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Doubles Cup I
This article is about a site sanctioned Poop Tennis tournament.
This article is a work in progress and so may not be ready for public viewing, and content can change at any time. You can help by contributing to it and discussing on its talk page. The Doubles Cup I was a Youtube Poop Tennis Tournament organized and hosted by RAKninja that served to be significant in helping to cement the popularity of the variant that would be known as Doubles Tennis. It was launched in November 2008 and continued until June 2009, and introduced many of the people that would go on to become some of the most widely recognizable names in the world of tennis, spawning two matches that are still greatly considered as some of the greatest matches ever played; seminfinal match TheChutley+trepmaws vs. Gamebop+MycroProcessor, and final match AjaxCubed+Aesaun vs. MycroProcessor+Gamebop, in which Aesaun and AjaxCubed would emerge as the winners of the Tournament. The gameplay model that was created and used in this competition would later see a revamp in the form of the Doubles Cup II.
Development
The earliest doubles match attempted was one started between RabbitSnore and Miscellaneous10 going against Furnessly and TheHappyFungus in March 2008, which as of today has not seen any progression past the serve and remains the oldest match sitting in the "In Progress" section, with every original player considerably having gone inactive long since. This continued to be a concept that was brought up and discussed frequently amongst the Tennis Staff and in the Cafe, and eventually RAKninja would begin to look for a way to turn it into a competition, originally as part of a set of quarterly events, with this being the one to happen on Winter. With nothing set in stone, he would make a thread in November 2008 asking for suggestions and additional ideas.
The original idea was set to happen as something of a "doubles league" which used an early form of the finalized doubles varient, primarily that in which each player from each side would volley round, with every player volleying once for a total of 4 rounds. FuturesPassed/RobotComics and uncleer would disagree with the idea of only one person individually due to the fact that it didn't seem collaborative enough as well as not fitting true to the spirit of tennis (in addition to the serving player never having to edit any previous round). It was suggested however that if made to be 8 rounds under this system, it would work much better. The idea recieved a small amount of support amidst a number of other people who mistook the thread as an actual tournament and mentioned signing up as a result.
RAK then came up with what would become the dominant system for competitive Doubles Tennis, which at the time was an entirely original concept of play and put a clever new twist on the doubles tennis format overall:
"how about this
6 rounds total
on a team, one pooper serves
the other returns,
the last round (for both teams) is a collaborative effort
so that way, each player on a team makes his own remix, and the last video (or perhaps any one video) is a team effort.
and instead of having a reserve player on a team, we can always have a bunch of "reserve" players"
AjaxCubed, now expressing interest in the idea, refined the explanation as:
(Team 1: Person A and B, Team 2: Person C and D)
Round 1: Person A goes
Round 2: Person C goes
Round 3: Person B goes
Round 4: Person D goes
Round 5a: Person A and B work together using round 4 to make round 5
Round 5b: Person C and D work together using round 4 to make round 5 as well
And later Bluesraph would clarify that the Team of C and D should make Round 6 and not Round 5, since this would make for a proper full match. This would become the definite standard.
The Generally Accepted Rules were put down as:
Time limits are 2 days per single round, four for collab rounds.
Video Length: 30 seconds to 3 minutes.
Required Usage: At least 20 seconds of the previous round. This rule is rarely an issue and is rarely enforced.
Materials: Up to three sources introduced per video. (in the collab rounds, three sources per person seems fair, so a total of 6 new sources can be added in a collab round)
Each episode of a show is equal to one source. music and sounds do not count as a source. use of still images not taken from a video source count as a source (any number can be used, still image just counts as one source)
For additional rules which were discussed and formulated with Futures Passed and MycroProcessor providing input, RAK wrote that "the match is scored by a review crew member, a tennis staff member, and a popular vote as the third "judge". in cases where a review crew or tennis staff are involved in a match, the match with be judged by two members of the other staff,(except in the case of RC vs TS) so if i were in a match against anyone but a RC member, i'd be judged by two RCs rather than a RC and TS...it sounds more complex than it really is."
Popular vote this time around would be as an experiment dictated using the poll function of the threads used for the matches, rather than the use of a host account.
The Doubles Cup I would also see a record number of 7 individual threads created for various purposes in regards to the proceedings of this tournament, including a roster, threads for Week 1, Week 2, Semifinals and Finals results(as well as a thread announcing Week 2 polls were closed) and the original thread which would pitch the idea. Artwork for the tournament was commissioned but never created.
Players
By the time of creation of the roster thread in December 2008 a number of the teams that would participate had already formed, primarily that of zacheatscrackers + MrGenericMan, SeargentBacon + Futures Passed, TheChutley + vvaluigi and Bluesraph + theflashmaker9985(later more well known as MilkShakeManCP). Originally Aesaun joined wanting to have MycroProcessor play as his partner, which MycroProcessor said he would have done if he and Gamebop hadn't already agreed to collaborate beforehand, and as a result Aesaun would later join forces with AjaxCubed. Nuthead + Terrorist were the next pair to come together along with quax + TheSfarioBros, with KlausTheWizard, trepmaws, JackTron7000, RealGenericFilms, CommanderSky, McMANGOS, WowComics, 3pac, NintyScreen, MAZZ0Murder JazzDanceForChildren, Grabboarm, SesakaGenX and TangerineImpz all signing up as uncommitted. trepmaws originally asked Luioigi about the two of them working together as partners which Luioigi responded with "I'll think about it", with it later becoming that trepmaws and Jacktron7000 now became a team, leading Luioigi to later partner up with UberNooberPooper, making for the 16th and final team on the 14th of December 2008. Other teams that formed out of these players during the period of time leading up to this point include the pairing of RealGenericFilms + KlausTheWizard, JazzDanceForChildren + TangerineImpz(who would go on to play more than one doubles match together) and WowComics + McMANGOS, with Erarg asking to be paired with XBR4D3NX and being successful and Moogle joining the tournament as RAKninja's partner. 3pac + CommanderSky was originally a team but it came to be that 3pac was unable to participate due to being in a place with no internet connection over Christmas break, leading Grabboarm to volunteer to fill in for him though this was never completely confirmed. Ishkibibl + PlasmaFetus almost became a possible team to play due to a serve not appearing to start the match against Erarg + XBR4D3NX, with RAKninja making a deal with them that they could play against them if they could get a serve out in the week, but this was unfortunately not accomplished. MrGenericMan later dropped out and theHappyFungus, ADHDYoshi, BMATF and Emperor Ing("as a last resort") all volunteered to be replacements, with BMATF eventually joining zacheatscrackers' team and Grabboarm definitively playing with theflashmaker9985 replacing Bluesraph due to the latter player being undertaken by computer viruses. theHappyFungus and ADHDYoshi could have potentially joined as a team but this did not surface due to Happy believing it would be better to take spots needing to be filled and Yoshi not entirely knowing what was going on. The remaining uncommitted players were asked to work as judges with Bluesraph volunteering, along with hobopigeon, WowComics, McMANGOS and Herbert Spatula joining to be eventual judges alongside the Cafe Staff and then-existing Review Crew(subsidary of the News Staff). Piodx, magmalord and wwefan3333 also volunteered but by the time they had the tournament has nearly finished.
Matches
Set 1
Quite interestingly the matches containing the two pairs of players that would eventually make it to the end both won their first matches due to the other teams forfeiting. While Terrorist + Nuthead vs. Gamebop + MycroProcessor was after a long time of waiting able to initially make it through the "solo round" half of the match before the serving team disbanded, KlausTheWizard + RealGenericFilm vs. AjaxCubed and Aesaun failed after only two rounds. At the very last minute RGF was prevented from being able to continue the match due to family affairs, and while attempts were made at a replacement with both SesakaGenX and CommanderSky, no continuation was seen here. The team of Erarg + XBR4D3NX were given a free pass for this set due to there being an odd number of teams and no fully-formed team coming together to face them.
Over in the camp of Jacktron7000 + trepmaws vs. TheChutley + vvaluigi(with NS2 serving as the Cafe Judge and Aesaun as the Review Crew Judge) however, there was much afoot. The serve brought into the match what could only be signature to a year such as 2008 in it's use of the "RAN RAN RU" Japanese Ronald McDonald source, of which was the subject of a very large fad around this time. The videos end would contain the message "SAY YOUR PRAYERS, VVALUIGI AND YTPSOURCE". TheChutley's Round 2, in an effort to "kick this match off with a bang", would waste no time in instantly bringing about a sense of energy into the match by distorting much of the audio throughout the round and editing it in a much quicker fashion, adding in Fear Zero and Hotel Mario into his mix and adding to the previous ending message with "VVALUIGI IS AN ATHIEST ASSHOLE!" Retrospectively however TheChutley has looked upon his work from this period and tournament rather negatively, claiming with some that he "had no idea what [he] was doing."
Round 3 would be the first tennis round that trepmaws would ever make, and due to the fact that it was able to play at the level of the person he was volleying surprised and astounded many spectators. He would add in Nine Inch Nails, Zelda: Twilight Princess and an old Squirrelous video into his round and display such chaotic energy that in the words of Aesaun, who was serving as the judge of the match, "Usually by this time, one team starts to shine above the other, but in this one, both teams are bringing their A-game." From the comments of the original video, TheChutley and vvaluigi are known to have been just as blown away upon seeing it for the first time. He would overlay onto the previous editing message with "YOU'LL WISH THERE WAS A GOD BY THE TIME WE'RE THROUGH WITH YOU"
vvaluigi would say that for his Round 4 he was forced to switch to an "ear-rape" style, working for several hours on implementing distortion, chorus and reverb and then "using .01 of it to make it seem like a 'mind rape', and adding some several sources that includes Sonic". As a result the video is a quite interesting display of some much more advanced editing than what vvaluigi today is known for, utilizing a number of layer tricks and peices of edited video that made interesting use of audio effects, such as with the AosTH footage. Rather than add onto the ending overlaying text he instead covered it with a clip of Sonic chroma-keyed to have the text be visible under it.
Round 5 would see trepmaws and Jacktron7000's only collaboration, with halves easily told apart by differing qualities and resolutions that the video alternates through, with each player contributing a YTPMV segment and each player adding in a new source, with trepmaws contributing Cowboy Bebop (featuring a humorous stuttering scene involving a cat) and JackTron7000 contributing South Park, with brief bits of color bars added in to provide a separation in between parts. The end text now became "THAT PICTURE OF SONIC CAN'T SAVE YOU NOW". MycroProcessor commented "I really liked the musical sections because of how they utilized the previous round, but they seemed to last too long. I did like further continuation of the quick frame-by frame scrambling edits as well as most of the visual edits. I'd say that I enjoyed round 4 more than this one though, but my vote still depends on the quality of round 6 because of the amount that I liked the third round." SeargentBacon called it "actually kind've weak" and criticized JackTron's performance, stating that they "should have practiced to be as good as trepmaws" while 3inchhorse called it marvelous, not quite understanding the criticism. trepmaws himself mentioned that he could have done better and that had he known that JackTron had already done a musical segment that he would have left his out, a slip he attributed to poor communication, but expressed high expectations for the concluding round of the match, observing that communication wise TheChutley and vvaluigi would likely be able to create something much stronger.
The halves Round 6 are also told apart by video quality differences with TheChutley contributing the higher quality half and having the brief text of "Mr. Faggot's Part :D" to indicate the placement of vvaluigi's forthcoming parts, and was much more cohesive than the round that came before it featuring a good mixture of bombarding destructiveness in TheChutley's half and the more restrained approach of vvaluigi's half with the round's musical segment being contributed by the latter player. vvaluigi was self-depreciating saying that "I had done a mediocre job on my behalf of the round" which JackTron called "bullshit", saying that it was fantastic. Futures Passed said that "the match really picked up" with the last two rounds which he said were great, and BMATF called it a good match, saying that "Good lord for a name as "YTPsource", I would think you would make decent poops, but seriously, they're great". Emperor Ing's statement on the match was "The musical sections of this match are certainly the highlights. All in all, a very great job of editing between a score of talented poopers. My vote personally goes to trep and Jack, but in no way does that lessen my esteem for vvaluigi and YTPSource. Great job." trepmaws mentioned that being recognized by experienced YTPers made the match worth it, win or lose, which RAKninja mentioned was something he was wanting to bring back when organizing the tournament, essentially recreating his own experience in the Tennis Cup I, which he called the event that him grow the most as a tenniser. The final results of the match saw TheChutley + vvaluigi gaining 2 of the possible 3 points, with each team getting one Judge vote and their team winning the popular vote 6 to 12, giving them the match win. This prompted Jacktron to post an image of a baby crying, while trepmaws commented that his opponents deserved the win, and estimated that their match against SeargentBacon + Futures Passed was sure to be awesome.
Moogle + RAKninja vs. McMANGOS + WowComics(with GameCubeHero and Aesaun serving as the two review crew judges) was the first match of the set finished without failure, and began with a serve using a combination of Final Fantasy games and pictures (all of which we're relatively suggestive) edited in a simple and humorous fashion with a YTPMV segment adding in a number of sprites from the games and ending with a very loud cutoff prevention. Futures Passed called it the funniest round he had seen so far and WowComics looked forward to how the match would progress. McMANGOS's Round 2 attempted a slower style than what he normally made, adding in Meet the Engineer and Meet the Heavy and dedicating a quarter of the video's length to YTPMV segments, using the "I'm Kawaii!" from previous round to great effect which was positively noted by Moogle in addition to the juxtaposition and musical aspects, with the only criticism being that they wish they could have seen more of the faces from the serve, regretting "not seeing more of Gilgamesh, Shiva and others." McMANGOS said while rendering the round that he wasn't completely satisfied with it, but remained optimistic that he could do better in later rounds. MycroProcessor called it "A very nicely musical match so far".
RAKninja's Round 3 is notable for being the first tournament round to display his developing tendancy to radically alter the direction that a match is going in with the addition of many new sources and editing in a polarizing style compared to that of his opponants, and introducing what would become a hallmark in-joke of classic Tennis Cafe lore, "Guys in Nature". This phrase would be repeated throughout the length of the round, which was also much longer than the rounds that came before it, with a large portion of it taken up by the added sources of Pee Wee's big adventure("YYYYYYYYOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUU'LLLLLLLLL BEEEEEEEEEEE SSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRYYYYYY PEEEEEEEEEE WWWWEEEEEEEEEEE HEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRRMAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN") and a biography film about serial killer and rapist John Wayne Gacy, also known as The Killer Clown ("WHAAASSSAAA MAATTERRR, AAINN'T YOOU NEEVER SEEEN A CLLOOWWNN BBEEFFOORREE?"). The Team Fortress 2 footage from the previous round was entirely cut out, marking the first competitive instance of this occurring in RAK's work also, focusing mainly on the Final Fantasy bits and the visual portions of the previous round for what amount of it that was used in the video. In addition to "Guys in Nature" the video also spawned the less popular but still oft-quoted in conjugation "Even cops get horny". It also managed to hit #91 - Top Favorited (Today) - Pets & Animals on Youtube's old rating system due to the attention it recieved and the thread proceeded to become the largest match thread in the first set due to the number of posts either saying or making a post relevant to "Guys in Nature", with several being contributed by McMANGOS(NS2 also posted "You Love it, huh?" a number of times in reply to a number of these posts). Moogle called RAK's Round "seriously wierd", saying that they had no idea what to expect from the match anymore. MycroProcessor said that "With the huge amount of quoting of this round 3, I'll say that I really loved the style that it was presented in, but I wasn't a big fan of the theme. It was still quite interesting since it managed to have two contrasting feels of eeriness and humor throughout." Futures Passed commended RAK "for his efforts to sway the undecided voters of the forum. That combined with his editing talent makes him a force to be reckoned with for the cup."
As RAK posted his round with the remark "volley that", it proved to be quite difficult for WowComics to follow up on, with his Round 4 being much shorter and editing in a more basic style, mentioning that "It was a strange round to work with really, felt like a solo poop in certain places, must be why I didn't add much new source footage". RAK observed that "you really took it away from where i thought you would, and even aboided the easy way out with 'even clowns get horny'". The collab Round 5 between RAKninja and Moogle was blended together quite well, giving off the appearance of a single video with no real separation, with the halves divided between Moogle being the sole player to work with the previous round along with added sources while RAKninja contributed solely added sources; chiefly black and white footage of a king with King Harkinian's dialogue overdubbed onto it. Moogle remarked "I've watched the video like 30 times now and I can't help but laugh together with the king each time" while McMANGOS called the round "awesome". The final Round featured in about an equal proportionate amount of added sources versus the previous Round, which continuously changed tempo throughout the video and also featured a reappearance of Round 2 again, which was the only really detractive side of the video which was otherwise recieved positively. MycroProcessor said "I can truly say I loved that. This match had some really interesting turns in multiple different directions. I went from insanity to being really minimalistic and abstract; later to a mix of fast pace and minimalism switching between the two styles." trepmaws expressed difficulty in having to decide a winner due to the quality of the match, saying "I love how unique each round was --- each person took the last round and bent it around to their own style. Rakninja's round 3 was the highlight for me, with its minimalistic tendencies changing the whole course of the match. Of course, mcmungo's remixes in round 2 and Wowcomics' round 4 in general were great as well. The collab rounds were very well done, and the material of both teammates in the round meshed together perfectly. It's hard to say who came out on top." The final results of the match saw McMANGOS + WowComics winning the popular vote but RAKninja + Moogle gaining both judge votes, leading to their victory of the match. WowComics also added that compared to the Tennis League III, in which votes were very one-sided, the votes for this tournament were much more even, something he was thankful for.
theflashmaker9985 + Grabboarm vs. TheSfarioBros + quax(with Moogle as the Cafe judge and Saiko as the Review Crew judge) began with a serve (now deleted) that MycroProcessor observed was "Another match to start off musically, you're really well known for doing that though, and you did it well in this" with Futures Passed noting that it was the only serve so far made from only one source. Saiko wrote "What an excellent serve. Very creative use of stuttering and nice job with the music. This would be an excellent poop by itself and I think that the source has a lot of potential. The other team might have a hard time coming back from this one." TheSfarioBros echoed this notion while Aesaun called it his favorite serve so far, anxious to see what Sfario could conjure with it.
Upon posting Round 2, Sfario noted that the field he was strongest in was more of the sentence mixing variety rather than "ear rape and noise", but did what they could with the serve which was rushed due to him being busy. The video itself added in Bill Cosby and Metalocalypse and worked to the best of their ability with a more heavier style, with Saiko responding "I really like what you did with the video-within-a-video effect. A very good round 2 and the sources have a lot of potential". Round 3, 4 and 5 remain gone, though Round 5 (which was delivered late) recieved a bit of praise, Mycro noting "I liked the beginning of round 5 with the fast pace. Since round 5 was interestingly much quieter and had more slow parts than 4, I'll be interested in seeing if round 6 reverses that again or not." Saiko commented on Round 4 saying "Awesome round 2, quax. I liked the use of ear rape and very nice job with the stuttering, although it can be argued that you used the ear rape a bit too much. I still thought it was good" and on Round 3 with "Nice job by the way, Grabboarm. I like what you did with the fast paced stuttering, mirror effect and raping that crappy YTP intro that I hate".
Round 6 was a short yet intensely edited sped up Round that featured CDI and a performance of The Doors' "The End" amongst its recognizeable sources with the two halves of the players making a very cohesive whole product, with no clear perception on whose part was whose. It's upload date of January 6th, 2009 made the match the last one for the first set to complete. quax remarked that they "literately jizzed in my pants after seeing that" and Mycro wrote "I enjoyed the increased pace. I also think that had some pretty cool chroma keying edits and more intense stuff in general. I also liked the pitch bending transitions to move the video along" while SeargentBacon wrote "I was about ready to vote for Flashmaker + Grabboarm, but round 6 just blew me away. Regardless, a great performance on both ends, this was overall very well done in the way of rape". Saiko's overall assessment was "I thought that both sides did a pretty decent job with the ear rape, but I have to give this to TheSfarioBros and Quax because their videos were much more fast paced and there was virtually no parts left unedited. All of the videos were great, but I'm more partial to the completely and totally raped videos" and McMANGOS mentioned that this would be a tough choice to vote while Flashmaker and Grabboarm both predicted that their opposing team had the match in the bag. The final results saw TheSfarioBros + quax gaining all three points, both judge votes and winning the popular vote 6 to 13, giving them the match by a landslide.
UberNooberPooper + Luioigi vs. Futures Passed + SeargentBacon(with Crash as Cafe judge and GameCubeHero and Review Crew judge) began with a serve that recieved a penalty for using too many sources, among which were One Peice, This Boys Life, Yu-Gi-Oh and footage from the George Bush "throwing shoe" Incident. Round 2 added in Toy Story and several images including that of a dime which was used in multiple places while Luioigi's Round 3 added in Flintstones and edited with a similar visual sensibility to the previous round, showing a progression of his overall style. Futures Passed noted that "The still frame made it look like it wasn't going to have as much editing as it did. That part with the diamond pattern and Woody's head was great!"
SeargentBacon's Round 4 was delayed for sometime due to as Bacon would put it "my dad becoming a pirating nazi" and added in I.M. Meen and a Latias x Latios picture with the song Teen Hipster by Paza making an appearance, and Round 5 was put together and uploaded on Christmas day, adding in The Boondocks and The Super Mario Bros Super Show and being what MycroProcessor called "a perfect combination of UNP and Luioigi's styles" he would also write "I enjoyed that very much. I like how it used some nice visual effects and had a well constructed mini musical section at the beginning. It will be interesting to see what direction SergeantBacon and Futures Passed take this in." Round 6 added in The Pebble and the Penguin and Lasanga Cat, with MycroProcessor writing "I really liked the heavy effect visual distortions, but sadly the frame rate seemed poor at those sections. I thought that one of the penguin sections was put together in an interesting way had some good stutters" and enjoying it much more when the round was latter rerendered to fix the frame rate, as the more technical editing was now more visible. The final results showed what Futures Passed described as having the most one-sided poll of the first set, with him + SeargentBacon winning the popular vote 12 to 2. With both teams winning a judge vote, this put Futures Passed + SeargentBacon as the winners of the match, with Luioigi expressing satisfaction in losing as their interest in playing in the tournament had wained.
JazzDanceForChildren + TangerineImpz vs. MrGenericMan + zacheatscrackers began with a loud and energetic serve that featured Pachinko footage along with Japanese Spiderman and Meet the Heavy amongst its mix of sources, with MycroProcessor calling this his favorite serve and anticipating that this was going to be one of his favorite matches of the Doubles Cup, with no idea who to root for yet. MrGenericMan's Round 2 worked to a similar intensity adding in Mario's Game Gallery but was roughly only half the length of the previous round while TangerineImpz's Round 3 added in a Bruce Lee film and footage of Barack Obama and Randy Newman playing his song "Short People"(with the lyrics edited to "Short People got TOO MUCH BOOTY IN DA PAAANTS"). MycroProcessor wrote "The juxtaposition was great on that, and I particularly liked some of the sounds from the previous rounds that you emphasized. I can't wait to see what Zach does to this and how it will affect the collab rounds" and described zacheatscrackers's Round 4 as "a nice shift back to the style of the first two again", anticipating the forthcoming collab rounds of which this was the first match to approach this stage.
The finished Round 5, the first of a number of collaborations to come between JazzDance and Tang, featured a rather unique approach to the collaborative process, featuring the first half of the video being edited over in the second half with more sources being added around it, and equally intense and loud editing coming off of both players in the video. Among the added sources were Speed Racer and footage of the holocaust("THE VALKE VOLUMES CONTAINED 5000 CLAMS 5000 DOLLARS?????") working in the mix of Doug and Yatterman which were also present throughout this round, along with various anime and a film with an undisclosed title. RAKninja simply remarked "oh wow" upon seeing the finished product and the comments also featured their share of praise with MrDrunkenFox calling it "A-Fucking-Mazing". zacheatscrackers after some initial difficulty finished his half of Round 6 and sent it to MrGenericMan, but this player would end up dropping out at this time, prompting BMATF to come in as a replacement to finish the match off yer remaining wary that he didn't think he'd be able to "triumph over tang and jazz's rape of fury". The last round (now deleted) was recieved greatly positively with BMATF stating that it was almost as much fun making a tennis round that he'd ever had, rating his match between UncleChuckTH and Wikiwow as slightly higher in fun. Mycro called it an "Amazing conclusion, this whole match was full of great stuff that matched my initial reaction, one of my personal favorites of this week" with trepmaws writing "I just watched the whole thing. Both teams made some impressive stuff, and BMATF fit in nicely, despite not entering until the last round. It was tough to decide who to vote for". Emperor Ing praised the match with "Excellent effort from all involved". The final results saw a very close popular vote, with Jazz + Tang winning it by only a single vote, and having the highest amount of votes for the first set. Both judge votes went to them also, leading them to be the victors of the match and moving onto Set 2.
Set 2
Set 3
Both matches of this set are known to be considerable landmarks in the development of competitive tennis and of tennis in general, and continued to be watched and referred to by tennis players to the present day.
Aesaun + AjaxCubed vs. Erarg + XBR4D3NX(with Futures Passed and Herbert Spatula serving as judges) is considerably the lesser known of the two matches of this set, if only for the fact that it remains incomplete with Erarg's Round 4 and the collaborative Round 6 privated, in comparison to the other being fully complete. It is however highly notable for the collaborative Round 5 between Ajax and Aes, featuring a YTPMV segment in 3/8 made by Aesaun that would prove to be greatly influential on tennisers such as trepmaws in ensuing years. Also featured within the video were bits of The Brave Little Toaster and footage of a drumline performance that Aesaun was himself a part of, which he also used in his serve. Much of the editing in this round appears to be indistinguishable between the two players who made it, though if one listens carefully one can pick out slight audio differences between the individual parts, with Ajaxcubed making up the audio with the slightly lower quality and also the edits involving difference compositing, as Aesaun at this time did not know how to do this abiliy himself. Mycro commented on this round saying that " The layering fit with the layering in the previous round. The musical part was great especially. The stutter sounds and long echoes with extra short delays made some cool sound throughout this."
In regards to the other rounds of the match, Emperor Ing commented on the nature of the serve that "Round one felt like round 6. I liked round 2", as it was edited in Aesaun's usual intensity; Moogle compared it to the serve in their match vs. him and RAKninja saying that "It felt like a head start." Mycro commented on XBR4D3NX's Round 2 saying that "I liked the chroma keying usage at the beginning of round 2 and how it highlighted the black background's presence at the beginning of the previous round. The pacing was glitchy and odd, but in a good way in my opinion. The visual effects were really cool to watch also." The round also featured additions of various cartoon sources such as The Powerpuff Girls, Ren and Stimpy and Beavis and Butthead, as well as a musical breakdown bit which was something of a trademark for XBR4D3NX. Ajax's Round 3 was made in only a matter of hours and featured the additions of Pingu, Schoolhouse Rock and System of a Down and was edited to his just-as-intense calibur, with Mycro commenting "I liked the sudden start of round 3's intensity as it was followed directly upon the thrown rock. The layering was awesome, and I loved the composite mode stuff. I also really found the fast pace to be really cool."
A major dent in the side of Erarg + XBR4D3NX came with the mistake of Erarg using too many sources in his Round 4 than what was allowed, resulting in a penalty that became something on a deciding factor the match's fate. Some like 3inchhorse prefered the more "organic" approach that Braden brought to his rounds, though in accordance to Futures Passed and Herbert Spatula(better known as mot.def) who were the match's judges, and the Popular vote, both it and the Judge vote went to AjaxCubed and Aesaun, making them finalists for the tournament.
TheChutley + trepmaws vs. Gamebop + MycroProcessor(with Aesaun and quax serving as judges) is variously considered to be a hallmark tennis match of the Doubles Cup I and one of the best matches of all time, with MycroProcessor later individually meeting up with every other player involved in this match IRL and with all four coming serve on the Cafe Staff in the years that followed, also serving to be the driving concept of TheChutley and trepmaws's match in The Grey Tournament. OMGulator has called it one of his favorite matches in existance and it has been re-evaluated positively by both the original players of the match and newer generations of tennisers. Gamebop also mentioned at the match's original beginning that at the time every player in the match had different alternating usernames on the forums and youtube (Gamebop as molhal, TheChutley as YTPSource, trepmaws as panicwiththecrisco and MycroProcessor as simply MicroProcessor).
TheChutley's Round 1 used all regular sources of his, chiefly I.M. Meen and Fear Zero as well as the CDI Logo and featured extensive use of light ray effects and distortion making for an intense introduction. TheChutley has since been very critical of this round in recent times and has often mentioned of it's low quality in comparison to the rounds that follow, especially Gamebop's volleying of it which he has said it essentially blew his round out of the water. Round 2 featured a lot of layering tricks using the CDI Logo and the addition of two unusual animated sources named Boes(Ox Tales in the English Version) and Lilliput Put which at this time had both disappeared from Youtube. Mycro commented "Round 2 is great, I especially like the layering to further extend the layering with the Phillips logo from the serve. I really liked the pacing of everything and just the way both the previous round and the added sources were used." A small snippet of Round 2 would later reappear in the end of a collaborative Round 2 between TheChutley and trepmaws in 2014, 5 years later, volleying against dew.
In trepmaws' Round 3 Mycro noted "an increased in amount of added stuff used mixed with a decrease in length, making this a bit less inclusive of the previous round than the previous round was" which some saw as a bit of a dent on TheChutley/trepmaws side; trepmaws attributed it's length to it's lateness and his preference to not use any filler in his rounds, yet for what it lacked in length it made up for in it's amped up intensity, beginning with the now somewhat classic quote of "Take of ALL Your Clothes" from a Lab Safety video and also adding in the music video for Disturbed's "Striken" and Wierd Al Yankovic's Dare to Be Stupid music video, a riff from which was composed in a short YTPMV bit that featured the first clearly noticable use of the previous round about a third of the way into the video. SeargentBacon claimed he was "won over" by this video and TheChutley was also greatly enthusiastic about the video upon its appearance.
Mycro's Round 4 added in Myst, Forever Worlds and Obsidian and included a follow up YTPMV segment that was longer and featured more elaborate composition, bringing the length up back to about where it was at the match's beginning. Futures Passed by this point mentioned that this was turning out to be his favorite match of the Doubles Cup while quax mentioned "i have a feeling the last two rounds will be intense... wait *looking at usernames* this WILL be intense." Round 5 had it's parts divided as 0:00 - 0:10(TheChutley),0:10 - 0:17(trepmaws),0:17 - 0:27(TheChutley),0:27 - 0:42(trepmaws),0:42 - 0:52(TheChutley),0:52 - 1:03(trepmaws), With TheChutley's half made first featuring blank sections with a violin song in which trep would add in his parts, eventually adding in this very song as an audio source around the 13 second mark. The video overall consisted of pretty even heavy editing with TheChutley implementing some usage of Wax vortex effects and trepmaws contributing the follow up to the YTPMV segment from the previous round, with his additions of Disturbed's "Land of Confusion" music video, the Reading Rainbow opening and the western film Tombstone, the ending gunshot clip which Chrisgendo would reference in the end of his Round 2 vs. MycroProcessor and JakeSteel in the Three-Way Tournament. TheChutley's additions with be the Iron Man cartoon and Arashi No Yoru Ni and as of currently he is additionally critical of his parts of this round in a similar light to his serve. Mycro commented that "I like the amount of time that the short part from my round with Achenar was stretched out to. I also liked how the video screen at the end of my round had visuals edited in to it; it fit with the similar edit I did to round 3 in round 4, I kind of expected someone to do that in round 5 actually. The musical section was awesome and I really enjoyed the sounds of my round that were chosen to be used in that section. Also, I think it's cool how Wax and composite modes were used in this."
The part of Round 6 can be easily distinguished by their aspect ratios and audio qualities; Gamebop's parts do not extend to full screen and have slightly less audio qualities due to that his parts were sent over first while Mycro, editing around this footage, naturally does extend to full screen and featured audio that is less compressed, while also being slightly faster. He is also the contributor for the follow up YTPMV segment, yet another improvement from that of the previousand adding in Rhem 3, Animusic and "A silly edited still image from Rhem with Pokemon R/S team Magma/Aqua secret base music to go with it"(the video's YOU ARE JOLTEON ending), while Gamebop contributes the face of the Tombstone character made up of two different eyes and the mouth from the Obsidian source, adding in Ovide, Rhem, and Whelt's "Wilderness 2" video(though he mentions it's "barely distinguishable") and both contributing an equal amount of visual spectacles abound through the climactic finish to the match. quax commented that the round "blew [him] away" and that as he was assigned judge of the match alongside Aesaun, that it would be hard to decide a winner of. XBR4D3NX made an mp3 of all the musical parts available for download and TheChutley congratulated Gamebop and MycroProcessor for winning the match even though all the results had not come in. This would prove to make no difference though as they did in fact in, and became finalists set to play against AjaxCubed and Aesaun.
FINAL MATCH
Things finally came to a fantastical heat in the match of AjaxCubed + Aesaun vs. MycroProcessor + Gamebop, which seemed to be in some ways a match as equally as even as the Chutley/trep/Gamebop/Mycro match before it, perhaps even more so. RabbitSnore and RAKninja would serve as reviewers of this match as well as it's Judges, each providing their own feedback as the match progressed and both coming to an individual conclusion as to who they're vote was to go to.
Beginning with an energized and enthusiastic serve from AjaxCubed that already set a precedent for the match's course, especially with bits such as the keying of layers to form a ramp in which a ball rolls off of, it further delved into an erroneous clash of different pacings as Mycro's Round 2 would serve to up the intensity but at a greatly slower pace.A signature feature of this video is the usage of the shrill noise from AjaxCubed's serve slowed down throughout the entire length of the video until a point where it's layered upon with gradually higher instances in pitch of the clip applied with much reverb to give a very ghostly and powerful feeling to the round. RabbitSnore said of Round 1 that it was "An elegant and well-assembled light show. A finely raped serve, but with a definite sense that it was a beginning of a match. I don't think the round could have stood alone, though it had some very fine moments." RAKninja speaking for the same video would say that "This starts out great, like a lawn mower you have to pull the string on a few times to get started. When it does start, you'll want to hold onto the top of your skull, because it's about to flip off. the whole thing meshes together very well, though of interest to me were the use of pitch slides, and the ending. A very well crafted serve."
On Round 2, RabbitSnore would express that Mycro's response was "Impressive. This is the sort of thing that if viewed in full-screen mode in a pitch black room would make me shit myself. I thought it could have ended more strongly though." RAKninja responded with "This volley is a great meshing of interesting audio and video, much like the serve that was in part made from. This video gives off much the same vibe that the favorite round I've made does, which in itself is not something I see often, or this well done. The way Micro spreads out video layers like a deck of cards is very visually appealing, and his use of black spaces is top notch."
Aesaun in his Round 3 went right into working within his own strong point, which was making his response an overly musical one. By taking a single clip and creating a short buzz out of it he was able to create the video's main backing track, then adding short instances of other pieces of the round to create harmonizing instruments and percussion, which here were done with great expertise and, while not as technically advanced as the round it volleyed, proved to still be quite strong. RabbitSnore on this round wrote "Some of the best timed rape I've ever seen. Musical and excellently paced. The rhythm brilliantly demonstrates the talent of this round's maker." while RAKninja would write "The first twelve seconds of this volley were very intense. I especially liked the section where the pitch scaled up. Aesaun wastes no time getting into a chiptune style YTPMV using great clip selections and overall effects, distorting wonderfully. The ending is especially noteworthy, as three dimensional cubes of video layers start popping up out of nowhere."
Gamebop for his Round 4 would initially respond with a video that seemed in contrast relaxed to the last few rounds, although didn't fail in responding to some sections with levels of intensity that matched those of before, with many assortments of layered tricks dotted throughout the video amongst his added Kukori sources. His follow-up YTPMV to that of Round 3 would be much more complex starting with a backing "bass" track of clips in a slow 6/4 meter and then becoming overlayered with an assortment of "treble" clips that played against it in standard time(although in places the backing track would switch to 4/4 again to make much of it seem very in time), making it incredibly compositionally unique in that it would be one of very few times something of this nature would be heard in YTP as of the present. RabbitSnore commented saying "Another impressively musical round, which beautifully built off the style of the last round. To use my own terminology - an example of a fine synthesis of constructive and destructive adaptation" while RAKninja said that it "Starts out fairly standard for this type of match, and then distorts the last round's musical section with a beat and a pitch variation that I actually wish was continued out another couple of repetitions. The next portion of the video serves out some fantastic rape, with a notable effect beautifully using layers and Gamebop's signature source. The musical section that Gamebop constructed for this match more than makes up for the more pedestrian rape that makes up the meat of this round. The ending was also an impressive effect, giving me the impression of a great conduit of videos in outer space."
The collab Round of AjaxCubed and Aesaun would by itself serve to become a quite a significant video in that it would be the round that would see AjaxCubed come into the full development with the bits of his style that would become his ultamite signature in the world of tennis, and in combination with the adrenaline driven peices provided by Aesaun serve to be an incredible visual spectacle of the time. Quite possibly the most famous segment of this video occurs 13 seconds in when an effect never before seen makes it's first appearance: a final cut plugin that can turn a single bit video into a massively complex replication of 3-dimensional buildings, creating almost a "video city", provided by AjaxCubed himself with Aesauns part playing in it's background. Other enhancers of this video are several frame recursion effects also provided by Ajax and slower more intense peices provided by Aesaun, overall making for a fantastic fusion between the two players as a whole. It was hailed by RAKninja who said that "This stands as one of the greatest videos I have ever seen. The entire thing is a delicious mixture of complex effects. What really caught my attention was the use of layers and three dimensional columns of videos using the Star Trek source. The round is like a perfect marriage of source and effect centered tennis." RabbitSnore by contrast however would say that "This round had enough interesting and inventive effects to keep my attention fondly held, but it lacked the musical quality of the last round, and I felt it did not adequately serve as the previous round's progeny."
Round 6 from Gamebop and Mycro together while overall was considered good seemed to overall struggle in coming up with a way to effectively counter what was presented in the round before them, but was still able to provide a fitting note in it's ending of the match, with it's last section being a very dark and thunderous slow mix of assorted layer effects and snippets from a program known as Goldwave used to enhance the videos final clips. Rabbit would write "The timing of this final round was good, with fine effects work. It's difficult to say that it made the most of the previous round though. The most impressive part of this last round was the use of blank space and silence toward the end" while RAKninja would say "This round was a very well crafted exhibition of effects tennis. like the round it volleys, the teams collaborated so well that the seams (if indeed there are any) are quite well hidden. That said, this round was almost a letdown after the previous one. Micro and Gamebop did what they do well, but too much of it stayed in "explored territory", so to speak. My personal preference in the rounds that end a match is to have them somewhat stand out. I did, however, really like the rotating sphere of layers, and i really wish those sections were longer so that i could appreciate the scope of the effect."
The final verdict by RabbitSnore on the match was thus: " I very nearly want to call this a draw, since both teams shined in their element in this match. The last two rounds did not impress me as much as the middle two, and round 4 is definitely my favorite. For that reason, I have to give this match to Gamebop and Microprocessor, which especial kudos to Gamebop. But I have to commend Aesaun for really impressing me as well.
My preference for winner is the team of Gamebop and Microprocessor."
RAK by contrast would verdict with "As I mentioned in the beginning, it was very hard for me to make a decision on this match. Everyone involved gave 110% and it shows. Ultimately though, only one team can win. The main points of my decision are rounds 3 vs 4, and rounds 5 vs 6. Three and four both used a chiptune like musical section, and i found i preferred round three more. The last two rounds are one of my judging points because of the very nature of the tournament, and my personal views that the last two rounds of a tennis match are the 'finished product'.
That explained, I cast my vote for Ajax and Aesaun."
By popular vote the results would end up coming out to AjaxCubed and Aesaun recieving 13 votes and 57% of the vote and MycroProcessor and Gamebop earning 10 votes and 43% of the vote, making AjaxCubed and Aesaun the official champions of the Doubles Cup. Aesaun would claim that he expected quite the opposite to happen, while MycroProcessor would say that he thought that they would win based on the level of impressiveness of their videos as well as agreeing to the notion that he and Gamebop could have very well made Round 6 stand out much more than they did with it. Many people praised the match for it's wild intensity while also calling it a very fitting finale, saying all four players deserved to get to the end and that voting for it was definitely difficult. When the Tourney Winner Medal was created in 2010, only AjaxCubed was awarded it in connection to this tournament for a somewhat unknown reason; Aesaun had become long gone by this time but his forum account remained intact.
With the conclusion of this competition, attention would shift over to commencing the start of the Windows Movie Master, which had already been completely organized with players by this time and ready to be deployed.
