by Brad Boyles
Hello and welcome to my Ted Talk!
I, The Bradcast Show, hosted the 2021 Online Heroclix World Championship partnered with Critical Clix and sponsored by Clixed Off and Majestix. Wizkids had made no announcement for their own event and this event I undertook was not sanctioned as well. I saw the opportunity to do something and reached out to a few groups of the community. Together we wanted there to be a World Champion.
If you have never organized an event before, it is not exactly an easy thing to do. You have to message and advertise and talk over and over and over again to make sure that everyone knows you are putting something together, to the point it becomes annoying. People have to practice, take time off work, schedule around their life to try and play. Finding good and able volunteers is also hard to find. Shout out to Lucas 4names Holland and Brandon “Beezy” Shasteen, Chad Birdsall and Jay Solomon. They helped make this a success. They are much smarter and capable than I am when it comes to the rules and tournaments. Just one thing I want to remind folks that have never put a tournament together, it all costs time and money, and time is money. Knowing that, you just have to figure out what it is all worth to you. For me, it is worth everything I can do with my abilities to make sure it was as good an event as I can make it..
In total we had 36 players to start the day; 5 Rounds of Swiss playing for Top 16, the top 12 players playing online with Top 4 available players from the Critical Clix Championship from the day before. We had four players from the Philippines, one from Canada, and another from Mexico competing with Americans from all over the country. Players from Earthbound and Down, Team Pusheen, Team JSA, Phoenix Next, Clixin it, Clix Mafia, Clixed Off, Eaglecast, and Uncanny Clix-men represented their teams well as well as folks without teams.
Players brought the usual competitive goodness. 32 of the 36 teams were Themed. It was overwhelming to see so many themed teams but amazing that all the non-themed teams made the top cut all the way to the Finals; themed team versus non-themed team, Kaleb Redick vs Isaac Arnold-Berkovitz, respectively. I was able to stream most of the match on my Twitch channel, The Bradcast Show. Let me tell you, it is not often you get a satisfying Finals match but we were lucky to have one for the ages. Two great players, gave as good as they got, swinging for the fences, a real buzzer beater and more cliches upon cliches. Really though, the final score was 235-220, Kaleb won the game close to last action. It was a sight to behold. It was honestly my favorite match to watch for a couple of reasons. Kaleb is a fellow teammate and could not have been happier for him. More importantly, it really was a great match to watch. As much as we all like to win, I prefer to have a good game, win or lose. I could not have asked for a better game or a better tournament.
There were a lot of good players, good builds, good match-ups and good games. A couple of upsets and surprises along the way too. Bryan Dormaier and Josafa Alves played together in the Top 8, non-themed versus non-themed. Another great match and match-up that ended up a really close match, 110-90, in Josafa’s favor. Then Josafa had to play Isaac in another non-themed match up in the Top 4. Wes Summers played Brotherhood of Mutants theme team swap and made Top 8 with it. The general idea was it shut down a lot of meta options with XDPS Exodus and Harry Leland, but it also had damage output to overcome the rest of the teams. Very sneaky, very creative by Wes Summers. One of my favorite builds was by another great player, Alyssa McNeil, who also got Fellowship with the team and her skills. She played it for fun but she actually managed to get a winning record with it as well, not too far from making the top cut. If you would like to see her build and all 40 builds from the day’s tournament, you can visit my Facebook page, The Bradcast Show. You should check out George Massu’s build and see if you recognize anything funny.
I don’t know what plans I have for the future but I would like to try to have another big tournament again. I firmly believe there is a place for online Heroclix and there is room for growth and development. There are those all over this country and world who are unable to travel, so many good and able-minded players. As long as I can help it, I will try to do it again. There is room to improve and grow. If you or anyone you know would be interested in helping make it happen again, please reach out to me. I am open to any and all input. I also hold weekly cash tournaments on my discord on Friday nights. I would love for anyone to join and their skill at winning first place and some money.
Thanks for reading and coming to my TedTalk!
