ENDED Free Rider World Cup 5 - Prizes Out!

Hey guys. What's up. This is it, it's the time for the Championship Finals. But before talking about that, let's talk about the last round we had, the Losers Championship Finals.

First of all, let's talk about the track. The track was originally a collab between OdysseusSupreme and Madara, but later it has heavily changed by OdysseusSupreme. I personally think it was one of the best tracks of the contest, so good job, guys. It was kinda long, but a very interesting trial. Some of the detail was unfinished, but it was a very good work overall.

As for the round, the Losers Championship Finals is always different. Following the format from this year and last year, this is the round with less people involved on having to ghost the track, so it's usually not the most popular one, but we still had some engagement. We didn't even have a full leaderboard on the track, but we had some good participation on the poll. We had 23 votes for RedOrBlue against 12 for BoostButt, a bit less one-sided towards RedOrBlue than most of RedOrBlue's matchups in the contest, which shows some respect earned by BoostButt in the contest.

As for the ghosts RedOrBlue started with a solid lead with a ghost a bit over 2 minutes, and then both started to improve their ghosts. Eventually, RedOrBlue had a longer lead with his 1:42.23 time, while BoostButt had a ghost around 1:47. RedOrBlue was confident on his BMX skills to take this W, while BoostButt tried the track with MTB. RedOrBlue had less mistakes, but BoostButt's speed seemed more impressive, so if he could cut off the deaths, he had a good chance of winning.

In the last day, RedOrBlue didn't seem to really ghost the track too much, but still had the lead. BoostButt kept trying and trying, and eventually, relatively close to the end, he got an impressive 1:40.83 time and took this win home. What a performance!

As for RedOrBlue, there's no discussion. We know he's one of the best ghosters ever, looking at it either right now, or in an all-time perspective, and he was great in this contest. However, it's clear that he didn't spend as much time ghosting on the contest after leaving the Winners Championship as he seemed to do before, so he didn't take the win here. Also, the deadlines didn't help him due to his timezone, so I get that it would be hard for him to do many last minute ghosts, for example. Still, he did good on pretty much every single round, so props to him for coming this far and getting the 6th place overall in the contest. The once 2nd place in the Free Rider World Cup 3 is now leaving the contest, but we hope you liked the experience and ,of course, we hope to see you in future editions.

As for BoostButt, what a perfomance! Just like Madara did last year, the Losers Champion went through every single round of the Losers Championship and took the W. Will he be able to actually finish 3rd place overall like Madara did? We will discover in less than 3 days. BoostButt keeps doing an impressive contest and now will have a very deserving chance to face Chaos-Fallen and Cerulean to fight for the 3rd place overall. According to RedOrBlue, he only spent like half an hour ghosting the last track, while BoostButt said that he spent like 10 hours ghosting it. So, although it shows the genius RedOrBlue is on this game, it also shows how committed BoostButt is to this contest, so I think he was the one who deserved the most to win the Losers Championship.

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Now, let's talk about the Championship Finals. It's time!!

After a long wait, it's finally time to meet the champion of the 5th edition of the Free Rider World Cup. Noob beat WrzodX in the finals and took the win in 2015 in the first edition where I got 3rd place, Backtwice won the 2nd edition, that had a league system, leaving the current champion at the time, Noob in 2nd place and darksmoke11 in 3rd, back in 2016. After the two very sucessful editions hosted by DblU, I brought this competition back in 2019, where we did a league system, and Anonyymi was the great champion, while RedOrBlue was the runner-up and Stevie.T the 3rd place. In 2020, just before the Covid stuff started to get crazy, we did the 4th edition of this contest, with the same format from this year. Anonyymi was the champion, becoming the first player to have 2 Free Rider World cup titles and 2 ghosting contest medals after beating Calculus in the Championship Finals. Madara won the 3rd place match and finished with a medal as well, after coming from the Losers Championship.

So who will be the winner this time? Who will be the runner-up? And the 3rd place? Let's make a quick recap of the 5 contestants performances in the contest so far.

For the 3rd place:

BoostButt - The Losers Championship winner didn't have an easy time on the contest so far. He started with an amazing ghost in Qualifiers, a 31.23 that grantedd him the 2nd place on the round and a spot on the best pot in the Seeding process. Really impressive! That great performance might have awarded him some compliments from the community, but it was also an issue. The blessing turned into a curse when the Seeding Process for the Group Stage happened and BoostButt ended up in the same group as Zycerak and Stevie.T, in a improvable combination of factors. Xenom was also in the group (as scoutrules still). This was the Group 6. BoostButt won against scoutrules in the first group stage match, where he got a great 49.70 time, 3rd place on the round. In the second group stage match, BoostButt lost to Zycerak, despite making a great 52.70 time, 6th place on the round. In the third group stage match he had a dramatic match against Stevie.T, where he won with an amazing 27.17 time, 1st place on the round. Still, there was a triple tie with 6 points in his group and he lost due to the combined time in the Group Stage, despite having the 4th best combined time. That happened because Zycerak had the 2nd best combined time and Stevie.T had the 3rd, so he didn't qualify due to 0.6 seconds, despite doing an amazing performance. In the Losers Championship he beat awesomeman82 with a good 52.00 time (9th place on the round), then he beat Zycerak, in a rematch where Zycerak didn't ghost, with a 37.70 time (4th place on the round). After that, he beat Pie42 with a 29.67 time (6th place on the round). In the Losers Championship Semifinals, he beat spruce and Giampitek with a 41.13 time (2nd place on the round), and then he beat RedOrBlue in the Losers Championship Finals, with an 1:40.83 time. Will he be able to pull off another amazing win against Cerulean and Chaos-Fallen? Let's wait and see.

Cerulean/Sharkfin - The great and controversial ghoster made it to the 3rd place match. After getting 5th place with a 31.40 time in the Qualifiers, Cerulean got in the best pot in the Seeding and had a relatively easy time in the Group Stage. He won the 3 group stage matches, beating Coated_Badger with a 51.27 time (8th place on the round), RadiumRC with a 1:03.13 time (9th place on the round) and Wolf777 with a 38.33 time (14th on the round). In the Round of 16, Cerulean took a major W beating Legendary Ghoster medal winner and last year's 3rd place in the contest Madara. He got an amazing 48.90 time (1st place on the round) and left no chance to Madara on the round. In the Quarterfinals, after a polemic tactic of not ghosting the entire round, just the last 10 minutes, Cerulean beat the favorite to win the contest, the legendary ghoster RedOrBlue with an amazing 36.73 time (2nd place on the round). But in the Semifinals, he tasted his own medicine and suffered a last minute upset in the match against Backtwice, despite doing a good 29.03 time, 3rd place on the round. Now, it's time for Cerulean to fight for the last time for a medal in this contest. Will he be able to pull this off and get another interesting ghosting award? Let's wait and see.

Chaos-Fallen - Starting with a solid 31.67 in the Qualifiers, 7th place on the round, Chaos-Fallen ended up in the best pot and had a relatively chill Group Stage. He won the 3 group stage matches, beating HafiSyah with a great 50.00 time (4th place on the round), beating adversitas with a 1:03.93 time (10th place on the round) and then Symantec with an amazing 27.97 time (4th place on the round). In the Round of 16, Chaos-Fallen faced Uniior and took the win with a 50.10 time (4th place on the round). In the Quarterfinals, Chaos-Fallen had a legendary win against spruce in the last day of the round, with an insane 33.30 time (1st place on the round). In the Semifinals, after a crazy round against mudkip, Chaos-Fallen lost the match by 0.07 second, despite getting a great 29.57 time (5th place on the round). Now it's time for him to fight for the 3rd place for the first time on a Free Rider World Cup contest, just like his opponents. But, he already has a 3rd place medal on a ghosting contest for the first Ghosting Battle Contest, hosted by Madara. Will he be able to get another one?

For 1st place:

Here they are. It's the time for the Championship Finals. If I made a poll when we started the contest about who would be in this finals, I wonder if anyone at all would vote on this final. Don't get me wrong, both finalists are beasts on the game, but it just wouldn't be the usual guess right now. Backtwice was once the best player on this game for a great amount of time, and is still considered one of the best ever since the CR days, doing great on BHR and FRHD as well. Also, he won an edition of this contest already, so why no consider him as a possible finalist? I feel like the answer is quite simple: he wasn't active lately. He usually would come around once in a while, but never was as active as consistent as he once was. In the end of the last year and the beginning of this one, he dropped a few featured ghosts and started showing up sligthly more often on the game, so it was interesting to see him joining the contest. He didn't check the thread initially but I personally posted on his profile about it, a few days before the contest started. He said it was possible that he wouldn't be able to join since he was a bit busy but lately he responded to me saying to put his name on it and that he would try to ghost it. And here we are. As for mudkip, he's a legendary ghoster that wasn't as active as he once was nowadays, so I feel like he wouldn't be the first or second pick for a FRWC final. In December of last year mudkip was removed from the Official Featured Ghosts list after his 2 long-lasting legendary featured ghosts on Unforgiving and Unforgiving 4 were beaten by Cerulean (later the Unforgiving one was taking by RedOrBlue). So this is a match between 2 legendary ghosters that aren't at their peak, but showed that they still can be competitive on this game if they put their minds to it. Let's talk about their performances on the contest so far:

Backtwice - The legend has returned. Backtwice has been doing some insane ghosts once in a while and he brought that energy to this contest. As he said once on this thread, he's doing this for Noob and Anonyymi (and probably himself as well, lol), he's trying to keep the Finnish Dynasty going, so he came in with no time to play around. He started with a great 37.80 time in the Qualifiers, 6th place on the round, which earned him a spot on the best pot. In the Group Stage, he was relentless. 3 matches, 3 wins. He beat Cynic with a 51.97 time (10th place on the round), then he beat Pie42 with a 52.23 time (5th place on the round) and then he beat YourAverageIndian with a 32.33 time (9th place on the round). In the Round of 16, he had to face NotVeryGood, and he take the W with a great 49.87 (3rd place on the round). In the Quarterfinals, after forgetting about the contest for like almost 3 days, he pulled off a last minute victory against DrChill, with a great 37.80 (6th place on the round). In the Semifinals, he did it again, just like he used to do in the 2nd edition of this contest, and got another last victory win, this time against Cerulean, with a great 28.73 time, the 1st place on the round. Now he will fight for the crown once again!

mudkip - If you guys were paying attention to the contest, you realized that mudkip did just a bit more than what he needed to win most of the time. It seemed to me as a calculated risk, but the one time that we have seen otherwise earlier in the contest was in the Qualifiers when he came ready to fight everyone with his insane 31.23 time, 2nd place in the round. That crazy time made him get in the pot for the best ghosters in the contest, which was good to improve his chances of not getting a group that was too hard. He did good in the Group Stage winning all 3 matches. He did what was enough to win each match, although it was clear that he might have been holding back a little, especially comparing to his ghost in the Qualifiers. He beat Unadvertised with a decent 52.87 time (13th place on the round), then he beat NotVeryGood on a tough match with a 1:38.23 time (16th place on the round), and finished the Group Stage beating Kanvo with a 38.17 ghost (13th place on the round). In the Round of 16, he started going back on beast mode and easily beat Pie42 with a 51.43 ghost (8th place on the round). In Quarterfinals, he faced Giampitek and didn't disappoint. He beat him with a great 38.00 time (7th place on the round). His toughest challenge was in the Semifinals, where he faced the great Chaos-Fallen, that had just beaten spruce with an insane ghost. In that match, Chaos-Fallen started ahead of him, but mudkip later beat him. In the last day, Chaos-Fallen shortened the difference between their times considerably, making mudkip barely win by 0.07 second in a remarkable match, where he finished with a great 29.50 time (4th place on the round). Now he will have his toughest challenge on the contest so far: beating Backtwice. Will he be able to do it?

It's time for the truth. Will Backtwice tie with Anonyymi and become the 2nd double champion of this contest, taking the title to Finland for the 5th time in a row? Or will mudkip end the Finnish Dynasty and represent the US (and the rest of the world, really) winning this title? We will discover on February 22nd at 6pm PST, 8pm CST, 9pm EST, 11pm BRT/ February 23rd 2am GMT.

Let's see how it goes, guys. SilentFinger, Apocolypse, Logeton and Fluffysmack made an awesome track for the finale and I hope you guys enjoy it. And may the best player wins!

PS: New poll will be up soon enough.

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No problem, man. I'm glad you enjoyed.

About the donation, do you have Pro? I feel like we won't be able to get it from Char this time, so I don't know if we are going to be able to have as many cool prizes as the previous years. Probably not. But if you have Pro, we probably can figure something out, like you giving the donations directly to the winners.