Hi there.

I'm one of the people from Victoria.

I'd be down for a rematch with you guys, I only got to go up against Victoria players at the tournament (and I did terrible anyway ).

Ohhhh Caramelldansen. I'm going to regret that song so much when the videos make it on Youtube...

Keby> You're onto something. Freestyle division. You. Me. Mikeneko Rock...

I would love to challenge them to some songs with no bar. I think Crono would be the only one I'd have to seriously worry about.

Btw Keby, after talking with ya last night I had to check out Carameldansen. Holy shit, that's the best song EVER! I'm going to burn this to CD and blast it from my car wherever I go for the next three weeks!

P.S. Keby, could you link me to whichever simfile you uploaded to the machine? I've found a few, but only one is half-decent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C0GzFJGxno&feature=player_embedded
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whatever guys, if all else fails I'm challenging them to a swing swing revolution tournament.
Let's see them beast this.

Back when he was running tournaments, Jerrad tended to apply a wider label of "tech nightmare" to "rhythm songs."  The sorrows fell in that category, as did DDR's triplet-based songs (less applicable to ITG, since many more songs have huge purple streams).  The best ITG examples I can come up with are Lipstick Kiss and Ride The Bass.

The simplest summary is definitely "hard for reasons other than speed, endurance, or poor syncing."

Keby: I know, I was just being dramatic as a joke. In all seriousness, though, Adam agrees with me that we should have a rematch.

I'd really like to play them again. I have a better idea now as for strategy. pnw vs victoria EH? I'm in =D

Edit: For some reason during some of the matches it seemed like they weren't really trying to me... Just an opinion though.

Laura I wouldn't say we were exactly humiliated by them really. Sure they're better than us, but it wasn't a shut out.

This sounds fun. Whether I actually try to compete or not, I still want to practice a lot and go up there with you guys. I always love having more motivation to exercise anyway and I've always wanted to go to Canada.

As far as humiliation goes...well I sure as hell faced that on Utopia against Flaire (Flare?). Whatever happens in Canada, for me that song is sure going down at least.

LOL, this is pretty much what happened to me at the PG tourny, though at the time it was single elim and I truely did just f*ck up.

@Jon: "Rhythm songs" typically refers to stepcharts that are difficult solely because of intricacies in timing (as opposed to stamina or other physical challenges like weird gallop spins.) L'amour is one of the prime examples of this. On ITG, pretty much everything is draining, so it's just a matter of "more" or "less" draining. At the "easy 10 that should really be a 9" level, think D-Code VS Fledh Uncut.

@Sara, Suko, anyone else: "Sandbagging" refers to, as people have stated, intentionally concealing your skill level to advantage yourself. To clarify, not posting your scores online is not sandbagging, nor is, say, dressing like an innocent young girl so that you can hustle people at air hockey. Sandbagging specifically refers to concealing your skill while performing the activity in question. In bowling, for example, some people may attempt to throw fewer strikes so that they can be ranked lower and get a handicap. I'd argue that wrestlers trying to lose 10 pounds fast the week before a match to get in a lower weight class (and thus, theoretically, fight easier opponents,) also constitutes sandbagging.

In ITG, this can look like many things:

1. Intentionally not performing to the best of your ability on the qualifier so that you seed in a more advantageous position as you advance up the bracket, or, in double elim, throwing your first match at the right time so that you can have an easy time beating lower-level opponents in the loser's bracket on your way to the finals.

2. Playing slightly under your skill level without actually throwing matches/affecting your current standing (Intentionally missing just a few notes so you still win but don't seem as skilled as you are) to influence decisions made by players in later matches. So, for example, if Sara was playing a very low seed, she might intentionally get 20 greats on L'amour, knowing that the low seed can't even combo it, so that when she faces Keby two rounds later, he'd think that she was weak at those types of songs and pick I Feel... ...and then she'd AAA it. Basically, you're trying to manipulate players by way of underperforming so that they pick the songs you want to pick FOR you.

3. Bringing your friends, who know they have no chance of winning, so that they can throw matches against you and thus advance your position in the ranking without you having to really exert any effort.

Some people consider this strategy. Most competitive sports consider it cheating. Neither opinion is wrong, per se, it just depends on how you define the rules. Hopefully that clarifies!

@Tom: Yeah, I was looking up videos, too. They are definitely exceptional dance game players... but I think that Seattle could take them if we wanted to.

@Suko: I have always been of the opinion that if you are good at 12 foot charts but can't beat somebody who can't pass a 10 at 7 foot charts, you're not a "top tier" dance game player. I want to force the ITG community to expand its horizons and try to develop ALL areas of skill.

So yeah! Anyone who wants to participate, we'd be happy to have you. I suck, but I'm still going to practice my ass off and play.

And they did that in 2009. =\

HOWEVER!

If we had a tournament that didn't just focus on 12+ charts, I think we'd have some great matches.

I just hit 93% on chromatic blitz, and I could probably 98 we met dat night. Granted, I want to be able to do it consistently

Yeah, one of those crazy mo-fos was playing in socks....SOCKS I TELL YA!

They don't come much crazier than that!


That actually sounds hella' fun. This is the closest I think I could get to participating in a team tournament. I'd be up for this.

Notably,
Chromatic Blitz, >94% -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tJVTemIJAo
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We Met Dat Night, >98.8% -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqb1We2eZQE
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For competitive research purposes: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ddrcoder+rgc09&aq=f

So I hear they have IIDX up there? Make it extend to that.

Sandbagging also involves a player not preforming to there optimal level. For Example:

I'm in a tournament, I'm perfectly healthy, but I decide I'm going to not try to fake players out, and then do really well later on.

A better example would be if the qualifier is a song I could AAA, I decide to get a B on it so I seed lower and end up maybe playing someone who's terrible.

And what I think Laura means by rhythm songs is stuff like Vertex^2. Basically stuff without a consistent straight forward step chart

I didn't know what it was either.  From what I gathered at the tournament, it's when someone fakes a pad miss so they get to either re-do a song or whatever else the rules specify.

Any song that I am good at. =p  The rhythm songs on Extreme are normally called the "Sorrows" due to the oni course.  The general list is: L'amour et Liberte, Tears, Rain of Sorrow, On the Jazz, i feel..., and sometimes Xenon.  So whatever the ITG equivalents of those are, I'm on it. =p

What defines a rhythm songs specialist? What songs are in this?

I'm not familiar with "sandbagging", except for in practices of holding back a flooding river. Do explain...

@Tricksy: Adam and I were actually discussing a tournament format in which everyone would be able to help out. Basically, it'd be like a big game of ITG "Horse;" each team would have each player pick, say, two songs that they think they are the shit at, and the other team would send the player they think is best to "match" the first team's player. That way, we could all play to our strengths and participate. We need ourselves a rhythm songs specialist.

@Suko: I know these guys are awesome, but there were some VERY close matches. I actually believe that they had the edge because of strategy, not skill. (And when I say strategy, I mean everything from "good song choice" to "sandbagging." )

SCOOPS HAGENDAZ!!!!!!!!

I don't think I would be able to help much in this tournament challenge, but as a dedicated member of Team Trampoline, I will definitely go and just talk smack behind the machines.  Maybe make some side bets and drink some maple syrup.  Or whatever the hell it is Canadians do these days.

OH NO, HE'S GOT THE MANGO SENTINEL!!

SCOOPS!