Originally Posted by sraL (Post 578242)

beat Black to champ winter topical, he's crew though
soulstice is actually a protégé of mine from my Word Perfect days
oats is long term crew and weve never battled
pinot is dope
NYC been wack since hiphopgame, Chink Won was always better
big baby? yawn.
dancake? yawn.

of your entire list they have a career total of 0 wins over me. good going. :^)

Originally Posted by Vulgar (Post 577843)

Ahhh, this ancient, cherished hobby.

How do you get yourself psyched up to write? Do the words go onto the page without much of a hassle of aroused passion or gradual inspiration?

Do you need to "go there" or get into the frame of mind related to your subject matter? For example, writing from the perspective of a murderer, as a priest or a child, as a peaceful sage in the woods... what gets you in the mood? Directly. Is it a variation of the same thing?

When I battle or write topicals, I have different states of mind. Especially pic battling. Just curious if there are some more different or unique customs out there, pre-writing rituals.

If there is already a thread like this in the past, my bad.

Originally Posted by Witty (Post 578345)

Also, for the battles I have shown up to and competed in here, I'm pretty sure I'm still highly dominant.

I win battles...even when I'm rusty and uninspired. I know what to do to get the W in the majority of battles, where my opponents weaknesses are, and how to combat their strengths. It's not just about writing a dope piece.

Originally Posted by MMLP (Post 578512)

Witty's a beast, an opponent I'd love to face, we'd have a classic I think!

Originally Posted by quaker oats (Post 578582)

people I never topical battled that I would have liked to:

Lars
Witty
NYC

I'd add Pinot to that list just because, even though we did battle, both of us had fairly shitty/rushed verses.

Originally Posted by Certain (Post 578600)

@Witty, remember when I wrote 10 lines and you wrote 30 and I beat you?

Originally Posted by sral (Post 577856)

It just comes naturally to me, topical writing I mean.

These days I usually analyse what I determine are my opponents flaws, and write what I think I need to do to win.

If their lines are too long, I place an emphasis on flow.

If they can't tell a story, I'll do that well.

If they're not much of a metaphorical writer, I'll sometimes go for that.

If they're the type to go for a more high-brow approach, I'll maybe opt for something more conversational and relatable.

It completely depends on who the opponent is.

I write to win.

All this "I write for me," bullshit is for the birds. You guys keep doing that, I'll keep champing these tourneys and leagues you only ever make up the quarter finals of.

Truth be told I'm more likely to lose in round one of a tourney vs an unknown 32 seed because I don't know enough about them to write around them. It's completely down to me at that point and that's where I risk slipping up, though, let's face it... Ain't many 32 seeds writing to this level either to compete. Once we get to the business end of a tourney, the "known" heads make up the last eight or so and from there on, I'm not losing.

Who else you know ran through the biggest topical tourneys on the site back to back without a loss in either?

Lars the Gawd