18th Official Tournament (Hard-Stuck D7 Edition)
Posted on: July 10, 2025, at 10:17:42pm

To be frank I have barely picked up this game or etterna since I took home the win in OT17 back during last summer so to be frank I kinda fell out of love for the game a little bit and I am extremely rusty. I am at about the same skill level that I was at at the end of last tournament which is still pretty good but that also means that there was a chance that I would be in Bracket 7 (D8) with the same skill level which didnt sit right with me. Luckily I didnt make the cut which is a double-edged sword because on one hand being in the highest division is a huge compliment but on the other hand dealing with FFR's 102+ catalogue in a tournament setting would make me start pulling my hair out. Anyway, I was gonna go into the tournament with the expectation that I wouldnt really have competition until Josemba sent me a DM on discord randomly one day showing me a player named "QC Xen" who turned out to be extremely cracked at the game. Like im talking 32 MSD on Etterna level cracked. I went from having no-one on my radar to keeping an eye on players like damogus, jose565, Soundie, Legenb, and especially Xen. Cant wait to see how this goes.

Round 1: Eureka [AAA]

During previews this looked like it would be a bitch to AAA but I got it within 5 tries. Spent most of the time getting accoustomed to FFR again.

Round 2: Mezzotinto [4-0-1-1]

Now I know this looks really bad for an early round but to be frank I didnt really enjoy trying to AAA this file and I kinda gave up. As I am typing this I am on the edge of the piss water and am praying that I dont get knocked out.

EDIT: FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Round 3: silly-willy-nilly [AAA]

To be frank, I enjoyed this file but its not my cup of tea for grinding a AAA on.

Anyway, my first score or so on this was a 2-0-0-1 which managed to bring the cutoff to 5 raw goods but despite that, I still wasnt satisfied knowing the promise I swore to keep last round. Throughout the week I kept getting caught on random parts like a certain mini-jack transition within the last 30 seconds of the file but just as I was losing hope, I gave it another shot the day of previews and despite my friend calling me right at the last minute to distract me, I clutched the AAA.

Round 4: Clex3 [17-1-4-5]

eeeeewwwwwwww what the fuck? I dont even know where to start with this file, whether its the main meat of the file that tests my speed and burst ability, or the last quarter that is way easier until it throws awkward-to-transition-in-and-out-of trills combined with occasional bursts. Either way I describe it, Its just not a file im comfortable with, or like at all. Anyway, first try I scraped by with 68 raw goods, then went into practice isolation mode to try and clean up with certain parts of the file that I was especially deterred by. I then did another full run with 14.8 raw goods when I realized that I left the rate at 0.95 and basically wasted the run. fuck. I picked it back up the next day and got the score above. I could do way better than 29 raw goods but its good enough for me this round.

I also wanna shoutout Soundie and E-B-E for their performance so far. I always thought of EBE as a lower D7 player so seeing his performance explode even further than where I am at right now is a sight to see to put it simply. Soundie is different though. He's not even a D7 as far as im concerned. He somehow managed the only SDG on the file in the bracket. I dont even remember how they performed back during the last OT but either way, another crazy progression. I dont think Im even gonna take the win home this year but atleast the competition is nice.

Round 5: Yuushitessen