ROUND ONE: (8)ZYG vs. (R)Mordycai - (ZYG WINS 5-0)

[PancakeBrah]

The Winter Topical
ZYG Mordycai

Topic
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/270/7/d/man_vs_nature_by_velocity91-d2qtkfj.jpg

Check In Deadline: 1/11/2014
Verse Deadline: 1/15/2014,11:59 Pacific
Voting Deadline: 1/18/2014 (4 Votes Required)
Extension/Line Extension by request. Must be agreed to.

Good luck to both.

[zygote]

POST APOCALYPTIC SPORTING COMMENTARY.

Welcome back to all those just tuning in on their amateur ham radios,
We’re happy to bring you the action from the always sunny Wastebowl.
The temperature is cool 113 degrees Fahrenheit today,
Let’s cross live to our mutant correspondent as the play gets underway.
So Gaark, how do the players look from the arena? Any thoughts?
Gaark: “Uururgh meat, meeeeaaat, MEAT!” Thanks for that Gaark.
We’ve got the undefeated champion Max “The Axeman” Leveraux,
Up against the new kid Steven Goodley, it should be an impressive show.
Let’s go over the features of the arena – the Wastebowl is 800,000 square kilometers,
Filled with featureless sand, baked soil and endless hues of sepia.
See there’s a few objects scattered around, several derelict tankers,
Yes it’s the first round, it’s all up for grabs, everything matters.
Well my money is on Goodley, he’s been in a rare sort of form,
Upsetting Joe the Cannibal and then the alien collective from Qwarm.
I have to disagree, The Axeman is a machine with a perfect technical style,
He’s back with a passion, versatile with a drive to cross each metrical mile.
Let’s see, both competitors are setting off,
they’re searching for that small bit of reddish cloth.
Yeah if they put it in the metal box that’ll be a triple play with a quadruple score,
Leveraux has just dismembered a cowering family, listen to the people roar, such brutal gore!
And they still scream for more. Meanwhile, Goodley is scavenging for water and food,
Yeah it’s a boring play but also clever, tough competitor, he’s awfully shrewd.
Now for a scheduled break in play, a message from our sponsors…
“Is your hair falling out? Are you tired of vomiting? Try our bottled water!”
And we’re back, but what’s this?! Radioactive dust storms begin to appear,
The wind has changed directions, both competitors monetarily disappear.
He’s down! The Axeman is down. Heat exhaustion! He falls to the dirt.
Let’s see the replay, such a rookie move, he should have worn a shirt.

[timeless]

Minefields surrounded our fishing boat like a clan of pirates
Emerging from the ground's surface they left the sand so vibrant
Never planned for violence, just wanted to stand in silence..
Smiling, holding hands in bind with the sea's stance inside us
Then the clouds blackened, our nerves crashed when they approached
Ocean roaring loud, maddened.. left all of our hope bashful at most
Waves abandoning their posts faster than nature tackled the ropes
She threw in the towel.. what's left waiting was a stack full of notes
Written on them were words that provoked new ways to survive
As I gazed at the first line, it read..
"Nature's at your throat, find shade for her crime"
It wasn't enough.
I was the lone survivor, alive but slain, deprived and sunk
It's been a month..
..and I already salvaged what was left on the boat
Hesitant on setting forth into the desert 'cuz I question my hope
It was always a lot easier just to go fishing off of the back too
Now I hunt, wishing on something living to put an axe through
Starving mad.. I followed tracks though the sand one by one
Left me ontop of a carcass, deceived my plan's untied tongue
My ideas gained a voice but not until I shaved the noise
Talking to myself in shame like sustained pain it's myself I annoy
Screams echoed across the dry land waiting on an answer
I know I won't get one, no patience.. left pacing like a dancer
Only there is no beat, just me choking.. strangled by the lasting heat
Hoping my ego speaks before its soon dangled by the captain's seat
What was once the tame Indian Ocean..
..Is a desert's pain, singing and boasting
Poking it's own patience, mingled emotion
Baiting mass slayings for a single devotion..
To hinge it's hopeless souls on death's door
Just to revoke our roles and concepts more..
..than ever before, to detour what we've forced..
into Nature's habitat and onto our lovely courts.

[uh-oh]

ZYG, this is my first time reading your stuff im pretty sure, unless you posted under another name or my weedsmoking has erased it from my memory. this was somewhat entertaining. my main beef is flow, you had nice rhymes though i just havent peeped any text in awhile and your verse is kind of the epitome of what i think of when i think of text. its sacrifice flow for content and cohesiveness of story and what you are trying to say basically. the lines are longer and more descriptive and just kind of rhyme at the end to keep it flowing. you sort of got it going with the reddish cloth schemes metal box etc it was flowing but word. i dunno imo it was an easy read but seems pretty simple and easy. the end was cool for what it is i dig it. i dunno how to critique verses anymore lmao. but yea my main thing is im big on flow and just readability. although your verse didnt flow that well as i read it, it was readable and you kept it moving and cohesive. ended a little abrupt tho i didnt realize they were even near eachother yet, but i guess the sandstorm couldve occured in both places cuz it aint like the other dude got him he just died from exposure basically. but word 800,000 kilometers seems like a pretty big arena but word i gotta stop now. i thought this was ok/cool.

MORDYCAI, this is probably my first time reading your shit too. lets see. yo you lost me. right now your losing points with me cuz i had to stop reading. you got a grasp of good mechanics tho and it reads smooth with the rhyme schemes. im just trying to build a world in my head and failing and then i started thinking about everything other then the verse my eyes were skimming over and reading but not registering. im gonna try and read it again.

theres a ship out at sea. a storm hits. somehow this dude survived no one else did. he's left survival instructions stating the obvious. he's in a bleak desert. he's losing it and dying. and thats kind of it. if there are metaphors and hidden meanings they flew over my simpleton mind. you lost me honestly when he found a carcass. you just went off rhyming and saying shit that went over my head and seemed like it added nothing. yea the whole end lost me

while mordycai got more technical with it, zyg's story was much easier to engage with, and nothing was really forced. mordycai you kind of tried to be on some deep shit and failed, or succeeded and its just too deep for me to comprehend. which is very possible. but since i didnt get it i gotta go with zyg on this one

which is weird, reading his verse and seeing his record i was like wtf? is he battling anyone half decent? basically i wasnt impressed. but his was better overall

so word zyg in the future be more technical and dope with your mechanics, you understand rhyming you just need to string together and put more thought into the inners and regular words getting you to the rhymes and helping accentuate and move everything alone. mordycai you basically need to not force it so much and let it come naturally. you probably wrote this quick you had some dope couplets and you understand everything i would just try and be more blatant with your meanings and explanations instead of being vague to sound all extra smart

vote - zyg

[PancakeBrah]

ZYG-

Entertaining, with the possibility of some deeper reading. On the surface this was a satirical look at sports commentary and fascination; had the feel of Running Man/Hunger games written by The Onion. I particularly enjoyed the triple play/quadruple score line and the bottle of water advertisement. Funny lines. Also, this was an ironic verse in relation to the picture. You wrote for comedic effect in direct opposition of the seemingly try-hard epicness of the graphic drawing. I believe that effect was purposeful and not a ancillary coincidence. The only real negatives I found with the verse was it was a bit plain technically, especially for you, and that I think you left yourself open to losing to a very well crafted srs approach. I think this verse is a bit more 'intelligent' than a reader would give credit for after a cursory reading. But in the end it was a fun little bit of satire with some creative science-fiction elements and comedic one-liners. I enjoyed it.


Mordycai-

Having never read you before, really, I was impressed. Your verse had a fatal flaw, though, which we'll get to later. You're a strong writer, in spurts, when you're not forcing a rhyme. In particular, the 'myself I annoy' 'find shade for her crime', and 'axe through' lines were mint. You have a knack for wording, and, if I can be self-indulgent for a second, I see a lot the traits I like about my own writing in yours. It was nuanced. The fatal flaw, though, is the lack of framing and, in turn, sense in your verse. We start out in a boat, okay. Why are there mines around us? And if we're in a boat, why are the mines emerging from the ground? You say they're in the sand but if we're in a boat they don't surround us. This may seem nitpicky but it's not; your entire verse is predicated on the beginning and the beginning has no logic. Perhaps I can stretch out those lines to mean a complete destruction, but it's not my job as a reader to create meaning. I need something more; not necessarily a cause but a frame to work within. You may say to yourself "Cake, ZYG's verse is about a battle royale in an empty dust bowl with a ship, who was logic?" but ZYG's verse was self-contained, a moment captured. Yours relied on empathy and relating to the plight; it was a description of a life couched in a story but the story lost me from the point of origin. I thought you wrote exceedingly well. If you had wrote 6-8 lines before your current starting point you would've likely won.

I've been consistently impressed by the battles I've read in this tournament so far and this is no different. I'm not overly familiar with mordycai but on a strictly technical level I think he outwrite ZYG. ZYG, though, had the topical chops and nuance to take advantage with a better concept and better begin to finish idea.

v/ZYG

[Wise Wiggles]

So zyg threw some crazy futuristic death gladiator game at us with funny little chime ins from the sponsor's/announcer. Lol the bottled water line was clever. I enjoyed it because it was fast. Fun. And kept me intrigued with it for a number of different reasons. A really unique take on it imo. A comedic mad max. Bravo. Now mordycai gave us a slower paced description of a shipwrecked captain person who crashes into a desert and goes looney and all that goodness of hot dry places. It wasn't bad but it wasn't grabbing my attention through out, as in there weren't a lot of elements presented in it. Metaphors. Voice (as in raw emotion or reaction) so it was more figurative of the mind. The mechanics weren't bad either. It's just hard to top what zyg brought to the table w/o implementing some of things mentioned. Good match up, I got Zygote taking this with the GoreShowOfFunnys. Pce.

[big baby]

i thought mord was uh oh, but idk who he is now, oh well.

pinky broke.

zyg - a filtering presence convening your skillset through an array of microscopic nebulas. you impressed here and approached with confidence, being the first one to drop a verse, i think even on opening day, neither caring if you dropped first or second, or anything. that is confidence in your writing and you explored that area well. your verse deviated in my opinion, but i could catch the waft of your initial explanation, by a few filtered and concetrated 2nd and 3rd reads. It read a bit off center, especially when the correlation between picture and writing was such a hard differentiation to make.

mordycai had the most solid verse, not necessarily saying he had the best verse, but it just seemed straightforward, with no flashy theatrics, and just displayed his main strength, consistency. though the imagination drifted throughout, i feel he/she could have made it a better and more interesting battle, the mechancis made the initial reading of the verse suffer, as zyg presented a blade etched from diamond. zyg presented a more detailed, finished, and crisper verse opposed to his solid opponent, and therefore i have to give it to him. sorry for the mediocre breakdown.

[Eŋg]

zyg - i thought this was ripe with a very black humour, supported by a fairly fluid style where the tone seemed mostly conversational, if a touch robotic. not many hiccups here at all really, for me, considering what it was. the bar with sepia didn't rhyme? enunciation, possibly. but yea this was a dope approach and your verse gave it life. i think more than anything i give you points on your approach -- which i really enjoyed, and worked off the picture well. the execution was strong, too, though. good shit.

mord - a solid 'topical'. you're a pretty good writer. you definitely unearthed a few cliches here, and not unlike your competitor you held something of a predictable rhyme scheme. you rhymed more, to your credit. but the setup, technically, was just a bit mundane. i wouldn't mind you branching that out. but that;s me speaking to you as one writer to another -- my advice probably won't help you win 'topical' battles. but yea this was steadfast. because of that i found it a bit dim. not bad writing at all though.

v/zyg