-THE WINTER TOPICAL QUARTERFINALS MAGAZINE ft. Bags-

[PancakeBrah]

THE WINTER TOPICAL
Quarterfinals Magazine

Welcome to the Quarterfinals Magazine of The Winter Topical. The Second Round, much like the First, lived up to expectations. We again only had two no show verses and although that represents a higher no show percentage than the first it was more than made up for by the quality of the matches that did go to votes. Every match that wasn’t a 5-0 shutout received at least eight votes and there were multiple comments in the Discussion topic detailing how close and high quality the matches were last round. As far as upsets, we had one pretty major upset in terms of seeding with #21 oXus beating #5 NYC. That’s a bit deceiving, though, as oXus was one of the biggest misseeds on my part (mostly due to me not knowing if he’d show). We only had one other “upset” aside from that in #9 big baby beating #8 Zygote but that match was basically a coinflip before it started so it’s difficult to classify it as a true upset. Everyone who submitted a verse last round did well but you can’t argue with the lineup we have for the Quarters in terms of talent.

I have to give everyone who’s participated some major props for the success of this tournament thus far. With only four total no-shows and a surplus (!) of votes you all have made this tournament even more of a success than I anticipated. The end result is one of the most stacked quarterfinals of any tournament I’ve seen during my tenure here at Netcees. We’re reaching the point where the championship match is just off in the horizon and I can’t envision that match not being a classic, no matter who makes it out of the remaining eight participants.

For this magazine we’ll have the usual sections (Bracket breakdown, match reviews/previews) with the addition of a video mag from Bags. We won’t have interviews this round due my schedule (read: procrastination) but they will return for the final two magazines. All apologies for that. This mag won’t be as lengthy as the last two simply due to the fact there are less matches to review and preview and there are no more writers to profile. Hopefully the 15-minute video mag will help. Hope you enjoy the magazine.

THE BRACKET
erhmahgerd it’s the Quarterfinals

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As I mentioned before, this Quarterfinal round is ridiculously tough, top to bottom. Through two rounds the quarterfinalists have won by a combined vote count of 89-17 (69-17 without including no shows @ 5-0) and have shutout their opponents four times, with dead man not having a single vote cast against him in the tournament yet. On the flip side, all four of the tournament no shows played a factor in the quarterfinal roster we have, with oXus, Nigma, Pent, and big baby reaching this point after all being no showed in one of the first two rounds. Qualitatively, all eight are respected to highly respect within the topical/open mic community. Pent’s a Hall of Famer and both dead man and Vulgar have been brought up as possible Hall of Fame candidates. oats is an Open Mic Hall of Famer and one of the best writers on the site. big baby may be the most talented writer, at his peak, of the eight. oXus isn’t as prolific as some of the other names left but he’s respected and his verses in the tournament so far have served notice that he’s one of the best as well. Nigma is the underdog here and that speaks to the level of talent in this group as he’s one of more respected Open Mic writers on Netcees and a proven topical writer.

The bottom half of the bracket looks to be the tougher of the two. All four writers in the bottom half could be considered favorites and that’s no hyperbole. Either of the bottom matchups would be considered a great championship match in any topical tourney; here they all meet up in the Quarters. That’s not to take anything away from the top half, though. dead man/big baby may be the best battle of the round and falls into the same category as both bottom half matchups. Nigma/oXus is a dope match but neither have the same resume as the other writers in the other matches do. That speaks more to the quality of the tournament than it detracts from their matchup. Overall, there isn’t a weak or uninteresting match in the bunch and it should be a joy to see how this all shakes out.