The Written Side of Things, #1: Rican vs. Row Battle Report

[LetsBeef Magazine]

Hello, I’m Shodan. Welcome to my column, The Written Side of Things, where everything text-battle-related is discussed. As the magazine’s Text Battle Reporter, my duty is to keep our readers informed and appreciative of text battling’s latest developments. Today, I’ll introduce you to Text Battle Reports.

A Text Battle Report is an article detailing a text battle. To become the subject of a Text Battle Report, a battle must be a notable, completed battle; what battles will be featured in these reports is at the discretion of Shodan. A Text Battle Report is formatted as follows:

The Battlers: This section details the battlers. It tells you who the contenders are, how strong they are, and provides a brief overview of them.

The Context: This section mentions disputes, friendships, events, and other things of note leading up to and/or surrounding the battle. It also mentions the recent elevation (if any) of the battlers, prior encounters between the two, etc.

The Analysis: This section discusses who won the battle and why. Here I will give my opinion on the battlers’ verses, and mention whether or not I believe that the people’s winner was my winner.

As the magazine develops, you will see Text Battle Reports starring everyone from elevating rookies to established super-heavyweights.

~~~
For this issue’s Text Battle Report, I chose Rican vs. Row (you can read it here) from Round 3 of the 2015 Text Grand Championship, for the following reasons:

• The battle was of reasonably high quality.
• The battle was highly anticipated.
• The battle was between two battlers of different eras, thereby becoming something of a historical curiosity.

What more can you ask?

The Battlers: Rican, sadly, accomplished most of his accomplishments long before I came to LetsBeef. What I do know is that Rican was a respected heavyweight in his own time. This leaves questions to be answered: Has he elevated? Will he be rusty? Is his style outdated? Will the level of battling considered “heavyweight”-strength in 2010 still stack up with the greats of 2015?

Row is a newer middleweight battler, neither extremely strong nor particularly weak. He holds the titles of One Bar Champion, Topical Champion, and Tag Team Champion (co-earned with Subreal), but whether or not he can get the royal blue and walk away with the GC title is… disputed, to say the least.

The Context: Rican had just recently returned to the site, but was met with doubt and derision based on his weak showings in the Basic Text Arena. His battles included poor concepts and even broken multies, but some remained convinced that someone with a history as illustrious as Rican’s couldn’t become trash.

Row, although his style has its detractors, had been on a strong streak. With three titles under his belt and quite a few battles won, he seemed to be a worthy contender for Rican. Many feared that a rusty Rican would be soundly crushed under Row’s flow-heavy bars.

This battle was fought in the 3rd round of the 2015 Text GC, a tournament severely plagued by no-shows. The lack of battles going on meant that individual battles received more relative attention. For Rican, this was the first battle of the tournament; for those curious to see how he would perform, the anticipation was almost unbearable.

The Analysis: Row won the battle with 60% of the vote.

Both battlers brought their signature styles to the table… along with their signature flaws. Even though Rican’s verse had the more creative concepts, he didn’t have them in the same quantity as Row did. His multi sets were fairly short – 2 syllables at the shortest. While this alone is not terrible, many modern battlers see it as a stylistic flaw.

Row, on the other hand, brought lengthy, sustained, schemes with a heavy flow. The bars though were relatively forced, with the punchlines being contrived at best. His only chance of defeating Rican was through quantity, not quality – and this is indeed what happened.

The Site Text Battle Reporter feels as though Rican should have won this battle, but it’s too late to make amends now. Do you agree with this report? Do you think Row deserved to win?

The post The Written Side of Things, #1: Rican vs. Row Battle Report appeared first on LetsBeef Magazine.


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[LetsBeef Magazine]

Hello, I’m Shodan. Welcome to my column, The Written Side of Things, where everything text-battle-related is discussed. As the magazine’s Text Battle Reporter, my duty is to keep our readers informed and appreciative of text battling’s latest developments. Today, I’ll introduce you to Text Battle Reports.

A Text Battle Report is an article detailing a text battle. To become the subject of a Text Battle Report, a battle must be a notable, completed battle; what battles will be featured in these reports is at the discretion of Shodan. A Text Battle Report is formatted as follows:

The Battlers: This section details the battlers. It tells you who the contenders are, how strong they are, and provides a brief overview of them.

The Context: This section mentions disputes, friendships, events, and other things of note leading up to and/or surrounding the battle. It also mentions the recent elevation (if any) of the battlers, prior encounters between the two, etc.

The Analysis: This section discusses who won the battle and why. Here I will give my opinion on the battlers’ verses, and mention whether or not I believe that the people’s winner was my winner.

As the magazine develops, you will see Text Battle Reports starring everyone from elevating rookies to established super-heavyweights.

~~~
For this issue’s Text Battle Report, I chose Rican vs. Row (you can read it here) from Round 3 of the 2015 Text Grand Championship, for the following reasons:

• The battle was of reasonably high quality.
• The battle was highly anticipated.
• The battle was between two battlers of different eras, thereby becoming something of a historical curiosity.

What more can you ask?

The Battlers: Rican, sadly, accomplished most of his accomplishments long before I came to LetsBeef. What I do know is that Rican was a respected heavyweight in his own time. This leaves questions to be answered: Has he elevated? Will he be rusty? Is his style outdated? Will the level of battling considered “heavyweight”-strength in 2010 still stack up with the greats of 2015?

Row is a newer middleweight battler, neither extremely strong nor particularly weak. He holds the titles of One Bar Champion, Topical Champion, and Tag Team Champion (co-earned with Subreal), but whether or not he can get the royal blue and walk away with the GC title is… disputed, to say the least.

The Context: Rican had just recently returned to the site, but was met with doubt and derision based on his weak showings in the Basic Text Arena. His battles included poor concepts and even broken multies, but some remained convinced that someone with a history as illustrious as Rican’s couldn’t become trash.

Row, although his style has its detractors, had been on a strong streak. With three titles under his belt and quite a few battles won, he seemed to be a worthy contender for Rican. Many feared that a rusty Rican would be soundly crushed under Row’s flow-heavy bars.

This battle was fought in the 3rd round of the 2015 Text GC, a tournament severely plagued by no-shows. The lack of battles going on meant that individual battles received more relative attention. For Rican, this was the first battle of the tournament; for those curious to see how he would perform, the anticipation was almost unbearable.

The Analysis: Row won the battle with 60% of the vote.

Both battlers brought their signature styles to the table… along with their signature flaws. Even though Rican’s verse had the more creative concepts, he didn’t have them in the same quantity as Row did. His multi sets were fairly short – 2 syllables at the shortest. While this alone is not terrible, many modern battlers see it as a stylistic flaw.

Row, on the other hand, brought lengthy, sustained, schemes with a heavy flow. The bars though were relatively forced, with the punchlines being contrived at best. His only chance of defeating Rican was through quantity, not quality – and this is indeed what happened.

The Site Text Battle Reporter feels as though Rican should have won this battle, but it’s too late to make amends now. Do you agree with this report? Do you think Row deserved to win?

The post The Written Side of Things, #1: Rican vs. Row Battle Report appeared first on LetsBeef Magazine.


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