The Fun Warehouse’s first ever Laserball Tournament was held this past weekend in Syracuse and it was full of excitement and enthusiasm…and a few unexpected twists and turns. I showed up on the heels of one of my weekend tag trips to call this my “rest and recovery” time hanging out with my friends. In spite of a random draw, somehow the Plausibles all ended up together again as the Ax Team, ready for Laserball!
This tournament was successful in many ways. First, I give credit to the fact that it was planned, promoted and actually happened (which honestly is half the battle right there), but also because it had enough pre-registered participation for six full teams, which is an excellent start. By tournament time that number had dropped to five teams, but nonetheless, this bodes well for our local tag community and also for cultivating interest in future competitions.
Players were put into experience pools ranging from A-E to be assigned to their designated team with an A-tier captain. I was in the first round draw as a B player, so I was the first person to be randomly added to Axman’s team. The irony is, in spite of it being a random draw, the mix did not quite “mix” in the way you might think it would. I adore these peeps, so no issue at all, but parts of the draw could be described as an anomaly. You might even call it “implausible”, lol. :) Here is how each team shaped up in the order of the draw…
Team Alex:
Fenrir
Laser King
Stryker
Yetiguy
Team Cody:
Mama Bear
DogeBuster
Hatchet Boy
DaBombMom
Team Axman:
Tivia
RazorWires
Slayer
Woz
Team Evol:
Nobody
Saiyan Prince
Ski Patrol
Star Goddess
Team Golden:
Havoc
Cookie
LaserSteve
Mr. Laser
Now, you might make a few assumptions just from looking at this line-up, but that’s simply the way the cookie crumbles. Let’s play!
The nature of the beast when you read my perspective of a tournament is that you will inevitably hear mostly about my team, only because when I am playing I am not necessarily in “reporter mode”. So, for the full accounting of the tournament, I invite you to check out the Laserforce Tournaments livestream @LaserforceTournaments on YouTube, for which Rockwood did an excellent job as the event commentator.
My team made our best showing early on in the event. This is a rare instance when, thanks to that livestream, I could go back and pick out some of the highlights. For example, I know exactly when I made this goal because it is the moment when you can see the scoreboard shifted.
We were leading the first half up until LITERALLY the two second mark when Nobody landed a goal and tied it up in the very last possible moment. Props to her, because this really did mean we had an exciting start! Check out 34:56 on the livestream for the exciting final minute of this half.
It also meant the first awareness on the commentary track about a couple of things. First, no team played back to back halves. Instead they would play their first half, sit, and then go in for a second half playing on the opposite color. Honestly, I would rather have seen each half just stand on its own instead of calculating this unusual back and forth. It seemed to be a surprise that may not have been imparted to Rockwood in advance because it was not until close to the end of the second game’s first half that he realized that the teams in the Game 1 first half (Cody vs Golden) had been replaced by the Game 2 first half (Axman vs Evol) before the first line-up had actually played their second half. Well, the takeaway here is that sometimes communication is key to the spectators as much as it is to the players in the game! ;)
Once the scoreboard shifted, Rockwood took note of something that he found to be unexpected…my presence in the game, lol!
I got quite a kick out of watching the playback and hearing that his initial thought was that it was entirely possible that someone else might be playing under my name rather than being sure that it was actually me playing in a laser tag tournament.
This gives a whole new meaning to the term “imposter syndrome!” :)
I also found it humorous that he was under the impression that I don’t play tournaments, considering this was the third tournament I have played in the last four weeks! However, that speaks more to the fact that I am not a system-specific player (or geographically bound for that matter), so he is correct that I do not typically play in the SM5 scene, but it’s all good! For the record, I still need to add a few recent events to my tournament wall…but I do play in tournaments. ;)
Leaving this first half I was pleased, as was my team, even though it had ended in a tie. Save for a practice session the night before in Long Island, I have not played Laserball in a VERY long time, so I when I left the arena I took a moment to analyze the data on my own phaser screen.
However, we did lose some momentum and missed it in the second half, which is another reason I found the back and forth scheduling of halves to be less congruent than it may have been to simply treat them as individual games.
Regardless, moving on.
Our second game was against Cody’s team. This time the scenario was in reverse with Cody plowing in with a couple of goals in true Cody fashion during the first half and then we tied in the second half. Here is the unexpected twist though. Cody and I both took hard falls in that second half.
Of course I was wearing my “we NEVER run in the arena” Brooks, however Rockwood offered this piece of advice on the livestream…
Well, after I stole the ball at one point I did take off in a dead run…which resulted in me ending up down on the ground in the melee. Kind of glad the cameras missed that, but thankfully all it did was bruise my leg and my ego. However, I was back up on my feet in an instant. Cody was not so lucky.
At the :39 second mark we hear that Cody stole the ball. Our team knows which way he will be headed and we are all tucked into various nooks on the base, collectively ready to stop him. We wait…and wait…and nothing. The clock runs out.
Well, come to find out that the reason for there being no base run is that Cody rolled his ankle, hard. He’s out of this. However, in the bigger picture, he’s supposed to be leaving for Nats in Australia in ten days. We are all wishing him the best for a speedy recovery, but that ankle did not look good. I certainly hope he can carry on with his Nats plans.
Rockwood had his work cut out for him following these games because they got reordered on the fly after Cody’s injury. A couple of players from my team left to get an ankle immobilizer, so our next games got pushed back in a different order. That interruption in the schedule was clearly necessary, but also did us no favors, as some of the team had car discussions that I think got into their heads before taking on Golden Pony’s team. Personally, I didn’t see this team as insurmountable, but mind over matter, and in that moment it was what it was. Sigh.
The final team we faced was Alex’s Mah-Na-Mah-Na team. Now, if one team ended up stacked (by circumstance, not intention) you could argue that the combo of Alex and Fenrir playing together was not one that we were likely to take out. Axman gave us a lovely “let’s just go have fun” speech before the game even began, so the writing was on the wall. Regardless, we went out swinging!
I had just returned from three days of tag travels through New Jersey, Long Island and the Catskills (ending with this tournament) and I was ready to call it a night once the clock struck 10:00 (which is the equivalent of midnight once you hit a certain point!) so, sadly I didn’t get to witness the results firsthand. But I knew exactly where to go to get those results!
I want to congratulate Evol’s team for their win.
I also want to thank and congratulate Beanz for pulling off this event, coordinating with the livestream, dealing with injuries and jumping in when needed. No one piece of that is an easy task, let alone doing all of it. This was a nicely executed event. On my post-tourney survey I noted that many things were done just right at this tournament. My only suggestions? Add Photon and chocolate!
Seriously though, this was a really enjoyable tournament and I am delighted to see Syracuse getting the ball (the Laserball!) rolling in such a successful manner. Great job everyone!
Comments or Questions?
Contact: Tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com
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