New Tourney coming soon - Favourite Not Dredd in Tharg’s Thrill Kingdom

[Colin YNWA]

So as you may have come to expect - or dread - as one tourney ends, so the prep to get another started begins and next up we have one I’ve wanted to do from the start, has been delayed for a whole host of reasons and well now feels like the right time.

It's going to be the BIGGEST yet.

It’s NOT going to have all the convoluted nonsense. It's going to be back to the purity of straight one to one knockouts. No faffing, no qualifying (well kinda due to the number of thrills there’s a wonky first round), no seeding (again see last bracketed comment) and just dead straight forward. AND if the title hasn’t given it away its going to be

Favourite Series.

Simple as that.

I’ll use this thread to introduce things. Explain a couple of bits (though most of this is done) and as ever explain the rules for what they are.

Hopefully not too much to say so this might be quite brief and all being well we might even get started next Monday - I’ll see how things go…

[abelardsnazz]

Colin, the work and commitment you put in to these things is admirable. I sat the SD one out as couldn't have chosen between them all but I'm up for this.

[broodblik]

Thanks again Colin this is great fun

[AlexF]

Am rubbing my hands in crazy amounts of glee at this prospect, There are sure to be some days when I have to scratch my head to decide between halkf-forgotten delights like Darkness Visible and Go Machine. And then the days when Rogue Trooper (original flavour) will be crushing Valkyries like a grape.

[Colin YNWA]

Am rubbing my hands in crazy amounts of glee at this prospect, There are sure to be some days when I have to scratch my head to decide between halkf-forgotten delights like Darkness Visible and Go Machine. And then the days when Rogue Trooper (original flavour) will be crushing Valkyries like a grape.

Yeah that's what I like about this one - even Round 1 - which in theory is dominated by 'lesser' thrills has some fascinating contrasts! (yes I've done the draw - and any mistakes will exist ... see Bob the Intergalactic Bum...)

[Southstreeter]

Mmm, Dry Run v Wireheads, Dead Meat v The Clown, and the ultimate big match, Junker v Trash! I can’t wait!

Seriously, this could be fun. Looking forward to reminiscing over long forgotten thrills.

[The Mind of Wolfie Smith]

captain klep for the win

[Colin YNWA]

What counts as a thrill

Well I’m not going to go into much detail here, as I had a whole thread discussing the detail of what counted, and frankly, despite the help of many lovely boarders it was a painful process and I don’t want to revisit it.

Decisions have been made. I’ll not show a list - as you might spot mistakes and if I don’t I reckon I’ll get away with it! And also its a bloody long list!

But in summary:

1. All series in both the Prog and Meg are entered, not not other titles (unless they moved across to the Prog or the Meg that is)

2. Except Judge Dredd - 'cos he’d win too easy and it’d kill any surprises

3. A Series is anything that ran for 2 or more parts…

4...or is an easily identified series of ‘ones offs’ or shorts, such as 'Future Shocks' and 'Tharg’s 3rillers'

5. We had a whole discussion about thrills that originated outside Tharg’s Kingdom and got to this

Comics strips - creator owned or otherwise - have to have at least some of their run's first PRINT appearance (to the best of my knowledge) in either the Prog or Meg.

Where a story has episodes / chapters / books that started outside the Prog or Meg but then subsequent episode / chapters / books first appear in the comic they will be included BUT I ask folks (if they can be bothered and can remember) to only consider those episodes / chapters / books that first appeared in Tharg's kingdom for the purpose of this tourney... though ya know how the heck will I know if you don't / can't be bothered!

6. 'Metalzoic' we decided to make some bland excuses for… you can make your own...

7. And 'Bob the Galactic Bum' I let slip in by mistake and can’t be arsed to redo things AGAIN - so I’m going with the need to replace Lobo with new character Asbo means it at least in part originated in the Meg… suck it up.

8. You have NO idea how hard it is to come up with a definitive list - I used three very reliable public(ish) sources; a few fan generated lists and other bits and pieces and NONE of them matched. I have a list, it will have to do! So…

9...If you think anything is missing and or included in error, well get over it. Imagine I'm as corrupt as FIFA and have just been bribed or something to include / exclude the thrill.

[Rogue Judge]

Yes! Looking forward to this for sure, the only place my vote actually counts for something (after some recent disappointing federal and municipal election results). TBH some of the SD votes caused me more distress than an actual election, choosing a favorite SD child was not easy.

[Colin YNWA]

Yes! Looking forward to this for sure, the only place my vote actually counts for something (after some recent disappointing federal and municipal election results). TBH some of the SD votes caused me more distress than an actual election, choosing a favorite SD child was not easy.

And wow that final ain't going the way I expected... though once again all these tourney's have prove is my utter inability to predict things!

I'm still not over Henry Flint going out in the Quarters of the Current Artist tourney...

[Colin YNWA]

Tourney Format

So there are 343 thrills in the Tourney - this doesn’t neatly go into a knockout so we have a 1st round where not all thrills appear. I gave 90 a bye cos they are big, established favs, or one-offs with really good reps, it was done quickly and will be riddled with bias from me. I image this a bit like Premiere league and Championship clubs joining the FA Cup in the 3rd Round.

The remaining 253 thrills went into a completely random draw for 87 head to head ties - with 79 also getting a bye based on the fact that they aren’t drawn in this round. So schedule is:

Round 1 = 174 thrills in 87 ties; 87 winner progress into Round 2

Round 2 = 256 thrills (87 winners from Round 1 and 149 Thrills that got a bye in that round) in 128 ties

Round 3 = 128 winning thrills from Round 2 in 64 ties

Round 4 = 64 winning thrills from Round 3 in 32 ties

Round 5 = 32 winning thrills from Round 4 in 16 ties

Round 6 = 16 winning thrills from Round 5 in 8 ties

Quarter Finals = 8 winning thrills from Round 6 in 4 ties

Semi Finals = 4 winning thrills from Quarters in 2 ties

Finals = well you’ve worked this out by now haven’t you.

All draws will be fully random (see exception from Round 1) with no seeding - just like the FA Cup - this keeps things more interesting and less predictable. You can get some big hitting ties early and some ‘lesser’ thrills can sneak through to later rounds by getting a good draw.

Who knows how long this will take and I MAY have a break in December for an X-Mas themed Tourney… if I can think of one...oh actually when typing this I might just have thought of one….

[BPP]

Maybe we could have a separate forum category for contests?  Not that I don’t love them and your effort but the first 2 rounds here are 200 new posts..

[Colin YNWA]

Maybe we could have a separate forum category for contests?  Not that I don’t love them and your effort but the first 2 rounds here are 200 new posts..

I'd be entirly happy with that - as it a point thats been raised before - but a bit above my pay grade alas. i did suggest one of the older unused sections could be repurposed but nothing came of it. I do leave it to four days a week to allow other stuff to breathe a bit but it has been flagged before.

The flipside to that is we get a lot of great conversation in the threads (which is the man purpose of the tourneys anyway) and so to a degree I'm also happy with the volume.

[Colin YNWA]

Rules(ish)

Look this is for Fun (and as ever I’ve copied and pasted these and done edits, so ya know if this feels familiar…) this means the rules are what the rules are. Guidelines to help us all chug along and enjoy this and find some consistency and understanding of what the heck we are doing.

1. For each vote during any round in this tourney simply type the name of the series / thrill you like most and want to progress to the next round at the top of a post - feel free to say what you will after that, but it will help me (being lazy and all) if you type the name of your votes at the top of the comment - or make it clear otherwise by adding Bold tags.

2. I will count up votes in each thread after 3 days of starting it and announce the thrill moving onto the next round in that thread. Simply put the one with the most votes - once I've done that feel free to add comments, but your vote won't count and you might be charged (if I can work out how to charge you (?!))

3. In the event of a tie I will have the casting vote - ‘cos ya know I'm self absorbed. But I won’t vote beforehand therefore - sigh I miss voting it was fun!

4. We are voting for our favourite, so not which thrill had the most impact, or is most important. There are no scales for objective what’s the best thrill - it just the one you like the most and who cares what anyone else thinks.

5. I’m winging this so anything thing I've forgotten I'll make up as we go along.

[abelardsnazz]

This is going to be a lot of fun, much rummaging through Tharg's vault is ahoy methinks.