Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible, Judges, Parents, and Bladers in this community came together to make this community a force to be reckoned with!
Originally we had all been worried that we wouldn't reach the Required Minimum of players to be able to run the event Ranked, which is 8, but I was confident we would get around 18-25 Though everyone else at the time thought I was being ambitious. Well it turns out I wasn't nearly ambitious enough because after registration, including many walk-ins who hadn't re-registered (I called them pleasant surprises!) brought the total to 50 bladers!!! That number alone staggered us and made me hyper aware to try and run this event as well as I could!
One of my favorite things about this event had to be the feeling of community I got the entire time. Half of the judges were parents, the other half Bladers (With some overlap or BOTH too!) coming together. We had people come from 2 hours north in Sacramento, and 5 hours south from LA, just to meet up in Fremont and play Beyblade!
HUGE Thanks to Blader @[ZYeYO] for bringing extra Beys, Stadiums, Snacks, and really everything else, you helped make this much MUCH easier and way more fun!
Onto my Report of the tournament itself!
(Picture by @[Free-go])
I didn't use Spriggan Requiem for the first stage of the event, opting instead to use Winning Valkyrie (I kinda really wanted to use the new Cho-Z System) I realized I had made a grave mistake against @[Hamiltonian] in the second round, who brought a beast of a Fafnir to the stadium. I was able to get a burst, but got outspun thrice in a row afterwards. Feast your eyes on my suffering.
Due to the sheer size of the event we weren't sure how long it would take, and @[OldSchool™] suggested that I make the format Double Elimination, so the event wouldn't go on forever. I didn't want to restrict the number of times bladers would get to play, because that's what we came here to do!
Yeah turns out he was totally right, this is my formal apology!
Due to the size of the event, It would take 6 rounds of swiss to decide clear finalists, and with 50 players and 6 stadiums... That was going to be a while. After the 2nd round we had been too slow at managing to fire the next battles that some bladers and parents started to get antsy and wanted to leave. (this is a point I am specifically working on for next time to make sure all bladers can keep their matches going in a timely manner many and often!) So we made a sudden decision to take the 12 undefeated players and move on to the finals bracket, to wrap things up in a timely manner. One of the finalist bladers had already left though, so we used a Random Number Generator to see which 1-1 blader would take their place, and I was selected!
For deck format I decided to build a Rock-Paper-Spriggan Deck to be able to take down (Hopefully) any combination I'd face, but again, I made a huge mistake. When playing my first finals round against @[ZYeYO]... I hadn't realized most people use Spriggan Requiem Bearing in Left-Spin! So my counter of Winning Valkyrie as a Burst-Smasher for it wouldn't work! It also didn't help that his deck consisted of the exact same layers mine did, a Winning Valkyrie, a G3, and a Spriggan Requiem, and on top of THAT our Spriggan Requiem combos were exactly the same. Spriggan Requiem 0 Bump Bearing, the only difference being he was spinning Left, and I was spinning right! after examining eachother's decks, we both decided that the Sr that each of us had would beat out all the other beys in our decks, so it was the clear choice. Thing is, if the same combo is battling itself, it will probably tie, and this happened about 10-15 times. After 12 minutes of brutal tying I had managed to get a knockout on him, and a VERY CLOSE Spin-Finish, but he had four outspins. I ended up getting one last knockout due to my combo being slightly unbalanced, and I launched it at an angle for the win!
Next round I went against @[Sentrius], who played a very interesting Sr combo with Ultimate Reboot! but seeing his Sr wasn't using a Stamina Driver, I saw that my G3 could beat it out, and won the match 5-2 (he got a sweet knockout on me early on, that combo is nothing to scoff at!)
If you've been doing the math, you see that we had an issue! 12 Finalists moves to 6 semi-Finalists, then to 3 Grand-finalists.... And you can't play a game of Beyblade with 3 bladers!
Since it was my goof, I disqualified myself and the next match we saw blew everyone's mind in the most unexpected way!
Two bladers entered the ring, @[Mage] and a to be announced Drop-In, who insisted that he wanted to use a single stock Spriggan Requiem 0 Zeta, and trust it instead of using a deck, or borrowing any from me or the other bladers. I respected and admired his trust in his Bey, so the match began!
I don't remember much from this match, as I'm still in shock but this Single Bey'd Blader swept the entire series with @[Mage] and beat out Spriggan Requiem 7Meteor Bearing for the title of Champion! the part that makes him a Legend is not only his young age and immense skill, but when asked after the event what he wanted the world to know him as for his username on WBO he looked thoughtful for a moment and quickly replied "@[WeiwenTheChamp]!!" at that point myself and all spectators lost it and began cheering and clapping, all of us coming together in the best way!
I wish I could type up a detailed account of everyone's experiences at this event, and sorry for our shortcomings and executions but this has been some of the most fun i've ever had, and it's inspired me to make sure the next one is even better! Thank you everyone for attending and those parents that helped judge and set up, I'm sure i'm forgetting someone or something but know that all of our efforts contributed to making this event great! Hope to see every face return, as I've not finished memorizing everyone's names yet! You guys are all so awesome and should be so proud!
Sorry we didn't take any good group photos, we were too excited and having too much fun, but here are all the other photos we gathered and hopefully everyone is showcased in at least one of these photos!
(photos by @[Free-go] and @[Jennynator])
@[Jennynator] was able to snag a couple pictures of those who stayed after the finals for the Duo Eclipse Surprise Raffle! Thanks for sticking it out and (Sr.0B)Bearing with us!
Hope you guys liked this report, and as I have just finished processing the results for this wonderful event, I am scheduling the next one. Keep your eyes out for the thread for "Returning Rivals! May the best win!"
Thank you guys again, we have so much more in store we are excited to show you all next time!
Originally we had all been worried that we wouldn't reach the Required Minimum of players to be able to run the event Ranked, which is 8, but I was confident we would get around 18-25 Though everyone else at the time thought I was being ambitious. Well it turns out I wasn't nearly ambitious enough because after registration, including many walk-ins who hadn't re-registered (I called them pleasant surprises!) brought the total to 50 bladers!!! That number alone staggered us and made me hyper aware to try and run this event as well as I could!
One of my favorite things about this event had to be the feeling of community I got the entire time. Half of the judges were parents, the other half Bladers (With some overlap or BOTH too!) coming together. We had people come from 2 hours north in Sacramento, and 5 hours south from LA, just to meet up in Fremont and play Beyblade!
HUGE Thanks to Blader @[ZYeYO] for bringing extra Beys, Stadiums, Snacks, and really everything else, you helped make this much MUCH easier and way more fun!
Onto my Report of the tournament itself!
(Picture by @[Free-go])
I didn't use Spriggan Requiem for the first stage of the event, opting instead to use Winning Valkyrie (I kinda really wanted to use the new Cho-Z System) I realized I had made a grave mistake against @[Hamiltonian] in the second round, who brought a beast of a Fafnir to the stadium. I was able to get a burst, but got outspun thrice in a row afterwards. Feast your eyes on my suffering.
Due to the sheer size of the event we weren't sure how long it would take, and @[OldSchool™] suggested that I make the format Double Elimination, so the event wouldn't go on forever. I didn't want to restrict the number of times bladers would get to play, because that's what we came here to do!
Yeah turns out he was totally right, this is my formal apology!
Due to the size of the event, It would take 6 rounds of swiss to decide clear finalists, and with 50 players and 6 stadiums... That was going to be a while. After the 2nd round we had been too slow at managing to fire the next battles that some bladers and parents started to get antsy and wanted to leave. (this is a point I am specifically working on for next time to make sure all bladers can keep their matches going in a timely manner many and often!) So we made a sudden decision to take the 12 undefeated players and move on to the finals bracket, to wrap things up in a timely manner. One of the finalist bladers had already left though, so we used a Random Number Generator to see which 1-1 blader would take their place, and I was selected!
For deck format I decided to build a Rock-Paper-Spriggan Deck to be able to take down (Hopefully) any combination I'd face, but again, I made a huge mistake. When playing my first finals round against @[ZYeYO]... I hadn't realized most people use Spriggan Requiem Bearing in Left-Spin! So my counter of Winning Valkyrie as a Burst-Smasher for it wouldn't work! It also didn't help that his deck consisted of the exact same layers mine did, a Winning Valkyrie, a G3, and a Spriggan Requiem, and on top of THAT our Spriggan Requiem combos were exactly the same. Spriggan Requiem 0 Bump Bearing, the only difference being he was spinning Left, and I was spinning right! after examining eachother's decks, we both decided that the Sr that each of us had would beat out all the other beys in our decks, so it was the clear choice. Thing is, if the same combo is battling itself, it will probably tie, and this happened about 10-15 times. After 12 minutes of brutal tying I had managed to get a knockout on him, and a VERY CLOSE Spin-Finish, but he had four outspins. I ended up getting one last knockout due to my combo being slightly unbalanced, and I launched it at an angle for the win!
Next round I went against @[Sentrius], who played a very interesting Sr combo with Ultimate Reboot! but seeing his Sr wasn't using a Stamina Driver, I saw that my G3 could beat it out, and won the match 5-2 (he got a sweet knockout on me early on, that combo is nothing to scoff at!)
If you've been doing the math, you see that we had an issue! 12 Finalists moves to 6 semi-Finalists, then to 3 Grand-finalists.... And you can't play a game of Beyblade with 3 bladers!
Since it was my goof, I disqualified myself and the next match we saw blew everyone's mind in the most unexpected way!
Two bladers entered the ring, @[Mage] and a to be announced Drop-In, who insisted that he wanted to use a single stock Spriggan Requiem 0 Zeta, and trust it instead of using a deck, or borrowing any from me or the other bladers. I respected and admired his trust in his Bey, so the match began!
I don't remember much from this match, as I'm still in shock but this Single Bey'd Blader swept the entire series with @[Mage] and beat out Spriggan Requiem 7Meteor Bearing for the title of Champion! the part that makes him a Legend is not only his young age and immense skill, but when asked after the event what he wanted the world to know him as for his username on WBO he looked thoughtful for a moment and quickly replied "@[WeiwenTheChamp]!!" at that point myself and all spectators lost it and began cheering and clapping, all of us coming together in the best way!
I wish I could type up a detailed account of everyone's experiences at this event, and sorry for our shortcomings and executions but this has been some of the most fun i've ever had, and it's inspired me to make sure the next one is even better! Thank you everyone for attending and those parents that helped judge and set up, I'm sure i'm forgetting someone or something but know that all of our efforts contributed to making this event great! Hope to see every face return, as I've not finished memorizing everyone's names yet! You guys are all so awesome and should be so proud!
Sorry we didn't take any good group photos, we were too excited and having too much fun, but here are all the other photos we gathered and hopefully everyone is showcased in at least one of these photos!
(photos by @[Free-go] and @[Jennynator])
@[Jennynator] was able to snag a couple pictures of those who stayed after the finals for the Duo Eclipse Surprise Raffle! Thanks for sticking it out and (Sr.0B)Bearing with us!
Hope you guys liked this report, and as I have just finished processing the results for this wonderful event, I am scheduling the next one. Keep your eyes out for the thread for "Returning Rivals! May the best win!"
Thank you guys again, we have so much more in store we are excited to show you all next time!