I apologise in advance for going on a tear here - but this hits close to home for myself and the tournaments I ran. Accessibility is important, and not disadvantaging and embarrassing those with poorer part access unnecessarily is one of the biggest aspects of that. As such, I don't have a "nice" way to put a lot of my thoughts on this, but I think I need to state them nonetheless.
As someone who cares deeply about accessibility and has hosted two tournaments where players had limited part access, this rule sucks. It's honestly disgusting to me - it reads like it was written by someone who wants to protect their beyrank by not being surprised, not having their opposition research messed with, over making the game fun for newbies and those who have less money to spend on tops. It blatantly disadvantages people with poorer part access and I don't think anyone can actually deny that. It's damned shameful, and it's also classist as hell. Force some kid to stand up and say "I borrowed parts" every match and if he forgets, bam, pinged? C'mon.
There are two reasons I can see to justify the rule, and I have some counterpoints:
1. Theft - to stop people not returning parts.
It is not an organisers job or the WBOs to prevent theft via non return - in fact, by taking on any responsibility for this I worry it does impose some liability on us. This is also not a measure taken in any other competitive game I know of. It should be quite clear that lending parts is at your own risk and you can take responsibility for your own actions, and it's already very clear that theft is wrong. We can trust people to not need us to baby them like that at the expense of those with poorer part access. What's to stop someone taking it, not announcing it, and then the other person saying they did, and them denying it? The rule doesn't help and it's really not our problem.
2. Stop gang-ups.
Okay, you don't want people handing around a combo to beat you - sure. First off, this isn't exactly something I see happening at most events, most of our players in most areas are pretty chill and good natured and will call out bullying - this is an incredibly clumsy way to address that and I'm not convinced it's realistic. Secondly, if you're high ranked and they are doing it, maybe consider some things - 1. Why people want to go to that length to beat you (there is a good chance it isn't just your rank that would make people go to that effort) and 2. You should be showing every opponent the respect of not assuming what they will use based on their ability to buy parts. 3. If you can't overcome that and prepare for it, are you really that great a blader? 4. Most importantly of all - what is the difference between them having borrowed those parts and owning them but having hidden them til they faced you. How do you know going into a match what they have and can afford? Why is a Bey-Credit-Check a factoring into your decision making? You should be prepared to assume someone does have good part access and not taking people as easy wins based on your knowledge of what beyblades they have been able to afford. Shame on you.
Hell, what if they don't borrow but instead buy them off another player half way through the event? And that player buys them back for the same amount? Was it borrowed? There are plenty of ways for people to pull this off if they wanted to, and if they did I'm sure they would have done it by now. Sure seems like a lot of nothing to be disadvantaging people over. On the contrary - what if I slip a part with a marking showing it is mine into your bag, and then say you borrowed it from me when you face my friend? Who is to say who is lying? We just create problems with this rule.
Now lets look at some scenarios from The Only Show In Perth! and Perth Plastics Pandemonium, my two tournaments in my backwater area, and how they would have played out - these occurred back before this rule, both about a decade ago (hello, i'm old).
The Only Show in Perth, MFB Standard, 2011 - this is right after Beat Lynx came out, Basalt, BD145 and 230 dominating the meta, I used a range of combos but in the end leant on my most recent combo, MF-H Basalt Kerbecs TH170WF to pull through against the big guns. A great time for all, with a huge range of ages and a really warm community vibe.
One of my favourite memories is thus. We had a kid, probably like 8 years old I think? Playing. Had one Beyblade, and the WD bottom was beat to hell. We gave him one. Would that child have had to announce that every round? Would that have been fun or would it have been embarrassing? Instead he took a couple of matches here and there and had a good time. Kids, having a good time playing beyblades instead of being oppo researched by someone my age? Messed up I guess that we didn't make him announce every round that he borrowed a part, without reminding him, how silly of us. This isn't limited to 10 years ago either, as above, people show up with fakes, we gonna make them remember to say the magic "don't lose instantly" words every match? What experience does that make, you turn the heartwarming community moment of everyone coming together to help someone out into a chore. Good on you, I guess.
Perth Plastics Pandemonium
I lent Beyblades to the majority of bladers in this tournament, because plastics. Do they every match announce they are borrowing parts from me? Once again, a rule where no one thinks about plastics, woweeeee it's like no one thinks of plastics before adding stuff to the plastics rulebook like no shared parts in a generation where that reduces deck format to basically the same 3 types and removes things like force smash from the game but anyway yaaaaaaaaaaaaay we did it gang we stopped.... whatever this rule is supposed to stop and all it cost us was making any plastics tournament absolutely torturous! Good work team!
Beyblade, in the anime, has always involved teamwork - there is an episode of Bakuten where Tyson, Kenny and Max come together to build a Beyblade for a kid, for example - it's one of my favourite episodes, in fact (also, the combo they built was extremely meta for the time, good stuff). It has always been for kids, and I have always treated tournaments, when I am lucky enough to be able to host them, as a community event. We're making rules that counteract the mateship and accessibility of the game, and personally I think it's shameful.
Lastly, this again is another rule that someone can keep in their back pocket waiting to spring if a game doesn't go their way. If they win, they can keep it to themselves, but if they lose they can contest it. This is easily addressed by the suggestion of having judges ask, but then if they forget you get to argue even more. It doesn't actually seem to help anyone and it sure seems to hurt the people we should be trying to avoid hurting, so turf the bloody thing and let's just have a good time spinning tops.
E: One more note - if we are at least agreed that sharing parts is on the whole a positive action, one must consider that announcing that you are using someone's parts can lead to others asking that person why they didn't share with them instead. Very awkward position to put someone in, and you gotta remember a lot of our players are kids. Then there's kids who are shy or even non-verbal, which is something we need to be accommodating of. This rule just seems so fundamentally bad in so many ways... I'm astonished that it is part of our rules.
E2: Also, the advice part of the rule is just... How do you enforce that? If I take it to mean during selection, what is to stop me walking up and giving unsolicited advice and then my friend pinging you if you don't think to announce it? And sure, maybe not, but what's to stop me then actually getting advice but staging it a bit and then claiming that's what happened? What an odd thing to police! This doesn't even relate to part theft so what does it do except shore up your opposition research? Such a bizarre rule.
As someone who cares deeply about accessibility and has hosted two tournaments where players had limited part access, this rule sucks. It's honestly disgusting to me - it reads like it was written by someone who wants to protect their beyrank by not being surprised, not having their opposition research messed with, over making the game fun for newbies and those who have less money to spend on tops. It blatantly disadvantages people with poorer part access and I don't think anyone can actually deny that. It's damned shameful, and it's also classist as hell. Force some kid to stand up and say "I borrowed parts" every match and if he forgets, bam, pinged? C'mon.
There are two reasons I can see to justify the rule, and I have some counterpoints:
1. Theft - to stop people not returning parts.
It is not an organisers job or the WBOs to prevent theft via non return - in fact, by taking on any responsibility for this I worry it does impose some liability on us. This is also not a measure taken in any other competitive game I know of. It should be quite clear that lending parts is at your own risk and you can take responsibility for your own actions, and it's already very clear that theft is wrong. We can trust people to not need us to baby them like that at the expense of those with poorer part access. What's to stop someone taking it, not announcing it, and then the other person saying they did, and them denying it? The rule doesn't help and it's really not our problem.
2. Stop gang-ups.
Okay, you don't want people handing around a combo to beat you - sure. First off, this isn't exactly something I see happening at most events, most of our players in most areas are pretty chill and good natured and will call out bullying - this is an incredibly clumsy way to address that and I'm not convinced it's realistic. Secondly, if you're high ranked and they are doing it, maybe consider some things - 1. Why people want to go to that length to beat you (there is a good chance it isn't just your rank that would make people go to that effort) and 2. You should be showing every opponent the respect of not assuming what they will use based on their ability to buy parts. 3. If you can't overcome that and prepare for it, are you really that great a blader? 4. Most importantly of all - what is the difference between them having borrowed those parts and owning them but having hidden them til they faced you. How do you know going into a match what they have and can afford? Why is a Bey-Credit-Check a factoring into your decision making? You should be prepared to assume someone does have good part access and not taking people as easy wins based on your knowledge of what beyblades they have been able to afford. Shame on you.
Hell, what if they don't borrow but instead buy them off another player half way through the event? And that player buys them back for the same amount? Was it borrowed? There are plenty of ways for people to pull this off if they wanted to, and if they did I'm sure they would have done it by now. Sure seems like a lot of nothing to be disadvantaging people over. On the contrary - what if I slip a part with a marking showing it is mine into your bag, and then say you borrowed it from me when you face my friend? Who is to say who is lying? We just create problems with this rule.
Now lets look at some scenarios from The Only Show In Perth! and Perth Plastics Pandemonium, my two tournaments in my backwater area, and how they would have played out - these occurred back before this rule, both about a decade ago (hello, i'm old).
The Only Show in Perth, MFB Standard, 2011 - this is right after Beat Lynx came out, Basalt, BD145 and 230 dominating the meta, I used a range of combos but in the end leant on my most recent combo, MF-H Basalt Kerbecs TH170WF to pull through against the big guns. A great time for all, with a huge range of ages and a really warm community vibe.
One of my favourite memories is thus. We had a kid, probably like 8 years old I think? Playing. Had one Beyblade, and the WD bottom was beat to hell. We gave him one. Would that child have had to announce that every round? Would that have been fun or would it have been embarrassing? Instead he took a couple of matches here and there and had a good time. Kids, having a good time playing beyblades instead of being oppo researched by someone my age? Messed up I guess that we didn't make him announce every round that he borrowed a part, without reminding him, how silly of us. This isn't limited to 10 years ago either, as above, people show up with fakes, we gonna make them remember to say the magic "don't lose instantly" words every match? What experience does that make, you turn the heartwarming community moment of everyone coming together to help someone out into a chore. Good on you, I guess.
Perth Plastics Pandemonium
I lent Beyblades to the majority of bladers in this tournament, because plastics. Do they every match announce they are borrowing parts from me? Once again, a rule where no one thinks about plastics, woweeeee it's like no one thinks of plastics before adding stuff to the plastics rulebook like no shared parts in a generation where that reduces deck format to basically the same 3 types and removes things like force smash from the game but anyway yaaaaaaaaaaaaay we did it gang we stopped.... whatever this rule is supposed to stop and all it cost us was making any plastics tournament absolutely torturous! Good work team!
Beyblade, in the anime, has always involved teamwork - there is an episode of Bakuten where Tyson, Kenny and Max come together to build a Beyblade for a kid, for example - it's one of my favourite episodes, in fact (also, the combo they built was extremely meta for the time, good stuff). It has always been for kids, and I have always treated tournaments, when I am lucky enough to be able to host them, as a community event. We're making rules that counteract the mateship and accessibility of the game, and personally I think it's shameful.
Lastly, this again is another rule that someone can keep in their back pocket waiting to spring if a game doesn't go their way. If they win, they can keep it to themselves, but if they lose they can contest it. This is easily addressed by the suggestion of having judges ask, but then if they forget you get to argue even more. It doesn't actually seem to help anyone and it sure seems to hurt the people we should be trying to avoid hurting, so turf the bloody thing and let's just have a good time spinning tops.
E: One more note - if we are at least agreed that sharing parts is on the whole a positive action, one must consider that announcing that you are using someone's parts can lead to others asking that person why they didn't share with them instead. Very awkward position to put someone in, and you gotta remember a lot of our players are kids. Then there's kids who are shy or even non-verbal, which is something we need to be accommodating of. This rule just seems so fundamentally bad in so many ways... I'm astonished that it is part of our rules.
E2: Also, the advice part of the rule is just... How do you enforce that? If I take it to mean during selection, what is to stop me walking up and giving unsolicited advice and then my friend pinging you if you don't think to announce it? And sure, maybe not, but what's to stop me then actually getting advice but staging it a bit and then claiming that's what happened? What an odd thing to police! This doesn't even relate to part theft so what does it do except shore up your opposition research? Such a bizarre rule.