And your 2012 World YoYo Contest 1A Champion is...

I totally agree. His freestyle was fantastic. It was so smooth and well choreographed and fun to watch. It was definitely my favorite one.

I am not trying to diminish Mickey’s victory, but I screamed my voice hoarse during Harold’s performance and thought that he wholeheartedly deserved. If he didn’t get it, I thought it would be Marcus. Mickey’s just didn’t blow me away. It was good, but Harold frigging killed it.
But can we all agree that Ben Conde brought the freaking roof down on the place?

He had a few new tricks but the main difference is he didn’t mess up as much as he normally does. His song selection was an epic win also.

Honestly I’m surprised gentry wasn’t in the picture. He had a ton of new stuff it seemed like.

what ever happened to guys like yukki spencer, john ando, and jensen?

Meh, thought Mickey’s Japan National/AP routine was better than his World’s. Was kinda boring. Glad Koh didn’t win again though mainly because i don’t think he should have gotten it last year. Can’t stand behind the back stuff or awkward body tricks. Wow you’re a 100 pound string bean who can contort in super unnatural positions and do fairly basic tricks, not impressed.

Okay we all know Paul Kerbal is the true 2012 winner in our hearts. Even though he didn’t make finals somehow

I would like to address those issues of “who should’ve won”

Really, let’s keep this thread a simple thread about your opinions about certain freestyles that stuck out to you. There are people who get sensitive about this (glad they haven’t shown up yet). The perspective about who should’ve won is a matter of opinion and it varies between’s people’s preference on playing style. Let’s try to refrain from bashing other players and saying that they didn’t deserve something, they won for a reason.

Anyhoo, Marcus Koh’s style was amazing and there are mad props for those types of tricks. I personally think he didn’t win was because he didn’t play the point system and decided to play to impress. He was high risk, high style, and highly awesome. I was amazed by him last year and glad to have seen that he defended a position of respect and standing in the contest. Surely a force to be reckoned with.

Paul Kerbel’s freestyle up there? I was surprised that he didn’t get in too but the judges might’ve saw something we didn’t see. I definitely know for sure that during worlds, never go easy, never hold back even during prelims

Paul Kerbel played for the, “OHHS and AHHS”, he didn’t play the point system.

I still think Paul Kerbel should’ve won. haha… he was INSANE.

I am not sure what a video of someone who did not even make the finals is doing here.

Should this be another thread?

This thread has been changed from the winners to a discussion about the freestyles and it seems that was gonna be Paul’s freestyle

I think what everyone is feeling is the lack of innovation that is normally associated with the world champion. Every year there is some kind of new theme or gimmick that a player brings to the table. John Ando and arm tricks. Shinya Kido and horizontal. Jensen and hops/slack. Markus and behind the back. This year Mickey had a really great and solid freestyle but we didn’t see anything new.

Paul had a fresh style and some tricks we had never seen before so he is probably more associated with a champion just because of that. But the contest format is a game and you need to play it correctly to win…at least until the format changes.

I thought every freestyle was sick and would have easily topped the best of players a few years ago.

I overheard Paul discussing his routine with a judge after not making the finals.  From what I heard it basically sounded like (A) his semi-final routine was overly similar to his prelim routine and (B) he did not play the scoring system correctly.  Simply doing “new” or “unique” stuff wasn’t going to get him into the finals.  We all know this though, I mean, as I stated earlier, Ricardo’s new stuff was insane.  He placed 14th?  Zach Gormley is all innovation and mind blowing new tricks yet he took 12th?  If we’re going to complain about Paul Kerbel we sure better complain about people like Palli.  All those suicides and then this bind at the end and he didn’t make finals?  Geez…

The “alternative” freestyles afterwards as they were tearing the stage down were great.  It let us see how good Paul’s 3 minute freestyle was going to be but he wasn’t the only person who shredded up there.  Petr Kavka?  Sebby?  Sid?  They rocked yet were realistically never going to make the finals because of how it’s scored.  It’s fine, it’s just a rule people have to realize going into the contest.  Tomas Bubak is one of my alltime favorite players and his outing last weekend was far from his best 3 minutes but even if he perfectly nailed everything his style wouldn’t have placed him in the top 10.  That’s just the way it works.  Congrats to Mickey and Marcus, and Chris Chia.  Well done, guys!

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I’m glad someone made this point. I’m also very happy they had “Alternative” freestyles. It allowed me to see many of my favorite players who unfortunately didn’t make finals. Specifically Petr and palli. I wish they used a better camera for the “Alternative” freestyles, but I am thankful nonetheless.

Watching these now. I agree about the camera but it’s still really cool to see these guys perform for the crowd, and not necessarily any point system.

Paul was so legit, and fun to watch, because he himself had fun doing it. Nuff said, In my opinion. yo-ing is about fun to me.

Exactly.

That’s what it should be about. :slight_smile:

The scoring system just needs to be changed. People say that year after year, but really, we’ve gotten to a point where people just do crazy tech/speed stuff for hits and it gets pretty boring, especially for the average viewer. I think the test of a truly good freestyle is if my non-yoyoing friends will sit through a whole 3 minute performance. They definitely would some of the alt freestyles and lower placing ones, but guarantee they’d be bored to death by the top 3-5 finishers.