Howdy everyone, I know it's been several months since these events happened, but I've been kinda busy with work and other stuff and haven't had much time to type these up in as much detail as I'd like. Originally, I wanted to post all three parts of this at the same time but that would probably result in at least a month more worth of waiting, so considering that the Beyblade West Beychannel video just dropped, and it seems that rather than posting a thread on the WBO, Kei's written up an article on his blog, I figured I would just post my report for the first day so far and add the others when I finish writing them. Be forewarned: they're pretty big walls of text, but instead of images I've sprinkled in a few videos to supplement them. After all, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video's gotta be like, five million.
Throughout the trip, I was staying in an AirBnb with KJ, TSO, LazerBeamz, ThaKingTai, Yami, and King Loofa, and we had all arrived there either on Wednesday or Thursday. When it came time for the tournament Friday morning, we had actually set out a little early because we weren’t sure how long it would take to get to Weller Court, so we ended up being the first ones there, arriving at around 10:15 or so. We looked around the marketplace a little bit and a few of us got something to eat before Nyx, UltimateMaster, and a few other people started showing up.
The tournament got off to a bit of a rocky start, but it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. We started a bit later than expected, and Shindog had to reset the bracket several times due to two or three no-shows not being removed, but the reason for this was because he and Mitchjett had actually gotten in a (minor, thankfully) car accident on the way to the tournament so he was understandably still stressed out about that. The delays ended up working out in Kei’s favor though – due to the time of his flight he would not have made it for the original start time, but we were able to work him in on the second or third reset. Zankye was also with him, but chose not to play for some reason and left before the tournament was over.
In my first match, I was up against LazerBeamz. He is mostly a Burst player, so he didn’t have a super extensive MFB collection but he did have a few things (MLD, Gravity F230) that made me wary of using Flame 230 against him. I went with Earth 90EWD against him the first time, and I think he used Dragooon on EDS? I was able to beat him 3-1, but then the bracket got reset and I had to face him again. This time around I was too worried he’d use TH170 to counter me, so I changed my spin track to TR145, and he used Meteo 100WD. Despite the height disadvantage, I was surprisingly still able to beat him. Meanwhile, Shindog had to battle Nightmare Goku twice, had the exact same matchup twice… and lost twice. That video is actually from the alternate timeline, in the current timeline he didn’t change spin directions but still lost 2-3. I think the only continuity difference was the battle between KJ and TSO – TSO won here 3-1 with a strange Jade combo, but in the alternate timeline her Burn B: D got oofed by KJ’s Lightning combo.
Things didn’t start getting really spicy until the third round though, which ended with a whole bunch of tough matches: Shindog vs JoJo, King Loofa vs myself, and finally TSO vs Kei. In the past (and at the Deck Format round robin some of us had done the night before) I had defeated King Loofa pretty handily with a Scythe/Vulcan staller, so I chose that. He ended up using a Bakushin LTDC and narrowly beat me 3-2. Shindog and Kei both used MSF-H Bandid Wyvang (Crystal Up) H145RSF and won their matches against a Jade Smash Attacker and Gravity F230.
I was able to use Flame 230CS and Vulcan 100MF to win my next two matches against ThaKingTai and Shindog without a huge amount of difficulty, ending the first stage with a 4-1 record and advancing to the Top 8 along with Kei (5-0), Yami (4-1), TSO (4-1), Kingz_hero_ (3-2), King Loofa (3-2), Shindog (3-2), and Mitchjett (3-2). With the way everyone was seeded, the Top 8 matchups was essentially East Coast vs West Coast… and the East Coast won in an overwhelming 4-0. Yami’s Gravity GB145CF combo and King Loofa’s Meteo 85EWD combo had brief exchange before Yami established his dominance and eventually won 5-2. TSO defeated Kingz_hero_ 5-1 using only Gravity F230 (though during the match she broke her 2nd F230 of the day). Knowing Shindog would probably include more Attack types in his deck to counter my Vulcan MF, I included my Gravity LTDC as well as MF Leone R145RF as an Anti-Attacker to counter them. I used Earth SR200TB as my third combo since imo it has a relatively favorable matchup against both Flame 230 and Virgo TH170, which were the two Stamina combos I expected Shindog to use. He put Gravity F230 in his deck instead, which only Leone really matched up favorably against, so I ended up having to beat him 5-2 with only Leone. I didn’t see much of the Kei vs Mitchjett match but I think I remember Kei being up 4-1 at one point so it was probably similarly one-sided.
This made the semifinal matches TSO vs Kei and myself vs Yami. After seeing Yami’s Gravity combo dominate his last match, I put Earth 90CS in my deck as a hard counter, and thought that and MF Leone R145RF could take it out. While Earth did its job well enough, I didn’t punish enough with it, and surprisingly wasn’t able to beat Gravity with Leone despite having the friction and speed advantage. Either way, I made the wrong first pick and would have had to bet on Leone to win the last point anyways, maybe if I had used like D125 instead of R145 it would have been better. TSO found herself in a similar situation when Kei defeated her Gravity GB145CF combo and the rest of her deck mainly using Gravity CH120MF.
In the 3rd Place Match between myself and TSO, I thought she would continue using Gravity on GB145 (or maybe even copy Kei and use CH120MF) after breaking 2 F230s, so between my Gravity 85RB (to counter her Pegasis and Jade combos), Earth SR200TB, and Quetzalcoatl 90RF I was kind of inadequately prepared for her to use Gravity F230 against me. She backed me into a wall pretty quickly, but I was somehow able to come back and win 5 rounds in a row with Quetz to win the match (which is to be expected against Jade MF and LLD RB, but I was surprised that I was able to KO F230 so convincingly on a 90 height).
That meant the finals was Yami vs Kei. After having success with Gravity GB145CF in his last two matches, Yami continued to use it in the finals, and the match ended up pretty much the same way the semifinal match between Kei and TSO did - Kei was able to defeat him mainly using Gravity CH120MF. So yeah… Kei showed up late, went undefeated, and won the whole event lol. He definitely earned the win though, since he pulled out some insane nail-biting wins against bladekid, TSO, and King Loofa in the first stage (even in his first match, his Flame 230CS had a dangerous matchup against K1mbo’s Screw Attack combo).
As for the meta, TSO, LazerBeamz, and I discussed that a bit on episode 8(? idk i cant count that high anymore) of the Meta madness podcast, but I’d say that overall it was relatively balanced. Gravity is always a hot topic (pun slightly intended) when it comes to Limited, and despite its versatility it didn’t play a huge role in the event until the Top 4 for some reason, and outside of TSO, Shindog, and Mitchjett I don’t think anyone else used it to much effect in the first stage. Flame 230 saw some use primarily from Kei and the LA regulars, and continues to be a pretty safe combo in the first stage, but became less popular in the final stage. The use of SR200 was actually kind of an interesting development as it’s decently tall itself and also matches up kinda well heightwise against both Flame 230 and Virgo TH170. TSO, bladekid, and I all used this relatively uncommon part on different occasions during the tournament. What I thought was really cool/interesting that I don’t really see much of on the East Coast was what some of us later jokingly called the “socialist commune” the LA regulars had: they all pooled their MFB parts together to make 4 or 5 different competitive combos that they shared amongst themselves during the tournament.
In hindsight, I think I should have relied on Vulcan 100MF a bit more during the final stage – it still would have had decent coverage against Shindog, would have matched up better against Yami and TSO’s Gravity combos than Leone or Quetz, and I think would have stood a solid chance against Kei’s Gravity CH120MF due to being shorter and having a faster weight distribution. I’m still not sure if I can feel bad about my performance, but I definitely don’t feel good about it either. It’s, like, weirdly refreshing to play Limited (or any MFB format tbh) with such a high concentration of ranked, competitive players - there’s simultaneously less pressure to perform well since even if you lose to someone highly ranked it won’t tank your points, but at the same time there’s more because everyone’s all in the same place, so it makes winning against them more meaningful, you know? I’m just glad that I was finally able to reach 1,600 points since that’s a benchmark that I have been just shy of hitting for around 3 years now...
After the tournament ended and we packed everything up, we went around the corner to Little Tokyo and ran into a smashing surprise - DeceasedCrab was actually checking out the Beyblades and other stuff in Anime Jungle! We said hey to him and his spouse, and then got dinner at an Okonomiyaki restaurant nearby before heading back to the AirBnb. We tested out some stuff for Burst Standard and Classic, and KJ showed us a very important combo that I’ll talk about more in Part 2.
Day 1: MFB Limited
Throughout the trip, I was staying in an AirBnb with KJ, TSO, LazerBeamz, ThaKingTai, Yami, and King Loofa, and we had all arrived there either on Wednesday or Thursday. When it came time for the tournament Friday morning, we had actually set out a little early because we weren’t sure how long it would take to get to Weller Court, so we ended up being the first ones there, arriving at around 10:15 or so. We looked around the marketplace a little bit and a few of us got something to eat before Nyx, UltimateMaster, and a few other people started showing up.
The tournament got off to a bit of a rocky start, but it wasn’t really anyone’s fault. We started a bit later than expected, and Shindog had to reset the bracket several times due to two or three no-shows not being removed, but the reason for this was because he and Mitchjett had actually gotten in a (minor, thankfully) car accident on the way to the tournament so he was understandably still stressed out about that. The delays ended up working out in Kei’s favor though – due to the time of his flight he would not have made it for the original start time, but we were able to work him in on the second or third reset. Zankye was also with him, but chose not to play for some reason and left before the tournament was over.
In my first match, I was up against LazerBeamz. He is mostly a Burst player, so he didn’t have a super extensive MFB collection but he did have a few things (MLD, Gravity F230) that made me wary of using Flame 230 against him. I went with Earth 90EWD against him the first time, and I think he used Dragooon on EDS? I was able to beat him 3-1, but then the bracket got reset and I had to face him again. This time around I was too worried he’d use TH170 to counter me, so I changed my spin track to TR145, and he used Meteo 100WD. Despite the height disadvantage, I was surprisingly still able to beat him. Meanwhile, Shindog had to battle Nightmare Goku twice, had the exact same matchup twice… and lost twice. That video is actually from the alternate timeline, in the current timeline he didn’t change spin directions but still lost 2-3. I think the only continuity difference was the battle between KJ and TSO – TSO won here 3-1 with a strange Jade combo, but in the alternate timeline her Burn B: D got oofed by KJ’s Lightning combo.
Things didn’t start getting really spicy until the third round though, which ended with a whole bunch of tough matches: Shindog vs JoJo, King Loofa vs myself, and finally TSO vs Kei. In the past (and at the Deck Format round robin some of us had done the night before) I had defeated King Loofa pretty handily with a Scythe/Vulcan staller, so I chose that. He ended up using a Bakushin LTDC and narrowly beat me 3-2. Shindog and Kei both used MSF-H Bandid Wyvang (Crystal Up) H145RSF and won their matches against a Jade Smash Attacker and Gravity F230.
I was able to use Flame 230CS and Vulcan 100MF to win my next two matches against ThaKingTai and Shindog without a huge amount of difficulty, ending the first stage with a 4-1 record and advancing to the Top 8 along with Kei (5-0), Yami (4-1), TSO (4-1), Kingz_hero_ (3-2), King Loofa (3-2), Shindog (3-2), and Mitchjett (3-2). With the way everyone was seeded, the Top 8 matchups was essentially East Coast vs West Coast… and the East Coast won in an overwhelming 4-0. Yami’s Gravity GB145CF combo and King Loofa’s Meteo 85EWD combo had brief exchange before Yami established his dominance and eventually won 5-2. TSO defeated Kingz_hero_ 5-1 using only Gravity F230 (though during the match she broke her 2nd F230 of the day). Knowing Shindog would probably include more Attack types in his deck to counter my Vulcan MF, I included my Gravity LTDC as well as MF Leone R145RF as an Anti-Attacker to counter them. I used Earth SR200TB as my third combo since imo it has a relatively favorable matchup against both Flame 230 and Virgo TH170, which were the two Stamina combos I expected Shindog to use. He put Gravity F230 in his deck instead, which only Leone really matched up favorably against, so I ended up having to beat him 5-2 with only Leone. I didn’t see much of the Kei vs Mitchjett match but I think I remember Kei being up 4-1 at one point so it was probably similarly one-sided.
This made the semifinal matches TSO vs Kei and myself vs Yami. After seeing Yami’s Gravity combo dominate his last match, I put Earth 90CS in my deck as a hard counter, and thought that and MF Leone R145RF could take it out. While Earth did its job well enough, I didn’t punish enough with it, and surprisingly wasn’t able to beat Gravity with Leone despite having the friction and speed advantage. Either way, I made the wrong first pick and would have had to bet on Leone to win the last point anyways, maybe if I had used like D125 instead of R145 it would have been better. TSO found herself in a similar situation when Kei defeated her Gravity GB145CF combo and the rest of her deck mainly using Gravity CH120MF.
In the 3rd Place Match between myself and TSO, I thought she would continue using Gravity on GB145 (or maybe even copy Kei and use CH120MF) after breaking 2 F230s, so between my Gravity 85RB (to counter her Pegasis and Jade combos), Earth SR200TB, and Quetzalcoatl 90RF I was kind of inadequately prepared for her to use Gravity F230 against me. She backed me into a wall pretty quickly, but I was somehow able to come back and win 5 rounds in a row with Quetz to win the match (which is to be expected against Jade MF and LLD RB, but I was surprised that I was able to KO F230 so convincingly on a 90 height).
That meant the finals was Yami vs Kei. After having success with Gravity GB145CF in his last two matches, Yami continued to use it in the finals, and the match ended up pretty much the same way the semifinal match between Kei and TSO did - Kei was able to defeat him mainly using Gravity CH120MF. So yeah… Kei showed up late, went undefeated, and won the whole event lol. He definitely earned the win though, since he pulled out some insane nail-biting wins against bladekid, TSO, and King Loofa in the first stage (even in his first match, his Flame 230CS had a dangerous matchup against K1mbo’s Screw Attack combo).
As for the meta, TSO, LazerBeamz, and I discussed that a bit on episode 8(? idk i cant count that high anymore) of the Meta madness podcast, but I’d say that overall it was relatively balanced. Gravity is always a hot topic (pun slightly intended) when it comes to Limited, and despite its versatility it didn’t play a huge role in the event until the Top 4 for some reason, and outside of TSO, Shindog, and Mitchjett I don’t think anyone else used it to much effect in the first stage. Flame 230 saw some use primarily from Kei and the LA regulars, and continues to be a pretty safe combo in the first stage, but became less popular in the final stage. The use of SR200 was actually kind of an interesting development as it’s decently tall itself and also matches up kinda well heightwise against both Flame 230 and Virgo TH170. TSO, bladekid, and I all used this relatively uncommon part on different occasions during the tournament. What I thought was really cool/interesting that I don’t really see much of on the East Coast was what some of us later jokingly called the “socialist commune” the LA regulars had: they all pooled their MFB parts together to make 4 or 5 different competitive combos that they shared amongst themselves during the tournament.
In hindsight, I think I should have relied on Vulcan 100MF a bit more during the final stage – it still would have had decent coverage against Shindog, would have matched up better against Yami and TSO’s Gravity combos than Leone or Quetz, and I think would have stood a solid chance against Kei’s Gravity CH120MF due to being shorter and having a faster weight distribution. I’m still not sure if I can feel bad about my performance, but I definitely don’t feel good about it either. It’s, like, weirdly refreshing to play Limited (or any MFB format tbh) with such a high concentration of ranked, competitive players - there’s simultaneously less pressure to perform well since even if you lose to someone highly ranked it won’t tank your points, but at the same time there’s more because everyone’s all in the same place, so it makes winning against them more meaningful, you know? I’m just glad that I was finally able to reach 1,600 points since that’s a benchmark that I have been just shy of hitting for around 3 years now...
After the tournament ended and we packed everything up, we went around the corner to Little Tokyo and ran into a smashing surprise - DeceasedCrab was actually checking out the Beyblades and other stuff in Anime Jungle! We said hey to him and his spouse, and then got dinner at an Okonomiyaki restaurant nearby before heading back to the AirBnb. We tested out some stuff for Burst Standard and Classic, and KJ showed us a very important combo that I’ll talk about more in Part 2.
![[Image: izt9hKq.png]](https://i.imgur.com/izt9hKq.png)
![[Image: beybase-signature-is-beyblade-a-sport-Article.jpg]](https://i.postimg.cc/VLksgt2k/beybase-signature-is-beyblade-a-sport-Article.jpg)
