PC Fest II by the Numbers: 252 Matches, Six Title Kings

On Sunday, October 18, we ran the competitive side of PC Fest II at Flying Phoenix PCs in Phoenix. Six hours, six titles, one Title King per game.

The full results are on the event page. This is the longer version: how the format worked, what the records show, and what comes next.

The day in numbers

81 attendees
252 matches
6 titles: Call of Duty, CS2, Fortnite, Rocket League, Trackmania and Smash
9 AM to 3 PM

That's an average of 42 matches an hour, every hour, on the competitive side alone.

How winner-stays works

Every title ran winner-stays. Win and you keep your seat. Lose and the next challenger sits down.

It's an old format, and it fits a one-day open event for a few reasons:

There's no bracket to wait on. You get in line and you play. Nobody spends the afternoon watching a board for their next round.
Every win buys you another challenger. A long streak means beating a long line of different people, not one opponent in a final.
Losing costs you the seat, not the day. You get back in line and go again.

The trade-off is that one strong player can hold a station for a long time. That's part of what makes it fun to watch. When someone is sitting on a streak, the whole room knows who to line up against.

The six Title Kings

Records as posted on the results page:

Call of Duty: 5-0, 1 crown
CS2: 10-0, 2 crowns
Fortnite: 21-1, 4 crowns
Rocket League: 14-1, 2 crowns
Trackmania: 7-1, 1 crown
Smash: 47-4, 8 crowns

Gamertags and the full breakdown are on the event page.

What the records show

A few things stand out from the numbers alone.

Smash was the endurance test. The Smash Title King played 51 matches and lost four. That one player was in about one of every five matches played across the whole event.

Two titles finished without a loss. CS2 went 10-0 and Call of Duty went 5-0. In a format where anyone can step up next, an unbeaten record means nobody in line found an answer.

Three more were one loss from perfect. Fortnite went 21-1, Rocket League 14-1 and Trackmania 7-1. In winner-stays, that one loss means giving up the seat and working back through the line to take it again.

One player took two titles. The Call of Duty and Fortnite crowns went to the same person: 26-1 across both games.

Title Kings were in 111 of the 252 matches, about 44% of the day. The rest were everyone else getting reps against each other, which is most of the point of an open event.

None of this crowns the best player in Phoenix. Winner-stays tests something specific: can you keep winning against a steady line of different opponents, with no break to reset between games? A bracket tests something else. Both are worth winning. They're just not the same thing.

If you're new to winner-stays

If you haven't played this format before, four things help:

Watch the station before your turn. You're seeing how the person you're about to play actually plays. Use it.
Treat every loss as the end of one game, not your event. You're back in line in minutes. Bring the one thing you just learned with you.
Don't skip the line because someone's on a streak. Long records are built on people who stopped stepping up.
Know the house rules. The Standard applies anywhere you're part of The Farm: win with class, lose the same way, and cheating in a match is a lifetime ban.

Thanks

Flying Phoenix PCs hosted. Cooler Master, GAMDIAS, Claw Haus and HYTE sponsored. Everyone who registered was emailed their results. And thank you to everyone who showed up, played straight and got back in line.

What's next

We're planning more events. There's no date yet. When there is, it goes on the events page, in our Discord and to the waitlist.

Want to hear about the next one first? Join the waitlist at thefarmphx.gg.