Jan. 22, 2025 2:30 AM
Hello World Bladers!
Firstly, before getting into Organized Play nitty-gritty, we would like to announce and celebrate joining the WBO Staff Team as well as a return of WBO's founder, , as a Director of Fighting Spirits Inc. and Staff Team member!
Gregandcin's role will find him primarily in the website back-end, as the rebirth of WBO's platform development - hopefully into a full-on team! His role includes tasks like better understanding Challonge API, helping with site improvements/transitioning, rankings, and tournament generation! In essence, a lot of very important stuff that we really look forward to working towards for the betterment of the community!
Bey Brad's focus will be leading both platform development and marketing teams' directions! You will definitely see more of his involvement outside of these teams and their efforts, though, as there is bound to be a lot of intersection!
Please join us in celebrating the expansion of our team and give them all of your support in our quest to continue to improve the WBO for you all and our seemingly-unending love of getting together to play Beyblade!
Moving on to our Organized Play updates, we first have to highlight just how much impact the community's love of Beyblade had last year. Thanks to the explosive popularity of Beyblade X, 2024 proved to be a spectacular year for competitive Beyblade, with an astonishing 711 events hosted by Organizers here on the WBO - utterly smashing previous years' records and heralding a bright future for Beyblade.
This achievement is only possible thanks to the hard work of the many Organizers and Judges responsible for making all those events run smoothly - and of course also thanks to all the Bladers who participated in those events!
To keep up the momentum as we move into 2025, we have a variety of changes ready for January, as well as much more planned for the future. We are looking for feedback to better understand what kinds of improvements or even new features can best support the community; one particular initiative is our ongoing Organizer Survey.
We have already received a lot of responses and insightful feedback, which is essential to help us understand if we're on the right track - many of this month's updates stem from previous discussions with Organizers and players, and what we're learning from the survey is helping lay the groundwork for the next set of updates.
For this round, see below!
[IMPORTANT] All Format Rulebooks: Launching Clarification for Covered Stadiums
Organizer's Guide: Expanded Tournament System Guidelines
[IMPORTANT] Match Types Guide: Consecutive Draws Rules Standardized - Switch Beyblades
Ranked Clauses Guide: "Loser Picks" Side Switching Available for All Match Types
[IMPORTANT] X Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Needle Ban Adjustment - Default Banned
[IMPORTANT] Metal Fight Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: 4D Format Recommended Bans Adjustment - Default Banned
[IMPORTANT] Burst Limited Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Zone'+Z Unbanned, Added to LAD Floor Driver Set Ban Clause
Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Fight Limited Banlist Variation - Gravity Height Restriction
All Format Rulebooks: Launching Clarification for Covered Stadiums
The clear covers found on Stadiums like the Burst and X Standard Stadiums pose a bit of an obstacle to launching; our rules describing the Launch Area may have accidentally become an additional obstacle, as they could potentially be interpreted to be much more restrictive than intended. The Launching section of each rulebook has received a small change to clarify:
Organizer's Guide: Expanded Tournament System Guidelines
The Organizer's Guide has previously always listed a specific set of tournament systems to be used depending on player count; while the recommendations could generally be trusted to produce an event schedule of reasonable length, it was an inflexible system that didn't necessarily reflect the realities of every venue and couldn't be adapted to fit to faster or slower match types or formats. With Beyblade X's naturally fast pace and the introduction of the Best of 3 Match Type modifier, Organizers now have the ability to set the pace for their tournament rounds to a wide variety of speeds.
With that in mind, we are encouraging the use of Swiss in a greater variety of situations as an alternative to existing options, and permitting adjustments to Final Stage such as substituting Single Elimination finals for Double Elimination. This will give Organizers more tools to strike the ideal balance of time commitment, player cap, and competitiveness in their tournament for their own particular situation.
Match Types Guide: Consecutive Draws Rules Standardized - Switch Beyblades
There has been an unfortunate discrepancy in the way different Match Types handle draws - 3on3 and 5G Match Types have a simple and elegant solution where after repeated draws, both players simply advance to their next combo in their deck - but the other two deck-based formats, the WBO's own Pick 3 Choose 1 and Deck Format, lack this feature despite being potentially compatible.
With this update, P3C1 and WBO Deck will more closely match the Consecutive Draws rules of 3on3 and 5G, with players switching to different combos after consecutive draws instead:
Ranked Clauses Guide: "Loser Picks" Side Switching Available for All Match Types
Back in November, we introduced a new Ranked Clause to give Organizers a different way to fairly balance Stadium orientation throughout a match. This was targeted at the Deck Match Type, where the existing Continuous Side Switching Ranked Clause interfered with its pick-counterpick flow, and it seems to have been very well received - so well, in fact, that many players have asked to use it for the rest of our Match Types as well!
Thanks to that feedback, we are retooling the Ranked Clause formerly known as "Deck Match Type Stadium Rotation Change" into a new form that can be applied to events of any type:
X Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Needle Ban Adjustment - Default Banned
While the introduction of Metal Needle also marked the introduction of the first metal bottom in Beyblade X, it also immediately raised the spectre of the infamously Stadium-pitting Metal Sharp from Metal Fight Beyblade. We added a Ranked Clause to provide Organizers a way to ensure their Stadiums would not be exposed to this Bit if the possibility of damage was a concern, and it seems that Organizers have largely chosen to take that option.
Given that the majority opinion appears to be that Metal Needle poses more of a threat to Stadiums than it actually contributes to the metagame, we are giving MN the dubious honor of "first part banned in X" and altering the rules and its Ranked Clause accordingly. Organizers interested in seeing Metal Needle available at their events should now opt-in through the Metal Needle Bit Unban clause:
Metal Fight Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: 4D Format Recommended Bans Adjustment - Default Banned
As one of the newest Beyblade formats added to the WBO's roster, Metal Fight 4D Format was also used as a testbed for an alternative approach to Ranked Clause banlists, being released with an extremely simple base banlist, with all the additional bans intended for the format left as opt-in "Recommended" Ranked Clauses. This doesn't seem to be an approach we will use in the future, as the need to opt-in and the use of "Recommended" for the Clauses lead to more confusion and work for Organizers and players alike.
All four recommended Metal Fight 4D Banlist Variation clauses will be added to the format's official banlist, and replaced with Ranked Clauses enabling Organizers to opt back out of the bans if they so desire.
Burst Limited Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Zone'+Z Unbanned, Added to LAD Floor Driver Set Ban Clause
In another banlist change, we are taking Zone'+Z off of the Burst Limited banlist and moving it into the Ranked Clause group ban for other high-LAD Drivers in the format. Recent tournament performance suggests that its performance is manageable and reasonably in-line with the other Drivers in that set, making a full ban unnecessary.
Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Fight Limited Banlist Variation - Gravity Height Restriction
For the last item on this update, we are adding a new Banlist Variation to Metal Fight Limited. The Gravity Metal Wheel has been controversial to some degree or another for practically the entire lifetime of MFL, teetering on the brink between banned and unbanned. The most recent offending combos have been low-Track ones, which the new clause seeks to address:
Banning Gravity from low Track setups prevents it from dominating as a left-spin Defense/Attack hybrid while allowing the middle and tall-Track Attack/Stamina hybrids it's also famous for to continue to exist.
Feedback?
Your input is greatly appreciated! If you have any feedback on these particular changes, or any questions or suggestions for further adjustments or additions, please post your thoughts below or in the WBO Organized Play Rules thread.
Thank you to everyone for your continued support of WBO Organized Play! We appreciate any and all feedback and are always looking to improve and clarify things where possible.
Firstly, before getting into Organized Play nitty-gritty, we would like to announce and celebrate
Gregandcin's role will find him primarily in the website back-end, as the rebirth of WBO's platform development - hopefully into a full-on team! His role includes tasks like better understanding Challonge API, helping with site improvements/transitioning, rankings, and tournament generation! In essence, a lot of very important stuff that we really look forward to working towards for the betterment of the community!
Bey Brad's focus will be leading both platform development and marketing teams' directions! You will definitely see more of his involvement outside of these teams and their efforts, though, as there is bound to be a lot of intersection!
Please join us in celebrating the expansion of our team and give them all of your support in our quest to continue to improve the WBO for you all and our seemingly-unending love of getting together to play Beyblade!
Moving on to our Organized Play updates, we first have to highlight just how much impact the community's love of Beyblade had last year. Thanks to the explosive popularity of Beyblade X, 2024 proved to be a spectacular year for competitive Beyblade, with an astonishing 711 events hosted by Organizers here on the WBO - utterly smashing previous years' records and heralding a bright future for Beyblade.
This achievement is only possible thanks to the hard work of the many Organizers and Judges responsible for making all those events run smoothly - and of course also thanks to all the Bladers who participated in those events!
To keep up the momentum as we move into 2025, we have a variety of changes ready for January, as well as much more planned for the future. We are looking for feedback to better understand what kinds of improvements or even new features can best support the community; one particular initiative is our ongoing Organizer Survey.
We have already received a lot of responses and insightful feedback, which is essential to help us understand if we're on the right track - many of this month's updates stem from previous discussions with Organizers and players, and what we're learning from the survey is helping lay the groundwork for the next set of updates.
For this round, see below!
[IMPORTANT] All Format Rulebooks: Launching Clarification for Covered Stadiums
Organizer's Guide: Expanded Tournament System Guidelines
[IMPORTANT] Match Types Guide: Consecutive Draws Rules Standardized - Switch Beyblades
Ranked Clauses Guide: "Loser Picks" Side Switching Available for All Match Types
[IMPORTANT] X Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Needle Ban Adjustment - Default Banned
[IMPORTANT] Metal Fight Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: 4D Format Recommended Bans Adjustment - Default Banned
[IMPORTANT] Burst Limited Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Zone'+Z Unbanned, Added to LAD Floor Driver Set Ban Clause
Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Fight Limited Banlist Variation - Gravity Height Restriction
All Format Rulebooks: Launching Clarification for Covered Stadiums
The clear covers found on Stadiums like the Burst and X Standard Stadiums pose a bit of an obstacle to launching; our rules describing the Launch Area may have accidentally become an additional obstacle, as they could potentially be interpreted to be much more restrictive than intended. The Launching section of each rulebook has received a small change to clarify:
Launching Wrote:
- A legal launch must have the Beyblade enter the Stadium within the Launch Area, with the Beyblade released from the launcher less than 20cm above the Stadium floor.
Organizer's Guide: Expanded Tournament System Guidelines
The Organizer's Guide has previously always listed a specific set of tournament systems to be used depending on player count; while the recommendations could generally be trusted to produce an event schedule of reasonable length, it was an inflexible system that didn't necessarily reflect the realities of every venue and couldn't be adapted to fit to faster or slower match types or formats. With Beyblade X's naturally fast pace and the introduction of the Best of 3 Match Type modifier, Organizers now have the ability to set the pace for their tournament rounds to a wide variety of speeds.
With that in mind, we are encouraging the use of Swiss in a greater variety of situations as an alternative to existing options, and permitting adjustments to Final Stage such as substituting Single Elimination finals for Double Elimination. This will give Organizers more tools to strike the ideal balance of time commitment, player cap, and competitiveness in their tournament for their own particular situation.
Tournament Systems Wrote:
- Finals are strongly recommended but not required to be Single Elimination
- Swiss is recommended as another option for smaller events (8-16 players, 4 rounds) as a faster alternative to Round Robin and Group Round Robin
- Swiss is recommended (with caution) for larger events (65-79 players, 7 rounds) as a slower alternative to Double Elimination
Match Types Guide: Consecutive Draws Rules Standardized - Switch Beyblades
There has been an unfortunate discrepancy in the way different Match Types handle draws - 3on3 and 5G Match Types have a simple and elegant solution where after repeated draws, both players simply advance to their next combo in their deck - but the other two deck-based formats, the WBO's own Pick 3 Choose 1 and Deck Format, lack this feature despite being potentially compatible.
With this update, P3C1 and WBO Deck will more closely match the Consecutive Draws rules of 3on3 and 5G, with players switching to different combos after consecutive draws instead:
Deck Match Type Wrote:Draws & Consecutive Draws
a. If there is a draw in any battle, the battle will be replayed using the same two Beyblades. This may continue for up to two consecutive battles.
b. If a judge calls a second consecutive draw by outspin, both players select a Beyblade from their deck other than the one they have just used, if able.
c. If both players are unable to select a new Beyblade due to both decks containing only one Beyblade, see the Battle Limit & Consecutive Draws for 1on1 Match Type.
Pick 3, Choose 1 Match Type Wrote:Draws & Consecutive Draws
a. If there is a draw in any battle, the battle will be replayed using the same two Beyblades. This may continue for up to two consecutive battles.
b. If a judge calls a second consecutive draw by outspin, both players select a Beyblade from their deck which they have not yet used during the match. If the players exhaust all three Beyblades this way, each player will instead be asked to select one of the three Beyblades in their initial deck.
Ranked Clauses Guide: "Loser Picks" Side Switching Available for All Match Types
Back in November, we introduced a new Ranked Clause to give Organizers a different way to fairly balance Stadium orientation throughout a match. This was targeted at the Deck Match Type, where the existing Continuous Side Switching Ranked Clause interfered with its pick-counterpick flow, and it seems to have been very well received - so well, in fact, that many players have asked to use it for the rest of our Match Types as well!
Thanks to that feedback, we are retooling the Ranked Clause formerly known as "Deck Match Type Stadium Rotation Change" into a new form that can be applied to events of any type:
Alternative Launching Rule: Loser Picks Side Wrote:
- Immediately after each battle of a Match, the loser of that battle may choose to have the judge rotate the Stadium 180 degrees to swap sides for the next battle.
- For the Deck Match Type, this decision takes place only after a replay is declined. A replayed battle takes place under the same conditions as the first, including Stadium orientation.
X Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Needle Ban Adjustment - Default Banned
While the introduction of Metal Needle also marked the introduction of the first metal bottom in Beyblade X, it also immediately raised the spectre of the infamously Stadium-pitting Metal Sharp from Metal Fight Beyblade. We added a Ranked Clause to provide Organizers a way to ensure their Stadiums would not be exposed to this Bit if the possibility of damage was a concern, and it seems that Organizers have largely chosen to take that option.
Given that the majority opinion appears to be that Metal Needle poses more of a threat to Stadiums than it actually contributes to the metagame, we are giving MN the dubious honor of "first part banned in X" and altering the rules and its Ranked Clause accordingly. Organizers interested in seeing Metal Needle available at their events should now opt-in through the Metal Needle Bit Unban clause:
Banlist Variations - Beyblade X Wrote:#1: Metal Needle Bit Unban
The following Bit may also be used in this tournament: Metal Needle
Metal Fight Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: 4D Format Recommended Bans Adjustment - Default Banned
As one of the newest Beyblade formats added to the WBO's roster, Metal Fight 4D Format was also used as a testbed for an alternative approach to Ranked Clause banlists, being released with an extremely simple base banlist, with all the additional bans intended for the format left as opt-in "Recommended" Ranked Clauses. This doesn't seem to be an approach we will use in the future, as the need to opt-in and the use of "Recommended" for the Clauses lead to more confusion and work for Organizers and players alike.
All four recommended Metal Fight 4D Banlist Variation clauses will be added to the format's official banlist, and replaced with Ranked Clauses enabling Organizers to opt back out of the bans if they so desire.
Banlist Variations - Metal Fight 4D Wrote:#1: Diablo BD145 Unban
The following Metal Wheel and Track combination may also be used in this tournament: Diablo + BD145
#2: Duo Unban
The following Metal Wheel may also be used in this tournament: Duo
#3: Rubber Defense Flat Unban
The following Bottom may also be used in this tournament: RDF
#4: Elevator 230 Unban
The following Track may also be used in this tournament: E230
Burst Limited Format Rulebook, Ranked Clauses Guide: Zone'+Z Unbanned, Added to LAD Floor Driver Set Ban Clause
In another banlist change, we are taking Zone'+Z off of the Burst Limited banlist and moving it into the Ranked Clause group ban for other high-LAD Drivers in the format. Recent tournament performance suggests that its performance is manageable and reasonably in-line with the other Drivers in that set, making a full ban unnecessary.
Banlist Variations - Burst Limited Wrote:#1: Life-After-Death Floor Driver Set Ban
The following Drivers may not be used in this tournament: Bearing Drift, Metal Bearing Drift, High Xtend+’, Zone'+Z, Bearing (Hasbro)
Ranked Clauses Guide: Metal Fight Limited Banlist Variation - Gravity Height Restriction
For the last item on this update, we are adding a new Banlist Variation to Metal Fight Limited. The Gravity Metal Wheel has been controversial to some degree or another for practically the entire lifetime of MFL, teetering on the brink between banned and unbanned. The most recent offending combos have been low-Track ones, which the new clause seeks to address:
Banlist Variations - Metal Fight Limited Wrote:#2a: Gravity Height Restriction
The following Metal Wheel and Track combinations may not be used in this tournament: Gravity + Tracks less than 120 height (105, DF105, LW105, 100, 90, 85)
Banning Gravity from low Track setups prevents it from dominating as a left-spin Defense/Attack hybrid while allowing the middle and tall-Track Attack/Stamina hybrids it's also famous for to continue to exist.
Feedback?
Your input is greatly appreciated! If you have any feedback on these particular changes, or any questions or suggestions for further adjustments or additions, please post your thoughts below or in the WBO Organized Play Rules thread.
Thank you to everyone for your continued support of WBO Organized Play! We appreciate any and all feedback and are always looking to improve and clarify things where possible.