#mcytblrsymb

[tacticalsoupcann]

Do it

[betweenlands]

Hello everyone. On behalf of the Dominion-Lifesteal alliance, side SBK (closest to Dominion), we have a voting proposition. Our goals are humble: push as hard as possible for the most even balance of Lifestealers, SBKers, and adjacent as possible, along with a healthy focus on women and nonbinary folks specifically if possible.

(Also be nice to other people IS2G. We made this for fun, not to be mean.)

Here is the main annotated chart. Pink is alliances (mainly Dominion/SBK-Lifesteal), red is SBK specifically. Brief explanations of Round 1 under the cut; if anyone is wondering about our full plan they are free to ask for specific elaboration but we may not share that over social media yet. A link to the bracket blog may be found right here.

Extreme TLDR: current planned SBK-Lifesteal semifinalists are Vintage, Ruby or Musithical, Zam or Trog or Marm, Drift or Hannah, and Viking or Avid. We're also pushing Reddoons, Mapicc, and Apo as far as we can get them, along with uh. Whoever y'all would like out of the Pili-Pangi-Ashswag-Mog situation in that one part of the bracket. Finally, we'd like to offer Content SMP fans the opportunity to see Luxintrus v. Doctor4t if at all possible.

Ideal finals would be Zam v. Vintage but we play that one by ear.

Round 1, upper left side (today, very soon after this post is finished):

M1g is a lost cause. We can try but he has a very hard matchup.

I like Wels, no formal alliance though, Vintage next round.

Get good opponents for Squiddo and Rekrap. Squiddo's probably a better focus call here both tactically and for funsies.

Push hard for Luxintrus for Lux v. R4t. Need to get past Bdubs but that's not impossible.

Nature or Piepie is SBKer of choice. However, we want R4t to win his next round, so they're not main focuses.

Push for Spoke. I do not think he's got great odds against Cleo but the margins are better than Leon's are.

Slightly favor Anathra for Round 1, but I quite like ApolloTV and both of them have bad odds v. Legundo next round, so the priority is not very high either.

Round 1, lower left side (today, very soon after this post is finished):

We need BigB for Round 2, I am a Loony fan but his odds against Joe are impossible and I want BigB to get some wins instead

Kenadian winning their first round would be lovely. SadMilkman versus Kenadian is an inherently hilarious sentence.

Taneesha wins Round 1, Fool v. Tan is SBK v. Dominion violence so there's no good call there. Besides...

Push hard for Zam, very difficult first match but should be pretty doable otherwise.

Devon or Nuke is SBKer of choice, but either needs to lose to Trog.

Push Seawatt for a potential Parkciv alliance. Ideally get him past Joel if we can.

Marm's favored matchup is Winsweep, but only barely.

Run Branzy as far as possible since he was a sacrifice to Viking last time. Pearl is a difficult match but it's about the principle of the thing.

Round 2, upper right side:

Push for Mapicc, but he's got very difficult matches

Ruby should win against Louis or Quizmas regardless of outcome

Push Evbo as far as possible

Kingelffe's matchups are bad, he's not a priority

Get Acorn to Round 2, then it's SBKer v. SBKer. I'd like Acorn but I'm not picky.

Scott is likely to lose to Jimmy's Radiator on rule of comedy. Push hard for Reddoons and hopefully we'll see a decent amount of momentum to get over that one.

Derapchu v. Wemmbu is Lifesteal v. Lifesteal. We're pushing harder for Musithical the round after that one, though.

Aimsey is a favored match v. Gem but if SFAWTDE fans want a somewhat temp alliance in exchange for Zam I am more than willing to reconsider that.

Round 2, lower right side:

Push for Hannah, she has hard but not impossible matches

Our best chance at Drift getting anywhere is SaintStarling winning Round 1, which would also just be really funny

Push a Lifestealer past Jimmy if possible by whatever means the Lifesteal side of the Alliance sees fit, I'm not an expert on these folks. (EDIT: a few people are saying Pili Dtowncat should be that Lifestealer and I'm down)

Get Aurelien_Sama past Round 1, I know there's a fan out there who's tired of taking first round Ls and also I do not think we can stop Avid in any meaningful way

Push Apokuna as far as possible as tribute for abandoning her to the Haunted Winter. Literally any match she gets here is really funny.

I am leaving Lizzie v. Doovid up to the whims of fate. I want Viking to get far enough for a Vivid Divorce but Lizzie's a good sleeper candidate I wouldn't feel bad about throwing my weight behind were she to win both those matches.

Cam v. Shubble is SBKer v. SBKer. I favor Shelby here for later but it's not the highest possible priority.

[betweenlands]

in honor of the new kenadian video, have the best and most finished contiguous bits of a fic i was trying to write for the @mcyt-builds-contest prison edition and never completed. personally, i think giving ken access to modded materials could only lead to good things.

previous bracket fic here if you haven't read it! image transcript under the cut! (surprise! this was arcosc all along!)

---------

“Why’re you so worried about this, anyway?” he finally says, because he’s pretty sure worry is the expression he’s reading on Legundo’s face.

“I have…” the King in the North says, grimacing, “a bit of prior experience with prisons, you could say. Both illager and player-made.”

Viking gets the feeling he’s touched a nerve, and nearly slaps his hand over his forehead as he belatedly remembers the first time the King in the North had mentioned some sort of dungeon built by – something about iron crocodiles, he thinks. Come to think of it, that building had come up earlier in this tournament.

“Forge, right? The Prison of the Iron Crocodiles that lost to Pandora in the first rounds?”

“That’s one of them,” the King in the North confirms. “Speaking of which, do you have any idea where Forge went after his dungeons lost the contest to this prison?”

Viking shrugs. “Nada. Maybe he just slunk off?”

“It’s not like him to vanish without any sign of reemergence,” the King in the North mutters, tapping his fingers against the table. “My version of Shadow, maybe. Forge? He should’ve caused trouble somewhere by now. Made some sort of uneasy or paranoid alliance with another person that lost the first round.”

“Come to think of it,” Viking says, “I haven’t seen that Asgaard guy anywhere after we shook hands and called it a good match. I was hoping he’d stick around for color commentary on worldbuilding or something, but maybe he just had a project to do?”

The King in the North shakes his head. “I don’t think so. I think something’s going after other people on the bracket. This other finals entrant – I know you’ve been busy on your own front, but have you seen them yet?”

“Nope,” Viking says. “And I haven’t seen the guy who looks kind of like they’d be my cousin if I was a catboy, either. Which… wait. Wait, that’s really weird! His entire thing is prisons and escape rooms, they should be at this match, he would definitely have something snarky to say about it!”

“About that,” a slightly familiar voice says. “I kinda got put in a tube.”

The catperson crouched on a chair at the far end of the room raises their hand with a wave and a wry grin. “Sorry I’m late. Train ran slow. Also the whole getting put in a tube thing.”

“You got –” Viking gestures. “Wait. First question. How did you get down here?”

Kenadian examines his clawed fingernails with one raised eyebrow. “Hopped around waystones for a bit until your hat layers loaded in on the tab screen. Composter glitched so I could look around underground. Saw a stronghold. Dug straight down. Don’t worry, I covered it back up.”

Viking unconsciously reaches up to his very unhatted head, adjusting his goggles slightly. Next to him, the King in the North seems to be in a very similar state of confusion. 

“Tab… screen?” he finally manages.

“Composter glitch?” Viking adds.

“Oh, we’re from a world that doesn’t have diegetic game mechanics, that’s just great,” Kenadian huffs. “Anyway. Aren’t you a ghost? Can’t you just chug a fire resistance potion and walk through the walls?”

“I already explained that to him,” Viking says, recovering from the brief shock of some random guy he’s only met once breaking into his secret underground headquarters base. “Phantoms can’t pass through obsidian or crying obsidian.”

“God you guys are hopeless,” Kenadian says, slapping one hand over their face. “Just make them not obsidian, then! You can literally just do that!”

“I…” Viking says, “what?”

Kenadian stands up again and tosses something onto the table with a loud clatter, crossing their arms with a smug expression.

Viking blinks down at the diamond-tipped chisel on the table with a confused expression on his face. “Why are you giving me a chisel?”

“Oh my god do I have to spell everything out for you,” Kenadian groans. “Bit blocks only carry so much internal info and most of it’s either transparency or whether or not they give off light. Just take a single voxel – oh, sorry, bit – out of any walls in your way and they stop being obsidian and start being bit blocks. It’s literally just that simple.”

[betweenlands]

hello hello, am locked in for a night of joeter fraud right now, focusing purely on ruby v louis & grian v xB. i managed to shift ruby & xB up both a percent, & ruby's less that 5% away from overtaking owen. good news: i'm decently confident i can push ruby to the win. bad news: the gap for xB is just too large rn... thinking of pivoting to piepiesamurai for a bit, flip the poll & secure her a bit of a lead 👍

if anyone wants to help with manual joeter fraud (on firefox) i've gotten decently quick so uuh here's some vague tips: ctrl+shift+P opens a new incognito tab, the bookmark bar is your friend for important links, keysmash Everything, & copypasting "@.emaildomain.com" is a massive timesave. gourdspeed o7

thank you very much for your help! a brief disclaimer: our personal code of conduct for this bracket does involve us not interfering in the democratic process of doctor4t v piepiesamurai, or at the very least that we personally do not formally endorse doing so.

instead, we will advise that you assist InfiniteDrift in her deathmatch against The Blade, or to help Squiddo and VintageApples secure more solid leads. you are free to take this information into account in any way you see fit, including by ignoring it entirely.

thank you greatly for your contribution to the cause!

[betweenlands]

btw can we just tell you tysm for putting together a list of who the sbk lifesteal alliance is voting for? its super helpful for sending to friends who arnt super into mcyt

Happy we could help! Uh, well, happy I could help -- technically it's yours truly/a specific system member who does it, because I'm the data collation and logistics guy. I like spreadsheets.

Anyway, I genuinely just do stuff like this for fun, so I'm very glad it's helping people out! We hope it will continue to assist in the future.

--Signed, R϶m

[betweenlands]

i am so sorry for what i just did under your sbk alliance polls post. it is most likely entirely unnecessary. but i hope some use can come of it LOL

you are 100% allowed, if nothing else it gives us an excuse for a middday rerun! thanks for the help :D

[betweenlands]

btw the funniest part of this whole "the mcytblr sexyman bracket breaks dominionblr's containment so so hard that the concept of a containment breach has ceased to exist" is this. specific interaction. between legundo and viking in the public dominion discord:

they then proceeded to ping @everyone.

we've uh. we've been having a normal one over there

[betweenlands]

god. god. The Well vs Ghost's Vault is a finale i NEVER saw coming in a million years but oh my god what a poetic end. two unhinged, unstable blondes with signature bell noises, and most importantly for both builds, you can absolutely say:

The ghosts are here.

THE GHOSTS ARE HERE!!!!

it's been an experience going through this bracket alongside the Vault and the Well and i'm genuinely overjoyed to see it end in this way. no matter who wins, this really does feel like a victory lap for small fandoms, and short of trying to voter-fraud our way into an exact tie i can't think of any better finale.

i did somewhat know the Well would be in the finale -- it, the Door Trap, and the Desert were pretty much The contenders on the right side -- but i never could've dreamed that we could Call The Banners our way to victory. i guess the continued GoT jokes are pretty fitting, too. we watch from the shadows and all that.