2019 Winter Singleplayer Tournament

The 2019 Singleplayer Time Trial Tournament is up! This thread will serve as both the rules for the tournament and the writeup/video thread.

The theme for 2019 is random official levels! These will be comprised of random levels from all 4 games (MBG, MBP, MBU, PQ) based on increasing difficulty. Basically, at the start of each week (except the final Week 8 ), I will use RNG to generate the random levels for the week. How well will you perform, especially with limited retries, pressure and the randomness? And who will be the most manic player to conquer this tournament? Only one way to find out!

Tournament standings and everything you need to know (except what's written below) can be found here in this spreadsheet: goo.gl/5x31wp

New players, old pros and everyone in between are all welcome.

**To sign up, post in this thread indicating you want to sign up. Signups close on January 12 at the cutoff time (see below). Then the tournament will begin directly. Players who wish to sign up after January 12 is up to my discretion (as long as the date of signup doesn’t exceed the deadline for Week 1).**

TIME FRAME

The tournament consists of 8 weeks. Each week is one round. The first week is Jan 12 – Jan 19. Second week is Jan 19 – Jan 26, and so on (except the final Week 8 where it will be held on a day to be decided between me and the finalists). Cutoff time for Weeks 1-7 is 10am EST, 3pm GMT on Saturday.

Players will be knocked out every week, so you may participate in all eight weeks or just the first depending on your performances. How many players will be knocked out depends on how many players have signed up for the tournament, so that will be determined once the number of players is confirmed and will be listed in the spreadsheet.

YOU WILL NEED TO PLAY A SECTION OF TIME TRIALS (ranging from 9-24 levels) EVERY WEEK as long as you're still in the tournament. If you cannot do this, please DO NOT SIGN UP. If you wish to join and are unavailable for 1 week only, please let me know and we can probably figure out a workaround.

HOW IT WORKS

Each round, every player still alive will do a section of 'Time Trials' as dubbed by Frostfire. A Time Trial is a singleplayer level in co-op mode, with one key difference: only one person is the runner; his partner (the referee; formerly known as recorder) sits on the start pad and does nothing at all except observes him, makes sure the runner follows the rules and records down times/scores. VERY VERY IMPORTANT: Whoever is the referee MUST NOT MOVE AROUND. If the referee falls off, and the runner happens to fall off at the same time, the clock will be reset. THIS IS BAD. DO NOT LET IT HAPPEN.

All players will do the same set of levels for their Time Trials. All times get added, and the players with the worst total times get eliminated.

You will also receive a certain number of retries per round (they’re listed in the spreadsheet) – meaning if you finish and don't like your time, you can have another go at the same level (this means NO RESTARTING BEFORE COMPLETING A RUN). But be careful, you will have a very limited number of retries, so use them wisely! Be aware that falling off and respawning at the start pad is NOT a retry - your clock keeps running, so keep going! See the Q and A section at the bottom of this post for more info on retries.

The eight sections this time are random official levels from all 4 MB games in order of difficulty, and as you progress through the tournament, you'll also progress through the game. Only the best players will survive all the way to the Final 10 in week 8.

The level sets are all FORCED ORDER (you must play all the levels in the exact order, so use your retries strategically) and MUST BE DONE AT ONE TIME; ie. you cannot do the first part of a section, quit, and come back two days later to finish.

With that being said, PQ is unique in that it has Gem Hunt/Gem Madness levels, which record scores instead of times. For that, I have a plan to convert the scores into times. Details can be found in the second-last section of this post (About PQ Gem Hunt/Madness Levels).

RULES/FEATURES

- Intentionally getting a TT and then respawning on a checkpoint is NOT ALLOWED IN PQ ONLY since Singleplayer PQ is not designed to be played that way.

- Once per week that you are still in the competition, come onto the leaderboards. Have someone agree to referee your trial. Announce to the public in the game server and in the tournament Discord channel if possible (you'll gain access to it once you sign up) that you are about to do your trial (do @mention me in Discord). Then begin.

- For your trial, you must NOT be hosting and you MUST be on THISTLE or TSUF, not a neutral server. Referees will be the one hosting instead.

- Runners are NOT ALLOWED to restart before completing a run. If you want to retry a level, you must complete the level first before using one or more of the limited number of retries per round.

- Only referees/hosts can restart the level, so make sure to inform the referee if you want to retry or not before moving on to the next level. Note that once you move on, you CANNOT use a retry for any previous levels.

- Referees, make sure to activate Co-Op Partner View (default key is V) and turn off chat (default key is Y) if possible so that you can observe the runner properly. These keys can be changed under Options.

- While not compulsory, referees are advised to video-record the trials, upload them to YouTube and post the videos in this thread for better authenticity.

- Referees (and/or runners) will record down the runners’ times/scores as they go and take note of which levels the runners may have retried. Once the trial is done, post the times/scores and the levels retried to me via 1) Discord Direct Message, 2) in the tournament Discord channel or 3) in this thread ASAP before the week’s deadline.

- Blast is BANNED*! Your run will be void if you use it unless you have a retry. If you run out of retries, your run will be a skunk (+300s). Hence, please remember to remap your Blast key before your run to avoid accident.
* Except the PQ levels Trial by Fire, Frozen Flames and all MBU levels

- Respawn button (backspace) is BANNED EXCEPT for the following condition: Respawn at Checkpoints. Left-clicking to respawn when OOB is OKAY. Referees, whenever a runner uses the Respawn button to respawn at the start pad without going OOB, 10 seconds of Time Penalty will be added to their final time.

- Radar is allowed since PQ is designed to use it (of course, you can choose not to use it too).

- Several levels have moving/fading platforms and can be made impossible to finish. In this case, the referee/host will check what time(s) you hit the start pad after respawning and before restarting. Then they will round it DOWN to the nearest second before adding it to your finish time. These levels are indicated in the spreadsheet.

- A new feature is regarding the final week, where the final 3 players will battle it out on the same day (to be decided between me and them). They will also take turns playing each level. As such, the player with the lowest sum of ranks in the past 7 weeks will get to be the first to choose which turn he/she gets to play the 1st level (whether it's 1st, 2nd or last). The next player then decides one of the remaining 2 turns, and the last player will take the last turn. Subsequent levels will rely on best time/score instead of lowest sum of ranks. This will be explained in detail in another post prior to the finals.

ABOUT PQ GEM HUNT/MADNESS LEVELS

1) So, regarding these levels, this is how the scores are converted to times. (Note: This is just for your info. You can just submit the scores as they are since the spreadsheet will automatically convert the scores to times.)

Gem Hunt: Top scorer's final time will be the level's duration. Other players' final times will be Level's Duration + 0.2(Top Score - Player's Score), where 1 point = 0.2 second.

eg. Hunting Around has a duration of 60s. Player A scored 90, while Player B scored 80. Player A, being the top scorer, will have his final time of 60s, while Player B will have his final time of 60 + (90-80) = 70s.

Gem Madness: If a player collects all gems/gets the max score in a Gem Madness level before time runs out, the time that he/she gets will be his/her final time.
For players who fail to collect all gems before time runs out, their final times will be Level's Duration + (Max Score - Player's Score), where 1 point = 1 second.

eg. A Marble's Home is Its Castle has a duration of 150s and max score of 76. Player A got the max score at a time of 135s, while Player B only scored 61. Player A's final time is 135s, while Player B's final time is 150 + (76-61) = 165s.

Individual levels' durations and max scores if applicable are listed in the standings spreadsheet (found at the top of this post).

2) If you go OOB in a Gem Madness level, just proceed as usual. However, 10 seconds of Time Penalty will be added to your final time every time you go OOB (this is because of the nature of Gem Madness levels in Co-Op: time continues ticking down instead of up, and Gem Score doesn't get reset).

3) Respawning for a better first spawn in Gem Hunt levels is of course NOT ALLOWED. Once you enter the level, you have entered your one and only run (unless you use a retry AFTER completing a run and BEFORE starting the next level), so make the best of it.

The above information can also be found in the spreadsheet.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Besides the standard achievements that Aaryl will give (champion. Top 10 etc.), I have suggestions for new achievements:
- Most Best Records: Awarded to the player(s) with the most best times/scores in the whole tournament.
- Best Consistent Player: Awarded to the player(s) with the lowest sum of ranks in the whole tournament. (P.S. Frostfire would have won this in the last singleplayer tournament...)

Also, for the champion's achievement, instead of the usual military rank, I may suggest Aaryl to give the champion the achievement of "Most Manic Player" (referencing from the name of the final level Manic Bounce; this is just a suggestion! If you have a better suggestion, feel free to voice out!).

The data to keep track of the above achievements can be found in the spreadsheet.

Players currently signed up:

ItzJean
Doomblah
Nockess
Eguy
CylinderKnot
Robert
Tue27
IncanLlama
LaSharkus
eNetro
M@s
Kalle
DKman00
Laplace
Nature Freak
MikeSan

Q & A

Q: I lagged! Do I get a retry?
A: No, unless you want to use one of your given retries. Consider saving them for lag.

Q: I crashed! I better get a retry!
A: You DO NOT get a retry unless you have one to spend on it or you send the crash.log to me. Otherwise, your time on the level is a skunk.

Q: When do I skunk?
A: Skunk time is 5 minutes (or 300 seconds). This is pretty huge, so make sure to finish every level even if you're taking ages!

Q: What is a skunk time?
A: The maximum time achievable, ie. if you take longer than an hour, you get an hour anyway. THIS IS PER LEVEL, not the whole trial.

Q: If you don't use all the retries in a section, do they carry over to the next section?
A: No, you either use them in the proper section or you don't use them at all.

Q: Can I pick the levels to use my retries on after I'm done with the whole section?
A: No, the levels are forced order. Once you've moved on from a level, you can't go back and use a retry on it. Use your retries after finishing a level and before starting the next one.

Q: I used a retry but got a worse time/score than my original run! This doesn't count, does it?
A: Don't worry, your best time/score counts always.

Q: Do I need to have thousandths on?
A: No, third decimal will not be used; times will not be rounded because of third decimal place. We will act as though thousandths do not exist.

Q: How do I submit times/scores to you?
A: Post them to me via Direct Message in Discord, in the tournament Discord channel (you'll gain access to it if you sign up for the tourney) or in this thread. Also tell me the levels you may have retried. Note: If you are submitting times/scores to me as a player, make sure to also state who your referee is (though I would prefer the referee submitting the times/scores unless due to certain circumstances).

Q: Do referees need to video-record trials?
A: Not compulsory, but recommended for better authenticity. If you as a referee do record a trial, upload the video to YouTube and post the video in this thread.

If you have any other questions not shown here, PLEASE ASK! I want everything to be as clear as possible, and you can help with that.

:dab:

I plan on participating in this.

ye

I'll enter I guess.

Sign me up

[strike]finally, a tournament i might not win[/strike]

sure i don't mind signing up for this

I’ll do it

I'm in!

This might be the only tournament I have left on my list, I think...

Suuure, sign me up.

I'm in

If you collect the stats and present a spreadsheet for me to view, I'll be more than happy to accommodate any special challenge achievements along with the standard ranking set.

Good luck, folks!

~Aayrl

put me in coach

You know, guess I'm down, this seems interesting.

I'll sign up I guess.

fuck it im joining

Signups are now closed, and Week 1 levels have been picked! Good luck to everyone for Week 1!

eplipswich: I haven't had the time to write a report. In fact, I may forgo writing it unless someone else doesn't mind doing it.

*cracks knuckles*

The first week, which featured the first half of Tutorial/Beginner difficulties in all games is over! Of the 16 participants, the top 14 are moving on to the second week. Unfortunately, the bottom two players have been eliminated.

DKman00 absolutely crushed the rankings with a time of 242.98 seconds, which is barely over four minutes. Getting 8/24 best times and defeating two tournament records shows that DKman will likely stay near the top for the following weeks.

In second place is newcomer ItzJean with a time of 267.42 seconds. Is this beginner's luck, or is this the mark of someone rapidly improving? Even though he's insistent on the former, it's probably more of the latter. If he keeps this up, he will likely make it into the second half the tournament, which is when things really get tough.

Just to give an idea as to how tight this first week was, ranks 3-9 all finished within 20 seconds of each other. Kalle29 finished in third with 280.83 seconds. As time goes on, Kalle will probably stay near the top.

In fourth place, Nockess (formerly Rosie (formerly Rozi (formerly some other names, probably))) achieved a solid time of 281.31 seconds. No matter how many times she may change her marble throughout the tournament, she will probably plow her way through with ease.

Nature Freak overcame his nerves and snagged a fifth place finish with a time of 288.33. This performance could mean that Nature Freak does much better than in previous tournaments.

IncanLlama, who can't seem to decide between his current name and MBOUltimate, is in the running to win yet another tournament. His sixth-place finish with a time of 288.45 shows that he is here with the desire to win.

M@s finished in seventh place with a time of exactly 290.00 seconds. Even though his internal clock may not be the most helpful in this tournament environment, his dedication in getting levels down to low times should pay dividends.

Eguy finished with an eighth-place time of 295.52 seconds at the bottom of the top half of participants. It would be quite neat to see Nockess and Eguy in the final week, running for that sweet prize of victory.

Tue27 finished in ninth place with a respectable time of 299.06, barely under five minutes. Who knows how far he will go? From previous tournaments, he has been hard to predict, causing lots of upsets. It should be likely that he will reach the second half of the tournament.

At this point the times get more spread out. In tenth place, El_Robert finished in 304.78 seconds. This is also the last above-average time from the first week.

CylinderKnot finished in eleventh place with a time of 316.84 seconds despite being the only player to finish above the Par Time on Time Trial. Right behind in twelfth place was eNetro with a time of 317.34 seconds, just half a second slower than eleventh place.

Newcomers Doomblah and LaSharkus finished in thirteenth and fourteenth place, respectively, with times of 345.64 and 373.07, respectively as well. Will they get the hang of things and pull through, or will they be eliminated in the next few weeks?

Unfortunately, Laplace finished in fifteenth place with a time of 534.69 seconds and has been eliminated. Having blunders on a few levels is all that's needed to fall toward the bottom of the rankings, which has also been seen with other players in previous SP time trials tournaments.

Keeping LaSharkus in the tournament is MikeSan, who did not do his run. For this reason he has been eliminated from the tournament.

For those who have been eliminated, thank you for participating, and we can't wait to see more from you. For those who have survived to week 2, congratulations for doing well and dealing with the unfortunate bugs! Things are only getting more difficult from here as those who finish in 13th and 14th places will not move on to the third week.

EDIT: If there is anything in this report that needs correction, please get my attention in whatever way possible within reason.

What a chaotic second week this has been, with some underdogs finishing near the top and some top players finishing near the bottom! It didn't help that a single level decided a large portion of everyone's times. The top 12 players are moving on to the third week (first half of Intermediate, 4 retries), and the players in ranks 13 and 14 have been eliminated. Without much further ado, let's get right into this!

Nockess really did knock us all out of the park with an impressive first-place finish of 370.51 seconds. Although she did not execute the tree hit on Transporter Lock well, she was the only person this week to break records from previous tournaments.

In place 2 is Tue27 with a time of 392.74 seconds. An all-around amazing performance allowed this contender who often causes upsets to snag the second place position.

IncanLlama finished in third place with a time of 399.22 seconds. As the levels get longer, his skills may truly shine, probably letting him stay near the top.

Newcomer ItzJean rounds out all the times below 400 seconds with a time of 399.38 seconds. At this point he is finally realizing his skill and not attributing it to beginner's luck.

LaSharkus's fifth-place finish of 420.28 seconds served as the top time in the ranks 5 to 8 cluster of times. A major improvement from the first week shows that LaSharkus may pose a threat in the later weeks as longer levels are his stronger suit.

CylinderKnot's sixth-place finish of 426.86 seconds was a decent improvement from the first week. Finishing in seventh just 0.05 seconds slower is Eguy with a time of 426.91 seconds. Unfortunately, his time on Racing Spirits prevented him from finishing higher.

Kalle29 ends this cluster of times with a time of 434.95 seconds. His unfortunate blunder on Battlecube prevented him from finishing higher than LaSharkus. Despite this, he is very safe from elimination.

Starting a new cluster of times with a ninth-place finish is DKman00 with a time of 449.70 seconds. Hopefully this unfortunate drop in performance won't carry into week 3.

M@s and El_Robert finished closely behind in tenth and eleventh place with times of 451.20 and 453.79 seconds, respectively. Can they pull through next week?

Dangerously close to elimination in twelfth place is eNetro with a time 458.49 seconds. There's a general rule: Those close to elimination one week will likely be eliminated the next week. Will he manage to survive the next week?

Unfortunately, Doomblah finished with a time of 462.09 seconds, which puts him in thirteenth place. Unlike LaSharkus, who was also dangerously close to elimination in the first week, Doomblah could not pull through the second week.

In fourteenth place was Nature Freak with a time 570.57 seconds. Even though most of his MBG times were strong, he quickly ran out of steam and finished with a time almost two minutes slower than Doomblah.

Great job to everyone who has participated, and good luck to everyone still alive!

And here are the Top 3 standings of each statistic as of Week 2:

Rank:
1) Nockess (2.5)
2) ItzJean (3.0)
3) IncanLlama (4.5)

No. of Best Records:
1) DKman00 (13)
2) Nockess (11)
3) Kalle (5)

Best Average-Time Difference:
1) Nockess (89.89)
2) ItzJean (74.91)
3) IncanLlama (54.04)

No. of Tournament Records (including MBG/MBU):
1) DKman00 (9)
2) Nockess (6)
3) Kalle (5)

I should just update this a little for Week 3's statistics.

Rank:
1) Nockess (2.3)
2) ItzJean (4.0)
3) DKman ( 4.3)
While Eguy, IncanLlama, and Tue27 all tied (5.3).

No. of Best Records:

1) DKman00 (18)
2) Nockess (13)
3) IncanLlama ( 8 )
4) Kalle (6)
5) Robert (6)

Best Average-Time Difference:

1) Nockess (141.23)
2) ItzJean (108.52)
3) DKman00 (86.33)
4) Tue27 (85.28)
5) IncanLlama (80.36)

No. of Tournament Records (including MBG/MBU):

1) DKman00 (14)
2) Nockess ( 8 )
3) Kalle (6)
4) Robert (5)
5) IncanLlama (4)

The third week has finished, and things seem to have shifted around a bit, partially thanks to the two Gem Hunt levels. Only the top ten will be participating in the fourth week in which there will be only three retries. Enough beating around the bush... let's get straight to the rankings!

Sliding into first is Eguy with a total time of 522.25 (joj). An all-around excellent performance as well as a great Exoplanet run certainly allowed him to survive. Avoiding Hazards seemed not to give him so much trouble this time, so we can't really make fun of him for it anymore.

Nockess finished in second place with a time of 530.11. Her insane Gravity Tower run of 243 points is responsible for increasing everyone else's times greatly since no one came remotely close. Will week 4 contain more Gem Hunt levels for her?

In third place is DKman00 with an impressive time of 544.15. If it weren't for questionable Gem Hunt luck, his solid runs could have easily enabled him to snag second or even first.

Barely behind in fourth is Robert, who finished in 545.60 seconds. Excellent runs placed him toward the top of the leaderboard, but Gem Hunt ultimately prevented a top-three finish.

Tue27 obtained a fifth-place finish with a time of 546.08 seconds. As with Robert, Gem Hunt was ultimately his demise for not finishing in the top three. Will he survive the next week, which might have lots of Gem Hunt?

In sixth place is ItzJean with a time of 547.87 seconds. He's a bit upset that he didn't make it into the top 3 especially because he missed a platinum in Gravity Tower (which is understandable), but this just shows how tight the upper ranks were.

IncanLlama, who still seems to be in a rivalry with Tue27, finished in seventh place with a great time of 555.13. Opting not to use any retries on Gem Hunt despite having awful luck with both levels, he pulled through with superb runs in the other levels.

Kalle29 finished in eighth place with a respectable time of 585.32. Bad Gem Hunt luck and a blunder on Evaporation prevented him from finishing higher. To be completely fair, both Hunt levels were very luck-based.

CylinderKnot finished in ninth place with a time of 606.84 seconds. Good Gem Hunt luck can only compensate for playing too safely to a certain point, especially because the following week only gives three retries.

Barely safe from elimination in tenth place is eNetro, who finished in 639.51 seconds. Despite blunders toward the start of MBU and bad luck, he managed to survive this week.

Unfortunately, LaSharkus and M@s have been eliminated for finishing in the bottom two. Great job to both for making it this far, and thank you for participating.

To everyone still in, good luck with the fourth week! PQ and MBP have some truly nasty levels that can be picked, so let's hope for the best.

The fourth week is over, and it appears that the tournament has finished weeding out the less-experienced players, evidenced by the larger overall spread in times. Players who did their runs on Thistle might have had to deal with riches of glitches, such as the Time Travels doing absolutely nothing in the 2D section! Fortunately, runs done in Thistle had their times corrected. Without much further ado, let's jump right into the rankings.

In first place is Eguy with a stunning time of 733.35 seconds. Performing a bunch of risky edge-hits on Floor Climb allowed him to beat the tournament record by almost 15 whole seconds, earning him the top spot.

Second place is IncanLlama with a time of 743.56 seconds. Highly contrary to last week, he did not have bad luck on the Gem Hunt levels because the spawns in this week's levels were redone, so his multiplayer skill allowed him to do well in those levels.

Coming in third is Tue27 with a time of 751.56 seconds. His excellent overall performance and tying Kalle on breaking the tournament record for Timely Ascent allowed him to rank this high.

In fourth place is DKman00 with an excellent time of 758.98 seconds. Great overall performance on normal and Gem Hunt levels put him well into safe area for moving on to the fifth week.

Kalle29 ranked fifth with a time of 766.21 seconds. Despite not having the best runs on the Gem Hunt levels, his impressive six best times more than compensated.

In sixth place is Nockess, whose performance is generally in the upper-middle ranks. Her time of 785.53 seconds was achieved through great runs for the most part and a few blunders on Take the High Road and Obstacle Course, but these mistakes shouldn't set the tone for the upcoming weeks.

Barely behind in seventh is ItzJean, coming in with a time of 785.86 seconds. A blunder on Race to the Top didn't allow him to rank higher, but this caliber of performance is very impressive for newcomers of this tournament format. Unfortunately, his performance has been slipping over the past few weeks, so can he make it much longer?

In eighth place is Robert with a time of 811.77 seconds. After breaking a tournament record on Spin Practice, a blunder on Winding Steps prevented him from ranking higher, but he was safe regardless.

Unfortunately, the bottom two players this week were eliminated with those being CylinderKnot and eNetro with times of 834.52 and 854.75, respectively. Congratulations to both for fighting hard and making it this far and for obtaining the second tier of titles for when Aayrl gives those out.

Good luck to everyone else still standing! More nasty levels can be picked for week 5, so let's hope those don't get picked. Moving on to Advanced, the tension only gets higher, and it's all between top players now.

One cheating scandal later, Nockess has been DISQUALIFIED from the tournament, and four eliminated players voluntarily came back! The outcome will never be the same again.

With Nockess's ban, all eight players eliminated before this week were invited to return to the tournament. Four of these players--CylinderKnot, eNetro, LaSharkus, and MikeSan--accepted the invitation to return and potentially knock out the stronger players. This event shook things up a bit.

Several of this week's levels carried the most impact on the players' times. Endurance mostly depended on whether or not players picked up the two Time Travels behind the sign. Momentum kicked a few players down with its nasty obstacles and consistency mode. Several players had disastrous runs on Fly the Coop. All of MBP greatly determined final times, thanks to levels like Fighting Slopes, which IncanLlama accurately describes as "a torture chamber for the uninitiated."

Anyway, let's jump into the rankings. Out of the 11 participants in this week, the top 8 have moved on to week 6.

Robert finished first with a time of 456.90. Four tournament records defeated and a solid overall performance allowed him to finish in the top of the pack.

DKman00 came into second with a time of 475.67. Excellent performance along with five best times propelled him far above the rest.

Traplaunching into third is Eguy with a time of 497.92. Despite the performance on Daedalus, his successful traplaunch on Endurance made up for it.

With some salt before his run, Kalle29 finished in fourth place with a time of 519.22. He would gladly replace Momentum with something else if he could, but he did well on it along with most of the other levels.

In fifth place is ItzJean, who used all his retries before PQ, finishing with 534.19 seconds. With major salt, he made it into the upper half.

Sliding into sixth is IncanLlama, who finished with 539.01 seconds. Fly the Coop, a rather tricky level, is to blame for not allowing him to finish higher.

CylinderKnot, the only returning participant to survive, finished in seventh place with a time of 553.72. Safe routes and a few mistakes resulted in a performance that might lead to elimination in week 6.

Dangerously close to elimination in seventh place is Tue27, who ended in eighth place in 598.56 seconds. Despite all the mistakes, the three other returning participants kept him in the competition.

Unfortunately, eNetro and MikeSan each finished more than two minutes slower than Tue27, putting them below the elimination line. LaSharkus sadly no-showed this week (came too late in this case), so he missed out on the opportunity to push Tue27 into elimination. Thank you, returning members, for taking the opportunity to give another shot at this. This shows that you are not willing to give up despite the circumstances.

Good luck to everyone still in the tournament! With only TWO retries this time, who will crack under pressure and face elimination?

What a stinger of a week this has been! Now all the "wildcard" contestants are gone, and only the five best players remain. Of the eight players from week 6, the bottom THREE have been eliminated.

DKman00 finished far ahead of the pack in first place with a time of 489.94. Somehow he managed to pull off the hardest paths very easily, getting jaw-dropping times on Extreme Skiing and Thief to name a few.

MBOUltimate (who changed his name from IncanLlama) finished in second place with a time of 523.87. Amazing overall performance and his excellent negotiation of the water on Wonky Waters contributed to this excellent time. If there's a person to get the WR on the SP version of Wonky Waters, it's MBO.

Eguy came close behind in third with a time of 535.99. Great performance with a minor goof on Bag of Secrets placed him in the middle of the safe zone.

Robert obtained fourth place with a time of 567.36. He appeared to play things more safely than everyone above him, but the performance warranted moving on to week 7. Will he survive to week 8 as Expert levels are thrown into the mix?

Kalle29 reached fifth place with a time of 570.11. His excellent Thief run offset a few unfortunate runs, allowing him to come close to finishing above Robert.

Unfortunately, Tue27, ItzJean, and CylinderKnot have been eliminated with times of 590.20, 603.99, and 710.62, respectively. Nerves, playing too safely, and not adjusting paths for ping were possible contributors to these performances. Thank you all for participating, making it this far, and not giving up!

Good luck to the top five players, who are still in the competition. Things are heating up with the introduction of Expert levels. At least the levels will be known during the week instead of right before the runs begin...

Week 7 is over, which means that we're heading into the finals with Week 8. This week brought some cruel levels capable of single-handedly destroying runs, but three of the five players moved on regardless.

Coming in first is MBOUltimate with a time of 612.08. Obtaining weekly bests on four consecutive levels offset the Physical Activity time, allowing him to take first. He was also quite lucky with the Gem Hunt levels.

In second place is DKman00 with a time of 613.86. Solid overall performance with a slight hiccup or two allowed him to finish just below MBOUltimate in the rankings.

Rolling into third is Eguy with a time of 617.06. A mishap on Gems of the Deep Blue became almost meaningless after defeating Trigonometry's tournament record and obliterating Platform Mayhem's record.

Unfortunately, Robert and Kalle have been eliminated from the tournament. Robert finished with a time of 704.92 after several mistakes, and Kalle resigned after awful luck on the Gem Hunt stages and knowing that he would be eliminated as he was playing Gyrocopter Monster Course.

Thank you all for participating and making it this far, and good luck to the final three players as they enter the dreaded final week! The levels will not be known by anyone, including eplipswich, until the remaining players reach the levels' respective game while doing their runs. All three players will be in the server at the same time and taking turns with each level.

On another note, DKman00 has already won the "number of best records" because it is now completely impossible for anyone to catch up.

So, just to let everyone know that the date and time for the finals has been set! Matan will be streaming the finals on his Twitch channel ( www.twitch.tv/israelird ).

March 9, Saturday, 8am UTC/2am EST

Those who are free are welcome to watch it!

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On a side note, DKman00 has not only already won Most No. of Best Records, but also Rank and Most No. of TRs.

MBOUltimate wrote: [strike]Finally, a tournament i might not win[/strike]

Well, I was very wrong.

Good tournament to all, it was fun.
Especially the finals

Better late than never - Achievements and Titles have been granted, enjoy!

~Aayrl