The 'Shroom:Issue XC/MK8 Tournament Thoughts

Mario Kart 8 Tournament Thoughts by

Hello, hi, greetings, howdy, g'day or whatever form of salutations you prefer.

Being the winner of the first Mario Kart 8 Awards Tournament hosted by I was asked to give my quick thoughts on the event, so here we go.

A week earlier the Mario Kart 7 tournament took place which Cirdec won while I finished in 3rd (I thought multitasking would be a good idea, give me a break), but unlike the Mario Kart 7 tournament however (aside from the connection being much more stable in general) where each group was given its own community to avoid confusion, Ltq instead would open a friends room at different intervals, as we found that "Let's wait for more players" does absolutely nothing in Tournaments or Global modes, as in the game will eventually automatically start regardless of how many times you insist to the server that you're not ready. Though this slightly altered system didn't stop MnSG from joining in Group A's lobby before round 2. I gotta say it was somewhat amusing seeing everyone else abusing the "Bye!" command for completely the opposite reason that Nintendo would have intended.

Now most of the rounds were pretty standard stuff, you know being the first tournament where everyone was always racing in fear of a ricocheting Green Shell for the first time in an Awards tournament, though the participants in Group B of Round 2 were treated to GalacticPetey's simply sublime singing skills, so that was something.

The final round saw six participants proceed from Round 2, Crackin355, PrincessOfPeaches, me, Yoshi K, Uniju and Turboo.

Hoo boy, the final round.

Now there's such thing as being lucky, and it plays a decent enough role in Mario Kart as it is. But then there's being so painfully lucky that even yourself won't stop giving you crap about it for all the coming months to the point that everyone who played in the final round will probably forever associate Cheep Cheep Beach with that one cheaply timed Super Horn that I managed to grab just seconds before being blasted by a Spiny Shell.

Okay, it was a running theme of sorts where I kept getting ridiculously timed item pickups throughout the final four races of the tournament. Right down the final turn when I cut through the donut overtaking Crackin and I think he still hates Sweet Sweet Canyon for that reason, I don't really like it either anymore as that course managed to show up 4 times throughout the whole tournament, too much Sonic Colors Sweet Mountain stuff going on in here for my tastes (that was terrible). Honestly at this point I don't know how to say any of this without sounding unnecessarily narcissistic. Now if only I had this sort of luck during the regional Pokémon tournament, instead about 500 people got to see me lose because I tried using Solar Beam twice in a row. Or maybe when I decided to buy A Link to the Past literally a week before it went on sale on the eShop, that could have helped there too.

So um... anyway I'm actually not entirely comfortable with saying that it was overall a fun tournament, not because I didn't have fun but because naturally I'd say that after having such stupid luck, but before that luck streak started it really was great fun racing with you all, I already love this game to begin with and given the success of this first Mario Kart 8 tournament I look forward to racing you all next year (or right now if you catch me online) hopefully under much more even conditions, and again huge props to Lakituthequick for hosting this whole thing.

Though I quick suggestion for next year, make it so everyone has to vote for either one of the Rainbow Road tracks on the final race of the final round, again Sweet Mountain Act 1 isn't exactly the greatest setting for a grand finale.

You can all watch the whole tournament right here, or you can see it all from my perspective here, though Ltq actually edited together 140 highlight reels while I uploaded straight from the game and getting a lot of Content ID matches in the process.

And I still haven't found that Easter Egg that he hinted at.

Anyway, this has been SK, signing out!