An Ode to Mix-Up

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An Ode to Mix-Up

Written By Adelaide Spence

In the history of Multiplex, there were many attempts to spice up the schedule and make tournament season less predictable. Fandom I think is more well known for this: with the ladder teams tournament, singles triple threat, and most recently WOAT. Melee recently did something very interesting with the Pick ‘Em format, but I’ve always been quite fond of the first major shakeup. In the Fall of 2020, the Warzone Mix-Up tournament was announced, which was set to change everything. EVERY TEAM was broken up to see who could threaten the super team of The Concept of What A Hamburger Is All About… except Light It Up who just didn’t wanna participate. I’ve always been quite fond of this era of Warzone and wanted to give it the roses I think it deserves. 

First and foremost, the tournament itself was fairly unpredictable. There were 3 seeding upsets of the 8 first round matches, starting off with one of the weirdest ones: Reel or No Reel vs Shdug. To understand these matchups, we must first talk about seedings. With one exception, rankings were decided by the combined singles records of the 2 teammates, which led rookie sensation Cameron Redshaw to be fairly highly ranked with his teammate, Ryan O’Regan. However, chemistry is a necessity, and a lack of commutation and commitment to studying is what tanks this team to a loss at the hands of maybe the laziest team name in Warzone history. 

The tournament was filled with some weird matchups but also gifted us some beautiful combinations. For every Turd Fergusons (Matt Cuellar & Jeff Varju)- top 5 worst team names for the record- you have a Parlay (Jacoby Bancroft and Kaleb Koho). The beauty of this was seeing how these large personalities either melded together or blew up massively. I think a prime example of this came in a round 1 match-up: Myld Stallyns vs Fuck You Luca Brasi. Far be it from me to toot my own horn, but this is a massively entertaining quartet. Myself and Brian Michaels had basically nothing in common and he openly said people gave him shit for ending up with me, which lead to half of “this means nothing” and half “oh shit I need to prove myself.” Then there’s Kirk Kowalkowski and Jim Green. In the announcement video of the teams getting created, Jim came on camera and said he had no fucking clue who Kirk was. Kirk yelled at him and said to get ready to study. That would never happen organically and that’s what made this concept such a fruitful execution. There’s also the aforementioned Parlay. Koho and Jacoby were both mainstays in the leagues even by that point and loved being on camera together. This was a match made in Hawaiian shirt heaven and these 2 were committed to the run. Even if they didn’t stick together, this short stint would be one of the more entertaining spots in the event.

Before we get to the final successes of the run, let’s also give some shine to the teams that actually decided to stick together. The Massholes (Nick Twohig and Lucas Schildbach) were the only round 1 losers that stuck together and it kind of makes sense. Very similar energy and strengths that don’t have many other commitments going on in Warzone. They lost to the Fighting Fedoras (Antonio Chavez and Brannon Dunlap) who were definitely… a team. There’s also Team Names Are For Suckers / The Guys Who Do Their Job. Zack Ford was a much anticipated player in the 2020 season and was on a highly accurate team with Boatman. Mark Menchaca was the hot new rookie who was yet to find his teammate. These two came together and something just kind of clicked. An early victory over Pittsburgh Power Rangers (Rene Villareal Jr. and Nick Carley) and strong second round performance over the aforementioned Fedoras put these 2 on a strong momentum under Cody’s management, barely winning in sudden death. The third returning team before we get to the stars of this tournament is Hack To The Future, later known as The Devil’s Hands. Andrew Barr’s most recent performance was wining the singles title against Caleb Boatman, so he had a HUGE target on his back coming in. Ryan was a relative newbie who had a massive teams debut with Scott against The Concept in the first tournament that year with one of the best matches of the season. The two together was a seeming super team with a questioning surge of fear over their impending opponents. And who do they debut against? Those nasty, evil, dastardly motherfuckers known as Hollywood Video. Ike Manley and Wazario came in to burn this league to the ground and brutally execute Blockbuster Video. Thankfully, Hack was able to win decisively with a KO. Another win over Parlay put them in the semi-finals, with an eventual loss to the tournament winners.

The losing finalists of this tournament was Woodsboro’s Finest. Caleb Boatman is Caleb Boatman. Inarguably one of the greatest to play the game. A former singles and teams champ who is allergic to flopping in tournament season. His partner was Thomas Eanes, who was just coming off a legendary run of playing The Concept in 3 of his last 5 matches as a part of Second Reel and was making himself known was one of the strongest partners a teammate could ask for. The 2 together are what makes a great team and sent shivers down the spines of all the players involved. With strong victories over Penske Material (Ryan Permisson and Mark Camire) and Myld Stallyns in round 2, they quickly became a favorite to win as the #2 seed. They beat The Guys in the semis and were an odds on favorite going into the finals, but there was 1 team left to overcome…

My most anticipated team going into this tournament lost to the pentultimate Cinderella story, only second to Wookie Mistake actually happening around the same time. John 3 Wicksteen (team names are actually all around kind of weird for this tournament), the team of Cameron Holzmann and Tyler Beutler, are up against the Club Dread love child of Legal Ease. Cameron really made his presence known earlier in the season, with a legendary victory over Jake Maringoni. Tyler hasn’t had as stellar of a season, but had very strong losses to Michael Campbell and Kirk Kowalkowski, as well as a very strong performance in his teams debut with Sith Happens, that it was just a matter of time until he made a terrifying run. Even with all that though, they still lost. Down 4 out of round 1 and picking up 8 points in their opponent’s strength, they lost to the 12 seed. Why? Let’s talk about the supernova anomaly that is Scott Harvey and Ethan Beller. 

Scott started in 2019 and into 2020 similar to how he is today, performing very strong but staying around .500, not able to string together a lot of wins. Ethan, despite making his presence very known in 2019, had a bit of a disappointing season in 2020, with losses to Kaleb Koho in round 1 of the singles tournament and to Clash at Demonhead in the teams one. He had established a base line of fear to instill in his opponents and needed to find a way to win it back. In hindsight, both these players later becoming managers makes sense. Their clinical approach to strengths and strategy I think was the secret to their incredible teamwork. They had this wonderful Venn diagram with a lot in common but also a lot of differences where there was very little neither of these 2 didn’t know as a team. I think they also benefitted from just being friends beforehand. Aside from maybe Parlay, this is the only team with a real definable friendship prior to being mixed up together. They were able to overcome the communication slump that sunk many of the less stacked teams that took them to the end. Beating the aforementioned Shdug, Hack to the Future (later known as The Devil’s Hands) and the theoretical super team of Woodsboro’s Finest; this initial afterthought of a 12 seed became your next title challengers. Not only that, but in the eventual title match against The Concept, they forced the, at the time; greatest team ever; to answer their 4 pointer to win. Just an incredible achievement that was gifted by the wonder of the wheel of partners.

This tournament is not just the story of successes. At the end of the day, only a quarter of the teams even stayed together, and one of them was a team that lost in round 1. What lasting impact did it even have? My thesis here is that this temporary explosion caused a very real one to follow into the very next season. By putting this thought in the minds of players and already cutting some tension, we were able to create super teams like Double Indemnity and Bullets Over Broadway. We even get lesser but still dangerous teams like Excommunocado and Not My Tempo. The skill level of the whole division went up, making it more exciting for me as a viewer and lover of the show.