What It's Like to be a Dr. Mario World Champion

with a championship comes an expectation that you can do it again I know I've handled it before but I've never handled it with a feel this good this is Patrick AKA py 619 he's won the Dr Mario Championship the biggest Dr Mario tournament in the world a total of three times in 2017 2018 and 2021 and your 2021 world champion Pocky he's come back to Columbus Ohio in 2022 to try and defend his title but the tournament has continued to grow and the competition is tougher than ever where did you come from for this tournament uh San Jose California oh my gosh I'm here from the uh DC area flew in the airport yesterday and really enjoying myself today it's been an amazing experience I flew here from Ontario Canada for this first time in the States first iners event I came from a place called rat in Israel it's far away on a rocky craggy hill somewhere so did you come to the United States just for this tournament or were you able to pair it up with another trip uh I mean my cousin also had a baby but I came here for the Dr Mario and she just timed it right everyone is competing on the original Dr Mario game released for the NES in 1990 where the goal is to clear all the viruses off the board by arranging falling pills into lines of four of the same color to make them disappear and a lot of the competitors have been playing for a very long time so when did you start playing Dr Mario pretty much when the game came out my mom actually played Dr Mario when she was pregnant with me so she had the old Nintendo in the basement and I didn't want to do my homework and so I played Mario instead we've had a Nintendo in the household since I was like three I got really good in high school a couple friends would play almost every night after school by comparison py had started taking Dr Mario seriously a bit more recently so I did play it as a kid but I eventually stopped playing back then I didn't know just how much you could do with Dr Mario but then the 2015 Nintendo World Championships came around the qualifier for this one was Mario 1 Mario 3 and then Dr Mario so then I really started getting into it it's really fun to put together those gigantic Combos and just drop them everywhere is referring to the key strategy of Dr Mario versus matches that add an extra twist beyond the single player version in a head-to-head match if you manage to clear two groups of four colors in a single move known as a combo it will trigger pieces of garbage to fall in random columns on the other players board and also stall them from playing until the garbage is finished landing and a big part of the Dr Mario championship's growth over the recent years has been just finding all these people who'd been playing mostly by themselves or locally for decades and Gathering them into one giant online community how did you find like the modern Dr Mario competitive community so this is my first tournament ever I had a student I found in the shook in Jerusalem shout out if you're seeing this Dan what's up and basically he found it on the internet he's like yo you got to play this cuz he wouldn't play me cuz he get beat every time he did it once he learned his lesson you know during the pandemic I was expressing interest in trying to stream online cuz this was a game I really enjoyed playing and there were people in the community that happened to reach out to me said hey I didn't know you play it and I was relatively unknown at the time they brought me into a Discord and we'll say to say the rest is history it's really great to see the growth and everything and it just makes it harder and harder to win because there's just more and more talent that just keeps coming in on the production side of things the tournament founder Chris Bidwell was excited as well what were the biggest uh changes or upgrades to this year's tournament so the convention got a bigger space we were like this weird soccer field last year and it was AstroTurf so standing all day was nice but they got a much bigger venue and the bigger venue had a stage you know I saw that stage and you know my organizer brain just started firing on all cylinders and personally on our side we got more stations and that made quite a difference and I think we got more people through the results are show because 120 players my fiance unaa and I had actually been introduced to Dr Mario through our friendship with Chris Bidwell in the adjacent Retro Gaming Community for NES tetras and we had attended the Dr Mario championships for the first time in 2021 just for fun but this year we were there to also help out in any way we could unao volunteered as a qualifier judge and I took DSLR photos of the event one of the best experiences was getting to know some of the behind the-scenes crew members a little bit more my name is JB Henry uh I am the head organizer for Speed and basically I'm responsible at Live Events for making sure Chris Bidwell does not go insane you want to sample this what he's sitting commentary's always been fun I I just love talking about the game and I always want to like feel like I'm more having a conversation with a viewer sharing what's going on than rather than just talking at nothing the Dr Mario Community also has a couple interesting quirks as well the most immediately visible one is that all the competitors play standing up so why is it that uh players typically don't use chairs I used to run tournaments locally at some of these shows and we would be on the floor and you can't put chairs in the middle of the sales floor of those types of areas it's a fire hasard to put chairs in the middle of it it kind of just kept it that way and then we went to replay effect facts that we were kind of the same situation we were stoved off into a corner and then like the internet when they saw these videos were like why are they standing so I double down rather than just acques I wasn't going to put chairs to give everybody a chair but if anybody asked for one i' give them one but it was just like just stand it looks cool like think of a musician like if you're going to a rock show do you want to see like a guitar player doing a solo sitting down so I noticed you're I think maybe the only player that doesn't uh stand up you are on a chair did you have to get special permission to do that I did not ask I just grabbed a chair and sat down I'm a Tapper a table Tapper and I think I'm the only Tapper at this tournament just kind of requires me to have something to put the controller on this was fascinating to me as Barrett was also a fellow player in the NES Tetris scene I was a part of where there was a huge scoring divide between those who avoided button mashing techniques with a d play style and most of the younger players who hyper taed or even used a newer technique called rolling in the tetris Dynamic there's been all these shifting play Styles is there an equivalent thing like Das versus tap in Dr Mario there really isn't there's only a couple people who are tappers there's no rollers that anyone's aware of would rolling even be helpful at all in this game theoretically yes but to a much smaller extent than it is in Tetris it turns out this equality of the play Styles was actually a significant selling point for people getting invested in the game I've been watching Tetris since the Jonas days and watching JD take him down finally so I was like oh maybe this Tetris thing could be like my speed but hypertapping was just starting to come into style it was like hurting my elbows I'm like I can't do this but I saw the Dr Mario Side Event through like the tetris competitions and thought you know this might be more of what I like and I really did like it when I picked it up I just thought I wanted to try something new and puzzle games sounded fun classic Tetris is a little intimidating and I settled on this and I ended up really loving it but as the qualifying stage was about to start the Dr Mario scene was about to be put to the test as several NES Tetris players had just showed up for the first time to the Dr Mario championships to try out a cheeky new qualifying strategy the way that qualifying for the tournament worked was a little complex but I'll break it down in the simplest way possible players are divided into pools of eight and everyone plays one head-to-head game versus everyone else in each game if you win you get two points for every virus you clear and one point for every virus left on your opponent's board the final qualifying ranking is determined first by your winning percentage in your pool and then by your average points per game and the top 32 would make it into the tournament in Practical terms what this meant is because it was far more valuable to clear your own viruses rather than prevent your opponent from clearing theirs you typically got the most points in a game where you barely won versus another good player and getting a quick win by stomping on a new player wasn't worth nearly as much this was a pretty good system but it had an unintended Quirk I experienced in the 2021 qualifiers when I had tried competing myself don't top out don't top out my opponent Dave Smith was rooting for me to not top out because then he would have more time to clear viruses and accumulate points and then later the idea popped into my mind of how to potentially cheese the qualifying system get into a pool with a couple friends and have them constantly tread water and play non-aggressive versus you while you rack up a bunch of points point and then win and that's exactly what blank one of the tetris players who also had some prior Dr Mario experience was attempting to do pairing up with hydrant dude a Tetris player who is brand new to Dr Mario but unfortunately this cheese strategy also requires everyone involved to be somewhat skilled at Dr Mario because blank by Instinct couldn't help but send over occasional Combos and hydr dude was unable to clear the accumulating garbage blank won and it was 38 to 45 viruses so blank had 38 hydr had 45 the other opponents in blank's pool turned out to be really tough and despite playing well blank ultimately got too many losses to be in contention for the brackets the qualifying system was pretty complex to count which resulted in Chris Bidwell and Sarah Sparkle hunched over qual sheets and spreadsheets for quite a long time tallying up everything but eventually the results were in if there was any sure sign of how much the field had improved paky who had comfortably naved the top qualifying spot in 2021 the previous year was this year down at the seventh seed and infl one of the newer players who made the semis in 2021 was this year the new number one I got one seed which I don't put too much stock in there are lots of players here that I do not want to run into as early as like round two who do I expect to win py I think P's going to take it again Leviticus from Canada was The Unlucky person who would have to face py first round at the 26th seed right below him Barrett had played in a rough pool and was a bit lower than expected at 27 seed my groups were you know not easy so I did okay but I'm going to be a low seat whoever gets me in the first round is not going to be happy that they got me in the first round Barrett's opponent would in fact be dim wet coming in at the sixth seed one player's name I had constantly heard as potentially the biggest Challenger to py this year was Swang at the eighth seed who had won a regional tournament in Phoenix earlier that year I think Swang this is his first time and he's super strong I know he's really good he's an excellent speedrunner there he is right there there's the guy right there have you ever gotten to play Swang well we played at the Regional Tournament 2 or 3 months ago in pH Phoenix and boy he's very good so the Phoenix uh Regional qualifiers are first live tournament prior to that I didn't know that any of the live things actually existed uh I took it surprisingly there were a lot of Titans out let's just say I was very thankful to play my game and very happy to have been there I did my best rounding out the other players I had interviewed rodzilla would be in the bracket at 13 seed the lead organizer Chris Bidwell would be in at the 15 seed and finally the Israeli competitor nudnick was down at the 28th seed having gone 5- two in his qualifier how did your uh qualifying pools go today o I made one bad flip and then lost by one in one and I think I just made it today was the first time I lost a competitive game of Dr Mario since the 1990s so you're like the best in Israel guaranteed I'm the I'm the number one like east of the Greenwich line the Greenwich Meridian maybe one or two players in China I can imagine maybe in Korea I don't know they got some good Gamers there honestly this is going to be a whole lot of fun and I can't wait to get started Chris Bidwell gathered all 32 players on stage to get a commemorative patch for the events with that folks uh we're going to get started here on our bracket matches really quick take a look at this bracket we've got some great great matches coming your way here 3 2 [Applause] 1 and immediately the players were off all of these matches would now be best of five so the first to three victories would advance to the next round Swang coasted to a sweep in his first round match as expected the tetris World championship's co-founder Vince who is also a Dr Mario player got swept by Dave Smith Barrett and dim went went all the way to the corner to find a place for their match where Barrett would have enough room for his tabl tapping setup and dimwit managed to pull out a victory nudnick had managed to pull off a huge upset win in seeding versus MWI to advance showing perhaps that despite his lower qualifier he was indeed a forced to be reckoned with and Mario lat you will get your maybe I'm warmed up now you got to fight how you train right so maybe I should be drinking and shockingly pachy was actually struggling in his first draw match versus Leviticus in the first game Leviticus threw down some quick combos leaving py stuck in a bunch of pill garbage at the top and unable to work on clearing the viruses and Dr Mario does have a bit of a built-in time limit the longer the game goes the faster the pills drop eventually the speed got too fast and py Mis flipped py tops out an eventuality there as it is one to nothing in favor of Leviticus the 26c hcky managed to even up the set with a dominant second game clearing out all his viruses before Leviticus had even gotten halfway through his but the third game got off to a disastrous start for pachy as Leviticus dropped a terrible piece of garbage on a combo py was setting up on the left and then shortly afterwards pachy Mis dropped on the right boxing him completely into only playing in the very center of the board he survived as long as he could but with a razor thin margin for error eventually another Mis flip dead him in py going to top out and he is facing a round one elimination early on Hy's luck only got worse in game four Leviticus combos improbably kept dropping garbage in the same column in the center of the stack until it was all the way at the Top If Leviticus sent one more combo over and the garbage landed there again py would be eliminated from the tournament py had to move lightning quick to make sure no pills snagged on the stack and another combo Leviticus sent over just miss landing on the column of death eventually py managed to get a half blue pill and pull off a miraculous Escape phenomenal recovery by py I'm at a loss of words we don't see recoveries like that too often but the game was far from over it was now a race to see who could finish their board first Leviticus stayed within pace of pachy until nearly the very end where pachy pulled away in the game to tie the setup two to2 we are going to a decider in game five the tables finally turned in P's favor Leviticus had a crucial M drop near the top and a perfectly timed moment of garbage from py meant that Leviticus had no easy way of cleaning it up that could be it and it is py manages to take game five but what a match let's give it up for both of these players everybody wow and with that uh that closes out our H 32 if uh Leviticus could have pulled out the win against py that would have been epic that was an exciting one to watch it was really a horse race either player could have won that and Leviticus could have blown the bracket wide open Tower I don't know how one final first round match of note where another upset actually did happen was the lower seated Betty B versus the top seed Savage octagon one of the best speedr runners in the scene one more yellow will do it and there it goes there it goes and she WIS it Savage is almost happier the Betty is and we have a huge upset Betty B just eliminates Savage octagon Betty B definitely looked like a player to watch heading into the next round but she got the most difficult draw possible with having to face py py would end up sweeping the set to advance to the next round elsewhere in the top 16 the tournament organizer Bidwell was facing off as an underdog in a match against former finalist iar hey that's my move I'm going to sue after losing a game he searched for a way to regain his composure on damn [Music] it what did I do eventually iar would take the sack Swang faced a difficult top 16 matchup in DM hero who had actually beaten py in the finals of the 2019 Dr Mario Portland Side Event Swang fought his way to being up 2 to one and then managed to jump on aggression early in game five to kodm hero with a perfectly located piece of garbage and finally nudnick had fought all the way to a deciding game with Dave Smith he started off well setting up a large horizontal combo known in the Dr Mario Community as a fat log but eventually just got stuck digging up at the top and slowly the speed and the heights became too much to handle a and that early top out next side there you saw him throw his hands up there like what can you do Dave Smith says just too good now it was time for the top eight and it was all Heavy Hitters at this point they all took the stage to receive a tiny Prize Dr Mario record with the official soundtrack for the tournament on it Chris Bidwell letting me know that we have Huff from the tetris Community here in attendance so shout out to our friends in the tetris community we love you guys dearly 3 2 1 infl had his toughest test yet with Swan but showed why he was the number one seed after Swang took a close game one infl carried a narrow virus lead into the end game of game number two and got down to his final virus but it was trapped behind a massive wall of garbage instead of getting to it vertically he was going to have to try horizontally he skillfully set up several Combos and burns to move the stack down and then SW swung inadvertently sent a piece of helpful garbage to complete the clear wow swung handing the wind in Fox and uh I I I knew it all along folks wink wink but then it was Swan's turn to shine he narrowly took game three and in a deciding game four he built up a massive virus lead and influx got stuck waiting for a red pill half that never came inl's waiting for a red the Red's not coming and he tops out no and that means swamp is going to the semifinals and because it was so good last year we're going to do it again iar in pachy coming up here on drmc in a sign of how stiff the competition had become the 2021 finals matchup was now the 2022 top Aid right away iar came in strong with a dominant endgame in game number one raining down combos that caused a garbage pile in the center of P's board to rise to the sky and force a top out iar threatening a topout and it is going to happen wow but py fought back putting iar in nearly unsurvivable garbage hole at the beginning of game two iar managed to last quite a long time but eventually Mis flipped a clear at the top to seal the bottle entrance and Packy answering immediately oh that was scary we are tied at one a piece with the set all tied up game three was a complete nailbiter with both players down to just two viruses left these two are now two to2 and Toe to Toe as oh wow it is just one red and it looks like py making the decision here he just needs one red what's he going to do he's going to get it what an amazing comeback by py he was down by about 12 viruses at one point Savage in game four iar had a crucial Miss flip on a high clear to end the game and the set iar is going to get topped out py is going to the semifinals what a match folks as py walked off stage he breathed a sigh of relief rodzilla and and dimwit would also advance to create a stacked semifinals rodzilla got off to a great start with a game one victory that went the distance but in game two like so many other games in the tournament he got stuck treading water at the top of the screen and was eventually overwhelmed with the set even up Swang seized the momentum pacing ahead of rodzilla in game three and a perfectly placed piece of garbage on top of the beginning of a high combo setup from rodzilla eventually led to a topout game four rodzilla got stuck with a garbage on the left that was never able to fully resolve and then in a color dependent board got an unhelpful blue yellow pill that got Mis dropped and swong would complete his dominant run to the finals and SW moving to step C paky versus dimwit on the other hand was another story in game one a few ill-timed misplacements and garbage piles massively slowed py down he was able to dig out but not soon enough to prevent a comfortable board completion by dimwit in game two py and dimwit were neck and neck until dimwit pulled off a devastating combo of four to send over four pieces of unhelpful garbage that wrecked havoc on P's board dimwit easily pulled away in the end game and once again pachy found himself in a huge hole Tim Wht is now going to put py behind two to nothing Chucky darn J Chucky darn indeed in game three pachy buckled down and played with determination slowly overwhelming diw with combos in the mid game and eventually coasting to the finish line to get on the board and that is a clear for Packy py staying alive and it was the same story in game four with his back still against the wall he played near flawlessly keeping his board clean and staying ahead of pace of Dimo with the combos and completed his board to even up the set and Packy forcing a decider I would have put good money that this would happen I don't think anyone would have bet against me that they would go to Five I got 20 sh on G 20 shekel on di so what's the exchange rate there5 shekel darn uh darn indeed and as fate would have it game five would be an early game battle di got off to a Furious start building a 10 virus lead and dropped another combo of four that should have been devastating but in a sudden reversal of Fortune two of the garbage pieces on Packy's board dropped onto stacks of three of the same color sending an automatic combo right back to diw this allowed py to see SE the momentum and fire off a few combos that stun locked dimwit until his board was nearly at the top he might put diw away here in this fifth game another combo he oh my goodness Packy with almost a near one hit KO on di what a finish we have seen py come back down big twice this weekend oh my goodness we're going to take a quick break here uh never give up the following contest five for the Dr Mario Championship introducing first the defending thec [Applause] champion and his opponent in 3 2 1 Swang was firing on all cylinders in game one escaping a bad situation with a masterful crisscross combo to Barry py up at the top Packy topped out shortly afterwards and swong had drawn first blood swong is going to pick up a one to nothing Advantage but if we've learned anything so far in the Saturday Savage that doesn't mean a thing in game two py grabbed a solid lead and had Swang fighting in the rafters but Swang just refused to die swung up so high managing to drop it down just a little bit and getting a combo nice what a comeback by SW and then he had to do it again oh my goodness eventually py was just about done with his board but Swang continued to keep pushing against hopeless odds Swang just still somehow whittling it out here but it might not be enough oh he gets another clear and a horizontal and a vertical oh my goodness SW but finally a top out but oh my goodness have you ever seen just reflexes like that up top Savage Oh My Gosh maybe if he rolled maybe if he rolled yes yes as stated mid Well's got jokes py built on his momentum in game three fighting hard all the way to a massive win to go up two to one in the set now paky had swung on the ropes and in the middle of game four he was on the verge of sealing it up Swang was completely cut off on the right and on the verge of death again but threw down a fat log to get it open and then miraculously pulled off an enormous cascading combo and now he is going to drop down that look at this combo nice oh my goodness I don't think even Swang knew how much was going to fall on that both players raced towards the Finish Line in a near Dead Heat but Swang pulled away at the end only to have a very tricky final virus the way to expose and clear it would be to First create a horizontal blue clear that would cause the red up top to fall and set up a vertical red clear but right as SW had the blue clear set up py blocked it with garbage he eventually managed to clear out the other side and had the winning pill in the next box here comes that blue can SW in and we are going to oh my goodness in the winter takes all game five neither py nor Swang succumbs to an early topout they both drilled their boards down trading combos back and forth but as the speed increased py slowly fell behind eventually The increased speed caused a pivotal M drop on the left but py was never one to give up Swang was nearing the end but py still kept coming up with combos in an airtight space is swong just going to try to go for it is py going to run out of room a nice horizontal clear there is he going to get that vertical oh he got the vertical he got two verticals oh my goodness it may not be enough though Swan's just got to drop that he needs one more blue just needs one more blue can your new Champion SW oh what a match congratulations from the standing ovation these two are getting I think we are ready for a new champ Swang definitely was prepared to carry the torch as Dr Mario Champion y'all are the best this community it's just it's an honor to be here you know have Pia over here honestly the pioneer of divers scene you have everybody here just is they have a place in my heart and I wouldn't be here if they work for you guys so much support and much love for all of you all so thank even though py didn't bring home the title he would still end up getting something at the end of the weekend at the Afterparty which took place at a local restaurant perogi Mountain Head organizer Chris viwell had a surprise announcement this is our fifth anniversary and JB had the idea that we start up a Hall of Fame the Hall of Fame would feature plaques hung up at the local retro gaming store Bidwell worked at the first two inductees would be Heather AKA serious producer who had won the 2019 championship and py who had actually first be became friends with Bidwell when they competed together in the 2015 Nintendo World Championships this goes to Mr py here I I don't I don't know what to say cuz I I could win all the trophies in the world but it doesn't mean anything without you guys and I feel overwhelmed right now cuz you guys are just so amazing and supportive and what all of you have done for me like I I really am honored that you guys think so highly of me to do something like this you you represent as well we wouldn't be here if you're an I better go I'm only but especially this guy right here who's really been the glue guy since the 2015 NWC and it's just always awesome to be here and I I really can't wait to do it again py wouldn't have to wait long in 2023 several new Regional Dr Mario tournaments popped up all around the United States and the official Discord server continued to flourish with monthly speedrunning tournaments and versus matches through the virus Busters League everything's just gotten bigger and better we have a silver bracket for newer players so we can accommodate more people in the speedrun tournaments we have like weekly checkups just like hanging out playing games lots of active players lots of people looking to include you the availability of the switch online is a huge game changer because you used to have to have someone physically nearby you to practice against live and now you can play against people all over the world anytime you want and if you'd like to tune in to see who the next Champion will be well the wait's basically over the 2023 three Dr Mario championships start tomorrow and are being broadcast live on the drmc and drmc 2 twitch Pages una has been uploading podcast episodes all week on her Channel Tetris gal talk interviewing top women players and crew members about what to expect this year we'll both be in attendance again and you can check out the description to find links to the official Dr Mario Discord server and more info about the event thanks so much to all the patrons from patreon who continue to make these kinds of trips and videos possible on this channel thanks for watching and see in [Music] Columbus

Channel: aGameScout

Views: 242,129

Keywords: agamescout, nes tetris, classic tetris, agamescout tetris, classic tetris world championship, ctwc

Id: aQpQPAO-CwA

Length: 28min 34sec (1714 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 10 2023