#I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT MCC9

[riacte]

im soooooo emotion over dearly beloathed. it is so good as an epistolary work, and i genuinely feel like that format/style/genre worked really well for the story, it let us know the characters through how they portray themselves to others and who they are to different people/groups. i also loved how my understanding of Freth grew naturally over the course of reading it, I didn't notice until i was like "oh yeah that's just the culture there. ofc they'd do something like that" because it was so fluid and seamless.

every twist was well set up and just. it was crack-y and comedic, but those only made the emotional parts hit harder????

anyways. favorite random character/not main one. go! (i choose herohqphobic) also was there any like. reference or small thing (maybe characters who had different usernames across platforms or something?) that you loved and nobody seemed to notice?

i want to know. this is my new blorbo. entire fucking thing

Hii thank you for reading 🥺🙏

I could genuinely go on and on about Freth as a city because it's based after where I was raised, Hong Kong. The superhero genre is most commonly associated with American comics. It feels like their cities are either in USA or USA-inspired. To me there's subconsciously an inherent USA vibe even if that's not the actual case. I felt the pull myself before going, hold on, I live in a city, it's a pretty significant city, and theoretically superheroes can exist anywhere.

I'm of course biased on this but Hong Kong is an interesting city with interesting implications if you use it for a setting. And especially because it naturally seems so "cyberpunk". Densely populated, gives off the impression of being highly urbanised, but 70% of the land is not developed. Has a natural harbour, next to the sea, at the mouth of a river, but is hilly and full of scenic spots. Well developed public transport system (if the rail goes down for half an hour it gets on the news). The city with the most skyscrapers in the world, has one of the world's highest life expectancy (I'm still confused by this lol), ranked 4 in HDI for 2022 (also confused by this 💀 like we're above Denmark and Sweden?).

[Night view of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong Tourism Board]

I wanted Freth to be busy, hectic, fast-paced, rich, technologically savvy. A glittering city with heroes for celebrities. Freth is an important port which is why the heroes fight so hard to protect its infrastructure for the ~economy~. But then the government decides the heroes are getting too powerful and culls the herd.

Anyways. I love all the random characters. Flora balefires_thighs had quite the arc pivoting from Tach anti to Tach fan (and is still bitchless, rip), but I have to go with arcussy because I love that name 😭😭😭 like Arucs is their babygirl meow meow grown adult son who cheated and got "cancelled" etc but it's fine ❤️ they still love his annoying ass ❤️

Small thing that didn't get picked up on! The location names! I based a lot of those on existing places in Hong Kong— Triple Shark Territory (Tsim Sha Tsui), Cannon Hill (Fortress Hill), Crossway (Causeway Bay), etc. Lots of these names have animals in them, like Dolphin Bay and Starlingfield, and these are based after real species that can be found in HK— except for one. Ravenwood. I don't think ravens exist in Hong Kong, making it fitting for an underground human experimentation lab. I don't expect anyone to know this though, it's more of a fun niche trivia for myself.

I don't know if this is obvious or not, but Cora has a crush on Archie. And Reina likes Cora while Lyra and Ben are doing their whole situationship thing. The consequences of crushing on your best friend.

Final note: the four main characters spell out Blue Bats. Blue for civilian names (Ben, Lyra, Uma, Ethan (he chooses this eventually)), and Bats for (future) hero names (Balefire, A??, Tachythanatous, S??). The year is also 827 because Aug 27 is when the MCC9 teams dropped lol. 🤡

Thank you so much for reading, glad you enjoyed it! <3 <3

[massivewaffle]

Every MCC “support” player should watch Rendog’s Survival Games perspective from MCC9. It’s genuinely the PERFECT way to play support for a team. He’s watching behind the group, letting the three stronger players go ahead so he can go through all the graves they leave behind, rifling through any chests they run past and picking up arrows, food and armor. 

He feeds that forward to them, grabbing potions and giving it out to the group while he plays clean up the whole time and ends up also getting two kills. MCC Blue Bats are my favorite ever team and of course they never would have made that impact without Fruits kills, but Fruit wouldn’t have also gotten those kills without Ren feeding him speed pots and arrows the entire game. 

[smallishbabes]

I loved watching Hbomb react to Technoblade’s MCCs b/c he echoes Techno’s thoughts sometimes. It’s as if he’s talking to him as it’s happening. Like he’d usually agree with what he’s doing and it’s interesting how good Techno’s plays were even in retrospect. Plus it shows how great minds think alike in how they play to their advantage pretty similarly.

Here’s the vids I’m referencing: mcc 9, mcc 10, mcc 11 in case you’re confused on what I mean. The whole thing is great by the way, I’m just pointing out H’s similar reactions to Techno’s reactions.

I’m gonna put it under Keep Reading b/c it’s a lot

In his MCC9 reaction in Sky Battle:

Not long after Techno leaves the center island,

Techno: “How is he [a player] in full iron armor?” “HEH?”

Hbomb: “He just looked at the iron blocks.”

T: “Oh there’s iron blocks here!”

After Techno hits four cross bolts in a row and knocks one players down:

T: “Wait I have zero kills? Scam”

H: “He did get scammed”

After winning round 2 of sky battle, Techno goes on a whole spiel about how he has no idea what’s going on and then said he had incredible game sense and knew that he needed to kill the last few people in round 2 (/j and /s) and H was like, “he’s being sarcastic but he still has better game sense than most people it’s kinda insane”. Then after his team leaves the island they spawned in...

T: “We left the iron blocks”

H: “Look at this in game sense!”

T: “Or was it more game sense?”

H: “It was more game sense!”

In his MCC10 reaction in Sky Battle:

Near the end round 1, after killing GNF, Techno swam under a block and he threw a potion down at the same time as he’s taking border damage, him and H go “Oh!”

In round 3 of sky battle, Techno spots Wilbur and Tubbo on the lowest level of the center island...

T: “I kinda wanna attack Wilbur and Tubbo.”

Niki: “But the Dream team is on their way.” (Phil is talking about their locations, Eret is saying they both can take them but Niki saying this was more important)

H: “No no no no no”

T: “Well let’s them fight then”

H: “Yeah yeah yeah yeah”

In his MCC 11 reaction:

In round 1 of sky battle, they both laughed when Fruitberries fell out of the world.

After 3/4 of Cyan dies and TapL is the only one left, steadily bridging to the other teams in the center...

KaraCorvus: “Oh you gotta-gotta bridge down Harvey you’re getting way too high. It’s [The vertical border] gonna come faster than you think.”

T: “Nah he’s fine. Some height is good. If you’re the element of surprise.”

H: “Yeah I think he’s in the best spot right now actually”

In round 2, after looting the potions, Techno fires an arrow at Red Ravens upon noticing them...

T: “I’m just gonna splash harming these guys. Alright they’re owned gettem.”

H: “That actually summarizes it. Yeah they’re owned.”

In ace race, Techno breaks his jump pad rhythm (the one that’s before the hoops near the finish line) and didn’t land directly on it.

H: “I didn’t think he was gonna make that”

T: “I almost missed that what.”

H: “Yeah I didn’t think he was gonna make that.”

At the part where you have fly up and make a drop through the blocks (the yellow branches in the big hole), which leads to the trident tunnel, Techno accidentally lands on one of the blocks. And H and him go, “Oop-” at the same time.

After going through the trident tunnel and flying far into the next area of speed boosts...

T: “Oh there we go. That’s what you like to see chat. That’s what you like to see.”

H: “I didn’t like seeing that. I hated it.”

As Techno’s jumping on the jump pads before the hoops near the finish line...

T: “This must be how PeteZahHutt feels.”

H: “True.”

But yeah that’s all I wanted to write. It makes me wish they could’ve teamed together b/c they would’ve been a great team given how they both think strategically but oh well. Hope you enjoyed! :D

[a-wild-rosette]

Hbomb - The Heart of MCC

Written for @hbomb94week Day 6: Heart 

The H in H-tier stands for Heart. That’s it, that’s the secret to being in the H-tier. It’s not about H’s Minecraft skills (though it certainly helps a lot), it’s about how utterly positive and encouraging H is - so much that he uplifted his teammates, both in performance and spirit. 

The thing about MCC is that it’s all about teamwork. Yes, even the more individual games like TGTTOS or Ace Race. You help you teammates do well, and in turn your teammates help you. You go into MCC as a team, and you win as a team. If one teammate is feeling down, it’s very easy for the whole team to be affected by that mood. 

This is why Hbomb is so powerful in MCC. His positive attitude and energy is absolutely contagious, and it’s enough to cheer up *anyone* who teams with him. Throughout any MCC tournament (and any teamwork tournament, to be thorough), H always makes sure to uplift his teammates. Any talk of self-deprecation is immediately shut down, because no no, not on H’s watch. He is just so unabashedly confident in his teammates that it’s extremely hard to not do well AND HAVE FUN when you’re in his team. (His voice and laugh are also one of the best serotonin booster I have ever heard - no, I’m not biases, shut up /lh).  

Just look at him in MCC15, where his sole appearance - where just him joining the call and speaking up for *one* sentence - was enough to make Orange Ocelots’ mood significantly improve. From them speaking with very low energy, soft tones and quite a slow tempo, H coming in make them immediately perk up with a chorus of welcome to him. And so they made a comeback. They gained back their spirit, and ended up in 8th place. Not last, pog :D This isn’t even the first time it happens. Look at Orange Ocelots MCC12. Or Blue Bats MCC9. H’s team always exceeded expectation, and the fact that they are *his* teams is no coincidence. 

[miaclemeverett]

Ok I am putting the MCC discourse under a read more LMAO very interesting discussion below though

Yeah!! I've seen people draw a lot of comparisons between BSABM and SG, and BSABM and Parkour Warrior. With SG, I genuinely have always disliked that game personally as a Wilbur viewer because his teams never do well and I think it has had too much power in shifting the team/individual standings relative to other games to the extent that it makes the other teams feel useless. But I think a game like that is necessary for teams to feel that they have a chance to win rather than feeling hopeless so I don't really mind? I think the changes this MCC actually helped a bit so the point difference between the teams wasn't as huge, like if you think about MCC9 Blue (? HBomb's team) they won by a HUGE margin because of SG. I'd like to see proposed solutions to fixing BSABM tbh

1) Bring back Keemstar putting fucking hits on strong players and saying that if players can kill that person they'll get money 😭

2, 3, 4) Dream's fan base is literally one of the worst parts of being in (or at least adjacent to) this fandom lmao. Genuinely part of the reason I have stepped away from DSMP lore. He did do a serious stream I guess but that during the VERY early DSMP days (like very shortly after Schlatt was banned just for context) when the fan base was very small compared to now. It's not as simple as a serious stream though to fix it I think it's just a matter of maturity honestly...

It's horrible, poor Quig is only 18 and the Noxcrew and Scott are amazing for making quite literally the best Minecraft tournament ever. The Grid Runners stuff was just quite confusing and non-intuitive as a viewer but yeah like if they want to change the scoring again next time I won't be mad or anything, and the scoring change wouldn't have mattered for Yellow making it into Dodgebolt anyway as a Wilbur viewer lol

Yeah I think people had a lot of the same complaints with Parkour Warrior too, but with Parkour Warrior it was compounded by the fact that some players just are MUCH better at parkour than others and could grind out hours of practice. Whereas Build Mart is very much a team strategy game that you can't practice because building is actually only a small portion of it. I'd love to see a Grid Runners / Build Mart hybrid where the structure changes a bit like maybe there are parkour puzzles needed to get materials to finish builds and it is generated differently each MCC

1) thanks!!:D i really enjoy MCC!!!

2) yeah follow up would be great!! i dont really play minecraft fhdjfkdsf

1) Yeah I've always been annoyed by the whole 'mcytblr is better than mcyttwt' sentiment. Part of it is definitely true but then there's times where discourse gets way too heated and also people can really tend to sweep important issues under the guise of "twitter drama"

2) I miss Techno too :(((

1) DSMP discourse just really dragged me down that's why I've left/distanced myself. MCC discourse is fun honestly for me lol

2) THE CARTS WERE THE FUCKING WORST!!! but the changes in s2 really made it a lot better for me, i actively enjoy build mart because it's not stressful for me lol i can just relax versus other games that are much more stress inducing. And I don't think it's gonna go because Dream dislikes it tbh and he has a right to dislike games it's just hard with his batshit fan base which is essentially out of his control unfortunately

[acerace]

tumblr user buildmartenjoyer did you hear dream's latest build mart rant made it onto reddit

I did hear! I read the transcript earlier as well to see more than just the random screenshots people like to vague lmao

Obviously I, Tumblr user buildmartenjoyer, quite like Build Mart! I think it gets a somewhat underserved amount of hate that has little to do with the game itself. That does not mean I think it is a perfect game. If multiple people have multiple complaints over multiple events about a specific game, then yeah there's probably an issue somewhere! Doesn't mean the game is bad and irredeemable and awful and needs to be removed or even retired.

Also whoops I rambled! Below the cut for general musings on Dream's recent Build Mart comments. This is not cc!Dream critical or neg, btw, most of my rambling is me considering his points from the pov of someone who really loves Build Mart and enjoys watching it. 

Man I wanna pick the green man's brain on MCC so bad like!! I don't think Build Mart is a bad game- in fact I think it's like A Tier- and I disagree with a lot of what Dream says about mcc in general, but he also makes good points! Like he's right- if you play 100 games of Build Mart of, let's say, orange 17 and cyan 17, orange is going to win 100/100 games, whereas with games like Sky Battle or Parkour Tag, for example, there's going to be more of a split, because the games have "pop off" potential as he says. See Grian being #1 individual in Sky Battle in 17 with one (1) tnt and good survival points. Personally, I think this is a fair point because part of the fun and charm of MCC is that it isn't set in stone and you don't know who the winner's going to be half way through the event like with twitch rivals or mcm.

In that specific post, Dream's main issue he describes is him struggling with memory and knowing what blocks he needs. Fair enough! The game stresses communication and memorization more than any other skill, and struggling with those is going to hurt your performance and how much fun you have. But imo there are in game strategies you could implement to help. And obviously I say all this as someone who has never Played BM/MCC in general so grain of salt lol.

If he's good at placing blocks but not collecting them, then have the team split into pairs- two builders taking a build each and two runners working with a builder each. Dream stays at the build and tells his runner what blocks to bring him, then Dream can build while the runner goes to work on the 3rd build, for example. Then maybe rush gold builds? Like if the issue is physically getting the blocks, then work with your team to get someone else to do it. For the first set of builds when no one has blocks, have one builder get wood and the other stone, while the runners work on the specific blocks for their pair's build, maybe, so no one's sitting around waiting. Like I feel like there's options, you know?

I also think that most of the problems with Build Mart comes from the fact it's the only "building" game. If you like pvp you can vote for Sky Battle or Battle Box or Survival Games, all of which are pvp games that test differing skills and have distinct strategies- you don't need to bridge in SG, for example. But if you want a building game you have BM and only BM, and it's barely a building game at that. Adding another option- I like the battle box inspired idea- would lessen BM's dominance, because non pvp teams almost always want BM and want it late, giving another option will shake up the meta here and expose the underlying issues with BM.

Also I feel like the thing people get most pressed about is when Dream brings up Grian? I think it's usually a fine comparison because they have very different preferred games and play styles while having similar amounts of experience, and Grian is the largest of the non dsmp streamers. Grian is one of the best Build Mart players and hates Parkour Warrior and says he won't play if it comes back; Dream was one of the best Parkour Warrior players and hates Build Mart and says he won't play if he knows it's going to be played. The difference comes up in specific contexts- when Dream said Grian could hate pkw but he can't say anything about bm because people get mad at him, for example, that was meh to me because yeah you have a point about how people attack you over everything but did you have to pick the one person who had an actual panic attack playing the game? In this specific post, Grian has indeed killed Dream in pvp before, but it's never been 1v1 when both are prepared for it and at full health lol. The closest you get to that is the original Dreamslayer moment in MCC9, but even then Dream was healing from a previous fight and Grian got the drop on him. Dream will kill Grian 99/100 times.

Dream was being pretty sarcastic with his comments on not needing to communicate in BM, and yeah Pete was being quiet but that's because he was listening to what Grian was saying lol. With Grian's BM strategy, the CEO is loud and in charge and constantly talking, the builders only speak up when they need something or have a gold build, and the floater is constantly talking to the CEO. Dream saying Pete wasn't talking much is true, because he was one of the silent roles! But he was still communicating- if he hadn't told Grian about the gold build or asked what was behind the duck build or told Grian to get more glass then they wouldn't have done as well. I also think it's interesting he chose Pete's pov to watch, because it seems to me he's looking at BM strategies and trying to find some that'll work for him? He can't be CEO or floater because those both rely on knowing what blocks everyone needs, so him watching one of the builders makes sense to me.

Most of my issues with how people (Dream included) talk about BM is when they're flat out wrong or subjective lol. Build Mart is not a slow game, you're just watching someone who doesn't know what they're doing. It's not a boring game, you're just watching a team that gives up before the game even starts. I feel the same intense excitement and stress about BM as I do about SG and SoT! Watching Grian play is intense and exciting and edge of the seat! People have a lot of misconceptions about BM, which I rambled about in the tags of this post here, which I still stand by. The tl;dr of my thoughts on what makes a good Build Mart player is that Grian is not good at BM because he's a good builder- he makes mistakes constantly in BM- but rather because he can communicate with his team so effectively it doesn't matter if he spends 30 seconds looking for a crafting recipe or collecting the wrong block.

So there are my thoughts anon! I’m not sure what you were expecting, because I like both Grian and Dream and think they both make very good points about MCC and game design in general (considering they both have experience running mc servers lol) and they tend to have very different opinions and experiences, so comparing them is interesting to me! I don’t necessarily agree with Dream’s points about MCC in general (the only people whose views I tend to wholesale support are H and Pete lmao) but Dream is allowed to dislike a game based on his personal opinions and feelings and he is allowed to rant about it in his own merch discord. Doesn’t mean he’s wrong or right, or that you have to agree or disagree. 

[literaphobe]

what past team of dream's (where everyone is still active) would be considered insanely op now? dteam + sylvee from mcc 7, dreamnap + q + michael (i actually don't know if this one counts as still active but) from mcc 15, are there any else? one of the ones with tommy maybe?

dream’s top 5 strongest teams if they happened again today:

- mcc6 with george mefs eret

- mcc7 with george sapnap sylvee

- mcc9 with fundy tubbo sylvee

- mcc11 with george sapnap karl

- mcc22 with george awesamdude puffy

my reasoning for this is um. ok let me talk about dream’s mcc15 team first. the reason why that team is strong is bc of dream and sapnap. however michael and quackity tend to place bottom 30 and so it pales in comparison to other team combinations w sapnap such as mcc7 and mcc11. also, i eliminated teams such as dream’s mcc13 team and his mcc19 team. reason being that i don’t think dream’s mcc13 team would be that strong today and back then they were predicted high but i just don’t think they play enough to dream’s strengths? also for mcc19 i feel that that team would either be just as strong or arguably weaker bc charlie hasn’t played since then and ranboo and tubbo’s placements have been dropping if anything

for the teams i picked the most common theme is that either everyone there is strong now or there are 2/3 of the team members that are very strong or have improved, for the most part its george sapnap sylvee and for the one team combo he’s in sam for doing a lot better. ifl id exclude mcc22 if i didn’t say top 5 bc ifl there’s insufficient data to suggest sam will consistently remain top 10/15 or even top 25 in upcoming events. teams like dream w tommy for instance or some of the teams dream won on i didn’t put in bc usually in s2 scott has balanced strong duos w statistically weaker players or teammates that don’t do as well aside from the event they popped off w dream with. that being said players like bad who do better than usual w dream do have basis for argument. i could see myself saying mcc16 pink > mcc22 red and changing the ranks but idk how accurate that would be. im honestly curious to see which team would beat the other? but yeah

[businessbois]

Same anon who mentioned the Dream/Tommy "Tommy!!!"/"Dream!!!" interaction, sorry for coming back so many times, jsfalkj, but I just. Love their dynamic so much. I would genuinely love to see them on an MCC team, because. Their dynamic is just so funny. It probably won't happen, tho, because Tommy's in it for the laughter and bits and entertainment while Dream's in more competitively.

hi!! you are always welcome in my inbox to talk about tommy and dream, together or separately, and you are especially welcome in my inbox to talk about mcc because I LOVE MCC.

they would be genuinely brilliant as an mcc team. obviously, they’re both funny together and they’ve got the perfect mesh of besties but sometimes also brotherly vibes, but also i think they would go pretty damn well together in a competitive tournament (i’ll talk a bit about their varying competitiveness down below). obviously both have taken a sort of leadership roles in their respective teams, but as seen in mcc8 with the techno-dream team, dream doesn’t have as much of a probably working alongside other people like that (also his team with captain sparklez). he would still probably take a more leadery role as tommy doesn’t have much of a problem giving this up but tommy would also pitch in occasionally (mcc8 and 9 where i think tommy pretty much strategized for some games but listened to phil for most of it. [been awhile since i’ve watched mcc9 though to be fair] and mcc13 where he let callum take the lead for battle box) i haven’t watched all of all of dream’s mcc’s like i have tommys but i do remember the sylvee team and the iron door stuff so i know sometimes he gets a little heated, bless his soul, but tommy’s actually a really damn good person to have on the team then. here’s him and timedeo in a minecraft saturdays where deo’s blaming himself for messing up their score and tommy’s reassuring him. i feel like this energy would be great for a team with dream. tommy in general can probably lighten the vibes and hopefully dream will be able to talk tommy out of his more impulsive plays and boost in games where tommy often struggles such as parkour warrior and battle box and rocket spleef. dream being there to get a lot of points also means tommy gets to make more jokes and just relax more in general. 

yeah, tommy generally is in it more for the shits and giggles but it’s not like he can’t be motivated to play competitively (see mcc4 and mcc11), the only thing he does fairly differently when throwing vs not throwing is taking less risky plays (mcc8 where he tried to 1v3 techno and dream, wouldn’t have done that if he was being actually serious) or focusing more (hitw during mcc12 and the entirety of mcc10, started cracking jokes because either he thought they weren’t being entertaining enough or the content would overweigh actually trying). honestly, a tommy and dream team could definitely get away with tommy messing around games like hole in the wall or parkour war, but focusing up on the ones he enjoys (skybattle, survival games, pvp ones cuz stabbyinnit) 

[mangop1e]

my Thoughts about mcc14, because this is my blog and the official year of no cringe (in that i will no longer regard my interests as cringe and enjoy them wholeheartedly and post about them if i want)

overall !! it was a really fun event, i was watching blue bats punz pov and they popped off so it was a really good watch for me, the updates to the games were sick as hell and i cannot wait to see these get more refined as we go along plus see what they have in store for bingo and sands of time

putting everything else below the cut for the sake of all the mutuals i have on here that have never interacted with a mcyt in their life! 

so. will preface this by saying i’ve watched every mcc live starting with mcc9 and am . just very very into this tournament, i’ll probably do a little analysis post next mcc because i just find it all very fun !! and tumblr is like a void i can scream into and sometimes it screams back so it’s the perfect place to let myself ramble. that being said, here’s my thoughts on this mcc from the blue bats punz pov, with vague knowledge of what happened in a few other povs

build mart: so sue me, i’m a build mart fan. the new map build is INCREDIBLE and i love the choice of elytras rather than the scuffed boats!! the new addition of the golden build is really fun too! not something that could necessarily be changed but build mart is definitely a killer for teams that don’t have good comms and coordination, and having it as a first game can really shake some teams and cause a drop in morale that could affect the rest of their performance in the event. overall, though? im loyal to build mart and i think it only got better with the updates

tgttosawaf: i love how pedantically long that acronym is <3 i think some of the changes really threw players into the deep end, that one round where they had to break the wool in the targets to get through especially, and terra swoop force Definitely threw some players that are otherwise cracked for a loop, especially if they were unfamiliar with the map, but this one was also super fun to watch!! definitely a good game for the first half of the event

sky battle: at long last, sky battle returns <3 as a shameless inniter sky battle is one of my favourite games simply because i Know tommy will always pop off, but it’s also such a fun twist on classic minigames like sky wars and a faster version of skyblockle done super well! i like the new map layout a ton as well, the little towers in the middle ring plus the structure of the innermost ring made for some really interesting plays all around. this game’s another one that can go south really fast if your team comms aren’t great, but definitely more forgiving than build battle, and a hell of a lot more adrenaline-inducing!! in terms of the updates i think this one was probably one of the best, tied with build mart.

survival games: survival games was CRAZY i do think this is one where you need to get good rng with your loot pickups as well as have good team coordination but it’s definitely a really fun pvp game!! only thing i will say is it can be a bit bland next to the rest of the crazy games in mcc but it’s definitely a classic and depending on how its played (cough red rabbits cough) can definitely turn things wayyyy around for a team!! very high stakes in a fun way

hole in the wall: god :sob: the glitch. ohhhh hbomb you and your glitchy ways. this glitch was definitely a new one compared to the usual “spam-space-bar-and-pray” glitch that our dearest tommyinnit has taken advantage of before, but i honestly can’t really blame him too much for using it? it did give aqua an advantage but it’s only slightly different from falsesymmetry using the spam-space glitch to win a few rounds of hitw in a more recent mcc (would have to double check which one, but i do remember hbomb taking note of this when he was reviewing mcc vods the day after). hole in the wall has been a glitchy bastard for as long as it’s been in mcc and it was truly hilarious to see hbomb clip through walls, so - all in all i think if the glitch could be fixed that’d be great but it was still a fun watch! also, pete zahutt is CRACKED.

ace race: whoo boy. ace race. honest opinion? i think the map is REALLY cool and has a lot of potential, but there was a lot of confusion and bugs that need to be fixed for next time - the fact that the players could reset back to a previous checkpoint, the general confusion over where to go which cld mean they need to add more directional arrows. overall i’m really really excited to see how people will perform on this map when they’re more familiar with it and some of the kinks have been worked out on the developer end. i do think scott had a Huge advantage here and it was really prominent due to the fact that this was a new map for everyone aside from him, albeit him seeing a much earlier version that wasn’t the same as the version that existed in the event, and it would definitely be wise of noxcrew and the developing team in the future to be more aware of how much involvement scott has in the gameplay side of testing. the general confusion and checkpoint resetting also did Not help anyone and i do think a few teams really lost out this event because of the issues with ace race, but this map has a ton of potential and im really excited to see what they do with it in the future.

battle box: oooo battle box !! this one didn’t really leave too big of an impression on me but the new map was definitely interesting!! the fact that the way to get to the middle was a bit unclear was ,, definitely interesting to watch :sob: but you can’t go wrong with battle box to be honest. solid team pvp game!

parkour tag: PARKOUR TAG!!! having this as the final game was so fun :] the map they had this time was complicated which definitely comes with its pros and cons: pros being that it creates potential for a lot of really interesting routes and unique usage of the area and environment, and cons being that it can feel really cluttered and overwhelming especially when its your first time playing. overall i liked the fact that it was busier but i think striking a better balance between full and barren could really elevate parkour tag from a good game to a great game

dodgebolt: blue bats </3 they had a fantastic run in the games and had an awful dodgebolt and sometimes that’s how it shakes down !! i always always love the unpredictability to the final winner that dodgebolt gives - the first place team pointswise isnt guaranteed a win, reverse sweeps have happened multiple times in the past, and dodgebolt is always nail-bitingly exciting to watch!

misc thoughts: i do think aqua had an advantage but from the sounds of things scott and noxcrew will be taking genuine criticism into account for next time and have learned from this event, i DONT think that removing parkour warrior was unfair because it wasn’t an event that noxcrew could ever successfully balance by making it hard enough to not have the same guy dominating every event and creating a gap, especially when played later, that no other players had HOPE of reducing and i think parkour tag was a really really fun alternative to it especially since runner and hunter play to diff strengths of the team members and it has a bit more strategy to it plus team comms than parkour warrior did, and i think build mart is a good game and i WILL die on this hill

if you read this far, fantastic, you madlad, i appreciate you

[riacte]

This is like, a tiny thing, but I like you can tell False and Ren have become a lot more confident in All Stars when compared to teaming with Fruit and H in MCC9.

In MCC9, when H asked whether False would like to go left or right in Battle Box, she laughed and said she didn't know. In All Stars, H asked False to play as the hunter for one round in PkW and False just casually said "yeah, yeah, I can! It's on me."

Also in MCC9, Ren was feeling a little sad about getting 30th individual but everyone cheered him up by saying he was better than 10 other people. In All Stars, Ren also got 30th individual at one point but he was pretty happy about it because he "usually did worse" lmao.

It's nice to see things like this <3

[riacte]

Dogwarts / 3rd Life Cheat Sheet for MCC 15 Purple Pandas

Ren and Martyn were buddies in Season 1 of the 3rd Life SMP and they are an alliance known as the Renchanting duo/ Kingdom of Dogwarts. Now they’re finally teamed up, and the 3rd Life SMP members have a habit of referring to 3rd Life in MCC. The Ren-Martyn fandom also talks about Dogwarts a lot. If you have no idea what is a Dogwarts and why people love them, no fear! This post will try to explain it in simple terms.

3rd Life SMP is a SMP started by Grian. Season 1 has 14 members (roughly half are hermits, other half are friends of the hermits. You can find the full list in the description of Ren’s 3rd Life videos.) Everyone on the server has three lives— the first life symbolised by green names, second by yellow names, third by red names. If you lose all three lives, you permadie. Green names and yellow names are not allowed to be hostile unless they were attacked first, but the goal of red names is to kill everyone on the server. The three lives are also symbolised by three hearts, like this:

(Fun fact: Because of the green-yellow-red colours, the subtwt for 3rd Life is called traffictwt after traffic lights. The 3rd Life tumblr fandom is occasionally referred to as trafficblr.)

3rd Lifers record every week for three hours at the same time with proximity chat. The server has a small border to encourage interaction. They are eight sessions in total, and they’re all cut into YouTube episodes (no streams!), so it’s fairly bingeable.

So what’s the deal with Martyn and Ren?

Ren decided to set up an enchanting shop during the first session. Martyn was wandering around and having fun scaring people with creeper noises until he came to Ren’s enchanting shop. Martyn then used Ren’s enchanting service without paying (essentially a robbery), but Ren let Martyn go on the condition Martyn would act as a walking free advertisement. Martyn agreed, and they became business partners. Martyn actually coined the name Renchanting and its motto “Don’t be a Dog, be a God”. Ren named Martyn as his “marketing manager” (which sounds a little like Martynmanager).

True to his word, Martyn went around and spread the good news of Renchanting to everyone. Martyn brought business to Renchanting, and when Ren was being threatened by customers (who harassed Ren into lower his prices/ giving out enchantments for free), Martyn acted defensive of Ren and even said Ren was being “bullied”. Ren was being taken advantage of because he was too nice. (Martyn did do some stuff not related to Ren, but since this is a Dogwarts cheat sheet I won’t be mentioning that.)

Then came GoodTimesWithScar. The main “villain” to Renchanting, if you will.

Basically, Scar was playing the role of a cartoon villain. He scammed people out of their armour and possessions, and eventually found his way to Renchanting. At that point, Martyn and Ren were loyal to each other. Scar asked for Ren’s enchanting table. In return, when Scar turned red, he would not kill Ren and Martyn. Ren appeared to be torn, but due to Martyn depending on him and the business, he refused Scar’s offer (“you can’t take the enchanting out of Renchanting!”). Scar also acted condescending to Martyn (Martyn was seen as Ren’s “minion”). So Ren and Martyn were officially on Scar’s kill list, but Ren did not regret it.

At some point, Ren got tired of people walking into his store and stepping all over him, so he built high walls around the Renchanting building. Everyone (including Renchanting themselves) broke through the walls, and this was a running gag. Ren declared himself king by wearing the crown he got from MCC9 Blue Bats.

Note: Ren was kind, and it was the cruel world that forced Ren to be defensive. Other POVs paint them as the villain but Dogwarts enthusiasts will say that is not the case AT ALL.

Time passed. Scar turned red. He and his buddy Grian set up traps at Renchanting, and one blew up Ren and a bunch of other people. Ren, now a yellow name, was furious, but could not get his revenge because yellow names were not allowed to hurt other players. So naturally, Ren decided to become a red.

Ren renamed an axe to “RED WINTER IS COMING” and gave it to Martyn to chop his head off. (There’s some dramatic roleplay here, highly recommend a watch.) Martyn painfully did, and the message “Red Winter is Coming” was shown in the chat, which told everyone that Ren meant business. To test Martyn’s loyalty, Ren told Martyn he could kill him if he wanted to. Ren, freshly respawned and without armour, punched Martyn. Martyn, as a green name, could attack Ren due to Ren attacking first. However, Martyn did not kill Ren, and dramatically declared Ren was the one who showed him life, and thus he would return the favour.

So Ren was known as the Red King (with grey skin, bloodied MCC crown, and a Scottish/pirate accent). Martyn became known as the King’s Hand, and called Ren “my lord” “my liege”. Later, Martyn acquired an outfit with a cloak and a red hand on the back of the cloak, which is now used to symbolise Martyn.

They established the Kingdom of Dogwarts (after Hogwarts and the enchanting/magic gimmick) to find more allies (notable ones include Ethoslab and Skizzleman). Allies could stick a Red Banner in their base to show loyalty, members were called Red Knights / Red Army.

A Red Banner (the design is supposed to be blood dripping down):

Without spoiling too much, Ren and Martyn remained loyal to each other till the very end. They were very dramatic (even jokingly called homoerotic by some lmao) and had many hardcore quotes, and are highly beloved. They are the most dramatic and RP intensive group on the server. So people want Dogwarts, the king and his hand, together again.

A small sample of quotes that might be referenced:

I think going red next week is in my fate. It’s in my cards. There will be blood, for this. A king cannot be king without war. (Ren)

I won’t do it! You took me in when I was a lowly traveller, goin’ across the lands, searchin’ the four corners of this world. I learned that there was nothing in this world for me. Nothing but walls, corners, edges. And you know what? You showed me life. As much as I’ve taken it from you, you gave it back to me in bucket fulls. and I just- I’m with you. This is us now. This is us. (Martyn)

If we're going to survive the Red Winter, we gotta do it together, laddies. Hand in hand. Rotten hand in hand of the living. To the end! (Ren)

It’s just the world versus us. (Martyn)

(Note: Dogwarts refers to the group of people allied with Ren and Martyn, including Etho and Skizzleman. Renchanting duo refers to Ren and Martyn ONLY)

Other references:

Joel notably screamed “THE RED KING DIES TONIGHT, FELLAS!” with a crowd of wolves following him

Dogwarts killed Grian and Scar’s llama Pizza because Scar stole a Red Banner

Jimmy and Scott were flower husbands. Jimmy thought Renchanting was going to sacrifice Scott.

Everyone else in MCC (Grian, Scott, Jimmy, Joel) were enemies with Dogwarts

The 3rd Lifers reference 3rd Life a lot despite it being over. Martyn even fought for Dogwarts in MCC14 and MCCP but failed. Haha.

The fandom commonly refers to Purple15 as King (Ren), Queen (False), Ace (Illumina), and Joker/Hand (Martyn) after playing cards.

This is it, I am tired, this is probably too long but I feel I skipped a lot of details. If anyone has anything to add or correct, feel free to do so. Also, I’m pretty certain this won’t appear in the tags, so please reblog! Thank you, and Red Winter is Coming.

(I might add a reblog detailing False’s very much fanon involvement in Dogwarts, and why everyone was so hyped for Renchanting + False.)

[riacte]

HBomb watching Grian’s world tour.

It’s like 1h 30mins long with the commentary. Here’s some highlights lol. Keep in mind most of this is paraphrased :P

*seeing Grian has 61 eps* Hermitcraft is nuts. They are so invested and talented.”

“Did they makes little railing things to send messages to each other? That’s the cutest thing ever. It’s like when you’re living on treehouses with your next door neighbour.” OK HBOMB WAIT TILL YOU SEE THE SEASON WHEN REN AND FALSE LITERALLY LIVE IN THE SAME AREA.

Grian, about the mansion: It’s lacking soul

H: WHERE??

H FREAKING OUT ABT STRESS’S BUTTERFLIES

About Grian’s chest monsters: “I’m starting to realize me and Grian have a lot in common.”

“You can give villagers dragon heads?”

He was stunned into silence by Scar’s Big Dig. For like fifteen seconds. Just gaping.

About the Big Dig: that’s more work by Scar than we put into Dream SMP

AND YEAH HE HASN’T EVEN SEEN THE SHOPPING DISTRICT???

About Mumbo’s base: “This is so beautiful”

H said people really under appreciate Minecraft grass and leaves. YEAH HE’S ON TEAM HEP LMAO.

He smiled so much at Grian and Mumbo’s shenanigans lol.

He screamed “ISKALL!” the moment the Omega Tree came into view. And he proudly told chat “I KNOW THAT GUY!”

H legit made the POG face when he saw Stress’ base. “I thought they all lived super far from each other.” “I know Stress too!! She’s on Vault Hunters!”

“I wanna see more of the dragonflies”

“Renpog renpog renpog? That’s my MCC9 Teammate”

About Ren: “he’s nuts”

About Ren’s Darth Vader base: “this would take me a full year to build”

AND THEN REN SAID “<3 <3 <3” in chat

“We love Ren in this chat. Ren’s out of his mind.”

Now he said Ren put in more effort than everyone on DSMP except Sam.

Grian: I struggle with terraforming

H: I struggle with everything compared to the Hermitcrafters.”

“It’s so crazy!” H said while massaging his head.

“Mumbo Baggins.”

“I forgot about Keralis! I haven’t watched him in so long.”

H also stared at Keralis’ build for ten seconds just making the Pog face.

“I can’t tell how big that is. 30 blocks or 300.”

“I feel like there’s always 40 people on the server.” Good try, H. Lol.

Grian fell down Keralis’ hotel’s elevator chute but flew himself to safety. “Grian’s at 3 hearts. Thank God’s he’s so good with an elytra.”

H about graffiti: “Oh I love this”

H saw the Keralis Bee in front of X’s base and instantly made the same face.

Grian admitted he doesn’t watch his friends.

H: as a content creator, it’s very awkward to watch your friends. 100%.

He said Etho was the first MCYT he fanboyed over aaaa

About Etho’s base: ohh it’s so cool

“I love that the beacon is going through the end crystal!”

About Wel’s base:

Grian: I don’t think he’s on very much

H: that’s more than I built in my lifetime

H confusedly squinting and peering at Zedaph’s base lmaoo

About Tango’s base: “that looks straight out of a Doctor Suess novel. I LOVE IT. I LOVE THESE TWO (Tango and Impulse’s) BUILDINGS.”

About Impulse’s base: the quartz and water combined look really cool

Grian, about Impulse’s base: is this mega?

H: y e s

Grian: no

H: that thing is freaking huge. I’ll say that’s mega. That’s huge. It’s mega.

Grian: it’s not mega

H: it goes down the water IT’S MEGA

H ARGUING WITH GRIAN ABOUT MEGA

H stared at Tango’s base for fifteen secs. “I love it. I love it. Chat, have I ever told you I love it.”

“Did he make an iron farm with ravagers?!”

Grian: I don’t know what I’m doing with farms

H: I don’t know what I’m doing 24/7

LMAO BOTH H AND GRIAN BEING CONFUSED BY TANGO’S PEASHOOTER CREEPER FARM

HE RECOGNIZED FALSE’S BASE AYYYY

“She’s nuts, chat”

“When I raid False, I ask my chat to ask her to show her base because it’s so freaking cool”

Grian: is False’s base mega

Grian: this is juuuuust mega

H, screaming: JUST? I’m gonna throw hands with Grian

H: LET’S TALK. CHAT.

Then he proceeded to talk about False’s water at the bottom of her base and how she had to place water sources and blocks (chat told him she used ice, but hey it’s the thought that counts)

“That’s insane, chat!! It’s so cool!”

“I’m ready to throw hands with Grian.”

He wanted to win the mega argument with Grian lol. “Hbomb VS Grian.”

“I actually don’t know what Grian looks like irl. He might beat me up.”

H stared at Cleo’s armour stands. “OHH THAT’S SICK!”

“WHY IS SHE ABLE TO MAKE BETTER MINECRAFT CREATURES THAN MOJANG. EXPLAIN.”

“I’m still mad at you on the megabase thing. Other than that, we’re good.”

He watched False make the Nether hub on Twitch.

Grian: X made this Nether build-

H: X gonna give it to ya

“Ren and False are just built differently.”

H’s face legit froze when he saw Cub’s base. And he bellowed “WHY?!”

H: size matters

“Link’s ready to throw hands with Grian” (Link is H’s dog)

“He managed to make our Targay look absolutely irrelevant.”

“Do you think they’ll let me on to play with them? Just for like, twenty minutes? 🥺👉👈”

“THAT IS DOPE!!”

“Walls made out of ancient debris. Jesus Christ. WHY?!”

Pomo, donation: impulse once raised his base by one block bcz he thought it looked better

H: oh no

“Imagine there was an ancient debris wall on the Dream SMP, chat. It would be there for an hour. Maybe two. Maybe.”

“Doc was another Minecracker”

He was so relieved when he saw Joe’s stuff lol. Since people can be “normal”.

About Mt. Goatmore: OHH THAT’S DOPE!

He went to a Bdubs meet up when he was in college. And had a photo and autograph of Bdubs and Gen.

“Yo that cliff is dope”

About Bdubs’ castle: I won’t be surprised if he used diamond blocks.

“I love how Bdubs use the nether wood trapdoors.”

He loved the anvil droppers thing and said he’s gonna steal the idea. He also mentioned Beef and Mindcrack.

H is such a HC stan now lol. AND HE WANTS TO PLAY THE HC MINIGAMES. PLEASE LET THE MAN ON. Also he’s gonna vibe so well with Grian. Not only do they have similar views in MCC but also in a lot of other things (don’t watch their friends, chest monsters, etc).

[riacte]

Ngl... I feel really bad for Grian this MCC even though it’s his best performance yet. He’s the “replacement” for HBomb in a winning team (MCC9 Blue Bats) and everyone knows H was crucial to Blue Bats’ victory with his leadership and supreme hype ability. So naturally there’s already a lot of pressure, not to mention people are hoping for False’s 3rd win.

Grian is one of Hermitcraft’s best (if not THE best) flyers and absolutely popped off during Rocket Spleef (!!) but he didn’t make it to the Top 5 leaderboard because he didn’t PVP... I hope that didn’t discourage him too much as surviving for three whole rounds of Rocket Spleef is LEGENDARY.

And of course there was Parkour Warrior... oh God. This game. Everyone’s cut off from each other to focus on their own game (which is reasonable) so there’s less teamwork involved and less hyping each other up. The hermits (esp Grian and Ren) sounded so dejected... oh God. Grain said he physically couldn’t make some of the jumps and I have to agree. Parkour is a test of agility, hand-eye coordination and knowledge of how to make certain jumps. If you can’t do it, you can’t do it. This is unlike other games such as Survival Games/Battle Box since teamwork is necessary for those two, and while it’s similar to Hole in the Wall, HITW also requires teamwork (eg. team members shouting out which direction the walls are coming from). Parkour is a solo battle with no RNG/luck involved. Even for Ace Race, if you’re stuck on one part, there could be ways around. But for parkour, if you can’t do it, you can’t do it. What Grian and Ren said at the end of Parkour Warrior was right. This game just widens the division between skilled players and non-skilled players and it’s not fun to watch or play for most people. (I know people switch to watching Dream during parkour just to be more entertained.)

Lime was legitimately doing so well (in fact, I’m pretty sure they could do well in literally any game that wasn’t parkour) but not only did Parkour screw with their coins, it also screwed with their morale. AND that hurts because False and Fruit play more of the “sensei” role while Grian and Ren keep spirits high. Obviously Lime Liches love and support each other (their encouragement during TGTTOSAWAF is an excellent example), and they did do well in Sands of Time immediately after Parkour Warrior. I think Grian’s gong and False talking about buying one really stabilised the team’s emotions and kept them going.

Let’s also talk about Build Mart. Ren was so caught up on how he fell one time and it HURTS because he’s blaming himself for the team’s “demise” or whatever bs. I mean of course no one else blames him and Lime is chill but seeing him keep on rambling about it just HURTS REN SWEETIE 😭😭 I’m immensely proud of them for placing 2nd despite the obstacles they faced (let’s be real, no one can beat Blue Black Cats at this game lol).

(Another note about Ren: he said he “didn’t win anything” when he and Grian won the leaf collecting thing on Hermitcraft, but he’d actually won MCC9 with the Blue Bats like a month ago. REN SWEETHEART PLEASE DON’T LOOK DOWN ON YOURSELF. I want to give Ren a hug ;-;)

As a Lime Liches fan, of course I’m a little sad they didn’t make it to Dodgebolt but I’m more sad by Ren and Grian doubting themselves ;-; and how exhausted Grian sounded at the end of his stream ;-;; buT I’m SUPER proud of Lime!! They all did their best and absolutely killed most games :DD and while they were a competitive team, they were also extremely supportive of each other!