Right, so Saturday was the big day for the Mystery Cruiser Tournament. Due to some last minute wrangling by good friend and former Sinner pilot equincu ocha, we got a couple more pilots to fill out the brackets completely! However, there were three no shows. Thankfully, Natalie Cruella from Burn Away stepped in for one of the no shows, so the brackets didn’t get messed up too terribly. Here is a quick rundown of the fights:

ROUND 1 – THE SHITTY SIXTEEN

Well, it would’ve been sixteen if we hadn’t of had no shows:

Abellona [.S1N.] (Maller) v. Konig D. [TSKRS] (Arbitrator)
A good fight and pretty evenly matched. The Arbitrator was loaded with lawl EWAR drones and had to rely on (???) for DPS, but Konig from The Tuskers was able to cope and dispatched Abe from my very own Sinners.

Natalie C. [WCS.] (Caracal) v. Cannibal [TSKRS] (Bellicose)
The Caracal was one of my favorite fitting challenges out of the whole tournament, but the awesomeness of a Blaster Caracal was completely lost when we found out Natalie from The Warp Core Stabilizers didn’t have Medium Hybrids trained. GG to Natalie and an easy win for the Bellicose piloted by Cannibal of The Tuskers.

Tek Avellos [.S1N.] (Scythe) v. Korporaal P. [WCS.] (Osprey)
The Osprey had a pretty large tank. Tek from Sinners. had to rely on his speed for a tank. Unfortunately, all he could do was whine that he had no tank and promptly died in a fire to the Osprey flown by The Warp Core Stabilizers’ Korporaal Paling.

ocha [TSKRS] (Augoror) v. Qanzark [-RAWR] (Stabber)
Easily the most epic fight of the afternoon. The Hull Tanked Augoror and small Blaster fit Stabber slugged it out, the battle a see-saw all the way into low structure. For several moments both cruisers held on at 5% structure, with everyone on comms going absolutely nuts cheering them on. Then there was a bright flash and absolutely no one knew who had died. Turns out it was ocha (former Sinner, current Tusker). Epic fight, for which both combatants were rewarded.

Prof. Terror [.S1N.] (Exequror) v. Tirelion [-RAWR] (Blackbird)
Tirelion won the ‘SUPAH SPECIAL FAIL’ fit contest by picking the Blackbird with three different guns, a small nos, and many boosters in the mids. A winner already, he plunged into the contest with reckless abandon – and managed to survive Terror’s onslaught of autocannons and Sensor Damping drones. Of course, when the fight went to a judge’s decision, everyone voted for the Blackbird to spite me. FML, Tirelion wins and gets a recon.

Harpezza [CALMO] (Vexor) v. N. Andersons [LIL-D] (Celestis)
In an odd role reversal, the Vexor had rails and a sensor damp, while the Celestis was fit with utter crap. This was Harp’s first outing in anything remotely resembling a nano-ship, but he still managed to come away with the victory here.

IEATCRAYONS [INVT] (Thorax) v. Xanthom [.S1N.] (Moa)
In a perfect storm of failure, the NEUTERAX and LAZERMOA did battle for great honor and glory. Unfortunately, neither pilot found either attribute. With the Moa spewing lazerz intermittently like a broken sprinkler, the Thorax lost most of its DPS (in the form of Hammerhead Drones) and was unable to kill the Moa. However, he was able to kill the Moa’s cap, which meant the Moa couldn’t really kill him either. In the end, a draw was called. Judges awarded the victory to Xanthom, but I made an arbitrary call and passed Crayons from Invicta on too so that no one would get a bye round due to two no-shows.

ROUND 2 – THE EPICALLY FAIL EIGHT

Konig [TSKRS] (Arbitrator) v. Cannibal [TSKRS] (Bellicose)
A Tuskers death match here. Both pilots were really trying to eke out every bit of performance from their ships, but in the end Cannibal’s Bellicose held the field without having his actual tank tested.

Korporaal [WCS.] (Osprey) v. Qanzark [-RAWR] (Stabber)
The hero stabber from the first round was a hero no more. Another very close match, but in the end the huge buffer of the Osprey gave it enough time to put its DPS to work, downing the Stabber.

Tirelion [-RAWR] (Blackbird) v. IEATCRAYONS [INVT] (Thorax)
Conveniently enough, the quasi-Curse like Thorax was matched up with the super boosting Blackbird in this match, with predictable results once all the Cap Boosters ran out for the Blackbird. Thank god the SUPAH FAIL cruiser didn’t make it any farther.

Harpezza [CALMO] (Vexor) v. Xanthom [.S1N.] (Moa)
The Lazer Moa made another brave appearance here, but Harp was swiftly growing into his Nano-railgun-EV-600 Vexor and made short work of the Moa.

ROUND 3 – THE FAILTASTIC FOUR

Into the quarter finals now and the speed of the matches was really ramping up. While at this point most of the people that had come to participate were just spectators, almost no one left because the fights were so evenly matched.

Cannibal [TSKRS] (Bellicose) v. Korporaal [WCS.] (Osprey)
Once again Cannibal made the laughably fit Bellicose shine, never reaching Hull (which was his only tank) while dispatching the very large tank of the Osprey.

IEATCRAYONS [INVT] (Thorax) v. Harpezza [CALMO] (Vexor)
This was a heated exchange, almost on par with the ocha/Qanzark fight in terms of tension. However, this time it was a battle of drone micro management, with both pilots feverishly exchanging blows while hiding their drones from hostile fire over the course of nearly the full 5 minute timer. In the end, however, Harp’s Vexor was brought down by CRAYONS, who had determined to make the most of his second chance at life in the Tourney.

This brought us to our epic last match:

Cannibal [TSKRS] (Bellicose) v. IEATCRAYONS [INVT] (Thorax)

A true heavyweight bout with two esteemed lowsec pirate duking it out in the worst fit ships of all time (well, maybe not all time). The tension was high as the two cruisers joined combat. The Thorax was faster than the Bellicose, but the ‘Cose was one of the few ships that I actually fitted (a little) towards its bonuses, sporting a TP and Heavy Missiles. The drones once again took the brunt of the fighting to begin with, but soon the Bellicose was able to point its missiles solely at the Thorax, who was unable to outrun them. Even without the TP the Bellicose was landing solid hits, and just a couple minutes into the fight we had a victor:

CANNIBALCORPSEZOR WINS!

Awards:
1^st Place – CannibalCorpseZor [TSKRS], received a Vagabond
2d Place – IEATCRAYONS [INVT], received 2x Harbingers
SUPAH FAIL CHAMPION – Tirelion [-RAWR], received a Falcon
Best Fight – equincu ocha [TSKRS], received a Stabber Fleet Issue and Qanzark [-RAWR] received a fit Firetail.
Random Door Prize – Xanthom [.S1N.], will receive shortly a fit Cruor.

A HUGE thanks to everyone that showed up and had fun at the tournament. It was a blast to host and I’m sure I’ll do another in the future. Also an enormous debt of gratitude to all those that donated prizes or money to the Tournament:

Ashkrall, executor of Burn Away
Arydanika, the lovely host of Voices from the Void podcast
Tressin Khiyne from The Tuskers
And last but certainly not least, my two cohosts from Ransoms and Roams, Professor Terror and Tek Avellos.

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is a visual summary of the brackets: