I was going to post the report topic, but it looks like Kei beat me to it. Taking basically a whole weekend off to go to the tournament meant that I kinda fell behind on my school work, haha. Unfortunately, I didn't take a lot of pictures, so this report's going to be pretty text-heavy, but over the course of the next month or so, some of the match footage will be going up on
my YouTube channel so you can check that out if you want.
This was the first New York tournament I had ever been to, as well as the first one hosted in several months, so I was a bit apprehensive about navigating through the subway stations to get where I needed to go. Fortunately, I figured it out faster than I expected and got to Kings Games before it actually opened, haha. Since I had already gotten breakfast earlier, but no one else was there yet, I ended up spending about an hour awkwardly waiting inside for Sniper, Yami, King Loofa, and [Pyro] to show up. Once Sniper had sorted the whole entry fee situation out with the store staff, we headed upstairs to set up all the stadiums and tables for the tournament. I mainly took advantage of this time to balance-tune some of the combos I hadn’t had a chance to yet, and test out a few matchups I expected to have during the tournament. About an hour and a half later, we began the tournament with 24 participants – significantly less than the 42 registered on site, but still one of the larger tournaments I've attended nonetheless.
Swiss Stage
Wombat (Drain Fafnir 8Glaive Hold) vs. UnethicalVoxel (Drain Fafnir Polish Atomic)
This was a bit of a tricky first matchup for both of us, I knew he had just purchased Atomic from Yami before the tournament began, but I didn’t know if he had Drain Fafnir. I would have gone dF.Y.R against him if I hadn’t been so scared of the right spin Atomic. After bursting twice, I realized I had to stall Hold in order to win – both Polish and Hold have pretty poor Stamina in same spin, but Hold seems to have a higher tendency to self-burst. I did manage to outspin him once, but ended up being outspun in the final round to lose 1-3. Was a bit frustrated by this matchup, but didn’t worry about it too much since I generally tend to do well in Swiss after losing early on.
Wombat (Blaze Ragnaruk 4Glaive Atomic) vs. fafnir power (Legend Spriggan 7 Merge)
There were quite a few players just using Legend Spriggan or Drain Fafnir stock, and while at first I thought fafnir power was one of the lS people, his name (lol) made me second guess that and I decided to go for a combo that would have a chance against both. I considered using Yell instead of 4G, but I wasn’t certain on where they stood in terms of burst resistance and LAD compared to each other. Ended up going with 4G because I believed it would be harder to KO. In the first round he bursted me, but afterwards I was able to come back to win 3-1 by stalling Atomic since fafnir power’s launch wasn’t quite strong enough to get Merge to move aggressively. Still a lot more tense than it should have been, bR seems to be a lot like D2 to me in that it bursts just enough to be inconvenient compared to something like Neptune or Odin.
Wombat (Drain Fafnir Polish Atomic) vs. Vesel (Galaxy Zeus 4Meteor Planet)
In his previous matches and free play, I have seen him use a few Hasbro combos and Alter Chronos on Revolve, both of which dF.P.At could outspin easily. Ended up taking this match 3-0, even though there was one round where his gZ bursted me right after he called reshoot.
Wombat (Legend Spriggan 4Meteor Xtreme) vs. Foxer (MGC Maximum Garuda 7Meteor Atomic)
I knew there was a really high chance he would use mG, and I had several combos prepared to deal with mG, namely this Legend Spriggan combo, Valkyrie Armed Weight, and Guardian Kerbeus Yell Revolve. I decided to go with Spriggan instead of Valkyrie since I was afraid that he would borrow Vesel’s Alter Chronos combo, and that ended up being a bad choice on my part. I lost 2-3, but bursted him every time I stayed in the stadium… In hindsight, VAW was a better choice since even a less-than mint Valkyrie can get the job done – you don’t have to worry about self-bursting very much when you’re up against something that can’t really hit back. Alternatively, some inner part of me wanted to try Odin Heavy Defense against it even though it was a matchup that had never been tested – my OHD happens to have some pretty great balance, and Defense would resist the destabilization from Atomic. After hearing about Deathscyther on Revolve beating mG in other areas it’s definitely a matchup I’d want to explore more since Odin and Deathscyther have similar Stamina.
Wombat (Lost Longinus Polish Variable) vs. Sniper (Sieg Xcalibur 8 Revolve)
I had mentioned this combo offhand to Basedsamuraij several months ago, and had been keeping it a secret otherwise until this event. From what he had tested with it, it could KO and burst things like Blaze Ragnaruk, Guardian Kerbeus, Neptune, Odin, and Drain Fafnir consistently, and depending on how worn your Variable is, stood a chance of outspinning right spin 4G Atomic (except for when it’s on mG). Unfortunately, I had hardly any experience with controlling Variable and self-KOed too many times, losing 2-3. In hindsight, I probably should have launched a little weaker since Polish Variable can probably outspin opposite spin Revolve with no LAD Disk, but I would imagine Variable needs a little more strength than something like Atomic or Revolve so it has enough spin to remain upright in the first place.
With some really frustrating losses in my last two matches of Swiss, I ended up going 2-3 overall and not making the finals. Oh well, guess that’s what I get for going into a tournament with confidence for once.
Finals
Advancing to the top 8 were Kei (5-0), Ardmore Bladers, King Loofa, Cye Kinomiya,Foxer (all 4-1), Yami, Baby Sun, and UnethicalVoxel (all 3-2).
Kei (MGC Maximum Garuda 7Flow Orbit, Drain Fafnir Ωuter Ωcta, Sieg Xcalibur 5Star Merge) vs. UnethicalVoxel (Legend Spriggan 6Meteor Trans, Drain Fafnir Polish Atomic, Alter Chronos 4 Revolve)
Kei led with dF, while UnethicalVoxel decided to use lS as their first combo. In the first two rounds, Spriggan self-KOed, putting Kei at a 2-0 lead, so UnethicalVoxel decided to switch to dF. After being outspun once, dF.P.At managed to burst dF.Ω.Ω, making the score 3-2 still in Kei’s favor. Kei decided to switch out to mG, and outspun UnethicalVoxel’s dF in the fifth round, before getting surprisingly bursted in the sixth, tying up the score at 4-4… In the final round UnethicalVoxel missed the stadium entirely, giving Kei a 5-4 win.
I didn’t judge the Cye Kinomiya vs Foxer match, but from what little I did see of it, it was mostly a cheese-wheel battle… the Metal God Chip and Atomic gave Foxer the edge over Cye’s normal God Chip and Orbit, so Foxer advanced to the top 4. On the other hand, Baby Sun vs. Ardmore Bladers ended up being a full-on Attack vs Attack match, with Ardmore Bladers’ Sieg Xcalibur 7Meteor Iron defeating Baby Sun’s Legend Spriggan 7 Merge 5-2 (I think?). Neither player switched combos the entire time, haha.
King Loofa (MGC Sieg Xcalibur 7 Revolve, Maximum Garuda 4Glaive Atomic, Drain Fafnir Polish Cycle) vs. Yami (Legend Spriggan 7 Xtreme, MGC Maximum Garuda 4Flow Atomic, Twin Nemesis 2Glaive Merge)
There was one round where Yami’s Atomic self-KOed, but for the most part King Loofa was just unable to get around Yami’s mG combo – after failing to outspin it 3 times with his own mG and failing to burst it twice with his sX Burst Attacker, he lost 2-6. This made the top 4 matches Kei vs. Foxer and Yami vs. Ardmore Bladers.
Kei (Guardian Kerbeus Ωuter Revolve, MGC Maximum Garuda 7Glaive Atomic, Drain Fafnir 2Cross Ωcta) vs. Foxer (MGC Maximum Garuda 7Meteor Atomic, Galaxy Zeus 8Flow Planet, Valtyrek V2 5Glaive Zephyr)
The first round was an mG mirror as expected, which ended with Foxer taking the first point after Kei’s Atomic self-KOed. Kei switched out to gK, and was actually bursted in the next round by Foxer’s mG, putting him at 0-3. Kei took the rematch, and ended up taking the third round by outspin – it’s worth noting that in this round Foxer stalled mG rather than Sliding Shooting it, which might work vs the Heavy/Spread/Yell/4G variants, but not against Ωuter… against a Disk with such high OWD, it’s probably a smarter option to Sliding Shoot and try to burst gK. Foxer also took the rematch, and lost by outspin again, putting the score at 3-2 in Foxer’s favor. Foxer declined the rematch, and Kei changed back to his mG, knowing that gK would likely burst vs Foxer’s V2 and gZ combos. Foxer decided to stay with mG, and Kei outspun in the mirror match, tying it up at 3-3. Foxer switched out to V2, but failed to KO or burst mG and was outspun. He switched back to mG, and self-KOed in the final round, giving Kei a 6-3 win.
Yami (Legend Spriggan 7 Xtreme, MGC Maximum Garuda 4Flow Atomic, Twin Nemesis 2Glaive Merge) vs. Ardmore Bladers (Guardian Kerbeus 1Vortex Atomic, Sieg Xcalibur 7Meteor Iron, Drain Fafnir 4Glaive Planet)
Similarly to King Loofa, Ardmore Bladers could not overcome Yami’s Maximum Garuda either. His Sieg Xcalibur was outspun twice before he changed to Guardian Kerbeus, which was also outspun three times for a 5-0 win to Yami. Using 1V on gK really hurt Ardmore Bladers in this matchup, if he had swapped the parts on his combos around so that gK had 4G instead, it might have been able to outspin mG.
Foxer (MGC Maximum Garuda 7Meteor Atomic, Valtyrek V2 5Glaive Xtreme, Drain Fafnir 6Vortex Revolve) vs. Ardmore Bladers (Guardian Kerbeus 1Vortex Atomic, Sieg Xcalibur 7Meteor Iron, Drain Fafnir 4Glaive Planet)
This match went more or less the same way as the Yami match did – Ardmore Bladers led with sX, switched to gK after being unable to defeat mG with sX, and was still outspun by mG. However, Ardmore Bladers did manage to burst Garuda with gK during the second round, and came dangerously close to bursting it a second and third time in later rounds (as in it was falling apart when Foxer picked it up). In the end, Foxer ended up securing a 5-2 win and 3rd place overall.
Yami (MGC Maximum Garuda 4Flow Atomic, Drain Fafnir Knuckle Hold, Twin Nemesis 2Glaive Merge) vs. Kei (MGC Sieg Xcalibur 5Star Merge, Guardian Kerbeus Ωuter Revolve, Drain Fafnir 7Glaive Ωcta)
Yami led with mG, as expected, while Kei led with gK, taking the first round by outspin. Yami declined the rematch, and Kei switched to dF. Much to my surprise, Yami changed to his dF combo as well… and ended up getting bursted in the next round. Kei stayed with dF, and Yami outspun him with mG in the next round. Kei declined the rematch, and Yami brought out Twin Nemesis, which bursted in the last round, meaning that Kei won the match 5-1 and took first place overall, with Yami in 2nd.
Definitely one of the most interesting points of this tournament was Kei’s use of both Ωuter and Ωcta. Ωuter seems to combine Yell’s large diameter and smooth outer edge with Gravity’s insane OWD, while also being painted… I played a few friendly matches with Kei after the tournament ended and his gK. Ω.R was outspinning even my dF.P.At. He also said that it weighed like 23 grams, so that weight combined with its OWD should make it relatively easy to burst as well (which I did see some of in his matches against UnethicalVoxel and Foxer). Ωcta seems to suffer from the same burst resistance issues that Ωuter does, probably because it’s the heaviest Driver. However, it also seems to have about the same precession as Atomic with a lot more KO Defense. Kei was saying that he could get dF.7G. Ω to outspin pretty much anything right spin besides mG (and somehow D2? Doesn’t really make sense since dF.P.At already beats that), and it’s probably worth noting that his Ωcta has some pretty awful balance – It would make sense that a well-balanced Ωcta is better than Atomic in opposite spin matchups. Sieg Xcalibur, Trans, and Merge made a few appearances today, most notably when Kei used sX.7M.T to defeat Cye Kinomiya’s lS.7M.X in the final round of Swiss. Merge made a few cameo appearances in both Kei and Yami’s decks, but wasn’t really used at all.
Some of the major players today were Foxer and UnethicalVoxel, who both made it to the top 8 in their first tournaments using almost exclusively MGC mG.7M.At and dF.P.At resepectively. Ardmore Bladers also made it to the top 4 almost exclusively using dF.4G.At. Also props to Baby Sun for going all in with stock Legend Spriggan and making it to the top 8 There were a few players using the Hasbro Doomscizor D2 and nazarethvasquez used Deathscyther Spread Survive for most of his matches, I believe, but aside from that Deathscyther and D2 did not see very much use at all.
Maximum Garuda presented quite a formidable wall to those who didn’t have it, and an even bigger one to those who did. It seemed like too many people banked on winning the mG mirror and couldn’t come up with any other ways around it. However, it didn’t seem unbeatable or banworthy to me by any stretch of the imagination. Guardian Kerbeus took it down with some consistency, and Legend Spriggan and Sieg Xcalibur both seem have solid chances against it as well (sX more as a Burst Attacker than a mixed or KO Attacker). Though I lost to it with lS, I didn’t feel like it was a hopeless matchup at all and I probably could have won if I hadn’t self-KOed so much. Cye Kinomiya almost lost to Deathscyther Spread Survive with mG.4G.Orbit in the first round of Swiss, and from what I’ve heard more modern Deathscyther setups can beat it consistently. Also, if you look closely, you can see that Kei didn’t even use mG in the final match against Yami.
After the Burst tournament ended, most of the players, including Kei and Cye Kinomiya, cleared out, meaning that it was a small enough number that we could rush through the Limited tournament with enough time for me to catch my bus. There were 9 players remaining: myself, Yami, Sniper, King Loofa, [Pyro], nazarethvasquez, DECEPTICON, Natsu3, and GhostShredder, so we ended up doing just a normal round robin.
Round Robin Stage
Wombat (MF-L Virgo TH170EDS) vs. Natsu3 (Scythe Leone SW145CS)
Didn’t know what he was going to use, so I just went with a variation of the safe HTSC. TH170 and Virgo was used in case someone did try to use Flame 230CS/MB against me, so I would be able to destabilize them. I used EDS because it moves around a lot less than CS or MB so you don’t get randomly KOed by a Staller or mislaunched Attack Type while roaming around, while having more stamina than CS (not sure about MB though). Was a bit worried about Scythe’s scythes, but I managed to avoid most of their hitbox by using the 170 height.
Wombat (MF-L Virgo TH170EDS) vs. nazarethvasquez (Jade (Hasbro) Cancer 125SF)
Most of what he had was all Hasbro Metal Fury, so I went with my safe combo again. Won 3-0
Wombat (MF-H Gravity Perseus (Stamina) 85RB) vs. Sniper (MF-H Bakushin Leone 85MF)
I wasn’t sure whether he was going to use the Bakushin Staller or his signature Meteo combo, but I figured my Gravity LTDC would stand a good chance at beating both of them. I revealed in right spin expecting the Meteo, but he used Bakushin and I ended up getting outspun in the first round. Changed to left spin and tried to secret sauce him, but launched too weakly and didn’t have enough spin to outprecess him once he stopped stalling. Rounds 3 and 4 I launched harder and actually KOed him, so it was 2-2, then in the fifth round he stayed in the stadium and it came down to precession. Much to my surprise, Metal Flat somehow outspun Rubber Ball in opposite spin, both on a 85 Spin Track with a pretty low-set Metal Wheel. Still kinda shocked that I lost this, pretty much every time I tested this combo vs Burn MF or Scythe MF Gravity would outprecess it.
Wombat (MF-H Earth Sagittario II D125CS) vs. Yami (MF-L Pegasis AD145RF)
The whole time, I had been seeing him use Gravity GB145MF and totally expected that. I hadn’t really tested Gravity as an Attacker extensively so I wasn’t sure how much Smash it had, so I went up to D125 from 100 to try and get the steppes on top of Earth out of its potential hitbox. Much to my dismay, he actually used Pegasis against me (I had totally not taken into account that he also did this back in January), which is a bad matchup for Earth since it does have a ton of Smash. I actually self-KOed once because my CS is worn and I’m too cheap to buy another one, he KOed me once, I outspun him once, and I KOed him once with a pretty sick counter break. In the last round, he self-KOed, so I won the match 3-2 despite having a bad matchup. If I had gone with 100 or he had used LW160 it probably would have ended differently since 125 vs 145 is probably a less than optimal height matchup for Pegasis.
Wombat (MF-L Earth Sagittario II 90WD) vs [Pyro] (MF-H Bakushin Leone 85MF)[/Pyro]
I knew he was borrowing the Bakushin combo from Sniper, and I also knew that Earth 90WD could outspin Scythe W105MF, so I decided to go with it due to Bakushin having less Stamina than Scythe. Big mistake – my near-mint WD somehow decided to go aggro and self-KOed a-twice, and he KOed me once while I was moving aggressively. Should have gone with my Virgo combo instead, since he wasn’t using something like Aries which has more upper Attack than Leone.
Wombat (MF-H Bakushin Leone 90RSF) vs. King Loofa (MF Lightning L-Drago 100MF)
King Loofa had been using Lightning MF, Beat MF/RSF, and Gladiator Gargoyle (Crystal Up) CH120R2F a lot, and I was pretty sure my Bakushin LTDC could beat all of those. Got an especially good matchup against Lightning… and then lost 0-3. Got freak KOed once, launched weaker in the next round to avoid the KO and got stalled out, and then finally somehow got outprecessed by MF with RSF.
Wombat (MF-L Scythe Escolpio W105MF) vs. GhostShredder (Archer Killerken 125B)
No clue what he would use since he seemed to be pulling random stock Beys or combos out of his backpack. Luckily he used something pretty easy to beat against me, won 3-0 by Stalling.
Wombat (MF-H Bakushin Leone 90RSF) vs. DECEPTICON (Berserker Phoenic (Crystal Up) WA130MF)
Rotated out my opposite-spin RSF for a more controllable one, because I needed to launch harder vs a same spin attacker. We both Sliding Shot, but Metal Flat just wasn’t enough to withstand Phoenic’s recoil. Won 3-0 by KOs.
At this point, the Round Robin was over, and advancing to the finals was Sniper (obviously) with a 7-1 record, King Loofa and [Pyro] with 6-2 records, and lastly myself with only a 5-3 record.
Final Stage
Wombat (MF-L Scythe Escolpio W105MF, MF-H Gravity Perseus (Stamina) 85RB, MF-L Virgo TH170CS) vs. Sniper (MF Meteo L-Drago II 90RF, MF-H Bakushin Leone 85MF, Gravity Perseus (Attack) CH120CF
Probably worth noting that I switched out my EDS for CS on my Virgo combo, thinking I would need the defense boost against an Attack user as skilled as Sniper. Wasn’t sure at all what he would open with, and decided kind of arbitrarily to lead with Scythe. He went with Bakushin first, and I self-KOed in the first round. I don’t quite remember exactly how the rest of the match played out, but my spin direction guessing game with Gravity was like psychically on point – I somehow ended up in right spin vs Meteo, left spin vs Bakushin, and then left spin vs his right spin Gravity to win the match 5-2. The only other point he scored was when I didn’t launch RB hard enough and got stalled out by his Bakushin.
King Loofa (MF Beat Uranus CH120RSF, MF-L Lightning L-Drago 100MF, Earth Horogium TH170TB) vs. [Pyro] (MF-M Gravity Perseus (Attack) GB145RF, MF-L Meteo L-Drago 90PD, MF-H Bakushin Leone 85MF)
[Pyro] opened with Bakushin, and King Loofa opened with his Earth HTSC (set to “all the way up” mode). Without the support of something like Aries or Escolpio, Bakushin couldn’t KO or destabilize Earth, and [Pyro] gave up 2 points before deciding no rematch. King Loofa stayed with Earth, scoring 2 more points off a self-KO and an OS against [Pyro]’s Gravity combo. [Pyro] went out to Meteo finally and got two outspins in a row before King Loofa declined the rematch. [Pyro] decided to go to Bakushin, and King Loofa switched to his Lightning combo, winning the match 5-2 with a KO in the last round.
Wombat (MF-L Scythe Escolpio W105MF, MF-H Bakushin Leone 90RSF, MF Gravity Perseus (Stamina) S130GCF) vs. King Loofa (MSF Gladiator Gargoyle (Crystal Up) CH120R2F, MF-L Lightning L-Drago 100MF, Earth Horogium TH170TB)
I had actually judged King Loofa’s previous Deck Format match, so I had seen the combos he used, and also knew some of the things he might swap in. I realized that Metal Face poked a pretty big hole in his Deck (Gladiator Gargoyle was the biggest threat with R2F’s speed and grip) and used that in the first three rounds to go up 3-0. From this position, I decided to switch to Bakushin, and he went to Lightning. This time, I got the outspin and he declined the rematch. I went to Gravity and he used Earth. I surprisingly KOed him despite being in left spin to win 5-0 and get first place, with King Loofa taking second.
After my match ended, I actually had to get out of there as ASAP as possible so I didn’t miss my bus, so I ended up missing the 3rd/4th place match, but I do know Sniper won. Even though I did win the tournament, I’m still unsatisfied with how poorly I played in the first stage… I definitely shouldn’t have gotten outprecessed by MF using RB/RSF those two times.
Even though it only appeared once on the Winning Combos list, the
WomFace FIREFIRE combo (Bakushin MF) made a huge impact in the tournament. At least for me, the entire event revolved around defeating it. [Pyro] actually used it in most, if not all, of his round robin matches and went 6-2, while Sniper also made heavy use of it. Bakushin has enough Attack power to KO most common LTSCs, and the defensive shape means that it’s a lot more difficult to defeat with Attack than something like Burn or Scythe would be, since it’s capable of ramping out things like Lightning or Screw though Smash Attackers like Pegasis and Cosmic still wreck it. It did outprecess my Gravity LTDC once, but I would be hesitant to say that’s something it would be able to do consistently. I would also imagine most tall Stamina/Defense combos would be able to take it out, but changing the setup to use Escolpio and W105 might change things. Either way, I definitely think it’s worth considering for the tier list at this point.
Overall, while I’m frustrated with the mistakes I made over the course of the two tournaments, it was still fun to travel down to New York and meet up with Kei, Sniper, Yami, King Loofa, Cye Kinomiya, and everyone else who attended. Hopefully this event will lead to more tournaments in New York, and one implication of this event that I’m especially excited for in the future is the return of big-city Beyblade tournaments: The Burst tournament here had 24 players, and the Los Angeles tournament the week before had 37. I didn’t join the WBO until 2012, so I’ve never really experienced the thrill of playing in a really huge event like the 60+ player tournaments held in NYC, Toronto, and London during the peak of MFB’s popularity.[/b][/b]