Beak Bonk! 2024
Amelia Green, April 8, 2024
On Saturday April 6th, 2024, the Vandal Gaming Convention held an amazing event: Beak Bonk! This event is large series of tournaments, including but not limited to Super Smash Bros, Grandblue Fantasy, and Chess. There were wonderful guest casters here alongside our own program’s casters and the Palouse Gaming casters!
To kick off the intense battles, Collegiate Crew Battle Competition had University of Idaho, University of Central Washington, Boise State University, and Washington State University fighting for the top spot. The final match ended up being between the University of Idaho and Washington State University. Our Vandals were able to take an uncontested win, not losing a single crew battle!
Among Singles and Doubles tournaments, many people played in games that aren’t usually seen in the lab as well as ones our Vandal Fans are familiar with. In Super Smash Bros Ultimate Singles, there were 129 competitors in the bracket that was narrowed down to 16, and the undefeated winner was Jose “JDV” Gallegos from Washington. Another uncontested winner, Zaid “Spark” Ali, participated in Super Smash Bros Melee against 75 other opponents. Super Smash Bros Brawl hosted a bracket of 8 contenders. The final winner was an unnamed player going by “686M,” with a 5-0 record. Rivals of Aether Singles ended with Malcolm “mow_kitty” Shepard winning mostly undefeated in a 22 entrant, tournament-style bracket. Doubles for Smash Ultimate held 34 teams and ended with the team of David “RiskTKR” Miller and Eric “Sticccy” Stickley taking first with their only loss being the second place team. Following Ultimate Doubles, Melee Doubles had 13 teams with the team of Zaid “Spark” Ali and an unknown player going by “Stiv” winning.
The final few tournament brackets left include Grandblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, the chess ladder, Guilty Gear: Strive, Street Fighter 6, an Ultimate ladder, Tekken 8, and Mortal Kombat 1. Grandblue Fantasy competed with 12 entrants and the final winner was an unknown player going by “Hatt.” Following, a chess ladder was held on boards rather than online that concluded with a player known as “TheBeastQuake” taking the win. In Guilty Gear: Strive, the top 8 from 40 competed in a secondary bracket that had Andree “ChicoChops” Ramirez in first at the end. In a similar fashion, the Street Fighter 6 matches ended with Matthew “Biscuit” Martin as the champion. As the fourth Super Smash Ultimate bracket, the ladder had 87 entrants, and the final winner being an unknown player going by “Balthazar.” Tekken 8 was a bracket of 65 narrowed down to the top 8. It concluded with the unnamed player called “Free SBF Obvious.” The final event of the wonderful event was the Mortal Kombat 1 tournament had 14 participants and Kyle “12th WonderOfU” Nepo took the win in the end.
Thanks to all who joined us for this event! Please join us again in person at the lab in the Pitman Center, on Twitch, or on YouTube!