The following are words I have to say about "Nightwing's Blader's Kingdom #8 - Final Qualifier || Bey Days 2022", a tournament utilizing Nightwing's Blader's Kingdom format with his special Bounty rules.
I recommend the following music for reading the report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtRcVczU44
- We had about 32 people pre-register, and maybe about 30 or so actually show up. I don't remember the exact number, Nightwing will tell us. Having an odd or even number of bladers did not make a significant difference today, there were always about 5 bladers idle at any given time, or more.
- The weather was okay because it was high 80ish degrees and also we were indoors. Mike had a fan on so, it was fine inside, a bit warm. I don't know what you want here, it's summer. It's still fine. In winter, I'm not sure it'll be warm enough? Only one way to find out.
- Mike.Nightwing I am begging you to do something about the accoustics in your venue. Today's tournament was LOUD. Mike's announcements Could Not Be Heard over the ambient blading and chatter and videogames. There were just too many people inside. My ears hurt. You NEED some wall hangings and carpet. Or rug. Something to take the edge off of the concrete. It's getting unsustainable.
- There were more chairs available today, which was nice. A lot more parents having a sit during the tournament. So that's good.
- Lack of time was not a factor in this tournament. Nightwing controls the building so we can take as long as we want. There was the 120 minute open stage (he made it longer this time), followed by the finals double elimination. We got underway at 11:24, and the finals started around 2. The finals lasted until 4:30, double elimination has a lot of holdup.
- I didn't have to lend out any parts today, people more or less knew what was going on by this point. I thought I noticed a few duplicate armor rings, but it turns out I just can't tell 2 from 9. That's on you, Crabbo!
- The biggest change today was the bounty system, which I and a few others knew about ahead of time but Nightwing decided to leave as a surprise for most people at tournament time. Today, the attendees who had placed in the top 3 in previous BK tournaments were known as Bounties, and issued a special armband to help with identification. Normal players were issued the standard 8 coins, and followed agreement rules on wagers and coinflips for stadium selection.
- Bounty players, on the other hand (and there were 8-9 of them!) were issued 20 coins, but the following restrictions: Bounty players cannot INITIATE challenges, only accept them, bounty players have to accept every wager, bounty players do not get to decide the stadium, and the same bounty player can be challenged multiple times (but not twice in a row). And most importantly, bounty player wagers pay 2-1 odds: a normal blader wagering 3 coins would win 6 coins from a bounty player. And because bounty players cannot issue challenges, bounty players CANNOT challenge other bounty players in the first stage.
- My armband kept falling off after around 4 matches. Eventually I strung it through the left earpiece of my eyeglasses. I'm sure Nightwing has a picture. I look and act ridiculous. If I find a picture of it I'll add it in here.
- My deck in the first stage consisted of Vanish Bahamut Tapered Bearing'-10, Guilty Longinus Karma Quick'-2, Dynamite Perseus+F Giga Drift-0, Astral Spriggan Over Zone'+Z-3, and Prominence Belial2 Nexus+S Moebius-6. I don't know why I keep running Prominence, it's good in opposite spin but there's a lot of right spin out there, people have mostly stopped using Roar. I like Prominence but it's not actually that good and I would be better off using something else, maybe Roar. And Astral just plays like trash on same spin. The ability to direction change helps a bit, and I left it in same spin sometimes (I ran into a mirror match with maxrod and I decided okay you know what let's just try it), but I honestly think I used Astral today because I got confused and thought it was World instead. That's how little I think of Astral. I shoulda used World.
- Guilty did good work today. Buncha KOs, and one unexpected burst. More or less everyone used a bit of Guilty to good effect.
- This tournament was... weird. It was weird because most of the bladers there were Very Reluctant to challenge the Bounty bladers! There were long stretches of time where no one would challenge us. We were just standing around... waiting. I ended up having 10 matches total and easily had time for 20. Some bounties only ended up having very few matches. CrisisCrusher07 had 3 matches in the first round, that's it. geetster99 had 6. I and LJ-Blader had around 10 each. In my case at least, I think it's because I look the least menacing and least capable out of the bounty bladers there; I was more approachable because I look confused and lost most of the time.
- Out of my 10 matches, only two ended up giving me a serious challenge, and they were good bladers and related to some of the better bladers in the region. Monster2009 is married to Allen Schaffer and it was a close match. I ended up winning 5-4. I had Nightwing doublecheck the footage of that last match just to confirm which bey won it, I was prepared to reverse the coin allocation if he ruled against my bey, but he didn't. And I had plenty of time to do this because no one was challenging me. The other blader, and my one loss during first stage, was to MamaBey2122, LJ's mother, who swept me 5-0. Which... dang, how. She's really good at this That's How. Do not underestimate her!
- The bounty bladers at today's tournament were DeceasedCrab, geetster99, CrisisCrusher07, Allen Schaffer, LJ-Blader, maxrod, Mike.Nightwing, SPN_Z3R0, JCMakeEmBurst. Nine in total.
- I think a lack of advance warning about the bounty system led to some players having trouble grasping the critical strategies available during the bounty system. Nightwing tried to tell everyone several times that if they didn't challenge the bounty players, they weren't going to earn enough coins to make it to finals. But I don't think they could hear him. Ideally, I think people should've been told ahead of time in the thread. Anyway, these critical strategies: you can challenge the SAME blader more than once if they're a bounty, just not in consecutive matches. So if you're Mamabey and you sweep a bounty 5-0, yes, you COULD attribute it to luck, but you SHOULDN'T because you're a good blader and instead you should just keep challenging the crab for coins. You swept me 5-0! I asked her about it later and she said she wanted to try matches against Several bounty players, which is fair, and didn't think lightning would strike twice with the 5-0. I still think she would've beat me if she challenged again.
- As noted in BK7, people did not make big wagers when time was running out. You get 2-1 payout odds from bounties, and they start with 20, and you have to assume they win at least half their matches so you know that with 9 bounties running around you need at least 20. There were a couple bladers who ended in the 15-20 coin range because they weren't taking the big chances, trying to be a big shot. Now's your chance to be a Big Shot! If you're down a few coins, or even at your starting value, or even if you're doing good but still below 20, you have to do a big wager! But for the most part that didn't happen. The most I ever heard of a blader wagering against a bounty blader was 3. My last opponent, he wagered 3. I asked how many coins he had, he said 8. Knowing we were short on time, I suggested to him that if he wagers 8, I would have to wager 16, and beating me would bring his total to 24. But he stuck with 3, as was his right. He figured he'd have enough time for another match afterward. Ah well. Most bounty players, the highest wager they saw was 2, and I think one saw a 4 coin wager. Maybe not though. Anyway, people didn't make the most of the specil deal offered to them.
![[Image: spamton.webp]](https://i.ibb.co/Bt3DmKP/spamton.webp)
- 20 coins, honestly, was too much for the bounty players. Yes, you need to be able to ensure they have a decent enough stock because of the rules they are bound by, they are like casino dealers. However, 20 coins starts them way too high. I would personally say 12 would be appropriate at the lower end (a bit harsher to them) and 16 would be the maximum to start them with. 20 was too much. Some bounties only had 3 matches and still made it to the finals.
- I like the bounty system, I think it's interesting, but I think if we were to use it again we should lower the number of coins received and potentially open it up to Anyone who wanted to be a bounty blader and not just restrict it to those of us seasoned beyblade veterans, and limit the number of bounty bladers to 4-6. It was honestly weird to stand around waiting for people to challenge me and being prevented from challenging the other more seasoned bladers.
- Two of my matches were in a Zero-G Attack beystadium, ended up winning those. I mean, very cool of you Nightwing to have that thing available for Burst matches. But also, you're crazy, that thing's gonna get so damaged from burst and it causes me literal pain to see it used for Burst and not Zero-G. I love Zero-G format and want to see more tournaments but the beystadiums just aren't there. Anyway if you want to see KOs happen, Zero-G is the way to be. Such a good beystadium.
- I made to to the finals. Actually, every bounty blader made it to finals except for SPN_Z3RO. There were 9 bounties, so, one of us definitely wasn't making it in. I'd actually be interested in hearing what wagers he saw and what coin total he ended with. Unfortunately, none of the non-bounty bladers made it to finals; the 12 coin starting gap and understanding of the rules just wasn't there. I believe Monster2009, MamaBey2122, and Friedpasta came close. Probably SPN_Z3RO too.
- The finals were held in the DB beystadium, by random die roll. I had to make some changes to my deck for that. Quick' was NOT going to cut it in that stadium, I switched to Adventure+V. I wasn't alone, Crisis and geetster made the same decision. It's not bad on Guilty. I actually had it burst maxrod in opposite spin and it led to a major turnaround for our match. I tried using Prominence on Moebius, and spoiler alert that thing is BAD in DB. After Crisis sent me down to the lower bracket I asked him for suggestions, proposing two replacement tips. He suggested another, but eventually I settled on High Xtend+'. It didn't end up paying off, but I think that's more on the layer.
- Between first stage and finals I resumed my in-progress game of Sonic Mania on Nightwing's Switch. I managed to get the 6th and 7th chaos emeralds, first try. Sonic Got All Chaos Emeralds, Now Sonic Can Be Super Sonic, a fact that I latched onto because I was effectively brain poisoned by the end of first stage, and kept letting other people know. I would turn to the other players and judges and announce that Sonic Can Now Be Super Sonic. Look, I'm almost 39 and my brain doesn't work good anymore, thank you all for bearing with me with kindness and patience.
![[Image: nowsonic.png]](https://i.ibb.co/tmdq0Zy/nowsonic.png)
- So how did I do in finals? Well I had to player CrisisCrusher07. I have a rather checkered history against him in these tournaments. I HAVE beaten him in BK Finals and even WBO deck finals before, but it's not a common occurrence. In the last couple of tournaments he has found a rather effective 5v5 deck that is More Or Less unstoppable in this format, and it shows. He beat me in the upper bracket as my first opponent. It was either 5-3 or 5-2, not a trouncing but not too close.
- In the lower brackets I faced Nightwing, we had a close 5-4 match, and maxrod, also 5-4. They're good bladers, quite good. So there I was, up to the match where I'd either go on to the top 3 or end at 4th place. Who do I run into? CrisisCrusher07. How do you THINK it went? He's danged good at this. Beat me twice, knocked me out the dang bracket. I think the second time was another 5-2 or 5-3. One day I'll beat you in a BK finals again!
- Allen 3rd, Crisis 2nd, Geester 1st. Crisis won 1 of the 2 finals matches he needed.
- Now Sonic Can Be Super Sonic.
I think it was an interesting tournament, but the bounty system needs some refinement and advanced notification.
I would be specifically interested in hearing what the other bounty bladers thought, and also friedpasta and Mamabey and Monster. But I welcome thoughts on it from all other attendees!
I recommend the following music for reading the report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOtRcVczU44
- We had about 32 people pre-register, and maybe about 30 or so actually show up. I don't remember the exact number, Nightwing will tell us. Having an odd or even number of bladers did not make a significant difference today, there were always about 5 bladers idle at any given time, or more.
- The weather was okay because it was high 80ish degrees and also we were indoors. Mike had a fan on so, it was fine inside, a bit warm. I don't know what you want here, it's summer. It's still fine. In winter, I'm not sure it'll be warm enough? Only one way to find out.
- Mike.Nightwing I am begging you to do something about the accoustics in your venue. Today's tournament was LOUD. Mike's announcements Could Not Be Heard over the ambient blading and chatter and videogames. There were just too many people inside. My ears hurt. You NEED some wall hangings and carpet. Or rug. Something to take the edge off of the concrete. It's getting unsustainable.
- There were more chairs available today, which was nice. A lot more parents having a sit during the tournament. So that's good.
- Lack of time was not a factor in this tournament. Nightwing controls the building so we can take as long as we want. There was the 120 minute open stage (he made it longer this time), followed by the finals double elimination. We got underway at 11:24, and the finals started around 2. The finals lasted until 4:30, double elimination has a lot of holdup.
- I didn't have to lend out any parts today, people more or less knew what was going on by this point. I thought I noticed a few duplicate armor rings, but it turns out I just can't tell 2 from 9. That's on you, Crabbo!
- The biggest change today was the bounty system, which I and a few others knew about ahead of time but Nightwing decided to leave as a surprise for most people at tournament time. Today, the attendees who had placed in the top 3 in previous BK tournaments were known as Bounties, and issued a special armband to help with identification. Normal players were issued the standard 8 coins, and followed agreement rules on wagers and coinflips for stadium selection.
- Bounty players, on the other hand (and there were 8-9 of them!) were issued 20 coins, but the following restrictions: Bounty players cannot INITIATE challenges, only accept them, bounty players have to accept every wager, bounty players do not get to decide the stadium, and the same bounty player can be challenged multiple times (but not twice in a row). And most importantly, bounty player wagers pay 2-1 odds: a normal blader wagering 3 coins would win 6 coins from a bounty player. And because bounty players cannot issue challenges, bounty players CANNOT challenge other bounty players in the first stage.
- My armband kept falling off after around 4 matches. Eventually I strung it through the left earpiece of my eyeglasses. I'm sure Nightwing has a picture. I look and act ridiculous. If I find a picture of it I'll add it in here.
- My deck in the first stage consisted of Vanish Bahamut Tapered Bearing'-10, Guilty Longinus Karma Quick'-2, Dynamite Perseus+F Giga Drift-0, Astral Spriggan Over Zone'+Z-3, and Prominence Belial2 Nexus+S Moebius-6. I don't know why I keep running Prominence, it's good in opposite spin but there's a lot of right spin out there, people have mostly stopped using Roar. I like Prominence but it's not actually that good and I would be better off using something else, maybe Roar. And Astral just plays like trash on same spin. The ability to direction change helps a bit, and I left it in same spin sometimes (I ran into a mirror match with maxrod and I decided okay you know what let's just try it), but I honestly think I used Astral today because I got confused and thought it was World instead. That's how little I think of Astral. I shoulda used World.
- Guilty did good work today. Buncha KOs, and one unexpected burst. More or less everyone used a bit of Guilty to good effect.
- This tournament was... weird. It was weird because most of the bladers there were Very Reluctant to challenge the Bounty bladers! There were long stretches of time where no one would challenge us. We were just standing around... waiting. I ended up having 10 matches total and easily had time for 20. Some bounties only ended up having very few matches. CrisisCrusher07 had 3 matches in the first round, that's it. geetster99 had 6. I and LJ-Blader had around 10 each. In my case at least, I think it's because I look the least menacing and least capable out of the bounty bladers there; I was more approachable because I look confused and lost most of the time.
- Out of my 10 matches, only two ended up giving me a serious challenge, and they were good bladers and related to some of the better bladers in the region. Monster2009 is married to Allen Schaffer and it was a close match. I ended up winning 5-4. I had Nightwing doublecheck the footage of that last match just to confirm which bey won it, I was prepared to reverse the coin allocation if he ruled against my bey, but he didn't. And I had plenty of time to do this because no one was challenging me. The other blader, and my one loss during first stage, was to MamaBey2122, LJ's mother, who swept me 5-0. Which... dang, how. She's really good at this That's How. Do not underestimate her!
- The bounty bladers at today's tournament were DeceasedCrab, geetster99, CrisisCrusher07, Allen Schaffer, LJ-Blader, maxrod, Mike.Nightwing, SPN_Z3R0, JCMakeEmBurst. Nine in total.
- I think a lack of advance warning about the bounty system led to some players having trouble grasping the critical strategies available during the bounty system. Nightwing tried to tell everyone several times that if they didn't challenge the bounty players, they weren't going to earn enough coins to make it to finals. But I don't think they could hear him. Ideally, I think people should've been told ahead of time in the thread. Anyway, these critical strategies: you can challenge the SAME blader more than once if they're a bounty, just not in consecutive matches. So if you're Mamabey and you sweep a bounty 5-0, yes, you COULD attribute it to luck, but you SHOULDN'T because you're a good blader and instead you should just keep challenging the crab for coins. You swept me 5-0! I asked her about it later and she said she wanted to try matches against Several bounty players, which is fair, and didn't think lightning would strike twice with the 5-0. I still think she would've beat me if she challenged again.
- As noted in BK7, people did not make big wagers when time was running out. You get 2-1 payout odds from bounties, and they start with 20, and you have to assume they win at least half their matches so you know that with 9 bounties running around you need at least 20. There were a couple bladers who ended in the 15-20 coin range because they weren't taking the big chances, trying to be a big shot. Now's your chance to be a Big Shot! If you're down a few coins, or even at your starting value, or even if you're doing good but still below 20, you have to do a big wager! But for the most part that didn't happen. The most I ever heard of a blader wagering against a bounty blader was 3. My last opponent, he wagered 3. I asked how many coins he had, he said 8. Knowing we were short on time, I suggested to him that if he wagers 8, I would have to wager 16, and beating me would bring his total to 24. But he stuck with 3, as was his right. He figured he'd have enough time for another match afterward. Ah well. Most bounty players, the highest wager they saw was 2, and I think one saw a 4 coin wager. Maybe not though. Anyway, people didn't make the most of the specil deal offered to them.
- 20 coins, honestly, was too much for the bounty players. Yes, you need to be able to ensure they have a decent enough stock because of the rules they are bound by, they are like casino dealers. However, 20 coins starts them way too high. I would personally say 12 would be appropriate at the lower end (a bit harsher to them) and 16 would be the maximum to start them with. 20 was too much. Some bounties only had 3 matches and still made it to the finals.
- I like the bounty system, I think it's interesting, but I think if we were to use it again we should lower the number of coins received and potentially open it up to Anyone who wanted to be a bounty blader and not just restrict it to those of us seasoned beyblade veterans, and limit the number of bounty bladers to 4-6. It was honestly weird to stand around waiting for people to challenge me and being prevented from challenging the other more seasoned bladers.
- Two of my matches were in a Zero-G Attack beystadium, ended up winning those. I mean, very cool of you Nightwing to have that thing available for Burst matches. But also, you're crazy, that thing's gonna get so damaged from burst and it causes me literal pain to see it used for Burst and not Zero-G. I love Zero-G format and want to see more tournaments but the beystadiums just aren't there. Anyway if you want to see KOs happen, Zero-G is the way to be. Such a good beystadium.
- I made to to the finals. Actually, every bounty blader made it to finals except for SPN_Z3RO. There were 9 bounties, so, one of us definitely wasn't making it in. I'd actually be interested in hearing what wagers he saw and what coin total he ended with. Unfortunately, none of the non-bounty bladers made it to finals; the 12 coin starting gap and understanding of the rules just wasn't there. I believe Monster2009, MamaBey2122, and Friedpasta came close. Probably SPN_Z3RO too.
- The finals were held in the DB beystadium, by random die roll. I had to make some changes to my deck for that. Quick' was NOT going to cut it in that stadium, I switched to Adventure+V. I wasn't alone, Crisis and geetster made the same decision. It's not bad on Guilty. I actually had it burst maxrod in opposite spin and it led to a major turnaround for our match. I tried using Prominence on Moebius, and spoiler alert that thing is BAD in DB. After Crisis sent me down to the lower bracket I asked him for suggestions, proposing two replacement tips. He suggested another, but eventually I settled on High Xtend+'. It didn't end up paying off, but I think that's more on the layer.
- Between first stage and finals I resumed my in-progress game of Sonic Mania on Nightwing's Switch. I managed to get the 6th and 7th chaos emeralds, first try. Sonic Got All Chaos Emeralds, Now Sonic Can Be Super Sonic, a fact that I latched onto because I was effectively brain poisoned by the end of first stage, and kept letting other people know. I would turn to the other players and judges and announce that Sonic Can Now Be Super Sonic. Look, I'm almost 39 and my brain doesn't work good anymore, thank you all for bearing with me with kindness and patience.
- So how did I do in finals? Well I had to player CrisisCrusher07. I have a rather checkered history against him in these tournaments. I HAVE beaten him in BK Finals and even WBO deck finals before, but it's not a common occurrence. In the last couple of tournaments he has found a rather effective 5v5 deck that is More Or Less unstoppable in this format, and it shows. He beat me in the upper bracket as my first opponent. It was either 5-3 or 5-2, not a trouncing but not too close.
- In the lower brackets I faced Nightwing, we had a close 5-4 match, and maxrod, also 5-4. They're good bladers, quite good. So there I was, up to the match where I'd either go on to the top 3 or end at 4th place. Who do I run into? CrisisCrusher07. How do you THINK it went? He's danged good at this. Beat me twice, knocked me out the dang bracket. I think the second time was another 5-2 or 5-3. One day I'll beat you in a BK finals again!
- Allen 3rd, Crisis 2nd, Geester 1st. Crisis won 1 of the 2 finals matches he needed.
- Now Sonic Can Be Super Sonic.
I think it was an interesting tournament, but the bounty system needs some refinement and advanced notification.
I would be specifically interested in hearing what the other bounty bladers thought, and also friedpasta and Mamabey and Monster. But I welcome thoughts on it from all other attendees!
![[Image: 4iz876.gif]](https://i.imgflip.com/4iz876.gif)
