2018 Winter Singleplayer Tournament

The Singleplayer Time Trial Tournament is back! With Frostfire's approval, I will be organizing this tournament this time. This thread will serve as both the rules for the tournament and the writeup/video thread.

This time, it will be all the PQ official levels! With this tournament to be held close to 6 months after the release of PQ, you players should already have ample experience with PQ. The question though is, how well will you perform, especially with limited retries and pressure? 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: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V9oKWy_o...0Dc/edit?usp=sharing

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 6 at the cutoff time (see below). Then the tournament will begin directly. Players who wish to sign up after January 6 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 6 – Jan 13. Second week is Jan 13 – Jan 20, 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 10-20 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 all the PQ Official levels, 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

- *(New rule) Intentionally getting a TT and then respawning on a checkpoint is NOT ALLOWED 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 Trial by Fire and Frozen Flames

- 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.

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Players currently signed up:

eplipswich
Rosie
Eguy
Zavist
Tue27
El_Robert
Cylinderknot
hPerks
DKman00
Lee
obee58
Xedron
Regislian
Nature Freak
RadiantVibe
Ir0ha
IncanLlama (formerly MBOUltimate)
eNetro

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.

Sign me up. :thumbsup:

I'm in!

Sign me up

Let's do this!

I'm in!

hPerks wrote: I'm in.

I feel like if you crash, you should be able to send a crash.log as proof, and not get a skunk. Hopefully not an issue, but maybe something to think about.

i’m not sure if anyone crashed last year but slunk was written by me and not a good plan. i’d advise restarting the level with a time penalty or something instead

hPerks wrote: I'm in.

I feel like if you crash, you should be able to send a crash.log as proof, and not get a skunk. Hopefully not an issue, but maybe something to think about.

Good idea. Added the crash.log requirement upon crash.

As for time penalty, I’ll keep that in mind for future tourneys.

put me in coach

i'll join

yes me please

ill do it

I may as well participate I guess.

ye

I want in

OK.

I’m in!

Those achievements sound fun!

As long as you have some method of tracking these metrics (a spreadsheet, score sheet, tournament bracket, etc.) I have no issue building and distributing achievements accordingly.

Best of luck and have fun, everyone!

~Aayrl

Aayrl wrote: Those achievements sound fun!

As long as you have some method of tracking these metrics (a spreadsheet, score sheet, tournament bracket, etc.) I have no issue building and distributing achievements accordingly.

Best of luck and have fun, everyone!

~Aayrl

Yep, the main spreadsheet will track that

Also, dang, MBOUltimate, now I have to update your name to IncanLlama.

Sign-ups are now closed, and with that, the tournament officially begins with 18 participants!

Week 1 begins now, and the deadline to submit times/scores is January 13, 10am EST, 3pm GMT, Saturday. It's comprised of all 10 Tutorial levels and the 1st 10 Beginner levels of PQ. You can practice as much as you like, but make sure to submit your times/scores before the deadline. Note that the bottom 3 will be eliminated in Week 1. I've also added a countdown timer so that you'll know the deadline HERE .

Standings and other details can be found in this spreadsheet .

To summarize the important rules, you need a referee before you can start your run, and your run is one-shot, meaning you can't stop halfway and have to finish all levels for the week all the way. Once your run is finished, referees (and/or players), submit your times/scores to me via the following methods. I will add the times/scores accordingly in the spreadsheet.

1) Discord (either the Marble Blast Server's Tourney-hype channel or Direct Message me @eplipswich#4142)
2) Post in this thread (for those who don't have Discord)

Also, there's a new note that I've added in regarding Lap Mode levels, labelled LM in the spreadsheet. This is particularly important for referees to know:
For Lap Mode levels, there is a chance that lag might cause players to not be able to finish even though they complete all laps (due to the trigger not being detected). Hence, referees must be extra cautious and take note of the time when monitoring this level. Highly recommended to video-record these levels for easy trace-back.

Lastly, remember that Blast is NOT ALLOWED, and Respawn button (backspace) is NOT ALLOWED in Gem Hunt/Madness levels and NOT ALLOWED in all other levels EXCEPT when respawning at a checkpoint (or in the case of Lap Mode levels, at a place other than the start of Lap 1).

With all that said, good luck, and most importantly, have fun!

So, in lieu of what happened during the runs of the first two players, a few levels are bugged, and below lists the bugs and their workarounds if you're the referee:

1) Super Jump Bug: Levels with this bug are where the Super Jump (SJ) cannot be grabbed properly. If you aren't able to grab the SJ the first time, a free retry will be awarded. Players can then choose to use the free retry for these levels, or save it for another level. If you use the free retry for one of these levels, and you still can't grab the SJ properly the 2nd time, then the best time from the two runs of this level will be used.
Level affected for Week 1: Locomotion

2) Finish Bug: Levels with this bug won't be able to register you finishing them. As such, referees must remember to Print Screen/save a screenshot the moment the runner reaches the finish pad (or video-record the run if you can) so that you can then check back the time at which you Print Screen.
Levels affected for Week 1: Rush Hour, Railgun

These bugs are also described in the spreadsheet.

Sorry for the inconvenience caused, and have fun!

2018 Winter Singleplayer Time Trial Tournament (hPerks - Round 1)

Grats to everyone who made it to Week 2! What a rocky/chaotic week it was with a number of players having various issues with levels. For that, I apologize and will ensure that the subsequent weeks will be more smooth-sailing and that the subsequent weeks' levels are tested more thoroughly before the weeks commence.

First up, Week 2 instructions:

Week 2 consists of the remaining 11 Beginner levels of PQ. Despite having much lesser levels than Week 1, Week 2's levels are likely going to take just as long as those of Week 1, if not longer due to 2 Gem Madness levels and 1 long Gem Hunt level. With that said, there are 3 things that you must take note regarding Week 2, and EDIT: 1 important thing regarding this week and subsequent weeks.

1) Gem Madness levels: Since this is the first week where you'll be playing these levels, there is one thing to take note when you go OOB in them (unlikely to happen in Gems Ahoy!, but high chance of it happening in Half Pipe Leap of Faith):

If you go OOB in a Gem Madness level, the level MUST BE RESTARTED. The referee/host will check what time you touch the start pad after
respawning and before restarting and round it DOWN to the nearest second. Then they will do the following subtraction: Level's Duration - Above-mentioned time before adding it to your final time. So as you can see, going OOB in a Gem Madness level can be disastrous as it can lead to a huge loss of time, so take care not to go OOB!

2) Trial by Fire: As this level utilizes Fire Blast which requires pressing the Blast key, Blast is allowed only in this level.

3) Super Jump bug: The Super Jump in Hip Pop Step Jump is confirmed to not work at all. As such, you must find an alternative path to get to the finish.

EDIT: 4) It was recently discovered that TTs continue to work even after respawning on a checkpoint in Co-Op mode (just like how it works in MBP). Note that intentionally respawning on a checkpoint after getting TT is NOT ALLOWED since SP PQ is not designed to be played that way.

The above notes can also be found in the spreadsheet , where you can also find all the tournament standings and results.

That being said, bottom 2 will be eliminated this week (and in subsequent weeks as well), so have fun and good luck!

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Now, for Week 1 report:

We start off with the top 3 players; the only players who finished this week's levels with sub 500s. Xedron is clearly the MVP of Week 1 with 6 Best Times, the most no. of best records. Despite getting a Blue Screen of Death early in his run, as well as getting a subpar time in Sky High Circuit and a subpar score in Hunting Around, those did not stop him from taking top spot with a total time of 449.08s, which includes impressive times of 5.08s in the infamous El Titiritero (one of the few players to get sub 6) and 7.75s in Railgun (the only player to get sub 10). This is also Xedron's first 1st place finish for a week in any Singleplayer tourney. Will he be the one to take the throne this year? We shall see

Eguy got an impressive total time of 483.45s despite having no best records, giving him 2nd. Part of that feat includes using a crucial retry in Trained to Fade to reduce his time from 87.92 to 18.03. Eguy didn't do particularly well in last year's Singleplayer tourney, but this might just be the year when he'll shine and emerge as the dark horse.

Rosie unfortunately had the most number of issues during her run, including a glitch in Transporter Lock where she couldn't use the Teleporter when others were able to use it just fine (in the end, a private server had to be used specially for that level for her). However, she still managed to get an impressive total time of 495.46s to settle in 3rd, further proving herself as one of the top Marble Blasters in the community. We hope to see greater things from her in the coming weeks!

Moving on to the players in the 500s, El_Robert continues his dominance in the Singleplayer tourney scene with a time of 506.00s to secure 4th, and is the only person to get sub 25 in Racing Spirits, further proving that his 3rd place overall finish in last year's Singleplayer tourney was no fluke. Looks like he is getting promoted from being a dark horse to being a white knight (if that makes sense ).

hPerks comes in at 5th with a time of 511.95s. A highlight of his run is being the only person to get sub 20 in Locomotion (albeit after two retries). Also, this is his first participation in a Singleplayer tourney, and his performance comes as no surprise given his top player status and coming off from his recent Summer tournanment victory. We'll be excited to see if he has any tricks up his sleeve in Week 2.

Coming in at 6th is Regislian with a time of 515.91s. Given that he's also a top player, we'll be interested to see how far he can progress and if he can better his 4th place finish in last year's Singleplayer tourney.

What is possibly a surprise package is Cylinderknot (CK) who finished 7th with a time of 559.94s, an impressive time given that he still had 3 retries to spare. He also got the best score of 186 in Hunting Around, edging out Lee's record of 183 which had held on as the best score for a long while before CK's run. CK has certainly improved a lot since the last Singleplayer tourney, and we hope to see more great stuff from him

Less than a second behind in 8th is Dkman00, finishing with a time of 560.83s, and also getting 4 best times (the second most number of best times in Week 1), impressive for a newcomer of a tourney. This includes a sub 5 finish in El Titiritero (the only player to achieve that), and he's certainly another hot prospect to watch out for in the coming weeks.

Tue27 comes in at 9th about a second slower at 561.77s, once again adopting his slow and steady strategy which worked pretty well. Will his slow and steady strategy prevail in the next few weeks to come? We'll find out.

Coming close about 1 sec behind is Lee, who was unfortunate in that he was the first to play his run and encountered a number of bugs previously undetected. Despite that though, he was able to register a decent time of 562.51s, good enough to get him 10th place and surviving Week 1. This includes an impressive score of 183 in Hunting Around which no one else was able to beat until CK's run. Along with CK, he's certainly a player to watch out for if he makes it to Week 3, where Gem Hunt levels make up 5 of 13 levels.

IncantLlama would be the one to achieve a time closest to the average time (just 0.25s above it), finishing 11th with a time of 578.71s and is the last to get sub 600s. Another newcomer of the Singleplayer tourney, he did decent enough to survive, and we'll be curious to see how far he can go.

obee58 and eNetro, both newcomers of the Singleplayer tourney as well, would fill the next two spots (12th and 13th) with times of 615.29s and 635.75s respectively, which were decent enough to survive Week 1.

Lady Luck apparently shone on eplipswich and Nature Freak as they would be the last ones to survive Week 1, finishing 14th and 15th with times of 706.22s and 740.48s respectively and being two of the three to have more than 700s. Nature Freak, in particular, got to live another day seeing how he got eliminated in Week 1 in the previous Singleplayer tourney. Will Lady Luck shine on these two players again in Week 2? That will all depend on Lady Luck herself.

Now, on to the ones who did not make it. RadiantVibe has unfortunately withdrawn from the tournament due to a busy schedule and is eliminated as a result. As much of a pity as it is, we have to accept that. Hopefully he'll be able to take part in a future tournament.

Next is Ir0ha, who didn't do his run and was unfortunately a no-show.

With RV's withdrawal and Ir0ha's no-show, it means only 1 more would be eliminated in Week 1. And unfortunately, we have to say goodbye to Zavist.
Despite his best efforts as one of the newcomers of the Singleplayer tourney, he could only manage a total time of 780.06s, which isn't good enough to survive. Still though, we have to give him credit for his participation and his efforts in the tourney. We hope he enjoyed what little tournament experience he got, and we thank him for his participation!

Notorious Levels: Fundamentals of Physics, Locomotion, Trained to Fade, El Titiritero, High Rise Quick Fall, Racing Spirits
Most Best Records: Xedron (6)
Last Man Safe: Nature Freak
Eliminated: RadiantVibe, Ir0ha, Zavist

Grats to everyone who survived Week 2 (another crazy week despite it having only 11 levels). Week 3, the week of Gem Hunt Mania, begins now! And speaking of Gem Hunt, a new rule regarding it has been implemented in addition to 2 other rules to make the tourney less frustrating (especially when 5 of the 13 levels you'll be dealing with this week are Gem Hunt levels):

1) Gem time values in Gem Hunt levels have been reduced from 1s to 0.2s per point.
2) Gem Madness levels no longer require restarting if you go OOB. Just proceed as per normal. However, every time you go OOB, 10 seconds Time Penalty will be added to final time.
3) Run is no longer void if you use Blast. However, 20 seconds Time Penalty will be added to final time.

Regarding bugs in Week 3, the only bugged level is Triple Action, and the best way to explain how to go about this level is through this video:



(For the workaround, it involves having to skip the 2nd gem and go for the 5th gem instead. Because it can be very difficult to jump straight to the 1st checkpoint, if you fail to jump to the checkpoint and then go OOB the 1st time only, you'll get a free retry.)

That's all, then. Good luck for Week 3! Again, bottom 2 will be eliminated, leaving behind 11 players at the end of Week 2.

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And now, Week 2 report:

Xedron continues his dominance in the PQ tourney by once again finishing 1st with a time of 526.37s, destroying all other participants by at least 81s and finishing with the most number of best records yet again (4 this time) This includes a crazy score of 269 at Maximo Center which he used 2 retries on, but still well worth using. WHO can stop this man!? HOW can we stop him!?

hPerks finished 2nd with a time of 607.45s, improving his previous position of 5th to 2nd, but nowhere near Xedron's level just yet. If he keeps up this performance or does even better than this in Week 3, we can definitely see an interesting final between Xedron and hPerks, as well as...

El_Robert, finishing 3rd with a time of 640.81s. His consistency continued going into Week 2, and he had a very smart strategy in that he played Week 2 levels the moment Week 2 began so that he would have time to practice on Week 3, a strategy that works very well for him so far. Will it continue to work for him?

Next up is Lee, who made up for his subpar performance in Week 1 with an astounding time of 643.90s to finish 3 seconds behind El_Robert in 4th. Lee's definitely another contestant to watch out for as he gets better and better every day.

Coming in at 5th is Eguy,whose performance slipped a little, but still good enough to finish 5th with a time of 647.30s.

IncanLlama and Tue27 would fill up 6th and 7th with times of 654.89s and 668.57s respectively, outperforming two supposedly A-tier players. IncanLlama, in particular, did extremely well this week despite having a cold for 3 days, so kudos to him for that. And Tue27, with his slow and steady strategy, gains a +2 in rank from Week 1. Can that strategy bring him up even more?

Now, what's surprising is Rosie finishing with a subpar performance at 8th with a time of 683.44s. Rosie, in particular, had various issues with her run, inclduing a rage quit at one point during a run in Half Pipe Leap of Faith and a time extension to complete her run. You could say that was what made me make changes to the rules for Week 3 onwards. That being said, we really hope Rosie can actually finish her whole run in one shot come Week 3 onwards (which is supposed to be the way).

Also finishing with a subpar performance of 709.34s in 9th is Regislian. Even though he survived Week 2, he must be really disappointed with this performance, and we hope he can buck up come Week 3.

Now, on to the players with 700+s, which are pretty much survival times. Cylinderknot finished with a time of 733.51s in 10th (a fun fact about his run is that he finished Gems Ahoy! with 0.005s to spare), and Dkman00 finished with a time of 740.25s in 11th (he struggled especially with Half Pipe Leap of Faith).

eplipswich and eNetro would be the last two to survive, both with very close times of 768.59s and 770.69s to finish in 12th and 13th respectively. eplipswich, in particular, is a survivor once again in Week 2, but how long more can he continue to survive with Week 3 being his weakness (he's pretty weak in Gem Hunt)? And will eNetro pull up his socks to survive Week 3 now that it gets more and more difficult?

Finally, on to the two who got eliminated. obee58 eventually decided to bow out at the last minute, while Nature Freak, despite his best efforts, could only manage a time close to the 900s (a time of 886.63s). Well, at least he can leave the tourney with his head held high with 1 best record (Sky High Circuit). Thanks to obee58 and Nature Freak for your participation, and we hope you'll keep track of the tourney's progress as we head into Week 3!

Notorious Levels: Half Pipe Leap of Faith, From Under the Dragon's Wing
Most Best Records: Xedron (4)
Last Man Safe: eNetro
Eliminated: obee58, Nature Freak

A bit late again, but better late than never. Week 4 is currently underway, and will end on February 3, 1500 GMT. As a reminder, here are some things to take note for this week:

1) Matan highlighted that there will be a new patch that will affect the Gem Hunt levels for this week. It should be out sometime today, so refrain from playing your runs until the patch is out. For those who have already done their runs, they'll have to redo the Gem Hunt levels of their runs. And if they have used a retry in any of those levels, they'll free to use the retry again.

2) Blast rules have been modified slightly once again:
A run is void if you use Blast unless you use a retry or you have a valid run before a run with Blast. If you run out of retries, you will replay the level (after completing the run you used Blast in), but with a “Time Penalty = Time you get during the run with Blast” added to your final time in the replay.
That means a level must be replayed if you use Blast regardless of how many retries you have, just that when you run out of retries, instead of having to use up a retry being the penalty, it will be the above-mentioned Time Penalty instead.

3) Diminishing Returns is buggy in the Tsuf server. Please play it in the Thistle server instead.

That's all, then. Good luck for Week 4! Again, bottom 2 will be eliminated, leaving behind 9 players at the end of Week 4. It's getting tighter now!
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And now, Week 3 report:

Week 3 is Gem Hunt mania week! With the change in rules regarding the calculation of times in Gem Hunt levels to make things fairer, the times are closer than ever! With that said, here are the individual reports.

Xedron's dominance and OP continue, destroying all other competition by at least 1 minute even with the change in the Gem Hunt rules, and having whopping 6 best records (that's almost half of all levels in Week 3!). He's once again in 1st place with a time of 848.33s. He's also the only player to finish sub-900s this week. What else can be said about him? He's pretty much unstoppable at this point. However, with one fewer retry in Week 4, will it mess him up? Or will he be unaffected?

Next up is hPerks, continuing his decent performance by finishing 2nd once again with a time of 908.78s. This performance includes a best time in Blender :Liquify, which is closest to the Awesome Time (AT).

Regislian registers his first podium finish in this tourney in 3rd with a time of 910.62s. He's the best non-best-record finisher for this week.

Perhaps what's most surprising in IncanLlama finishing close behind by 0.81s in 4th with a time of 911.43s. His performance is surprisingly getting better and better by the week, and he's silently rising up the ranks. What more can we expect from this player? Fun fact: He's the only player left in the tourney to have no best records.

Lee would continue his decent performance, finishing 5th with a time of 915.77s. Having used up all his retries by the time he reached the last level, Freezing Point, he took a risk with the edge hit + super speed trick and paid off.

El_Robert comes in close behind in 6th with a time of 917.34s. He, like Lee, took the same risk in a retry at Freezing Point, but failed. Had he pulled it off, he would have finished sub-900s as well.

Rosie would finish in 7th with a time of 921.50s. She's not playing at her best in the tourney at the moment, but then again, perhaps she's playing it safe and saving her energy for later weeks? Who knows?

Tue27 comes in next in 8th with a time of 938.37s. He had a technical issue that cost him a retry at Rickety Race (he used Blast), but he made up for that with an astounding score of 232 at Blender: Chop, giving him his first best record of the tourney.

Cylinderknot finishes in 9th with a time of 971.96s, one of the players to get more than 950s. One thing we can definitely say about this player is that he's performing much better than last year's SP tourney, and we'll be excited to see how far he can progress in this tourney, having surpassed his previous record of leaving the tourney in Week 3.

What's most shocking this week is Eguy finishing 10th with a time of 987.01s, That said though, his performances have been slipping after his astounding performance in Week 1, but this performance brings him very close to the danger zone, with nerves taking over him. He'll have to pull himself up together if he's going to survive in future weeks, and we hope he can better his performance last season (where he was eliminated in Week 5).

Dkman00 would be the last to survive this week, finishing 11th with a time of 996.68s. He couldn't play his Week 3 run before the deadline due to circumstances that led to him getting grounded during the weekend. However, thanks to the graciousness of the other players, he was allowed to do his Week 3 run past the deadline. So thank you for your graciousness, guys!

So now, we come to the two players who are eliminated from this competition. The two e's, eNetro and eplipswich, are the only players to post more than 1000s (they finish 12th and 13th with times of 1027.30s and 1316.83s respectively), and unfortunately, that wasn't enough to survive despite their best efforts. Whether or not eNetro would survive depended on Dkman00's performance, and while Dkman00 didn't do well this week, it was enough for him to survive, but that means eNetro is out. As for eplipswich, this is a disaster for him as he crumbled under pressure (Level from a Forgiving Mind, in particular, messed him up big time). Still, we have to applaud these two players for making it this far, and we thank both of your for your participation!

Notorious Levels: Rickety Race, Quest Ring, Freezing Point, Level from a Forgiving Mind
Most Best Records: Xedron (6)
Last Man Safe: Dkman00
Eliminated: eNetro, eplipswich

Well it was fun to participate in this tournament while it lasted. Thanks for hosting! Good luck to the rest of the players on their future endeavors.

It's been fun and only slightly stressful, but I sadly did not make it to week 5 since I played it too safely while making far too many careless mistakes. Thanks to a rather bumpy and slightly salty run on Evaporation, it all went downhill from there.

I can't wait for the next tournament, and good luck to everyone still alive!

And we're officially past the halfway point of the tourney! Time sure flies! That being said though, things are now getting harder and harder as the tourney progresses as we're now down to the last 9! Two more will be eliminated this week as we head into the Advanced levels!

So, just a few important things to take note of regarding Week 5 levels:

1) Work in Progress, Dangerous Development and Chilled are levels with moving platforms. This means if you go OOB, you might not be able to complete these levels. In this case, after the recording (or print screen at the point the runner respawns after OOB), the referee 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.

2) Chilled has a Finish bug (the Finish pad in Chilled does not work at all). As such, referees must remember to print screen/save a screenshot the moment the runner reaches the finish pad (or video-record the run if you can).

3) Time Stop trigger does not work in The Spoils of Serendipity Gardens. That being said though, just continue as per normal.

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And now, for your weekly news report for Week 4:

Week 4 is a whole new challenge as the number of retries was reduced from 4 to 3. There are quite a number of notorious levels, but perhaps the mos notorious level is Centripetal Force, with all but one player getting subpar or average times. That player is hPerks with an amazing time of 11.95s. He is also the new winner of the week with a final time of 841.15s, thus continuing his overlooked but amazing performance.He's definitely a hot prospect for the final now, and we're excited to see how much more in store he has for all of us.

Rosie is back to the podium this week, finishing 2nd with a time of 854.38s. Even Rosie herself wasn't expecting such a great time, with incredible performances in King of the Island, Climb and Plummet, Castle Colossus and Diminishing Returns making the big difference.

Regislian and IncanLlama once again finish in 3rd and 4th with incredible times of 887.64s and 896.76s respectively. One could say they're the European duo to watch out now. And fun fact: this is the first time IncanLlama gets at least 1 best record (3 to be exact).

Eguy bounced back from his dismal performance last week to finish 5th with a time of 900.82s, not far away from 3rd and 4th. That's despite using 2 retries at Centripetal Force (pretty much the killer level).

Xedron finishes outside 1st for the first time this week, registering 6th place with a time of 908.84s. He had a great start as usual, registering 4 best records before his Centripetal Force run unfortunately messed him up (he got close to 2 min in his 1st try, then 57.26s in his retry). From there on, unfortunately, he couldn't quite regain his form. Still, however, it's enough to survive and we hope Xedron regains his form come Week 5. Probably one thing he can learn from this week is to learn how to maintain concentration after getting a setback. One positive thing he can take away from this week though is that he still is the player with most best records of the week (4), giving him a total of 20 best records so far (crazy, I know). He's definitely on course to winning the Best Speedrunner achievement.

El_Robert and Tue27, the other two Europeans, would finish 7th and 8th with times of 911.77s and 949.89s. Although 7th is exactly a good position for El_Robert at this stage of the tourney, his time is very close to the times from 3rd to 6th, showing just how tight the competition is. Tue27's time, on the other hand, is a little off below average. Fun fact, he is one of the two players who OOBed in Assemby Line (the other being Xedron), forcing the MFPL rule to have to be implemented.

As Lady Luck would shine on Lee, he is the last person to survive Week 4 with a time of 962.94s, finishing 9th. He could have actually finished in a higher spot if it had not been for his Glacier Meadow run (he had run out of retries by then), with a edge hit at the fading platforms near the end causing him to go OOB and forcing him to have to redo the level with the clock still ticking. Still, given that he's managed to survive Week 4, we can bet he'll be more cautious come Week 5.

And now, the players eliminated. Despite his best efforts, CylinderKnot could only finish 10th with a time of 1038.66s, one of the only two players to get more than 1000s. As mentioned by the player himself in the previous post, after a bumpy and slightly salty run on Evaporation, he never really recovered. DKman00 is the other victim, finishing 11th with a time of 1114.78s, at this point having lost all motivation to carry on. Still though, we have to applaud these two for making it this far (and DKman00 especially for his sportsmanship), and we hope to see them any in future tourneys! Thanks for your participation!

Notorious levels: Centripetal Force, Assembly Line, Glacier Meadow, Evaporation
Last Man Safe: Lee
Eliminated: CylinderKnot, DKman00

Congrats to the Top 7, and what a crazy Week 5 it was! Things are getting even tighter than ever before as we head into Week 6, now with 1 fewer retry yet again! Each player only gets 2 retries in Week 6, and there's lesser and lesser room for errors! Week 6 basically overwhelms players with Gem Hunt/Madness levels before the usual levels, so how well will the Top 7 fare? Only the Top 5 will make it to Week 7!

All the important rules that you need to know can be found in the spreadsheet . This includes Waves in the Dark (a moving platform level) and Fire When Ready (problems with using Super Bounce while in the cannon).

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And here's Week 5 report:

Week 5 has messed with quite a number of players' minds, especially levels like Momentum and Work in Progress. Nonetheless, this is no doubt the tightest week ever, with a major upset we didn't see coming!

hPerks continues his dominance on top with a time of 792.84s. This performance of his also brings him to the top of the overall rank average chart at the moment (rank average of 2.2), slightly edging Xedron, who finished 3rd with a time of 821.45s. Despite not being at his best unlike his past performances before Week 4, this was certainly an improved performance from him. One thing that's certainly consistent from him, however, is his best records (3), though this is tied with two other players this time.

One of these two players is IncanLlama, who finishes in the podium for the first time in 2nd place with a time of 800.02s, just 8 seconds behind hPerks, further showing that his recent excellent performances were no fluke. We can certainly now see that IncanLlama is a force to be reckoned with.

Now, we come to the players in 4th to 8th, whose times are so freaking tight (4th and 8th placed players' times are separated by a mere 14s).

Regislian, the other of the two players with best records this week, comes in at 4th with a time of 872.62s. His time would actually have been a lot better had it not been for the last two levels that kind of messed him up. Still, it was enough for him to survive for another week.

Coming in at 5th is Rosie, who did well enough to survive with a time of 873.35s. Rosie had a rocky start to her run, and it was also unfortunate that due to the nature of Work in Progress (a moving platform level), her time of 36.83s would have been the best record for that level had she not gone OOB in a legit record. There's also the fact that Rosie's runs have been marred with issues after issues. Nonetheless, we all know Rosie's still a great player, and we know she'll overcome the remaining obstacles to come as she pushes on on the road to the final. Keep going and don't lose hope, Rosie! We believe in you! Let's hope no more issues arise.

El_Robert would finish in 6th with a time of 882.45s. It wasn't particularly great considered he used almost all his retries in the first few levels. Thankfully though, Lady Luck was there for him as he lives on another day.

And now, we come to the last 3. Arguably the biggest upset of the tourney thus far, Tue27 was the last man to survive Week 5, edging out Eguy, who was really unfortunate to be eliminated, by Tue seconds (yes, exactly 2 seconds). Tue27 finishes in 7th with a time of 884.23s, while Eguy finishes in 8th with a time of 886.23s.This has got to be the closest elimination/survival in all tourneys thus far. And while it was unfortunate that Eguy got eliminated by such a close margin, all's fair in tourneys, so we have to sadly say goodbye to Eguy. Still, thank you for your participation, Eguy, and we hope you'll come out even stronger in the next tourney!

Another player we have to sadly say goodbye as well is Lee, who had a bad run finishing in 9th with a time of 1149.86s. The levels that cost him are Terminal Velocity (he spent a good 8 minutes + all 3 retries on the level alone) and Be Elusive! (he finished with a time of around 3 minutes), and it pretty much went downhill for him. Still though, we have to applaud Lee for his better performance in this tourney (he finished one week better than last year's tourney). Thank you for your participation!

Notorious levels: Work in Progress, Terminal Velocity, Be Elusive!, Momentum, Dangerous Development
Last Man Safe: Tue27
Eliminated: Eguy, Lee

Oh, and one more thing (something which I should have shown the past weeks as well): the Weekly Rankings charts. Here are the Top 3 for each chart after Week 5:

Rank Average:
1) hPerks (2.2)
2) Xedron (2.4)
3) Rosie & Regislian (5.0)

No. of Best Records
1) Xedron (23)
2) Rosie (9)
3) hPerks (8.)

Best Average-Time Difference
1) Xedron (501.71)
2) hPerks (393.61)
3) Rosie (227.65)