The following are words I have to say about "Super Star's Battle Bladers!", a ranked Burst Standard tournament using 3v3 format.
I recommend the following music for reading the report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhDhZxWmmQU . There's a theme here. Plus, I'm very retro.
- The weather was... indoors. So, weather not as much of a factor. It was too hot to open the windows, but at the same time some rooms at this venue are cooler than others. After a while I tended to avoid the freeplay room, it got very hot in there. I think maybe once summer kicks in we're going to have problems.
- We had 24 participants today, making this a 5 round swiss. Everyone got to play at least 5. No tiebreakers this time.
- We started around 12:15, and the first round went until about 3:45. The tournament itself wrapped up around 4:45. We had 2 running beystadiums total, normally we would run 3 or 4 but we only had one room for the tournament matches, they had some MtG players in the other room. We were expecting up to 32 people, I'm glad we only got 24 or we would've been there forever.
- I did no match judging today. Unusual for me! CrisisCrusher07 asked me to be the head judge (to resolve ties and review footage) and as a result I didn't have to judge any matches. I only had a single instance of a judge asking me to review video in the first stage, and only two instances in the second stage. Honestly? Weird and unusual for the region, normally the head judge gets called over a lot more. I myself go to the head judge about once a round on average to have them check certain ties. I think, putting it lightly, that was due to who was and was not present at the tournament today. Some bladers are more ready to call judge calls into question, and some bladers are more willing to accept judge decisions. And some judges are just full of self-doubt and want to doublecheck things.
- I was mostly on standby near the tournament match beystadiums, thankfully one of the cooler rooms. Seated near me were HeartUnicorn123 and FireThriller06 , Crisis' kids. I ended up talking to them a lot during the tournament, and even told them the story of when I made an Onion Milkshake. At one point I became very convinced I wanted to drink a melted chapstick, but according to the poison control website that's a bad idea. Sorry folks, I draw the line at poisoning myself. I'm sure it was probably disconcerting to hear "I am thirsty; I want to drink a chapstick."
- I hadn't seen LJ-Blader and MamaBey2122 in months! I was glad to see they made it to the tournament today! They'd apparently had 3 of my stadium leveling mats in the car for 6 months, hahaha.
- During one of my matches in the first round, after I was KOed, I insisted the judge go get the level and check the stadiums. As I expected, the balance was way off. I didn't request the point be redone, I just had them fix the stadiums so they were level. I can accept defeat gracefully. Later on in the finals, after a particularly dire KO, I would announce "I am going to be a huge baby about this, I insist on checking the levels again", found the level, measured it, found it was level, accepted the lost point and said "Okay, I'm done being a baby about this, let's continue playing." Pobody's Nerfect.
- This tournament was using 3v3. My favorite format. Normally, I do quite badly at 3v3, but today I did quite well. I didn't become more strategic as a result of practice, rather, I think I've gotten better at attack launches. As readers of previous reports will recall, my attack launch has been iffy at best. Unreliable's a good word for it. Guilty on Qc' seems to be difficult for me to flower on. Today? Less of a problem, way less of a problem. I've actually been getting a lot of KOs lately.
- I don't know what everyone was using today. I only know what my opponents were using today. Many people were using Wind and Dynamite, as normal. Guilty too. Me, I was using both, as usual. Not too many first stage worlds. FireThriller had an interesting deck, 3 left spins all in high mode! Vanish, World, Roar, and he did quite well with them, enough to reach the finals. I saw some opponents using Prominence and Burst, and also some Vanish.
- My deck for first stage is fairly standard. And it works well. Guilty Longinus Fortress Quick'-2, Wind Dragon Over Bearing Drift-4, and Dynamite Perseus+F Illegal Bearing'-0.
- The first stage went very well for me, 4-1. My first opponent was WolfRai, who had sort of a difficult day. I beat Turbo Warrior in round 2, but I would see him again in the finals, he did very well today.
- I faced FireThriller in the third round. I knew his deck already, he hadn't made much effort to hide it. But I am a crab of integrity, and I made no changes to my deck before the match. I did put my two right spin beys into high mode, and I made sure to let him know when my Guilty was out in case he wanted to put his bey into low mode. I actually repeated my suggestion a few times, until I'd confirmed he heard me, he did switch it into low for same spin. But... I managed to KO him. It was a close match.
- The fourth round was my obligatory match against Crisis. I mean, Challonge hates me. It's always making me fight him. Last tournament, I managed to beat him in the first stage, a rarity. Today, not so much! 3-2. The gap is narrowing, it's no longer quite as much of a shutout anymore. I can't really beat him on same spin strength, but the difference in drivers helped a few times.
- The fifth round was a reunion match against LJ-Blader. We'd been looking at the upcoming possibilities for the round 5 match with dread, and unfortunately we had to battle each other. I won this time around, and unfortunately knocked LJ-Blader out of the running for the finals.
- From what the judges tell me, only one blader had multiple of the same tip in the same deck in round 1, and I think around round 3 another blader had multiple of the same armor that they found. Armor crimes, I call it. I'm always looking for people committing armor crimes. So a judge called out "Hey Crab: Armor Crimes!" and I knew.
- The 18th hole was where things really fell apart for me. It had a bunch of those raised divots, and some truly absurd out of bounds locations. By the time I finally got the ball to the green I was going for a double bogey, and of course I missed my first shot. I managed a triple bogey before getting forced to forfeit the hole at +4.
- 4-1 is a guaranteed finals spot, good enough for second seed this time around. Unfortunately, LJ-Blader placed 9th and MamaBey 10th. Darn. I was hoping they'd make it. Buchholz is cruel sometimes.
- My deck format deck is a bit predictable at this point, but it was enough to get me to second place last time, so I didn't make many changes today. World Over Drift, Guilty Fortress Quick'-2, Wind Dragon Illegal Bearing Drift-4.
- My launch strength is Good, but it's not great. In finals, I have become reluctant to try a same spin stamina match. This has led me to choose attack more often. Today it paid off.
- Normally the quarterfinals is as far as I get. Dragreus111 was my opponent today. Had a very similar deck to mine, but with Wheel instead of Over and X' instead of Qc'. Today I started with the Guilty, sort of an uncommon choice for me. But a choice that worked. I stuck with Guilty; if I'd switched to World he would counterpick Guilty, and if I switched to Wind he would counterpick world. There were a few matches where he picked Guilty against my Guilty, and a few where he picked Wind where he won, but felt obligated to switch to his Guilty for similar reasons, which I would attempt to beat with my own Guilty. I racked up a 3-1 lead, then 4-1, then 4-2, 4-3... and 5-3. So I made it to the semifinals! I played Guilty the entire time.
- My semifinals opponent was Kirito1696. I rarely seem to play him. Again, similar deck, but instead of Wind he had Dynamite BDr. Our first battle ended with an outspin win for his Dynamite against my Guilty, but the judge voided it due to midair contact. We redid the battle and my Guilty won via KO. This... did not sit well with me. It didn't seem fair or right. I insisted that the first battle's midair contact had no real benefit for my Guilty or his Dynamite and we should've counted it. We treated this as a 1-0 for Kirito and moved on. It played along the same logic of my previous match. I stuck with Guilty the entire time, as I was never given a good opportunity to counter World. We had some Guilty mirror matches, and a couple of my Guilty vs his Dynamite. We went from 1-0 to 1-1, 2-1, 2-2. And then I managed to win 2 in a row with Guilty, 2-4. After that, he made a resounding recovery, 3-4 and 4-4. He was mulling over whether to choose Dynamite or Guilty for the last match, and I truthfully told him Dynamite was his best bet. It certainly was! He beat me 5-4, but in his own words, I caused him a great deal of anxiety during that match.
- My third place match opponent was Turbo Blader. I'd defeated him in the first stage, and we met again in the finals. His deck was a Dynamite, a Vanish, and a Guilty. I kept up my wacky Guilty tactics. I actually countered his Dynamite (or was it Wind?) with a World this time around. When we managed to get the score to 4-4 he finally chose his Vanish, and my Guilty managed to win. It was a close match!
- Out of the 14 points I scored in finals, I think 1 of those was World and 13 of those were Guilty. Uhhhh, that's new for me. That's an unusual level of attack competency. In the Guilty mirror battles I didn't need to worry about flower patterns as much, I just needed to launch hard. In the battles against right spin stamina, I did reasonably for once!
- Kirito1696 got 1st place! CrisisCrusher07 got 2nd place, it's rare to see him knocked out of the top spot nowadays. I got 3rd, and Turbo Blader 4th.
- I was lucky I didn't have to judge it, I would've run out of steam really fast.
- I talked to a bunch of people about Beyblade X today. I think it seems... silly. It's going to be a while before all the oddities get worked out and we start getting good parts. I have somehow only learned a decent attack launch just in time for it to be way less neccessary. I think the toothed belt is going to be loud and probably won't work good. I worry that tying the burst strength to the bits is going to be a problem. I've preordered some, and here's hoping TT does a better job this time around.
- Also, Gear Sports is a terrible name for anything.
A good tournament! I'm probably going to miss the next one on the 11th, I'll be out of town.
I recommend the following music for reading the report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhDhZxWmmQU . There's a theme here. Plus, I'm very retro.
- The weather was... indoors. So, weather not as much of a factor. It was too hot to open the windows, but at the same time some rooms at this venue are cooler than others. After a while I tended to avoid the freeplay room, it got very hot in there. I think maybe once summer kicks in we're going to have problems.
- We had 24 participants today, making this a 5 round swiss. Everyone got to play at least 5. No tiebreakers this time.
- We started around 12:15, and the first round went until about 3:45. The tournament itself wrapped up around 4:45. We had 2 running beystadiums total, normally we would run 3 or 4 but we only had one room for the tournament matches, they had some MtG players in the other room. We were expecting up to 32 people, I'm glad we only got 24 or we would've been there forever.
- I did no match judging today. Unusual for me! CrisisCrusher07 asked me to be the head judge (to resolve ties and review footage) and as a result I didn't have to judge any matches. I only had a single instance of a judge asking me to review video in the first stage, and only two instances in the second stage. Honestly? Weird and unusual for the region, normally the head judge gets called over a lot more. I myself go to the head judge about once a round on average to have them check certain ties. I think, putting it lightly, that was due to who was and was not present at the tournament today. Some bladers are more ready to call judge calls into question, and some bladers are more willing to accept judge decisions. And some judges are just full of self-doubt and want to doublecheck things.
- I was mostly on standby near the tournament match beystadiums, thankfully one of the cooler rooms. Seated near me were HeartUnicorn123 and FireThriller06 , Crisis' kids. I ended up talking to them a lot during the tournament, and even told them the story of when I made an Onion Milkshake. At one point I became very convinced I wanted to drink a melted chapstick, but according to the poison control website that's a bad idea. Sorry folks, I draw the line at poisoning myself. I'm sure it was probably disconcerting to hear "I am thirsty; I want to drink a chapstick."
- I hadn't seen LJ-Blader and MamaBey2122 in months! I was glad to see they made it to the tournament today! They'd apparently had 3 of my stadium leveling mats in the car for 6 months, hahaha.
- During one of my matches in the first round, after I was KOed, I insisted the judge go get the level and check the stadiums. As I expected, the balance was way off. I didn't request the point be redone, I just had them fix the stadiums so they were level. I can accept defeat gracefully. Later on in the finals, after a particularly dire KO, I would announce "I am going to be a huge baby about this, I insist on checking the levels again", found the level, measured it, found it was level, accepted the lost point and said "Okay, I'm done being a baby about this, let's continue playing." Pobody's Nerfect.
- This tournament was using 3v3. My favorite format. Normally, I do quite badly at 3v3, but today I did quite well. I didn't become more strategic as a result of practice, rather, I think I've gotten better at attack launches. As readers of previous reports will recall, my attack launch has been iffy at best. Unreliable's a good word for it. Guilty on Qc' seems to be difficult for me to flower on. Today? Less of a problem, way less of a problem. I've actually been getting a lot of KOs lately.
- I don't know what everyone was using today. I only know what my opponents were using today. Many people were using Wind and Dynamite, as normal. Guilty too. Me, I was using both, as usual. Not too many first stage worlds. FireThriller had an interesting deck, 3 left spins all in high mode! Vanish, World, Roar, and he did quite well with them, enough to reach the finals. I saw some opponents using Prominence and Burst, and also some Vanish.
- My deck for first stage is fairly standard. And it works well. Guilty Longinus Fortress Quick'-2, Wind Dragon Over Bearing Drift-4, and Dynamite Perseus+F Illegal Bearing'-0.
- The first stage went very well for me, 4-1. My first opponent was WolfRai, who had sort of a difficult day. I beat Turbo Warrior in round 2, but I would see him again in the finals, he did very well today.
- I faced FireThriller in the third round. I knew his deck already, he hadn't made much effort to hide it. But I am a crab of integrity, and I made no changes to my deck before the match. I did put my two right spin beys into high mode, and I made sure to let him know when my Guilty was out in case he wanted to put his bey into low mode. I actually repeated my suggestion a few times, until I'd confirmed he heard me, he did switch it into low for same spin. But... I managed to KO him. It was a close match.
- The fourth round was my obligatory match against Crisis. I mean, Challonge hates me. It's always making me fight him. Last tournament, I managed to beat him in the first stage, a rarity. Today, not so much! 3-2. The gap is narrowing, it's no longer quite as much of a shutout anymore. I can't really beat him on same spin strength, but the difference in drivers helped a few times.
- The fifth round was a reunion match against LJ-Blader. We'd been looking at the upcoming possibilities for the round 5 match with dread, and unfortunately we had to battle each other. I won this time around, and unfortunately knocked LJ-Blader out of the running for the finals.
- From what the judges tell me, only one blader had multiple of the same tip in the same deck in round 1, and I think around round 3 another blader had multiple of the same armor that they found. Armor crimes, I call it. I'm always looking for people committing armor crimes. So a judge called out "Hey Crab: Armor Crimes!" and I knew.
- The 18th hole was where things really fell apart for me. It had a bunch of those raised divots, and some truly absurd out of bounds locations. By the time I finally got the ball to the green I was going for a double bogey, and of course I missed my first shot. I managed a triple bogey before getting forced to forfeit the hole at +4.
- 4-1 is a guaranteed finals spot, good enough for second seed this time around. Unfortunately, LJ-Blader placed 9th and MamaBey 10th. Darn. I was hoping they'd make it. Buchholz is cruel sometimes.
- My deck format deck is a bit predictable at this point, but it was enough to get me to second place last time, so I didn't make many changes today. World Over Drift, Guilty Fortress Quick'-2, Wind Dragon Illegal Bearing Drift-4.
- My launch strength is Good, but it's not great. In finals, I have become reluctant to try a same spin stamina match. This has led me to choose attack more often. Today it paid off.
- Normally the quarterfinals is as far as I get. Dragreus111 was my opponent today. Had a very similar deck to mine, but with Wheel instead of Over and X' instead of Qc'. Today I started with the Guilty, sort of an uncommon choice for me. But a choice that worked. I stuck with Guilty; if I'd switched to World he would counterpick Guilty, and if I switched to Wind he would counterpick world. There were a few matches where he picked Guilty against my Guilty, and a few where he picked Wind where he won, but felt obligated to switch to his Guilty for similar reasons, which I would attempt to beat with my own Guilty. I racked up a 3-1 lead, then 4-1, then 4-2, 4-3... and 5-3. So I made it to the semifinals! I played Guilty the entire time.
- My semifinals opponent was Kirito1696. I rarely seem to play him. Again, similar deck, but instead of Wind he had Dynamite BDr. Our first battle ended with an outspin win for his Dynamite against my Guilty, but the judge voided it due to midair contact. We redid the battle and my Guilty won via KO. This... did not sit well with me. It didn't seem fair or right. I insisted that the first battle's midair contact had no real benefit for my Guilty or his Dynamite and we should've counted it. We treated this as a 1-0 for Kirito and moved on. It played along the same logic of my previous match. I stuck with Guilty the entire time, as I was never given a good opportunity to counter World. We had some Guilty mirror matches, and a couple of my Guilty vs his Dynamite. We went from 1-0 to 1-1, 2-1, 2-2. And then I managed to win 2 in a row with Guilty, 2-4. After that, he made a resounding recovery, 3-4 and 4-4. He was mulling over whether to choose Dynamite or Guilty for the last match, and I truthfully told him Dynamite was his best bet. It certainly was! He beat me 5-4, but in his own words, I caused him a great deal of anxiety during that match.
- My third place match opponent was Turbo Blader. I'd defeated him in the first stage, and we met again in the finals. His deck was a Dynamite, a Vanish, and a Guilty. I kept up my wacky Guilty tactics. I actually countered his Dynamite (or was it Wind?) with a World this time around. When we managed to get the score to 4-4 he finally chose his Vanish, and my Guilty managed to win. It was a close match!
- Out of the 14 points I scored in finals, I think 1 of those was World and 13 of those were Guilty. Uhhhh, that's new for me. That's an unusual level of attack competency. In the Guilty mirror battles I didn't need to worry about flower patterns as much, I just needed to launch hard. In the battles against right spin stamina, I did reasonably for once!
- Kirito1696 got 1st place! CrisisCrusher07 got 2nd place, it's rare to see him knocked out of the top spot nowadays. I got 3rd, and Turbo Blader 4th.
- I was lucky I didn't have to judge it, I would've run out of steam really fast.
- I talked to a bunch of people about Beyblade X today. I think it seems... silly. It's going to be a while before all the oddities get worked out and we start getting good parts. I have somehow only learned a decent attack launch just in time for it to be way less neccessary. I think the toothed belt is going to be loud and probably won't work good. I worry that tying the burst strength to the bits is going to be a problem. I've preordered some, and here's hoping TT does a better job this time around.
- Also, Gear Sports is a terrible name for anything.
A good tournament! I'm probably going to miss the next one on the 11th, I'll be out of town.
![[Image: 4iz876.gif]](https://i.imgflip.com/4iz876.gif)