The following are words I have to say about "Hyper HyperSpheres 3: BeyDays", an unranked tournament using Hypersphere format.
I recommend the following music for reading the report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDOTydsgYxM . Look, I play a lot of good videogames, don't judge me.
- We had about 24 people pre-register, and in true Hypersphere fashion we had 15 actually show up. One person misread the tournament announcement and thought that the Hypersphere tournament was at 3, but the Plastics tournament was at 3. I didn't stick around for Plastics; I don't have any, I don't know the meta, I had to drop beymaster15963 off back home, and also I can't do a doubleheader tournament in the summer heat if I'm planning to go to a second tournament tomorrow. So, I hope the Plastics one was fun!
- The weather was hot. 80ish degrees, not much humidity. But thankfully the pavillion in the park was fully shaded. Not a bad spot for a tournament. Had to make several trips carrying stuff to and from my car, because I always bring lots of helpful infrastructure with me such as megaphones, mats, stadium boxes, levels, and other goods.
- The tournament began around 12:30, and ended around 2:30. It was a 15 person tournament, so it was Group Round Robin. It would've ended sooner, but we had a lot of tiebreakers to handle between the first stage and finals.
- I leant parts to beymaster15963 today; he doesn't have Hasbro beys, so without borrowing he couldn't participate. Just a launcher and a Hasbro Wheel disc. I let him choose from my parts and he ended up using Garuda G3 HWheel Octave-H, effectively Octa-H. This is a plan that worked out extremely well for him. I hadn't done any testing on Octave-H but the shape looked reasonable and the spring seemed tight, so I figure let him run with it and see if it works well. Verdict: yes.
- We had some very good challengers today in the tournament, making things much more difficult than both previous Hypersphere tournaments. Group A had The Supreme One, beymaster15963, CheetoBlader, Garishi, a literal blast from the past Neo, and a couple of others. Group B had myself, Mike.Nightwing, LJ-Blader, and Friedpasta, and a few others. It was... extremely difficult all around!
- It was a single bey tournament, so my choice of bey in round 1 was either Balkesh B3 HWheel Linear-H, or Spryzen Requiem S3 HWheel Linear-H in right spin. Not every Linear-H has a good spring, but mine does. ICrazyEater for example had a fine combo, but his gray Linear-H was prone to bursting (it was on Outer and not HWheel). Anyway, Linear-H is great in same spin and great in opposite spin. It has tremendous stamina and LAD, and just kicks butt in general. If this format were to have any one specific driver be banned for the sake of balance, this would be it.
- For the record, all battle win conditions were worth 1 point today.
- I went 4-2 in the first round. I lost to Mike.Nightwing in a Balkesh mirror match, he has a better launch overall and lost less energy on the stadium walls than I did.
- Speaking of the stadium walls, let's talk about those. I like the Hypersphere stadium, it really makes you think and plan. You really have to have a good launch. In opposite spin, you can mostly afford to light launch, although you will get the occasional opposite spin burst if you launch hard enough. I even got a KO today, which is kind of fun. In same spin, you need to launch harder than your opponent, but it's very easy to lose a lot of stamina if your bey is riding around the upper wall and colliding with walls. Wider beys do NOT always benefit in this beystadium, unless they're unreasonably low layers like Garuda G3 and benefit from destabilizing without losing too much power on the walls. In same spin matches I lost a bunch of battles to repeated wall hits, that's on me. Even smaller layers like Balkesh B3 and Spryzen Requiem S3 can lose lots of energy.
- I noticed a lot of the same parts amongst the most competitive players. Balkesh B3, I think I was the only Spyrzen Requiem S3 there, Turbo Spryzen S4, Garuda G3, and even Hasbro's Cosmo layer. HWheel and Linear-H all over the place, some Outer.
- We had an unusual situation, we had two separate 3 way tie situations in the two groups. Mike.Nightwing swept all opponents in Group B, with his vicious and familiar looking Balkesh B3 combo (see mine above). The three highest ranked below him we me, friedpasta, and LJ-Blader, each with one loss to Nightwing and one loss to each other, with only room for 1 of us to advance. In Group A, things were a little less dire. TSO, Beymaster, and CheetoBlader had 6-1 records, each either only one loss to one of the others, competing for two spots.
- The Group B tiebreak matches happened first. I got my Octave-H back from beymaster and tried it against LJ-Blader with I think Spryzen in right, who was in opposite spin. Turns out Octave-H isn't quite as good as Linear-H for opposite spin. It was close, but he got me. He also got friedpasta, so, that's that, LJ made it to the finals.
- The Group A tiebreak matches happened second. I gave beymaster back the Octave-H since I was eliminated at that point, and he kept using that Garuda G3 combo, because it worked. He beat CheetoBlader in a Garuda G3 near mirror match (blue defeated yellow), and I can't remember if he stuck with it for his match against TSO or switched to Spyrzen Requiem S3 in left. He defeated TSO, and TSO and Cheetoblader played for the second seed Group A finals spot, TSO winning.
- I didn't make it to the finals, for reasons explained above. I did dang well at this tournament, and so did everyone in the tiebreaks, and of course Mike.Nightwing with his truly unstoppable Balkesh launches.
- I helped beymaster15963 with his finals deck, he eventually settled on Balkesh B3, Garuda G3, and Spryzen Requiem S3, discs including HWheel, Outer, and 00Cross, and tips including Linear-H, Octave-H, and Rise-H. That Rise-H has a decently strong spring, and the LAD isn't terrible. I forget the exact combination used. I think it was G3 00Cross Octave-H, Spryzen Requiem S3 (left) HWheel Rise-H, and Balkesh B3 Outer Linear-H. Someone will correct me if I got it wrong.
- I was legitimately surprised that beymaster wanted to switch Spryzen to left. But you can't argue with results. He'd done a fine job with Garuda on right, even in opposite spin, but Spryzen in left is quite good, even if it feels like leaving a hole in capability for deck format. And well, you can't argue with results.
- beymaster beat LJ, it was a close match I think? I don't quite remember. I think it was. On the other hand, Nightwing swept TSO with that Balkesh of his. I don't know what to tell you, when something works, it works. TSO beat LJ for third place, and Nightwing beat beymaster for first. LJ-Blader 4th, The Supreme One 3rd, beymaster15963 2nd, and Mike.Nightwing 1st.
- After the tournament, as an experiment, I asked to try a paticular combo against Nightwing's truly unstoppable Balkesh combo: Spryzen Requiem S3 HWheel Linear-H in right. I figured that's probably the only thing that stood a good chance against it. I was... mostly right? In 5 battles, I won 3 and he won 2. So it's about 50-50 against Balkesh. And it's apparently the only reasonable counter we came up with because NOTHING ELSE WORKED NOTHING ELSE COULD STOP HIM AND HIS BALKESH! I mean, Nightwing's a great blader, he has a better launch than me, and his parts are good. But dang, Balkesh is, well, Balkesh. Always has been a spot of touble. I have fond memories of using Balkesh B3 in my third or fourth tournament back in 2019 and more or less using it and Hell Salamander to reach 2nd place, after which Yami defeated me.
- Oh cripes there's a GT tournament tomorrow? I'm so tired after this one. I hope I will be in okay condition for that tournament.
- I had a lot of fun at today's tournament! I think perhaps Linear-H needs to be banned, nothing else is even remotely close to it in tier scales. Everything else has some sort of vulnerability or weakness, but Linear-H does it all, provided you find one with a good spring. Gray's no good.
- In opposite spin matches, it's not a guarantee, but the wider nature of Garuda G3 and Turbo Spryzen S4 means they're more likely to lose LAD matchups by scraping the bottom first.
- Honestly, I don't think Cosmo did too well. Maybe it's just me but I didn't see it having big wins.
- I know a lot of people don't like Hypersphere and the Hypersphere beystadium, but I find it fun, and that's what matters to me. And we're starting to see some strong competitors although I worry the meta is stagnant because success means not losing too much stamina on the walls and that means less wide beys.
I hope to see more of these tournaments! But seriously, Ban Linear-H from this format.
I recommend the following music for reading the report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDOTydsgYxM . Look, I play a lot of good videogames, don't judge me.
- We had about 24 people pre-register, and in true Hypersphere fashion we had 15 actually show up. One person misread the tournament announcement and thought that the Hypersphere tournament was at 3, but the Plastics tournament was at 3. I didn't stick around for Plastics; I don't have any, I don't know the meta, I had to drop beymaster15963 off back home, and also I can't do a doubleheader tournament in the summer heat if I'm planning to go to a second tournament tomorrow. So, I hope the Plastics one was fun!
- The weather was hot. 80ish degrees, not much humidity. But thankfully the pavillion in the park was fully shaded. Not a bad spot for a tournament. Had to make several trips carrying stuff to and from my car, because I always bring lots of helpful infrastructure with me such as megaphones, mats, stadium boxes, levels, and other goods.
- The tournament began around 12:30, and ended around 2:30. It was a 15 person tournament, so it was Group Round Robin. It would've ended sooner, but we had a lot of tiebreakers to handle between the first stage and finals.
- I leant parts to beymaster15963 today; he doesn't have Hasbro beys, so without borrowing he couldn't participate. Just a launcher and a Hasbro Wheel disc. I let him choose from my parts and he ended up using Garuda G3 HWheel Octave-H, effectively Octa-H. This is a plan that worked out extremely well for him. I hadn't done any testing on Octave-H but the shape looked reasonable and the spring seemed tight, so I figure let him run with it and see if it works well. Verdict: yes.
- We had some very good challengers today in the tournament, making things much more difficult than both previous Hypersphere tournaments. Group A had The Supreme One, beymaster15963, CheetoBlader, Garishi, a literal blast from the past Neo, and a couple of others. Group B had myself, Mike.Nightwing, LJ-Blader, and Friedpasta, and a few others. It was... extremely difficult all around!
- It was a single bey tournament, so my choice of bey in round 1 was either Balkesh B3 HWheel Linear-H, or Spryzen Requiem S3 HWheel Linear-H in right spin. Not every Linear-H has a good spring, but mine does. ICrazyEater for example had a fine combo, but his gray Linear-H was prone to bursting (it was on Outer and not HWheel). Anyway, Linear-H is great in same spin and great in opposite spin. It has tremendous stamina and LAD, and just kicks butt in general. If this format were to have any one specific driver be banned for the sake of balance, this would be it.
- For the record, all battle win conditions were worth 1 point today.
- I went 4-2 in the first round. I lost to Mike.Nightwing in a Balkesh mirror match, he has a better launch overall and lost less energy on the stadium walls than I did.
- Speaking of the stadium walls, let's talk about those. I like the Hypersphere stadium, it really makes you think and plan. You really have to have a good launch. In opposite spin, you can mostly afford to light launch, although you will get the occasional opposite spin burst if you launch hard enough. I even got a KO today, which is kind of fun. In same spin, you need to launch harder than your opponent, but it's very easy to lose a lot of stamina if your bey is riding around the upper wall and colliding with walls. Wider beys do NOT always benefit in this beystadium, unless they're unreasonably low layers like Garuda G3 and benefit from destabilizing without losing too much power on the walls. In same spin matches I lost a bunch of battles to repeated wall hits, that's on me. Even smaller layers like Balkesh B3 and Spryzen Requiem S3 can lose lots of energy.
- I noticed a lot of the same parts amongst the most competitive players. Balkesh B3, I think I was the only Spyrzen Requiem S3 there, Turbo Spryzen S4, Garuda G3, and even Hasbro's Cosmo layer. HWheel and Linear-H all over the place, some Outer.
- We had an unusual situation, we had two separate 3 way tie situations in the two groups. Mike.Nightwing swept all opponents in Group B, with his vicious and familiar looking Balkesh B3 combo (see mine above). The three highest ranked below him we me, friedpasta, and LJ-Blader, each with one loss to Nightwing and one loss to each other, with only room for 1 of us to advance. In Group A, things were a little less dire. TSO, Beymaster, and CheetoBlader had 6-1 records, each either only one loss to one of the others, competing for two spots.
- The Group B tiebreak matches happened first. I got my Octave-H back from beymaster and tried it against LJ-Blader with I think Spryzen in right, who was in opposite spin. Turns out Octave-H isn't quite as good as Linear-H for opposite spin. It was close, but he got me. He also got friedpasta, so, that's that, LJ made it to the finals.
- The Group A tiebreak matches happened second. I gave beymaster back the Octave-H since I was eliminated at that point, and he kept using that Garuda G3 combo, because it worked. He beat CheetoBlader in a Garuda G3 near mirror match (blue defeated yellow), and I can't remember if he stuck with it for his match against TSO or switched to Spyrzen Requiem S3 in left. He defeated TSO, and TSO and Cheetoblader played for the second seed Group A finals spot, TSO winning.
- I didn't make it to the finals, for reasons explained above. I did dang well at this tournament, and so did everyone in the tiebreaks, and of course Mike.Nightwing with his truly unstoppable Balkesh launches.
- I helped beymaster15963 with his finals deck, he eventually settled on Balkesh B3, Garuda G3, and Spryzen Requiem S3, discs including HWheel, Outer, and 00Cross, and tips including Linear-H, Octave-H, and Rise-H. That Rise-H has a decently strong spring, and the LAD isn't terrible. I forget the exact combination used. I think it was G3 00Cross Octave-H, Spryzen Requiem S3 (left) HWheel Rise-H, and Balkesh B3 Outer Linear-H. Someone will correct me if I got it wrong.
- I was legitimately surprised that beymaster wanted to switch Spryzen to left. But you can't argue with results. He'd done a fine job with Garuda on right, even in opposite spin, but Spryzen in left is quite good, even if it feels like leaving a hole in capability for deck format. And well, you can't argue with results.
- beymaster beat LJ, it was a close match I think? I don't quite remember. I think it was. On the other hand, Nightwing swept TSO with that Balkesh of his. I don't know what to tell you, when something works, it works. TSO beat LJ for third place, and Nightwing beat beymaster for first. LJ-Blader 4th, The Supreme One 3rd, beymaster15963 2nd, and Mike.Nightwing 1st.
- After the tournament, as an experiment, I asked to try a paticular combo against Nightwing's truly unstoppable Balkesh combo: Spryzen Requiem S3 HWheel Linear-H in right. I figured that's probably the only thing that stood a good chance against it. I was... mostly right? In 5 battles, I won 3 and he won 2. So it's about 50-50 against Balkesh. And it's apparently the only reasonable counter we came up with because NOTHING ELSE WORKED NOTHING ELSE COULD STOP HIM AND HIS BALKESH! I mean, Nightwing's a great blader, he has a better launch than me, and his parts are good. But dang, Balkesh is, well, Balkesh. Always has been a spot of touble. I have fond memories of using Balkesh B3 in my third or fourth tournament back in 2019 and more or less using it and Hell Salamander to reach 2nd place, after which Yami defeated me.
- Oh cripes there's a GT tournament tomorrow? I'm so tired after this one. I hope I will be in okay condition for that tournament.
- I had a lot of fun at today's tournament! I think perhaps Linear-H needs to be banned, nothing else is even remotely close to it in tier scales. Everything else has some sort of vulnerability or weakness, but Linear-H does it all, provided you find one with a good spring. Gray's no good.
- In opposite spin matches, it's not a guarantee, but the wider nature of Garuda G3 and Turbo Spryzen S4 means they're more likely to lose LAD matchups by scraping the bottom first.
- Honestly, I don't think Cosmo did too well. Maybe it's just me but I didn't see it having big wins.
- I know a lot of people don't like Hypersphere and the Hypersphere beystadium, but I find it fun, and that's what matters to me. And we're starting to see some strong competitors although I worry the meta is stagnant because success means not losing too much stamina on the walls and that means less wide beys.
I hope to see more of these tournaments! But seriously, Ban Linear-H from this format.
