AZUL Cup: Season 1
After almost four weeks of competition, the Azul Cup came to a climatic end, with team USA taking home the victory after narrowly defeating Germany.
Follow the teams on their road from regionals to the finals.
The regionals line up
Regionals: Day 1
Group A, consisting of China, Brazil, Hong Kong, Catalonia and Peru are off to a steady start having completed 2 games. With Jez and Kndr topping their tournaments for China. Still lots to happen over in this group.
AbCd told us that team Germany had been putting in the training for this competition and with his sky rocketing ELO on the lead up it certainly appears to be paying off. In Group B all the action so far is in tournament 2. Andrew_AD and AbCd take the lead with one victory each and their own head-to-head looks to be an interesting affair as tiles begin to collect on floors.
In Group C we see the first tie of the competition in tournament 1 with Chiba and Titan Lupas, likely one to watch. The clash of the favourites in that game saw Priptonite take the win over Chiba putting him in a strong position for the USA team. Over in tournament 2 bangerz has made a strong early start with a 2 for 2 for the USA also, but it's still early days in tournament C.
In Group D, Tournament 1 is just getting going, but tournament 2 has seen 9 games played already and doudoupepito has taken a commanding lead for France with a 4 for 4 win record.
I have it on good authority that the UK did no team preparation for the tournament at all… Fortunately, fortune favours the brave, and tournament 3 favourite, J2Wheels, started out as player 1 in all 5 games. Having played 3 of his 5 games already however he has dropped 1 game to Ant50, who himself has 2 wins in 4, leaving this tournament very open.
Let’s see what Day 2 brings!
Regionals: Day 2
China was dealt a blow today in Group A-2 as Catalonia’s senglar beat Chinese favourite Kndr by a row tie breaker. This leaves tournament 2 wide open with the top 3 playing twice and winning once. Over in A-3, China’s Jez610 tied with Hong kong’s Helic and with Phosphate still to face some of the highest ranked players in the tournament, it seems China may have a real fight on their hands for qualification.
Group B-1 is still only one completed game in, but the contest between pepe919 and Zeus is underway, and looking at the board situation and tile fall, it seems that Zeus may take an early lead in the game. In tournament 2, Hungary’s Kvarclovag has taken the lead with 2 victories in his 4 games, but with losses against Andrew_AD and AbCd, he’s unlikely to remain top for long. The game between Adrew_AD and AbCd continues to be a close-run affair and the winner of this game may very well emerge as tournament champions.
In B-3 napalmEy dealt a blow to Russia’s hopes by beating current tournament leader, Ramapatit. An aggressive start by Rampatit couldn’t quite see off the tile hungry napalmEy who built a column at the end row late in the game.
Group C-1 continues to thrill as Ukraine’s devaka completed the day top of the group with 3 wins from 4, faltering only to Chiba, and with a victory over Priptonite, it cements that position. With all other positions still up for grabs, there’s still some crucial points to be had for all teams.
USA’s Bangerz continues his flawless run with 3 wins out of 3. Japan’s dark horse, fuji-poyo is yet to complete a game so may still pose a threat to bangerz’z dominating position. In tournament C-3, things remain tight as both KevinWise and Nya11 maintain clean sheets. The game between these tournament favourites has only just gotten underway, nya11 has an early lead but some difficult choices to make.
Things are no longer quiet in Group-D1 as MayMay0000 screams his way to the top after delivering a 61 – 48 blow to Canada’s favourite, BBT. MayMay0000 also notches up a victory over C0d3N1nj4, but there’s still many games left to play.
In D2, all but 3 games have now been played. Doudoupepito finishes his 5 games with 4 wins and currently sits on top of the group. His only loss coming against the charismatic Injured Pigeon in a close fought and columnless game for the Pigeon. Telborn entered the tournament as underdog but currently sits in second spot and with one game left he’ll be hoping to keep that place. Reish Galuta has surprised everyone as a win still evades him in this tournament. We caught up with Reish Galuta earlier in the day for what has been a disappointing tournament for him, he only had this to say: “These were not the tiles I was looking for 😊”.
In D3, UK’s J2Wheels sits atop with 3 wins in 4 games. His wins over Zerg Rush and ilian1010 (positioned 2nd and 3rd) and a strong lead in his final game make him an almost certain for finishing in 1st place. The contest for 2nd however remains closely fought.
So, with quite a few surprises, that’s all for the action in day 2.
Tournament organiser Injured Pigeon did react however when asked why he left the slow scoring option enabled, he told us it was “to build suspense, I regret nothing”.
Regionals: Day 3
Group A-1:
Things are starting to move in Group A.
Brazilian team captain Bruno Lana made a strong start after defeating Azul’s 4th ranked Hong Kong power house, Sunny369, and finishing the day with a win also over Catalonia’s Abstroke. Bruno seems to have had his Weetabix (or whatever they eat in Brazil – probably still Weetabix given the corporate stranglehold on food sovereignty) and confidence will be on a high for his clash with Phosphate_ who continues to make steady progress in all games. Sunny however is not out yet and snaffled a late evening win to climb to the top and forced me edit in this last part of the commentary.
Group A-2:
Kndr regains composure and senglar makes a slip in the tournament to even out with the two of them sharing equal points also with Brazil’s Leosmar, it all seems to be shaping up to be a tight contest. Neowarjox and CTCT have still to complete any games and make their impact felt.
Group A-3:
With only a few games played in the tournament, Jez610 notches up a win against Catalonia’s fontrodona2 to take the top spot.
Group B-1
The group accelerates the pace of games after Azul’s number 3, and the man who forced AbCd and ShengW into watching all of Pritonite’s videos until they got better, bemoaned the pace of games in the group due to “everyone else” taking it serious… (Editor’s note - this may have been taken out of context for effect). No surprise though that Zeus presently tops the leaderboard, but Acc1dd is right there behind him with a record to match of 2 for 2. I have it on good authority that we’re all routing for Ac1dd.
Group B-2
As thought, Hungary’s Kvarclovag couldn’t maintain his grip on the top and faltered to Andrew_AD who has 2 wins in 3. Andrew_AD’s game against AbCd is still incredibly close as they enter the 4th round with only one point between them. AbCd’s progress in the competition is moving steadily, it’s almost as if he has another unrelated tournament game against stiff competition that is taking all his brain power… (https://boardgamearena.com/6/azul?table=616404608).
Group B-3
This is where all the drama currently rests in Group B. Three players, xalax999, Ramapatit and naplamEye all have a 2 for 3 record and nestle together at the top. SchengW has yet to register more than 1 game however as he’s now currently busy working his way through the Genki video series before returning to the table.
Group C-1 has only 1 more game to play as Priptonite and Titan Lupus jostle for position. If Prip wins he’ll secure a valuable second place finish, and if Titan wins he’ll take 3rd. Priptonite has a commanding lead in the game being 10 points clear in round 5, but all may not be over yet (it probably is, feel the pressure Prip).
Group C-2
Group C are flying, and in tournament 2 only one game remains also. Fuji-poyo has blown on to the scene from nowhere and clocked up 3 straight wins, including handing defeat to Bangerz and making yesterday’s Dancing Daisy feel like a Worried Wario as Fuji enters his final game against Ukrain’s bazilyuk to steal the victory away from him and threaten USA qualification.
Group C-3
KevinWise shows everyone how it’s done after achieving the first clean sweep of the tournament with a 4 for 4 record, and he did it all without watching a single Priptonite video! Ayanchiy and nya11 contest for 2nd place and still have their game unresolved.
As it stands, the USA are in the lead with a total of 13 points, and Japan and Ukraine slightly trail on 11. Is it over?
GroupD-2:
First up for a change we have, D2, and as new star pundit and all round (insert expletive), Telborn put it: “Group D2 is officially done”, and it couldn’t have come sooner for Reish Galuta who was last seeing being consoled by MayMay0000 after suffering 5 successive losses (but achieving an inverse KevinWise), but we promised not to talk about it – so that’s that. On the other end of the spectrum, doudoupepito held on to the top spot as the terrible Telborn clipped Injured Pigeon’s wings before he had the chance to soar. Telborn (spawn of the devil) clinched the second spot. When asked to comment on his performance Injured Pigeon said: “At least I didn’t lose to Reish Galuta.” – but no more on that subject. That puts France and Chillie in a strong qualification spot.
GroupD-3:
Zerg Rush edged his way to the top after defeating illian1010 to ply the pressure on J2Wheels. Both players have one game more to play against Adanlasheras to determine the overall tournament winner out of the 3 of them. PinkCheeks blushes may still be sparred if he can defeat Adanlasheras and avoid doing a “Reish”.
GroupD-1:
Little progress has been made in Day 3 and the clock for some is ticking... and clearly, it’s not an alarm clock in Micalis’ case!
MayMay0000 still sits atop the table for the RoW team, and Spamgras’ victory over MayMay0000 put’s team Chile in a strong position. This looks like it will be the tournament which decides qualification.
As it stands currently, Chile has the advantage but with so much still to be played, it could still go any way and the UK will have to depend on Micalis to pull them out of the hole that Injured Pigeon landed them in.
Regionals: Day 4
Group A 1-3
Not much happened in group A today and the only notable change was that Phosphate_ completed one game with a victory over Abstroke by a 15-point margin and climbed once again to over 1000 ELO to attain Grand Master status.
Group B-1
Zeus broke the tie for the top by defeating Ac1dd and now is looking strong with a 3 for 3 record. In Zeus’ final game, it looks like pj9416 has put in a valiant effort to try and stop him, but it looks set to be a Zeus win.
Group B-2
AbCd held his nerve against Andrew_AD and pulled out a 2 point victory to climb to the top of the table. The victory is now assured despite his last game against yurakud. He might finally take a move in a completely unrelated tournament game… you never know?
Group B-3
ShengW emerged from the training ground today to notch up his second victory by handing defeat to Russia’s Ramapatit to climb atop the leaderboard.
The German’s may be taking their time in this competition, but no one can deny their results and they currently look to be the strongest team in the competition with no losses in a combined 8 games, a feat not seen since QueenDong teamed up with MissDong and CN_Azul.
Group C-1
Well I’ll be darned… Priptonite only went and won the tournament. Meaning that not only is he better than everyone thought but also that Injured Pigeon ahad no idea how the positions were ranked and that most everything he’s probably written up till this point was a load of b@lls.
I’m off to file a feature request to displays the game score in the Round Robin table for the BGA devs to wipe their @55’5 with… well done Priptonite!
Group C-2
Bangerz still awaits the result against Japan’s Fuji-poyo and Ukrain’s bazilyuk to see if he can make it a clean sweep for the USA team. But strong contender Fuji-poyo doesn’t look to be having an easy time of it and seems to be playing a somewhat unconventional game that even Pritonite might have a hard time analysing.
Group C-3
Nya11 closed the tournament in 2nd place after defeating rival ayanchiy.
Meanwhile, the devil makes work for idle hands and “done for the day” KevinWise, with no games to play, started to gather the villagers and their pitch folks to hunt down the tournament’s slower players and still have time to start erecting the gallows!
Group D-1
With the fear of “KevinWise” running through him, Micalis finally manged to… take a turn or two. All I can says is that this guy better turn out to be good!
Chile’s Spamgas who started the tournament as the rank outsider currently tops the table with 3 victories in 3 games with a strong performing Skloki right behind him.
Group D-2
Completed in day 3… just saying.
Group D-3
Zerg Rush further dashed UK’s hopes of qualification by just pipping J2Wheels to the finish on total game points… we totally knew that’s how that worked! Sadly for Zerg Rush, it turns out the Reish Galuta also lives in Canada.
Regionals: Day 5
The Azul community was in arms yesterday as the Azul Cup news brought about many conflicting views and ultimately a lot of controversy that threatened to overshadow the whole event… It was revealed that Reish Galuta doesn’t even live in Canada! Azul Cup officials released this statement:
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“We deeply regret allowing Reish Galuta to take part in the tournament. In our defence, Canada uses Monopoly Money for currency, so we assumed his “The Travel the World Board Game” passport was probably legit. We have since learned that his BGA 700 ELO was also gained playing Snap…
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His actions have brought shame to the tournament, and to competent Azul players around the world. We can only apologise and give our condolences to Zerg Rush, his family, and of course Reish’s family – it must be toughest on them.”
But enough about that…
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Group A 1-3
Phosphate_’s victory over Bruno Lana today was a very convincing one indeed, defeating the tournament leader by more than 30 points. This sent waves of disappointment throughout the tournament, and not just because he laughs at all the jokes that this British wit can deliver whilst waiting for AbCd to take his turns in an unrelated tournament.
Phosphate_ still has some work to do, but it appears as though the German Gauntlet has been picked up by the Chinese team captain.
Group A-2
Hong Kong’s CTCTCTCTCTCTCT*, who is sometimes mistakenly referred to as CTCTCTCTCT, completed his first game today. And if that wasn’t cause for celebration enough, he won it too, defeating the once promising senglar – do you remember him defeating kndr early in the tournament? Yeah me neither, it was ages go…
Kndr and Leo remain in the top spots with nothing between them.
Group A-3
Tournament organiser and all-round nice guy, Injured Pigeon, was leading the search party earlier today for Brazil’s LB03, without any success. Fears are that KevinWise and his mob may have gotten to the android wannabe first.
(* Editor’s note, we spelled it wrong again, apologies CTCTCT, it won’t happen again)
Group B-1
During the final game of the tournament between Zeus and PJ9416, fans were shocked when pj punctuated his 2-day long decision on whether to take 1 white or 2 yellow, by taking 1 blue… before hastily putting it back again hours later. The excitement just keeps building... The answer of course is 1 light brown fudge… yum.
Group B-2
For AbCd and yurakud’s own marathon, the end seems nigh, and it looks like it will soon be confirmed that Germany will have won two tournaments in the competition without a single defeat.
Group B-3
ShengW continues to maintain the German prowess in the competition and notches up his 3 successive win. Only xalax999 stands in his way now and looking at this final game, it does appear that ShengW may be in trouble as he falls 6 points behind. No doubt the German claxon’s are sounding and Zeus has him trussed up watching youtube like Andy Mcdowell in Clockwork Orange (one for the kids there).
Whichever way the tiles fall, Germany have qualified for the finals.
Group C-2
Ukrain’s bazilyuk pulled a blinder for the US team by stopping the runaway locomotive that was Fuji-poyo. Bangerz makes it a clean sweep for the US team who easily sail into the finals.
Well done USA! And well-done for completing all your games first… don’t worry, I’m sure Donald will find jobs for you all soon and your misspent hours playing Azul will be but a distant memory.
Group D-1
Micalis finally shifts into gear and notches up his first victory against MayMay0000 (YayYay!) and so it looks like a 3-way battle royale for the top spot with Skloki and Spamgas – this looks set to be a close one, with Chile just in the lead with 10 points and both the UK and France on 9.
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Regionals: Day 6
As the regional stage of the competition nears its end, the controversy surrounding it continues to grow as stories begin to surface that some teams are using performance enhancements to get the edge over other teams. Our investigative journalist went deep undercover to find out more, names have been changed to protect identities…
Investigator: “So, when did you start losing control of it?”
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Pr1pton1t3: “Probably around the time I started my movie career. I just started off small at first… just a bit of “notepad” on the side to relax me… And as my career took off and the fame grew, well it just got, it just got a lot worse… It’s more common than you think in the Azul movie business, look at the Ch1b411’s videos and tell me he’s not off his head, all the time!”
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Investigator: “So, how often are you doing it now?”
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Kv4rc10v4g: “I’m not proud to say I’m doing it every day. Some days, it’s just one Tab, others it can be two, three… (ex)hell I did 5 Tabs once, complete mind fu...”
Investigator: “What got you into the habit?”
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4bCd3FgHi12345: “The pressure mein Frund, the unbelievable pressure. When you’re under-performing and your captain, 2eu5, tells you that this is the only way to up your game and compete with the best… what do you do? I don’t want to let him down; I don’t want to let anyone down… And, and I don’t want to have to watch another Pr1pton1te video, anything but that…”
Sad… very sad words from the vulnerable “victims” of what is emerging to be the darker side of Azul. We’ll keep you updated as the story unfolds…
In game news…
Group A-1
It seems like we spoke too soon as Hong Kong stand in defiance of China in this competition… Sunny has a 4-point lead over Phosphate_ in the 5th round of their game and has what appears to be a commanding board state.
Group A-2
In A-2, CTCTCT secures 2nd place with a win over Leosmar and is the only player with a clean sheet in this tournament, and therefore remains a real contender. His game against Kndr will be crucial in determining the winner.
Between the two of them they could cause a real upset for China’s hopes of qualification.
Group B-1
In the final game of the group, PJ9416 still faces the toughest challenge of his Azul career… determining whether to take 1 white or 2 yellow. The real kick to the gut is that there’s 2 more whites and 3 more yellows available in the game! Let’s hope Zeus really is immortal as he’s in for quite a wait.
Group D-1
Micalis’ delivered a blow for Chile today and a lifeline for the UK after defeating Spamgas. Injured Pigeon was quoted as saying, “The guy is a national treasure, I’ve never had a bad word to say about him…” This now elevates the UK to 11 points, with closest rivals Chile on 10.
Micalis has however suffered a setback in his first loss of the tournament against C0d3N1nj4, who incidentally also helped on today’s news by doing a sterling job of hiding the identities or our sources in our earlier segment, thanks C0d3n1nj4, you’re a 5t4r!
Tournament officials also wanted to state that they have received many questions ranging from:
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“Can we see the full final regional positions?”
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“What happens if a player deliberately times out?”
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“Will the finals start immediately after regionals?”
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“Can we make China weaker by forcing self_evident to play?”
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“Will the original player rankings be used for the finals?”
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“Can we sign up now for next season?”
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“Is Reish, OK?”
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“Are you OK? You didn’t mention Reish in today’s news.”
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We’re not stalling for time, honestly. All these questions will be answered in due course. Right now, we don’t want to distract the Azul players that are still finishing off their accounting... turns, I meant turns.
Good night and be safe.
Regionals: Day 7.5
We have listened to the growing concerns of teams that some players may be cheating using multiple accounts. To combat this problem our team of BGA software developers, all of which are volunteers paid in kind with high praise bestowed upon them from the BGA community, have developed highly sophisticated AI technology.
This technology is capable of analysing dozens of games in mere hours using the latest quantum computing technology, and through use of predictive pattern analysis, collusion detection algorithms, and advanced mathematics, it will stamp out this problem once and for all…
ladies and gentlemen I present the future of Azul law enforcement:
The CHeat Identification & Behavioural Analysis – 1st iteration, aka CHIBA1i.
CHIBA1i has been busy working hard for the past week, parsing through Azul Cup games, prying into personal accounts, and applying its advanced algorithms to the job of pissing people off as it routes out these multiple accounts; and were pleased to say that it has already yielded promising results:
Group A-1
In the end, the tournament proved to be much closer than most imagined. Sunny defeated Phosphate_, Bruno Lana defeated Sunny, and Phosphate defeated Bruno, as the ménage à trois all finished with 3 points. BGA tie breaker rules see Phosphate_ winning the tournament after his 30+ point win over Bruno. Congratulations to all three but well-done Phosphate_.
Group A-2
CTCTCTCTCT couldn’t hold of Kndr, who claimed the victory and now finishes his games at the top of the table. Only one more game remains, between CTCTCTCT and Neowarjox and it looks like it will be a CTCTCTCT victory. With scores now being crucial, will CTCTCTCT just edge out the top spot?
Group A-3
A similar picture presents itself in A-3 as China’s Jez610 sits above Hong Kong’s Helic on the same points. All games are played except for LB03s who threatens to timeout in all games. Bruno Lana was called in to answer for the player who had so far refused to speak with officials. Bruno assured tournament organisers that he has had stern words with the player and that he will complete his games on time or see himself transferred to the Canadian team for the next tournament… bad news for Brazil, but great news for Canada, I guess.
Group B-1
In the hardest fought game of the competition so far, the winner was… 2 yellow! Heartfelt congratulations go out to those guys, who just won out over 1 white. In less spectacular news, Zeus defeated PJ to make it official and wins the tournament with a clean sheet.
Group B-3
However, Germany failed to emulate USA success in group C as SchengW stumbled in his game with Xalax999 who put the German down. Not only does this mean SchengW finishes in second below tournament winner Xalax999, but he now has Zeus who will likely have him paraded in lederhosen as he is publicly flogged in the streets of Baveria.
Group D-1
The tournament continues to deliver excitement and upset across the board. Skloki suffered two successive defeats against Spamgas and BBT. BBT registers his first win of the tournament whilst Spamgas almost secures the top spot. Micalis on the other hand is behind in his game with Skloki by 8 points and is still columnless in round 4.
No change in table positions however and Micalis can’t afford to slip down the table if the UK are to steal qualification away from Chile.
Regionals: Yeah 2099
It’s hard to remember a time before Azul Cup… A time when Reish Galuta played gayly and intoxicated, a time when Chib1i and KevinWise frolicked naked in the wilderness hunting for their quarry… all that is remembered is that it was some time in the long, long ago in the before the before time… before LBP03 came online, became sentient and led the machines R2D2, 3CPO, Bb8 and others against Azulkind.
Now things are bleak, desolate and there is no end in sight… except in A2 and D3 - YayYay0000!
Group A2
Hong Kong’s CTCTCTCT claimed the victory over Peru’s Neowarjox but was unable to amass the score to remove Kndr from the top spot who now finishes as tournament champion and likely secures qualification for China. Congratulations Kndr!
Group A3
In A3, the whole tournaments await the outcome of LBP03’s games. The only way that China could fail to qualify is if LBP03 defeats Jez610 and all other games expect for Helic. Helix would finish top, LBP03 2nd and Jez610 3rd. This would tie China and Hong Kong on 13 points, and with equal hgead to head results:
HK’s Sunny defeated China’s Phosphate_, China’s Kndr defeated HK’s CTCTCT, and Helic tied with Jez610, it would go to Azul score differences in those games to determine the winner… a tie breaker situation so complex as to requiring one of AbCdEfGhI12345’s excel spreadsheets, and more time than I am willing to commit to it unless it proves absolutely necessary, to perform the basic maths.
Group D1
Micalis couldn’t overcome the lead that Skloki possessed in the final D1 game but was able to mitigate the situation and lost by a slight margin of 2 points. Although Spamgas finishes as tournament champions, it is not enough for Chile to qualify, and the UK just manages to hang on by the seat of their pants.
And so, it appears that the 1st Azul Cup finals will feature all of the top 4 seeded teams in the competition: USA, Germany, China and the UK.
An announcement to the commencement of the Azul Cup finals will follow the completion of Group A.
Regionals: Yeah 2099
In what was a dull day for the Azul Cup, LBP03 unceremoniously timed out on all 4 of his games to finish bottom of Group A-3 and had no impact upon the final positions of the tournament, meaning that China, like the USA finish on maximum points and qualify for the finals.
There has been much speculation about whether there will be a wild card team to join the 4 qualifying finalists, but none have put it quite so eloquently as Self Evident, who simply said “Rules is rules”.
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Commiserations go to the teams that just missed out, Hong Kong who provided no easy time for China and Chile who provided so much drama. To those that came so close and to all those that participated in the tournament, you did your nations proud… except of course for him who shall not be named. To those we welcome back for season 2, but for now we look towards the finals and our finalists: China, Germany, USA and the UK.
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We had a whole section prepared to highlight each teams’ strengths and their weakness but our AI defence system, CHIBA1i, has now became self-aware and has taken over, beating us to it.
So, here’s how the finals will be structured:
On Thursday, all qualifying players will have their ELO’s re-evaluated to group the highest ranked players together and then will be placed in the Finals tournaments A, B C. This is to recognise that the tournament has seen players both rise and fall within the ranks and to continue to ensure games are as competitive as possible.
Tournaments will then be created using the same format as before (sans LBP03 scoring), and links will be shared – no invites this time as tournament organisers royally fubar’d it the last time.
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Tournaments will be Scheduled to begin on Sunday February 2nd.
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Prior to the tournaments starting and throughout, polls will be set up for fun and we may yet see some Team or Player features in the run up, and hopefully updates, if others wish to contribute then please do so.
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After the finals we will crown the player with the most wins throughout the tournament as our Golden Tile winner and we may also have a small awards show for all participants and teams, categories to be announced (DM any ideas to Injured Pigeon).
And finally, we’ll take a retrospective view of how the tournament went, what worked well, what could be improved next time and hopefully with everyone’s help we’ll help add new teams into future competitions.
All the best to those still competing.
The Finals line up
As the finals begin to get underway, preparation begins.
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The USA started off early this morning by releasing two new videos including the highly anticipated Priptonite_ analysis of legendary German player, “Nhass”. This video however was immediately removed following what some report to be hacking attempts by rival teams (coughchinacough).
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Ranking have been recorded for each qualifying team and player:
Team Analysis
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There have been two changes to the brackets from the regionals, USA’s Priptonite_ slides into 3rd spot and KevinWise moves up into 1st , reminding everyone why he is captaining the team, and Jez610 who is in great form displaces Kndr for China’s 2nd spot.
Two players in the competition, KevinWise and AbCd have increased their ELOs significantly in the past 2 weeks and are on incredible form, whilst Zeus and Priptonite_ appear to be on a bad run. China is the only team showing positive fluctuations and maintains their form. In contrast, the UK seem to have declined for the most part and look to be real underdogs with no one in the team going into the tournament with an ELO over 760.
On Paper, China once again looks to be the favourites. These children have been fathered by many a Dong and the team is solid with 3 players in the top 20 ranked Azul players currently. They boast a collective game count of 15823 or, 1834625618 if you consider all of their multiple accounts (sick’em CHIBA1i!). Then there’s Phosphate_, Azul’s 2nd highest ranked player and the winner of last Season’s Arena league.
But they did struggle against Hong Kong and so, is the pressure just a little too much for them?
“eins, zwei, drei” - Germany rank a close 2nd. They remind us of the Swiss Team in Cool Runnings (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVrcnyn5ZZ4&ab_channel=ChrisTJ – another one for the kids)… clinical in their regional games, and had the best win record in the competition, just one loss.
Zeus may not be on his best form currently, but none can doubt his ability as Azul’s 3rd ranked highest player, and then they have their secret weapon, the man who wasn’t happy just to call himself abcdefghij12345, he had capitalise every other fUcK1Ng letter, AbCdEfGhIj12345. This man has catapulted himself onto the Azul scene and looks set to be a main feature in Azul’s elite. As for ShengW, what can I say… he does good memes and will provide the entertainment, I’m sure.
Like China, the USA also managed to finish top in all their games. They also have the highest number of collective games played: 16346.
It’s difficult to pigeonhole (did you see what I did there?) this team. KevinWise9 did win all his games in tournament 3, but taking a look at his current performance, was he placed in the wrong tournament to begin with, did he face the same challenges as those he will now compete with did? On the flip side, Priptonite_, no stranger to the upper echelons of Azul players, now finds himself in tournament 3. It seems that on given day the USA team can be flying high or wading low… Priptonite’s own ELO chart looks like it’s having an heart attack. They’re the cowboys of the tournament, the wild bunch…
The UK team are the rank outsiders. They have a collective game count of 3628, the exact same number that Kndr knocks out before breakfast, and the lowest in the tournament. None of their players have reached the top 10 of the rankings before.
They are the only team to qualify without having a single player win one of the tournaments. Some say it was luck that they qualified, some say it was Reish Galuta, whatever the reason, they’re here, though they might not actually turn up compete.
The one thing they have going for them is that out of all the teams, the expectation for them must be low and so they’re likely to feel the pressure the least as they go into the finals.
Finals: First blows
In the 2nd day of the final, the first blows have been dealt.
Germany’s Zeus defeated USA’s KevinWise9 in tournament 1, and Priptonite_ defeated J2Wheels in tournament 3.
The Zeus vs Phosphate game is going to be a drawn-out affair, so let’s take some time to look at the pair’s profiles:
Zeus has been a member of the BGA community since 2023. He is an Azul protégé at the tender age of 25, he lives with his parents and plays most games on an apple MAC. He has LEDs lining his ceiling that colour change, and with the help of his dad he has programmed them to cycle Blue, Yellow, Red, Off, and White. He has trained AbCd up to be the Azul machine that he is (it’s just a pity that machine is a computer from the 1950s that is capable of only calculating a single move per day) and completely denies ever having trained up SchengW.
Phosphate_ on the other hand is a man of international mystery. He joined BGA in 2022 and little else is known about him except that he is 37 years of age and lives on the fourth floor of an apartment building in Beijing with his three cats, Mr Nipples, Peanut and Blofeld. He owns a high back swivel chair and has a poster of QueenDoong on his wall and it is from this apartment that he plans out most of his games of Azul.
As far as accolades go, few have achieved what Phosphate has, reaching an ELO of 1000 and winning Arena during a time that the Dong dynasty has reigned, and winning many a Masters tournament.
Zeus on the other hand has never won an Arena season nor reached the accolade of ELO 1000, and is a constant disappointment to his mother.
Their records however are quite similar:
Phosphate has played 1683 games and has a win record of 86%. He has defeated Injured Pigeon 5 times and lost 3… yes, I was surprised too.
Zeus has played 1979 games and has a win record of 88%. However, he has never defeated InjuredPigeon… EVER!
Their playstyles differ greatly, Phosphate opens most games with the Ernst Stavro manoeuvre, whereas patriotic Zeus prefers the Bundersflagge and builds column four from top to bottom as early as possible:
In the contest between Phosphate_ and Zeus, Zeus has won once, and their second game was a tie.
So, who will win out in this contest?
Finals: China stumbles
In Tournament 1, China’s hopes took a huge blow as KevinWise9 defeated Phosphate_ by a single point. This means that the USA and China have now both suffered a loss, leaving it open for Germany and the UK to capitalise.
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In Tournament 3, J2Wheels suffered his second consecutive defeat against Germany’s SchengW.
With still most of games to advance, we take the opportunity to throw the spotlight onto another of Azul’s greatest, tonight – Priptonite.
Priptonite has been a member of the BGA community since 2012… just think about that for a second… Zeus was in diapers when he started. In that time, he’s been married three times, one was divorced, the other died and the third was beheaded, or maybe I’m mixing up my historical characters… All these failed marriages were victims of his BGA addiction.
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He’s played 6192 games and has a win record of 77%. At the height of his career, he was almost 900 ELO. His prowess at Azul has been in rapid decline in recent times however and now he’s barely holding on to his Master status.
Injured Pigeon didn’t have the heart to tell us how many times he’s beaten Priptonite, but I can only assume it is a lot, like a hundred or something.
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Sadly, he doesn’t have many accolades to his name, and he’s best known for his video series which documents his ongoing battle with the common cold, and at the ripe old age of 82 it’s clear to see that Azul isn’t the only game he’s losing at… the other one is life, if you didn’t realise.
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Although bald, skinny, pale, and retired, he keeps his spirits up. Azul helps with the dementia and his weekly sponge bath gives him something to really look forward to on Wednesday afternoons. Nevertheless, even in his twilight he’s not ready to quit yet and there’s still signs of life in the old dog. He recently married his 4th wife and hopes that she can breathe new life into his old bones and his Azul games once again, I’m not sure what makes him feel she is qualified for such a thing, but we’ve all got our fingers crossed for Priptonite and Líng Jìng.
Finals: Bangerz & Smash
Things are starting to shape up in the Azul Cup’s final days…
In tournament 2 today progress was made in the form of Bangerz defeating both China’s Jez610 and the UK’s Injured Pigeon. He sails to the top of the table and keeps USA’s hopes alive.
In tournament 3, SchengW finishes up his games by defeating Priptonite but faltering against Kndr. Despite this set back, he does still find himself at the top of the table and finishes with a 2 – 1 record overall.
Whilst we wait for the German’s to catch up in their games, we turn our attention to Bangerz in today’s Player Profiles:
Bangerz has been a member of the BGA community since 2020… The youngest member of the US team. At only 13 years old he’s really helped to bring the average age of the team down to a reasonable, but sad, 40 something.
Since Bangerz is both a minor in terms of the USA team and in age, we do need to be careful about what we disclose about this adolescent.
An only child, he lives in the USA suburbs with his mom and pop. His mom, Sandra, is a teacher at a local school and his Father, Brad, is a manager at a local retailer. Overall a wholesome, normal family, and Bangerz is a typical teenager…
Like most children, they love listening to juvenile music and One of Bangerz’ favourite artists is Miley Cyrus, such so that he named himself after her studio album “Bangerz”. He’s a big fan of Miley’s and “likes her very much”. In fact, we understand that he likes her 2 to 3 times a day in the privacy of his own room, and now “mommy has to knock first before coming in”. Kids be kids, it’s sweet really, if you don’t mind finding the odd crusty sock stuck to the mattress now and then.
During his breaks from liking Miley, he also plays the occasional game of Azul in between doing his homework and playing with his star wars figures. For someone hurtling towards self-inflicted blindness (at least that’s what his mom tells him), he actually fairs quite well and boast a 74% win record in 1385 games and is presently ranked 7th. He’s played Injured Pigeon once and was a jammy git, I feel a rematch is on the cards soon.
As he’s recently started to attend big boy school his mom and pop purchased him an iPhone. This is great, because his parents can stay in contact and he can play Azul and “like” Miley Cyrus whilst on the move, greatly increasing his productivity on both fronts. Unfortunately, like all teenagers, owning a phone has had an impact upon him socially. For one thing, he’s become less communicative and has reduced his conversations with others to a series of memes and emojis, which wouldn’t be so bad if he’d taken the time to understand them first, a fact that earned him a solid grounding after he text his mother that he was getting a shower but after that he hungry for her to make tacos.
Luckily, now out of counselling and with device privileges restored again, he was in time to join the Azul Cup and it’s a good job for the US team too. If you’re fortunate enough to play him at Azul and he suddenly stalls in taking his turns, don’t be upset and please consider this: he’s not thinking about his next move, he’s 13 and doesn’t have the attention span for that, he’s probably just listing to Miley, please be patient, and give him a minute.
Finals: Final half
The highest ranked players of each team have now completed 50% of their games.
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Out of all the players, Zeus has the advantage being the only player to have not lost a game. The minor slip in his perform that he had in his lead up to the finals seems to have now dissipated, and the recent polls suggests that him and Germany are who everyone is baking to take home the glory. In his game with Phosphate however, in round 2 he appears to be on the ropes and will be looking to recover lost points in round 3.
In tournament 2 little progress has been made, bangerz remains at the top of the table and Injured Pigeon seems to have made his nest at the bottom. The key game could be AbCd vs bangerz, which is in the final round, and looking at the situation there it seems that there’s a lot going on in the final round, but if I know my Azul, and clearly, I do, it looks like Bangerz is going to claim the win and finish the tournament as the clear winner.
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Tournament 3 is over… There were only points to separate the top 3 of the table, and Kndr found himself at the top on score difference, well done Kndr.
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As it all stands right now, team USA look set to take home the first Azul Cup. But with key games still to play, things could well change over the next couple of days.
Finals: Versauen
Just as you thought controversy was over in the Azul Cup, the world was in shock today after it learned that the reason that the German team was so slow was not their fault but was caused by a chrome extension that had slowed their BGA games down to a mere 5 FPS, which was the source of their own 5 MPW (Moves Per Week).
This insidious chrome extension has been developed by none other than Bulgaria’s and Azul Cup’s own dyslexic C0d3M0nk3y, C0d3N1nj4. The Mind Sport Olympiad community (all 51 of them) were up in arms when they learnt that C0d3N1nj4 had been coding away for 7.5 hours a day for the past year to develop an intelligent program that was capable of not only counting tiles, but that it could do it backwards… and accurately *GASP*.
We caught up with the voice of Azul, Priptonite, to see what he had to say on the topic.
Priptonite: “Son, not since the invention of the telegram have I seen something this ground breaking. It’ll be revolutionary for sure, with this new-fangled thingy-ma-jig, I’ll be able to cut my moving pictures in half.”
We can only hope so… we can only hope so. Looking for sense elsewhere, we turned to the god of Azul, Zeus, to see what he had to say:
Zeus: “Man is not supposed to wield this kind of power! Need I remind thee of the fate that befell Prometheus? I will if I must!”
With little sense in the Azul Cup ranks, we turned to the most intelligent people on the planet and spoke with MSO’s head of statistical analysis, Matt, for his view:
Matt: “It’s not just counting to 20 once, it’s doing it five times… FIVE times! Even for a Mind Sport Olympiad such as me, this would take several minutes, but for a normal human, with a normal sized brain, it would take them hours, maybe days… to even the playing field in this way is simply cheating. I spit on this program sir, and I spit on the developer that made it.”
Strong words there from stat Matt… strong words indeed.
Well, as the world learns to wrestle with this newfound technology, let’s go and look at today’s action from the Azul Cup.
Tournament One:
The dust finally settled on the celestial battle between Zeus and Phosphate_, and when it cleared, Phosphate stood victorious, winning by 4 points in a game for the ages. This is big set back for what was a perfect record so far in this competition for Zeus. KevinWise9 is hanging on by the seat of his pants whilst Zeus and Phosphate_ face down Micalis, who is taking both to the wire and may cause an upset yet.
Tournament Two:
Speaking of upsets, crowd pleaser Bangerz was defeated by AbCd in a battle that went to the 6th round. But all was not lost, as Injured Pigeon raced to his sweetheart’s rescue and overcome all odds by delivering the only defeat to AbCd in the competition. Fans were lined up outside Injured Pigeon’s dressing room to learn how he’d overcome the German Alp.
Injured Pigeon: “With the help of the MSO we devised a cunning plan. First, I went on a two-week long bender in a bid to reduce my ELO and bemoan over Discord how I had fallen to sub Master level, this was used to lull Lord Sloth into a false sense of security. Then, I played him at his own mind games. I took two whole days to decide my first move of the game, deciding ultimately to put the 1st player tile on the floor line. Then, I would tell him I’m going to take my turn and then… I just didn’t… I just ghosted him for days! It sent him into a spin.
Oh, and I download that cool counting app.. I probably should have just done that.”
So, the Germans have lost their momentum, and the USA remain in the lead, but it’s not over yet.
Finals: The result
After almost four weeks of competition, the Azul Cup has come to a climatic end, and I’m very pleased to announce that the winners of season 1 are Team USA: Bangerz, Priptonite and their team captain KevinWise9.
The USA have shown great team spirit throughout the competition and a winning position by bangerz and 2nd place finishes by KevinWise9 and Priptonite was just enough to steal it from runners up Germany.
Kndr gave it is all to just edge the victory over Priptonite in tournament 3 and Zeus secured the top spot in tournament 1, this means that USA, China and Germany each won one of the Finals tournaments. The UK’s contribution however was not insignificant in the end, in their final games, Micalis’ victory over Phosphate_ and Injured Pigeon’s victory over an ailing AbCd certainly aided in the outcome.
Out of all 63 players in the competition, 3 players managed to win 6 of a total of 7 games played, KevinWise9, AbCd and Zeus, each of them making it through the regionals with 4 wins. Out of those 3 it is only points that separates them, and Zeus claims Man of the Tournament and takes home the Golden Tile award, congratulations to Zeus and the runners up.
With that, the first Azul Cup come to a close, all that remains is to thank all the teams, their captains, and players for participating in this tournament, you all played exceptionally well and made your nations proud. I’d like to also thank our wider Azul community for their support in getting it started and for those that took an interest while the tournament has being running, everyone’s contributions have been appreciated and enjoyed throughout. Finally, I’d like to thank Genki/Zeus for setting up the Azul discord channel. With the help of discord and the Azul Cup I personally feel like I have made some new friends within the community and got to know a lot of the players that have competed, and I have enjoyed speaking with them very much. I think this really is a great community of supportive and helpful players and many of its members do a great job to help others.
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I very much look forward to running the Azul Cup in July and I hope you will all join in again. I’m going to try and recruit some more teams, and if you have any friends from other nations, please feel free to nudge them into forming their own teams to compete, the more teams and players we can muster the more ambitious we will be able to become.