Who Left This Corpse Out? - Musings of a Bygone Buddyfight Player

UPDATE: Since Buddyfight is dead and no actual human being is going to check this blog from now on, I'm turning on ads for the first time in 6 years so I can harvest money from the random bots that visit. A penny is a penny.

So I'm sitting at my desk, browsing Reddit and Discord servers and getting ready to play the new Genshin Impact event when I open up Twitch and see that the Bushiroad AO tournament is streaming. Thinking I should watch some gameplay to prepare for judging the NA tournament tomorrow, I open it up and start watching. Safe to say, I don't recognize any of the cards on screen, and it isn't just because the camera quality is garbage. But it's vaguely reminiscent of a Buddyfight that I once knew.

The game ends, the commentator's faces are revealed and who do I see but Krishiv! That's a name I haven't heard in years and a person I haven't talked to in just as long. I'm super excited and happy for him that he's casting this event, and I immediately try to contact him - only to realize that I'm no longer in any Discord groups with him, and we never added each other on Facebook since I was using another persona during my Buddyfight days (this one). I try to find other people like Hunter and Tim and I realize that, wow, I'm actually not connected to these guys anymore, mostly because all the interaction I had with them in the past was as Blaise and not as "me". It's a very mixed feeling.

So I'm combing through my options, and my roads lead back to here - the only outlet I have left. This now incredibly defunct blog that I built single-handedly in college, the place where I poured my passion for card games and Buddyfight for two years as best as I could. Five years ago, I had to make the difficult decision to move on from Buddyfight and pursue other things in life - career, community, other card games. And now, it is Buddyfight that is moving on from all of us.

I'm feeling nostalgic tonight, so I'll write something up. This time, it really is the end.

(Well, except for all the people that will continue to play kitchen top and stuff but I'm trying to get a mood going here).

Buddyfight was my...third? TCG that I picked up, after Pokemon and Cardfight Vanguard, and it was the first game that I took seriously and competitively. After getting past the weird name, I discovered a game that was interactive, exciting, well-balanced, and extensive. The foundation of the game was solidly built on principles of math and logic, which lead to concepts, tactics, and strategies that could be calculated. At the same time, the game had a great sense of capturing fun and designing unique and interesting gameplay that was interactive - something I took for granted then but now understand is sorely lacking in most Bushiroad card games.

A lot of people I know have been playing ever since the start. Perhaps we all saw the same potential the game had, that it could go places and become a great competitive game for years. Maybe some of it was the satisfaction of being the underdog, having discovered a gem of a game that others scorned at first glance, laughing at the name. Regardless, the game did progress in a positive direction, the community grew both online and offline, and people started giving the game the attention it deserved. I watched as the regionals in Southern California grow from a paltry 60 person start to a 200+ man tournament that beat out Weiss Schwarz numbers one 2017 (or was it 2018?) BCS. Even though I had moved on, I knew many who hadn't, and I was not expecting Buddyfight to. If I had paid closer attention, maybe I could've seen the writing on the wall. Was it Overturn/Overkill? Belost? The Bandori and CG Gekijou sets? Even as the power creep constantly crept itself, I didn't think the game was dying - and the numbers both stateside and in Japan were solid. It really is a mystery to me, one that I won't likely be solving anytime soon.

I started this blog 7 years ago (jeez thats a long time) because I had done the math in response to discussion about card advantage in the game and came up with something that I felt was concrete, solid, and backed up by both current and upcoming cards at the time. The reception to my first article was (I thought) extremely positive, which encouraged and motivated me to keep going. At the time I was getting a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / Games Design, and this blog was a way to put into practice both my tech skills in coding and modifying the site as well as my game design knowledge that I was learning at university. It was by all means a project driven purely by motivation and passion, and I'm shocked that I kept up with it for 2 years. Since then I've definitely changed, grown, and matured; I've tried my best not to read my old articles because I'd kill myself from cringe. I've considered just taking the site down multiple times and erasing the evidence, but I think about all the people that (somehow) appreciated and benefited from the site, and I decide against it.

Speaking of which, why does this site have almost 450,000 views? What? When I retired it had like 300k something and it was already outdated, who the hell is coming back to this? But even 300,000 at the time was just an astronomical number to me, and I'm still so thankful to all the support I got back then. Really, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I'm not worthy.

I chose Ikkyuu Tensai as an avatar because I really enjoyed her quirky personality. She was immature and bratty, but when it came to the case she was serious, capable, and always gave it her 100% - and I really related to that back then. Man, this was before I even knew light novels were a thing and that Ryuugajou Nanana no Maizoukin was originally a light novel - Tensai looks SO much better in light novel art.

Best girl.

Funny story, because I used her as my avatar and an apparently feminine-enough username, some readers thought I was female. No joke, I've received emails addressed to a "Ms. Blaise". That's kinda wild. Sorry, I guess. Blaise comes from an even older online username I used that had the word "Blaze" in it. I modified it to match the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, who is undoubtedly male.

As I'm closing out this article, I realize that even though I had retired as a blogwriter, I still very much kept up with Buddyfight all the way until the pandemic. After becoming a certified judge, I judged every Buddyfight event in California for three years straight - if you've played there, chances are you've seen me around. I think judging was a way for me to continue supporting and contributing to the community and the competitive scene, and I enjoy it very much. As I said, I will be judging for the BSFO NA event this weekend, so I hope to see some of you there.

This article has been just unfiltered rambling and reminiscing, so I'm sorry if this reads completely incoherent to many of you. I think part of me wants to recapture something I've lost since retiring the blog. Although I think I'm mainly writing out of frustration that all the friends I made back then don't actually know who I am, and this blogger persona has taken away a sizable portion of my TCG relationships away. But I also think I want to say that I was here from the start, that I'm here at the end, and that I've seen the ups and downs, the rise and fall of a game over the course of 7 years. 

And I want to say, standing at the end, that it was a good ride.

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If you're going to read my other old articles, first of all don't, second of all please understand past me is very dumb and stupid and cringe and used words in dumb stupid cringe ways, past me is a mess that I want to die and has died, don't @ me about anything lalala.

Feel free to reach out to me if you knew me back then and don't know me now, I would love to get reconnected! This is not a signal for help I am not lonely and sad that Blaise Tensai has friends but I don't