Wii version Little Cup tournament

[Yaggleberry Finn]

For now I'm going to continue to call the bottom tier the Little Cup. It's really sticking to me. My son and I played a tournament today, but the matchups were made at random so we will want to do another few before declaring a true winner.

Participants were: Zap, Drill Sergeant, Chop Chop, Trigger Happy, Boomer, Stump Smash, Ghost Roaster and Flameslinger.

We played on Mushroom Grove with no power ups. We shuffled the eight player cards, put them face down, then turned over the top two cards. We then put those two characters on the portal at the same time so we didn't know who would get which character.

FIRST ROUND
Ghost Roaster beat Chop Chop
- Chop Chop's stun ability just isn't enough to counter Ghost Roaster. GR wins this one without too much trouble.

Boomer beat Zap
- This wasn't very close. Zap just couldn't get away from Boomer. All of the obstacles made it very hard for Zap to land any of his lightning attacks.

Flameslinger beat Drill Sergeant
- I don't remember a whole lot of this battle... I don't think DS was really able to deal enough damage.

Stump Smash beat Trigger Happy
- This was a fairly close match. Trigger Happy was dropping a lot of damage, but he just can't compete here in the health department. TH would be a mid-tier character if he had 550 hitpoints instead of 400.

SECOND ROUND
Flameslinger beat Stump Smash
- I was a bit suprised here. Stump Smash wasn't able to get up close to Flameslinger and tried to use some ranged attacks instead. This led to a lot of frustration for the SS player. Flameslinger was able to use bounce pads to his advantage, getting airborne and hitting Stump Smash even though SS had the high ground.

Ghost Roaster beat Boomer
- I really expected Boomer to win this one, but GR pulled out a fairly close win.

CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND
Ghost Roaster beat Flameslinger
- This wasn't close at all. Ghost Roaster's speed and skull attack kept hitting Flameslinger, and his tail attack finished the job. Flameslinger couldn't get away, as the skull charge is faster than his flame run. Very surprised at the winner, when looking at the eight characters overall.

Those results aren't as detailed as I would like to share, I wrote this post after the fact. Next time I'll update as I go.

As far as Mushroom Grove is concerned, it seems to favor lob attacks and is pretty tough on straight-shooting ranged attacks. Melee does fine overall, and is probably favored just because traditional ranged attacks are less effective here. We normally run our battles on the Cyclops Square because of how open it is. We'll run a few more on MG before we switch to something else. We almost never play the Troll Factory, but that seems like a decent option as well

[Tashiji]

I am very intrigued by Ghost Roaster winning on the Wii. On PS360 he's a solid upper-middle character, but I really thought he would turn out to be a scrub in this version. This was overall a very interesting read.

I agree, Mushroom Grove does favor lobbers. V and I play on that arena over others because it reduces the effectiveness of keep-away and gives characters places to retreat from melee onslaughts, but Cyclops Square is pretty good too. It's hard to tell which arena is the most fair, because each one does favor a certain type of character. Cyclops Square gives the advantage to runners like Zap and Drobot, and stymies characters who need proximity to win like Eruptor.

[Radical Tropicon]

Love to read these tournament results, very enjoyable! Really interesting that GR won, as I would have thought Flameslinger would wipe the floor with him.

Very random idea here, but I was thinking how much fun it would be to see these tournaments and have game commentators as the action happened
Heck, if PvP had Flynn, Cali, and Hugo as commentators, I would love it!

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Jan 24, 2012 21:54:12 GMT -6 Tashiji said:

Cyclops Square gives the advantage to runners like Zap and Drobot, and stymies characters who need proximity to win like Eruptor.

One of the things we've learned about Cyclops Square is that the middle of the arena is great for lobbers (kind of like the Pirate Grotto) as long as you have the arena effects turned off. If the spikes are on, you just about avoid the middle at all costs. That's a pretty major difference for melee characters, and my son just about refuses to play it with all of the options turned on.

Jan 24, 2012 22:02:24 GMT -6 Radical Tropicon said:

Heck, if PvP had Flynn, Cali, and Hugo as commentators, I would love it!

Have you ever played Ratchet: Deadlocked? There are a ton of arena battles there (all against the computer) and I always enjoyed the commentary the game adds in. Skylanders would be great for that. In fact, now I'm even remembering the commentator on Pokemon Battle Revolution. A little repetitive, but still fun.

[starz499]

Ghost roaster can be AMAZING!!!! you just have to learn the right combos. These mostly include using his tail ALLOT and only using his ghost head when trying to get too or away from your target.

[convoy_avenger]

Since some levels have natural advantages for certain Skylanders, I think a random course option should be implemented. I'm not sure if there's actually a random option, but something that would be ideal would be both players choose an arena and you roll a dice to see which arena is chosen.

This would at least remove the level advantages certain skylanders get.

[tyris01]

Neat idea Convoy, but that just places the odds of getting map-screwed by 50%.

What I'd like to do is have everyone pick an "Arena Champion" for each arena (secretly, of course), and then just roll for the Arena. That way if, say, you don't want to get stuck with a guy who sucks on that level, well, you already have them chosen according to how you want them. At least one guy from each element is pretty boss on any given map, so it still gives you plenty of options.