OT 13.5 Thought or whatever
Posted on: November 4, 2020, at 10:12:56am

Might actually stand a chance! The top of D4 is all around my current skill level, so it'll probably be intense competition, especially in later rounds. My placement will depend on how much time I can find to actually play; how much I can spend on improving scores. If I can skillboost anything. If I luck out on files that suit my skillset.

Round 1 - Spaceship Toyvox - AAA
Sightread AAA, haven't done that since Control. Expecting the next round to be much more cruel.

Round 2 - Jackhammer Manifesto - AAA
Stepartist's advantage? Was not expecting this file to be used for a tournament because it stresses jacks so much, but cool

Round 3 - TEM SHOP (Ben Briggs Glitch Hop Remix) - AAA
Really good file for this round. AAA on second try. Feeling pretty confident about my chances right now, but later rounds will be really tough.

Round 4 - Viden - AAA
Tied for my highest AAA level so far. Competition is starting to get scary.

Round 5 - Tell Me A Story [Prolixity Mix] - 7-0-0-1
Stepartist's advantage? Scary shit. Might survive this round, unsure about the next 1-2. Hoping I'll finally get vrofl

Round 6 - Swamp Thing - 8-0-0-0
Got this lucky run early in the round. VERY fortunate because I've now got major mindblocks on the later 32nd parts.

Round 7 - Cyclone Joker - 4-0-0-2
What a bop. Sightread 7 goods. Hoping this score is good enough to get to the final round. Holy craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap

Round 8 - Nihil Descent - 20-1-1-3
No more SDGs. This one is a real challenge. This is the least confident I've been with my score in the entire tournament. D4 is wide open, any one of the three of us can take it. I miiiight be able to improve my score later, but I'd rather see how the competition fares first. I'm just glad to finally get v0 and an event token. Or two. Or three.

Finish - Second place
Can't be mad about this placing. timetorekt earned first with a frankly ridiculous, D6-adjacent score that I was never going to catch. The tournament was a lot of fun! Most notable moments for me were the community's reaction to the ending bs in Tell Me A Story, and kadef's huge but ultimately unsuccessful grind on Cyclone Joker.
Personally this tournament forced me to skill boost a little. I started the tournament around level 71, where I had been for years. At time of writing I stand just shy of level 77. I feel I've gotten a bunch more speed and reading ability thanks in large part to this tournament.
This tournament is also the first time some of my files were used in an "official" tournament. That was actually pretty cool too.

gg D4