Mar-20-2022: "You Can Only Choose 1!" reports

The following are words I have to say about "You Can Only Choose 1!", a ranked Burst Standard P3C1 tournament during the release season where basically nothing new is coing out and I'm guessing Burst is winding down. Let me know if I forgot anything important.

- We did not know going into this one that it was going to be frightfully cold. The wind wasn't supposed to be terrible but it was.  It's March, it's not supposed to be too cold for this, but it was. I'm still cold now.

- We had a 20 person 5 round swiss, followed by a 8 person single elimination finals. P3C1 format. We didn't get started until about 12:20 and finished around 4:10. It was very cold. We only had 20 people show up out of an expected 32, and you know what, it was so cold I don't blame them. Windchill.

- Everyone forgot to bring stadium wipes. Mine dried out, everyone else assumed everyone else was bringing them. Our stadiums got filthy. I can't even find these alcohol wipes at the store anymore, all the wipes are using bleach or ammonia instead of alcohol and none of those are really good to use on beystadiums. I guess I have to look for them again.

- We got to the pavilion an hour before tournament start, and started around 12:20, and as happens from time to time some people showed up saying that they were having a birthday party there, and they didn't reserve it because the county isn't reserving the pavilion currently, and could we please share the pavilion. And CrisisCrusher07 is too nice for his own good so we let them have the table away from the tournament match tables, we tend to have that one extra. This turned out to be a huge mistake. The partygoers were for the most part pleasant, but either they were burning incense or cooking turkish coffee or some other INCREDIBLY SMELLY DRINK OR GAS. It was VILE and because of the wind it was getting EVERYWHERE. There was a lot of coughing going on. I'm almost sure what they were doing violated county park use ordinances, I'll check those later. Anyway, the next time someone asks to share the pavilion we're just gonna have to tell them no, on the offchance they might bring incredibly smelly stuff with them. It was really bad.

- Although multiple drivers of the same type could be used in both first stage and finals, not too many people did that. I did (Drift and Metal Drift), so did Allen Schaffer. For most of first stage, people were using different tips. Later on in the finals most people were using distinct tips, except Allen for the third place match. More on that later.

- I was one of the judges at the tournament today. There were 3 beystadiums total, and we had a couple of judges around. We only had 20 participants, we didn't need 4. Crisis never runs 4 anyway.

- The wind was terrible. Chairs knocked over, beystadiums knocked over, and the windchill made it feel 20 degrees colder.

- I didn't anyone use Atomic' and although I saw some 9 armors I saw only a couple of Ultimate matches, and usually it lost. I did my Atomic' on Greatest Raphael testing... elsewhere, and I determined that it is INTENSELY WEAK TO HIGH MODE. It just loses all hope when the bear trap gets hit. Everything new is irrelevant, everything that has been working already through all of DB is still working.

- There was a fair amount of high mode in use today. Some people switched to it or were on it by default. Honestly, it didn't work too badly.

- I went 2-3 in the first stage. My pick 3 was the same in all 5 matches: Roar Bahamut Giga Metal Drift-10, Dynamite Perseus Over Drift-0, and Vanish Fafnir Tapered Bearing'-9. I ended up not using Vanish, perhaps I should have. I picked Roar in 3 matches and Dynamite in 2. Not coincidentally, I lost every Roar match and won every Dynamite match.

- The Roar matches all went 2-3. One of them was opposite spin, and close. Two, my opponents picked Guilty, and they were VERY close. They were good, fun matches, but I did not win them. I seem to have forgotten that I have one of the better Drift drivers in existence, I hear arka.paul has one of the others. And I need to USE IT MORE. I did very well on my Dynamite matches, it was way less close on those.

- Anyway, with a 2-3 record, you're not going to the finals. Ah well. That's on me.

- The ties were kind of terrible today, there were an AWFUL LOT OF opposite spin matchups that I had to record, in both the first stage and finals. What can I say, Beyblade's broken. TT broke it and now they look like they're walking away from it. Classy.

- The finals were the way they always are; opposite spin ties. I saw a fair amount of Prominence, Dynamite everywhere, a lot of Guilty, and usually Vanish. Decks with two directional attack types didn't do well. I also saw some World on Drift, both in left and right. There are worse options I guess, it's a good high mode option.

- Allen decided to do "a meme". He did a 3 Xtreme finals deck for 3rd place. That's X on Astral Left, X' on Rage, and XM on Guilty, I think. I might have the wrong tips on the wrong layers but you get the point. I didn't see that match, but he did win. Earned that one I guess.

- JCMakeEmBurst made it to the finals today; made it all the way to 4th as well! He's quite good, he earned that. Think he beat me too during first round, it was a close one. Allen third, geetster99 2nd, and there's Crisis again in 1st.

- Sentiment against Deck Format is growing amongst participants; I have grown to hate it. It's very strategy based, sure, but it's also very different than first stage play, which hardly makes it representative of the rest of the tournament. It also leads to opposite spin matchup ties an awful lot. Considering that 3v3 is now an option, I would like to see it permitted for Finals play, and I would like to see WBO Deck Format be used less. Maybe 3v3 to 5 points, or 5v5 to 5. Honestly, I don't find Deck Format fun. It's annoying at times. And KOs being worth 1 point means it's hardly worth it to even try attack. I would see some attack types in finals decks, but mostly it was stam and opposite spin stealing the show again. Consider making KOs 2 points again, but also consider doing away with deck format entirely. 3v3 and 5v5 are better options. It's a legacy format designed to let people pretend that Beyblade has a ton of strategy, but more often than not it just leads to tie hell. And you might be okay with that, but I'm the one who has to judge these matches and I'M NOT! Just remember, if you think the current tie hell situation is cool and great, I don't actually want to hear your opinion on the matter, keep it to yourself, you're prolonging known issues.

- Judging ties is still completely miserable. It's an unsolved problem. Here's a solution: ditch deck format, switch to 3v3 or 5v5 so we encounter less of it, and adopt 5G rules. Or, you know, just leave things the way they are and keep exacerbating the problem.

- March is apparently way too early for an outdoor tournament in the central Atlantic region. Bladers (me) lost feeling in their hands. It was grim.

- P3C1 is okay. I guess. We like it better than Pick 1, sure. But it's definitely less fun to play than 3v3 or 5v5. We wanted to try it, and it's... well it's just not as fun as 3v3. Interesting, but, given that 3v3 is an option, there's no reason to use it. The mindgames just aren't interesting and everyone is bringing mostly the same 3 beys. Not really interested in playing P3C1 again.

I had a fun time, despite it all. I hope everyone else who attended had fun. I would like the cold to go away now it's making me VERY SAD. Also TT has abandoned us and is obviously winding down Burst now that they've broken everything, and WBO needs to move over to WBBA rulesets to make the game less onerous.
I also find P3C1 to not be great for standard. the constant matchup changes of 3v3 does make it a lot more fun, especially when compared to P3C1, which standard doesn’t quite benefit from, due to combos mostly boiling down to high stamina thing with LAD, high LAD thing, and attack, compared to more diverse formats like Classic or MFL. 3v3 finals could be interesting, but i think current deck with 2 point KOs would be a better thing for the meta. P3C1 is still better than double blind tho lol.
One of the chief complaints that put the variant driver rule into place is that you can get pigeonholed in WBO deck, especially if you don’t have an alpha KO attacker that can do well against both spin directions in the deck.  Well, WBO deck is laden with pigeonholing opportunities.   One might argue it is designed and primed to do just that.  Is it really the variant drivers that pigeonhole or is it the format?   Who were the culprits really?  KO being worth 2 points can help I think, but ppl would have to play things that KO other things of course.  If ppl don’t want to play things that KO things, but don’t want to have the risk of being pigeonholed, then having format options other than WBO deck seems like something that can be tried in the finals. 

I did have a very bad time in the final stage at my last burst standard host.  It took way too long and we finished under phone flash lights.  I have avoided burst standard since.
(Mar. 21, 2022  12:31 AM)Shindog Wrote: One of the chief complaints that put the variant driver rule into place is that you can get pigeonholed in WBO deck, especially if you don’t have an alpha KO attacker that can do well against both spin directions in the deck.  Well, WBO deck is laden with pigeonholing opportunities.   One might argue it is designed and primed to do just that.  Is it really the variant drivers that pigeonhole or is it the format?   Who were the culprits really?  KO being worth 2 points can help I think, but ppl would have to play things that KO other things of course.  If ppl don’t want to play things that KO things, but don’t want to have the risk of being pigeonholed, then having format options other than WBO deck seems like something that can be tried in the finals. 

I did have a very bad time in the final stage at my last burst standard host.  It took way too long and we finished under phone flash lights.  I have avoided burst standard since.

So a lot of us were talking at the event and we more or less agree that now with there being multiple formats to play in and its not JUST Single Bey amd WBO Deck, that the Driver Varient rule isn't needed, so long as WBO deck doesnt exist. We feel like we should either have 1 or the other. If we were to keep WBO Deck Format then we should pobably have the Variant Driver rule in effect at least for Deck format only. But if we were to get rid of WBO Deck format entirely then having the Driver Variants being allowed is fine.

Side note: Another possible thing that could fix the issue and allow us to keep both would be if the WBO definition for Spining was removed and we just use WBBA's definition instead.
(Mar. 20, 2022  10:55 PM)DeceasedCrab Wrote: The following are words I have to say about "You Can Only Choose 1!", a ranked Burst Standard P3C1 tournament during the release season where basically nothing new is coing out and I'm guessing Burst is winding down. Let me know if I forgot anything important.

- We did not know going into this one that it was going to be frightfully cold. The wind wasn't supposed to be terrible but it was.  It's March, it's not supposed to be too cold for this, but it was. I'm still cold now.

- We had a 20 person 5 round swiss, followed by a 8 person single elimination finals. P3C1 format. We didn't get started until about 12:20 and finished around 4:10. It was very cold. We only had 20 people show up out of an expected 32, and you know what, it was so cold I don't blame them. Windchill.

- Everyone forgot to bring stadium wipes. Mine dried out, everyone else assumed everyone else was bringing them. Our stadiums got filthy. I can't even find these alcohol wipes at the store anymore, all the wipes are using bleach or ammonia instead of alcohol and none of those are really good to use on beystadiums. I guess I have to look for them again.

- We got to the pavilion an hour before tournament start, and started around 12:20, and as happens from time to time some people showed up saying that they were having a birthday party there, and they didn't reserve it because the county isn't reserving the pavilion currently, and could we please share the pavilion. And CrisisCrusher07 is too nice for his own good so we let them have the table away from the tournament match tables, we tend to have that one extra. This turned out to be a huge mistake. The partygoers were for the most part pleasant, but either they were burning incense or cooking turkish coffee or some other INCREDIBLY SMELLY DRINK OR GAS. It was VILE and because of the wind it was getting EVERYWHERE. There was a lot of coughing going on. I'm almost sure what they were doing violated county park use ordinances, I'll check those later. Anyway, the next time someone asks to share the pavilion we're just gonna have to tell them no, on the offchance they might bring incredibly smelly stuff with them. It was really bad.

- Although multiple drivers of the same type could be used in both first stage and finals, not too many people did that. I did (Drift and Metal Drift), so did Allen Schaffer. For most of first stage, people were using different tips. Later on in the finals most people were using distinct tips, except Allen for the third place match. More on that later.

- I was one of the judges at the tournament today. There were 3 beystadiums total, and we had a couple of judges around. We only had 20 participants, we didn't need 4. Crisis never runs 4 anyway.

- The wind was terrible. Chairs knocked over, beystadiums knocked over, and the windchill made it feel 20 degrees colder.

- I didn't anyone use Atomic' and although I saw some 9 armors I saw only a couple of Ultimate matches, and usually it lost. I did my Atomic' on Greatest Raphael testing... elsewhere, and I determined that it is INTENSELY WEAK TO HIGH MODE. It just loses all hope when the bear trap gets hit. Everything new is irrelevant, everything that has been working already through all of DB is still working.

- There was a fair amount of high mode in use today. Some people switched to it or were on it by default. Honestly, it didn't work too badly.

- I went 2-3 in the first stage. My pick 3 was the same in all 5 matches: Roar Bahamut Giga Metal Drift-10, Dynamite Perseus Over Drift-0, and Vanish Fafnir Tapered Bearing'-9. I ended up not using Vanish, perhaps I should have. I picked Roar in 3 matches and Dynamite in 2. Not coincidentally, I lost every Roar match and won every Dynamite match.

- The Roar matches all went 2-3. One of them was opposite spin, and close. Two, my opponents picked Guilty, and they were VERY close. They were good, fun matches, but I did not win them. I seem to have forgotten that I have one of the better Drift drivers in existence, I hear arka.paul has one of the others. And I need to USE IT MORE. I did very well on my Dynamite matches, it was way less close on those.

- Anyway, with a 2-3 record, you're not going to the finals. Ah well. That's on me.

- The ties were kind of terrible today, there were an AWFUL LOT OF opposite spin matchups that I had to record, in both the first stage and finals. What can I say, Beyblade's broken. TT broke it and now they look like they're walking away from it. Classy.

- The finals were the way they always are; opposite spin ties. I saw a fair amount of Prominence, Dynamite everywhere, a lot of Guilty, and usually Vanish. Decks with two directional attack types didn't do well. I also saw some World on Drift, both in left and right. There are worse options I guess, it's a good high mode option.

- Allen decided to do "a meme". He did a 3 Xtreme finals deck for 3rd place. That's X on Astral Left, X' on Rage, and XM on Guilty, I think. I might have the wrong tips on the wrong layers but you get the point. I didn't see that match, but he did win. Earned that one I guess.

- JCMakeEmBurst made it to the finals today; made it all the way to 4th as well! He's quite good, he earned that. Think he beat me too during first round, it was a close one. Allen third, geetster99 2nd, and there's Crisis again in 1st.

- Sentiment against Deck Format is growing amongst participants; I have grown to hate it. It's very strategy based, sure, but it's also very different than first stage play, which hardly makes it representative of the rest of the tournament. It also leads to opposite spin matchup ties an awful lot. Considering that 3v3 is now an option, I would like to see it permitted for Finals play, and I would like to see WBO Deck Format be used less. Maybe 3v3 to 5 points, or 5v5 to 5. Honestly, I don't find Deck Format fun. It's annoying at times. And KOs being worth 1 point means it's hardly worth it to even try attack. I would see some attack types in finals decks, but mostly it was stam and opposite spin stealing the show again. Consider making KOs 2 points again, but also consider doing away with deck format entirely. 3v3 and 5v5 are better options. It's a legacy format designed to let people pretend that Beyblade has a ton of strategy, but more often than not it just leads to tie hell. And you might be okay with that, but I'm the one who has to judge these matches and I'M NOT! Just remember, if you think the current tie hell situation is cool and great, I don't actually want to hear your opinion on the matter, keep it to yourself, you're prolonging known issues.

- Judging ties is still completely miserable. It's an unsolved problem. Here's a solution: ditch deck format, switch to 3v3 or 5v5 so we encounter less of it, and adopt 5G rules. Or, you know, just leave things the way they are and keep exacerbating the problem.

- March is apparently way too early for an outdoor tournament in the central Atlantic region. Bladers (me) lost feeling in their hands. It was grim.

- P3C1 is okay. I guess. We like it better than Pick 1, sure. But it's definitely less fun to play than 3v3 or 5v5. We wanted to try it, and it's... well it's just not as fun as 3v3. Interesting, but, given that 3v3 is an option, there's no reason to use it. The mindgames just aren't interesting and everyone is bringing mostly the same 3 beys. Not really interested in playing P3C1 again.

I had a fun time, despite it all. I hope everyone else who attended had fun. I would like the cold to go away now it's making me VERY SAD. Also TT has abandoned us and is obviously winding down Burst now that they've broken everything, and WBO needs to move over to WBBA rulesets to make the game less onerous.

P3C1 was alright. I’d definitely rather do that than single bey but would always rather do 3v3. My one and only concern is excluding beginners who only have one bey. 

I don’t think I’m t o t a l l y sick of the finals format as a player but I think all of the reasons people have against it are entirely reasonable and I can’t imagine having to judge it. Actually, I can, and that’s part of why I’m scared to start judging/hosting. Seems like a nightmare.

Edit: I’m sure the reason why it still feels somewhat tolerable to me is that I have only made it past the first round of finals once. It’s easy to see why those who have been playing longer and have placed more frequently have grown weary.
(Mar. 21, 2022  12:52 AM)CrisisCrusher07 Wrote:
(Mar. 21, 2022  12:31 AM)Shindog Wrote: One of the chief complaints that put the variant driver rule into place is that you can get pigeonholed in WBO deck, especially if you don’t have an alpha KO attacker that can do well against both spin directions in the deck.  Well, WBO deck is laden with pigeonholing opportunities.   One might argue it is designed and primed to do just that.  Is it really the variant drivers that pigeonhole or is it the format?   Who were the culprits really?  KO being worth 2 points can help I think, but ppl would have to play things that KO other things of course.  If ppl don’t want to play things that KO things, but don’t want to have the risk of being pigeonholed, then having format options other than WBO deck seems like something that can be tried in the finals. 

I did have a very bad time in the final stage at my last burst standard host.  It took way too long and we finished under phone flash lights.  I have avoided burst standard since.

So a lot of us were talking at the event and we more or less agree that now with there being multiple formats to play in and its not JUST Single Bey amd WBO Deck, that the Driver Varient rule isn't needed, so long as WBO deck doesnt exist. We feel like we should either have 1 or the other. If we were to keep WBO Deck Format then we should pobably have the Variant Driver rule in effect at least for Deck format only. But if we were to get rid of WBO Deck format entirely then having the Driver Variants being allowed is fine.

Side note: Another possible thing that could fix the issue and allow us to keep both would be if the WBO definition for Spining was removed and we just use WBBA's definition instead.

I cannot argue with the fact that there are problems with burst standard, but I am not sure how the variant driver rule will help final stage WBO deck run better or faster.  There are plenty of LAD options without touching a variant, and thing can definitely still take forever, as long as you play deck format.  I just fail to see how the variant driver rule can have an impact.  If you look at the deck lists in the WC thread that don’t have variant drivers, they should look like they are still very much capable of doing what decks with double bearing and double drift can do.  Does a deck with let’s say HXt+’, Br’ and/or Dr really function that differently in WBO deck format from a deck with double bearing or double drift?  I should point out the longest final stage I have ever run personally, that I mentioned in my previous post, the one where we had to do with flashlights, happened while the variant driver rule was very much in effect.

I think it is reasonable to look at other WBO formats, to see why WBO deck finals seem to work in some of them and not as well in others.  In my opinion:

1) PLA/HMS: even though part limitations could be an issue that breaks WBO deck format, WBO deck format plays very well. Final stage isn’t drawn out because KO attack is incredibly powerful in the preferred stadium in these formats.  WBO deck plays fine. 
2) MFL: KO Attack is extremely powerful and LAD draws are just bit less common anyway.  WBO deck plays fine. 
3) MFB Standard: okay, this format can have some issues similar to burst standard.  WBO deck can be frustrating.  
4) Zero-G: the stadiums’ design, like the DB stadium, produces less draws.  Plays quite fast anyway also due to stadium design.  WBO deck plays fine 
5) Burst Classic: “Dragoon sucks” so one direction of the LAD equation is so bad that you can’t really have LAD wars.  Also, things burst more. WBO deck plays fine.
6) Burst limited: seems capable of having the same issue as burst standard, even tho very powerful KO attackers are available in both spin directions.  I can’t make sense of this one.  WBO deck can be frustrating. 
7) BGT:  Judgment and Zwei are extremely powerful KO attackers and Imperial is also quite capable at KOing. WBO deck plays fine.

Seems to me WBO deck format can do very well in formats where:

1) stadium design limits the number of draws
2) when KO attack is extremely powerful (can we do this by making KO more rewarding? Allow it to reverse fortunes?) 
3) one spin direction is just terrible and nearly unusable.