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Tennis League IV
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 Tennis League IV is a currently ongoing Youtube Poop Tennis Tournament hosted jointly by dew, Gamebop, TheChutley and trepmaws, which began on December 19th, 2014. Like the Tennis Cup IV and the Doubles Cup II before it, it is a reprisal/continuation of an older tournament, with this in particular being of the oldest form of competitive tennis to have historically occurred on the site. The Tennis League I dates back as far as 2007, while the Tennis League II and Tennis League III both date back to 2008. It is also the longest gap of time to occur between two of the same form of competition.
Development
Discussions for what would contribute towards the next tournament began occurring frequently in late October 2014, in the closing weeks of dew's Multi-Way Tournament. There was heavy interest among the present staff members in addition to many of the present regulars, old and new, of revisiting many old ideas of the course of the next few competitions, in addition to individual ideas that had existed for some time. Initially, talks of a second Tennis Season were the first to emerge out of this discussion, primarily between trepmaws, Gamebop and dew, in which many suggestions for ways to update on the first one were presented and discussed, including new variants, abilities, and a proposed entirely new layout of teams/matches. Around this time also, TheChutley became aware of the reduction of size that the tennis community had experienced between his previous departure and recent full-fledged return, and began to question as to why this was. A thread was created in Poop Talk inquiring to the regulars there why more of them weren't tennising like back in earlier days or for those there that did have a history of tennis, why they weren't tennising anymore. Out of all of the collected general answers, many of them seem to hold the common misconception of tennis being nothing but "colors and rape" and thus beyond their own individual elements, a notion which the staff and most of the regulars staunchly opposed and clarification/explanation of this became a semi-regular occurrence for a few weeks. This was further emphasized in the Multi-Way Tournaments closing with Ashcrement's unexpected revelation that he felt that this final match was considerably the most boring match he had ever participated in, due to a lacking in creativity from his opponents which more or less to him seemed to further serve the trope of tennis being "colors and rape". The desire to disprove people of these inherited beliefs and to introduce more to the emphasized fun of the game became a key point of focus, and would greatly influence the decision making to happen subsequently.
On October 17, dew would as a complete experiment make a serve and challenge "the ENTIRE Poop Talk section" to individual games of tennis, for the primary goal of getting something stirring among those in the section and in the tennis section itself. She got up to about 15 total responses, including some from tennis regulars themselves, making the experiment to her seem like a success. To follow this up, dew would lobby in future discussions for the possibility of there being actually a Tennis League IV to capitalize on the ongoing "campaign for revival" as it would be the perfect competition to introduce players into the game this way, as well as competition itself. In a Skype call between a number of staff and dew himself, the layout for presumably the next three tournaments to occur in the future was set, with the League IV going first, then a proposed Cup V, and very possibly a Season II to occur way later. Tournament ideas from both Gamebop and BSP666c would also be suggested, with the idea that these would be hosted within the Interim between these tournaments. An idea for a "rare video editor" Tournament would also be thrown into the pool of ideas around this time, also by dew, who volunteered to be the League IV's host on the basis that he would be able to stick around for the full run this time as well as be it's main advertiser to Poop Talk, of which it in part was aimed toward. Discussion would take a rest for the next month, as the tennis section took a well deserved break from competition, resuming once again in December 2014.
Now in a separate place, the main planning for what would become the Tennis League IV in its finished form went into full swing. Several changes were made and updated to the previous versions to make them more manageable to present standards, including the removal of source limitation (which Mycro is credited to have started in The Three-Way Tournament), and the doubling of the turnover time from 36 hours to 72. The voting system was also adjusted to supply the Olympic system as used in the previous tournament so that players would be judged once again by an overall added score, which match points left unaltered along with this. Penalties would be adjusted from vote weight to a total average percent weight, with 10% put toward every breach of offense of the rules, with repetitive extension being a new penalty worthy offense added in order discourage players in taking too long with each round, since this was a style of match that notably had to keep within a balanced schedule of sorts. There would be changes made during the course of the competition itself, a critical one being the invention of the "pseudo-tie" outcome devised by Gamebop, which involved in the event of two scores coming close to being the same within 0.5 point margin (since it would be near impossible for players to tie exactly) that the player with the higher score receive 2 of the 3 possible "match points" earned while the losing player would earn the third point as a consolation prize.
Also for the first time in over 3 years the tournament would see the creation of a new Host account to be used for the voting, under the name of "Comrade Ebola" with a humorously Nazi-centric avatar of George Harrison. TheChutley's main role in this tournament would be the management of this account.
On December 19th, 2014, Dew officially open the signups thread, at 4:15 PST. The rules given left two weeks for signups, but in an unprecedented move 12 players were already signed up within the first hour. This led to some discussion as to whether or not the maximum number of players should be expanded, and while the idea was decided against the signups still continued to grow at an entirely unexpected rate. At the speed they filled, all 36 slots managed to be filled within 26 hours, the final player to sign up being ImmaCornflakes.
While there was some uncertainty at the beginning as to whether or not the tournament would actually attract people from Poop Talk as intended, that uncertainty was crushed in the end as an unprecedented half of all players were first-time competitors, including notable poopers such as ThemOldaBoys, Peskeh, and NationOfOranges696. Many people were invited to the tournament by their friends, an example being Soucisse Verte and NataliaHTTPS, European poopers invited to play by LaVie CestLol. A sizable handful of these people persuaded to join were done so also by InLivingTuna, who himself was a newcomer to the competitive tennis scene. On December 29th, dewmann published a blog article advertising the new League and its players, which would mark the first time in 5 years that a tournament received attention that could be seen by the whole forum.
Matches
Set 1
The matches drawn for Set 1 began on January 9th and consisted of:
Division A:
CorruptionSound vs. Ninero
fiv95 vs. Dewmann
Razerek vs. theregularmaster
Division B:
Cornflakes vs. iamoutofideas1
Sploltoen vs. TugCoat
poppop17 vs. OldFashionedLizard
Divison C:
JammeKamme vs. LaVieCestLol
ravinrabbid123 vs. Peskeh
ZACHTOMCAT vs. InLivingTuna
Division D:
NataliaHTTPS vs. PCB
ThemOldaBoys vs. GameBop
theFXexpert vs. NITROCONCRETE1
Division E:
Alfonzopancakes vs. theadventuretimefan Treckasec (serving as temp. replacement)
Metroid998 vs. Ekrem3012
Soucisse Verte vs. Trepmaws
Division F:
JowlHog4 vs. TheChutley
NationOfOranges696 vs. INTERGALACTICDEATHRAPE
Luiginati512 vs. valkiriforce
All except one of the 18 matches to happen in this set recieved a serve, with Alfonzopancakes vs. Treckasec never actually happening, and Treck winning without doing a single thing. Soucisse Verte vs. trepmaws and poppop17 vs. OldFashionedLizard unfortunately never went any farther than their serves, and the serving players both won by default. Sploltoen vs. TugCoat on the other hand, would stop at round 3 with TugCoat's dropout.
Division A
The first match to both start and complete would be Fiv95 vs. dew, having their whole match done before the first rounds of each match were even due. With the serve being a musical trip featuring many 3D visuals and background music by the group Can, dew would take this into a direction she had not previously attempted. In her Round 2 she constructed a "pseudo plot" using an animated rabbit from Fiv's serve and a masked cutout of Peter Gabriel from The Barry Williams Show music video and have them get into an "argument", with speech text provided by pixelated words created by dew on a site called Minifesto. She would then proceed to have the rabbit "become angry" and glow red, and chase Peter Gabriel throughout other scenes of the round with "Happy With What You Have to Be Happy With" by King Crimson serving as the backing music for this segment. Notable throughout this piece are the stairs that are formed out of sped-up-and-repeated section of the previous round and the physically unaltered state of many of the more visual parts, which was a very daring and contrasting move on dew's part, who was worried about what it would do to the round's overall strength at first. Following this the music changes to the quieter "The Power to Believe II" also by King Crimson, in which the Rabbit becomes sucked into a void accentuated by one of the more unique sounds from the serve, and is whisked away to a psychedelic aura of different panning sounds and the echoing ambiance of Marvin Gaye's song "Whats Happening Brother" playing in the distance. Also distinct about the video is the use of the Talking Heads' "Once in a LifeTime" music video which dew described as "the most chroma keyable thing I had ever found and wanted to use in my life" over other visual sections of the round, done so frequently in recursive ways that she found most appealing.
Fiv was very self-depreciating of his round 3 which he considered to be overly destructive and felt that it destroyed the flow of the match, though in Round 4 dew responded with an encouraging and silly tribute to her opponent spelling out in text "GabrielCol595 or cola or fiv should know that he's REALLY GREAT AND AWESOME at Tennis!" in which the previous round was masked into. This along with the rest of round following was all done in time to the Parliament song "Flash Light", which was a shining example of dew's fascination with funk music and emulated her speckling the Tennis community with it's influence for fun, calling the Skype version of the cafe the "tennis FUNK chat" and the staff members "the tennis FUNKS". The whole video was intentionally rushed not only to put himself more even with her opponent but to also beat the clock as in a matter of time the deadline for all serves was to come and that seemed like a good goal to shoot for to her, an idea suggested ad libitum by Gamebop. The finished round was as a result completed in only a few hours.
The final results were pretty high, with dew winning with 8.57 against fiv's 8.04, just 3 cents of a point short of winning a pseudo-tie point. The quickness of this round would then become a challenge for dew, as she will try to always be in the first match of the gameweek that finishes (which she would on the two following gameweeks).
Division B
Cornflakes vs. iamoutofideas1 is probably the most experimental match of the Gameweek, with both going for a very performance-driven way of doing their rounds. Cornflakes’ serve had an emphasis on atmosphere, with footage of roads and some of his trademark sources (notably Street Fighter), set to a piano-driven remix of Boards of Canada's Olson. iamoutofideas’ response was heavily revolving on footage from him playing the serve on a television, using a tape recorder to create a high pitched sound, and playing another source on another TV. Cornflakes would then embrace this idea by doing the same with his own elements, while still including more straightforward elements as well. Ideas’ last round has no editing whatsoever, as it’s a 6-minute cut-less take of him doing a live video performance in a very slow, eerie pace, using the same tape recorder as before, as well as some more added media shown on a different screen. The raw score showed a preference for Cornflakes (7.50 against 6.9 for iamoutofideas’), and the three penalties ideas got for lateness and length dropped his score at 4.84, while Cornflakes got one for length, downgrading at 6.75.
Division C
JammeKamme vs. LaVie CestLol would have a cinematic and musical theme, with JamKam's serve using the (fake?) trailer of 'Machete', by Robert Rodriguez, with an extensive emphasive on stutters and earrape, used in a comedic manner. LaVie would respond by embracing this style, while adding to the pool of sources the music video of 'Flat Beat' by Mr. Oizo. His round would mainly sentence mix the trademark lines from the Machete trailer in different ways ("They called him Machete" becomes "They called him God", and "They called him father", or also "God has mercy, i has mercy, ChihC has mercy, *explosion* has mercy"), uses JamKam's earrapes in a rythmic manner (especially a car blowing up, that is used extensively) and even pays a sort of homage to AmiralMachin by luma-keying the previous round in Flat Eric's phone (A reminder of Machin's round 4 in his match against vvaluigi and DaftPunkYoshi in the Three-Way Tournament).
JammeKamme's round 3 would add two sources : the Planet Terror trailer (staying in the Grindhouse Theme) and the music video of Stick Em by Fat Boys. His round would continue the very rythmic/earrape/technical style the match was going with, creating new gags with the added sources and showing equal passion in his work. LaVie's final round would then use the first sequence of Ingmar Bergman's Persona as a structure. He would use a recording of him playing "The Tennis League Theme" on an acoustic guitar, with a grid of chords that he would reuse in different ways throughout his matches. He would also do a mini-YTPMV with MF DOOM's One Beer, using snippets of the previous round, and finishing in his trademark, effect-heavy musical montages, using Mats & Morgan's En Schizofrens Dagbok, his round and the match ending with an obviously cinematic "THE END - A JammeKamme and LaVie CestLol production". This match was very well received, and the raw scores saw LaVie CestLol winning with 8.44 against 7.65 for JammeKamme, who downgraded at 6.89 due to a lateness penalty.
The idea of ZACHTOMCAT vs. InLivingTuna sounded better on paper than it ended up working out. ZACHTOMCAT, who had been around since 2011, recently emerged with a very destructive and atmospheric style inspired mainly by therazoredge which had pushed his videos to artistic heights that left even people who knew him stunned, and at the same time newcomer InLivingTuna had began making a name for himself due to his superkoffee and Butcher inspired style of sloppy editing and harsh use of puppet pin and color curves. While ZACHTOMCAT played very impressively, making a serve that used many destructive effects and imaginative uses of color manipulation, InLivingTuna found himself at a personal and creative low, eventually uploading a volley made in only an hour. ZACH responded with full force, making a round 3 that featured extensive audio editing and inventive uses of geometric shapes. It was at this point, however, that things fell apart harder in InLivingTuna's life. Faced with constant homophobia and physical abuse at his school, he attempted suicide by jumping in front of a van partially through making his final round, prompting a rather notable and unfortunate moment in which he had to ask for an extension from inside the emergency room. His finish product would wind up becoming not particularly noteworthy, being a mostly humorous response that only minimally edited the previous round. The final score for this match would end up inevitably in favor of ZACHTOMCAT, who received a score of 6.23 while InLivingTuna walked away with a staggeringly small 4.23, the lowest score of the first gameweek.
Division D
NataliaHTTPS vs. ProfessorCheeseBall revolves right off the bat by an odd choice of source by Swiss newcomer NataliaHTTPS, footage of trains edited in a humorous, frantic way. While being stylistically very straightforward, revolving on earrape and very fast paced editing, it’s still recognized as a very entertaining match, with both contestants responding with equal passion and technicity. The scores will be in favour of PCB (8.03 against 7.56 for Natalia, who got a point for tying in) but both contestants have been equally praised for their work.
The mere announcement of ThemOldaBoys vs. GameBop caused much uproar among the tennis community. ThemOldaBoys had become well known for his humorous SantaWithTeeth/MTB710 inspired style, but despite expressing an interest in tennis, he had played very little before the tournament. Few people, however, expected such an unlikely opponent as seasoned tennis veteran and two-time tournament winner GameBop to be his very first challenger in the league. The match itself began with a very absurd and comedic serve by ThemOldaBoys, using a derrickcomedy.com sketch as the source. GameBop's round 2 was the focus of much speculation, but he blew most people's perceptions when he, rather then use his routine style, opted to play off Olda's jokes as much as possible, including the addition of a "Sonic Skateboard" source to play off a skateboarding joke make in the serve. This style of playing off each other's jokes would be seen again in round 3 by ThemOldaBoys which impressively took the match in a much more technical style than the previous rounds. GameBop would pick up on this, and round 4 would ultimately be a culmination of every thematic element being built up in the match, featuring not only all of the jokes used in previous rounds, but also playing off some of Olda's effects resulting in some interesting uses of color changing and even a brief YTPMV that played off a part Olda had created of the main character laughing. This match was very well received and widely regarded as the best match of the first gameweek, and the voting reflects that. Despite the win going to GameBop with a score of 8.73, Olda also walked off with a similarly high score of 7.62
