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Here we are at last. After seven completed battles in the perfect attendance main bracket, as well as one completed reserve fight, this year's Grassroots Tournament is coming to a close. There were many close matches, skilled fighters, and interesting characters/tactics, and a lot of effort put in from everybody. Overall, I was very pleased with the turnout and reception. I also enjoyed reading the fights, and I hope everyone had an enjoyable experience as well.

On that note, I will list the awards. This year's GR champion definitely deserved the title, continually outperforming his opponents in a sportsmanlike fashion, in spite of skillful performances by the other contestants. Without further ado, your Grassroots 2010 Champion: Sirius Leonine, played by DarkManticoreX2. He will be receiving a first-slot invitation to the next Grassroots Tournament, as well as a small prize of his choosing.

The runner up also proved highly skilled, and performed impressively well, given a lack of a lengthy T1 combat history. Also very courteous and respectful, this fighter wrote in a very intriguing (and sometimes hilarious) style, proving entertaining every match without failure. Your runner up: Shai Sunamon, played by Parabola. Para will also be receiving an invitation to the GR2011.

Third Place: Darien Blackdagger, played by qbsuperstar03

Fourth: Arendus Sagi, played by Iowa90.


Next will be the Miscellaneous Awards:

Most Decisive Hit: Sirius Leonine (landslide on Darien Blackdagger for a one hit kill).

Biggest Landslide Victory: Sirius Leonine (vs Darien Blackdagger)

Best Effort: Parabola

Biggest Flop: Arendus Sagi (phasing into the wind currents Shai created, resulting in multiple electrical shocks).

Best Read: Shai Sunamon vs Taretha Rake

One Hit Wonder: Ghaarme

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Finally, next year's Grassroots tournament (as well as the ones afterwards) will be occurring earlier, with sign-ups starting sometime in May. Also, there will no longer be a rank-based restriction on who can sign up, meaning everybody can participate, no matter how skilled.

Thank you all for participating. Hopefully, I will see many of you in the next tournament I host.

Biggest Landslide Victory: Sirius Leonine (vs Darien Blackdagger)

Oh, I see what you did there. TBH, my heart really wasn't in that fight. I had pretty much nothing left in the tank after pouring it on against Total Brave, but that fight made me a better fighter because now I know the importance of getting a perspective on real-world measurements such as distance, time, velocity and force.

Best Effort, ftw! XD

I definitely had fun, and the winner most certainly deserves his spot! I'm looking forward to next time :D Methinks I shall have to examine what type of character will work best :p Or just do what I did this time and pick whatever! It seemed to work pretty well.

I would just like to point out that this totally proves that the Pokemon system is universal. Rock/ground is super effective vs. Air/electric.

Just sayin'.

The biggest problem I had in this tourney was getting parabola out of the air. Until she dropped to a more reasonable level the only thing i really could do was throw rocks at her. I had a bunch of cool plans in store for the rocks once they would hit the upper barrier (i.e transform into a net, sand powder etc etc) but Shai never stayed in one place long enough for me to use them.

The only constructive criticism I'd give Parabola would be to make his attacks a bit more creative. It seemed like once the air chains didn't work he was grabbing at straws. (over the course of the entire tournament you only used about 4-5 different attacks. Maybe expand your spell book a bit).

All in all i had a lot of fun. The relationship with the lobby was very enjoyable. I expected QB to try to use that to his advantage more seeing as his character was more of a lock-picking sabotaging rouge. If this tourney is ran again the lobby should get it's necessary week or two where people can pull their tricks on each other. It would add a very nice level beyond just "you and you fight to the death, ready? GO!"

Scariest matchup for me was probably against Gavain. I let too many things go during that fight and almost got burned because of it. Thank you TS for hosting, and thank you everyone for competing.