Holostars are champions of VSaikyou 2023!

I know I’m late in writing about this…

Actually, I want to write about the greatest story that came out of VSaikyou 2023 (in my opinion anyway): TEAM SNAKE BITE! I WILL NOT WALLOW, A NEW ARC OF TSB WILL FOLLOW! Ehem …

I decided to use the official final rankings of earlier today’s VSaikyo Apex Tournament as the featured image of this blog post, so that I won’t have to explain in detail on what happened and what the results were. There are plenty of VODs and clips that tell this entire story, so please do check those out on YouTube.

This is just a personal account and reflection post about TSB and VSaikyou in general. Here we go.

TO OUR BOYS …

Congratulations to Rikka and Hizaka Gamma and their respective teams for winning 2nd and 3rd place in this year’s VSaikyou Tourney. Not only that, Happy (belated) Birthday to Rikka as well. On the same day as VSaikyou, Rikka also turned 4-years-old.¹ It may not be First place, but Rikka (and his teammates, Pakael and Kuga Leo) reached second place out of all 20 teams participated.

Two new original songs, a 3D live stage special, and a 2nd place win at VSaikyou? Definitely his best day yet!

To Gamma, who was able to join the tournament via a recommendation from the Mad Maggin’ Maggie senpai Astel Leda to join VSai vets, Shinomiya Runa and Kaminari QPi, really brought up his FPS gamin’ to Apex. Just like the "3-pt Monster" sniper Regis Altare, Gamma’s experience came from other games such as Valorant, but not as familiar with Apex. As a Plat III rank, he was awarded 4 pts.² As a first-timer, he and his team reached third place. Congrats to you also Gamma!

Second, to VSaikyou’s most infamous Mad Maggin’ Maggie himself, Astel Leda, who, as many VSaikyou devotees noticed, learned how to have fun in a very intense tourney this year in comparison to the past few years he participated in. Sure, he was still a bully by massacring other unsuspecting teams that still made him lose more friends… except he didn’t lose all his friends. I haven’t been paying attention to the other teams because I was so invested in TSB, but even us TSB enthusiasts have noticed that Astel’s team, Starry Sky Magic, had been slumping during the official scrims. That doesn’t mean they’ll be slumping on Tournament D-Day itself, and this team proved that by reaching 9th Place.

Last, but not least… my first two oshis of Holostars and my Shiny Spicy Duo with the super-amazing Selen Tatsuki of Nijisanji EN Obsydia — TEAM SNAKE BITE!

I know I may sound biased, and I am a complete noob to VSaikyou and competitive Apex altogether, but many of us believe that the journey of TSB from a bunch of "nobodies" of the EN VTuber world in the JP VTuber scene competitive gaming to one of VSaikyou’s favorites to win, what a rough and fun ride! Sure, the results wasn’t what we hoped (17th Place), but throughout the customs and scrims, you three have won so much that are worth more than a Top 10 Placement on Tournament D-Day.

TSB Wins from Start to End

From my own view, as well as probably the views of others, here is a list of wins that TSB accomplished all the way to Tournament Day, not quite in order:

• Axel being the very first EN VTuber to receive an invitation from VSaikyou’s organizer, ShibuyaHAL, to participate in this year’s VSaikyou and compete against the tournament’s Best of the Best. He first heard about VSaikyou during his early debut days when he had a chance to compete in a ShibuyaHAL Apex Custom with his senpais, veteran Astel Leda and UPROAR leader Yatogami Fuma and it was then that he took an opportunity to reach ShibuyaHAL and hinting at him that he’s interested in many more opportunities in the JP Apex Competitive scene.³
• Because of the points system regulation in forming teams, Axel wasn’t able to form a team with just himself and fellow Tempus members. None of them had enough points to make up to the minimum of 17 points. He was not able to reach out to his StarsJP senpais because of their full schedules or that some of them are already in other teams (in this case, Astel, Rikka, and Gamma). Most of the Hololive girls he was close with do not play Apex regularly, even Ollie herself wasn’t enough because the highest ranking she reached was not enough to add up to the 17 points minimum. He only had one option: go outside HoloPro
• ShibuHAL at first did not approve of Selen becoming part of the team because of her highest ranking in the past (Predator). But because that was many years ago, and that she was no longer a regular Apex player, Axel fought hard for her to be in the tournament. Participating in VSaikyou was also Selen’s dream, and Axel fought to make both of their dreams come true.
• For the final third member, it was a little easy for Axel to go back to the Tempus boys and choose anyone who was interested. Magni Dezmond was Axel’s first choice, namely because the three of them have done an Apex collab before. However, according to ShibuHAL, Dez would be a little high based on his ranking, assigning him at least 4 pts. They would go over the max limit of 21 pts, which meant it’s impossible to have Dez in the team. He had to find someone a little lower than Dez’s highest rank that would total a little close to 21 pts. Eventually, he turned to his guild leader Altare who also competed with him and rpr as Rest In Ping in the last Kohaku Cup. ShibuHal researched Altare’s past Apex gaming and his highest level turned out to be Platinum 4. Because of his lack of experience with Apex, ShibuHal awarded Altare with only 3 pts, reaching the max pt level of 21 altogether as a team.
• TSB has been blessed with three coaches before having their official coach, Nocturnal of XSET, in training them in the early customs before the official scrims began. Thank you to rpr, iPN, and Tempplex for taking some time in mentoring TSB.
• In the JP VTuber competitive gaming scene, Selen was already somewhat of a household name to the other teams competing in VSaikyou. Selen also revealed to Axel and Altare that there are about 24 members coming from Nijisanji (including herself), meaning there is at least one member of Nijisanji in each team participating. This also means that most, if not all, of the Nijisanji JP livers, are already familiar with her, her gaming style, and even her past former Predator level self. Because of that, in a way, prompted the rest of the VSai teams to keep their eyes open on TSB. Sure, they may be the only full EN team participating, and all three of them are first-timers in VSai, but having a former Pred rank like Selen in that team? It definitely seems that all eyes were at TSB since then.
• The big surprise with TSB? The TEMPUS guild leader himself, Regis Altare. Playing under 200+ ping, the "3pt Monster" sniper just couldn’t help but farm more shields for his team that (probably) no one even noticed. Eventually, ShibuHal and the top names in VSai were able to witness Altare’s eagle eye and even ranking up some kill and damage points that got him in the Top Ten players with the highest kill points and damage points one and a few times. During those times, he just gained new fans from the JP-niki fans from ShibuHal’s community, plus he gained recognition and respect from the other participants (outside Holostars) too.
• Axel "Zone Prophet" Syrios – his keen sense is just impeccable. Only lowkey tensais like him can only come up with plans such as having Selen and Altare camp at the top of the poles watching other teams killing each other before they do their own killing. ShibuHal was just having a blast lowkey roasting the other teams saying "None of them even noticed TSB just camping there at the poles!" Gotta give major props to Axel for being a focused and tactical-minded IGL.⁴
• TSB made some new friends too among their fellow participants – even gained an "ally" team in Team 9 (Pakael, Rikka, Kuga Leo), Axel finally meeting the senpai he unknowingly bullied back at the Kureiji Arcade⁵, Altare (temporarily?) made friends with a VSPO member (Tosaka Mimi), while ShibuHal has been keeping an eye on TSB a lot more often then.

Even though TSB ended up in 17th place at the end, at least they weren’t last. Hopefully, this isn’t going to be the last of TSB either. But more importantly, everyone who has watched VSaikyou from the customs and scrims to the tournament day will truly remember TSB and its players. Perhaps, should there be another huge Apex tournament, TSB may even return for their Revenge Arc. Maybe not.

The Aftermath

I, personally, am going through a withdrawal period. I have to wake up around 4:30 am-ish on the weekdays for work, but I always dreaded waking up at that time that I eventually end up getting up at 5:30 am. But when the TSB VSaikyo Arc began, I got more motivated to get up even as early as 4am, just to watch the trio go through their practice. Today (Monday PDT), I started to dread waking up that early again because there’s nothing I look forward to at that time. Dangit, I miss TSB so much…

• Altare is away on a vacation. He had some unlucky scuffs during his flight, but hopefully, things are smooth today for him. We won’t be able to hear from him (except for Twitter Spaces) until the 21st.

• Selen declared that she will officially retire from playing Apex and just FPS games in general… only to reveal a few days later that she’s got another tournament to compete with Coach Nocturnal next week. Oops…

• Axel took some rest, then later ended up having a post-VSaikyou zatsu. Next day, he had a 200K followers zatsu collab with his K_ntama Brother, Magni Dezmond in his usual izakaya setting, eating some hot pot and getting drunk.

• Earlier this morning, Arurandeisu hosted April’s Stars Zatsu with some other JP Stars, whoever shows up. At around the 10-minute mark, they gave a lowkey nod to TSB (well, not specifically TSB, they only mentioned Tempus…) when Aruran mentioned how cool TSB were with their in-game calls (his favorite was Altare’s "Crack! Crack! Crack!"), Izuru comparing Altare and Axel to the pro gamers they used to watch in eSports, Shien mentioning Axel’s "Let’s f***ing go baby!", etc. I had to mention this because, while it may not seem like it, but the JP senpais (Rikka included) have been watching their EN kouhais since the beginning.

• Unrelated, but we got two birthdays for this week alone! Happy Birthday Kishido Temma (4/18) and Banzoin Hakka (4/21)~

I think I’ve written a lot, so I’m gonna end it here.

Till next time homies~!