I elected not to use it, cool as it is. If you use it, you need a Dash driver, not metal, they either won't hold well enough or will annihilate your teeth based on which metal driver it is.
- I went 4-2 in the first stage. The first two rounds I used Prominence Phoenix Over HXt+'. I really wanted this combo to work, some of you will remember that I used to use a similar Perfect Phoenix combo to great success in the past. But it was not meant to be, I went 1-1 with it and even the win was too close. Prominence does amazing if you can get the armor off, but it's still susceptible to Guilty KOs, and it has a lot less stamina and is far more easily destabilized if the armor remains on. I don't know why people are addicted to leaving the armor on in opposite spin, the bey is just generally better always with the armor off. I gave up on Prominence at this point, but I would see it used again in the finals, curiously.
- At round 3, I decided that it was time for Roar Bahamut Over Metal Drift. I won with it in rounds 3, 4, and 6. Didn't use it in 5. It holds the rubber very well, is great against same spin Guiltys, is great against opposite spin Dynamites and Prominences, and just generally holds its own all the time. Not certain how it fares against Vanish, I guess the tip depends.
- Today, I did not encounter TOO many ties. Oh sure, there were a couple during the first stage, and there were boatloads during the finals, same problem as always. What I mostly encountered during first stage, maybe 8 times or so, was Guilty vs Guilty. It was WILD. And the tips would usually differ in some way, and that's it. Guilty Longinus on Drift, X', Ev', even Hn'. HN'! AJL Blader had to endure the worst of it though, his round 2 through 5 matches were ALL Guilty vs. Guilty. I should know, I judged 2 of them and was in one of them.
- Round 5 I was up agianst AJL. At this point, he'd had 3 Guilty matches in a row. Was there a possibility he would use it in his 5th match? Sure, I knew that. Would I use that knowledge against him? No, as a judge I have too much integrity to try and use that knowldge against him. I assumed it was POSSIBLE that he would use Guilty, and I thought it would be HILARIOUS if he had to do a 4th consecutive Guilty vs Guilty match, and there would be 0 possibility of that happening if I didn't pick Guilty. So I picked Guilty! I mirror matched him, I used Guilty Longinus Over Drift (non-metal) on him. He had the exact same combo as it turns out. I chose not to use Metal Drift as I was worried it would have lower burst resistance, and thought the normal DB nature of the bey would keep it from bursting. Hahaha, wrong! I forgot I shouldn't hard launch in a Guilty Drift mirror match. I wanted to KO him, you see. Instead I got burst, and he ended up beating me. That's on me though. Still, it was funny to force another Guilty vs Guilty match. I regret nothing... although that Did give me a loss that probably kept me out of the finals. Still, worth it.
- I didn't make it to the finals, and that's totally understandable. We had a ton of good bladers here today, I would say out of 35 of them, 19 are seasoned experts who pose a worthy challenge, and even 6 more of them did an exceedingly good job. We had 5 people with 5-1 records, and 7 people with 4-2 records vying for three remaining finals spots. Two of those got in thanks to exceedingly high buchholz, and then a further two had to have a tiebreaker to see which one made it to finals. I was one buchholz below them, so I can reasonably say I was in 10th place in the first round. No complaints there. I think, strategy-wise, if I'd not been trying Prominence and took advantage of a likely Guilty matchup, I probably would have used Dynamite+F Perseus Over Metal Drift, and made it to the finals. But I didn't, that's on me. AJL went 5-1 using Guilty the entire first round (or close to the whole first round) so I really must applaud him as far as skill goes. He earned that spot.
- You know what's really curious? I saw a lot of Vanish Fafnir Over HXt+'. A bunch of mirror matches for it too. That appears to be a popular combo. I'm not sure why, I didn't see a whole lot of Dynamite this tournament. And if you're looking for a Guilty counter, you want Roar, not Vanish.
- I didn't see nearly as much Dynamite today. Oh sure, there were a couple matches. But overall, way less Dynamite. Some Devil and Dangerous and Dynamite, but compared to previous tournaments? Not as much. It still works great though.
- We had a blader disappear round 2. Sigh. You know how that goes! And we had an odd number of participants, so there was always one person with a Bye.
- The finals were the way they always are; opposite spin ties. Interestingly, I saw a lot of people using Prominence at this point. I saw a Prominence on Drift, but I also saw people using Prominence on Nexus+S Moebius. Apparently, it doesn't fall down or tilt! And in Prominence's case, that makes it a lot more likely to win. Huh. Neat. Still, they insisted on using Heavy armor mode instead of Light. You're all missing out, behold the power of litter! When that armor pops, you generally do not lose.
- There were a bunch of 4-5 matches during finals, and even some 5-0 sweeps. A fair amount of KOs, although I don't remember seeing too much Guilty during the final decks.
- We had a lot of unusual out of state folks at the tournament today! Zektor showed up, as did BeybladeBlast11 and robert_loller . BDM is always a couple states away, but he's been to central Atlantic tournaments a lot lately. I believe Kirito1696 is similarly distant? Anyway the point is this event somehow turned into an out of state magnet event like Beyblade West or Beyblade East or Beyblade North, and I have no idea why, it just did.
- We had some interesting finalists. Zektor making it was no surprise, geetster99 and his mother OnTheDL making it to finals is very standard, they're quite good. AJL Blader made it of course, as did LJ-Blader.BeybladeBlast11 made it, surprising no one, he has quite a record. And SPN_Z3R0 made it, he's quite a capable blader. maxrod hadn't been to a WBO tournament before I don't think, but I knew he was quite good from [Hyperlink Blocked], so seeing him make it to the finals wasn't a surprise. There were a ton of other very good bladers there, but there's only 8 spots in the finals.
- Geetster99 had to face OnTheDL in the semifinals, hahaha. It was a close match too. They made it to 2nd and 4th place. LJ-Blader made it to 3rd, and Zektor managed to win 1st!
- Hey bladers, if a judge is talking to you, please listen. Or rather, please stop talking and listen. And don't try to rules lawyer me, I've read the rules more than you have. I especially find it amusing when, AFTER a launch where "Mislaunch" wasn't called, a KO eventually happens against them and THEN they try to call a mislaunch. Hahaha... no.
- Stop talking to judges who are in the middle of judging matches you are not a part of. I tried not to bother Crisis with match results when he was actively judging or blading. And I think perhaps some of you should hesitate to talk to me while I'm in the middle of judging a match.
- Bladers, you aren't allowed to have whispered conversations with people in the middle of your matches. Did you read the rules? Of course you did not. "During the match, players are not allowed to receive coaching or gameplay advice of any kind from the bystanders." Under no circumstances may you have a whispered conversation with a family member. I don't care if it's family. You either have a Loud conversation we can verify isn't related to the current match, or you don't talk to them right then.
- Stay the heck out of my peripheral vision when I'm judging a match! Don't just show up in the corners of my vision, that distracts the heck out of me! I am trying to judge! Do not spectate from directly next to the judge or the players, very suddenly, in the middle of a match! And please give the bladers room to launch.
- Please stop trying to pick up a spinning Guilty with your bare fingers. You'll hurt yourself. Let the judge with wool handwarmers take that hit for you so no one gets hurt.
- December is way too late for an outdoor tournament in the central Atlantic region. Gray hairs, dry nose, and I think I hurt one of my arms. It's only a matter of time before I start receiving actual injuries at tournaments. But I really wanted to attend this tournament; I had a really miserable weekend last weekend, and I needed a little joy in my life.
I had a fun time. I hope anyone else who attended did too. I think I'm going to stay inside for a few months, until the wind and cold go away.
- The weather was a little windy but very cold. It's December, it's just too cold for this. I've started getting gray hairs. It warmed up bit during the tournament, still cold.
- This venue finally closed their existing bathrooms and set up a port-a-potty. Not great. I think they just wanted to shut down the building to save on heating bills.
- We had a 35 person 6 round swiss, followed by a 8 person single elimination finals. This tournament took us a little under five hours to complete. We began shortly after noon, and it went until about 4:45 PM.
- I was one of the judges at the tournament today. There were 3 beystadiums total, and we had a lot of judges around. It could have gone faster if we'd done 4 beystadiums. But we didn't.
- I didn't see a heck of a lot of Greatest Raphael being used during the tournament. Before, sure. During, no. It may have happened. Personally, after some mulling around with it, I realized that even though it came out during DB, it doesn't behave like a DB layer; it's locked into high mode and it doesn't have nearly as much burst resistance as every other DB bey. I elected not to use it, cool as it is. If you use it, you need a Dash driver, not metal, they either won't hold well enough or will annihilate your teeth based on which metal driver it is.
- I went 4-2 in the first stage. The first two rounds I used Prominence Phoenix Over HXt+'. I really wanted this combo to work, some of you will remember that I used to use a similar Perfect Phoenix combo to great success in the past. But it was not meant to be, I went 1-1 with it and even the win was too close. Prominence does amazing if you can get the armor off, but it's still susceptible to Guilty KOs, and it has a lot less stamina and is far more easily destabilized if the armor remains on. I don't know why people are addicted to leaving the armor on in opposite spin, the bey is just generally better always with the armor off. I gave up on Prominence at this point, but I would see it used again in the finals, curiously.
- At round 3, I decided that it was time for Roar Bahamut Over Metal Drift. I won with it in rounds 3, 4, and 6. Didn't use it in 5. It holds the rubber very well, is great against same spin Guiltys, is great against opposite spin Dynamites and Prominences, and just generally holds its own all the time. Not certain how it fares against Vanish, I guess the tip depends.
- Today, I did not encounter TOO many ties. Oh sure, there were a couple during the first stage, and there were boatloads during the finals, same problem as always. What I mostly encountered during first stage, maybe 8 times or so, was Guilty vs Guilty. It was WILD. And the tips would usually differ in some way, and that's it. Guilty Longinus on Drift, X', Ev', even Hn'. HN'! AJL Blader had to endure the worst of it though, his round 2 through 5 matches were ALL Guilty vs. Guilty. I should know, I judged 2 of them and was in one of them.
- Round 5 I was up agianst AJL. At this point, he'd had 3 Guilty matches in a row. Was there a possibility he would use it in his 5th match? Sure, I knew that. Would I use that knowledge against him? No, as a judge I have too much integrity to try and use that knowldge against him. I assumed it was POSSIBLE that he would use Guilty, and I thought it would be HILARIOUS if he had to do a 4th consecutive Guilty vs Guilty match, and there would be 0 possibility of that happening if I didn't pick Guilty. So I picked Guilty! I mirror matched him, I used Guilty Longinus Over Drift (non-metal) on him. He had the exact same combo as it turns out. I chose not to use Metal Drift as I was worried it would have lower burst resistance, and thought the normal DB nature of the bey would keep it from bursting. Hahaha, wrong! I forgot I shouldn't hard launch in a Guilty Drift mirror match. I wanted to KO him, you see. Instead I got burst, and he ended up beating me. That's on me though. Still, it was funny to force another Guilty vs Guilty match. I regret nothing... although that Did give me a loss that probably kept me out of the finals. Still, worth it.
- I didn't make it to the finals, and that's totally understandable. We had a ton of good bladers here today, I would say out of 35 of them, 19 are seasoned experts who pose a worthy challenge, and even 6 more of them did an exceedingly good job. We had 5 people with 5-1 records, and 7 people with 4-2 records vying for three remaining finals spots. Two of those got in thanks to exceedingly high buchholz, and then a further two had to have a tiebreaker to see which one made it to finals. I was one buchholz below them, so I can reasonably say I was in 10th place in the first round. No complaints there. I think, strategy-wise, if I'd not been trying Prominence and took advantage of a likely Guilty matchup, I probably would have used Dynamite+F Perseus Over Metal Drift, and made it to the finals. But I didn't, that's on me. AJL went 5-1 using Guilty the entire first round (or close to the whole first round) so I really must applaud him as far as skill goes. He earned that spot.
- You know what's really curious? I saw a lot of Vanish Fafnir Over HXt+'. A bunch of mirror matches for it too. That appears to be a popular combo. I'm not sure why, I didn't see a whole lot of Dynamite this tournament. And if you're looking for a Guilty counter, you want Roar, not Vanish.
- I didn't see nearly as much Dynamite today. Oh sure, there were a couple matches. But overall, way less Dynamite. Some Devil and Dangerous and Dynamite, but compared to previous tournaments? Not as much. It still works great though.
- We had a blader disappear round 2. Sigh. You know how that goes! And we had an odd number of participants, so there was always one person with a Bye.
- The finals were the way they always are; opposite spin ties. Interestingly, I saw a lot of people using Prominence at this point. I saw a Prominence on Drift, but I also saw people using Prominence on Nexus+S Moebius. Apparently, it doesn't fall down or tilt! And in Prominence's case, that makes it a lot more likely to win. Huh. Neat. Still, they insisted on using Heavy armor mode instead of Light. You're all missing out, behold the power of litter! When that armor pops, you generally do not lose.
- There were a bunch of 4-5 matches during finals, and even some 5-0 sweeps. A fair amount of KOs, although I don't remember seeing too much Guilty during the final decks.
- We had a lot of unusual out of state folks at the tournament today! Zektor showed up, as did BeybladeBlast11 and robert_loller . BDM is always a couple states away, but he's been to central Atlantic tournaments a lot lately. I believe Kirito1696 is similarly distant? Anyway the point is this event somehow turned into an out of state magnet event like Beyblade West or Beyblade East or Beyblade North, and I have no idea why, it just did.
- We had some interesting finalists. Zektor making it was no surprise, geetster99 and his mother OnTheDL making it to finals is very standard, they're quite good. AJL Blader made it of course, as did LJ-Blader.BeybladeBlast11 made it, surprising no one, he has quite a record. And SPN_Z3R0 made it, he's quite a capable blader. maxrod hadn't been to a WBO tournament before I don't think, but I knew he was quite good from [Hyperlink Blocked], so seeing him make it to the finals wasn't a surprise. There were a ton of other very good bladers there, but there's only 8 spots in the finals.
- Geetster99 had to face OnTheDL in the semifinals, hahaha. It was a close match too. They made it to 2nd and 4th place. LJ-Blader made it to 3rd, and Zektor managed to win 1st!
- Hey bladers, if a judge is talking to you, please listen. Or rather, please stop talking and listen. And don't try to rules lawyer me, I've read the rules more than you have. I especially find it amusing when, AFTER a launch where "Mislaunch" wasn't called, a KO eventually happens against them and THEN they try to call a mislaunch. Hahaha... no.
- Stop talking to judges who are in the middle of judging matches you are not a part of. I tried not to bother Crisis with match results when he was actively judging or blading. And I think perhaps some of you should hesitate to talk to me while I'm in the middle of judging a match.
- Bladers, you aren't allowed to have whispered conversations with people in the middle of your matches. Did you read the rules? Of course you did not. "During the match, players are not allowed to receive coaching or gameplay advice of any kind from the bystanders." Under no circumstances may you have a whispered conversation with a family member. I don't care if it's family. You either have a Loud conversation we can verify isn't related to the current match, or you don't talk to them right then.
- Stay the heck out of my peripheral vision when I'm judging a match! Don't just show up in the corners of my vision, that distracts the heck out of me! I am trying to judge! Do not spectate from directly next to the judge or the players, very suddenly, in the middle of a match! And please give the bladers room to launch.
- Please stop trying to pick up a spinning Guilty with your bare fingers. You'll hurt yourself. Let the judge with wool handwarmers take that hit for you so no one gets hurt.
- December is way too late for an outdoor tournament in the central Atlantic region. Gray hairs, dry nose, and I think I hurt one of my arms. It's only a matter of time before I start receiving actual injuries at tournaments. But I really wanted to attend this tournament; I had a really miserable weekend last weekend, and I needed a little joy in my life.
I had a fun time. I hope anyone else who attended did too. I think I'm going to stay inside for a few months, until the wind and cold go away.
.
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