April MI 2024

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

Word has arrived from RSI (by way of Assur) that the April MI will be held on the weekend of April 6, 2024.

The ADM freeze should be six weeks beforehand on the weekend of February 24, 2024.

A reminder for newly returned managers: there is no longer a basic freeze. Warriors in basic are classed based on their FE on the date of the tournament.

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

The tourney announcement has been posted online: http://www.reality.com/tourny79.pdf

The prize is Clone/Twin, which either produces an exact copy of a natural warrior (the part about 3 rolls is a typo) or creates a version of a warrior with the same starting numbers, rolled 10 times, where you get to select the best one from the ten overviews.

Stylemaster prize is bonus potions.

Lets get ready for a tourney!

Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2024 11:47 am

Not quite April fools and not quite death and taxes. Weird date. I love how you're so enthused about it, though! Wink

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2024 2:02 pm

Got my mini's for Sunset, and it says the tourney due date at the top is 05/02/2024...gotta be a mistake. Anyone else get this?

Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2024 2:02 pm

Got my mini's for Sunset, and it says the tourney due date at the top is 05/02/2024...gotta be a mistake. Anyone else get this?

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

You can safely ignore that date on your minis. The tourney date is 04/06/2024.

There is a mention of a Fool's Tourney in the announcement, so we should expect that for the warriors who start out 0-2.

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

Tournament strategies are due in two weeks!

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

Strategies are due next week.

Good luck to everyone who is entering!

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

Not as much buzz about this tourney. I don't know if that means it'll be lower competition, or if people are just playing it close to the vest. It will be a big tourney for me, with 81 entrants.

Broken down by fighting style: 26 LU, 25 AB, 11 ST, 5 TP, 4 WS, 3 BA, 3 PR, 2 PL, 1 PS, 1 SL

Broken down by class: 5 Primus, 6 Contenders, 2 Eligibles, 2 ADM, 6 Freshmen, 3 Challengers, 1 Champion, 9 Adepts, 3 Initiates, 2 Apprentices, 42 Rookies

The individual warrior of mine with the best chance to TC is THIRD COURSE in Contenders. She has managed 7 Contenders TVs so far, including runs as deep as 13-3 and 12-3 with 3rd place finishes. My other Contenders are also fairly strong, with two three-time TVs and some newer entries that look good but have yet to TV. Still, I routinely get beaten up by ALUCARD, so I'm not optimistic.

My best basic class should be Adepts. I had a big Rookie class last April, which led to a big Apprentice class in July, and then a big Initiates class in October. I took basic off in January, for the most part, so that group of Rookies has whittled itself down to 9 Adepts for this tourney. This group of 9 includes 6 former TVs ranging from 13-3s in Rookies and Apprentices to 10-3s in Inits and Dead Inits, to 9-3s in Apprentices. The remaining 3 entries are warriors with winning tourney records but no TVs, a zombie WS and two 21-21 LUs. No finalists, but a solid group of warriors with either a history of success, or potential for success.

Rookies should be interesting, as they make up over half of my entries. I only run Rookies once or twice a year, and only a big Rookies class once per year, so this is my shot. I like the warriors that I have selected, but you never know how they'll do until they step out on the sands for the first time.

Best of luck to everyone in the tourney!

ArchMaster Poster Joined: Apr 15, 2004 Posts: 2958

Here are how my predictions went:

Contenders

I predicted a strong showing by THIRD COURSE, and a strong showing I got. She started the tourney with a R1 loss to DR FUGLY, another FI AB, but quickly bounced back and won her next 10 matches to reach R12 at 10-1.

Meanwhile, another of my Contenders, BURIED TREASURE, had a similar journey. Her early loss was in R2 to ROY BENAVIDEZ, a LU, who managed a first attack knockdown that she was unable to get up from. But after that squall, it was smooth sailing. BURIED TREASURE is a relative newcomer to Contenders, with her best performance so far a 7-3. She has two runner-ups in her past, and was created using a zombie potion, turning a dead 5-7-16-21-7-7-21 +2/+4 AB into a 7-7-16-17-9-7-21 +5/+4 max damaged AB.

R12 arrived, and I have two 10-1 ABs remaining. THIRD COURSE loses a tough match against BOLD MR WASABI, while BURIED TREASURE beats SHIV, both FI ABs. In R13, BURIED TREASURE gets the stand-in, and THIRD COURSE eliminates SHIV from the tourney. In R14, THIRD COURSE gets the stand-in and BURIED TREASURE eliminates ALICE BLUE, who is yet another FI AB. And that just leaves my two ABs, at 13-1 and 14-2 to meet in the finals. THIRD COURSE has always been a strong competitor in this class, but she could not withstand BURIED TREASURE's Unearthly damage. Over the course of the 3 minute fight, THIRD COURSE landed 6 attacks, but BURIED TREASURE's 4 hits were worth more and she walked away as the TC.

Contenders turned out to be outstanding all around, with the cherry being SPARE ANCHOR's 4th TV in the class and TP stylemaster.

Adepts

I felt that this was going to be my strongest basic class, and while I was wrong on that front, it was still a good performance. Of my 9 entries, none did worse than 3-3, and two went on to TV. PRIMA GIEDI picked up her second TV with a 9-3 performance, and HAEDUS, my zombie WS, picked up his first TV at 8-3 after going 7-3 in both Apprentices and Initiates. Hopefully this will translate into a strong Champions class down the road, and HAEDUS will put his stylemaster potion to good use.

Rookies

I entered 42 Rookies, and they earned me my best basic class, with 1 Runner-up and 3 additional TVs. 8 warrior landed right at 4 FE for Apprentices runs, and several more look worth timing for a single fight to join them.

The interesting part about which warriors won awards and which did not, is that I could not have predicted the results. Two ABs and two LUs made the run-offs for me, and for the most part, they had unimpressive starting numbers. One AB is a very pretty 7-6-8-17-17-8-21, but the other AB is a 12-12-7-15-8-9-21. I ran numerous good looking 17-21 and 21-17 LUs in Rookies, but the two who succeeded were highly bonused with ordinary numbers, an 11-10-12-17-15-6-13 and an 11-12-8-17-17-6-13. I guess that is the reason I roll up these lesser designs and look for lucky rolls.

Eligibles

I offered no predictions for Eligibles, although as with most classes, I felt that I had a longshot chance to do well. I busted a LU, KAPPA LEONIS, who went 7-3 while sandbagging in the previous tourney. He trained fine, and was eliminated at 2-3.

The big surprise of the tourney was my DA killer TP, CANNED SAVRADESE. He has never been a good tourney performer, with zero TVs to his credit lifetime, but he has been an outstanding arena warrior, with 10 Dark Arena kills in basic as a natural warrior, 5 additional kills in ADM, and a nice long run as the Tower Guardian in Talahya.

With the addition to the King of Primus contest of a 2nd team with the 5 additional styles, I decided that I wanted to push CANNED SAVRADESE to max out in Primus as quickly as possible so that I could let SPARE ANCHOR, my three time TC TP, sandbag Contenders for as long as he needs to. To that end, I started going for the min train to 21 DF on CANNED SAVRADESE after the freeze, and entered him in the tourney training DF as well. He went 4-3 in the last Eligibles, and my hopes were mainly for a stylemaster. As the tourney was about to run, I received the last DM 100 turn in the mail before the tourney and saw that CANNED SAVRADESE had picked up his lucky DF train to 21, so he went into the tourney looking like this (all natural):

CANNED SAVRADESE (7-6311) of SHEWISH PICNIC (6453) [177-95-15,677,312FE], will fight Eligibles.
He is a total parry with ST=25(8) CN=25(15) SZ=8 WT=22(5) WL=25(8) SP=5(1) DF=21(10).
He is right handed, is a genius, has awesome endurance, can withstand almost any amount of punishment, can carry almost limitless weight, is incredibly quick and elusive, does devastating damage, has a Master in initiative, has a Master in riposte, has a Grandmaster in attack, has a Grandmaster in parry, has an Advanced Master in defense, has an Advanced Expert in decisiveness, favors the battle axe, favors a very low offensive effort, favors a low activity level, and preferentially learns attack.

Over half the fights could have gone either way, it felt like, but CANNED SAVRADESE managed to win and win some more to start off 7-0, beating multiple FI ABs, a PR, a PL, a TP, and a SC AB. In R8, he got run over by a LU named HIGHWAY GAMBLER with two consecutive knockdowns. He then went on to beat a TP, a LU, a SL, and another TP.

At 11-1, there were only two warriors remaining, CANNED SAVRADESE and the equally unexpected PICKLED NEWT, a ST managed by Mannequin.

The first fight between them saw a LO crit, a knockdown, and quick bounce back up from the sands. Then another LO crit, a broken BA, and a quickly drawn backup. Four more crits later and CANNED SAVRADESE was desperate. The next attack was parried, riposted, and a single BA crit won the match for CANNED SAVRADESE.

The second fight belonged to PICKLED NEWT. The first LO crit was dodged, but the second landed and resulted in a knockdown that nobody was able to get up from. Four more attacks and that fight was over.

Now we were both at 12-2, and we had reached the absolute final fight. PICKLED NEWT opened with a LO crit to the breast, and then another to the left forearm. The next attack was parried, riposted, but PICKLED NEWT was able to dodge the BA crit coming his way and regain the initiative. He slipped past a parry and hit the kidneys, then slipped past another parry and hit the left thigh, but CANNED SAVRADESE was still not desperate. He parried an attack, dodged the next two attacks, and then riposted and unleashed a full-bladed chop with his BA. PICKLED NEWT was hit in the abdomen, became frantic, and the match was stopped by Greywand's herald.

It was a great run by Mannequin's sandbagging ST, but my TP came out on top. CANNED SAVRADESE didn't get any additional DF trains during the tourney, so he was basically just a step over the line with 210 total skills and a ton of trains. And that is how the surprising turn of events unfolded and I won a second TC.

Overall

My 81 entries went 301-242-7-3 for a 55% win percentage. They earned 2 TCs, 2 RUs, and 8 TVs for a 15% award percentage, and earned 4 stylemaster potions as well.

I could not have hoped for a better tourney. Congrats to all the winners, including Neon Necromancer who beat me in the Rookie finals, and tough break to all the runner-ups, especially Mannequin in Eligibles.

Although nothing in life is certain, I expect I'll be in Minneapolis in July to see if I can pad my yearly stats with another TC. I hope to see many of you there.

Posted: Thu Apr 18, 2024 2:56 am

Wow! Way to go, OAB! Kudos.