Introduction

Hello fellow summoners,

Yesterday was a big day for 95 contestants in the second Community Gaming tournament! I like to view Community Gaming tournaments as a bigger brawler tournament and this one was sponsored by streamer @Kennethbosak! Big shoutout to him for providing the prizes and the Community Gaming staff for hosting. @aggroed also threw in $500 (Price calculated in the post-presale price) worth of lands! I think everyone was very hyped for this tournament, I know I was!

So without further ado, let's recap what went on yesterday in the tournament!

Tournament Details

When it was First Announced

@carrieallen first announced the big contest in the Splinterlands discord (You can join here: https://discord.gg/7QZP53wq) in the #official-updates section.

This was 9 days before the tournament started so everyone had a fari chance of entering.

Tournament Prizes and Entries

The sign-up page was not on the official Splinterlands site but on the Community Gaming site. Link to the tournament is here: https://communitygaming.io/tournament/splinterlands-1000-dai-tournament

The max amount of entries that was accepted was 256 players. We got a lot less than that because not many people checked the discord (A perk to being in there!) and we ended up with a still rather large amount of 95 players!

The top 16 of the 95 participants were award prizes in DAI stablecoin and land plots! The prizes were to be distributed as follows:

1st: $350 in DAI stablecoin + 5 lands

2nd: $200 DAI + 4 Land Plots

3rd: $100 DAI + 2 Land Plots

4th: $70 DAI + 2 Land Plots

5th-8th: Each receive $30 DAI + 1 Land Plots

9th-16th: Each receive $20 DAI + 1 Land Plots

Looking at the $450 worth of prizes for 1st place, everyone was aiming for there but honestly, being such a bad player, I just wanted to be in top 16.

Rules

Obviously, such a big tournament needs rules that its participants must follow. They are the following:

After registering on this site, click Join Tournament above. Then Join our Discord Server. We'll be coordinating matches in the #splinterlands channel and assisting any players. Chris G#1488 is the main admin to message with any questions.
Head to your Account Settings and add your Splinterlands name to the section that says Splinterlands. This will make it easier to challenge your opponents the day of the tournament in addition to coordinating in the Discord channel.
Set the challenge level to Bronze.
No Multi-accounting. It's 1 entry per person. Players found to be multi-accounting will be disqualified and banned from future tournaments.
No Botting. All players must play their matches manually.

Note the 3rd last sentence:
No Multi-accounting. It's 1 entry per person. Players found to be multi-accounting will be disqualified and banned from future tournaments.
We will have complications concerning that in the tournament.

Tournament Battles

Round 1

There were 7 total rounds in this tournament. If you were to reach the 4th round, you could win a $20 DAI prize with a land plot to your name! It was really great since it would be really easy to reach.
The first round consisted of 30 battles and 32 Byes to reduce the amount of players to an even 64 players.

I was lucky enough to receive a Bye for this round. The people who passed onto the second round and are facing each other are:

Participant 1	Participant 2
@kate9981	@dccp
@tj70903	@zottone444
@tanzofett	@abnormal5971
@jemmarti	@cterao430
@truskawka	@digitspin
@lealharold	@notswizz
@jose27117	@juantified
@sirdemian	@stever82
@dabalcks	@makogr4
@christianst	@bafi
@surya1adiga	@okamikai
@carpentr	@elclements
@tsnaks	@cornavirus
@KennBosak	@firelizsword
@luckybuy12	@bojax
@samsirdika	@mollie
@lechatsplinter	@aaaabbbbcccc
@Bamrepa	@bibdieu
@Akasha	@firstthingsfirst
@hossainbd	@Stealthtrader
@jacekw	@markjasob
@szymonkus	@ahgase
@xabi	@vcdragon
@junokeo	@xawi
@cryptostache	@bubke
@blackpirat	@bebeomega
@raynie	@monsterstamer
@rallso	@blackheart1
@krighton	@byzantinist
@rubillo15	@steallion
@fant22	@niallon11
@steamdan	@merlinsmatrix

Long list of 32 pairs here. The problem with the first round was that lots of the players were no-shows and so lots of people were waiting for their opponent. This wasted lots of time which could be improved next time they host such a tournament.

Round 2

My opponent, @tsnaks, was a no-show for this round so it automatically gave me a win for this round. Also a lot of no-shows for other people who had a bye in the first round. This round reduced the number of participants to a small 32 players. The players moving on from this round are:

Participant 1	Participant 2
@kate9981	@tj70903
@tanzofett	@jemmarti
@truskawka	@notswizz
@juantified	@stever82
@makogr4	@bafi
@okamikai	@elclements
@cornavirus	@KennBosak
@bojax	@samsirdika
@aaaabbbbcccc	@Bamrepa
@firstthingsfirst	@Stealthtrader
@jacekw	@szymonkus
@xabi	@xawi
@bubke	@bebeomega
@monsterstamer	@blackheart1
@byzantinist	@rubillo15
@niallon11	@steamdan

Round 3

I was paired with @kennethbosak for this round. He was streaming this as I later found out so it was great to know that my battle was on Youtube!

Battle 1 Analysis

It is a 99 mana battle with the reverse speed ruleset. Only life and earth were allowed for this battle and I decided to go with the new llama summoner to take it for a spin!
My monsters consisted of a chain golem tank, an oaken behemoth 2nd tank, sand word sneak attacker, wood nymph healer, sporcer anti-magic debuff, Cornelius sneak protection.

Kenn on the other hand decided to go with a normal focus-on-the-front attack team.

I manage to win the one by quite a bit and overwhelming his team with damage before he even got past my chain golem.

Battle 3 Analysis

For this battle, ODD ONES OUT and TARGET PRACTICE were the rulesets.
Kenn decided to go with a ranged team with the Fineas Rage as his main tank and hoping his Fire Elemental and Scale doctor could take out my back row.
I went with a magic team with Lord A as my tank, hoping for pretty much the same thing as Kenn.

The battle ended quite quickly with a staggering win for me as I managed to quickly take out his ranged attackers and the Fineas Rage before they could do any real damage to me.

This gives me a WIN for round 3!

The winners of round three are then paired for round 4! The list is here and everyone who made it this far is now in top 16! Which means they get prizes!!!

Participant 1	Participant 2
@tj709030	@emmarti
@truskawka	@stever82
@bafi	@elclements
@cornavirus	@samsirdika
@aaaabbbbcccc	@firstthingsfirst
@jacekw	@xawi
@bebeomega	@monsterstamer
@rubillo15	@steamdan

Round 4

For this round, I was up against @samsirdika. I have never played against them so I had no idea what to expect. Our first match resulted in my loss as you can see:
Battle 1 Analysis

The rules were SILENCED SUMMONERS and BROKEN ARROWS. I decided to go with a flesh golem sneak team but so did my opponent. The blunder I made was putting my goblin thief too close to the back allowing my opponent's goblin thief to kill mine first and completely destroy my backline before I destroy their's. This resulted in my first loss.

Battle 2 Analysis

The rules for battle 2 was AIM TRUE and TAKING SIDES. In a low mana battle and in the lower leagues, Sea Monster solo is common so I predicted something of the likes and made a team to counter it, featuring a heavy attacker Lord of the Darkness, and Undead Archer for Affliction.

My prediction turned out to be correct and my team did a great job destroying my opponents. This leaves battle #3 to decide the winner.

Battle 3 Analysis

Honestly, when I saw my opponent's team, I thought I was going to lose. The rules for this battle were ARMOR UP and EQUALIZER so I wanted to put as many units as possible to take advantage of those rules. Magic has a lot of good cheap attackers so I went with that whereas my opponent went with a more tank + heal strategy.

The Sacred Unicorn managed to get pretty deep into my monsters but the Coral Wraith managed to shut down the Divine Healer and eventually to Unicorn giving me a win!

I'm moving onto the 5th round!

The people moving along with me are the following (They are now in top 8!):

Participant 1	Participant 2
@jemmarti	@stever82
@elclements	@cornavirus
@firstthingsfirst	@jacekw
@monsterstamer	@rubillo15

Round 5

For this match I was paired with @elclements. I have never fought them before and I sorely underestimated the skill that they had. Let's see what went on in our battles.

Battle 1 Analysis

This was a 44 mana battle consisting of the rules REVERSE SPEED and LOST LEGENDARIES. I decided to have a little fun in this match and went with
llama even though I have never used it before. I also made sure to put slow monsters in order to take advantage of the reverse speed rule. My opponent also put in a decent team but not enough firepower.
I managed to destroy his team without losing too much of my monsters, The flesh golem and wood nymph heal pair did a great job at keeping the flesh golem alive.

Battle 2 Analysis

The rules for the second battle were reverse speed and melee mayhem. I decided to go with something similar as the last battle but included a lot more back-line attackers than last time. My opponent though decided to put just a Flesh Golem + Kron team which directly counters my setup.
I managed to destroy the furious chicken and the creeping ooze but my attacks were not concentrated enough and eventually fatigue gave my opponent the win.

Battle 3 Analysis

There were no rules for this battle and all splinters were available. My opponent decided to stick with the llama strategy that helped him win the last battle but I decided to go with zaku.
The battle was well fought with my monsters quickly wiping out all his monsters before they did any real damage to my monsters. The last stand did not trigger for my opponent since I manage to destroy both the Kron and the Flesh Golem at the same time with my blasts.

This gives me another win and forwards me to Round 6. The people moving on with me are:

Participant 1	Participant 2
@jemmarti	@cornavirus
@monsterstamer	@jacekw

Round 6

For this round, I was paired with jemmarti. I've talked to jemmarti a few times on discord and have fought him a couple of times too so I knew how he played yet he was still a formidable foe with really good cards. Let's see how our battle went!

Battle 1 Analysis

The rules were Even Stevens with a 32 mana cap. Know jemmarti's love for using zaku in medium and high mana matches, I had to put together a team that would defeat his team. For this, I put a monster with shield, Chain Golem, as my tank and put a medium health fire demon to absorb the blast damage. Jemmarti used a zaku team as predicted but with only 2 ranged units which surprised me. Guess all that mana went into the magnor and prismatic energy.

Even though my backline took a lot of blast damage, I still managed to destroy his monsters before he could destroy my chain golem. If was a very close match and if he had used naga fire wizard instead of prismatic energy, then I would have lost.

Battle 2 Analysis

The rules for this battle were LITTLE LEAGUE and CLOSE RANGED. The mana cap was a 99 mana which was a waste since the max mana one could use in little league is 28 mana. I decided to go with a mainly melee team staring malric inferno's +1 melee buff. Jemmarti went with a typical Tyrus paladin setup. It was a very very close match but my oppertunity monsters did a great job at taking out the backline and helping me win.

Which means I am moving onto the LAST ROUND, round 7, and my opponent is the arguably best Splinterlands player, @jacekw.

Participant 1	Participant 2
@jacekw	@cornavirus

Round 7

This is the final round, with first place getting $450 worth of prizes while second gets $280. That is a pretty big gap so I wanted first but I was surprised I even got this far considering how badly I did in the first Community Gaming tournament. I was very stressed at this point but jacekw proposed a break for both of us so he could do his anytime tournaments (he always does them last minute) and maybe go rent a llama. I was glad that I had this break so I could de-stress and concentrate better. $170 were on the line! After a 10 minute break, we got into our first battle. Everyone on discord was cheering me on and I could not let them down. Let's see how the first battle went.

Battle 1 Analysis

This battle was a 40 mana battle with TARGET PRACTICE and RISE OF THE COMMONS as the rules. I predicted that jacekw will go with a zaku team so I put a naga fire wizard as my snipe tanker with Ettin Spearman to absorb the blast damage. Then I put a bunch of cheap ranged monsters to snipe the hell out of jacekw's backline.
Jacekw also thought of a similar team, using the same strategy but with different cards.

Even though my naga fire wizard was a lower level than jacekw's, the miss by the serpentine spy on my spark pixies played an important role in this battle as it helped me win the game, letting the spark pixies blast one more time which was enough to cause a lot of havoc.
The score is 1-0 with me in the lead.

Battle 2 Analysis

The battle was a 16 mana BROKEN ARROW ruleset game. I decided to go with mylor crowling + wood nymph healer team to cover the possibilities of there being both magic and melee monsters. Jacekw decided to vest his hopes into a Unicorn Mustang solo with a brownie to use that extra mana on.
After I killed the brownie, The Unicorn Mustang 's Last Stand got triggered, giving it 5 attack, 6 speed and 20 health! It manage to kill all my monsters except for the creeping ooze and then died of thorns. It was a super close match but that leaves me with 2 win out of 3!

Battle 3 Analysis
This is possibly the last battle of the tournament. If I win, I walk away with $350 and 5 land plots. If jacekw wins, we will have to play another match. Let's see the teams!

I decided to go with a plain old flesh golem team with screeching vulture as my backline attacker and furious chicken and failed summoner as snipe protection.
Jacekw did a similar thing but instead of vulture, put a brownie and an alchemist. At first glance, it seems that I lost this battle BUT:

As the halfing alchemist is working away at my failed summoner, the flesh golems battle it out. My screeching vulture quickly dies to the furious chicken and the alchemist's thorns and jacekw's flesh golem is the first to attack due to the +1 speed the brownie gives. THIS would be very important in the result of the battle. Since his golem attacked first, he got thorns'ed and did not heal while my flesh golem managed to tank the shot and heal to its full health. This allowed my flesh golem to survive a wee bit longer than jacekw's and leaving mine with 1 health left, my flesh golem managed to solo the rest of jacekw's team and netting me my final win in the tournament.

This battle goes to show that using an additional mana monster to give your team a buff isn't always beneficial. This was a very close match which just comes to show how skilled jacekw is.

Conclusion + Prizes

The following people got the prizes for this tournament:

Just then an issue was raised, HossainBD and firstthingsfirst were played by the same person, HossainBd which caused some uproar in the Community Gaming discord since firstthingsfirst managed to get top 8 and knock out 2 people while he was top 8. After a little bit of complications, HossainBD agreed to return all the prizes and the rewards were split among the 2 players who were knocked out of the prize pool because of his actions. It was great to see that @hossainbd returned the prizes but the thing is, this problem shouldn't even occur in the first place.

Room for Improvement?

In such a big tournament, problems are sure to arise but we must make sure to fix them in order to make the next tournament better, Some of the big problems that were caused in the tournament were:

1. The inability to find the multi-accounter until the prizes were distributed.
2. The lack of staff entering the results which caused a few problems (like my win being counted as a loss. It was fixed but caused some confusion)
3. The late comers or no-shows.

So all this talk of problems is all good but what are some solutions? Well I propose that we:

1. Have more support staff such as @byzantinist to monitor the event for multi-accounters and such and to enter in the results. He will not have to forfeit his position in the tournament as he is a team member and can be trusted. Carrie is a support staff but her main job was to keep people entertained in between rounds.
2. Have a solid cut off time. People who arrive late should not be allowed to play such as @xawi who was 40 minutes late to the tournament and was still allowed to play which caused some people to lose when they could have been in the prize pool.
3. Have a specific time frame for rounds. Some people were very very slow in doing their battles while the group I was in was lightning fast. I had to wait for a good 40 minutes before jacekw was finally in position to fight me and that gave me a small advantage over him since it gave me time to de-stress.

Overall it was a good tournament with things that could be improved but a lot of people went home satisfied and the prize pool was very big and there were a lot of winners. I cannot wait for the next time we have such a tournament and look forward to all the worthy opponents I can fight next time.

Thank you for reading my super long post guys and remember to BATTLE ON!