Tournament Report: Beigoma Blues
Saturday, May 25, 2019 | Philadelphia, PA, USA | Burst Standard format

The return to Burst Standard Format

After Jimmy Zeutron 2: Blast from the Past back in March, there had actually been another Burst Standard tournament in April, but personally, this had been my first time playing Burst Standard since Geist Town back in November. I can't say I'm as big of a fan of Standard nowadays as I am of classic, just due to the nature of the "pick the wrong Driver/spin direction and you lose" meta Standard is currently in, but I felt pretty confident in the combos I had tested beforehand going into the tournament.

I showed up to the park at around 10:45 and was able to get everything set up with plenty of time to spare - for the first time in a while, we actually had warm, not rainy weather at a tournament I hosted, so I think that definitely helped keep things running more smoothly. Similarly to back in March, we were able to secure the picnic tables, so I didn't need to put down tarps on the ground to use the Stadiums there (plus, I think I play better on tables anyways). We ended up having 34 players show up - but unfortunately RandomBlader64 left all of their parts at home by accident and chose to drop out of the tournament rather than borrow from other people, leaving us with 33. And about half of those people were players that I would consider experienced regulars in the east coast tournament scene (PA, NY, MD, VA), so there was definitely some competition as well.

The Tournament

With 33 players, we barely had enough to run 6 rounds of Swiss format and take the top 8 for the Deck Format Finals. This was actually my first time hosting a tournament with the WBO Challonge, but thankfully it wasn't too difficult to figure out on the spot. The first few rounds went relatively smoothly and I was able to finish them in a little over half an hour each by running 4 stadiums at once. However, in the later rounds when better players tended to get matched up against one another, they started taking a bit longer as there were quite a few opposite spin Stamina matches with a lot of ties that were too close to call... There was one pP Xt+ vs B3 Br match that I judged that had about 7 or 8 ties, and some of the wins I was a little unsure about even after checking the footage. This has been suggested several times in the past with varying degrees of seriousness, but again I have to raise the question of whether the WBO should have some rule in place that forces players to reselect their combos after X amount of consecutive ties.

While most of the experienced players were able to win their first matches, I unfortunately lost my first match to Sebas2000. I used Hell Salamander 0Wall Hold against his Perfect Phoenix 00Cross Xtend+. In my testing, I was able to outspin the Phoenix core on both Ωuter and 00C Xtend+ more often than not with hS.0W.H if the armor was not in the stadium, but if the armor stayed in, the Wall Frame would catch on it and usually cause hS to lose, which is what ended up happening. Hyper xeno also lost his first round match using some Wizard Fafnir combo against RequiemBlader2's Cosmo Valkyrie on Destroy('?). Taking your first loss early on in Swiss is always so much more stressful than losing later on, since anything could happen to your first round opponent afterward, while losing to someone else who is already 3-0 or 4-0 already means that they won't be able to tank your score that much even if they do lose every match after beating you. And since not many other people had messed up, that meant my chances of making finals were even lower.

I was able to win my next 2 matches with hS Hold again without much of an issue, and then got matched up against Beymax. I figured he was likely to use pP Xt+ as that was a popular combo among the top players during the first stage, and picked Orb Egis 00Bump Orbit accordingly as Shindog had recently discovered that it was effective in knocking the armor off of the Phoenix Beys and outspinning them. Instead, he used stock Dead Phoenix against me (which I had actually seen him beat Thug testing's WF Ds' combo with earlier) which was a little bit more of a tossup, but I was still able to win.

Next up, I had to face NatedogPhilly and thought he was going to use either hS At/Br/Xt+ to outspin hS Hold, or Perfect Phoenix on Xt+ just because it's all around a good option, so I chose Cho Z Achilles Sting Bearing, a combo I had found to be successful against Revive Phoenix (I don't have Dead Phoenix) by either bursting it or knocking the armor off and outspinning it. ChoA's Burst Stoppers meant that I should have been able to launch it hard and not worry about self bursting, which would deal with hS.Br, and it should OS hS At just by nature of having Bearing, but that ended up not being the case. He ended up using hS.0G.At, so I weak launched in the first round. Surprisingly, it ended in a tie, so I strong launched the second round and was able to KO him. Third round, I hard launched again and he somehow bursted me through the Burst Stoppers, so I weak launched in the fourth round and... bursted again. It definitely came as a shock to me, especially since even looking back in hindsight I don't think I made any wrong moves, but sometimes stuff like that just happens.

During my last match, I was paired with Thug testing. Having lost faith in CzA.St.Br for the time being and being unsure exactly of what he would use against me, I decided to go Attack against him, since there was no one combo I was aware of that had coverage against any of the Stamina/Defense hybrid combos he might pick. I had been having pretty consistent results against most of the meta with dH.00D.X' at home testing, so I ended up using that against his Perfect Phoenix 00Cross Xtend+. Despite one self KO, I was able to secure a 3-2 victory (and an additional KO that occurred immediately after I called reshoot when my launcher skipped), so seeing my success with Attack in testing translate to tournament results was incredibly satisfying for me. Unfortunately, despite my 4-2 record, I didn't advance to the finals because my Buchholz value wasn't high enough.

Deck Format Finals
The 8 players who qualified for the finals were RED NINJA 0829, Ardmore Bladers, RaitonXDBlader, MrBlade, NatedogPhilly, CitrusNinja3, LegendV3, and Ethan el crack - all of whom had made finals appearances in previous tournaments, with the exception of I think RaitonXDBlader.

I wasn't able to watch all of the quarterfinal matches, but I did catch what I do think were the most notable of them. In the CitrusNinja3 vs RaitonXDBlader match, Citrus opened with his CzA.00P.Ds combo but was unable to defeat Raiton's B3.0B.Br. He then switched out to CzS.St.Br in left spin and was able to outspin Balkesh to make it 1-1, and that should have been the end of it since Raiton's other 2 combos (oE.10C.At and cR.7M.Zt') normally wouldn't be able to defeat Cho Z Spriggan. However, Raiton switched out to Orb Egis and after being KOed once, was able to decide the match with a surprising KO and Burst on CzS to win 5-3. The other notable match was RED NINJA vs Ethan el crack, where Ethan el crack's deceptively ragtag looking deck of CzV.0.Et, aH.7.Yr, and gF.Z.At was able to give even one of the top PA players some trouble. aH destabilized RED NINJA'S pP.0C.Xt+ several times to outspin it, and gF was able to threaten his hS.00L.Br before he figured out that nothing in Ethan's deck could defeat oE.10P.At and spammed that to either a 5-2 or 5-3 victory.

In the semifinals, RED NINJA 0829 faced MrBlade, who stuck with the same Cho Z Achilles 8'Bump Xtend+ combo for the entire match. For some reason, he kept using Attack mode on Xtend+, which caused him to lose by mostly self KOs against RED NINJA'S oE.10P.At and hS.00L.Br. Despite having Bump as a frame however, he did manage to tie with the hS combo several times, though he ultimately lost 0-5. Meanwhile, Ardmore Bladers used the meta deck of pP.Ω.Xt+, hS.St.At, and B3.00W.Br against RaitonXDBlader's hS.7M.Ds, oE.10C.At, and aH.0W.Br, and despite oE scoring a 2 point KO against pP, Ardmore was able to switch between pP and B3 accordingly to trade points and eventually win the match 5-3.

In the 3rd place match, MrBlade used the same strategy as he did last time, this time against RaitonXDBlader's Balkesh B3 0Wall Bearing. He nearly KOed it several times, and kept rematching with CzA.8'B.Xt+, but was outspun regardless of which mode he used. After declining the rematch after being down 0-4, Raiton switched to hS.7G.Xt+, and MrBlade chose to stay with CzA again, but the last round ended with hS winning by KO, giving RaitonXDBlader the 3rd place victory.

The final match was a rematch between Ardmore Bladers and RED NINJA 0829, and Ardmore Bladers had told me ahead of time that he planned to just go "Yolo" (as Kei would say) and use all Attack in the final match, so I let him borrow my Dead Hades Layer, as well as Bloody Longinus Sting Reboot, a combo that I had planned to use during the tournament but didn't get a chance to since I didn't make the finals. Unfortunately, he didn't give the bL combo the proper support, and ended up only using Dead Hades in the final match. RED NINJA opened with hS.00C.Xt+ in the first round and almost got KOed, but after that swapped out to oE.10P.At, since the closest thing to a counter Ardmore had to that was dH. I think Ardmore self KOed 3 or 4 times after that to end the match with a pretty anticlimactic 0-5 win for RED NINJA 0829, haha.

Combos & The Metagame

Like most Burst Standard tournaments nowadays, the meta was very Stamina oriented with little attack being used. Perfect Phoenix on Xtend+ and Balkesh B3 on Bearing were both popular choices during the first stage, though during the later rounds of Swiss and through Deck Format finals, Hell Salamander and Orb Egis both emerged as counters to Balkesh and pP respectively.

Ever since Shindog discovered that oE was adept at knocking the armor off of the Phoenix Beys consistently, it became most of the PA community's go-to Layer for Orbit and Atomic, mostly replacing Archer Hercules. That's not to say aH is completely outclassed at this point however: NatedogPhilly used aH on Atomic against pP Xtend+ on several occasions, and it even had some success on Yard. I remember seeing one match where someone tried to use oE on Bearing, but I think it lost due to having some sort of unfavorable matchup. I also think aH might beat oE 1v1 on an Orbit/Atomic matchup, and it might also be better defensively, but it is nice to see a bit more variety in viable Layers rather than just hS, aH, and pP.

Despite having such a large presence in the large PA tournament, Legend Spryzen was basically nowhere to be found during this event - bladekid's "super OP" lS3.00W.Br must have lost out in popularity compared to Balkesh B3 on the same setup. B3 did a pretty handy job at shutting down a lot of the Cho Z Achilles and Cho Z Valkyrie combos going around. Several people (CitrusNinja3 and Beymax being the most memorable examples) used CzA on Destroy' and Atomic, and while these combos were able to score a few KOs on B3 occasionally, its near-unburstability may have made it a safer choice against them than Hell Salamander on the same setup. However, hS still did see plenty of use, mainly on Xt+. RED NINJA used this combo in the last round of Swiss to defeat Ardmore Bladers' B3.00W.Br pretty cleanly, and it also seems to have a better chance against pP Xt+ than B3 Br due to being significantly heavier.

The Cho Z awakening Layers (Valkyrie, Spriggan, and Achilles) were also pretty popular choices as well, but none of them were particularly successful from what I observed. Coming into the tournament I had been hearing whispers of a CzV.St.Ch combo that was supposedly capable of bursting Perfect Phoenix and also somehow outspinning most opposite spin combos, which, as I suspected, sounded too good to be true. The few times I saw it used, it lost to pP Xt+, hS At, CzS Br, and B3 Br. Cho Z Spriggan also put on a pretty disappointing performance as well, despite what I had been hearing about it overtaking Hell Salamander as the dominant Left Spin Layer in Virginia. I knew that its stamina wasn't very good, but I was still surprised when it was outspun by B3.0W.Br on multiple occasions, even with B3 having a Frame that cripples its same spin performance so much. The only time I saw it win that matchup was CitrusNinja3's top 8 match against RaitonXDBlader, where he had a significantly stronger launch. Its recoil tended to work against it as well, I saw it KOed and even bursted by things that hS or B3 would have resisted relatively easily. Like I mentioned earlier, CzA was probably the most successful of the 3, and was used on Atomic, Destroy', and Xtend+, but I don't think I saw anyone use it on a dedicated attack setup.

Wizard Fafnir saw some isolated use throughout the day, and Ratchet was in a few people's decks, but neither made a huge splash during the tournament. I know Hyper xeno used a WF combo against RequiemBlader2's Cosmo Valkyrie on Destroy('?) in the first round of Swiss, and while I forget exactly what Driver he used it wasn't one that normally loses to opposite spin Ds. Similarly, Thug testing used WF Ds' against stock Dead Phoenix and also lost, so I think that in general Wizard isn't as good in opposite spin as hS or B3. Like I said earlier, a few people had Ratchet in their decks but I don't think anyone actually used it during the tournament (besides the kids who were just using WF stock). NatedogPhilly was actually selling some Wizard Fafnirs before the tournament started for I think $35 each, and one of the kids that bought one actually ended up pulling the shiny gold version, haha.

Perfect Phoenix was a really popular choice throughout the tournament, especially on Xtend+, but at the same time it's not exactly a Beyblade you can just throw at everything and expect to win, especially against other people who are also using Perfect Phoenix. The most surefire way to deal with it in my opinion is right spin Orbit/Atomic, since Attack in general is inconsistent and even the best hS/B3 combos only have about a 50/50 chance of winning against it. Of course, using right spin Orbit/Atomic leaves you vulnerable to hS/B3 on Br/Xt+, but those are countered by hS on Atomic, which loses to pP Xt+... this is one of those times where your opponent has about an equal chance of using any of these 4 types of combos, so you may as well use Attack, as that at least has a chance against all of them. I would definitely say the meta is "balanced" in that sense, but I don't think it's particularly "healthy".

Top 3 and Winning Combinations

1st Place: RED NINJA 0829
Perfect Phoenix 00Cross Xtend+
LC Hell Salamander 00Cross Xtend+
Balkesh B3 00Wall Bearing
Hell Salamander 00Lift Bearing (Deck Format Finals Only)
Perfect Phoenix 0Cross Xtend+ (Deck Format Finals Only)
Orb Egis 10Proof Atomic (Deck Format Finals Only)
Orb Egis Sting Atomic (Deck Format Finals Only)

2nd Place: Ardmore Bladers
Perfect Phoenix 00Cross Xtend+
Balkesh B3 00Wall Bearing
Perfect Phoenix Ωuter Xtend+ (Deck Format Finals Only)
Dead Hades 10Star Xtreme' (Deck Format Finals Only)

3rd Place: RaitonXDBlader
Balkesh B3 0Bump Bearing
Hell Salamander 7Glaive Xtend+
Orb Egis 10Cross Atomic (Deck Format Finals Only)
Hell Salamander 7Meteor Destroy (Deck Format Finals Only)
Archer Hercules 0Wall Bearing (Deck Format Finals Only)
Balkesh B3 0Wall Bearing (Deck Format Finals Only)

Videos
Videos of individual matches have been edited in where appropriate, but here's a whole playlist of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr6FaObknUY&list=PLBQHC-p-fWF8wGZvwgqUk1hqL2-DGvaqw
Also, enjoy some of the footage RED NINJA 0829 took:
[PART 1] | [PART 2] | [PART 3]


More Deck Format Photos

Spoiler (Click to View)

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I’m with you on the fact that one unusual Driver choice can screw you over really badly in the first stage battles. Also, just a minor correction, I used Proof on Cho-Z Achilles, as seen in the first Deck picture in your post, not Expand.

The reason I mainly used CzA on Xtend+ Attack is because of potential of beating anything on Bearing which mainly brought me up to using it as Red and Raiton mainly used Bearing combos. My only difficulty was controlling Xtend+ as it kept spiraling out of control and heading out of the stadium. However next time I'll be ready, I have managed to find a way of gaining more control of Xtend+ Attack and next time I'll be coming for the Bearing combos.

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The mysterious one returns.

Awesome Tournament Report, How I choose my combos for the final match was I saw RaitonXDBlader Vs Ardmore Bladers And I choose my combos based on what Ardmore Used Against Raiton, oE on At to beat pP on Xt+, pP on Br to beat hS on At, and hS on Xt+ to beat B3 Br

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Looking for PHW Virgo & Girago :)
Member of East Coast Cosmos
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