London Beyblade Burst Tournament Report : “The Sesh”

“The Sesh” was a much anticipated and long overdue event for the London Community. We had been trying to plan a tournament for a couple weeks and couldn’t get together and so the expected turnout for the tournament was slim but we ended up with 11 players which was surprising.

This was also the first WBO tournament  to feature Maximum Garuda and it certainly made an impactful debut. Atomic based combos saw plenty of play many players stuck to the current popular combo dF.P.At in their matches. Personally this tournament helped me develop my reasoning in deck format and reminded me that your choices in finals are just as important as the combos you use. 

I’m going to breakdown my run to finals match by match and highlight some of the key matchups and points worth explaining. Apologies for the lack of pictures it was a cold rainy day and everyone was trying to keep warm.


Groups 

Spoiler (Click to View)

Vs. QuantumCaza
dF.P.At v Valtryek Boost Accel 

I knew QuantumCaza was a new player and didn’t really know what to expect so just stuck to Fafnir. Was 3-0 not much to say here.


Vs. Shockwave
dF.P.At v Spryzen Knuckle unite

Again a new face so not much to say here. Stuck to dF. Score 3-0


Vs. Mana
dF.Y.R v gV.8V.Rb 

Really didn’t know what to expect from Mana and took a long time to come up with a combo. i was expecting some variant of L2 or dF.P.At . I’ve tested gV.8V.Rb a lot so I knew it couldn’t beat dF but Sam got an early KO and scared me. I brought it back to 3-1 in the end. 


Vs. Ultra
mg.7F.At v lS.S.Hn 

At this point I’d already told Mr LT about my favourite mG combo since he was the only other blader who owned one but I was feeling adventurous and considering Ultra exclusively chose stamina combos in our past matches I thought it would be a safe bet to chose mG. Was a bit alarmed that he chose lS as I had not tested that matchup in much depth but I think the Hunter driver held back his combo and made it less likely to burst mG than an xtreme variant of lS. Match ended 3-0.


Vs. Mr LT
mg.7F.At v mg.7F.At


After what me and Mr LT discussed he had managed to beat two other people with mG easily. It was obvious we were going into a mirror match and to be honest it really came down to which mG stayed upright the longest. Once one of our beys got underneath the other the match was decided and you would scrape up against the flow frame and lose stamina. Launching harder didn't seem to help me either. I lost 3-1. It was interesting to see what the mirror match was like (incredibly boring fyi) but important to note there weren’t any bursts so other drivers may be more useful than atomic when both players are using mG.


Vs. V2KX
mg.7F.At. V I2.4V.A 


This was a tense match for me as I2 bursted my mG combo for the first time in the tournament twice in a row ! I moderated my launch slightly and pulled it back to 3-2. I2 seems to have good burst attack but doesn’t work for everyone. In my testing following the tournament I couldn’t reproduce anywhere near similar results but it may be worth exploration for others. It was starting to become apparent at this point in the tournament that mG was top tier for stamina, easily handling dF and even attempts to win via burst with VKT were promising but ultimately not enough to best mG.


Vs. Jcb31012003
lS.7M.R V K.B.M


I wanted to experiment with Legend spriggan but what resulted my second loss of the day, I was in a hurry and accidentally put 7 on my combo instead of 4 which made it off balance paired with my revolve. Lost 3-0 Always check your  frame + disk combo before locking on.


Vs. Jcb31012003's brother 
lS.2G.At V R2.A.B

Decided to stick to lS and prove it could actually work, I don’t know why I used 2 here instead of 4 but got the win with outspins here. 


Vs. Meta LT
aC.4F.At V L2.4G.At 

Wasn’t sure what Better LT would go with here but after testing and seeing other results with aC I was confident in its defence and stamina to take a risk. This pretty much shut out L2 surprisingly and taught me a valuable match up considering L2 on orbit/atomic is popular in London. It seems aC is actually really strong defensively. 


Vs. Beybread
A2.7F.D V lS.P.At 

I let beybread borrow some of my parts and expected him to pick mG considering its dominance at the tournament but chose lS and was easily outspun by A2. I think Polish was the wrong disk choice considering the stamina of lS in my experience is sub par. 

That wrapped up the group stage of the tournament I finished 8-2 and was happy with my performance aside from my first match using Legend Spriggan. 


Me, Better LT, Mr LT and Mana progressed to finals.

Finals 

Spoiler (Click to View)

Considering my record in the first stage I was silently confident going into Finals and my first match was against Mana, who didn’t have mG.


My deck: DF.4G.R L2.4G.O mG.7F.At


Mana’s Deck: L2SX dF.P.At A2.8G.R


The first round I opened with mG.7F.At and Mana went with L2SX. I had not tested this matchup but I didn’t think L2 would win. The first round L2 quickly bursted mG and shocked me since it was only the 3rd time my mG had bursted all day. I didn’t hesitate to deny the rematch and this was probably my biggest mistake all day. The concept of being 0-2 from a matchup I was almost certain I would win clouded my judgement slightly. I feared going 0-4 too much and so I switched to my L2 combo to try and outspin since Mana’s L2 was on xtreme. This resulted in another burst and left me 0-4. I brought it back slightly to 4-3 with L2 netting me 3 out spins but he eventually got a burst and sealed the match 6-3. You’ve got to be quite resilient in finals and if you think you’re combo really should have won push for the rematch, it keeps them locked out of other potentially more harmful combos.


The switch gave his L2 an even better chance of winning, but the thought of mG bursting again made me forget that. Had I stayed calm and thought about the matchup more I could’ve brought the score back level and I knew that his other combos couldn’t outspin mG. This was proven as Mana lost 5-0 to the same combo in his grand finals match, his L2 combo wasn’t able to burst mG.7F.At once in 5 matches and so had I rematched odds are I would've been able to bring the score level with outspins. This really reinforced how important your decisions are in finals. Always take the time to think about if you can win the rematch and don’t default to switching right away. Had I thought about his other combos it would’ve made sense to rematch and looking at the combos in hindsight I shouldn't have had a problem taking the match had I piloted my deck correctly. 


3rd place battle


My Deck: dF.Y.R L2.4G.O mG.7F.At


Mr LT’s deck: L2.8M.O mG.7F.At bR.S.R


Saddened after my loss to Mana I had a third place match against Mr LT. I had a pretty good idea of what he was going to run with considering we had been talking a lot throughout the tournament. We went back and forth with mG mirrors then I switched to L2 and got a late game burst on his mG to win the match 5-3. L2 was able to burst mG more than any other layer used in the tournament although I’m sure there are more consistent alternatives. 

Final thoughts


Overall mG basically stole the show at “The Sesh” Only L2, Valkyrie and I2 were able to burst it the whole tournament. dF.P.At couldn't hold a candle to mG.7F.At; it’s clearly a solid counter and basically silences any calls for a dF ban. There wasn’t anything too peculiar on the winning combos list. gK did make more of an appearance in the group stage of the tournament dealing with a lot of right spin combos, namely neptune. Legend Spriggan wasn't as prevalent as I thought it would be and hasn't really found it's place in the game yet. The future of the meta is a bit up in the air at the moment, everyone is trying to work out how to deal with mG and while a few layers presented themselves during the tournament the level of consistency is worrying. Atomic is still a huge part of the metagame and I don't see it going anywhere soon. Together mG and Atomic make a powerful stamina combo that has precession and LAD head and shoulders above the vast majority of the combos in the game. It will be interesting to see how the game changes as more people get their hands on RBV7. 


Thanks for reading if you got this far ! If you have any questions feel free to post below. 

The Sesh
London, UK - 22/07/2017


1st - Better LT
Maximum Garuda 7Flow Atomic
Blaze Ragnaruk Spread Atomic
Drain Fafnir Polish Atomic
Xeno Xcalibur Oval Quake


2nd - ~Mana~
Lost Longinus Spread Xtreme
Acid Anubis 8Glaive Revolve
Drain Fafnir Polish Atomic
God Valkyrie 8 Reboot


3rd - Basedsamuraij
Maximum Garuda 7Flow Atomic
Drain Fafnir Polish Atomic
Drain Fafnir Yell Revolve
Legend Spriggan 2Glaive Atomic
Alter Chronos 4Flow Atomic
Acid Anubis 7Flow Defense
Lost Longinus 4Glaive Orbit

Thanks for such a comprehensive report, @[Basedsamuraij]!

Interesting that some people were finding some success with I2 against mG. I tried it myself after reading this and couldn't get it to do anything against it, but that was on Xtreme. Maybe it does better on Accel. I've actually found that in general, things like gK.H.R and O.H.R are able to burst mG more frequently than regular Attack types. V.H.R can do well too.

Also, I see you and some other people have L2 on Orbit in your Decks. What do you like it for?

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I couldn't find any success with I2 either ! I prefer it more on accel as well for the extra stamina since the shape is so aggressive anyways. Both times it burst mG it was pretty late into the match. I'd agree with being able to burst mG more with stationary combos, I was even getting gK.H.Lp to burst mG around 30-40% of the time with a hard launch.

I use L2 on orbit is mainly to combat dF.P.At but it also has a good chance to KO revolve based stuff as well. I like orbit because it has enough stamina to actually outspin dF now and again plus I can control it a bit more than atomic . It's not the best against bR and other L2's on hold or xtreme though.

I use L2 on orbit is mainly to combat dF.P.At but it also has a good chance to KO revolve based stuff as well. I like orbit because it has enough stamina to actually outspin dF now and again plus I can control it a bit more than atomic . It's not the best against bR and other L2's on hold or xtreme though.

Is Polish Atomic more popular over there than 4 Glaive Atomic? 4G is harder to KO and more popular in Toronto right now, which is probably why I wouldn't consider something like L2 on Orbit.

And wait, you're saying L2 Orbit can OS dF.P.At sometimes?!

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Can confirm that Polish is used more often than 4Glaive, but Glaive is gradually being used more as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if Polish completely faded out here soon.

L2 Orbit has indeed outspun dF Atomic as well if I remember correctly, though it seems a bit hit and miss sometimes imo. Very satisfying when you see it work though.

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