/tnt/ - Tournaments & Events
This board is for hosting tournaments and other organized competitions, be it either events, contests, or anything where a winner must be determined through votes or otherwise. Just for this board, image duplicates are enabled and the bump limits are set extra high. Roleplaying is encouraged, unless event hosts ask otherwise.
Please consider donating! Thanks!
Thread stats: 79 posts, 19 files (19 image(s))
Navigation:
So I'd like to have a thread focused specifically for the foundational questions about the tournaments.
The biggest question I want to bring up is:
>What does the tournament actually represent? Is it a popularity contest? Is it about OC? character love? a war of wills and tactics? just plain fun? If multiple things to what extent is each?
Also by extension:
>What does it actually mean to be a board tournament winner? What makes a character "worthy" to be a winner? popularity? OC? campaign? actual quality of character?
>Should we limit more popular characters/series's/franchises? to what extent?
>How much does "validity" of a character's run matter? Does or should getting rigged fully tarnish that character?
>Do the ethics of a character's run matter? Are spite, psyops, or rigging valid tactics?
>How much do tournaments matter and how much is it worth getting invested in?
I think laying out thoughts about these kinds of questions would in the future better facilitate the constant debates over the years about rules, rulefagging, who's the "better"" candidate, a "good" winner and the such. And while there may not be objective answers to these questions it's nice to see other's opinions and perhaps lay out something resembling a consensus.
And of course feel free to bring up whatever other query's and ponderings about tournaments too.
>>16105
Tournaments are a funpost ground and they do NOT matter. Any character is valid as long as they meet the criteria to be a character of the board. That's it, everything else is just a secondary thing you can do. Everything is valid, even psyop, falseflags, rigging, everything adds in someway to the tournament.
>>16105
>What does the tournament actually represent? Is it a popularity contest? Is it about OC? character love? a war of wills and tactics? just plain fun? If multiple things to what extent is each?
Everything.
The tournaments aren't actually just plain popularity polls, they're a rare event of engagement and funposting that is actually not seen in any other board in 4chan or internet for that matter.
>What does it actually mean to be a board tournament winner? What makes a character "worthy" to be a winner? popularity? OC? campaign? actual quality of character?
Depends, usually it is all of these with a slight nitpick. Midna for example is a clear popularity winner while Recette and Zorak are more underdog winners who won through their kino campaiging. The character should represent the board in some way and shouldn't be just a boring and bland pick.
>Should we limit more popular characters/series's/franchises? to what extent?
There should never be any restriction on any franchise, which is why I wholeheartedly disagree with the new two character rule. As long as a franchise has a three character limit like everyone else then it doesn't matter. If they make it to Elite Eight then it's deserved (aside from some cases).
>How much does "validity" of a character's run matter? Does or should getting rigged fully tarnish that character?
As long as a character isn't straight up unrelated to the board. You can't put moby dick in a /v/ tournament because he is a /lit/ character and basically no ties with vidya. But if a character has at least some amount of funposting alongside it being related to vidya they should be allowed.
As for rigging, it is a complex topic because the character sometimes can actually be 100% worth the spot they're given but are tarnished by the rigging done, but then there's the * who didn't deserve to go past the first round.
>Do the ethics of a character's run matter? Are spite, psyops, or rigging valid tactics?
I don't really have strong opinion on this one really.
>How much do tournaments matter and how much is it worth getting invested in?
Not that much, but they're genuinely one of the most fun events in 4chan period. Many great memes and artwork have come from these tourneys and I am proud to have partaken in each one of them.
Tournaments are primarily meant for fun, but I think that's exactly why it's good to have a sort of a conduct and some guidelines we adhere to, so that discussion doesn't fall below a certain level. So that it doesn't just become chaotic shit posting like what would happen if we allowed DBZ characters in.
>>16105
As far as I'm concerned, just with the site itself, it is a constantly changing beast.
Year 1 and initially Year 2 were mostly popularity contests straight up. The Spinel debacle put that on the back foot and the rise of Monarch Posting and RP in Year 3 effectively killed that dead.
OC can and has made a difference multiple times, and Year 3 was probably the peak of it with Monarch being carried to the win off it and Mr. /co/ being an RP fest.
Year 4 was a battle of tactics and spite, with spitevoting leading to the loss of basically all the so called heavy hitters. Year 5 somewhat clapped back on this, but due to the extensive rigging it's hard to say exactly how much of an effect this had(Albeit it appears 2 Farts members, Raven and either Frankie or Shego, would have made it to the E8 without rigging, so definitely less pure spite than Year 5).
Personally, I do not mind this as long as the base rules stay the same, which they have since Year 2. NSA's bracketing change was the first shift since and I'm not for it personally. The biggest advantage of March Madness style bracketing is that it stops all the heavy hitters randomly being placed in one bracket and taking eachother out, and based on last years results Heavy Hitters might be seeing a bit of a comeback after the disastrous Year 4. Hence I will not be bringing them forward to Tag Team and will be advocating for seeded brackets to return. (Though Tag Team will be tightening it's rules on who's allowed in to match the other tournaments for consistency and to help break the stigma we gained as being lesser. Plenty of good primarily /tv/ or /v/ characters will be grandfathered in anyway)
What it means to be a winner is hard to define, especially since following the Fuse incident off-season discussion became taboo. Prior to that winners often saw the benefit of extra generals for their series being started with the justication of discussing their victory(Most notably Jenny, Johnny, and Kronk saw a big boost afterwards), but following the crackdowns after Year 3 this 'board wide advantages' no longer really exist and it's become a more self contained victory.
As for what the title really means, that too has shifted over time. Year 1 and 2 were popularity contests. Year 2, 3, and to a lesser extent 4 were games of OC and Art where dedication and craft payed dividends. Year 4 and Year 5 were games of tactics and intrigue, mind games to out flex the opponent, with Year 5 having a dash of the rampant rigging problems not seen on that scale since Year 1 Mr. /co/ and Year 2 Ms. /co/.
This is further evidence that these phases are somwhat cyclical and will come and go. Rigging was a massive problem in the second and third tournaments(Miss /co/ 2 and Mr. /co/ 1), then went away as a significant problem for years before coming back again twice in a row with Tag Team Year 4 and Miss /co/ Year 5.
This is also my third and final reason for being against ditching seeded brackets. One of the main arguments for getting rid of them was that their biggest advantage(keeping heavy hitters apart) was no longer needed due to heavy hitters not being a thing anymore, but as we've seen, trends come and trends go, and the so called Heavy Hitters like SCK Coalition and Team F.A.R.T.S. did far better in Year 5 than the Year prior, and may have done even better yet without rigging. Year 5 even saw a former heavy hitter and prior E8 win for the first time ever.
Yes, being rigged is quite shameful whem it's allowed unchecked. There's a good reason Emmy was more or less forgiven because her supporters helped put her down immediately to prevent an illegitimate campaign, while Shirley and Spinel are forever tainted and the entire Tag Team 2021 is forever called into question due to both Numnuts tampering with half the results and my own fuckups in the finale.
IMO, rigging offsite or with large numbers of alt accounts is not cool.
Appealing to other 4chan boards like /aco/ or /trash/ isn't a problem, and appealing on other /co/ threads isn't a problem FOR THIS REASON(It IS a problem due to the threat of provoking rogue jannies though, so don't do that). There is a huge difference between trying to pool support from /aco/(which shares the same general 4chan culture and has less janny issues) and just importing a clueless voting base from Facebook or Discord who don't even use 4chan. Very different. /mlp/ is complicated so no comment, other than do it at your own risk as being associated with them is campaign poison. Trust me.
How much they matter is entirely on the community, though as I said the tangible 'benefits' off-season of winning effectively disappeared after Year 3 due to the crackdowns. There isn't a boost to discussion of your show for the rest of the year like what Jenny or Kronk got as those threads get pruned these days.
>>16105
I'm rather split. I agree with the ideal that they've changed in nature over the years, and also I'd say there's a different nature between each tournament (like male vs. females). If I had to define an underlying unity it's that they're all board-representative. What exactly that means can be vague and mutable. At best I can say it means the expressed collective disposition of the board at the given time. I can't call it the collective disposition in general because after the second year (for both /co/ and /v/) the tournament increasingly became a sort of institution in itself with it's own history and codes. So while it's still a collective expression, it's one within a particular context - no longer just the board's, but "the board as regards the tournament". So the meaning of the winner went from "board mascot" (in a sense) to more the "tournament mascot".
Of course the original popularity contest sense of things is still there and always will be cause there will always be silent majority or outsiders that just vote and don't follow the threads and history, but their influence as the unconquerable driving force is long past. I do question if it will become weaker, I feel like it's kind of plateaued and the winner of high seeds this year (with reservations and E8 fuckery) shows there might be a cycle. As a result top seeds went from top contenders to wildcards of sort, with them being at a simultaneous advantage (pure popularity) and disadvantage (metagame). But perhaps it just shows the meta-game gets meta-gamed and it will meta-game reverse.
I've always been in a sort of purist/idealist strain, in that I still see it as essentially a popularity or board-representative and not tourney-representative contest. So while OC and campaigns are great, fun, and deserve to bring a character a long way, in the final end I vote for the character I think is the best as that board representative (why I voted Midna over Hornet). In the case of fucky finale's like Betty vs. Johanna where neither is particularly board representative I'll go for medium representative, since I don't like meta victors in any sense, and I want to have the tournament maintain as much purity as possible.
The other part of me is just cynical about all that, and I think this year's ms. /co/ kind of vindicated that feeling with a lot of people. The view of >>16106 has probably come closest to the current truth. People bring many different meanings into it but the overall result is kind of just a fun spectacle, with thinning substance to the tournament itself. Even Spinel then seems valid in both a formal and informal sense and asteriskfags look more like moralist each year. If riggers, if they're smart enough, can shift everything, piss on any aforementioned criteria, and make finals, then what the fuck, just go all the way and make it a big spite/rig/psyops metagame. It's all rather chaotic now and a strong definition on tournament meaning can't be pinned down beyond perhaps the vaguest ideal's like funposting and hopefully at least somewhat a temporal collective representation.
How much they matter probably depends on your own purpose in it. If you're there for character love and actively campaign and OC them then it might matter a lot. Otherwise it's probably not worth taking serious at all. It's cool if a main wins or goes far, but it can't be said to have much prestige (at least not the last few years) beyond an inner-tourney culture. Though I guess you get the OC for them too.
It's all kind of fascinating though, and over the years I see the tournaments as a study. I'm now always curious the turn they'll take the next year.
Can't speak for /mlp/. Far as I can tell they've got their own small insular subculture and do things their own way.
>>16110
I more or less agree with everything you said in spirit. This more purist/idealist approach would make you the perfect host in my eyes if only you weren't shown asswipe incompetent at actually running tournaments.
>>16117
Should add I am strongly NOT for series or franchise limitations. The rule is hand-holdy for weaker character and unfairly disadvantages stronger characters for simply being popular in a popular series. It's a rule inherently against the (what still like to believe in) popularity contest and board representative nature of the tournament. But it's a rule people will vote yes on no matter what because they want their smaller picks and more "interesting" bracket/results, and nothing will change their mind on that. The only exception i would maybe agree on are particularly extreme cases like touhou spam, which is sort of the equivalent of ponies allowed in a /co/ tournamnet.
>>16117
>I more or less agree with everything you said in spirit. This more purist/idealist approach would make you the perfect host in my eyes if only you weren't shown asswipe incompetent at actually running tournaments.
I'll take that as the closest thing I've had to a compliment regarding this.
>>16117
>I'm rather split. I agree with the ideal that they've changed in nature over the years, and also I'd say there's a different nature between each tournament (like male vs. females). If I had to define an underlying unity it's that they're all board-representative. What exactly that means can be vague and mutable. At best I can say it means the expressed collective disposition of the board at the given time. I can't call it the collective disposition in general because after the second year (for both /co/ and /v/) the tournament increasingly became a sort of institution in itself with it's own history and codes. So while it's still a collective expression, it's one within a particular context - no longer just the board's, but "the board as regards the tournament". So the meaning of the winner went from "board mascot" (in a sense) to more the "tournament mascot".
Agreed for the most part. While trends on /v/ suggest this progression was natural to a degree, and I mean, the RP fest and rise of campaigning in Year 3 was a sure sign of it, I'd argue the crackdowns after Fuse's debacle sped this all up by basically forcefully pushing the tournaments into their own box. Prior to this offseason discussion was common and a character winning was used as an excuse to make generals. The crackdowns basically insured the Tournaments would develop their own subculture instead of being a part of the larger /co/ culture even if it was trending in that direction already.
>
Of course the original popularity contest sense of things is still there and always will be cause there will always be silent majority or outsiders that just vote and don't follow the threads and history, but their influence as the unconquerable driving force is long past. I do question if it will become weaker, I feel like it's kind of plateaued and the winner of high seeds this year (with reservations and E8 fuckery) shows there might be a cycle. As a result top seeds went from top contenders to wildcards of sort, with them being at a simultaneous advantage (pure popularity) and disadvantage (metagame). But perhaps it just shows the meta-game gets meta-gamed and it will meta-game reverse.
Of course. The evidence seems to suggest this. Rigging was a huge problem early on, went away for a few years on any large scale, and then came back again twice. (Though I suppose this could also be tied to Stats simply being the best host by far and the people both before and after him being less qualified). Year 5 in general had heavy hitters do significantly better than in Year 4 and the effect would have been even larger had the riggers not screwed them over. Spitevoters got spitevoted themselves and it will likely be cyclical. This is why I am FIRMLY against randomized brackets, NSA jumped the gun on ditching them because he thought Heavy Hitters were done. Well that and it's tradition and I don't like mucking with it. If Stats had been in charge I would have handed over the tournament to him as soon as we got back to /co/, but I cannot stand for some of NSA's choices in leadership and am keeping control fo Tag Team til circumstances change.
>I've always been in a sort of purist/idealist strain, in that I still see it as essentially a popularity or board-representative and not tourney-representative contest. So while OC and campaigns are great, fun, and deserve to bring a character a long way, in the final end I vote for the character I think is the best as that board representative (why I voted Midna over Hornet). In the case of fucky finale's like Betty vs. Johanna where neither is particularly board representative I'll go for medium representative, since I don't like meta victors in any sense, and I want to have the tournament maintain as much purity as possible.
It is somewhat cyclical, but it honestly seems like you have to have both, even if the exact ratio varies.
You cannot rest on your laurels and assume because you got a high seed and did good last year you can do zero campaigning and make zero art and still get all the voters. People lose interest and gravitate to OC and discussion generators. Year 4 taught most of F.A.R.T.S. this lesson the hard way.
On the other hand, no amount of OC will save an obscure character from simply being overun. The two most OC heavy characters in the qualifiers of Year 5 Miss /co/ (Cheesecake Saint Cherrywell and Tiff Crust) both lost immediately, the former failed to get past qualifiers and the latter lost in R1. Having a core of dedicated autists backing you is nice, and the OC will sway some anons, but if you're too obscure to start with you won't get over the hump. There are exceptions to both rules, in Years 1 and 2 plenty of characters with little to no discussion got far and Shirley wasn't well known prior to her run, but the former could be considered early tourney weirdness and the latter was fueled by rigging.
>The other part of me is just cynical about all that, and I think this year's ms. /co/ kind of vindicated that feeling with a lot of people. The view of >>16106 has probably come closest to the current truth. People bring many different meanings into it but the overall result is kind of just a fun spectacle, with thinning substance to the tournament itself. Even Spinel then seems valid in both a formal and informal sense and asteriskfags look more like moralist each year. If riggers, if they're smart enough, can shift everything, piss on any aforementioned criteria, and make finals, then what the fuck, just go all the way and make it a big spite/rig/psyops metagame. It's all rather chaotic now and a strong definition on tournament meaning can't be pinned down beyond perhaps the vaguest ideal's like funposting and hopefully at least somewhat a temporal collective representation.
Some people definitely take it too far, but I'd argue Spinel really crossed a line by going offsite to Facebook and Discord. It's kinda dirty. Promoting on other boards? Fine, not rigging in my book, 4chan is 4chan. Using alt accounts? Not ideal, but I don't care too much unless the number is extreme enough to turn nobodies into winners(Ala, Shirley is past the line, that one guy who said he screwed over Alice with 3 alts isn't worth the trouble). But offsite is just plain wrong.
>How much they matter probably depends on your own purpose in it. If you're there for character love and actively campaign and OC them then it might matter a lot. Otherwise it's probably not worth taking serious at all. It's cool if a main wins or goes far, but it can't be said to have much prestige (at least not the last few years) beyond an inner-tourney culture. Though I guess you get the OC for them too.
That's true, and also probably part of the reason the early winners feel so special. They DID get to reap some rewards offseason. Jenny, Johnny, Kronk, Spinel, they all got a big boost in generals and overall discussion. Jenny's win is part of overall /co/ culture. Things became more isolated after the Fuse Crackdowns so it's more and more tourney specific. But the OC is definitely nice.
>t's all kind of fascinating though, and over the years I see the tournaments as a study. I'm now always curious the turn they'll take the next year.
Ditto, I've been tracking trends on and off since Year 3. It's quite fascinating.
Replies:>>16125
>>16121
>I'd argue the crackdowns after Fuse's debacle sped this all up
Hadn't considered that but yes, janny response purposely isolating things to those in the know and select off-season autists to talk about certainly further sub-cultured it. But you also get more voters each year, so there is a growing wider board awareness each year too (assuming most of those new votes aren't just more alts).
>This is why I am FIRMLY against randomized brackets
I'm somewhat against it myself for similar reason's I'm against franchise/series limits, which is it's basically a slightly more roundabout way for a more "interesting" and underdog tourney at the expense of naturally popular characters. Feels hand-holdy, and like you said it's just infringing on formal precedent which should always be assumed unless truly necessary (one of NSA's major flaws is jumping to his own arbitrary decisions and stubbornly holding them). I'm not -totally- against randomization though, cause if a character is "worthy" enough (popular + board-representative, in my own idealistic criteria) they should win in the end regardless. But it does drastically shift how the brackets would turn out to a degree impossible to really ascertain, so who really knows. As it stands I'm not behind it but it's not a major issue and it's something people are always gonna vote on anyways so may as well swallow that.
>F.A.R.T.S.
Wanna state that this was originally NOT a psyop. I was one of the people pushing this prior to that year (and kind of hold myself responsible for it's proliferation) and it was actually meant to be a banner of sorts. But yeah, that shit quickly got out of hand. I hadn't fully grasped the meta-game at the time to know I probably shouldn't have gone along with it.
>On the other hand, no amount of OC will save an obscure character from simply being overrun.
I laid out before a theory that the tournament is essentially a battle of high vs. mid's. You have the high's who's campaigning is often tenuous and are more wildcard as the years went on, who are pitted against mid characters who have the baseline to win alongside the major campaign support. So yeah, you might have someone like Tiff get in on the qualifier campaign but simply not quite rise to the mid-bar. In this sense the tournament always and still is a popularity contest, just that the baseline popularity required for a winner lowered a little. But Shirley making finals sort of throws this theory off cause she's arguably below mid.
Alternately you can have popular + OC and vocal support characters that still fail because of board conflict and seclusion. Modern DTVA suffers from this.
>Spinel really crossed a line
What i mean is, Spinel's run in my idealist frame is totally bullshit and *, but can it really be said now? or at least with the same certainty? In a cynical or practical frame after this year it's just as well she could bullshit her way to winner. This year's ms. /co/ was worse than 2019 imo because
1. It was never confirmed that Spinel was rigged as the tournament was going on, it WAS confirmed in this year but the characters went on anyways.
2. Spinel and gems DID have a legit fotm surge at the time, and I do think the Spinel and the others could've made E8 even without rigs. It's Spinel's run in her last three matches that are undeniably bullshit (just look at the drastic rise in voter numbers unsurpassed to this day). The rigged candidates this year were previously never in or were fodder though.
>Jenny's win is part of overall /co/ culture.
First year winner's will always remain the "true" winners to me. The tournaments purity ensured the most "worthy" (by my criteria) were winners. And I do think Jenny, Bravo, Samus, and Armstrong could all very likely win their tournament if it were held today. They're a solid representative pantheon.
I would almost say the same for the second year were it not for ms. /co/. The likely Frankie vs. Raven finale is imo the biggest cucking in any tournament - more so than Jack vs. Bravo cause the general sense Bravo probably would've won anyway.
>>16123
I'd always figured Temp was well-meaning. Just incompetent. A good example of his character is when the rigging last ms. /co./. was revealed. Temp went on a rant that he was pretty much entirely correct about, but then tried hijacking the tourney and got himself banned. Then he tried setting up tourney here but botched it right away and no one participated. This also temporarily caused anyone voicing the same (reasonable) complaints as him to be dismissed Temp.
>>16122
Yeah, at the time there was rumor Fang was rigged, wasn't the case. My bad.
Shego and Frankie both would have won their matchups and moved on to face eachother in the Top 16 without rigging though, which is part of the reason I was so bloody ticked off by how NSA handled it. He basically used the repeated failures of Heavy Hitters to justify pushing through radical changes to Stats time tested formula when he himself made calls in vote counting that screwed them over(and again, cyclical cycles, Heavy Hitters seem to be rising again which makes seeded brackets really important to have and please for the love of god stop fucking with the majesty Stats came up with and then blocking any attempts to undo it because 'precadent' bloody hell mate you can't make up precedent on the fly, what are you, the supreme court? I got ya precedent right here, and it's Statsanons multiple years of the least drama filled tournies we had. He got rid of the rigging and as soon as we lost him it came back. Hows that for precedent you reformist wanker?
Sorry, got a bit carried away.
>>16124
>Hadn't considered that
Thank you, yes it's probably a bit of both. As for the voter numbers...eh I'm not quite sure. Last years Miss /co/ was 100% alts and rigging based on the massive sudden spike that didn't make sense based on the prior 3 years trends. Qualifying vote tallys had consistently been high 60s to low 70s for years and then suddenly it's 120s? Something ain't right. The prior very slow rise was probably mostly legit.
>I'm somewhat against it myself for similar reason's I'm againstfranchise/series limits, which is it's basically a slightly more roundabout way for a more "interesting" and underdog tourney at the expense of naturally popular characters. Feels hand-holdy, and like you said it's just infringing on formal precedent which should always be assumed unless truly necessary (one of NSA's major flaws is jumping to his own arbitrary decisions and stubbornly holding them). I'm not -totally- against randomization though, cause if a character is "worthy" enough (popular + board-representative, in my own idealistic criteria) they should win in the end regardless. But it does drastically shift how the brackets would turn out to a degree impossible to really ascertain, so who really knows. As it stands I'm not behind it but it's not a major issue and it's something people are always gonna vote on anyways so may as well swallow that.
Apologizes for asking, but was there a new franchise restriction added or is this about the same old 3 per franchise unless DCMarvelDisney rule we've had since Year 2? Because the latter seemed to work fine.
>Wanna state that this was originally NOT a psyop. I was one of the people pushing this prior to that year (and kind of hold myself responsible for it's proliferation) and it was actually meant to be a banner of sorts. But yeah, that shit quickly got out of hand. I hadn't fully grasped the meta-game at the time to know I probably shouldn't have gone along with it.
Hey, I'm the guy who got the S added. It was original just Team FART, but I noticed Shego showed up just as often and fit the acronym so I kept calling it that until it caught on. Yeah it was just a legit moniker to me. Hence when I came up with a name for the 2018/2020/2022 crew I avoided any bad puns and just went with the sterile S.C.K. Coalition. (Starfire Chel Kim).
>I laid out before a theory that the tournament is essentially a battle of high vs. mid's. You have the high's who's campaigning is often tenuous and are more wildcard as the years went on, who are pitted against mid characters who have the baseline to win alongside the major campaign support. So yeah, you might have someone like Tiff get in on the qualifier campaign but simply not quite rise to the mid-bar. In this sense the tournament always and still is a popularity contest, just that the baseline popularity required for a winner lowered a little. But Shirley making finals sort of throws this theory off cause she's arguably below mid.
Alternately you can have popular + OC and vocal support characters that still fail because of board conflict and seclusion. Modern DTVA suffers from this.
Oh that was you? Loved that stuff. Basically yeah. He tiers like FARTS, SCK, or Fang have to contend with spitevoting and especially in Year 4 were far too overly confident on thieir reputation. But low tiers can only be carried so far by OC, see again Tiff Crust and Cheesecake Saint Cherrywell both failing despite high OC support. Shirley is an outlier which further confirms her run as illegitimate as there was really nothing else going for her. This(combined with the lack of offsite evidence) points to one massive determined autist trying to break the entire tournament for a couple of his girls(And I have my theories who).
>What i mean is, Spinel's run in my idealist frame is totally bullshit and *, but can it really be said now? or at least with the same certainty? In a cynical or practical frame after this year it's just as well she could bullshit her way to winner. This year's ms. /co/ was worse than 2019 imo because
1. It was never confirmed that Spinel was rigged as the tournament was going on, it WAS confirmed in this year but the characters went on anyways.
2. Spinel and gems DID have a legit fotm surge at the time, and I do think the Spinel and the others could've made E8 even without rigs. It's Spinel's run in her last three matches that are undeniably bullshit (just look at the drastic rise in voter numbers unsurpassed to this day). The rigged candidates this year were previously never in or were fodder though.
I was mainly saying why Spinel was so hated compared to say, Emmy or the several characters who were using /trash/ for support like Jucika. Emmy's fanbase shot her down to protect their sanctity, and nobody really cares too much about campaigning on other parts of 4chan, not really rigging. Spinel was offsite and it wasn't caught in time.
Shirley is less about the rigger himself(Again, seemingly a lone wolf with either extreme autistic love for Shirley and a few others like Tigress, or someone with a Vendetta ala Fuse or Tourney) or moreso about NSA's horrible response to it. Neither of those things had to happen if it had been quashed in the craddle. Hence I take rigging so seriously, it has major knockon effects, and the longer you go on the worse they get. Stopping it in Round 1 is crucial hence Emmy recovered.
>First year winner's will always remain the "true" winners to me. The tournaments purity ensured the most "worthy" (by my criteria) were winners. And I do think Jenny, Bravo, Samus, and Armstrong could all very likely win their tournament if it were held today. They're a solid representative pantheon.
I would almost say the same for the second year were it not for ms. /co/. The likely Frankie vs. Raven finale is imo the biggest cucking in any tournament - more so than Jack vs. Bravo cause the general sense Bravo probably would've won anyway.
Oh yeah. Always vote for Frankie and Raven, they earned it. Frankie was robbed last year and Raven...might have been? Maybe? Definitely Frankie though, it was confirmed.
>I'd always figured Temp was well-meaning. Just incompetent. A good example of his character is when the rigging last ms. /co./. was revealed. Temp went on a rant that he was pretty much entirely correct about, but then tried hijacking the tourney and got himself banned. Then he tried setting up tourney here but botched it right away and no one participated. This also temporarily caused anyone voicing the same (reasonable) complaints as him to be dismissed Temp.
In my defense out of my 4 most infamous fuckups, 2 and a half of them were reactionary responses to someone elses fuckup and I wouldn't have been in that situation on my own.
The 'reset' debacle in Ta
Replies:>>16129
>>16125
>In my defense out of my 4 most infamous fuckups, 2 and a half of them were reactionary responses to someone elses fuckup and I wouldn't have been in that situation on my own.
The 'reset' debacle in Tag Team was in response to Tourney basically coming out and saying he had rigged every matchup to fuck with people and take out the more popular characters. So basically the legitimatcy of the whole tournament was DOA at that point. A reset was the only way to bring back any semblance of actual validity. I wanted R1, but partially due to a lot of people wanting different and partially wanting to skip qualieirs I settled on a R3 compromise. People did not take kindly to that. Maybe not the best call, but again, entire situation would not have happened without a certain Laughing Joking Numnut taking the ballot box for a spin cycle just prior.
Same with the coup. NSA was utterly mangling the response and was openly allowing several girls to be screwed over and then using his own tardiness and slow acting as an excuse not to act because 'it's been too long'. It was BS, everyone knew it was BS, and I couldn't stand to watch the legitimacy of the tournament get torched like that. Especially since I never liked NSA's style since the start, bad vibes. The Coup Attempt was a brash call and didn't work at all, if anything it basically allowed NSA and his kabal(possible alts i dunno) to right off any complaints as "Temp Alts or Temp Sympathizers" and push through his radical reforms while I was banned and couldn't speak up. But again, consider in context I myself was forcefully booted against my will the year prior for less severe fuckups than that and then booted out someone else for worse fuckups, and both of those coups went by fine with the board. So I was under the impression that was on the table in an extreme situation like this, and I supposed to failed to read the room properly. Apologizes.
The Tag Team finale was partially my fault for making a bad call and screwing up how the tie breaker worked, but also partially a glitch and the result of all the prior voter fuckery so I dunno this could go either way.
And yeah I got nothing for the qualifiers. No denying that. I got in over my head and couldn't figure out how to tally shit up properly. All my fault. Apologizes.
>>16125
>>16126
>Qualifying vote tallys had consistently been high 60s to low 70s for years and then suddenly it's 120s?
I'd contest this particular suspicion cause rigging qualifying forms would make things incredibly obvious, otherwise it's simply too uber-autistic to pull off in a major way. Big-rigging the tournament itself, particularly later rounds, is always very believable. I did do a thread-ip to voter ratio calculation across years before which had suspect results, but it's still not enough to be certain there's such a massive rise in alts.
>was there a new franchise restriction added
/v/ had a rule limiting franchises of previous E8's to two characters. Screwed over some popular picks.
>Because the latter seemed to work fine.
Sure. Still never agreed with it in principle though. These kinds of rules tend to come about from butthurt over a particular thing, and people think about alleviating that butthurt without any other considerations.
>I'm the guy who got the S added
Ah, probably spoke with you directly before then. I don't think S.C.K. ever really caught on, certainly not to the same infamy. Anyways no more acronyms, fuck them.
>Shirley is an outlier
Yes, but still throws a problem to the theory as it shows rigging can just demolish any reasonable expectation.
>one massive determined autist trying to break the entire tournament for a couple of his girls(And I have my theories who).
I think a few people claimed to be the 50 alts fag this year. The most convincing one was the peridot fag.
>I was mainly saying why Spinel was so hated
Oh sure, I see. Even so my point about cynicism is still there. Offsite fuckery can be seen as okay the generally shittier the tournaments get. Once you let bullshit slide and the general attitude gets to not caring then "anything it takes" no-ethics runs become just as valid. After all why care when it's ultimately just a "funpost ground", a spectacle to fuck around with?
>'reset' debacle
Last years whole tag tournament was just fucked. People did not want a R1 or even R3 reset because of the precedent you set in handling qualifiers, the hassle in going through all those votes again, and it just wasn't worth it cause the tourney was sucking up to then anyways.
>Coup Attempt
I don't think couping is ever a good idea so long as the existing host hasn't stepped down. Even if they're fucking up people will automatically keep following their tourney cause that's what's been settled with from the start. Also people were cautious then cause of janny's and mods attitude. Better compromise with the dickhead host they know and keep it contained.
So I think two of those fuckups come from not having a certain common sense in those situations. And honestly no one really expects a smooth tourney from you this next tag team. I'd advise getting a guide to help ensure things like Balls.
>>16105
>what does it represent
imo at first just who the boards thought represented them the most and in the next years a mix of fotm popularity, board presence and presence in the tournament threads
there's also placement and match ups that can help, I don't think batter would've gotten far if he was up against some of the other noms
>what does it mean to be the winner?
they get to go to /v/alhalla when no one talks about their games anymore
>limiting popular characters
imo should just be 3 for every franchise
>validity and tarnishing
>ethics of a characters run?
Neutral Response
>how much do these tournaments matter
only as much as you want them too, for me it's a week and a bit of fun and ruined sleep schedules
Tempanon of all people suddenly taking calmly and sensibly is extremely fucking weird and I’m half convinced this is an impostor.
Does he have some kind of selective autism that makes actually running the tournament a nightmare when he clearly gets it?
>>16106
Finally, SOMEONE gets it.
>>16125
Tourney is not malicious like that. You're probably talked to him so you know how much he bends over to please everyone and show that he totally deserves a second chance. If he wanted to sabotage the tournament, he would've given up on his groveling long ago.
>>16125
>In my defense out of my 4 most infamous fuckups,
Nobody keeps a tab on your fuckups.
>>16156
Tourney is banned here. I'm not defending him either, just pointing out that it would make no sense for him to try to suck everyone's cock to get back in good graces while also somehow simultaneously being so jaded as to want to burn it all down. Those states contradict each other.
Replies:>>16168
>>16159
His ban expires sometime next year. And I already explained what I mean above.
>>16150
he wants us to forgive him so he can continue to try and ruin these tournaments, simple as
Replies:>>22246
>>16105
>What does the tournament actually represent? Is it a popularity contest? Is it about OC? character love? a war of wills and tactics? just plain fun?
There's a concept called "emergence" where simple systems exhibit complex behavior. A common example is in video games where a "meta" is collectively identified by players given enough time. I think this is the case for the tournaments.
>>21852
This is at base what i've been trying to say. It's an entity in itself now. It probably excludes solid parameters for defining its meanings. But one can still try to gain patterns and predictions.
I propose a systematized classification for thought camps
>popularity fags/purist, marks
The tourney's should be at least predominantly "popularity contests," voted on in factors separate from what goes on in-tourneys.
>meta nerds/autists, smarks
The tourney's should be at least predominantly considered upon in their own inner culture and history. Campaign/oc/rp, previous tourney history and the such are the primary factors.
>waifufags/fanboys
>>benevolent
I only care about my character doing good or winning.
>>malevolent
I only care about my character doing good or winning at any cost.
>partier
>>benevolent
It doesn't really matter. Just have fun, bro.
>>malevolent
CHAOS
>silent majority
Casuals, passer-by's, aren't autistic about it and can fall in any group based off what they see or feel at the moment though they are usually considered naturally close to popularity fags/purist. The existence or extent of this "majority" is somewhat debatable and may depend on the tourney.
>>16105
The problem is that the question can't be posed to an individual person, as that's counter to the idea of the tournament. The point of it is that it's meant to bring in as many people as possible to create the most 'unbiased' result. If it's just a small handful of dedicated superfans, then it's just circular self-congratulation and holds no value. The point is that the character is beloved by enough people of enough diverse interests and backgrounds that their legitimacy as the winner can't be called into question. Spitevoting only goes so far, and you can only count a miniscule number of times where it can be said it even works in the first place. A strong fandom outruns a loud dissident every time.
The reason why rigging is so detrimental to an event like this is precisely because it dilutes the will of the voters, and creates a 'superfan' whose singular voice is now counted as dozens or even hundreds, which doesn't actually represent the popularity of the character. If anything, rigging represents a disservice to the character. Once revealed, there's a guilt by association that said character is only enjoyed by cheaters and is, in fact, so unpopular that only dirty tricks could get them to where they are. Think of poor Shirley and Mrs. Brisby. I don't think people held either character in low regard until they were tarnished by the Furigger.
If you're a true fan of a character, you'll let them rise or fall by their own merit. Do what you can to campaign, of course. That's where the meat and potatoes of the tournaments are, after all. But actually cheating? That's not a sign that you want your character to win. That's a sign that you know that, without your intervention, your character will lose.
As far as how 'worth it' it is to get invested into the tourneys? Well, I might be biased, considering, but I think that the tournaments create a strong board culture that permeates through the rest of the year. Think of how many memes and in-jokes came from the tournaments themselves? The campaigning? The RP'ing, back when it was legal? I'd say the tournaments are very well worth it.
In a more serious tangent and somewhat detached from tourney philosophy itself, what percentage of the total votes can we safely assume are legitimate and not just gmail sockpuppets?
The instances of people claiming responsibility of successfully manipulating the results are far too many to dismiss, especially concerning the /v/ tournaments lately. Someone said to own around 30~ accounts just in order to fuck over PM characters in a previous thread. And hey, do any of you remember the Christopher Robin rigger? Taking just and only those claims at face value would mean that around 50~ votes are fake. Most matches in Ko/v/ are won by an average margin of 100~ votes, but we have seen hair-thin victories happen even in the latter rounds. Those numbers are more than enough to completely change the course of a tournament. Now imagine ALL the usual tourney-goers who might have one or two throwaway accounts voting at the same time combined with those absolute turboautists that while few in numbers on their own can represent hundreds of votes. This is not even getting into the potential Discord/other private servers brigades going around behind our backs.
I understand it’s useless to point this out at a time when better alternatives don’t exist yet, but people questioning the legitimacy of the tournaments because of this isn’t surprising. And as a campaigner, it drives me away from further contributing knowing there could be some sperg looking out to eliminate a character I like because "reasons".
Replies:>>42893
I don’t get the point of rigging a character anyways, it would just detract from the win. If you know deep down they shouldn’t have won what’s the point?
Replies:>>63333
>>42656
Pretty sure nearly all people openly claiming they're rigging are joking or bullshitting. There's definitely probably some cheating going on every round though. It's kind of an unspoken thing but I do wonder over the years if the tourney's aren't just jacked up to fuck by rigger niggers and all the match and character statistics and are to some degree false. Stuff like Spinel and 50 furry alts prove it does happen and can change tides, even for deep runners and winners, but that's just the stupidly obvious and caught stuff.
Replies:>>63333
>>42656
I wouldn't be surprised if something around 300-400 votes in the bigger tourneys came from rigger niggers.
Replies:>>42895
>>42660
I've always thought the main issue is how /co/ is so vulnerable to this. Compared to /v/ that has that new system for voting being tested on later. I don't know why /co/ is so unlucky in this regard
>>42893
1. Both tournaments have always been equally vulnerable to it.
2. >implying NightShift won’t be testing in /co/ as well
Personally I'd like to wonder what the HELL prompts people to vote like they do in qualifiers.
Maybe it's not the best example, but I nominated DJ Jamsta Sonichu meanwhile someone else nominated Normal Sonichu. Sonichu nearly got enough votes to make bracket meanwhile DJ Jamsta only got a measly 20. Why is that? They both have the same ironic appeal & you couldn't miss either considering they were right next to eachother in the poll.
>>49198
People will often vote purely on what they know, and Sonichu himself is way more well known then anything else relating to him.
>>49198
The thought process is pretty simple.
>recognize thing
>like thing
>alternatively, think thing is funny
>click box
Even if it's a character related to a more popular one in some way, it's still got to be recognized and liked on its own.
Bumping cause of all the arguing over the last tourney and how these questions are once again highly relevant.
Besides campooner/silentfag arguing (which is probably mostly funposting) the last tourney really brought out a lot of cynicism or acknowledgment of tourneys being basically pro wrestling shows and never meant to be legit anyways. All that matters is the result. Was this perhaps the most correct sentiment all along?
Furthermore the host himself has taken a stance on things, mainly that the tourney's are in fact srs business and should be legit, even at the expense of morale, and that silent/popualrityfags are in the wrong and the main point of tourney's are "OC and showing people new shows" (or he said something like that).
The question I'm really interested in is: What the hell makes a good candidate?
I've felt I've been on a personal downward spiral of mine since /v/illans. With 5 qualified in that to a record breaking 0 in /aco/ despite the really small amount of characters even nominated there. It's clearly not popularity as Link failed horribly in Heroes and it isn't how passionate you are since everyone hates HHGREGG so what gives?
Replies:>>63474
>>63468
Link failed because he is not truly popular and had no one caring for him and HH (not HHGREGG) has not done anything to be well-received (has literally not been in a tournament, also saying everyone hates him is an exaggeration).
What exactly do you mean by "good candidate"?
>>63468
There is no such thing as a "candidate", let alone a good one. It all comes down to hoping that people are willing to vote for your character (since excessive campaigning in qualifiers more often than not makes your character eat shit) and then get a lucky as fuck bracket if they qualify. Once you have those taken care of, pour vast amounts of autism onto your character and you'll succeed big time. This is why you see terrible characters like Glamgals, Voltar, James, and Shou Fu Kan make it so far in these side tournaments.
>>63468
I believe there's sweet spot that's rather nuanced. They gotta be:
>fairly popular (not literal who at least), but not mega popular cause then they're obvious and maybe verge on franchise/corporate mascot
>fairly board popular, meaning they got some degree of place and presence for the general userbase (largely millennials and an increasing amount of zoomers, of a somewhat autistic and cynical variety all around)
>from a generally board approved media - or at least an inoffensive one (something that jives well with the demographic)
>not be memed, psyoped, cursed, or bogged down with some problematic meta shit from other tourney's
>And in more recent years they should have some degree of campaign and thread presence during the tourney's, perhaps accumulated over years
With your examples, Link is the too popular mainstream franchise mascot guy and doesn't really have a serious campaign presence, so he' "boring." HH thing was a literal who.
>>63470
This anon is somewhat right, it's seemingly based on luck and autism, but misses some details. For example, DTVA always eats shit despite having had what he says.
>>63470
I should also mention this extends to mainstream tournament characters like Xavier and Luigi, characters who needed excess autism and lucky brackets to make it big.
>>63468
>>63469
>>63472
A lack of dedicated supporters aside, Link jobbed in Heroes because
>we already had a Zelda winner with Midna
>he was up against Leon in round 1
>with how RP/writefag-centric Heroes and Villains were, there wasn't much you could do with a guy who constantly says "HUUAH! HAAAAH!" unless you have someone else speaking for him like Navi (who doesn't have as much charisma as, for example, Doc Louis in Little Mac's campaign), or nominate him as his CD-i self (and why would you want that? Link's not even a good CD-i character) or the cartoon version (then you'd be campaigning for a /co/ character)
>an alternative way to campaign by talking about/recommending his games likely wouldn't do much to bolster him, Zelda's a smash-hit franchise
>in tandem with the above, he's way too popular to be the "underdog appeal" pick
>>63468
If the thread thinks they're a good candidate, they're a good candidate. That's the most objective definition you can get.
>>63472
>For example, DTVA always eats shit despite having had what he says.
I still think it's weird that people here were fine with Glamgals winning a side tournament yet DTVA jobbed hard when it came time for Heroes of /co/, with Amity only making it to round 2 because she was up against the Nostalgia Critic. Both had dedicated campaigners despite carrying the stigma of "buenoy zoomer series", but only one did well.
>>63470
>Voltar and James
>Terrible
But those are actually good characters even if they'd do terrible in a main tournament.
Replies:>>63483
>>63477
Yeah I don't really get it. Maybe cause DTVA carries meta baggage and is somewhat of a meme alliance. Also possibly someone's rigging against them, or rigging for them which triggers the host(s) to remove a bunch of votes. There was some speculation Amity's weird placement last ms. was cause Perifag was rigging her as one of the troll candidates and she got caught up in NSA's mass removal. But also I think FNAF does about as well in a main tourney's.
Replies:>>63482
>>42656
As it turns out, it happens insanely often, and the people bitching about emails were the people rigging for their waifu
>>63477
>>63480
When you break it down, Glamgals winning makes sense.
>one of the strongest campaigns with a campaigner generous enough to help others
>a lucky bracket
Battler and Eggman lose votes to keep the jobber memes going, Devil May Cry already won a tournament, Mecha Madness had a much weaker campaign, and by the time they faced Law and Order, they had enough momentum to fight.
>popularity with actual campaigning
Professor Layton has its fans, but I think more normies would be able to recognize FNAF than it and Faith is niche. FNAF's hatedom has less of an impact thanks to Co-op only picking up a fraction of /v/'s voterbase and it being old enough for nostalgia.
>pattern autism
It's been pointed out before that people instinctively keep voting for comparable characters under comparable circumstances. A wolf girl that would never win on her main board won one of the worst duos tournaments and then a wolf girl that would never win on her main board won one of the best duos tournaments. DTVA had nothing in their favor.
>Libbyfag annoyed people before the tournaments were announced
>they are the jobber memes
>they are too new
>>63482
NTA but it’s very easy to argue both in favor and againts that claim. There’s definitely a relevant number of votes that are just riggers.
>>63483
I think you overstate the pattern autism. i don't recall anyone bringing up the wolf girl thing.
Also I still don't get why people let Libbyfag annoy them so much. He at least calmed down since last year.
>>63485
Libbyfag only became a problem because people at the /v/ threads decided to make him a problem. He was present during Mr. /co/lympus 2022 as well, but most ignored him and only engaged with his biggest round loss polls.
Replies:>>63493
>>63485
I said instinctively. Also people were bringing it up in the final few rounds.
>>63487
eh, I still don't think so. It was a coincidence and glamrocks was legit the team with the most traction. There's been more pushback against thematic matches and occurrences than not in recent years.
Replies:>>63530
>>63483
Needlessly complicated post. There's a way simpler answer as to why they won. Gary loves them, and they love him in return.
Replies:>>63743
It shits me when people complain about certain characters winning a round/tourney because they're "boring or predictable". Like, isn't the point of these tourneys to find out which characters are most favored by the board?
Replies:>>63505
>>63483
> a campaigner generous enough to help others
This is the only part of your post that is correct. Mind you I don’t think I voted for them more than once.
>>63483
Add to the fact the Glamgals anon later went on to purchase FAITH on Steam.
Replies:>>63530
>>63525
I wonder if he ever finished it. iirc the furthest he made it was early on in Chapter 2. If he hasn't, he's gotta get on it for the spooky month and the upcoming chapter.
>>63792
Hawaiian pizza
>>63794
Not a bad pick but they aren't apart of the plAn.
>>63468
I have the same question but for a different reason. Usually my picks do really well in these side tournaments, and I don't really get why. Are they more popular than I initially thought, is it just the campaigns people like, or is it a mix of both?