THE WINTER TOPICAL
Semifinals Magazine
Welcome to The Winter Topical’s Semifinals Magazine. The Quarterfinal Round, as you probably already know, was a bit of a disappointment in comparison to the first two rounds in terms of no-shows. We seem to have a pattern of two no-shows per round and although that’s fine when we have sixteen or eight matches, when it’s down to four it’s a bit more of a problem. Thanks goes out to the six writers who did show; the verses that were dropped were enjoyable to read. Although Pent uP and oXus weren’t able to show they deserve some recognition as well for making it to the Quarterfinals in the first place. All four remaining writers have shown that they have the dedication to try to win this entire tournament and I would hope that we can expect both battles to go to votes.
This magazine will be the shortest of the tournament. With only two matches to review and two matches to preview there simply isn’t as much content to discuss. We’ll have a bracket breakdown, match reviews, and two sets of match previews. Props to oats for volunteering his time and writing up his previews; it’s good to have more than one opinion in regards to the matches. The Championship Magazine will, hopefully, be much more thorough and in-depth. I’m going to blatantly steal some of the concepts and sections Certain used in his AOWL magazine in addition to some unique sections. Until then I hope you enjoy this.
THE BRACKET
Nearing the Finish Line
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We have two good Semifinal matches. Vulgar v. Lars is the better of the two both in seeding and expected quality. Both are of the highest tier within the topical scene and both seem motivated to win the tournament. Black v. Nigma is the more lopsided of the two; dead man still has not had a single vote cast against him and has reinforced his #1 Seeding while Nigma has gotten to the Semifinals with only one of his matches going to votes (in the First Round no less). Although Nigma is a writer not to be taken lightly in any topical match he’s the underdog out of the remaining four writers and thus the dead man/Nigma battle doesn’t have the same ***het as the Vulgar/Lars match.
Looking at the bracket overall, I still consider this tournament a success even with the two no-shows in the Quarterfinal Round. Out of 28 matches we’ve only had 6 no-shows which is a good rate for the average league/tournament on Netcees during this supposed ‘death of text’. Aside from last round’s Vulgar/oats match every match in the tournament has received more than enough votes and all the participants have been active in the Discussion/Prediction topics. Hopefully the remaining three matches all go to votes and we end on the strong note this tournament deserves.
As far as potential Championship Matches go, there really isn’t a bad possibility left on the board. If I were to rank the possible matches in terms of expected hype/quality it’d be
1. dead man vs. Vulgar
2. dead man vs. Lars
3. Vulgar vs. Nigma
4. Lars vs. Nigma
I do think that dead man/Vulgar would be the premiere Finals. They’ve had a sort of (amicable) Cold War in the Open Mic for who’s the most respected writer on the site since I’ve been here. It’s not overt, but that’s always how I’ve kind of pictured it in my mind. So to see them face-off in the Finals of the main topical tournament of the year would obviously be intriguing. dead man/Lars is about equal to the dead man/Vulgar but has the added twist of legacy and long-term history. Lars is his own hype machine so there’d be considerable interest. Vulgar/Nigma gets the nod over Lars/Nigma because I think Nigma’s style is relatively similar to Vulgar’s so it’d be interesting in a master/student kind of way. Egyptian Aliens and Third World plights due to capitalism and George Bush on deck. Like I said, there isn’t a dud among the four so no matter what Finals we get I think we’ll be satisfied.