Tournament 3: missing pens, reduced options and a very bizarre win condition. Read on…
Date: Saturday May 15th, 2010
Quick links to:
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
KO Phase
Results
Tournament Synopsis
A year on from MAY-hem saw a tournament with the potential for even more drama than its predecessor. +1, with +1 rule per round, was set to bring a whole new perspective to the meaning “win condition”.
Three quarters of the field from the previous tournament returned, although Wellian was sitting it out in preference to being a geek in the corner. The top “seed” was consequently previous runner-up Kikojui. Also returning for a third attempt at victory were Kramm and Dancing_Ninja, while Flash_UK and Genesis also added to the East Anglian contingent having a second attempt at victory.
Making a return trip from the south coast was Realathlete. He and Coaster_Crazy were returning to Gold Rush after taking part in Revolution nearly two years ago. Could they repeat their performances of last time and usurp the locals?
The other two players in the pack saw a relatively new player in Rhea making her tournament debut, whilst freestyler Captain Charisma was making the transition from the five-panel game to four panels.
Aside from being different in its use of the Swiss format, none of the competitors knew what the additional rules were, which immediately disqualified Wellian as he know what they were.
Round 1
Round 1 was drawn to be the dreadfully-titled “The Square Opposite Go”, revealed to be a reference to Monopoly’s Free Parking square. No additional rules applied, which allowed people to get into the tournament sensibly given the fascinating match-ups on offer.
The big match featured the big guns immediately, with Realathlete drawing Coaster_Crazy. It also saw the battle of the girls in Rhea and Genesis and the chance for Dancing_Ninja (3rd at MAY-hem) and Kramm (4th) to get a good early win.
The opening match saw Captain Charisma get thrown in at the deep end against Kikojui. Despite putting up a good fight on Can’t Stop Fallin’ in Love (Speed Mix), Kikojui powered away with a 2-0 win on Mongolian Grill. Genesis also notched up a 2-0 with a double on Gold Rush and Let’s Get Loud.
The big guns then traded songs, winning their picks of Disconnected Mobius and The Promised Land. The random song ended up being one of Wellian’s own files, although The Beauty of Silence is a somewhat more serious file than I am the music man. Despite a sight-read of 97.01%, RealAthlete’s 98.46% gave him a 2-1 win and left Coaster_Crazy with the consolation of a good tie-breaker score.
Last match saw Dancing_Ninja lose out on Pademonium hard, and then get beaten by just 0.10% on Tough Enough for a 0-2 start, leaving Wellian to scribble a few notes before joining Flash for a bit of fun between rounds.
Round 2
Round 2 saw the machine temporarily relocate up north. “Yorkshire DDR”, complete with awful attempt at an explanation in accent, saw the enforced modifiers 1x and Overhead, and a difficulty limit of 9. Hard luck to those who don’t like low speeds!
Genesis, who generally plays at lower speeds, was up against Kikojui first. In the spirit of the game, Kikojui picked out the horrendous vivid noteskin, and consequently lost both Hot Limit and the desire to have colour vision. Following up with 5th Mix classics Matsuri Japan and Afronova Primeval, a 2-1 win put him top of the table. Joining him on top of the table was RealAthlete, who picked out a 2-0 win over Kramm in double-quick time.
Then the first controversy. Having stolen Flash’s pick of Pink Dinosaur, Coaster_Crazy was undone by a misfiring right pad on Do It All Night. With the pad fixed over lunch, he returned to bag random song I Like To Move It for a 2-1 and get his first win on the board. Rhea then saw her pick of Your Rain as Dancing_Ninja, cleverly using boost to get some extra speed, added a 2-0 to his tally.
Round 3
At this point only two people had a perfect record, yet six were on 1-1. RealAthlete, fractionally ahead of Kikojui at this point, would attempt to define a clearer leader with the restriction of the M300 mod. The round was cryptically called “Max: 300”, although in the loosest sense of the word cryptically.
With RealAthlete opening with a 98.22% on Freckles, the players then failed to register a point between them on Paranoia Respect. Kikojui then picked up a brilliant win on random song Spin Chicken to split the points, although later results would keep him in second place.
The other matches all finished 2-0, with Kramm having his third tough match of the day in losing to CoasterCrazy – featuring the bizarre yet entertaining pick of Reaf expert – Dancing_Ninja sticking two past Captain Charisma and Flash doing likewise with Genesis.
Round 4
And so to the final round, with the rule that demonstrated the tournament in its glory: “Lucky Seven”. Not content with again limiting difficulty, this time to only 7s, but the win condition for this was to get as close to 77.77% as possible.
Having already faced each other, RealAthlete and Kikojui would have to face one of the three on 6 points. The man with the long straw was Flash, who got the right to face a player on 3 points instead of the leaders.
However, having already faced Realathlete earlier in the day, CoasterCrazy had to face Kikojui in a repeat of a drawn best of 2 match from Revolution. He took the first song, Since U Been Gone, but then again got hit by pad misses in What Is Love. Radius medium would decide it, and Coaster_Crazy took himself to the top of the leaderboard with a 77.37%. Dancing_Ninja then threw a spanner in the works with a 2-0 win over Realathlete, and joined Coaster_Crazy at the top of the table.
Flash’s long straw seemed to get shorter when he picked out dangerman Kramm as his pick, but a 2-0 put him safely though. However, last match saw Captain Charisma and Rhea face off: the winner safe, the loser almost certainly out. They each won their opponent’s picks of Freeway Shuffle – where Captain Charisma produced the “best” performance of the round with 77.83 – and Cartoon Heroes, but Rhea’s win on Genie In A Bottle sent her and Genesis through and Captain Charisma out.
Knock-out Phase
Quater-finals
With just Captain Charisma and Wellian missing out on the end phase, eight people had to make their way through. Opening the quarter-finals was Dancing_Ninja, who very kindly took pity on Rhea, a player with a matter of months of experience, and promptly picked Disconnected Hyper on expert. A 97.09% on Mellow followed, one of the ladies was out.
Coaster_Crazy, meanwhile, had done all the hard work of winning the group stage and yet still had to face Kramm for a second time. He opened with a sensational 98.98% on Da Roots, but Kramm came back with his own pick of Hardcore of the North with a winning fail. This left a random song – on Hard – to decide it. It was only Chromatic Blitz, one of a handful of 11s on Hard on a machine of 1500 songs. With Coaster_Crazy having sneaked in front over the middle section, he pulled away to a 92.76%-91.08% victory.
RealAthlete by this point had already pushed out 2-stars and and three 1-stars. Not content with making it eight stars for the day on Chopstix, he then posted the first 3-star performance of the day with a 99.36% on Mouth hard and comfortably win 2-0.
This left Kikojui and the increasingly dangerous Flash_UK. Flash bagged his own pick of Candy (UFO Mix), and then shocked last year’s runner up with a 76.30% on Kikojui’s pick of Paranoia Survivor to work his way into the last four.
Semi-finals
Semi-finals time, and Dancing_Ninja and RealAthlete traded songs to their strengths (Hyper Hyper for the enduring Ninja and Hearts of Ice for the handy Athlete) to open the first semi and leave the obscure 100 Second Kitchen Battle as the random song. An unknown song for both, RealAthlete took it when he spotted the slowdown and DancingNinja didn’t. The second semi saw Coaster_Crazy comfortably beat Flash, with 97.72% on Chikara and a 98.15% on Dragostea Din Tei (English Mix), leaving Flash to prepare himself for a third-place play-off and the right to win his entry fee back.
Finals
The first song of the play-off was a close run fail of Infection, with Dancing_Ninja taking it by just under 3% despite not making it to half-way. Flash then struck back with Max 300, leaving another obscure decider in You Leave Me Alone. A star performance from Dancing_Ninja of 96.35% was enough to beat Flash’s 94.03%, and secure third place.
This left a final of Coaster_Crazy and RealAthlete, a repeat of the big match from Round 1. As before, they traded opening picks of Feels Just Like That Night (Coaster_Crazy taking his song 97.92% to 95.67%) and Unspeakable (RealAthlete hitting back with a 98.82%-98.37% victory) to leave the final song of the final match: Quickening. Hardly the most memorable of songs, yet a fitting performance for the final: both players over 99%, but Coaster_Crazy gaining revenge with a 99.36%-99.13% victory.
Full Results
Players listed on the left picked a song first.
Round 1 (No special rules)
Captain Charisma 0-2 Kikojui (Can’t Stop Fallin’ In Love (Speed Mix) [Expert] 85.10-90.38; Mongolian Grill [Expert] 0.47-81.49)
Genesis 2-0 Rhea (Gold Rush [Hard] 73.12-63.94; Let’s Get Loud [Hard] 82.82-59.85) RealAthlete 2-1 Coaster_Crazy (Disconnected Mobius [Expert] 98.97-93.88; The Promised Land [Expert] 96.79-97.04; Beauty of Silence [Hard] 98.46-97.01)
Dancing_Ninja 0-2 Kramm (Pandemonium [Hard] 28.03-34.22; Tough Enough [Expert] 88.29-88.39)
Round 2 (1x Overhead; No modifier combinations unavailable in DDR 5th Mix; Maximum Difficulty 9)
Genesis 1-2 Kikojui (Hot Limit [Hard; DDR Universe version] 67.76-58.00; Matsuri Japan [Hard] 89.93-79.95; Afronova Primeval [Hard] 78.61-82.50)
Kramm 0-2 RealAthlete (Sexy Planet (Mono Mix) [Expert] 91.05-97.15; In The Heat Of The Night [Hard] 0.07-6.89)
Flash_UK 1-2 Coaster_Crazy (Pink Dinosaur [Hard] 76.02-92.36; Do It All Night [Hard] ?-?; I Like To Move It [Hard] 80.86-93.17)
Dancing_Ninja 2-0 Rhea (Sexy Planet (Mono Mix) [Expert] 80(ish)-4.10; Your Rain (Rage Mix) [Hard] 82.36-0.00)
Round 3 (M300)
RealAthlete 1.5-1.5 Kikojui (Freckles (Sobakasu) [Hard] 98.22-91.10; Paranoia Respect [Hard] 0.00-0.00; Spin Chicken [Expert] 83.68-82.83)
Coaster_Crazy 2-0 Kramm (Birdie [Expert] 98.32-81.72; ReaF [Expert] 3.54-0.00)
Dancing_Ninja 2-0 Captain Charisma (S.A.G.A [Hard] 21.97-21.79; Sana Morette Ne Ente [Hard] 89.65-85.51)
Flash_UK 2-0 Genesis (Butterfly [Expert] 89.96-79.69; Classic Party Triathlon [Hard] 76.37-73.68)
Round 4 (Difficulty 7; target score 77.77%)
Coaster_Crazy 2-1 Kikojui (Since U Been Gone [Hard] -0.08/+0.22; What Is Love [Hard; DDR Universe 3 version] -2.78/-13.18; Radius [Medium] -0.40/-1.59)
Dancing_Ninja 2-0 RealAthlete (Test My Best [Hard] -0.17/+1.81; Mickey [Hard] -0.09/-0.67)
Flash_UK 2-0 Kramm (My Favorite Things [Hard] -0.57/-1.45; Moving Higher [Hard] -0.69/+1.48)
Rhea 2-1 Captain Charisma (Freeway Shuffle [Hard] -5.10/+0.06; Cartoon Heroes [Medium] +3.59/-8.42; Genie In A Bottle [Hard] -20.44/-77.77)
Quarter-Finals (No special rules)
Coaster-Crazy 2-1 Kramm (Da Roots (Folk Mix) [Expert] 98.98-95.94; Hardcore of the North [Expert] 12.63-31.59; Chromatic Blitz [Hard] 92.76-91.08)
Flash_UK 2-0 Kikojui (Candy (UFO Mix) [Hard] 87.489-84.41; Paranoia Survivor [Hard] 76.30-75.05)
Dancing_Ninja 2-0 Rhea (Disconnected Hyper [Expert] 82.86-15.42; Mellow [Hard] 97.09-76.44)
RealAthlete 2-0 Genesis (Chopstix [Hard] 97.30-80.89; Mouth [Hard] 99.36-87.71)
Semi-Finals (No special rules)
Flash_UK 0-2 Coaster_Crazy (Chikara [Hard] 93.76-97.72; Dragostea Din Tei (English mix) [Expert] 83.81-98.15)
Dancing_Ninja 1-2 RealAthelte (Hyper Hyper [Expert] 53.86-48.92; Hearts of Ice [Expert] 74.05-98.14; 100 Second Kitchen Battle [Hard] 90.40-95.90)
3rd Place Play-off (No special rules)
Dancing_Ninja 2-1 Flash_UK (Infection [Expert] 29.12-26.26; Max 300 [Hard] 65.61-80.89; You Leave Me Alone [Hard] 96.35-94.03)
Final (No special rules)
Coaster_Crazy 2-1 RealAthelte (Feels Just Like That Night [Expert] 97.92 – 95.67 [Expert]; Unspeakable [Expert] 98.37-98.82; Quickening [Expert] 99.36-99.13)
Final Positions
- Coaster_Crazy
- RealAthlete
- Dancing_Ninja
- Flash_UK
- Kikojui
- Genesis
- Rhea
- Kramm
- Captain Charisma
- Wellian