RNTS-11-BBCTB Tournament Results

Thursday, September 27th marked the 11th tournament for THE REAPER NIGHTMARE TOURNAMENT SERIES | 死神の悪夢トーナメントシリーズ for BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle! 10 competitors locked horns to see which was the strongest!  No matter how many enter the arena, only one shall emerge with the taste of victory on their palette!

Crazily, I managed to over sleep yet AGAIN.  Terrible to me, yes, but it showed how reliable my staff of Riot and Flex were when it came to getting things underway yet again.  I really have to break this chain of oversleeping at the start of the tournament, even if it only was the 10th and 11th tourneys.  We had some blazing hot matches, as always, and it seems to me that

 TIME STAMPS 

• Renslay, a new player to THE REAPER NIGHTMARE TOURNAMENT SERIES, managed to win it all during his first time here (something that has not been done by anyone other than Unsafeonhit).  His team of Ranga/Azrael proved to have overwhelming damage and mix-ups, proving to be aggressive enough to come back even from the most lopsided of deficits.  Made an undefeated run throughout the tournament and even defeated 2nd place winner Rino_ during both Winner’s and Grand Finals.  Congratulations!
• Rino_ is a new player to RNTS, making it all the way to Grand Finals.  Something I immediately noticed was that he 3-0’d our previous champion Tikhaos during the first round of Top 8.  Showed impressive promise with his team of Carmine/Jin, but unfortunately the necessity of Carmine’s dependency on using his life in attacks came back to bite him in the butt more than a few times.  Also, one of the reasons he could not handle Renslay was not being able to mount an offensive long enough to offset the pressure he was receiving.  Hopefully he comes back to attempt to win it all!
• Killaboss2025 unfortunately did not make it to Top 8 and was not streamed at all.  Hopefully he comes back and goes absolutely nuts at the next RNTS Tournament, miss his matches since he was also not on stream for RNTS-10.
• IzzyXBL finally made his return to the tournament after being away for so long.  Made a run all the way into Winner’s Top 8 where he lost in dramatic fashion to Renslay with a score of 2-3 after switching from his main team of Izzy/Azrael to Mika/Waldstein.  The follow-up match against Rennikz he was 0-3’d after using a variety of teams outside of his main one; Gordeau/Waldstein, Hyde/Merkava, and Ruby/Yukiko.  While I would have wanted him to go full-on, I think he gave up after losing to Renslay early on.
• Flexikan ended up going throughout the entire tournament without winning a game, losing 3-0 to both Tikhaos and Rennikz.  Both times he switched from his new team of Yang/Gordeau to his old team of Ruby/Es.  Unfortunately he did not have much practice in since RNTS had a break, but hopefully the next time he enters.
• Shokame88 switched his team from Gordeau/Yuzuriha to Hyde/Yuzuriha.  In my personal opinion, he did rather well against Tikhaos but I believe he would have did better of sticking to his original team, but he showed better fundamentals in his overall playstyle even in the last tournament.  Good stuff.
• Rennikz did absolutely well this tournament, making his way all the way to Loser’s.  Unfortunately, he winded up losing 2-3 and it was mainly because he did not optimize his combos; this was by cutting combos short as well as not knowing crossover combos that would do the most damage possible (or at least close to it).