Why Not MYACH?

by Crazy Ivan

I have a general rule that if I'm ever asked the same question several times in a short period, I go ahead and address the question on the blog.  The way I figure it, if 3 or 4 people bothered to email me about it, there were probably several more that wondered it, but never bothered to articulate their curiosity.

So the question I've gotten several times over the weekend was in regards to the tournament we did on Saturday.  Specifically, why wasn't there a MYACH tournament?

Well, there are actually several good answers to that question so I'm going to tackle them one at a time:

1) There aren't enough MYACH players

There are plenty of people out there that play MYACH, of course, but in any given tournament, odds are against us bringing a significant number of them.  It would be nice if we could send out the Myachi helicopter and pick up all the great MYACH players from around the country and put them together in a no-hold-barred throw down of epic proportions.

But in reality, when we do a tournament we can only count on a small percentage of the Myachi players in the area to show up.  In that group, odds are that only a few of them will really be accomplished MYACH players.  The few that are would obviously dominate everyone else so if fewer than half of the competitors are solid MYACH players, less than half of them would stand any real chance of winning.

2) Everybody Wants to Play

In the lead up to last weekend's tournament, the question I was most often asked was "Will I stand a chance?" or, from the parents of an interested maniac, "Will he/she stand a chance?"

As it was, I could confidently answer "yes".  Because we were focused on things like Big Air, Golf and Long Toss, you didn't have to be a absolute trick master in order to participate.  If the focus of the tournament was MYACH I would have had to tell most of the younger (or newer or less trick-oriented) players that they really didn't have a chance to win.

3) Too Many Arguments

Alright, so the two reasons above are good, but the clever reader will be saying right now, "Okay, so you can't do a tournament that's just MYACH, but couldn't you add MYACH as one of the disciplines?  Couldn't it be one more wing of the tournament like Big Air or Golf?"

That's true, of course.  But there are still other problems with MYACH competitions.  Any of you who regularly play will probably be able to attest to the fact that there seems to be a 3 argument minimum for most people when they play the game.  Al will say that Bob pinched and Bob will deny it.  Carol will say that David didn't go all the way around it on his 720.  Ed will say that Felicia palmed it on her Dagger and Gina will say that Hank was practicing before the set.  Meanwhile Ike will try to call a trick that is officially banned and Joe will call some trick he made up and then insist that nobody is "doing it right" and that they should all get lettered.

You can overcome this, of course.  You just have to have a judge overseeing every move everyone calls, sets, defends or makes.  That is very doable, but it takes as many judges to do one MYACH tournament as it would take to do four contests in other disciplines.  This leads us to the next issue...

4) It Takes Too Long

A good game of one on one MYACH between two equally matched players lasts about 25-35 minutes.  If both players are missing a lot of sets or hitting a lot of defenses, it can last twice that long.  If you extrapolate out from there, you can imagine a MYACH tournament between, say, 24 players taking all afternoon.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but it's a big undertaking.  We couldn't do a tournament like that at a place like Funky Monkey (the venue where we held the tournament this weekend) because places like that will only let us use their space for a couple of hours at a time.  On top of that, many of the parents that were bringing our contestants out were at their limit after 3 hours of competition.

5) We Already Know Who's Going to Win

Consider any group of Myachi players you know.  It could be your group of friends or a group of people you know in school or even just a random selection of Myachi Maniacs from the forum or our FB page.  Now think about all those players and ask yourself which one would win in a game of MYACH.

Odds are that you already know who it would be, right?  Perhaps there are two contenders that might win, but at the very least you know that most of the group will not stand a real chance at winning.  So even if we had a blast doing that, the end would be an anti-climactic foregone conclusion.

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Now, all that being said, I should explain that I agree that a MYACH tournament would be fun, awesome and worth having.  But to make that work, we would need to find a time and place where we could get at least a dozen really good MYACH players together.  Unfortunately that is tougher than it sounds.  The goal of the tournament we did this weekend was to bring together as many Myachi players as possible, but I'm willing to bet that several of the ones that showed might have elected to stay home if they knew that they were going to have to beat Mantis at MYACH

Tournament Recap

by Crazy Ivan

Well, I think I speak for everyone that was there when I say that the 3rd Myachi Tournament at Funky Monkey was a huge success.  Much fun was had by all, many trades were made, many tricks were done, many Myachi Masters were met, many friendships were made, many prizes were won and many legends were molded.

Unfortunately I can't give you the play by play recap I hoped to, as I was not present for the actual competition.  I'd hoped to break down each discipline and point to all the strengths and weaknesses and moments of bitter rivalry, tense preparation, suspenseful action and joyful victory.  I'd hoped to paint the picture of sweat covered brows wrinkled in consummate concentration while the eyes below them were locked on airborne Myachis.  I'd hoped to draw you through the escalating apprehension as the championship progressed such that your heart was pounding by the time I finally revealed the outcome.

But I wasn't actually there.

I showed up at the Funky Monkey about half an hour before things got started, but by the time everyone else got there we realized somebody had to head back to HQ for all the people that would be leaving the tournament early (or showing up thinking the competition was being held at our place).  Since I'd been there hanging out with everyone the longest, I figured it would be best if I was the one that left.

I've heard a few stories trickling in since then, but I don't really know what all happened.  I know that Omega hit an unbelievable series of shots in the Golf game, but ultimately a girl who was brand new to the game ended up winning it and tying for 3rd place overall.  I know that Gold hit some crazy combo with an insane run of flexibility moves to win the Best Trick category.  I know that the contestant were so good at catching that Myachi Man had to start bouncing sacks off the underbelly of satellites in the Big Air competition.  And I also know that Kickstand dominated early and often and ultimately took home the big prize.

Those of you who've been reading this blog for a while already know how awesome Kickstand is, so I won't bother rehashing all of that.  But I must say that I was really fired up when I heard that he won.  By the time I left (minutes before the competition began) he hadn't even shown up, so I didn't know he was coming.  When the guys started trickling into HQ after the tournament and I heard he won it all, I was really stoked.

Now, I know that I shouldn't be "rooting for" anybody.  I should be an objective 3rd party that would have been just as happy no matter who won.  And in truth, I'd have been pretty fired up for anyone there.  Everybody there was pretty awesome and they all deserved something pretty sick for their efforts.  But we were giving away a Clear at this thing.  I wanted to make sure that went to somebody who would truly appreciate how awesome it was.

To put this in perspective, I should explain that even the other Myachi Masters are jealous of Kickstand for that pick up.  Animal and Monk were salivating over it the other day before MM brought it to the Funky Monkey.  That's a sack that virtually every Myachi player would love to add to their collection.  Like I said, I would have been happy no matter who won it, but I'm all the more stoked that it went to the competitor that had been in the game and collecting Myachis for the longest of anyone there.

As I said above, I can't really go into the details.  I'm just hearing things second hand so rather than trying to piece it all together, I'm calling upon the people that were actually there.  I want to piece a few things together using the words of the contestants so if you were there and have a story about the competition that you'd like to share, send it to me at crazyivan@myachi.com and hopefully I can work out a little patchwork of eye-witness reports.

Oh, and since I never actually got around to saying it, "Congratulations, Kickstand!"


 

Missing the Tournament

by Crazy Ivan

Well, I was hoping to post a riveting recap of the action today after the tournament was over.  I probably still will, but it won't be a first hand account.

Unfortunately I'll have to miss the tournament.  I was there for the beginning, before the games began, but once Monk, Mav, Kid, Myachi Man and Animal showed up we realized that we'd have to send somebody back to HQ.  A lot of the players were saying that they were planning on heading to HQ later on and many of them won't be able to wait until the tournament is over.  Also, Kid was saying that a few kids had showed up earlier in the morning thinking that the contest was being held there.

So I drew the short straw and had to head back to the office.  I'm chilling there now, wishing that I could be up there watching the action unfold.  There were already a bunch of contestants there when I left.  Gearz was the first one I saw, but the Kidz Crew was already inside jamming out (and spreading the word to all the other customers at Funky Monkey).  Before long Knock Out and Smaster showed up.  Gold came a bit later.  A couple of the local maniacs trickled in and a few showed up from Jersey.

There were at least 20 participants there when I left and there may have been a few more coming.  I left right before noon (the scheduled start time) so there was plenty of time for a few late arrivals.

The prize wheel was a big hit as soon as Kid Myach busted it out, as was the new Golf hole.  Turns out that it makes sacks like the General, the Push Pop and the Boneyards all that much more valuable because they slide really well on the surface of it and make it much easier to sink a shot.  Luckily we had a lot of people come in with their whole collection so plenty of them had good slide sacks.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it all winds up and I don't want to make any predictions now, but I saw some incredible freestyle skills this morning (Gearz has gotten way better since the last time I saw him, by the way).  I also saw some pretty sick Golf skills out of many of our Long Island maniacs and with the paddles there everyone was rocking out some big air catches.  Should be a spectacular tournament.

We're also providing a little free entertainment for the waiters at the restaurant next to the Funky Monkey.  They saw Gearz throwing down an Instep>Duck>Instep and went crazy.  So, of course, when Maverick got there I asked him to throw down a quick shred for them.  He proceeds to hit the most incredible foot jam I've ever seen him pull off and the crowd erupted.

The first half hour was a lot of fun so I can only imagine how much fun it'll be once the games begin.  I'll get a debriefing from all the guys this afternoon and I'll fill everyone in on the details.  I'm sure you're just as curious as I am about who's going to win that Clear so I'll alleviate the suspense as quickly as possible.

Tournament Prize Announcement

by Crazy Ivan

I haven't talked about it yet on this blog, but I'm willing to bet many/most of you have already heard that we've got a big tournament coming up this week.  Any Myachi fans that are in the NYC area are strongly encouraged to come out to the Funky Monkey (in Greenvale, LI) and test their skills at Myachi Golf, Big Air, Long Toss and Freestyle.  How strongly encouraged?  How about this strongly encouraged:

Yeah, that's right.  That means exactly what you think it does.  The overall champion at this tournament will be walking away with the most valuable Myachi ever offered as a prize in any contest in the history of Myachi.  The Clear.

This one will be coming from Myachi Man's personal collection and he's in the proccess of driving it up right now.  I'd like to think that he's got a caravan of unmarked SWAT trucks around him, a helicopter flying overhead and Batman patiently observing from a remote location, but in reality he probably just has it in a box in his trunk.

For those of you who aren't familiar with exactly how rare this thing is, it has a trade value of 305 (for comparison, that's about 61 times as valuable as a common).  There are only 30 in circulation in the world, it was made over 12 years ago and I once turned down an offer to buy my Clear for $2000.  Seriously.

Anyway, if you were on the fence about coming to the tournament, get off the fence and come to the tournament.  Sorry to all the people who are too far away (no way to Skype in on a Big Air contest), but for those of you who are close enough, you owe it to the people who aren't to show up and win this Myachi for them.

I'll have more details about the contest later on in the week, so keep checking in.  We're getting started at 12 noon so you probably want to get there early and make sure you're signed up and everything before we get going.  There will be a bunch more prizes (including gift cards redeemable at Myachi HQ) and plenty of impromptu games of Fu and MYACH.  Winners will be featured on the blog on Monday along with a full recap of the day's events.

If you have any questions about the tournament, feel free to direct them to my inbox: crazyivan@myachi.com