Pennsylvania Beyblade Burst Tournament Report: Geist Town
![[Image: q27BKPn.png]](https://i.imgur.com/q27BKPn.png)
Friday, November 23, 2018 | Burst Format
Despite being put together somewhat at the last minute and being held on a Friday, this tournament was still able to attract 12 participants, which I thought to be pretty impressive given the circumstances. There was a bit of a dilemma on whether to host on Friday or Saturday the 24th - but between what was convenient for the most people who gave their opinion, shelter availability, and weather forecasts, I ended up going with what I thought was the safer option on the 23rd.
The Pennsylvania tournament scene
Ever since the first Pennsylvania event in recent history back in March 2017, PA tournaments are steadily becoming more frequent:
- Philly Phreeze (March 5th 2017)
- Deathscythers' Destroyed (July 16 2017)
- Double Standard (November 25, 2017)
- Jimmy Zeutron: Blast Zone Jenius (March 17, 2018)
- Common Pickle's Birthday Bey Party (July 15, 2018)
- CRASH & BURN (August 19, 2018)
- Hyper xeno and BeastMode104's Birthday Bey Bash (October 13, 2018)
- Geist Town (November 23, 2018)
The Tournament
With 12 players, we ended up running Block Round Robin. Unfortunately, my laptop didn't want to connect to my phone's hotspot for whatever reason, so I had to run the Challonge bracket on my phone. Since Challonge does not divide up players into groups based on seed very well, and reordering people using a touch screen was a bit of a nuisance, I just hit "shuffle seeds" to randomize the groups.
- Group A: Ardmore Bladers, YamiPoyoChan, AndyHG, bladekid, Reximuss, Mysticalburst
- Group B: Wombat, Yami, Common Pickle, Makai11, shota, RequiemBlader2
During the tournament, the most popular combos were most of the usual suspects: Archer Hercules and Hell Salamander on Atomic, Eternal, Bearing, and Xtend+. For some reason, Revive Phoenix continues to be pretty nonexistent in Pennsylvania despite the success it seems to have in the UK, Virginia, and New York. Spriggan Requiem was used a few times, but I don't think I ever saw it win a match - with the spin direction restriction still in place, I really can't see how it would be a better choice than hS or aH in their respective spin directions. "No Longer Alive" Hades saw some use as well on Xtreme', Zephyr', and Destroy', with varying amounts of success - before my match against shota, I had seen him use stock Shelter Regulus in all of his previous matches and decided to take a risk with dH.8'B.X' (I used Bump bc I didn't have Dagger). Instead, he used stock Fafnir F3, and several wall saves and a self-KO later I ended up losing 2-3 lol. YamiPoyoChan also used a similar combo against bladekid's Balkesh B3 0Glaive Bearing (more on this combo later) and lost 1-3 in the match to decide who advanced to the finals.
What did become evident though was that using the correct Frame for your Driver played an important part in deciding several matches - AndyHG's hS.0P.Xt+ lost to YamiPoyoChan's aH.10.Et, Yami's hS.7.Xt+ lost to Common Pickle's aH.0C.Xt+, I'm pretty sure I saw a Lift Bearing combo lose to a Cross/Glaive/Bump Bearing combo in same spin, and there were probably a few other instances I missed too.
The most tense moment for me personally in the tournament was my match against Yami - after losing to aH.0C.Xt+ I had a feeling he wouldn't use hS Xt+ again, but I also knew that he knew aH Atomic could counter the aH.7C.Xt+ I had been using throughout the day since he had beaten TSO in that matchup last month. It came down to a choice between hS.0T.H and aH.7P.At for me, based on whether I thought he would go aH At or aH Xt+. I ended up choosing aH.7P.At and he went with aH.0(?)L.Br, which should have been an easier matchup for me than it was - for whatever reason, the Atomic that had been working fine the night before when I tested this combo had stopped spinning freely, which made it more difficult to launch hard enough to outspin while not self-KOing. I was able to pull out the win though, which let me advance to the top 4 along with Common Pickle, Ardmore Bladers, and bladekid.
The Finals
Since I had beaten Common Pickle head to head, I was top seed from my group and went up against bladekid in the semifinals. Despite owning several competitive Takara Tomy releases, he had been using exclusively Hasbro combos throughout the tournament. He had been planning on attending the next Toronto tournament so I had advised him on what to use during Deck Format, but I totally forgot what I told him to use while I was building my own deck lol. I knew he was either going to be using Bearing on his B3 or Noctemis N3/Caynox C3, so I put hS.0T.H and aH.7C.Xt+ in my deck and wasn't really sure what to use for my 3rd combo. Normally, I would use bL.5G.W for coverage against hS Bearing, but I knew Balkesh was less prone to bursting than hS and opted for dH.8'B.Z' instead. Bladekid's deck consisted of B3.0G.Br, C3.7C.At, and L3.U.O... which I remembered was exactly what I told him to use the instant I saw it lol.
I was able to rack up a quick 4-1 lead until he switched to Balkesh, and after failing to KO it with dH or OS it with hS, I fell back on aH.7C.Xt+. When I had tested hS on Bearing against aH on Xt+, Xt+ would usually win unless hS was using Lift (in which case they would usually tie, but aH would still win occasionally). Much to my surprise, even though he was only using Glaive we tied about 3 or 4 times before he outspun me once. I decided to change my Xt+ to Attack Mode to see if it made a difference and lost again, by a larger margin this time. Swtiched back to Stamina mode for one more close LAD battle before ultimately losing 4-5. A bit frustrating, especially since I was looking forward to a rematch against Ardmore Bladers - The last time we played each other in Burst was July 2017, and he has improved a ton since then. Somehow we've managed to avoid each other at every tournament since then lol.
Overall, bladekid's performance in this tournament just goes to show that Hasbro players can compete in a TT meta provided they know their Driver matchups... however, due to the weight of their Layers compared to aH and hS, they are still at a disadvantage in same spin, and lack of access to some Drivers (Eternal, Xtend+) means they just can't achieve the same coverage a TT Deck can, as evidenced by Ardmore Bladers punching a hole in bladekid's whole deck with hS Atomic for a 5-0 (I think) win in the finals.
In the 3rd place match, I faced Common Pickle again. I went with almost the same deck as before, except switching out Dead Hades for my bL Weight combo since I anticipated him having hS on Bearing. I ended up not even needing it, as I was able to achieve a 5-0 win using hS.0T.H thanks to some lucky bursts against his hS.10.Br and sO.0B.Ds'.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I found the smaller tournament filled with mostly regulars to be a refreshing change of pace from the larger events that have taken place since early this year. Though I do realize the implications of this is that Burst's popularity is dying down and tournaments will likely never be as big as they were until the next generation, it was nice to not have to worry as much about making sure everything was moving as quickly and as smoothly as possible and actually enjoy spinning tops with others.
![[Image: mim5IfI.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/mim5IfI.jpg)
Winning Combos
1st Place: Ardmore Bladers
Hell Salamander 0Bump Atomic
Archer Hercules 0Cross Xtend+
Hell Salamander 0Cross Xtend+
Hell Salamander 5Bump Atomic (Deck Format Finals Only)
Winning Valkyrie 7Meteor Revolve (Deck Format Finals Only)
2nd Place: bladekid
Balkesh B3 0Glaive Bearing
Noctemis N3 7Flow Bearing
Noctemis N3 7Flow Destroy
Caynox C3 7Cross Atomic (Deck Format Finals Only)
Luinor L3 Under Orbit (Deck Format Finals Only)
Luinor L3 Under Xtreme (Deck Format Finals Only)
Jinnius J3 7Glaive Guard (Deck Format Finals Only)
3rd Place: Wombat
Hell Salamander 0Turn Hold
Archer Hercules 7Cross Xtend+
Dead Hades 8'Bump Xtreme'
Archer Hercules 7Proof Atomic
Dead Hades 8'Bump Zephyr' (Deck Format Finals Only)
![[Image: izt9hKq.png]](https://i.imgur.com/izt9hKq.png)
