Haven't joined an official tournament since the 8th in 2013.

D6
Round 1: Elif and the Night of Twilight -Called- [84]
Score: 3-0-0-0
Cutoff: 11-0-0-2 (11.4 raw goods)
d5 spoopy ghost: THE BADDEST [74] | AAA
d7 spoopy ghost: Angelic Jelly [94] | 25-0-3-1
Round 1 thoughts: Before the round started I was aiming for 3 goods and ended up getting pretty quickly without too much issue. Made casual attempts to improve over the course of the week, but decided to focus my efforts elsewhere in preparation of future rounds. D5 chart was a sightread AAA and I only played D7's chart twice, but still scored well enough to "advance" me to the next round.

Round 2: life flashes before weeb eyes [87]
Score: 2-0-0-0
Cutoff: 5-1-0-0 and 4-0-1-2 (6.8 raw goods) (Squidward)
d5 spoopy ghost: Gym Leader Battle Music [Hi Tech Remix] [78] | 3-0-1-1
d7 spoopy ghost: Nisemono [95] | 54-3-8-1 (eliminated)
Round 2 thoughts: I was actually feeling pretty good going into this round because the chart looked surprisingly friendly during the preview as I was playing along. Got 2 goods on sightread and decided to stick with that. Made a few casual attempts to improve, but it's very easy to drop a few goods and even a miss or two and I was already safe. D5 chart was really fun and I'll be using it as a benchmark for long jacks. D7 chart I was running out of stamina in the last 200~ notes. Even outside of that, the patterning is pretty awkward, so at that speed it was difficult to keep decent PA + prevent misses.

Round 3: BarGain [89]
Score: 23-1-3-29
Cutoff: 13-1-4-4 (25.2 raw goods)
d5 spoopy ghost: Traveler ~Stand Aloof~ [Heavy] [79] | 1-0-0-0
Round 3 thoughts: I'm screwed.
As soon as I saw the song name (even before the chart preview was shown), I knew I was probably going to be knocked out. The combination of this round + kadef's showing in the O.W.L. tournament has made it plainly obvious that I will have to spend significant time reworking my core mechanics in order to improve my long jack proficiency. Repeatedly getting knocked out in rounds 3/4 from jacks and/or trills is getting pretty frustrating. Round 4 would've been much of the same, so even if I had lucked out a score this round I would've likely been knocked out next round anyway.

Also lmao I would've been knocked out in D7 last round and I got 2g clean on D7's round 3 song.

Round 4 d5 spoopy ghost: Lucid Bass II [84 (for now)] | AAA

Round 5 d5 spoopy ghost: Tuberculosis [88 (for now)] | AAA

Round 6 d5 spoopy ghost: Daraku no Sono [90 (for now)] | 8-2-3-5

Round 7 d5 spoopy ghost: Masodik Galamb [89] | 1-0-1-0 (3.4 raw goods)
Cutoff: 3 raw goods
Probably could have improved if I had given more attempts, but there were sections I was starting to mindblock and later in the round had to switch to a keyboard that isn't as good for accuracy. Also I got sucked back into Skyrim during this round. Though all things considered I think the score is pretty decent so I'm not particularly upset.

General tournament thoughts: It seems that I usually start skillboosting after I am eliminated from the official tournament and that was true in this case as well. Prior to signing up for this tournament I only had 1 score in my top 15 that was from the past 5 years (Goblin AAA). Now 14 of my top 15 scores are from the past couple of months - with the lone old score of Freedom Dive 4-0-0-1 only holding up because I got a lag spike on a run that would've beaten it. During that time I have gone from 90.60 skill rating (that I had been stuck on for quite awhile) to my current skill rating of 92.71. D7 is actually a legitimate possibility now and I have had a few scores knock on the door of D7 (Longinus 1-0-1-0, Nageki no Mori 2g, and Thinking of You 3g). I still have some work to do, but I am much closer to escaping D6 than I ever have been before. It still would've been nice to place in the top 16 in the official tournament. Though more than that I would like to get placed in D7 next tournament. That makes getting top 16 more unlikely, but ultimately I would get more satisfaction from reaching that level than I would staying in D6 and earning top 16.