World Beyblade Organization by Fighting Spirits Inc. World Beyblade Organization Beyblade Tournaments Tournament Reports

Los Angeles Beyblade Burst Tournament Report: Kei vs. The World: The Wakanda Trials

Feb. 21, 2018  9:27 PM
 
LOS ANGELES BEYBLADE BURST TOURNAMENT REPORT
Kei vs. The World: The Wakanda Trials
February 17, 2018 at Grand Park in Los Angeles, California, USA • BURST FORMAT
OFFICIAL EVENT PAGE

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The Los Angeles Beyblade community has been steadily growing over the past couple years, and after such a positive experience traveling to New York (not to mention Japan as well) to play in an even there back in October, it had become clear that a visit to LA was in order! I’ve also wanted to visit LA for a long time and have some other friends who live there, so this February long weekend seemed like the perfect time to finally head out west.

I decided to stay at Venice Beach despite the fact that the tournament was going to be taking place downtown at Grand Park. On the day of the tournament, I met with one of my friends who had traveled with me in Japan back in 2016 for breakfast and then she was kind enough to drive me downtown to the tournament: Kei vs. The World: The Wakanda Trials!


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Breaking the LA Attendance Record


In the weeks leading up to the tournament, the number of confirmed participants steadily increased, eventually reaching the point where it became clear that we stood a good chance of breaking LA’s previous attendance record of 37 that had just been set at their event previous to this one.

We ended up smashing that record with I believe 53 total participants on the day of the event. This steady increase is no doubt influenced by the increasing popularity of Beyblade Burst now that it has launched in North America, but I also have to commend the community itself and the primary Organizers like ThaKingTai, Alta, Jojo [Jp0t], and also Achi-Baba for putting in a sustained effort over the past several years in order to nurture the possibility of this even happening. I’ve put in the work here where I live in Toronto over the past ten years, so I certainly understand the commitment necessary!

I arrived at the tournament just before it had originally been scheduled to start at 12:45PM. I greeted everyone and was impressed by the setup they had running with the tents and over half a dozen stadiums. Never had a need to try that here in Toronto as most of the time we play in a sheltered area here in Toronto (or indoors), but it was great to see something like that here as it’s an indication of the level of care and thought the organizers put into the event.


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Managing Large Tournaments


One thing which was also evident when I arrived however was a small sense of how overwhelming the size of the event was becoming. Given that this wasn’t something they had experienced on this level before, it was understandable.

We ended up starting the tournament about 40 minutes late, so there was a few things which could have been improved. And I say these things only as advice for other Organizers should they find themselves in this sort of situation:

  • Ensure you have all participants who signed up on the event page in a pre-made Challonge bracket. This way, it’s easy to remove those who don’t show up, and add in the few new players who didn’t sign up online.
  • It’s difficult to do when you know there is likely other people who will show up, and I’ve certain done it many times, but especially at large events it is critical to enforce the start time listed in the event page and to also make it extremely clear that late arrivals will not be able to enter.
  • This can also be difficult to enforce, but keeping the play area as clear as possible helps as well. Naturally, people tend to want to crowd around the stadiums too closely, which is not only a safety hazard, but just makes it more difficult to keep matches flowing as quickly as possible.
  • At large events, numbering the stadiums and announcing this numbering helps immensely in communicating throughout the event where players are supposed to go when called.
  • Having judges assigned to specific stadiums helps to speed things up considerably too.
  • Having a microphone (even a portable personal amplifier) is also beneficial when dealing with a crowd this big. We had one at BEYBLADE NORTH 2016, and I think it was a mistake to not have one last year at BEYBLADE NORTH 2017, so we’ll likely be getting one again this year.
  • Announcing what the anticipated run time of the tournament is before beginning also helps, and is something I myself need to remember to do moving forward as well. Especially with large events like this which require six rounds of Swiss, it’s important to communicate that the event will take several hours as it will reduce the number of questions you receive from people throughout the event and lower the number of participants who end up dropping from the event because they didn’t realize how long it would take.

In any case, after getting off to a bit of a slow start, ThaKingTai and everyone else helping started to progress through the tournament at a good pace. Safe to say that the crowd at this event was a big learning experience for them, but they did quite well at managing everything in the end!


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The Tournament


This tournament was significant as one of the first two events since the unbanning of Maximum Garuda and banning of mid-match Spriggan Requiem mode changes. In the week leading up to the event I surmised that Bearing would see a huge bump in usage on both Deep Chaos and Spriggan Requiem and that consequently as a result of both that and mG’s return, Sieg Xcalibur + Orbit and such similar combos would also see increased viability.

I also knew that because the event was going to be so huge, there was bound to be many primarily Hasbro-based players. I was a little bit wary of this as I knew a lot of the new Switchstrike Hasbro releases that had been found in LA had not been found in Toronto yet, so I had no experience with many of them. I was also worried generally speaking because as always, it is challenging coming into a foreign community with little knowledge of the players who compete there.

However, I was able to make my way through the Swiss Rounds with a record of 5-1, leaning exclusively on Spriggan Requiem 7 Bump Bearing and MGC Maximum Garuda 7 Star Orbit. Surprisingly, I almost lost against SenorSpriggan’s lS.2V.X on Xtreme in left-spin with mG in round two, but I was able to barely get the win 3-2. My only loss came against Alta; he had been using Arc Bahamut on Atomic, but I saw him doing testing with it against sR Bearing and also testing Deep Chaos before our battle, so I knew that he was planning to likely use something different in our battle. Given this fact and that I was already 4-0, I then decided to risk it and make the assumption he would go with dC Bearing and ended up picking Sieg Xcalibur on Orbit … but he faked me out and went with MGC aB.0B.Ds. So, I lost 3-0 haha.

In the finals as the third seed, I luckily ended up avoiding some of the most experienced players (Alta, King Loofa, and ThaKingTai) all the way until the finals when I was matched up again with Alta.

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Alta was coming off a victory against King Loofa, who was the sole player who had gone undefeated in the six rounds of Swiss and had handed Alta his only loss during that first stage. I didn’t see the battle itself, but from what I understand Alta was able to beat down his Deep Chaos Bearing with Twin Nemesis on Hunter.

Alta’s deck ended up being just about what I expected it to be after learning the above information: aB.4G.Ds, tN.7M.Hn, and MGC dC.0B.Br. I had chosen nL.M.X, MGC mG.7S.O, and dC.7B.Br. Our first match up was nL versus tN, which I knew was in my favour as nL has a strong match-up against tN. I ended up winning the first two rounds going up 4-0, and then clinched the tournament with a victory over his MGC dC.0B.Br with my MGC mG.7S.O. This was surprising. I did see him lose a near mirror match to King Loofa earlier with his dC in Round 6 of Swiss so I had a feeling that perhaps his combo was unbalanced and that it could be overcome if I had to do a mirror match with him. It was surprising to see my mG–on Orbit no less–beat it given the 100% win rate dC.7.Br had against mG.7S.At in my recent testing. But nevertheless, a win’s a win!

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They had a generous selection of prizes available, including three Switchstrike Beyblades I hadn’t seen yet in Toronto. I ended up choosing Cognite C3 as my prize. There was also a Xcalibur Master Kit which was given away to one random participant who didn’t make the finals!

One thing I was surprised about in terms of regional differences is the affinity both Alta and King Loofa (and maybe some other players?) had for the Hunter Driver. In Toronto (and in Japan from what I’ve seen), Xtreme is preferred by far for its superior speed and KO power. I understand the appeal of Hunter conceptually myself as a slower and more controllable alternative, but I’ve never been able to get Hunter working that well for me. Still, always interesting to see people find success with different parts!

The Rise of the Bearing Driver & Return of Maximum Garuda


Because Bearing was only available through the God Customize Set, it became evident to me at the event as it progressed that more so than Bearing, players were utilizing Destroy still, despite its lowered viability within the metagame only because it was easier to obtain through nL than Bearing was. There was therefore a handful of players using Drain Fafnir and Spriggan Requiem-based Destroy combos. I know that a few of these players were able to earn their way to the finals through using these exclusively, but ultimately they were not able to overcome Bearing once they made it to the finals. In terms of Bearing users, I believe that only Alta, King Loofa, and myself ended up using it throughout the event. The final standings being us three as you can see below reflects the power Bearing currently holds.

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Yet, with that power, it’s important to emphasize that by my estimation it is in no way even close to being overpowered. ThatKingTai mentioned after the tournament that we should ban Bearing, but I think that it’s important to examine just how easy it is to KO and Burst when you have a combo in the same spin direction against it. This was made evident in the tournament itself by Alta’s handling of King Loofa’s dC Bearing combo with tN Hunter.

Bearing serves as an important piece to help balance the presence of Maximum Garuda now that it has returned to the fold. Without it, there would be no “safe” counters to mG. That was the main issue last year; there was ways to beat mG, but nothing “safe” could beat it. You had to use something like Legend Spriggan Xtreme, which carried significant risk.

So, with this in mind, after my experience at this event–even though there admittedly wasn’t many mG users–I am quite comfortable with where the game is at currently.

Considering Double Elimination


One thing I also wanted to touch on before ending this report was the possibility of introducing Double Elimination as a format option for WBO Organized Play Events. I’d love to get some feedback on this.

Because of the aforementioned issues with the start time for this event, we ended up finishing the tournament literally after dark … lol. While hardcore players might not mind this, I think that this is something we all want to avoid in order to encourage more people to stick around and be able to watch the entire event. There is certainly some issues which could have been fixed in order to prevent us from finishing that late, but I don’t think organizational issues like the ones I listed earlier in the report are the only thing worth evaluating.

Let’s face it: Swiss Format takes a long time to complete. Especially when you reach the threshold where it becomes necessary to play six rounds or more (33 players). It’s the best and most fair format (in my eyes, at least), but given the reality that the WBO is a volunteer-based organization and that almost all of our events won’t have the luxury of having a host who is dedicated to only hosting or judges who are dedicated to only judging, it’s difficult to keep events moving as quickly as they probably could if they were being hosted by a professional organization with paid hosts and judges. This is a fact that we cannot get around.

I don’t mean to say that we should eliminate Swiss Format–far from it–only that it came up in our conversations after this tournament that perhaps adding Double Elimination as an option for large events would be beneficial where the host believes they won’t have enough assistance to progress through the event at a fast enough pace.

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If we were to implement Double Elimination again, my main requirement would probably be to make it only available for events with 33+ participants (the current threshold where it becomes necessary to play six rounds or more of Swiss instead of five). Five round Swiss Format events with 32 or less participants are manageable enough within a reasonable time frame and also comprise the majority of our events right now, so I would lean heavily towards this requirement for Double Elimination.

I haven’t run tests, but I do know that allowing Double Elimination for events of this size would speed things up considerably.


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Final Thoughts


After the tournament Alta, ThaKingTai, Jojo, King Loofa, his girlfriend, and I cleaned up the tournament area and headed out to grab some ramen in Little Tokyo for dinner. King Loofa and Alta demonstrated Beigoma to me (still trying to figure out how to wrap them properly despite numerous demonstrations), and King Loofa also gave me a few Beigoma of my own to take home with me! I gave him one of my bubble levels used to check the balance of stadiums in return … He mentioned them to me during the event which impressed me as it meant he had read my recent Beyblade in Japan report carefully haha.

I wanted to thank everyone who attended as well as Alta, ThaKingTai, Jojo, King Loofa, and his girlfriend for demonstrating such great hospitality towards me, and for helping to put together such a fantastic event. I’m truly excited to see where the LA community goes from this point forward and will certainly return someday!

The more I travel, the more I see how close we all really are. Keep up the good work!


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Winning Combinations


1st: Kei
Spriggan Requiem 7 Bump Bearing
MGC Maximum Garuda 7 Star Orbit
Spriggan Requiem 0 Bump Bearing (Deck Format Finals Only)
Nightmare Longinus Meteor Xtreme (Deck Format Finals Only)
MGC Maximum Garuda 0 Bump Orbit (Deck Format Finals Only)

2nd: Alta
MGC Arc Bahamut 0 Bump Atomic
MGC Arc Bahamut 0 Bump Destroy
Twin Nemesis 7 Meteor Hunter  (Deck Format Finals Only)

3rd: King Loofa
Spriggan Requiem 0 Flow Bearing
Deep Chaos 4 Flow Bearing
Nightmare Longinus Glaive Hunter

Photos
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Deck Format Finals
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Thanks for reading! If you have any questions about this event, please feel free to post below!

More Beyblade Tournament Reports
If you enjoyed this report, then you may also enjoy some of my other Beyblade Burst tournament reports:
Feb. 22, 2018  1:07 AM
 
Love the report (And our LLvLL battle) and especially the idea of Double Elimination, since it'd have a more formal feel to it and a more fair chance besides just accumulated wins over a long spread/stretch of time, the tournament in itself was awesome too, hope to at least get one place higher next time (as I've only came 12th and around 5-9th now, I can't find any full list name report.)
Feb. 22, 2018  3:20 AM
 
Alta used Arc Bahamut for all his wins in Stage 1?! Wow.
Feb. 22, 2018  3:47 AM
 
Cool! It's cool to see the unban of mG and just so many people going to this tornament. If you're wondering, I've learned a bit about Cognite C3. Sadly, even on 4G At, it's not as burst resistant as the TT version, but that's not surprising. I've noticed that with every new wave of switch strike beys, one of them is worse than TT, and the rest are either better than, or on par with the TT version. For example, in wave one, the Hasbro blaze ragnuruk isn't very good. Honestly, the Hasbro Doomscisor D3 is a lot better because of it's insane burst resistant, extra contact points, and the hunter driver. Since Hasbro uses softer rubber than TT, the hunter driver is more agressive, but it still has the stamina advantage. But that's just through my tests, maybe you'll have better luck with Cognite than me.
Feb. 22, 2018  6:02 AM
 
After the ban on Sr mid-match mode changes, what about it made you and other players pick it over dF for Br/Ds combos?
Feb. 22, 2018  8:41 AM
 
Think the combination of the switch spin ban on Spriggan Requiem and the increased use of Bearing against Maximum Garuda will make Legend Spriggan more common? (To match spin with the Sr Br combination to KO or Burst)
Feb. 23, 2018  5:08 AM
 
(Feb. 22, 2018  1:07 AM)NotuSaxor Wrote: Love the report (And our LLvLL battle) and especially the idea of Double Elimination, since it'd have a more formal feel to it and a more fair chance besides just accumulated wins over a long spread/stretch of time, the tournament in itself was awesome too, hope to at least get one place higher next time (as I've only came 12th and around 5-9th now, I can't find any full list name report.)

"LLvsLL"? You were using L2 and I was using sR ... in left-spin. I was actually surprised you didn't burst me!

Well, in suggesting Double Elimination it had nothing to do with commenting on the fairness of Swiss. To me, that's unarguable. Swiss is so fair because after each round you're paired with someone who has a similar record as you. It's more than just "accumulated wins over a long spread/stretch of time", it's a calculated set of matches meant to offer increasingly 'fair' match-ups with each passing round. Double Elimination is bound by the way the bracket is set up more so than the performance of each individual player throughout the event.

(Feb. 22, 2018  3:20 AM)OldSchool™ Wrote: Alta used Arc Bahamut for all his wins in Stage 1?! Wow.

Apparently so! Guess he didn't run into anything like Nightmare Longinus. I saw a bunch of people playing with nL before the tournament, but not many during the event itself, strangely ...

(Feb. 22, 2018  3:47 AM)bladekid Wrote: Cool! It's cool to see the unban of mG and just so many people going to this tornament. If you're wondering, I've learned a bit about Cognite C3. Sadly, even on 4G At, it's not as burst resistant as the TT version, but that's not surprising. I've noticed that with every new wave of switch strike beys, one of them is worse than TT, and the rest are either better than, or on par with the TT version. For example, in wave one, the Hasbro blaze ragnuruk isn't very good. Honestly, the Hasbro Doomscisor D3 is a lot better because of it's insane burst resistant, extra contact points, and the hunter driver. Since Hasbro uses softer rubber than TT, the hunter driver is more agressive, but it still has the stamina advantage. But that's just through my tests, maybe you'll have better luck with Cognite than me.

Interesting! Sad to hear that about Cognite,  but I'd certainly like to see their version of Hunter if it indeed is more aggressive.

(Feb. 22, 2018  6:02 AM)XYZ-Jaden Wrote: After the ban on Sr mid-match mode changes, what about it made you and other players pick it over dF for Br/Ds combos?

It has more stamina I'm pretty sure, is better at spin stealing (for example: it put up better numbers than dF versus mG Atomic, as you can see in my testing), is heavier, and has better burst resistance than dF. sR has also bursted dF quite a bit when paired up against it in my testing ... so for me I've just found that dF is completely outclassed at this point.

(Feb. 22, 2018  8:41 AM)MonoDragon Wrote: Think the combination of the switch spin ban on Spriggan Requiem and the increased use of Bearing against Maximum Garuda will make Legend Spriggan more common? (To match spin with the Sr Br combination to KO or Burst)

Perhaps! I should test lS against sR Bearing.
Feb. 23, 2018  5:10 AM
 
Actually, I find that aB is able to withstand nL pretty well. Despite the horrible teeth it's somehow able to take it, especially if it's on Orbit.
Feb. 23, 2018  5:11 AM
 
(Feb. 23, 2018  5:08 AM)Kei Wrote:
(Feb. 22, 2018  8:41 AM)MonoDragon Wrote: Think the combination of the switch spin ban on Spriggan Requiem and the increased use of Bearing against Maximum Garuda will make Legend Spriggan more common? (To match spin with the Sr Br combination to KO or Burst)

Perhaps! I should test lS against sR Bearing.

Adding to this. You mentioned Spriggan Requiem Destroy combinations are hard to beat since you need more speed than Xtreme. Perhaps Legend Spriggan with a worn Variable?
Feb. 23, 2018  7:47 AM
 
(Feb. 23, 2018  5:10 AM)Mage Wrote: Actually, I find that aB is able to withstand nL pretty well. Despite the horrible teeth it's somehow able to take it, especially if it's on Orbit.

Even against nL on Xtreme?

(Feb. 23, 2018  5:11 AM)MonoDragon Wrote: Adding to this. You mentioned Spriggan Requiem Destroy combinations are hard to beat since you need more speed than Xtreme. Perhaps Legend Spriggan with a worn Variable?

That could work, but I don't like relying on Variable for speed necessarily given its tendency to skip the ridge. I'm more comfortable with something like Merge if I want more speed.
Feb. 24, 2018  3:19 AM
 
Just wanted to point out: I looked into it and it turns out that this event was the largest Burst Format event in our history thus far with 51 participants! The previous record was BEYBLADE NORTH 2017 with 41 participants.