2025 Canadian Player Poll

[IncompetentIdiot]

This is the 2024-25 edition of the Canadian Player Poll. As we reflect on how far the circuit has grown leading up to this tenth edition of the poll, please take a moment to remember all the players from Toronto A down to J who were not able or willing to run it. You may then submit ballots for any or all of the ballots listed below.

The main poll will include 25 players. In order to be eligible for the main poll, a player must attend a university in Canada and hold closed eligibility. Players are automatically eligible for the main poll if they played the Canadian site of either 2025 ACF Regionals or 2025 NAQT SCT. If they did not play either of those tournaments, they can gain eligibility by playing the Canadian circuit sites, including online, of two closed or semi-open experience-unrestricted (non-novice) tournaments. One recognized nats tournament may also be counted for that purpose. Those tournaments are listed below:

2024 PLAYTIME!
2024 Penn Bowl
2024 ACF Winter @ UBC
2024 ACF Winter @ Toronto
2024 ARCADIA
2024 DART IV
2025 ACF Regionals
2025 NAQT SCT
2025 IQBT Undergraduate Championship
2025 MRNA IV @ UBC
2025 MRNA IV @ McGill
2025 MRNA IV @ Waterloo
2025 NAQT ICT
2025 ACF Nationals

The rookie poll will include 10 players in their first year of university QB (defined as not previously fulfilling these eligibility criteria, including collegiate tournaments elsewhere), who played 2025 ACF Regionals or 2025 NAQT SCT or any two circuit tournaments. In addition to the tournaments listed above, these include the following restricted-eligibility tournaments:

2024 NAQT Collegiate Novice @ McGill
2024 NAQT Collegiate Novice @ Toronto
2024 ACF Fall
2024 CALISTO 3

The following individuals are rookie-eligible. Please correct me if I've omitted anyone.

UBC: Tai Belke, Corwin Davidson, Joyann Hua
Guelph: Ibraheem Alkrahgholy, Tomas Bertovic, Lee Huynh, Elijah Mandelbaum, Gabriel McMurren, Dylan Steptoe, Victor Tian, Monica Wang, Rachel Wilding
McGill: Ava Butler, Chloe Delabie, Anthony Gagliano, Olivia Latva-Kokko, Malcolm Meyn, Charlie Ruff, Larry Sun, Denali Tran-Le
McMaster: Seth Allen, Rohan Begg, Rhona Chen, Lindsay Jackson, Jack Longley, Dilen Moodelly, Nathan Tsui, Carter Yott, Mercury Zhou
Ottawa: Graydon Allard, Abhay Ariyappillil, Tom Chekan, Cole Patreau, Anjali Rao, Daniel Yang, Sai Yarlagadda
Queen's: Brendan Bridle, Simon Choist, Tyson Ng, Allan Savini
Toronto: Liam Austin, Amir Dolansky, Jesse Erwin, James Fan, Zaire Gibbons, Nathaniel Hall Godfrey, Nicholas Kwan, Will Marcotte, Deepanshi Matai, Stephen Ottewell, Jason Panusopone, Olivia Parisotto, Henry Siegler, Matthew Stasiw, Chris Wang, Victor Xu, Alec Zelek
Waterloo: Ziv Bankey-Mohamdee, Evan Chan, Nina Chen, Rodney Guan, Lucas Hall, Hillary Krofchak, Susanna Liao, Aleksa Misic, James Tang, Denis Tyan, Sidney Vanniasinkam, Maya Vardag, Jason Wang, Zack Wiffen
Western: Linda Luo, Mitchell Menzies, Charlotte Wilcox

You are also welcome to consider non-circuit sites, open tournaments, side events, or any other criteria, as long as they occurred during the 2024-2025 competition year.

As always, you are encouraged to submit an additional community ballot recognizing anyone who made a non-playing contribution to the circuit this year.

Ballots may be posted below (let me know if you edit your ballot after posting) or sent to me at kfan1863 (at) gmail (dot) com or by DM on Discord. Please submit your ballot before Raymond Chen.

Past Canadian Player Polls can be found here or below:
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016

[kanenguyen9]

I did not take into account Nats nor ICT results when creating this player poll.

1. Benjamin Chapman – You’re first in my player poll again… CanQB needs to step up.

2. Mattias Ehatamm – Really bad at driving.

3. Liam Kusalik – The science battles during Waterloo practices were epic.

4. Caleb Ott – Stop making new cards, start reviewing old cards.

5. Adrian Wong – When will we make a McMaster olds open team with Tomas and Jan?

6. Tony Chen – Bio student turned law student turned acclaimed quizbowl theorist.

7. Gareth Thorlakson – Converted everyone in CanQB into a Nixon supporter.

8. Sky Li – How come every VFA tossup I play against you is on something old?

9. Jared He – Someone should find a cure for Jared’s Alzheimer’s.

10. Michael Du – Self-proclaimed “ethnicities” player. Please keep your shoes on.

11. Micah Colman – Lowkey has a tendency to fight questions.

12. Kunaal Chandrashekar – I hear you boom Ben on science all the time.

13. Parth Jagtap – One day we’ll play each other at ICC.

14. Raymond Chen – Needs to learn some ecology.

15. Albert Li – Play more quizbowl. I almost forgot to rank you.

Adil Haider – I thought you retired. Well, welcome back! You should've unretired earlier.

16. Nicolas Edwards – Very fun late-night yap sessions.

17. Russell Nip – Still don’t understand why you indexed into science as a business student.

18. Colin Veevers – Clutch performer at WAO III finals.

19. Matthew Wang – You impressed me during the MRNA IV playtest mirror.

20. Wenying Wu – I’m illiterate, so I do not understand your expansive lit knowledge.

21. Ben Wismath – Do you still curate weeb packets?

22. Asha Basu – Very enjoyable teammate at ARGOS.

23. Anne Fjeld – I don’t know anything about Anne.

24. Kevin Le – Carleton hard carry. Good job on leading Carleton to Consensus finals!

25. Miriam Tam - Hands down the funniest person in the circuit. Impressive 33% power percentage at D1 SCT.

26 to 240. The rest of the circuit – There’s 241 people that played a closed tournament in this circuit? Wow.

241. Rayton Lin – Your in-person practice antics should land you a quizbowl ban.

[MMSANCHEZ]

1. Caleb Ott (Waterloo) - The Cowboys
2. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto) - Big Slick
3. Matthias Ehatamm (Waterloo) - J10 suited
4. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo) - The Gretzky Hand
5. Tony Chen (Toronto) - The Chen
6. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto) - A5s
7. Adrian Wong (Ottawa) - Somersby
8. Sky Li (Toronto) - A10s
9. Micah Colman (Waterloo) - Strongbow
10. Michael Du (Waterloo) - Sorry, this should have been in my cards.
11. Parth Jagtap (Toronto) - AJo
12. Jared He (Waterloo) - Snowmen
13. Raymond Chen (Toronto) - Hockey Sticks
14. Nicolas Edwards (McGill) - Whatever hand raises to 10x preflop
15. Colin Veevers (Ottawa) - A6o
16. Kunaal Chandrasekhar (Toronto) - The Speed Limit
17. Matthew Wang (UBC) - KQo
18. Wenying Wu (Toronto) - 98 of diamonds
19. Russell Nip (UBC) - Allows the preparation of an alkene by the reaction of an aldehyde or ketone with the ylide generated from a phosphonium salt
20. Kevin Ye (SFU) - Would probably say this flop is trash more than Tony.
21. Jack Van Nostrand (Toronto Metropolitan) - A suited 2-gapper.
22. Albert Li (Toronto) - Albert's a beast.
23. Ben Wismath (Toronto) - A hand with at least 90% equity.
24. Asha Basu (McGill) - The Crabs
25. John Chen (UBC) - The Mallards

[abovethetreetops]

Here we go again.
Everyone is assigned a ProZD skit this year. Please contact me through other means if you want reasoning.

1. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ3X4PxU8nA (student councils in anime)
I don't know if he's ever actually contributed to the UofT bake sale.

2. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GprOS09Ctao (slowly approaching bear)
He's reached mach one.

3. Adrian Wong (Ottawa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55fmNwCgf1M (tchaikovsky no)
Not a clue at Nats.

4. Gareth Thorkalson (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSMHW2pYl-M (ace attorney breakdowns)
Man at law.

5. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S73nmMU1LDs (TV detective vs tech guy)
找不到他的电脑。

6. Sky Li (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rKmg5pr3Ko (anime reaction sounds)
^-^

7. Tony Chen (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWeWTd4aoE (my wife scrolling through tiktok)
He's never said this, but it wouldn't be out of character.

8. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh47iBu9ckA (trying to explain why you're upset about a card game)
Grass.

9. Jared He (Waterloo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA5EhWKLV30 (when card names get ridiculous)
Shall not perish from this earth.

10. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ (getting into a conversation in a language you don't actually speak that well)
Hope you had a good day.

11. Micah Colman (Waterloo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlPuXyxIdVQ (every time i see a license plate from another state)
Geography. Player.

12. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxULeLzgqxI (a villain who's self-conscious about how his minion has a better evil laugh than him)
Heh.

13. Michael Du (Waterloo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LhxG51dFew (two can play at that game)
There is only one winner in the Michael Du game of life.

14. Nick Edwards (McGill)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_01Z497SFa8 (RPGs with tons of characters)
A fraction of the characters Nick knows.

15. Jack van Nostrand (TMU)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJX4ytfqw6k (opinions on the internet)
Many things.

16. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1gmikBXWio (Let's Try 21 DIFFERENT LUNCHABLES)
Bro just eat at lunch, the food debuff won't hurt you.

17. Kevin Le (Carleton)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyYexTcyY2A (ameritrash vs euro games)
Legend says he's still in the second combat phase.

18. Andrew McCowan (Queens)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kJS_iY6R24 (the last 10 seconds of an episode of a very emotional anime about pizza)
A flavor I just can't get right.

19. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDGu5vAhGR0 (when you know only the random English parts in a non-English song pt. 2)
Presumably some words in other languages are also known.

20. Colin Veevers (Ottawa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L86T6o8lZc (Let It Go (sung by Goofy))
No justification is available. Please do not reach out.

21. Russell Nip (UBC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDOZGqsTCgw (open world games)
Time to explore!

22. Ishan Joshi (TMU)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WEBgaEETOQ (Q&A WITH MY WIFE)
Mario. Fanfiction.

23. Ben Wismath (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRmVdqPZ6kw (HOT TIPS FOR TRAVELERS)
A nap is just self-care.

24. Maude-Sophie Lockman (Ottawa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3X8ifnz5cw (i can recite any scene from disney's peter pan from memory)
And I would've gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kids.

25. Halee Carey (McMaster)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUatO4HFuCg (when the characters in the skit realize something)
Raise both your hands!

[raytonlin1]

Main Poll:
Note to readers: Yapping ahead. Ya no player poll conceit, just a bunch of text. This poll will be based on vibes mostly because I don’t want to look at stats all day. I also took activity into account which is why I didn’t rank some players higher even though I know they are great players from results in prior years. Too bad only the top 25 get points, I have a lot of players that I have stuff to say about. Past 25, the players are listed in no particular order and are just honourable mentions.

1. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
   Waterloo A’s Science player who is also elite at Thought and has underrated generalism as he can get deep buzzes in any category. He is an icon of consistency who raises both the floor and ceiling of any championship contender and would regularly take over games even next to the rest of Waterloo A, even scoring higher than Mati at Regs and having an insane performance at Nats. It’s hard to determine where he should place considering he regularly top scores full Waterloo A but he also is a specialist without as much shadow in his categories; in the end I think his importance to the Nationals contending teams he plays on is higher than the other players that could also go here. He doesn’t card, instead having a Google doc that helps him have real knowledge which helps him buzz on clues that have never come up before. The amount of times he has buzzed on things he came across organically is astounding! I originally had Liam at 5th before ICT and Nats but his amazing Nats playoff performance moved him up. It’s unfortunate he’s graduating, but he had an insanely successful quizbowl career as part of Waterloo’s National teams including winning UG Nats and the UG title at ACF Nats, and his last year has been his best.
2. Sky Li (Toronto)
   MF the Big 3, it’s just the Big Li. The scariest individual player for my teams to face at any level, she is a generalist who you can never expect to take Fine Arts, History or CS off of. She dominated my team nearly every time we have played (completely shutting out Micah at Regs and getting 7 tossups herself at Nats), she tends to do the best on Toronto A against Caleb/Micah teams so she goes here.
3. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
   Caleb “The Whole Deck” Ott is the club’s best generalist (specifically an Amogh-type generalist) and he usually has to play both Lit and Science on our teams but plays as one of the best specialists in both categories. He has improved significantly from last year and top scored Regionals for the second year in a row to lead Waterloo B to 3rd place. Slightly worse than Mati and Liam at lit and science respectively, but is always liable to beat them at their specialties. Unfortunately he always has his worst games against Waterloo A in ACF tournaments for some reason, but does as well as all of Waterloo A against other top teams like Toronto A. He couldn’t play D1 ICT this year but will probably be the top scorer next year on Waterloo A. The circuit’s most prolific carder, look for him to lead Waterloo A at D1 ICT and ACF Nationals to a historic finish next year.
4. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
   Arguably the best out of Waterloo’s A team and definitely the best generalist, he is one of the top lit players in the circuit and does great at Ancient History and RMPSS. Mati powers at 3-4 dots more than most players on the circuit through his real knowledge spanning across the humanities and math/CS. Good luck at Maryland next year (except at ICT and Nats).
5. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
   For 10 points, name Madras Curry’s #1 fan. Parth is also one of the circuit’s best Lit and beliefs players and did a great job playing my MRNA 4 Lit and Econ questions. His time on the circuit made him one of the best 3dot generalists who is an asset to any team at Nationals, and is one of the best Math and Econ players with his real knowledge due to taking classes and actually learning them instead of putting the contents on cards like me.
6. Tony Chen (Toronto)
   Along with being Okonomi House’s #1 fan and super young, he also is one of the circuit’s best Lit and Biochem players and did a great job editing my MRNA 4 Lit questions to be more interesting. Unfortunately, not an Amhist player although destroyed in-person Blood on the Clocktower winning 3 out of 3 games. Noted K-pop enjoyer, but needs to listen to more NMIXX and watch more Korean variety shows so he can stop getting boomed by Tai.
7. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)
   The History specialist of Toronto A, and the best history specialist in the circuit with good secondary categories as well such as the Econ in Social Science. I can only dream of being as good as him at Amhist, and he totally iced me on the Dragonball Z Kamehameha tossup at Nats. Congratulations on graduating, and thanks for leaving Toronto A so Waterloo doesn’t have to face you next year.
8. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
   Ben is a generalist with specialism in science and thought, which makes him an ideal teammate. Perennially battles with Liam for top Science player in the circuit, with particularly strong Physics as well as being possibly the best Thought player in the circuit. Bengsci often top scores Toronto A because of how strong he is at his categories and that makes him super valuable on any Nats team. Next year is his last year so he better get on the grind and win ICT and Nats if Waterloo doesn’t win.
9. Michael Du (Waterloo)
   Waterloo A’s history player who is great at higher difficulties and can power a History or Jewish tossup at any level, and has underrated Science knowledge as well that only comes out when he doesn’t play with Liam. Along with Jared He and James Ah Yong, he makes the Waterloo club probably the 2nd best Amhist club after Toronto. Jared has been taking his buzzes more and more lately, he has got to get back on the carding grind. Please learn Peruvian history.
10. Micah Colman (Waterloo)
    The best myth player in the circuit, in contention with Ben Wismath for best religion player and an elite history player with pockets of deep knowledge in AFA and OFA especially with guitar content, his stats aren’t as high as they could be playing next to Caleb and I. One of the best generalists in the circuit, I think he is much higher than people think, and I know people already have a lot of respect for Micah’s knowledge.
11. Adrian Wong (Ottawa)
    Didn’t play much due to med school but was a big part of his team defeating ours at ARGOS, Adrian is extremely good at every difficulty and a strong generalist. Having Colin as a teammate helps him shore up any holes in science that his teams have and helped them to qualify for ICT.
12. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
    Raymond is perennially one of the best Lit players on the circuit based on his breadth and real knowledge, which also extends to Biochem through his major and AFA through his orchestra participation. He isn’t as generalisty as the people above him and can be prone to negging but his depth is the best out of anyone that isn’t Wenying and also rivals Tony as the best Biochem player in the circuit (with Martin Profant not playing much). Often underappreciated for his work around the circuit, thanks for TDing the largest circuit tournament ever SCT!
13. Jared He (Waterloo)
    Dominates lower difficulties with his generalism and is a great AFA, Myth and Lit (especially poetry) player at higher difficulties. A very successful year for him, winning UG Nats and being on the Waterloo A teams at ICT and Nats which got 2nd and 1st out of the Undergrad teams, respectively. Also a great exec emeritus who does a great job helping out novices in our Academic rooms. Probably the best player in our club at pre-Reconstruction and military Amhist.
14. Nick Edwards (McGill)
    Nick Edwards is an elite non-science generalist at 2-dot while also proving he can be an anchor for elite teams at higher difficulties through McGill’s impressive Penn Bowl and Regs performances. I have no idea how they lost to McGill B at Penn Bowl, I sure wish I could’ve watched that game. Nick may not have gotten the trophy but he really did Canada proud with the rest of McGill A (Asha, James Wadsley, Ava) at D2 ICT this year and I wish him well in his quizbowl retirement.
15. Kunaal Chandrasekhar (Toronto)
    The clear Sophomore of the Year, Kunaal (pronounced like “Kunnel” according to the ACF Nats program, although he got back his name after winning the last game of playoffs) is an insane science specialist (especially physics) who somehow also can get 20ppb or power any category. Kunaal or Ben for this spot is a tough choice, but Kunaal’s depth against stronger fields and on Nats level sets tends to let him get more points than Ben despite Ben’s relative dominance over more categories at two dots. He will be one of the best science players next year.
16. Ben Wismath (Toronto)
    Ben Wismath is one of the strongest Lit and Religion players at 3+ dots. Playing with Parth depressed his numbers since they play similar categories, but Ben has a lot of real knowledge in lit, religion and linguistics which scale extremely well. Hopefully he keeps playing next year and leads Toronto B at ICT and Nats. I also commissioned a visual novel pack from him which I am very excited to play one day!
17. Stefan Vlad (Ottawa)
    This guy is still D2? With Jesse Chusing (lit god) he will make Ottawa’s D2 team a real threat next year. He is one of the best history players on the circuit (top scored History at Regs, although it was in lower bracket) through HOI4 knowledge, but also just knows things in general (he top scored Amhist by a mile at Regs with good early buzzes). His depth makes him a valuable contributor on teams at any difficulty, I can only hope he can go to a national tournament and show off that depth one day. This Gradwriter is only getting better and his Econ and Polisci knowledge is no joke either.
18. Kevin Le (Carleton)
    This guy is crazy good as Carleton’s leading player, he apparently won’t be back next year? It’s unfortunate we will never see a Kevin Le/Kevin Anderson SCT team happen, Kevin Le’s history depth and generalism elsewhere made Carleton a scary team to play.
19. Albert Li (Toronto)
    An elite History player with great VFA and Religion knowledge, he hasn’t played much due to school but is insanely good at quizbowl. GOATed Treasurer for the Toronto club, hopefully next year he can cover history for Toronto A at ICT and Nats next year. His elite baseball knowledge deserves to be tested at ICT!
20. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
    Didn’t play much outside of Regs and Nats which is why she is lower than she probably deserves, but is maybe the deepest Lit player on the circuit and a strong specialist whose knowledge bleeds into parts of RM and History and whose stats are suppressed playing next to Raymond. Her biggest contribution to the circuit is probably how she talked about The Handmaiden so much she convinced me to watch it and it got me a buzz on “mental hospitals” at Nats. Good luck during your gap year in Japan and congratulations on your acceptance into Northwestern!
21. Colin Veevers (Ottawa)
    The return of Colin to the circuit has been a huge boon for Ottawa teams, as he is up there as one of the best complete science players on the circuit with Ben and Liam. He helped Ottawa qualify for ICT and has been great in open events playing with Henry Atkins.
22. Asha Basu (McGill)
    The top 200 Putnam GOAT scales super well in her main categories of science (math especially) and thought, much better than I do. She also was an amazing secondary scorer to Nick on McGill A and is also a great generalist which doesn’t get seen much playing on such a strong team.
23. Jason Zhang (Toronto)
    Science and AFA specialist in the Ben Chapman mold. He has been amazing for the Toronto B/C teams this year at higher difficulties and it is a real shame he is graduating because he could be a top science player at National tournaments for years to come.
24. James Wang (Ottawa)
    James has been a great science player for Ottawa and one of the circuit’s strongest chemistry and biology players, but his main contribution to the circuit this year may be his TDing duties and his editing for tournaments such as Fall and MRNA 4. He also graciously hosted me in his apartment for Penn Bowl, he’s just all around a great guy and a real positive influence on the circuit. Unfortunately loses points for getting the Steve’s Lava Chicken Minecraft movie song stuck in my head after playing it in his hotel room after Nats before we watched the Sens/Leafs game with Joey and Marbius.
25. Maude-Sophie Lockman (Ottawa/Waterloo)
    It’s a shame Maude-GOATphie never played a closed tournament with Waterloo in the winter! Ottawa really benefited from her deep Lit, VFA and French knowledge, although she was often negged out of things she knew. Unfortunately this year she also continued to neg a lot, often because she can only remember French names for things (which I would say is because she interacts with things outside of quizbowl instead of learning about them through her cards). Apart from being a serial grass touching addict, she should probably consider not reading books for enjoyment and getting real knowledge. Who cares about getting spoilers for books you haven’t read, just don’t read books in the first place! (She is also the best driver out of the Waterloo students in the Waterloo club and it is not even close, seriously.)
26. Andrew McCowan (Queen’s)
    Queen’s has returned to the circuit in a big way and Andrew is a big part of that. When he’s not leading the charge to reform CanQB (which includes things like planning meetings with all the clubs prior to the semester to get tournament logistics sorted out), he’s leading Queen’s as their anchor as a strong generalist at tournaments such as Regs and getting them a 3rd place finish at SCT this year. I first saw him play as his teammate at UG Nats in the summer and he impressed with his history and religion depth and he surprised me with his amazing literature knowledge as well which has been on full display when he plays with Queen’s. While Andrew didn’t qualify for D2 ICT, next year will have supporting players such as Brendan Bridle and Ian Theysmeyer which means Queen’s is going to be one of the strongest teams in D2.
27. Jack van Nostrand (Toronto Metropolitan)
    The legend is back and will haunt D2 for years to come. Jack is an amazing history player with insane depth that he showed at ARGOS, and he also did a great job as a generalist playing with Ishan Joshi at tournaments like Winter. If TMU can recruit players who cover Jack’s weaknesses, their D2 team is going to be really scary.
28. Ishan Joshi (Toronto Metropolitan)
    He destroyed my team solo at ARCADIA, and he has done that to many a team this year. When duoing with Jack, they are a tough team for even the best teams to play. He is a generalist who will buzz on any category which makes him hard to play, with particularly strong areas of depth in Lit I’ve noticed. His history and VFA buzzes have also impressed me at practice. He’s practically another Waterloovian with how he’s been to all our practices in Winter term!
29. Russell Nip (British Columbia)
30. Matthew Wang (British Columbia)
31. John Chen (British Columbia)
    Unfortunately BC is too far from our in-person tournaments, but they did well at Regionals, DART IV, ICT and Nats. I don’t really know how to place these three since they all score higher than the others depending on the tournament. Russell has impressive lit, chemistry and AFA knowledge. Matthew Wang is also an elite economics player (probably better than anyone here) for UBC who sometimes scores higher than Russell on their teams. John Chen popped off in ACF Nats prelims and is clearly an important part of the team with his history, social science and AFA knowledge.
32. James Ah Yong (Waterloo)
    He has some of the realest knowledge on the circuit in his main categories of science (especially CS) and business content, while also being great at Econ and parts of Amhist (he’s one of the knowledgeable legal history players). His depth was on full display at ICT and Nats, his graduation in the summer will be a big loss to our club!
33. Marcus Forbes-Green (Toronto)
    They don’t call him Marbius Morbes-Teal for no reason, when he enters the quizbowl game he morbs all over the place. Elite ancient history and soil knowledge who also regularly gets history and science (biology especially, he loves soil) tossups and that shows when you see his contributions to the Toronto Nats teams. Also knows baseball as shown by him powering the tossup on his favorite team (Houston Astros) at ICT last year. (This is a joke, David Snoddon jokes that Marbius loves the Astros but he is actually a Jays fan. Unfortunately while he is a Leafs fan, he is also a Habs fan which is his biggest sin)
34. Jesse Chusing (Ottawa)
    With Stefan, Jesse’s lit and vfa make Ottawa a scary D2 team. He also got 195 literature points at Regs which demonstrates good knowledge of the 3dot canon, top 25 would not be a surprising placement for him next year.
35. Halee Carey (McMaster)
    With Kane and Emmet gone and with Adil being busy with med school, Halee has led McMaster with some amazing performances such as at Winter and Regs which show she’s one of the strongest team-leading generalists this year. She is mainly a literature and VFA player with strong biology knowledge as well from her degree, and if McMaster upsets teams next year with a strong team Halee will be the driving force of that. Leaving her off the top 25 was tough, there are just too many monsters in the circuit.
36. Joey Sun (Toronto)
37. Yihong Chen (Toronto)
38. Franklin Wu (Toronto)
    Joey, Yihong and Franklin played nearly everything together this year and any of them could be placed first among them. I decided to place Joey first as the biggest Pokémon enjoyer but I’ll talk about them all here. Outside of quizbowl, they are real fun to get food with along with other members of the club and have been super welcoming at their practices. They’ve continued to make Toronto practices some of the best in the circuit and the constant influx of novices are testament to their hard work. On the buzzer, they complement each other really well as shown by them doing well at ICT along with Deepanshi. Yihong will get any East Asian related questions regardless of category or difficulty and has insane Philosophy real knowledge from his philosophy degree, Franklin is a threat on any science tossup and will 30 any bonus about transportation or military vehicles, and Joey knows the randomest history facts while getting AFA buzzes out of nowhere. Together they obliterated my teams in ACF Winter top bracket and ARCADIA, and our games at SCT and ICT were decided by one tossup. Joey is graduating this year but is coming back for grad school, and he, Franklin and Yihong will hopefully be part of a strong Toronto B or C Nats team next year.
39. Jacob Bicol (Waterloo)
    #1 Shakespeare and Catholic player, he is an amazing VFA player off Instagram Reels knowledge and one of the best high school generalists.
40. James Wadsley(McGill)
    Did you know his grandfather names Wadsleyite? He is an amazing history and beliefs player that helped Nick on McGill A this year get the number one D-value. I will never forget how he destroyed my team Toronto B at Penn Bowl in our game.
41. James Ferrabee (McGill)
    McGill’s top carder and him breaking out into a 1dot powering machine propelled McGill B to a 2nd place finish at SCT and an ICT qualification. Knows more than basically anyone about plays, and is great at the rest of Lit and Science as well. Top scored McGill B at SCT with a litany of powers and his generalism was on display when McGill B won ACF Fall.
42. Nabhaan Farooqi (McGill)
    Cricket, Islam and Russian History GOAT as well as great coverage in the rest of history. McGill is always more fun to play with Nabhaan there.
43. Henry Olsen (McGill)
    He has my number on my main categories (Amhist and thought) and that helped him contribute to McGill B’s 2nd place performance at SCT which qualified them to ICT. He should play more hard stuff (D1 SCT, ICT and Nats next year?)
44. Ian Chow (Western)
    Grad School and being in London hurt his ability to play tournaments to the point where we didn’t play each other because he only played Winter making him ineligible for the top 25 poll, but when he did play he showed he was one of the best generalists at every level. He is possibly the best player at 2dot as shown by his Winter PPG. His Physics and History are particularly good and he can get early buzzes on any category. I don’t believe I have ever beaten him to Amhist. The Blood on the Clocktower GOAT needs to get back on LearnedLeague, unfortunately he is the WOAT of paying Thorsten.
45. Milan Fernandez (Brock)
    GOATed WAO III teammate and lit/FA player, Milan didn’t play any closed stuff and therefore isnt eligible for the top 25 poll but reviving the Brock quizbowl club and even bringing them to CALISTO (spring novice) is awesome! Glad to see you’re back playing quizbowl.
46. Adil Haider (McMaster)
    Only played MRNA 4 in terms of closed stuff this year so ineligible for top 25 (or not because the earlier ballots had him?), but still MRNA and ARGOS showed that Mac’s top scorer at ICT last year still can power anything it seems.
47. Anne Fjeld (Alberta)
    Alberta player who is a generalist and knows a lot according to the stats and buzzpoints, I hope she plays a lot next year!
48. Athan Juritsch (Toronto)
    Athan has played plenty of hard tournaments such as Penn Bowl and Regs, while also showing impressive generalism at Winter which showed how he can anchor a team even if he’s a strong science specialist. Toronto’s non-Gradwrite D2 team next year has a lot of options, but the Athan/Theo Lam/Matthew Stasiw team was really impressive at SCT and they have great category coverage, D2 next year with all these strong players will be really competitive. I’m thankful I don’t have to deal with that next year!
49. Theodore Lam (Toronto)
    Theo hasn’t played much this year but SCT and MRNA 4 continued to showcase how strong their generalism is, with some good lit breadth as well.
50. Rayton Lin (Toronto)
    In the wise words of David Snoddon, I celebrate myself (yes I know it’s a reference to Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”). I mostly improved my lit which was the biggest increase in my points this year under 3 dots, although learning the basic fine arts canon helped my teams to not 0 bonuses when Jacob wasn’t there. I’m glad to have played ICT and Nats this year, Nats especially had great content on my interests and I am happy to have gotten some first buzzes on them off learning about things for personal interest (“bank runs” for Econ and “James Monroe” for Amhist). 4 dot is not as inaccessible as it looks, and being rewarded for engaging with the clues is very satisfying. Too bad I probably won’t be able to play it next year since Michael is probably closed next year too.

HM:
Waterloo: Xavier Spano, Dawson Teu, Adrian O’Leary, Miriam Tam
Xavier was a great teammate the whole year, being a great pre-modern History and Myth player and did a great job as Waterloo’s treasurer in Winter term with ICT and Nats. Dawson is an amazing science player who got shadowed by James Ah Yong at a bunch of tournaments this year but will show off his depth in science when he hopefully plays 3dot tournament next year. Adrian was our treasurer in spring term and TD of ARCADIA IV, he has been a great part of both the trash and academic sides of the club as well as being a gradwriter; Adrian should play more tournaments and show more of his science and AFA knowledge! Miriam Tam, our inaugural trash master exec, played SCT this year and is part of the circuit. However, she evidently is not the best driver in the Waterloo club.

Toronto: David Snoddon, Samuel Zheng, Kevin Gan, Imtiaz Kidwai, Arjun Dixit, Ethen Sun, Martin Profant
David Snoddon is the GOATvid, I don’t think he’s eligible but he is a great literature player who led the GOAT team with GOATmuel and GOATiaz at MRNA 4. Sam, Kevin, Imtiaz and Arjun made a great chemistry team with great vibes throughout the year and I hope to see them more next year. Ethen continues to be a science player (especially Astronomy which is his major) with great depth which I hope he can show in D2 next year. Dr. Profant was busy with med stuff this year, but he is still elite in his specialties as he showed at ACF Winter, even getting a sick first line on Berlin off hospital knowledge.

McMaster: Yusuf Baig, Robert McKinnon, Cranmer McGinn, Christian Humeniuk
Yusuf is a great lit player with science coverage who will be a big part of Mac’s D2 team next year. Robert's the GOAT of Mario Kart Speedrunning and is even in a SummoningSalt video, I love seeing him at tournaments! Cranmer did great filling in as the 4th on the Mac SCT/ICT team and got some good AFA buzzes at DMA and Creek+. Also knows how to drive which is great for the Mac club. Christian did really great at CALISTO and was a great secondary scorer to Halee at MRNA, he will be a great D2 player for Mac’s team next year.

Ottawa: Ian Theysmeyer, Aedan Cooper, Felix Healey, Jason Rohfritsch
Ottawa president who will go to Queen’s next year, which will only make their D2 team scarier. Aedan is a pretty solid history player from what I remember. I know Felix does linguistics and he knows more about it than I ever will. Jason is a great history player who formerly played for McMaster and he got an impressive buzz on “body” in philosophy at ARGOS.

Queen’s: Kevin Wang, Charlie Botterell
Kevin and Charlie were both great support pieces to Queen’s D2 team that tied for 3rd at SCT. Kevin in particular had really great lit buzzes that I saw.

McGill: Charlotte Bauer, Chloe Wei, Uday Bhardwaj
An important part of the 3rd best consensus team McGill Fletchinders, Charlotte has a good shot of winning next year with McGill Talonflames. Charlotte also continues to be a top poetry player and will make McGill’s D2 team next year very strong. Chloe has a lot of bio real knowledge, she unfortunately didn’t play many tournaments because biology conferences keep overlapping which is unfortunate. Uday is a great history and beliefs player who negs a lot, but he will also be an important D2 player for McGill next year.

Carleton: Alden Thompson, Stuart Chandler-Baas, Valerie Brown, Kevin Anderson, Nicolaus Derikx
The three younger Carleton players were important parts of the D2 SCT top bracket team, and will be strong for many years to come. Alden is a strong generalist who also knows tons of pop culture and especially sports. Stuart continues to be a top history player with amazing depth. Valerie is a great science player who I think can take a leap next year. Kevin Anderson was a great science player backing up Kevin Le at Regs this year. I don’t know much about Nicolaus but his trash knowledge at Consensus is the real deal.

Simon Fraser: Kevin Ye, Dexter Hines
I don’t know anything about them but SFU on the circuit is incredibly hype. Kevin used to play for Berkeley and is a good generalist but particularly strong in science and philosophy from what I remember in my games against him. Dexter is a good history player who I hope to see more.

[23nl1us]

Being out west there are a lot of really good players in the east that I’ve played maybe once or twice only–if I’ve played against them at all. Some of this is just based on stats, general vibes, or my teammates’ opinions. Also I gave era names based on general impressions. Romanization is self-made and based on Qieyun reconstructions [<j> as in German and IPA, carons and crossed d represent retroflexes, accents represent palatals, apostrophe marks aspiration (Pinyin <t> and <d> correspond to apostrophe and no apostrophe respectively), no tone marks because I am lazy]. Not exactly well-versed in Classical Chinese so forgive my less than accurate translations. Finally, while many of these were used historically, such usage is purely coincidental (at most I used it to confirm that it is in fact a “valid” era name).

1. Caleb Ott
咸正 - Hjam Čeng - All Righteous
2. Benjamin Chapman
永熙 Hwjong H’i - Eternal Brightness
3. Mattias Ehatamm
弘文 - Hwong Mjun - Broad(en) Culture
4. Sky Li
靖業 - Dzjeng Ngjæp - Pacify Works
5. Tony Chen
文德 - Mjun Tok - Cultural Virtue
6. Gareth Thorlakson
文治 - Mjun Đir - Cultural Ruling
7. Liam Kusalik
定武 - Teng Mju - Establish/Pacify Military
8. Michael Du
天歷 - T’en Lek - Heavenly Experience
9. Adrian Wong
定文 - Teng Mjun - Establish Culture
10. Parth Jagtap
廣明 - Kwang Mjæng - Extensive Light
11. Micah Colman
承聖 - Dźing Śjing - Continue Sages
12. Nicolas Edwards
咸順 - Hjam Źwin - All Successful/Obey
13. Kevin Ye
建豐 - Kjon P’joung - Build Abundance
The future is bright at SFU
14. Raymond Chen
天化 - T’en H’wa - Heavenly Change/Civilization
15. Kunaal Chandrashekar
天和 - T’en Hwa - Heavenly Harmony
16. Jared He
長樂 - Đjang Lak - Long Joy [not to be confused with the palace]
17. Russell Nip
弘化 - Hwong H’wa - Broad(en) Change/Civilization
18. Colin Veevers
天册 - T'en Č’eak - Heavenly Edict
19. Matthew Wang
興聖 - H'ing Śjing - Promote Sages
20. Jack van Nostrand
通明 - T'uong Mjæng - Common Brightness
21. Ben Wismath
紹聖 - Dźjeo Śjing - Continue Sages
22. Anne Fjeld
建興 - Kjon H’ing - Build Prosperity
A challenge to play against, hope to see her and the rest of Alberta at Nats or ICT next year
23. Albert Li
廣文 - Kwang Mjun - Extensive Culture
24. Wenying Wu
承文 - Dźing Mjun - Continue Culture
25. Tai Belke
啓興 - K’ei H'ing - Begin Prosperity
Rookie of the Year candidate

Edit:
HM (in no particular order):
James Wang (龍慶 - Lung K'jæng - Dragon Celebration)
Jason Zhang (廣和 - Kwang Hwa - Extensive Harmony)
Maude-Sophie Lockman (隆憲 - Ljuong H'jon - Prosperous Statute)
Asha Basu (廣定 - Kwang Teng - Extensive Establishment/Pacification)
Joey Sun (大曆 - Dai Lek - Great Experience)

[alden]

1. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
2. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
3. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
4. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
5. Tony Chen (Toronto)
6. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)
7. Adrian Wong (Ottawa)
8. Sky Li (Toronto)
9. Michael Du (Waterloo)
10. Micah Colman (Waterloo)
11. Jared He (Waterloo)
12. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
13. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
14. Nick Edwards (McGill)
15. Kunaal Chandrashekhar (Toronto)
16. Kevin Le (Carleton)
17. Ben Wismath (Toronto)
18. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
19. Albert Li (Toronto)
20. Jack van Nostrand (TMU)
21. Colin Veevers (Ottawa)
22. Russell Nip (UBC)
23. Andrew McCowan (Queen’s)
24. Stefan Vlad (Ottawa)
25. Asha Basu (McGill)

User was reminded to enable a signature --Mgmt.

[Triglav]

1.Mattias Ehatamm (Kladruby Nad Labem)

Mati's ridiculous command over Literature and the humanities, wins against top teams, and Undergraduate Championships have almost been enough to make us forget...
Good luck with your move closer to your spiritual home on Assateague island.

2. Caleb Ott (Alejandro de Humboldt National Park)

Caleb is insane to play with, since he consistently gets early buzzes in about half the distribution, doing the job of effectively two or three players. This has allowed us to find success even when playing on teams of two or three. Caleb’s knowledge of obscure clues is also extremely impressive with the third most first buzzes at Nats. Unfortunately, Caleb is (in his own words) “Woated”, so I can't vote him for first.

3. Ben Chapman (Old Town of Galle and it’s fortifications)

On his player poll last year, Ben said that he played the worst against Caleb and spoke Toronto A’s string of losses to Waterloo B this fall into existence. Aside from cursing Toronto A, Ben has been a great boon for them this year, leading Toronto A at many tournaments to victories in most circuit tournaments they played together.

4. Sky Li (Rhaetian Railway in the Albula / Bernina Alps)

After repeatedly getting destroyed by Sky on the buzzer this year I wanted to rank them first, but unfortunately I couldn't find the stats to back it up. Still, the way that they inspire terror in my soul by playing all my categories except better means that I can’t rank them any lower than this.

5. Gareth Thorlakson (Monticello and the University of Virginia at Charlottesville)

One of the most tilting experiences in quizbowl is repeatedly losing buzzer races to the same person in one game, which along with his astonishing history depth and NAQT exploits give Gareth a strong case for first, but I don’t think he does well enough on non-NAQT content to justify him higher than anyone listed above.

6. Liam Kusalik (New Zealand Subantarctic Islands)

Partially because Mati and Jared keep shadowing each other Liam top scored Waterloo on several occasions this year. Liam's Science coverage feels like it's taken another step this year making him pretty solidly the best science player in the country. With impressive thought coverage on top of that Liam makes for a fearsome opponent.

7.Tony Chen (Talamanca Ranges- La Amistad Reserves/ La Amistad National Park)

Tony was the leading scorer on what was (tied for) Canada's highest ever finish at ACF Nationals, but performed less well at a few other tournaments earlier in the year so ends up here.

8.Adrian Wong (Gebel Barkal and the Sites of the Napatan Region)

Adrian plays the role of humanities based generalist very well, being arguably the most unbeatable player in the circuit on their pack, while also having a strong baseline knowledge that means that Ottawa is pretty consistently strong in all their games.

9.Parth Jagtap (Churches of Chiloe)

Parth's knowledge is in the real deal, 35 ppg leading Toronto C to an above Toronto B 2nd bracket at nats, and leading Toronto B to 2nd bracket at ICT with upset wins along the way in both tournaments. Has had a bit of a neg problem at various tournaments, but seems to be able to reign it in when he thinks it's important. Thanks for helping Waterloo B win MRNA.

10. Michael Du (Melaka and George Town Historic Cities of the Straits of Melaka)

Michael has a fun tendency to randomly get early buzzes, on literally anything outside of literature and arts, which is crooked, although that sometimes originates from a willingness to just go for it, which can result in bad negs. Very strong modern history player.

11. Jared He (The work of engineer Eladio Dieste)

Jared is the GOAT, whose knowledge of both quizbowl and non-quizbowl brain rot is unmatched. This combined with an unholy deck of cards has made him an amazing 4th scorer on Waterloo A. Unfortunately, he developed Alzheimer’s in mid-february so he can only buzz on instagram reels content now.

12. Raymond Chen (Noel Kempff Mercado National Park)

Raymond has been pretty strong all year, leading a Toronto B team that made second bracket at nats and beat Toronto A at regs, probably still the circuit’s best literature player, but since other players with more generalist abilities have caught up he ranks here.

13. Micah Colman (Rock Hewn Churches of Ivanovo)

UwU

14. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Kakadu National Park)

I don't really know what Kunnel plays outside of vaguely stuff that Caleb knows (science and thought???), but he top scored Tor B at regionals, so putting him any lower feels wrong. Fasting on game days is a great tradition which is incredibly based.

15. Kevin Le (Elephanta Caves)

Kevin Le is a very strong player who played a major part in Carleton making top bracket at Regionals this year, but more importantly, had the best showing out of anyone on That time I got reincarnated as a Pacific atoll. Provides deranged card checks on the Mahabarata which keep me from forgetting it all.

16. Colin Veevers (Vredefort Impact Structure)

Colin gets good buzzes in phys/osci with supporting generalism in a few other categories has resulted in Colin being a strong second scorer on Ottawa A this year. Brought back my backpack back to Canada after I forgot it in Tor A’s hotel room (thank you once again).

17. Ben Wismath (Itsukushima Shinto Shrine)
I have no idea how true this is but in my mind, Ben fits the anti-Waterloovian archetype of someone who is just interested in their subjects, and gets all their buzzes from that. Ben should consider carding the gacha games that he plays.

18. Albert Li (Durham Castle and Cathedral)

Albert is a great history player who helped Toronto B upset Tor A at Regionals and qualify for Nats. Didn’t play much so Albert ends up here.

19. Wenying Wu (Assisi)

I think I’ve only played Wenying once this year, which was at ACF Regionals, but Wenying is still an exceptional literature player despite shadow from Raymond.

20. Kevin Ye (Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst)

Kevin was a pretty good generalist for SFU when I played him at playtime, which is almost certainly not the role he is most comfortable with. But I don't really feel like I have a good way of gauging how good he is at the role he's used to, so as a generalist he did quite well at several west coast tournaments, making him pretty solidly the best player in the west.

21. Nick Edwards (Levuka Historical Port Town)

I think that one of McGill's best results this year was at Winter, which is the only one that Nick wore cat ears for. I'm not saying that McGill would have won ICT if Nick wore cat ears, but it definitely wouldn't have hurt.

22. Jack Van Nostrand (Ruins of Leon Viejo)

Strong low difficulty generalist who even though he doesn't scale up amazingly, is so dominant at low levels that he is still a force to be reckoned with at three and four dots.

23. Matthew Wang (Colchic Rainforests and Wetlands)

Looking at Winter buzzpoints Matthew had pretty scary myth buzzes which makes me think that he might be the best myth player in Canada, also has good enough generalism to top score most UBC A teams that he is on. Needs to learn that Airdrie isn't a feasible tossup answerline.

24. Russell Nip (Lakes of Ounianga)

From an outsiders point of view Russell has felt like the driving force behind the current iteration of UBC’s recent growth into a very solid team. Russell’s got very impressive science knowledge

25. Rayton Lin (Haeinsa Temple Janggyeong Panjeon)

In addition to being a very good low difficulty generalist who led Waterloo C to DII ICT GOATTON also put up 15 ppg at Nats on Waterloo B. Rayton has really impressive coverage of Amhist, and thought with generalism that proved useful at Nats, beating Caleb to several literature tossups.

26. John Chen (Rohtas Fort)
27. Maude-Sophie Lockman (Vegaoyan)
28. Asha Basu (Cultural Landscape of Bali Province)
29. James Ah Yong (Thingvellir National Park)
30. Stefan Vlad (Cultural and Historical Ensemble of the Solovetsky Islands)
31. James Wang (Mount Taishan)
32. Andrew McCowan (Sceilg Mhichil)
33. Jason Zheng (Air and Tenere Natural Reserves)
34. Marcus Forbes-Green (Vredefort Impact Structure)
35. Joey Sun (Tassili n’Ajjer)
36. Yihong Chen (Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain)
37. Franklin Wu (Semmering Railway)
38. Jessie Chusing (Struve Geodetic Arc)
39. Halee Carey (Port, Fortresses and Group of Monuments, Cartagena)
40. Anne Fjeld (Cold Winter Deserts of Turan)

Rookie Ballot
1.Tai Belke (Trang An Landscape Complex)

Tai was a very capable fourth scorer for UBC A this year and filled an important role as a Geo specialist for UBC while also being able to get good buzzes in literature and history. Gets ranked above Amir because he played a significant role on stronger teams.

2.Amir Dolansky (Historic Centra of Oaxaca and Archaeological Site of Monte Alban)

Definitely the best generalist out of this rookie class, with amazing numbers at ACF Fall, also scales up quite well, as demonstrated at Regs, should consider trying harder tournaments.


3.Ava Butler (Kalwaria Zebrzydowska)

Ava has filled an important VFA and Bio niche on McGill A this year, but doesnt seem to have as strong generalism as those ranked above her. Still played a significant role on a strong team this year though.

4.Gabriel McMurren (Wood Buffalo National Park)

It’s been great the Gabriel has been playing quizbowl again this year, and as predicted he has been an incredibly strong player for Guelph. Has a very NAQT core knowledge base, but remembers enough from Reach for the Top to still be an amazing low difficulty generalist.

5.Elijah Mandelbaum (Getbol)

Elijah doesn't really feel like a rookie this year since he’s been around in the circuit for so long now. Elijah is probably the best Geography player in the circuit, and provides strong low level generalism next to Gabe.

6.Seth Allen (Jesuit Missions of La Santisima Trinidad de Parana and Jesus de Tavarangue)

Seth has struck me as a strong player whenever I’ve played him this year, don't entirely know what he plays but he gets buzzes.

7.Deepanshi Matai (Cidade Velha, Historic Centre of Ribeira Grande)

Deepanshi played an important on many Toronto teams this year as a competent scorer next to strong players like Joey, Franklin and Yihong.

8.Henry Siegler (Rock Islands Southern Lagoon)

It seems like Henry has played a significant part in the Toronto teams that have pulled several upset this year (at DII SCT).

9.Susanna Liao (Fort Jesus, Mombasa)

Loses points for not carding Genshin Impact despite playing it. Susanna has provided a strong backbone for Waterloo teams at several tournaments (ACF Fall and Winter) this year.

10.James Tang (Historic City of Vigan)

James has had both the courage to play harder (2/2.5 dot) tournaments this year and has also seen real success at these tournaments.

[tonychen]

1. Caleb Ott (crucifixion)
C’mon.

2. Tony Chen (waterboarding)
#recency bias #im the goat #fuck you

3. Gareth Thorlakson (tickle torture)
Okonomi House partner-in-crime.

4. Liam Kusalik (free to go)
My favourite Waterloo A player.

5. Benjamin Chapman (drawing and quartering)
Might actually be the worst player on this list. Don’t be fooled.

6. Sky Li (iron maiden)
Loyal dog of the Canadian Empire. Would never betray us unlike a certain somebody.

7. Mattias Ehatamm (tarring and feathering)
L + ratio + 7 demerit points

8. Micah Colman (force-feeding)
My hero. Daniel Ma’s bravest soldier.

9. Adrian Wong (nine familial exterminations)
I’ll move you up a few places if you confirm that you’re coming to CO.

10. Parth Jagtap (starvation)
PARTHISBEAST

11. Kunaal Chandrashekar (flaying)
I dub thee Waterloo’s worst nightmare.

12. Raymond Chen (strangulation)
I can’t wait for our duel on Notes on the Deeper Underground.

13. Michael Du (sleep deprivation)
Don’t think I’ve forgotten about The Incident.

14. Jared He (electroshock therapy)
skibidi gyatt Alzheimer’s gurt freakbob “-uzz” Chopped Chin rizz sigma John Pork Ohio extra freakybob

15. Colin Veevers (foot roasting)
The king of puttering around.

16. Nicolas Edwards (flagellation)
3AM Zoom calls might have given you an RFK Jr. brain parasite.

17. Jack Van Nostrand (rat torture)
Drop Mild Kingdom 3.

18. Ben Wismath (harakiri)
DON’T drop KINO 2.

19. Albert Li (solitary confinement)
Would be the goat if he picked up the buzzer more.

20. Wenying Wu (Chinese water torture)
Worst (Best?) AU maker of all time.

21. Kevin Ye (sensory deprivation)
You should fly out east.

22. Russell Nip (pillory)
You too.

23. Jason Zhang (20 years hard labour)
Shahar Schwartz said you were the goat.

24. Matthew Wang (bamboo torture)
Unsecret ungeo unfreak.

25. Asha Basu (ankle crusher)
You frighten me.

HMs: Kevin Le, Amir Dolansky, Maude-Sophie Lockman, Jacob Bicol, James Ferrabee, James Ah Yong, Marcus Forbes-Green, Yihong Chen, Joey Sun, Franklin Wu, Tai Belke, John Chen, Anne Fjeld, Halee Carey, Andrew McCowan, Elijah Mandelbaum, Gabriel McMurren, Ishan Joshi, Nabhaan Farooqi, Charlie Ruff, Jesse Chusing, Stefan Vlad, Ian Theysmeyer, Yusuf Baig, Seth Allen, James Wang, and everyone else who valiantly came to a tournament in the best circuit in the world. You are all spared from eternal torment.

∞. Rayton Lin (The Brazen Bull)
You know what you did. If you behave well, I might promote you to the Pear of Anguish.

[NedWards]

Bet you were expecting a sports ballot. no dice. instead, each player will be assigned a george w. bush quote (exceptions when appropriate).

“Please clap” – Jeb Bush

1. Tony Chen (Toronto)

Quizbowl thought leader. lit-based jungling beast. human political compass. generational yapping talent. no idea how to rank the top-end Torontonians tbh but Tony scored the most on Toronto A at nats so here we go.

"I'm the commander, see. I don't need to explain—I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

2. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)

Wasn’t really sure how to rank Waterloo A either because they’re all so good. Mati was pretty consistently their top scorer though. booms me and many others all the time on lit, is also more generalisty than stats might indicate. good luck at Maryland!

"We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations, to do everything they can, to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you... now watch this drive."

3. Ben Chapman (Toronto)

I’ve always had a lot of respect for Ben. we started out in canqb the same year and have both gotten significantly better – him more than me. keep being the most stable person on the circuit and getting sick science buzzes, but consider adding spice to your rice. I’ll see you around!

"You work three jobs? ... Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that."

4. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)

Liam knows science. Liam doesn’t neg. Liam’s super consistent. when Liam does his hand gestures it means god has abandoned your team because he’s got the right answer. it’s been a pleasure playing vs. you and best of luck.

"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

5. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)

As nice and friendly as he is talented at buzzing on history and accumulating bounceback capital. best wishes for the law career. not a crook!

“[inaudible]” – Richard Nixon

6. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)

Caleb, thank you so much for your help in prepping me for ict. I can’t wait to see what you do at the major tournaments next year. but for the love of christ when you card your lit + sci + fa + kwame nkrumah (??) please consider doing it while touching grass, outside, in a park. keep in touch!

"Rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?"

7. Sky Li (Toronto)

Sky’s a beast. I didn’t play a ton of games vs. Sky this year but I fear Asha & Ava got owned on compsci and fine arts when we did. I believe Sky is now thriving as torqb empress dowager after passing the presidential torch – super inspirational of you! I won’t be that for mcgill qb but hey, a guy can dream.

"We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent."

8. Michael Du (Waterloo)

Much admiration for the way Michael just sends it when he thinks he knows the answer. and often he does in fact know it, especially in history and “other”. canqb resident twitter influencer? lockdown judaism player.

“I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah.”

9. Micah Colman (Waterloo)

My geohist and beliefs goat. also massive thank you for helping with ict prep. sorry I should’ve run it back with the cat ears you’re so right. you are an absolute monster of a player and will do amazing with Caleb next year (this man beat me w/ a full team solo at mrna btw) but if you say “I learned that from an isekai” after a sick myth buzz ONE MORE TIME I SWEAR IM GONNA

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, 'Fool me once, shame on… shame on you.' Fool me—you can't get fooled again."

10. Adrian Wong (Ottawa)

Very impressive and based of Adrian to still be such a reliable generalist despite med school duties. I usually find discord reacting to everything really annoying but you manage to pull it off and still be cool. join me in the retirement home, brother.

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."

11. Jared He (Waterloo)

Continues to be good at lit, fa, and pockets of amhist. alzheimer’s happens to the best of us. or the worst of us because you’ve accumulated multiple carding felonies. I’ve got multiple warrants out for your arrest because of your HONK! brainrot. don’t tell anyone I said this but you actually cooked really hard on that set, you should do it again.

"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

12. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)

What do you mean a player can actually be good at econ? lit and film too, apparently. Parth is a very funny dude which I guess you have to be to survive supporting manchester united these days. sucks that the japanese gp at our ict afterparty was mid af but hanging out was great fun. come to Montreal for the canadian gp maybe you’ll see an overtake.

"I'm not sure 80% of people get the death tax. I know this: 100% will get it if I'm the president."

13. Raymond Chen(Toronto)

Godfather and/or grandfather of torqb. you should be knighted for your tournament-directing work this year. we know Raymond’s solid at lit but I’d like to amplify Tony’s narrative that he’s the top 1 bio player in the world. good luck in your labs and curing cancer and all that!

"Families is where nations find hope, where wings take dream."

14. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto)

Bro is 100% fueled by coffee all day every tournament day. despite this, barely negs and keeps producing solid ppg through a sci/thought combo (I think?) up to nats-level. american-crusher in the making. I enjoy your company because you’re kinda like a slightly more chaotic version of Asha.

“If you’re a single mother with two children, which is the toughest job in America as far as I’m concerned, and you’re working hard to put food on your family...”

15. Nicolas Edwards (McGill)

Tried to be a texas tiger, ended up a liberal wiener. I fully developed into a very good generalist who can scale up this year and I’m proud of the work I put in and the results it yielded. even if I lost my soul and love of the game in the process, and don’t even have a d2 ict trophy to show for it. maybe the real treasure was the friends I made along the way… but now is not the time for tears. that’ll be when I post my community ballot.

no Cormac I still don’t know any science. don’t ask the ict afterparty folks about what I said regarding the number of columns in the periodic table.

“Well, I think if you say you’re going to do something and don’t do it, that’s trustworthiness.”

16. Colin Veevers (Ottawa)

Colin’s a calm dude who gets his science points with low drama and little fuss. happy he’s sticking around to lead the next ottawa gen!

“I think it’s really important for this great state of baseball to reach out to people of all walks of life to make sure that the sport is inclusive. The best way to do it is to convince little kids how to—the beauty of playing baseball.”

17. Albert Li (Toronto)

Thanks for letting me and Asha crash at yours the night before arcadia after via rail had a via rail moment. very fun to see how we started out together as rookies and have both become pretty good at this game, especially in history. I’m confident in your chances of success in the world of business. add me on LinkedIn

"You bet I cut the taxes at the top. That encourages entrepreneurship. What we Republicans should stand for is growth in the economy. We ought to make the pie higher."

18. Russell Nip (UBC)

Another legend from my rookie class. you’ve done a great job as UBC president and leading your team to strong finishes with science buzzes. nice to see you in-person at ict. I’m also confident in your chances of success in the world of business. also add me on LinkedIn

“You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war president. No president wants to be a war president, but I am one.”

19. Wenying Wu (Toronto)

Still a lit beast from what I can tell. incredible nats efficiency. in the upper tier of canqb poasters.

"You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test."

20. Ben Wismath (Toronto)

Still good at lit, religion, film. good job this year putting up solid ppg at multiple tournaments, especially nats.

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."

21. Matthew Wang (UBC)

I didn’t really get the chance to play Matthew this year apart at an online McGill practice or two but the beliefs (esp. myth) hype is real. keep it up!

“Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech.”

22. Jack van Nostrand (TMU)

Sir a second solo TMU player has hit the circuit. pretty sure McGill A would’ve lost to you if we played each other at d2 sct.

"The decision of one man [Vladimir Putin], to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine. Iraq too. Anyway... [I'm] 75."

23. Kevin Ye (SFU)

Really cool to see the west expanding. high-power and high-neg player who is very scary on a good pack (see: PLAYTIME!).

"I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you [Saddam Hussein] disarm, or we will."

24. Kevin Le (Carleton)

History depth up there with the best of them. humbled by how many medieval european monarchs you know. well done at consensus and good luck in the future.

"I think we agree, the past is over."

25. Asha Basu (McGill)

Heavy is the head that wears the crown. congrats on the presidency, miserable job that it is. thank you for being a wonderful teammate and friend this year. when it comes to your math knowledge, the limit does not exist (this is a reference to a movie called Mean Girls. let it be your introduction to buzzing on pop culture, along with me blasting fetty wap in the ict hotel room). beyond math, voters should also be aware of Asha’s ability to scale up in CS and thought at 4-dot, along with her grasp of physics and afa at lower levels. she’s a superstar and there are a great many ways I could praise her but let’s wait till the community ballot.

“I was a big supporter of waterboarding.” – Dick Cheney

HM:

UBC: John Chen

The entire UBC team did admirably at ict and nats.

Alberta: Anne Fjeld

Alberta did a good job running dart as a club. I think Anne’s rookie-eligible so will rank her there.

McMaster: Halee Carey

Impressive stuff leading mac squads at winter and regs. 26th if I could extend this ballot. also generally has good vibes.

Toronto: Joey Sun, Franklin Wu, Yihong Chen, Jason Zhang, Marcus Forbes-Green

Joey, Franklin, and Yihong did really well all year with complementary knowledge in hist, sci, and lit respectively. had a great time hanging out with you guys at mrna and ict. Jason and Marcus are still good at their sci/afa and classics too. nice stuff at nats!

TMU: Ishan Joshi

You cannot stop Ishan, you can only hope to contain him. good job beasting it up all year. our arcadia showdown with about 1.5 combined braincells between you me and asha was iconic.

Waterloo: James Ah Yong, Rayton Lin, Jacob Bicol

James provided great support on Waterloo B squads this year. more importantly though he spread the gospel of Consensus Trivia in America. canonize him already. Rayton and Jacob attended more McGill online practices than McGill players lol. begrudgingly respect the grindset.

Queen’s: Andrew McCowan

Fun to see Andrew’s return to the scene, along with Queen’s as a whole. he might be able to make a d2 ict run next year. good luck!

Carleton: Stuart Chandler-Baas

Kevin’s graduating, I think. so someone has to pick up the Carleton history slack. luckily Stuart is good at history.

Ottawa: Maude-Sophie Lockman

Honnêtement la partie la plus triste d’avoir pas gagné ict c’est qu’on a pas pu blaster Le But de Loco Locass dans le Hyatt Regency O’Hare. t’es super, merci pour les boosts de confiance quand j’en avais besoin. viens à montréal pour récupérer ta bouteille d’eau tabarnak

“Our goal in Quebec is to build a hemisphere of liberty.”

James Wang, Jesse Chusing, Stefan Vlad

James was a great support player for the Ottawa ict and nats squads. also just a really nice guy. if you search for a definition of brainrot in the dictionary you’ll probably find Stefan’s digital footprint but he’s a great hist player and I can’t hate on anyone who brings a barry goldwater biography to mrna. Jesse’s a good lit player. both of you go wreck the americans at d2 ict next year!

McGill:

James Wadsley

I like playing with Wadsley. he keeps me on my toes. partly because he’s a low-neg player with deep knowledge in areas of history I suck at, geo, and astro/earthsci. but also because his unrivaled trolling ability forces me to pay attention on bonuses. thanks for being a good teammate this year and bringing homemade baked goods to practice. let’s get lunch soon

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

bonus: “And there is distrust in Washington. I am surprised, frankly, at the amount of distrust that exists in this town. And I’m sorry it’s the case, and I’ll work hard to try to elevate it.”

Ava Butler

I was on the vfa grind all summer and then the latest pro-ready Lisgar prospect dropped in as the perfect missing piece for McGill A. will expand on why Ava’s great in my rookie ballot but it’s so amazing that she’s already a 2-dot sniper as a freshman. part of me wishes we hadn’t burned her eligibility this year but I’m very glad she had so much fun in chicago. hope you have as much fun learning lit because good luck convincing asha or wadsley to do that. fall semester lunch!

“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know.” – Donald Rumsfeld

Uday Bhardwaj

Playing mrna with you was trippy but I had fun. you might be better than me at consensus lol. genuinely think you’re getting the negs under control. sorta. your d2 sct statline next year will break records.

"This is still a dangerous world. It's a world of madmen and uncertainty and potential mental losses."

Charlotte Bauer

Cracked at lit. maybe one day I’ll read a Shirley Jackson novel. did you guys know I’ve lost more games against Charlotte in tournament play than I’ve won? thanks for keeping the club solvent. cannot wait for the you-Uday-Wadsley-Chloe Consensus run next year. putting my life savings on McGill Talonflames and I’ll bet my winnings from that on the 2026 carlos sainz wdc.

"It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."

James Ferrabee

I’m in awe of the sheer number of cards this guy has. lock in Ferrabee for a top 25 spot on the poll next year mark my words. lit/sci dual threat and he’s diversifying his investments. watch out. you would’ve done unholy things to the d2 sct/ict field next year. alas.

"Well, I mean that a defeat in Iraq will embolden the enemy and will provide the enemy—more opportunity to train, plan, to attack us. That's what I mean. There— it's— you know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."

Luke Sloan

Contender for least insane person in mcgill qb. excited to see how you do in d2 sct next year, I think you have a real shot at qualifying. even more excited to see your vision for the mcgill trivia club instagram account.

"I'm going to put people in my place, so when the history of this administration is written at least there's an authoritarian voice saying exactly what happened."

Henry Olsen

It’s been a fun three years. very happy the jameis winston of mcgill got his time to shine at ict.

"They misunderestimated me."

rookie and community ballots to follow...

[KawaiiPotato]

Posting on behalf of Ellen Ge. Thank you for getting me closer to the 7.

Hello! I’ve forced Joey Sun to post this for me.

This isn’t a player poll because, to be entirely honest, I literally do not know how good half of this circuit is at quizbowl, nor do I think I, a guy who can only buzz like once a game, is qualified to do any ranking. With that said, I wanted to shoutout some members of the community, because the main reason I play this game is because of the sense of community that Toronto Quizbowl and the Canadian circuit have built.

If your name isn’t here, that is entirely because I hate you personally and I think you are a terrible person (kidding….. Mostly…. I’m writing this to procrastinate on studying for my exam and have a generally hole-y memory.) As well, there is a larger proportion of Toronto club members and that’s just because I go here, I dunno. WIth that said, here are some community shoutouts:

Toronto folk:
David Snoddon: The GOAT himself. You’re genuinely goated at academic quizbowl and pop culture as well, and your sports pack was so much fun to play-test and was such a mood lifter because I was feeling so unwell that day. I really appreciate your positive energy to every conversation and I’m wishing you all the best in your graduate studies next year at Western!

Parth Jagtap: I think I had a conversation with you at some point this year about how you were hoping to have more social outings with this club outside of just buzzing to build a better community, and despite me slacking on my job as VP Social, I think you’ve done such a wonderful job with getting people together for post-practices, pre-practices, and just general pub nights and get togethers. It’s so lovely. I’m wishing you all the best after your graduation (have you already graduated??? idk)!!!

Raymond Chen: Can’t believe I beat you to posting …. With that said, I think you’ve been such a great voice of reason in general, like in CanQB, TorQB, and also in terms of just giving advice etc. I also think we haven’t given you enough hype for the TDing work you did this year. Insane behaviour. Best of luck with your lab work and thesis!

Wenying Wu: I hope cinnamoroll loses this year in order to fuel the massive W that’s going to be your gap year. Wishing you all the best in Japan! Also thank you so much for all the guidance on how to VP Social that I may have neglected to listen to. Whoops.

Imtiaz Kidwai, Samuel Zheng, Angus Paterson, Marcus Forbes-Green, Banff Gu, Franklin Wu, Deepanshi Matai, Kristofer Grabovskis, and others I am surely forgetting: You guys are the best to banter with about sport. Really enjoyed hopping in VC to watch live sporting events. And then also the in person hangouts. Some fun times. Hopefully next year the Canucks make the playoffs so I actually have a basis to shit talk from because right now it’s looking grim. Also Marcus, thanks for being such a great sport, I hope you know I don’t actually think you suck. Or do I? You’ll get your bday gift eventually.

Jason Zhang: It’s all your fault that I’m writing quizbowl. With all that, I’m wishing you all the best for whatever you are doing after graduation. It was so lovely being a fellow first year representative with you last year, and your vibes are impeccable. Keep getting those score clues woat.

Albert Li and Ben Chapman: Thank you for keeping TorQB financially afloat. It’s a lot of work, especially for Albert, given my proclivities to spend. Albert you also did such a goated job with Bake Sale II of the year! Massive money earned!! Also, thank you Ben Chapman for expanding my vocabulary., but please start putting the letter ‘u’ into words when the word calls for it. Like the word ‘favouring’.

Joey Sun, Yihong Chen: My other fellow named exec, I wish upon you eternal rule. You guys have been so lovely 2 work with throughout this last year. Let’s leave everything up to the next years named exec which will surely just be you guys.

Nameer Qadir: Thank you for running bake sale first semester! I hope you are doing well now that you are free from the Yoke of Big Exam.

Chris Wang, Olivia Parisotto: You guys have been great first year representatives! Both of you are so lovely and have such great vibes, and are also so good at quizbowl. I hope to see you guys around again next year (which goes to all novices in QB who are not being shouted out because I do not believe a first year student should access the forums.)

Kunaal Chandreshekar, Athan Juritsch: my fellow second year brethren, we must rise against the evil that is the old people in this club. You’re both so great at quizbowl it’s insane and you’ve both improved so much. You’re also goated at being exec.

Everyone in intermediate practice at Toronto: I think we middle children should be allowed to beat up the other practice rooms. Particularly the general room. The room is such a fun vibe, I hope I see all of you guys around in the summer and after the summer as well.

James Xiao, James Erfle, Zara Graham, Jason Leung, Jesse Erwin, Frances Corban: GOATed teammates. Let’s play together again eventually.

Tony Chen: Guardian of Okonomi House

Rest of TorQB: Pretty sure I’m missing some great people. You guys are such a great community.

Now for some non-Toronto people:
James Wang: I know I am mean to you sometimes. My bad g. Unfortunately I will be seeing you next year allegedly, which means I suppose I will leave you a nice comment. Your AFA content at MRNA IV was great. Also you might be good at quizbowl according 2 all the player polls.

Davie Gayowsky: Never stop sending me instagram reels goat.

McGill A: Sorry my memory is soooo bad but you guys are so cool I remember watching you guys 30 a bonus and get chocolate and lowkey I think I didn’t process anything the rest of that round because I was thinking yummm chocolate

Andrew McCowan: obligatory shoutout for the Great Scheduling Reform of 2025 because I think it’s good that we’re sorting out these dates etc in one meeting and it’s reasonably accessible to the General Public (i.e. not the shady secret evil execs)

OKAY I’ve given up to be honest. I’m kinda lazy. Also I need to finish writing a tossup. Maybe I’ll expand this. Probably won’t though. CanQB you are so crazy good vibes.

[raytonlin1]

Rookie Poll:
I didn’t interact with a lot of the rookies unfortunately, any rankings after top 10 are not ordered and should just be considered honourable mentions. Lack of data on a lot of people means this will be pretty vibes-based although Winter term tournaments will be weighed more, and I don’t know the eastern rookies well so there aren’t many on my list. I also ended up taking activity into account more than last year.

1. Tony Chen/Cormac Beirne/Elijah Mandelbaum (Western/LSE/Guelph)
   Tony is the consensus best rookie in the circuit as well as the Consensus collegiate national champion, Tony has shown that anyone can be a top player in their rookie season. Congratulations!
   I first met Cormac at Nats this year and I got to see just how deep his knowledge is. It’s too bad I never got to play him at McGill but hopefully I can see more of his knowledge at Nats next year.
   For my actual Rookie of the Year, Elijah has done an amazing job bringing Guelph back to the circuit and it is amazing seeing how many novices from Guelph have become mainstays of the circuit. Insane geography specialism has translated into history depth, and that combined with strong generalism over other categories which Elijah improved on over the season has resulted in Elijah being a strong player on any quizbowl team. Elijah’s ability to scale has shown by many early buzzes at ARGOS, and that’s not including the intangibles like having incredible vibes. Them and Gabe popped off and destroyed Waterloo C in our prelim game at SCT that helped them make top bracket. Elijah was also the top rookie scorer at ACF Fall. Guelph is looking like a team to beat in D2 next year.
2. Tai Belke (UBC)
   The only UBC rookie I’m familiar with, I know he’s good at lit, geography and probably FA as well, his Fall buzzpoints were really early and he did well on their SCT team that unluckily missed out on qualifying for ICT. He also has great pockets of knowledge in history, often getting good buzzes on Canto/Asian content. His higher difficulty results were also strong for a rookie such as at ACF Nationals, he is one to watch out for at the national tournaments next year (so long as he chooses to play which he SHOULD!). Also might be the only other person in the circuit who watched the Korean version of The Genius and apparently knew my variety show clues in K-Trash, my GOAT.
3. Amir Dolansky (Toronto)
   The consensus #1 Rookie at Toronto who happens to also be amazing at Consensus trivia, He really impressed me in every tournament he played, and he got some great buzzes at Penn Bowl and Regs which shows his ability to scale. He’s a really strong generalist with real knowledge in philosophy as he is a math and philosophy major. He led teams that made top bracket and upset Toronto C at SCT and got 6th at ACF Winter, and is probably going to lead one of the strongest D2 teams next year. Gradwriters continue to be scary…
4. Gabriel McMurren (Guelph)
   Gabe would probably have a good case for being #1 if he played more, but unfortunately he only played SCT and Winter. However, he led his Guelph teams in scoring and showed how his Reach prowess translates amazingly to quizbowl. It’s really unfortunate next year will be Gabe’s last year because he is an amazing quizbowl player. As I said in Elijah’s writeup, Guelph destroyed Waterloo C at SCT and is going to be one of the teams to beat in D2 next year.
5. Ava Butler (McGill)
   Ava is one of the Lisgar rookies that are making McGill one of the strongest schools in the circuit. She rounds out McGill A with her strong bio and insane VFA knowledge. I haven’t seen her much due to the distance between Waterloo and McGill but she was really impressive on McGill A teams and won ACF Fall on McGill B. Playing with such strong teammates all year hides how much she knows, I think next year she might surprise some people.
6. Chris Wang (Toronto)
   Another gradwriter who has insane depth in parts of the distribution like fashion. He destroyed CALISTO and showed solid scaling ability at Penn Bowl, while being a great supporting player on the Amir-led gradwrite teams with Victor Xu and Stephen Ottewell. Toronto is really rich in strong rookies, it’s insane (and not in the membrane, according to Erlich Bachmann in Silicon Valley).
7. Charlie Ruff (McGill)
   Where does McGill keep getting these strong science players? I don’t think my teams have ever gotten more than one science tossup against him in a game. I’m sure he has other categories too (cat stats show he knows thought as well) but his science always kills my teams and we always do worse against teams with Charlie as a result. From an outsider perspective he would be great on McGill’s D2 team next year but they have so many good D2-eligible players still I have no clue how they will choose their main qualifying team. His Philosophy knowledge scares me, he will really be one to watch out for next year.
8. Brendan Bridle (Queen’s)
   Brendan has been a great science player backing up Andrew McCowan in tournaments such as Regs and SCT, while showing signs of generalism at lower difficulty tournaments. I mainly know him for being part of the Bishop Reding group of rookies. He destroyed CALISTO and has improved quickly, he will be an amazing player on the Queen’s D2 team next year.
9. James Tang (Waterloo)
   James’s stats may not be as eyepopping as some of the other rookies, but he is a great specialist at science (he’s a math major, he also did great at Biology at ARCADIA) and economics. He has played all year and has been steadily improving, I think he’s a real solid player who people aren’t really familiar with yet.
10. Evan Chan (Waterloo)
    A super strong history and RMPSS-based generalist with secondary science knowledge who has done a great job translating his Reach knowledge to quizbowl. He always gets impressive buzzes at practice and will probably be anchoring Waterloo teams in the coming years, as he did at Winter and SCT. Too bad he is always busy with CS coursework which causes him to miss tournaments or else he would be higher.
11. Denali Tran-Le (McGill)
    A great science and AFA player for McGill B at SCT/ICT, Denali is another Lisgar rookie who is making McGill look scary for the next few years. I don’t really know him, having only really talked to him post-SCT while eating Giordano’s, but he has some impressive performances including getting the game-winning tossup on “Italy” for an opera tossup against us at Fall.
12. Seth Allen (McMaster)
    Seth Allen is an amazing Chem and AFA player with solid history knowledge who has been a great supporting player for the McMaster teams this year. Don’t know much about him but he was great at CREEK+ last year as well.
13. Daniel Yang (Ottawa)
    Played CREEK+ last year and dominated (powered) most of the history, but he’s still eligible this year. His SCT performance was really impressive, showing off his generalism and general knowledge in other categories like science.
14. Matthew Stasiw (Toronto)
    One of the billion cracked UTS Reach players that have graced Toronto QB. Now that Kunaal convinced his former teammate to start showing up, he showed he is one of the scariest players in D2. Engsci kept Matthew from playing last year and for most of this year, but he finally got to play a closed tournament this year. SCT was an amazing performance and he gets impressive history and geography buzzes based on what I see at Toronto practice. I hope he can play more next year and show more of what he knows because his knowledge scales well. He would certainly be higher if he played more. He also did a great experiment on reaction speed in quizbowl when listening to classical and video game music!
15. Deepanshi Matai (Toronto)
    Deepanshi joined in the summer already being a strong lit and AFA player, and they got to show it at SCT and ICT as part of Toronto C. They are also a great presence in the Toronto discord and along with Parth they are another one of Madras Curry’s strongest soldiers. If only they played more tournaments this year!
16. Henry Siegler (Toronto)
    Henry played high school quizbowl in South Carolina and that has certainly translated into being one of Toronto’s top rookies. He played a lot of tournaments and did well at all of them, even leading a team of Toronto rookies to 6-1 in prelims of SCT and being a part of Toronto rookie team at MRNA 4 that upset a number of great teams. I have no clue what categories he plays (he did really well at Lit at Winter at least) but he is certainly one to watch out for next year.
17. Nicholas Kwan (Toronto)
    Western’s Nicholas Kwan needs to watch out now that there’s another one in the circuit. Another really strong player who often played with Henry. I also have no clue what he plays and he played fewer tournaments than a lot of the rookies here, but his stats are quite impressive and was an important contributor to some good teams.

HM:

Waterloo: Maya Vardag, Nina Chen, Aleksa Misic, Zack Wiffen, Jason Wang, Susanna Liao, Ziv Bankey-Mohamdee, Rodney Guan, Lucas Hall, Hillary Krofchak, Denis Tyan, Sidney Vanniasinkam, Mari Montoya
Most of our Waterloo rookies are Consensus-pilled but there are a good amount of quizbowl performances to shout out! Maya is a great first year with real knowledge of lit because she actually reads books (I could never). Nina has solid pockets of knowledge that lead me to be surprised by her buzzes in practice, and she read an amazing half quizbowl/half consensus pack at vanity pack night that everyone loved. Aleksa has joined our club with infectious energy and love of learning, and she also has great first year CS knowledge as a CS ‘29 class member. Zack is a really great American politics and Math player through real knowledge and his Math degree, his terms as webmaster this year also were great in helping recruit more novices to our club. Jason Wang is a strong Religion player as well as being a big K-pop fan and has immaculate vibes, he also has so much dog going to Ottawa for both Fall and Penn Bowl. I completely forgot Susanna was a rookie but she played her first collegiate quizbowl tournaments this year, she is a great player with a good baseline of generalist knowledge, especially in lit. Ziv is mostly a trash player so I haven’t seen him much but he did come to Fall. Rodney played novice last year but he became more active this year, playing SCT and Consensus as a great trash player (I know he loves Olivia Rodrigo) and he also has environment knowledge from his degree in urban planning (I think). Lucas is an amazing sports player who also takes Engineering courses for his degree. Hillary is mostly in the trash room but she did play SCT! Denis is the GOAT playing Regs as his first tournament and he also has a lot of passion for the game, I know he has been learning lit and it has certainly shown in practice. Sidney is a great video games and horror player in the trash room, and he has also been an important part of making practices fun this school year, I think he would be a great exec if he runs next Fall. I forgot to mention Mari on my main ballot so I’m mentioning him now, he is a great history and geo player with pockets of generalism elsewhere like AFA, he was also great at Consensus nationals but he needs to stop forgetting to sign up for tournaments like SCT because he is one of our best D2 players.

Toronto: Victor Xu, Stephen Ottewell, Zaire Gibbons, Jesse Erwin, Olivia Parisotto, Nathaniel Hall Godfrey, Will Marcotte, Alec Zelek, Liam Austin, James Fan, Nicholas Kwan, Jason Panusopone,
Victor and Stephen are the two other gradwriters (edit: Victor is apparently not a gradwriter???!!!) on the Amir-Chris team. I have no clue what categories Victor knows but he did great in our SCT team and he buzzed early on a tossup about Persepolis at Winter so I guess he knows some lit? Stephen Ottewell is a really solid history player who is also a Consensus fiend, his teammates should drag him to more quizbowl tournaments next year. Zaire is a really solid literature player with good general knowledge that I saw at Novice and Fall. Jesse didn’t get to play many tournaments due to Midterms and work, but he impressed me with early buzzes at Fall and has a lot of knowledge that the circuit will hopefully see in the future. Olivia has the GOATed nickname OTRIVIA as I learned from David Snoddon (turns out Brendan Bridle originated it), and is another Bishop Reding consensus player who was also really important in helping run TorQB as the First Year Rep in the execs. Nathaniel was really impressive at MRNA being the top scorer on the impressive Toronto rookie team that beat some strong experienced teams. Will Marcotte is the LearnedLeague GOAT and is a great presence in the club discord. I met Alec a few times outside of practice and engaging in conversation with him is always a treat. I haven’t really interacted with the other Toronto rookies but I am happy to see the club continue to grow!

British Columbia : Corwin Davidson, Joyann Hua
Corwin was solid for UBC this year and was unlucky not to qualify for D2. I don’t know Joyann but their stats seem solid and was great support to Tai in D2 as well, they also seems to play AFA because they plays sheet music or something.

Guelph: Dylan Steptoe, Monica Wang, Lee Huynh, Ibraheem Alkrahgholy, Tomas Bertovic, Victor Tian, Rachel Wilding
Dylan Steptoe is the trash GOAT, destroying HONK! and the trash at SCT. He is also a good generalist who led Guelph’s scoring at Novice, he had to play with monsters in Elijah and Gabe this year but I think his knowledge base will surprise people next year. Monica is really good at Myth and also did well in Guelph’s win against us at SCT with history knowledge. Lee, like Dylan, is another Guelph exec from the Bishop Reding Group who have done a great job growing GuelphQB this year and is always fun to staff Consensus for. Rachel drove Guelph to Fall and HONK and seems to have great vibes from what I hear. I don’t know much about the rest of the Guelphers but I am glad to see so many Guelphers attend tournaments and be a part of the circuit!


McMaster: Mercury Zhou, Carter Yott, Dilen Moodelly, Lindsay Jackson, Jack Longley
Mercury only played Novice and CALISTO but put up great numbers, hopefully Mac can bring Mercury to more tournaments next year. Carter had solid stats at CALISTO and was a solid part of Mac B at MRNA. Dilen already has great knowledge of the 1dot canon and it shows in their novice tournament results. I don’t know anything about Lindsay and Jack other than the fact they went to a bunch of tournaments including duoing SCT which is super commendable and GOATed.

McGill: Chloe Delabie, Anthony Gagliano, Olivia Latva-Kokko, Malcolm Meyn, Larry Sun
I don’t know much about the McGillers but I know Chloe showed solid phil knowledge when I played her and Larry won his first two tournaments (Novice and Fall) (edit: okay this was wrong he won Fall, Honk, and Consensus) so he is the GOAT.

Ottawa: Graydon Allard, Abhay Ariyappillil, Tom Chekan, Cole Patreau, Anjali Rao, Sai Yarlagadda
Abhay really impressed me at DART and SCT as well as having a great CALISTO performance, I know he got some impressive Bio buzzes against my teams and if Ottawa can get a science player for their D2 team they will be one of the top teams next year for sure. I don’t know the rest of the Ottawa novices but I hope to see them at more tournaments!

Queen’s : Simon Choist, Tyson Ng, Allan Savini
I don’t know anything about Simon but he played with Queen’s at a bunch of tournaments with strong teammates which is hard to do, I hope to see him play more next year! I don’t know Tyson at all, but he was part of a Queen’s B team at SCT that was very balanced in scoring. Allan was also on that team, and I remember him getting some good buzzes at NAQT Novice. He may know some VFA but that might just be me remembering wrong.


Sorry to most of the Western University, Brock and Eastern novices, I don’t know enough about you! I'm not confident about my ranking at all, there were too many good rookies this year who helped make my second year of quizbowl really fun and it’s great to see this circuit grow.

[eeveetrash666]

I can't believe I'm already at the end of my first year of collegiate Quizbowl! It's been so much fun and I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who made it the incredible year it's been. Without further ado, I would like to present my community ballot ranked in order of proximity (I will maybe think about doing a poll later but who cares this is more important).

1) Dylan Steptoe, Rachel Wilding, and Lee Huynh

Truly my goats, I couldn't have wished for a better exec team to close out the inaugural year of Guelph Trivia. All three of them were instrumental in the rapid success of the club, allowing us to send 2 teams to many tournaments and even host a novice tournament at home! I'm proud of all three of them for the work they've put in this year and being so eager to step up to the plate when I made the call for exec elections.

2) Gabriel McMurren and Monica Wang

Of course the people above them fall into this category as well, but I want to take a moment to acknowledge my teammates. Both Gabe and Monica showed incredible strength (and dawg) at the many tournaments which they attended throughout the year. Monica especially impressed me by attending the online mirror of PLAYTIME! as her second ever tournament, and rescheduling a midterm to play SCT (maybe I shouldn't be praising this behaviour but idk I appreciated it). Gabe was also instrumental to our success at the latter tournament, helping us squeak into DII SCT top bracket (we proceeded to lose all our top bracket games after I begged him to stay despite a commitment back in Guelph, but oh well quiz comes first).

3) Guelph Trivia

What can I say about all of you... I mean the fact that I'm addressing my club at large isn't something I anticipated doing when I walked into all those lecture halls with a clipboard trying to convince just about the entire university of the merits of competitive trivia in September. We've all come so far this year, and I want to thank all of you for your practice and tournament attendance, as well as your good vibes and encouragement for me and each other throughout the year. This message also serves as my formal invitation to Sunday trivia night at The Fat Duck as soon as the people who run it forget what happened last time (if you know you know).

4) Gradwrite

There are way too many people in this group to go through individually, but thanks so much for an amazing year of writing, compiling (compilers are truly Gradwrite's strongest soldiers) and running high school trivia! I know this isn't exactly Quizbowl related, and some people may take issue with this inclusion, but the Gradwrite community has truly helped me stay connected with the circuit as a whole. You're all my Gradwrite goats, and I'm looking forward to summiting with you many, many more times in the future.

5) TorQB

I want to thank the entire UofT club for being my gracious hosts over the past school year and putting up with my constant antics (and practice attendance) throughout. Special shoutouts go out to the undisputed Madras Curry champion (you know who you are), and the numerous other post-practice regulars I've shared many late night meals with. One day I will try pilk in honour of this most esteemed institute of higher learning, and even if I may not understand the appeal, I will fondly associate its taste with all the memories we've made together this year.

HMs: The rest of the circuit.

You all seem pretty nice when I see you infrequently at tournaments, and I got to know you all a little bit more this year. Here's to getting to know each other a little bit more again next year!

SURPRISE! Rookie Ballot:

1) Tai Belke
2) Amir Dolansky
3) Gabriel McMurren
4) Elijah Mandelbaum
5) Ava Butler
6) Matthew Stasiw
7) Stephen Ottewell
8) Seth Allen
9) Deepanshi Matai
10) Chris Wang

[CanadianKhatru]

Mai[de]n Ballot:

1) Caleb Ott (Waterloo) – Powerslave

“When the life giver dies, all around is laid waste / And in my last hour I'm a slave to the power of death…” – thoughts that probably raced through Caleb’s head that one time that qbreader was down for, like, 10 minutes

Another year has come and gone, another quizbowl season draws to a cloze, and Caleb ascends higher towards trivia apotheosis. What more can be said about Caleb – the man, the deck, the legend – that hasn’t already been said? His quizbowl skills are like the finest of Iron Maiden bangers: the venerable Powerslave. You couldn’t ask for more… a killer riff, Bruce’s hammy lyrics about the plight of his Egyptian pharoah alter-ego, some of Dave Murray’s most hauntingly beautiful melodic playing, the sudden rush and build-up into Adrian Smith’s face-melting solo, followed by another shred-fest from Dave. The melodic bass work that Steve Harris does in the bridge between Adrian and Dave’s solos is also fantastic, and I love Nicko’s Hawaii Five-O tom fills throughout. The over-the-top bombast of the ending is a cherry on top. Sheer perfection.

(In case it isn’t obvious by this point, I don’t really have a ton to say about many of the quizbowlers themselves. I’m mostly just using this ballot as an excuse to yap about Iron Maiden on the forums.)

2) Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo) – Rime of the Ancient Mariner

After the rousing finale of Powerslave, what could possibly follow it up, you may wonder? Well, if the original album is any indication, you follow it up with the longest and most ambitious banger of Iron Maiden’s entire classic period, the 13-minute prog metal epic Rime of the Ancient Mariner. An apt comparison for Mati, given his prowess in lit and the Samuel Taylor Coleridge tie-in, as well as the fact that he is one of the 37 people worldwide who is actually a prog fan.

3) Liam Kusalik (Waterloo) – Caught Somewhere in Time

When people think of Liam, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is that he’s a STEM powerhouse, which he certainty is. But beyond simply having a lot of deep science knowledge, he’s also astonishingly consistent and dependable, which lets him serve as a solid pillar to support any team he plays on. He almost never negs, and is one of the few people on the circuit who seems to consistently get at least 3 or 4 or 5 (or more) tossups in every single game he plays for an entire tournament. In this way, Liam is kind of like Steve Harris playing the bassline that holds together the Iron Maiden banger that is Waterloo A. In particular, Liam’s strengths and the way he works alongside his team reminds me of Caught Somewhere in Time. While Adrian and Dave’s chorus-heavy guitar synths grab you from the get-go and take you on a speeding cyberpunk journey, Steve holds it all together with his unrelenting bass gallop, roaring underneath like an unstoppable freight train.

4) Ben Chapman (Toronto) – Hallowed Be Thy Name

While the top spots on my ballot this year happened to go to Waterloo players, one cannot forget about the triumphs of Toronto A and their tremendous finishes at ICT and Nats (among other tournaments). Since all four of the quizbowlers on Toronto A are likewise S-tier players, it was difficult to decide what order to put everyone in. Ultimately, based on the dubious methodology of my player poll rank-determining spreadsheet, Ben came out very slightly above the rest of his teammates, and slightly below the aforementioned Waterluvians. Ben’s incredibly strong generalism brings to mind the multi-faceted brilliance of one of Iron Maiden’s most celebrated bangers: Hallowed Be Thy Name. Just like Ben as a quizbowler, this banger has got it all: some of Bruce’s strongest vocal performances, some of Steve’s best songwriting, some of Dave and Adrian’s tightest harmonized twin guitar leads, and one of the band’s most headbang-inducing instrumental sections. A timeless classic.

5) Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto) – Revelations

The Consensus GOAT. Even though my team inevitably gets wrecked every time we play against Toronto A, I still love playing aginst them. A big part of that is because of the energy and good vibes that Gareth brings to the room. It’s a lot like the energy I get from Revelations, the first Iron Maiden banger written by Bruce Dickinson alone (quite apt, seeing as Gareth is Bruce in my Toronto-Iron Maiden AU). Bruce’s over-the-top delivery of his pseudo-biblical lyrics, the palpable tension right before the band bursts into the uptempo sections, and Dave and Adrian’s banger solos… Revelations is peak early 80s epic traditional metal.

6) Tony Chen (Toronto) – Children of the Damned

A cursory glance at the stats from any tournament he plays will tell you that Tony is a beast. The fact that he outscored Raymond and Wenying combined at Notes on the Underground is especially bonkers. Tony is perhaps also the Canadian quizbowler who is most likely to say something would get CanQB blacklisted by Tipper Gore and get Christian social conservatives to start protesting outside of our events. For a Maiden comparison, I think Children of the Damned fits the bill. One of the great things about the Number of the Beast album is the frantic, unhinged energy that Maiden had during this era. Even more so than on their later albums, they simply could not go more than 3 minutes without breaking out into a 160+ BPM gallop if their lives depended on it. The fact that Children of the Damned was ostensibly the “ballad” on the album, but turns into a banger barely half way through, is a prime example of that. Bruce’s delivery on the B-movie horror lyrics straddles the line between awesome and hilarious, and the wailing scream he does at the end is S-tier.

7) Adrian Wong (Ottawa) – Wasted Years

After another year of having to endure the slow pace of life in Ottawa, Adrian might feel like he’s searching for those wasted years. But with Adrian around, Ottawa’s A team has been living in their golden years. Another year of the rigours of med school hasn’t hindered Adrian’s trivia success one bit, with a phenomenal performance at ICT, Nats, and the various open tournaments he’s taken part in. For the Adrian fans among us, this year’s ICT may have stood out as his masterpiece, leading Ottawa to a near-sweep of their playoff bracket and landing himself a spot in the top 10 overall individual scorers in D1. Likewise, for the Maiden fans among us, Wasted Years stands out as Adrian (Smith)’s masterpiece, with its evocative songwriting, anthemic chorus, and banger instrumental bridge and solo section.

8) Sky Li (Toronto) – To Tame A Land

“The time will come for [her] / To lay claim [her] crown / And then the foe / Yes they'll be cut down / You'll see [she]'ll be / The best that there's been / Messiah supreme / True leader of men…” – things that many people say about Sky on a regular basis in casual conversation

Sky may not have pulled off as many of the wildly impressive statlines that we got used to seeing from last year, hence the slightly lower rank relative to the others on Toronto A, but make no mistake: she is still one of the GOATs of the circuit. Every time I saw Sky play this year it seemed like she was usually the one on the team who would buzz on the most esoteric, wildest-sounding things. In this regard, To Tame A Land is a reasonable fit for Sky as one of the most unique, proggy, and other-worldly bangers out of Iron Maiden’s early albums.

9) Micah Colman (Waterloo) – Moonchild

Micah’s knowledge of myth and religion (among many other things) is rock solid, and in many tournaments this year he put up stats that were comparable to Caleb while playing alongside him. The sheer dawg that Micah attained by playing ICT as a duo with James Ah Yong is also awe-inspiring. I had considered giving Revelations to Micah due to the religion tie-in, and since it pairs well with Caleb’s Powerslave, but I ultimately felt that the vibe fit Gareth somewhat better. With that in mind, I think Moonchild could also be a good banger to assign to Micah, given the occult-ish lyrics, as well as the song’s darker, more aggressive sound compared to other stuff they did around that era.

10) Parth Jagtap (Toronto) – The Prisoner

With a knack for scoring 50+ point games, even at top difficulty tournaments like Nats, Parth goes hard. Some might even say that Parth is a beast. You know what else goes hard, and shows up on The Number of the Beast? Noted Iron Maiden banger: The Prisoner. One of the more overlooked tracks on the album, there’s so much to love about The Prisoner. Killer riffs, badass lyrics, and the instrumental bridge that leads into the solo section is unparalleled headbanging material. I especially love watching the version they did for the Beast Over Hammersmith concert and seeing how hyped up Steve gets during this section.

11) Nicolas Edwards (McGill) – Die With Your Boots On

With this being his final year of closed quizbowl eligibility (for now?), Nick was as determined as ever to make this the year for McGill. And while the coveted D2 ICT title ultimately eluded them in the end, the string of top notch performances that Nick pulled off to lead his team there was monumental. When faced with the prospect of “death” (understood as a metaphor for graduating, of course), Nick embodied the stoic, fearless, tenacious attitude that Iron Maiden championed in their classic banger to end side one of Piece of Mind: “if you’re gonna die, die with your boots on!”

12) Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto) – Killers

Kunaal was without a doubt the strongest second year on the circuit. Likewise, the title track Killers is the sickest banger off of Iron Maiden’s second album. Kunaal almost never negs, and his knowledge scales super well all the way up to 4 dot. Likewise, the precision instrumental work on Killers is flawlessly tight, and the riff and solos hold up against the best that Maiden came up with on their later 80s albums.

13) Michael Du (Waterloo) – Aces High

Given that Michael has served well as Waterloo A’s history specialist, I figured that I had to give him one of Steve’s “I watched a military history documentary last Sunday and wrote a song about it” bangers. Among those, I think Aces High goes the hardest.

14) Raymond Chen (Toronto) – Sometime World

Seeing as Raymond is probably even older than the guys in Iron Maiden are at this point, an Iron Maiden comparison wouldn’t even do justice to someone whose reputation in the circuit goes back as far as Raymond’s does. As such, to make an apt comparison we have to go back a decade earlier and look back at some of the grandfathers of heavy metal: Wishbone Ash. With its galloping rhythm, driving, melodic bass lines, and twin guitar leads, Sometime World is basically an Iron Maiden banger before Iron Maiden bangers were even a thing, and so still deserves its rightful place in this list (just like Raymond). Even though Wishbone Ash, like Raymond, is from an earlier time and may not go quite as hard as the younger generations, they still hold up as well as any of the legions of others that they’ve inspired and that have followed in their footsteps. (All old man jokes aside, huge kudos for the fantastic work that you've done as a TD and organizer and for the valuable, well-reasoned advice that you provide for CanQB!)

15) Jared He (Waterloo) – Can I Play With Madness

With Jared’s reputation for deranged carding, his deep knowledge of brainrot, and his apparent descent into Alzheimer’s, Can I Play With Madness is perhaps a rather on-the-nose banger to compare him to.

16) Ben Wismath (Toronto) – Deja Vu

Haven’t we already seen Ben from Toronto on this ballot? In any case, Ben Wismath is a great player in his own right with a solid command over his categories that makes him a valuable cornerstone for some very strong teams. Scoring 50 points to lead his team to victory over Toronto A at Penn Bowl is a case in point. Brilliant performance at Winter, too. The criminally underrated banger Deja Vu has always struck me as the Iron Maiden song that would work the best as an anime opening. This perhaps makes it a good fit for Ben, as he apparently has something of an affinity for Japanese things.

17) Kevin Le (Carleton) – Alexander The Great

My brother in arms… Kevin was no doubt the stronger half of Carleton K and the driving force behind Carleton’s historic successes this year at Regionals, at SCT, at MRNA, and at Consensus Championships. Kevin’s incredibly deep history knowledge played no small part in those historic successes, complemented well by his budding generalism. Getting to play alongside Kevin was always a delight; one of the highlights of my time at Carleton. I hold out hope that one day we’ll get to put together an all-Kevin team at some future open tournament. Although Iron Maiden has a bunch of bangers about historical events, I feel like Alexander The Great is the closest to being the musical equivalent of a series of Kevin’s card checks with some guitar solos slapped in the middle.

18) Russell Nip (UBC) – 2 Minutes to Midnight

Although I did have the pleasure of finally getting to play against UBC in some online tournaments over the past year, I regrettably still know very little about the characters who make up the Pacific Northwest circuit beyond the intel I can glean from stat reports and CanQB chatter. Apparently Russell continues to be the usual top scorer on what is a fairly strong A team at UBC. And apparently he is a business student who is quite adept as a science player. Given this somewhat unlikely combination, my mind turns to noted Iron Maiden banger 2 Minutes to Midnight, with its lyrics about nuclear warfare and the evils of the military industrial complex (and utterly badass riff).

19) Matthew Wang (UBC) – Where Eagles Dare

Like Russell, I don’t know a lot about Matthew beyond what I’ve gleaned from the internet, namely that Matthew’s stats are impressive, and that on a few occasions he’s prevailed as UBC’s top scorer. That said, it was super cool to get to play against him in person for Consensus. Even though UBC was only playing as a duo, they still put up a really competitive game against us. For an Iron Maiden banger, I’ll give Matthew Where Eagles Dare, as I like to imagine that the lyrics are a 100% accurate depiction of UBC quizbowlers’ experience when flying to take part in distant tournaments.

20) Asha Basu (McGill) – Infinite Dreams

In the ballad-turned-banger Infinite Dreams, Steve Harris remarks that "infinity is hard to comprehend". While Steve Harris might have trouble wrapping his head around the finer points of set theory, for someone like Asha who has such deep knowledge in math, thought, and related subjects, it’s trivial. I look forward to next year when I will inevitably get outbuzzed by her on math tossups about things that I’m actively learning about in grad school.

21) Jack van Nostrand (TMU) – The Trooper

I never actually got to see Jack play at any tournaments this year, but the stats don’t lie. His ability to get points (and lots of them) across the distribution, especially at the lower dot levels, is astounding. I’m sure that with a full team to back him and Ishan up, TMU has the potential to be a dominant force next year. Nevertheless, the way that the two of them valiantly charged into battle this year brings to mind the legendary cavalary charge of the Light Brigade, immortalized in that most iconic of Iron Maiden bangers, The Trooper, with its twin guitar leads, legendary trade-off solos between Dave and Adrian, and the archtypal galloping riff.

22) Wenying Wu (Toronto) – Murders in the Rue Morgue

Wenying is one of those great players who hasn’t been quite as active in playing tournaments, but when she does her incredibly deep lit knowledge holds up. As the OG “I read a book last Sunday and wrote a song about it” Steve banger, replete with Paul Di’Anno-era spunk, Murders in the Rue Morgue could be a good fit for Wenying.

23) Anne Fjeld (Alberta) – Invaders

“Axes grind and maces clash as wounded fighters fall to the ground … The Saxons have been overpowered / Victims of the mighty Norse[woman]” – Bruce Dickinson singing about how the Washington site of D2 SCT looked this year after Alberta showed up

Like the vast majority of UBC players, I have regretably never had the chance to meet Anne or any of the other Alberta players at any in-person tournaments, but I hope that I'll get to in the years to come. Nevertheless, it was awesome to see (via stat reports over the internet) Alberta take the Pacific Northwest by storm this year. Extra dawg points for how active Anne and co. were on the circuit in general, given how far Alberta teams have to travel to take part in any in-person tournaments. Anne put up a great PPG at every tournament she played, with SCT really standing out as a triumph. Defeating every Washington team from B through H as a duo with Liam Markland was bonkers. Such an unexpected and absolute feat of quizbowl domination brings to mind the oft-overlooked Iron Maiden banger Invaders, with its unhinged rhythm and guitar lines racing underneath as Bruce frantically sings about a brutal and bloody viking invasion.

24) Colin Veevers (Ottawa) – Stranger in a Strange Land

Colin was a great addition to Ottawa this year, complementing Adrian very well with his strong science knowledge at high difficulty tournaments. Admittedly, Stranger in a Strange Land is a bit too slow and contemplative to be a proper banger, but it pairs quite well with Wasted Years for Adrian, and is an appropriate fit for Colin’s more subdued personality.

25) Albert Li (Toronto) – Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Albert didn’t play a whole lot of tournaments this year, but on the few occasions where he did, he had an uncanny ability to score super high to help his team beat Toronto A. Albert is like one of those deep cuts that never gets included in the setlist, but every time you put on the album, you’re like “what a banger! Why don’t we hear this one more often?”, like Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner off of Somewhere in Time.

Honourable Mentions:

Alberta: Liam Markland played really well alongside Anne, and gets the same dawg cred for his commitment to travelling long distances for tournaments.

UBC: John Chen is another strong player of a similar calibre to his teammates Russell and Matthew. Tai Belke seriously impressed me at DART and is one to watch for next year.

Carleton: Stuart was an awesome teammate to have again this year. His ability to get plenty of sick buzzes on modern history and current events complemented Kevin Le's ancient and medieval history knowledge really well. I have no doubt that you'll continue to make a formidable team out of Carleton A in the years to come!

Guelph: Elijah is the GOAT for getting the Guelph club running from scratch this year and also seriously cooked at Winter.

McGill: The Jameses and Nabhaan each proved to be formidable opponents whenever they played against us, at quizbowl and Consensus alike.

McMaster: Halee put up great performances at several tournaments this year, especially Winter.

Ottawa: Maude-Sophie and my GOAT James Wang (<3) both did a great job rounding out Ottawa's ICT and Nats team. Stefan and Jesse have also been rapidly improving, and I hope I'll get the chance to play alongside you two (and incessantly yell "tens win games!" after every toss-up, in three-part harmony) when I return to uOttawa next year.

SFU: It was great to see SFU join the circuit this year, and Kevin Ye seriously impressed.

Toronto: Joey Sun, Yihong Chen, Franklin Wu, Marcus Forbes-Green, and Jason Zhang all put up some strong performances either leading their teams or playing alongside some of the other very strong players who appeared on my ballot. Amir Dolansky also deserves recognition for a fantastic rookie year; I have no doubt that we'll be seeing plenty more great quizbowling from him.

TMU: Ishan maintained his immense levels of dawg again this year by duoing many a tournament with Jack (and soloing even more!) and putting up a strong performance all the while. Ishan no doubt deserves to share The Trooper with Jack as an honorary banger.

Waterloo: Rayton Lin was a potential contender I had considered for my main ballot, and I for one actually really enjoyed playing his MacVan pack. James Ah Yong shares Micah's immense levels of dawg for how they duo'ed ICT together, and the way that he's been spreading the good vibes of CanQB and Consensus south of the border is heartwarming. Jacob Bicol also played really well and has always been a delightful presence to have with us in Ottawa.

Western: If Ian Chow had played more tournaments this year, he almost certainly would have earned himself a spot on my ballot based on his performance at Winter alone.

Special Carleton Shout-Outs:

In addition to Kevin and Stuart, there are plenty of others at Carleton that I'd like to give a shout-out to as I graduate and continue on to the next stage in my academic and trivia journey. First, thank you to Anson and Saiyara for introducing me to the wonderful world of quizbowl three years ago. I would not have made all the great friends and memories that I have made if I hadn't stumbled upon the booth at club's fair, shown up to the first few practices, and signed up to play Novice!

A huge shout-out as well to Stefan for the great job you've done this year as president. I have no doubt the club will prosper with you at the helm again next year. Thank you as well to Nic for the hilarious practice announcements, fun vanity packets, and overall great vibes that you always bring to practices. I look forward to the day that Spell! finds its wings and really takes off. Thank you to Adrien for the behind-the-scenes work you've done on the club Discord server. Kudos to Val and Alden for continuing to develop as players, for getting many a sick buzz for the various Carleton teams you've played on, and for joining the exec team! And a final shout-out to all the other regulars (and not-as-regulars, too) who've shown up to Carleton practices, tournaments, or Glebe or Lisgar trivia night outings and helped make the club such an enjoyable experience to be a part of for these past three years.

[jasonz]

Another year, another largest Canadian Quizbowl tournament of all time. I'll let you all guess the theme for this one.

Main Ballot:
1. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto) - The Big Black (The Quick Brown Fox)
2. Tony Chen (Toronto) - Mythologia's End (Hatsune Miku)
3. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto) - FREEDOM DiVE (xi)
4. Sky Li (Toronto) - Everytime We Touch (Nightcore Mix) (Cascada)
5. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo) - Highscore (Panda Eyes & Teminite)
6. Caleb Ott (Waterloo) - PADORU / PADORU (Turbo)
7. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo) - Blue Zenith (xi)
8. Parth Jagtap (Toronto) - Snow Halation (feat. BeasttrollMC) (Will Stetson)
9. Raymond Chen (Toronto) - AaAaAaAAaAaAAa (Nashimoto Ui)
10. Adrian Wong (Ottawa) - Can't Defeat Airman (Team Nekokan)
11. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto) - Rubik's Cube (Hatsune Miku)
12. Micah Colman (Waterloo) - Kira Kira Days (HO-KAGO TEA TIME)
13. Michael Du (Waterloo) - POP/STARS (ft. Madison Beer, (G)I-DLE, Jaira Burns) (K/DA)
14. Nicolas Edwards (McGill) - Chikatto Chika Chika (Nanahira)
15. Albert Li (Toronto) - Rockefeller Street (Nightcore Mix) (Getter Jaani)
16. Ben Wismath (Toronto) - Bad Apple!! (Masayoshi Minoshima feat. nomico)
17. Jared He (Waterloo) - Harumachi Clover (Swing Arrangement) [Dictate Edit] (Will Stetson)
18. Wenying Wu (Toronto) - Snow Drive(01.23) (Omoi)
19. Colin Veevers (Ottawa) - Everything will freeze (UNDEAD CORPORATION)
20. Kevin Le (Carleton) - Ai no Sukima (MIMI feat. Hatsune Miku)
21. Joey Sun (Toronto) - Pika Girl (S3RL)
22. Marcus Forbes-Green (Toronto) - RAISE MY SWORD (GALNERYUS)
23. Jason Zhang (Toronto) - Sound Chimera (Laur)
24. Russell Nip (UBC) - Toumei Elegy (Konuko)
25. Matthew Wang (UBC) - Monochrome Butterfly (Aitsuki Nakuru)

Honourable Mentions: Rayton Lin (Waterloo), Ishan Joshi (TMU), Andrew McCowan (Queen's), Maude-Sophie Lockman (Ottawa), Asha Basu (McGill), James Wang (Ottawa), Halee Carey (McMaster), Jack van Nostrand (TMU), Anne Fjeld (Alberta), John Chen (UBC), Stefan Vlad (Ottawa), Kevin Ye (SFU)

Rookie Ballot:
1. Amir Dolansky (Toronto) - Team Magma & Aqua Leader Battle Theme (Unofficial) (Bliitzit)
2. Elijah Mandelbaum (Guelph) - Mou Ii kai? (THE ORAL CIGARETTES)
3. Tai Belke (UBC) - BLUE DRAGON (Seiryu)
4. Ava Butler (McGill) - Black Rover (TV Size) (Vickeblanka)
5. Gabriel McMurren (Guelph) - Guren no Yumiya (TV Size) (Linked Horizon)
6. Nathaniel Hall Godfrey (Toronto) - Asu no Yozora Shoukaihan (Yuaru)
7. Seth Allen (McMaster) - Blade Dance (Ni-Sokkususu)
8. Chris Wang (Toronto) - Remote Control (Saiya)
9. Henry Siegler (Toronto) - quaver (dj TAKA)
10. Deepanshi Matai (Toronto) - Tsukinami (Wakeshima Kanon)

Community Shoutouts:

TorQB Execs: it's been real great to be part of the TorQB exec team. Thanks Joey Sun for being an outstanding president and Yihong Chen, Albert Li, and Ellen Ge for being amazing VPs. Chris Wang and Olivia Parisotto have also played an integral role in fostering a welcoming environment for new Quizbowl players, which has no doubt contributed to the massive size of the club! Shoutout as well to all of the other general execs: Nameer Qadir, Athan Juritsch, Ben Chapman, Franklin Wu, Kunaal Chandrashekar, Marcus Forbes-Green, Parth Jagtap, Raymond Chen, and Wenying Wu for all your contributions to the club, whether it be logistics things, running tournaments or club events. It's great to know that the club will have an immense pool of leadership experience to draw upon in the coming years.

Teammates and Friends: shoutout to everybody I've played Quizbowl with over the past year (I made a frequency list because I was bored): Parth Jagtap (6), Ben Wismath (5), Marcus Forbes-Green (4), Kunaal Chandrashekar (3), Aaron Dos Remedios (1), David Snoddon (1), Albert Li (1), Rahim Dina (1), Amir Dolansky (1), Chris Wang (1), Raymond Chen (1), Nameer Qadir (1). Every tournament has been a unique and wonderful experience with you folks. A special shoutout of course to my Regs/Nats teammates, Parth, Ben, and Marcus for making hard Quizbowl feel like a piece of cake and for your competitive spirit and good vibes. I'd also like to thank all the yappers in TorQB, Wenying Wu and Zannatul Isaque for helping me pass English class, Raymond Chen for looking at my grant application, and David "GOATVID" Snoddon for always asking how my and everyone else's day has been.

Nats Road Trip Buddies:
Sky-chan?
Hai!
Nani ga suki?
Chokominto yori mo a-na-ta
Wenying-chan?
Hai!
Nani ga suki?
Sutoroberii fureibaa yori mo a-na-ta
Raymond-chan?
Hai!
Nani ga suki?
Kukkii and kuriimu yori mo a-na-ta

We could have gone viral by now if we made that Tiktok!!

TDs and Staff: Thanks everyone who helped plan or run a tournament. Without you, we wouldn't keep breaking records every year.

[KawaiiPotato]

Posting on behalf of Deepanshi. Here's to hoping this one doesn't get stuck in the gulag.

This is a community ballot. I won’t be making player or rookie ones mostly because I do not pay enough attention to individual stats and I’m far too burnt out from the academic year to go back and read through tournament data.

Sincere apologies in advance if your name isn’t here, it has absolutely nothing to do with you and everything to do with me being forgetful. Without further ado, here are my community shoutouts:

Joey Sun, Franklin Wu, Yihong Chen: Could not have asked for better SCT+ICT teammates. So grateful I got to play with you all this year, I learned a lot but also made so many good memories. Here’s to the Lakeshore Limited.

Parth Jagtap: Fellow football enjoyer! Despite you always needing a charging cable and power bank, it’s so much fun to hang out with you, whether it be at practice, or for food, or at the pub. I’ll miss having you around after the summer, but I hope work treats you well. Congrats on graduating! GGMU.

Ellen Ge, Imtiaz Kidwai, Samuel Zheng, Kristofer Grabovskis, Olivia Parisotto: Thanks for teaching me about hockey! It’s been real fun to see everyone crash out over the Leafs, all for different reasons. Also I guess I’m a Leafs fan now. One day I’ll make you all women’s football watchers…

Marcus Forbes-Green: Same as above. Biggest quizdrink enthusiast. Despite all of the other questionable food and drink opinions, I’m glad you also think Pineapple Fanta sucks. Shoutout also for being the first quizbowler I ever talked to (all the way back in 2023!)

Chris Wang: Fellow figure skating soldier, fashion history enthusiast, [redacted] hater… I’m so so glad I know you. Always lovely to hang out with you. It’s so cool to see how dedicated you are to everything you do. I hope you have a great summer, and an even better second year (and beyond!)

David Snoddon: GOATVID! It’s never a boring conversation with you around. You’re seriously the goat, both with regards to quizbowl and otherwise. Congrats on graduating, I hope you have a good time at Western!

Ethen Sun: Thanks for all the coin conversations, I feel less insane knowing another collector.

Athan Juritsch, Kevin Gan, Nate Cutts, Nameer Qadir, Blake Kim-Wansbrough (as well as Joey, Yihong, Franklin, Chris, and Marcus): All GOATed teammates. I’ve enjoyed playing with you all so much, what a great first year of quizbowl.

Ben Chapman, Sky Li, Gareth Thorlakson, Tony Chen, Kunaal Chandrashekhar, Raymond Chen, Wenying Wu, Ben Wismath, Jason Zhang, Albert Li: All of you terrify me. (But seriously, always very cool to see you all play whenever I sit in during Gen practice. You’re all very cool.)

Everyone in the intermediate practice room: It’s been so great hanging around with you all this year. Here’s to more deranged directs in the summer and beyond.

Entirety of TorQB: TorQB truly has the best vibes. I’ve never not looked forward to practice.


Non-Toronto Folks:

Elijah Mandelbaum: I keep forgetting you’re not Toronto. Always fun to have you around at practices. Insane work this year with Guelph trivia, excited to see what you all get up to in the DII circuit next year.

Rayton Lin: Among the strongest carding and practice-attending soldiers of the Canadian circuit. How do you do it?

Stefan Vlad: I’m actually not sure if you’re a women’s football watcher but you’re a fellow women’s football knower, which I deeply respect.

James Wang: Comrade. (Excited to see you around more!)

McGill A and McGill B: It was real fun seeing everyone at MRNA and DII ICT. Real good vibes.

And, of course, all the Canadian quizbowlers who make this community what it is -- you're the best

[KStan25]

1. Ben Chapman (Toronto): Area 6 - Star Fox 64
Candidate for number one 20th century Quebec player (along with Nick Edwards, Chris Sims, and Maude-Sophie), with possibly the earliest buzzes in the world on Pierre Trudeau and the Quiet Revolution. Ben is elite at a wide variety of categories, consistently top scores or nearly top scores on incredibly good teams, and does a great job of running big tournaments. Toronto A was incredible this year, and if we stuff the Nats submissions with Quebec Content I'm sure TorA will achieve their goal of provoking economic retaliation next year.
“Those tin cans are no match for me!”

2. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo): Bolse - Star Fox 64
Calling Liam a specialist underrates him, but he’s probably not as much of a generalist as the other people on this side of the list. That said, he is the most reliable player on the circuit, consistently in the high 20s to 30s PPG range every single tournament, firmly locking down his 4/4, and basically never getting anything wrong. Beating him to one bio buzz at Penn Bowl was one of the highlights of my year. An undergrad champion twice over and a fantastic run at D1 ICT, Liam led an extraordinary side with sharp strikes. It’s a shame his closed run is over, but hopefully he’s still around the community for a while longer. He’s always a fantastic presence.
"Your carcass is mine!”

3. Tony Chen (Toronto): Zoness - Star Fox 64
Tony’s reward for the torture ballot is to be a acknowledged as the planet that is a dumping ground for the Androssian army’s toxic waste. A better player every year, this year he also added to his game by becoming a great reader. Might be higher if he stayed off the NAQT website on the night of February 7-8th. Can’t wait to lose to him in D1 SCT next year.
“Disrespectful little welps! I’ll teach ye some respect!”

4. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto): Venom II - Star Fox 64
Gareth brings a lot of great energy and scary buzzes to any table he’s at, and he’s had a really wonderful closed career. Good luck carding for the bar! Hope you can represent some of us pro bono when we get detained by the Trump administration.
“Only I have the brains to rule Lylat!”

5. Sky Li (Toronto): Macbeth - Star Fox 64
This top 5 is so tough to rank, especially sorting Toronto A’s patriot squad. I have Sky in 5th, but she could go at any other number too. Close to unparalleled knowledge, keeper of the Octobuzzy at Winter, I’m sure Sky and Toronto will be right at it at the top level again next year.
“I can see the look on their stupid faces!”

6. Caleb Ott (Waterloo): Sector Ω - Star Fox Zero
I really appreciate Caleb’s commitment to the bit. Unfortunate that he couldn’t make it to ICT, but he lit up every tournament he played and will do even better next year. The Americans won’t know what hit them. Enjoy your summer touching grass, good luck going for the treble next year (ACF Nats, ICT D1, Consensus Nats)!
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m afraid this way doesn’t lead to Venom. This way only leads to your annihilation!”

7. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo): Venom I - Star Fox 64
Mati always really impresses me with how wide his knowledge base is. Waterloo A had a lot to be proud of this year, and Mati was the heart of that team. Good luck in Maryland, and I hope you can proselytize Consensus in the upper Mid-Atlantic and get to play more Canadian teams at Nats!
“Jeez Laweez! What is that?!”

8. Adrian Wong (Ottawa): Meteo - Star Fox 64
Adrian is always capable of going on crazy runs and winning games from anywhere. Combined amazingly with Yusuf to win History of the World Part II. I didn’t end up playing him much this year, but he was undoubtedly really effective at everything he played. Whether he’s in the retirement home or not, I hope he’s still around the community as he’s always a great to see around. As a future doctor, probably the person here most likely to come into contact with the psychedelics that produced the warp zone section of Meteo.
“I can't believe I lost to this scum!”
“Sorry to jet, but I'm in a hurry!”

9. Parth Jagtap (Toronto): Sector Y - Star Fox 64
Parth has always been insanely good, but he’s really stepped it up to crazy levels now. Scores highly even next to some absolute monsters, and has a great understanding of the game and the content he’s buzzing on. Also a disdain for carding that has to be admired. Parth’s been a great friend all these years, it was great to see him come out to Montreal for MRNA (and bring a whole Toronto contingent with him), and I was really happy to see him kick ass at both national tournaments. Wish I could have buzzer raced him for the cricket tossup at Nats. Whatever the future holds next for you, I hope to still see you around plenty, almost as much as I hope United get relegated.
“Cocky little freaks!”

10. Micah Coleman (Waterloo): Fortuna - Star Fox Zero
Micah has perfect chemistry on teams with Caleb, and they pulled off some incredible stuff together this year. Micah is also a better player than his numbers playing with Caleb would suggest, and he really showed several of us at MRNA. Had a great time at the national tournaments, and I’m really confident he’ll do some even greater things on Waterloo A next year. Would be higher if he played RNGeezus, but has a chance to correct that at PRIMAL KYOGRE this summer. Booed me once for getting a Consensus question about Genshin Impact but cards Genshin Impact trivia, curious.
“I’m sick of these vines, out of my way!”

11. Nicolas Edwards (McGill): Corneria - Star Fox 64
Nick has spent this year going from a fantastic player to an extraordinary one. Attributing his great run to cards undersells just how good he is and how much work he puts in: he is a wealth of knowledge, an exciting presence on the field, and a great leader. These four years I’ve gotten to see him blossom into a really complete player have been wonderful, and I’ve been so captivated by the run he and McGill A had this year on all fronts. A joint second-best ever McGill finish at D2 capped it all off, and they were so close to even higher honours. Seeing Nick earn that all star medal was amazing too. Beyond that, this was a year where Nick was a top 10 scorer at basically every tournament he played, and top 3 at every tournament at 1-2 dots. He led the line for McGill A extraordinarily well, and also concocted the team combinations to take them to great heights. Beyond the top D-value SCT team and 9th at ICT, there was a really great 5th place at Winter with a 3 person team, top of bottom bracket at Arcadia after nearly making top bracket with a 2 person team, the top team from ACF Regs to miss out on Nats, and a really impressive joint 5th at Penn Bowl despite one of the upsets of the season. Nick, it’s been an honour to call you a friend, teammate, and leader all these years, and I hope we’ll still get to see you around plenty going forward. The club will be far poorer without you in it.
“Deploy all units! CHARGE!”

12. Michael Du (Waterloo): Out of This Dimension - Star Fox
Still remember you beating me to a buzz at PLAYTIME and mentioning how it was “Sports politics stock.” Insanely good player, a lot of really impressive buzzes at History of the World Part II, and also knows other categories too apparently??? A key part of a very good Waterloo A team, I'm excited to see how he’s able to shape up the next edition of Waterloo A and maybe go even further beyond. As an eSports fan, the person on the circuit most likely to spend eternity with the Andross slot machine in the Out of This Dimension level from Star Fox SNES.
“Come in Arwings!! Fox where are you?!! We need you to protect Corneria!!”

13. Jared He (Waterloo): Sector β - Star Fox Zero
Could be considered the most chaotic player on Waterloo A, and also maybe the least? Responsible for some truly cursed HONK content and tournament stories, and also some amazing questions and really fun stories. Add cricket stock to your trash cards, it will synergize well with Micah’s Urdu poetry cards.
"Forget the countdown. Let them have it!"

14. Colin Veevers (Ottawa): Space Armada - Star Fox
I think the only time I played Colin this year was at Penn Bowl, and he put us away soundly. Gets his points without much fuss, definitely a great and steady presence on an excitable Ottawa team, and synergizes really well with some really good players. A great support to Adrian in the US, and I hope we get to see more of him next year alongside Ottawa's legions of humanities players.
“Retros!! Fire retros!!”

15. Kunaal Chandrasekhar (Toronto): Sector α - Star Fox Zero
Kunaal is scary good. I don’t think I ever played him this year, but he comes up with some cursed dialogue and deep knowledge every time I speak with him, and he’s always up there on the scoring charts at every tournament even alongside really great teammates. Great at holding Stefan Vlad to account.
“Uhh, Commander? Yeah, they've...broken into the ship.”
“Hmph!... If he wants to meet his doom, then send in the attack robots!”

16. Raymond Chen (Toronto): Solar - Star Fox 64
Allegedly retiring which is a huge shame. Raymond has long preceded all of us and will long outlast us all, much like Solar (in SF64’s canon anyways) to the Lylat system. Also want to shoutout his performance at PLAYTIME where he really put my team of first and second years in their place by doing his lab work, turning around to tune in to literature and biochem questions, probably getting most of those in the first or second line, then going back to his work during other tossups or our bonuses. A great showcase for my team of Reach infused children of what peak Quizbowl looks like. Thank you for all the work you've done for this circuit, and for running the biggest tournament in Canadian Quizbowl history for like 4 years in a row at this point.
“THIS is the enemy's bio-weapon!?”

17. Albert Li (Toronto): Titania - Star Fox 64
Albert’s another player that I know is really good but I just didn’t play much this year. Did some really great things on a very good Toronto B team, and is doing a great job of taking the lead in CanQB. I don’t know if he’s around next year, but if he is I look forward to seeing more of him.
“Slippy, what are you doing? Hurry up!”

18. Kevin Le (Carleton): Venom - Star Fox
Kevin is one of the hardest people for me to play against because he just knows the things I do but way better and deeper. Expertly led Carleton to the Eastern Consensus qualifier title and to the Consensus Championship final, along with a good amount of Quizbowl success. It’s unfortunate he may not be around Carleton next year, but I hope he’s enjoyed his time back on the circuit, and stuns us with some more crazy deep knowledge and words of wisdom at open tournaments.
“Ah.. your choice of routes took me by surprise!!”

19. Ben Wismath (Toronto): Sector X - Star Fox 64
Knows a lot of deep cuts in a few categories, a great complement to a lot of Toronto players on some really good and varied teams. Can slot in effectively just about anywhere, and had a lot of success at some hard tournaments this year. Looking forward to your video game music pack.
“I will terminate all enemies. You are an enemy. The view is clear. Destroy. Destroy.”
“What’s he saying?”

20. Asha Basu (McGill): Venom - Star Fox Zero
Asha is one of the most dependable people around, both as a teammate and as an administrator. Great showings all year, will do even more with her power of executive orders next year. A better generalist than her stats playing with Nick show, already an effective 4-dot player on some categories as she showed at Open tournaments, and easily the most dawg in the East. She will lead McGill to great places next year on a new look McGill A, and I'm excited to see what comes of it. Already showcased some innovative training methods at ACF Winter.
“Well, Pepper's got you eating out of his paws...”

21. Ishan Joshi (TMU): Katina - Star Fox 64
Ishan has the most dawg on the circuit and a chaotic and fun playstyle. He has to be Katina. Always a fun player to play against, with some of the most interesting travel stories, no tournament ever feels complete without Ishan there. I’m not sure what’s next for him, but I do hope he’s still around the circuit next year, putting up sick buzzes and sick negs in tandem to play some great games.
“Husky unit, cover the base.”

22. Jack van Nostrand (TMU): Corneria - Star Fox
Jack is really tough to rank, but his numbers and his sheer presence on the other side of the buzzer make it hard to not rank him. Almost made it to D2 ICT on his own, and I’m sure he would have had a great chance of downing my very good McGill B side on his own at SCT if he’d been able to make it into top bracket. Put my teams to the sword at PLAYTIME and Winter and made a great combination with Ishan. If he’s still playing next year, he’s a frontrunner for the D2 SCT crown.
“Emergency, emergency! Emergency, emergency! Incoming enemy fighters - prepare for launch!”

23. Andrew McCowan (Queens): Aquas - Star Fox 64
Andrew has the knowledge and game acumen up there with the very best. He also consistently kicked my teams’ asses all year. I’m pretty sure the only game a team of mine beat a team of his at was SCT, and that was a pretty close game. We had a really interesting dynamic across DART and Regs back to back, where Ishan’s TMU team would beat Andrew’s Queens teams, who would beat my McGill teams, who would beat Ishan’s TMU. Queens will be even better next year with Andrew at the helm for one last ride, expect them to make a run for ICT and Consensus Nats.
“Go for the eyes!”

24. James Ferrabee (McGill): Fichina - Star Fox Zero
Ferrabee has had a constant upwards trajectory for a while, just like the Landmaster after it gets the Gravmaster upgrade in Fichina. Has his hands in almost every category, just like those weird spider mechs that dominate Fichina’s landscape in Zero. Number one incest player. On a more serious note, Ferrabee is dedicated to the game in a way I sometimes wish I was when I started out. I gave up trying to become good at science pretty early, but Ferrabee has shown me how possible it was, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what he can do next year on McGill A. A double threat and always getting better, he won ACF Fall in a dominant display, and by the end of the year he was outscoring me at Regs, SCT playoffs, and ICT. We wouldn’t have made ICT without his anchoring efforts and game knowledge, and he was responsible for some of our best showings in Chicago. Be warned, the best is yet to come.
“No rest for the best!”

25. Russell Nip (UBC): The Awesome Black Hole - Star Fox
Far away from the rest of the circuit, just like how The Awesome Black Hole is distant from the rest of the Lylat System yet able to link up at the right moments. It was great to meet Russell for the first time at Chicago, and he put up some seriously impressive showings all year. Also had a fun conversation with him at the airport about carding being like studying for a final exam. Always puts up great numbers out in the true west. Maybe we'll meet again next year???
“This space graveyard is where your father vanished, Fox!!”


Honourable Mentions:

As always, there are a lot of fantastic players on the circuit but not enough room to rank everyone.

James Wang, Maude-Sophie Lockman, and Gabrielle Clark were really great supports to Adrian and Colin on various teams this year, and all will most definitely be missed at Ottawa. Ottawa’s likely D2 team for next year, led by the excellent pair of Stefan Vlad and Jesse Chusing, will undoubtedly be challenging for a qualification spot. I played teams that had both of those guys probably more than anyone else this year, and we had some great games against each other and honours were ultimately pretty even. This is also the case with Ottawa’s departing president, Ian Theysmeyer, who I have no doubt will do a great job at Queens next year. With Andrew, as well as the very impressive pair of Brendan Bridle and Kevin Wang, they’re going to be an even more dangerous side. Kevin Anderson seems to be going to Ottawa, which is a great shame for Carleton as he is a fantastic player that I got to play a lot these past two years, and I have no doubt he will do a fantastic job at Ottawa. Stuart Chandler-Baas, Alden Thompson, and Valerie Brown are all more great players at Carleton that contributed to some great success the club saw this year, and I know they'll be even better next year.

Over in the west, Wenying Wu, Joey Sun, Franklin Wu, Yihong Chen, Deepanshi Matai, Amir Dolansky, Marcus Forbes-Greene, and Jason Zhang, among many others, are all phenomenal players at Toronto. I had a lot of great bouts against various combinations of most of these people all year, and am looking forward to many more next year. In particular I want to shout out that great Toronto C team of Joey, Franklin, Yihong, and Deepanshi, one of two sides to beat us at SCT, and who were great to see and hang out with in Chicago. Halee Carey killed it at McMaster and was so close to getting ranked here but just barely missed out, and she was ably supported by Yusuf Baig, Seth Allen, and Cranmer McGinn at many tournaments. Waterloo had a killer core of players, like James Ah Young who parachuted in for both national tournaments and held his own, as well as evangelizing the game of Consensus to the state of New York. I must also mention and praise to the sun that excellent Waterloo C team of Rayton Lin, Jacob Bicol, Xavier Spano, and Dawson Teu. Our game against you guys at SCT is one of the greatest games I've ever been a part of (right up there with McGill A-Waterloo B at SCT last year), and you guys killed it at ICT. Rayton and Jacob are also really active in the McGillQB discord and show up to more online practices than I do, so special shoutout to their dawg levels. Their duo at Fall was a lot of fun to play and watch in the final. Rayton was really close to getting ranked here, and I can't wait to see his card check pack at next MacVan. Lastly, Ian Chow isn't eligible for the poll but he is absolutely a top 10 player in Canada, and always a really great presence at tournaments. Last I heard he was off to the Western US for a PhD which is a great loss for our circuit here, but I wish you the best studying the distant stars Ian!

There are also a lot of really great players out in the (real) West that I've barely gotten to play and mostly saw over stats sheets, like Matthew Wang, John Chen, and Tai Belke at UBC, Kevin Ye and Dexter Hine at SFU, and Anne Fjeld and Liam Markland at UAlberta. It's great to see the circuit looking so strong out there, and I hope to see you guys at National tournaments next year.

James Wadsley was the closest McGillian to featuring, and if he didn’t play every single tournament at Nick’s side he probably would be here. He’ll be leading the line in more categories on McGill A next year without Nick, and I have no doubt he will rise to challenge. Watch this space. Other McGill players who were in the mix include our outstanding trio of novices, Ava Butler, Charlie Ruff, and Denali Tran-Le. More on them in the novice poll, but they’re all brilliant and have been wonderful members of the club and great teammates. I’ve spoken really highly of McGIll A’s regulars, but it’s worth remembering that they lost to McGill B at Penn Bowl. I was sitting out that round and I probably would have been ineffective anyways, it was Luke Sloan, Devito Stevanus, and Charlotte Bauer, along with Denali, who turned up the heat. Luke really popped off at the 1-dot tournaments at the start of the year and has been a great presence in practice and at the harder tournaments I’ve played with him. I have no doubt he’ll do even better next year, likely a key component of another ICT run. Devito is always a wonderful presence at the club, even if his availability has been hit this year because a math/CS degree is really hard. He has incredible enthusiasm for everything he does, and he even got a 5th McGill team to play the online site of ACF Winter. A great player with really deep pockets in history, literature, and arts, he will do some more serious damage if he’s able to play more next year. Charlotte has gotten very good at a decent chunk of literature, and had an amazing run with Wadsley, Uday Bhardwaj, and Chloe Wei to almost make the Consensus final. I know next year the Talonflames will be right at it again.

And lastly, I want to give some words about Henry Olsen and Francis Dinh, both of whom will be leaving us this summer. Francis has been a consistently outstanding presence at the club, bringing chaotic energy and quirky humour that’s been much appreciated. An eternal supporter of my wacky ideas, one of the biggest supporters of the Quizballers sports teams, putting together social events, and making very fun social media posts and logos, the club would be very different if Francis never joined it, and he’s made his four years here very memorable for all the people who have been in it. Henry was also pretty close to making the main ballot. He has some incredibly deep knowledge, and maintains his reigning title as the player on the circuit most likely to buzz in first line and say every remaining clue in the question without actually giving the answer. He had a bit of a slow start to the year, but really kicked off at SCT, which included an unbelievable game against Guelph and two of the clutchest first lines of all time in the last quarter of our last game against Waterloo C to seal McGill B’s ICT berth. At ICT he was McGill B’s highest scorer in the prelims and maintained a great run and positive energy all day. In my time at McGill, there are very few people I’ve played alongside more than Henry, so I am very qualified to call him a phenomenal and fun teammate, and an outstanding friend. Henry, I’m really glad I got to have my ICT run with you, and you will be sorely missed. Wherever you go for law school in the future, I hope you’re able to make your way back to McGill for more trivia and other good times again.

[trooper4907]

2024-2025 Canadian player poll
1. Tony Chen(Toronto) - MKO
2. Benjamin Chapman(Toronto) - PCO
3. Mattias Ehatamm(Waterloo) - TKI-3 Flat top
4. Caleb Ott(Waterloo) - SDPC-DPC Loop
5. Gareth Thorlakson(Toronto) - SDPC Spin
6. Liam Kusalik(Waterloo) - TKI-3 Fonzie
7. Sky Li(Toronto) - DT Cannon
8. Adrian Wong(Ottawa) - Gamushiro
9. Michael Du(Waterloo) - TKI-3 Castle top
10. Parth Jagtap(Toronto) - Mountainous Stacking 2
11. Micah Colman(Waterloo) - Hachispin
12. Jared He(Waterloo) - Ajanba TSD
13. Kevin Ye(SFU) - Center 4wide
14. Raymond Chen(Toronto) - Albatross
15. Nicolas Edwards(McGill) - Stickspin
16. Kunaal Chandrashekar(Toronto) - Reliable TSD
17. Jack Van Nostrand(TMU) - Seagull
18. Colin Veevers(Ottawa) - Pelican
19. Russell Nip(UBC) - H Cannon
20. Matthew Wang(UBC) - Sailboat
21. Ben Wismath(Toronto) - Speedboat
22. Wenying Wu(Toronto) - Dolphin
23. Albert Li(Toronto) - Grace System
24. Tai Belke(UBC) - SDPC Extended
25. John Chen(UBC) - BT Cannon

2024-2025 Canadian Rookie Poll
1. Tai Belke(UBC) - SDPC Extended
2. Elijah Mandelbaum(Guelph) - 1-11th Compromise Cannon
3. Amir Dolansky(Toronto) - TST Tower
4. Gabriel McMurren(Guelph) - SDT Cannon
5. Ava Butler(McGill) - Catspin
6. Joyann Hua(UBC) - F-Spin
7. Dylan Steptoe(Guelph) - Setspin
8. Chris Wang(Toronto) - Donut Stacking
9. Denali Tran-Le(McGill) - Stable TST
10. Charlie Ruff(McGill) - C-Spin


The theme and reasoning for assignment is obviously trivial and thus an exercise for the reader.

Shoutout to all the members of UBC Quizbowl and other CanQB people:
Alan Zhang - Though he didn't play this year in competition, Alan was a key member of UBC quizbowl. He has shaped what we talk about when we talk about quizbowl; he also keeps telling Russell and I about people we should know. He keeps saying he'll unretire so keep an eye out for him next year .

John Chen - John is probably the player on our team with the most real knowledge. He has an ability to pull out insane buzzes on a variety of topics and was the only player who played both ICT and Nats while also taking a full course load this year. John is a strong player and I look forward to playing with him next year.

Joshua Yamada- Because of Alan's choice to play baseball for a year, Josh became our 4th ICT player and he pulled out some insane buzzes with a first line against Columbia A. He too has impacted UBC Quizbowl's vocabulary with his coining of the term indiv merchant to describe greedy individual gameplay.

Joyann Hua - Joyann has been one of the players in our new class of cracked rookies and they have been a very solid player across various categories. They're also an excellent Consensus player and consistently pull answers across many different categories. I hope that they'll be able to play Consensus Nationals next year to show how strong they are at Cansonic.

Justin Qian - Despite Justin claiming to be retired from quizbowl, he put up a strong performance at SCT and other tournaments despite playing with 2 other history players. I had great fun playing with my fellow Albertan at Consensus nationals with us coming close to winning games. Hopefully he continues to play quizbowl despite the challenges of being in Eng Phys at UBC.

Russell Nip - UBC Quizbowl's president has been an extremely solid player for UBC and a consistent anchor in games. He was carrying games during a stretch of SCT where I was negging on questions like a madman and I still think he's probably UBC's best player. He has an uncanny ability to get questions in various different categories and has also done a huge amount of work to help run the club and make everything function.

Tai Belke - Tai is a dedicated player and also UBC Quizbowl's greatest recruiter. Half of the people who have come to practice this year have been people he has recruited. Tai is also an extremely strong player being able to play Lit and Geo at Nats quite effectively while also being goated at 1 dot physics.

Thank you to James Wang and Adrian Wong for housing me while I was waiting for John to show up to check into the hotel at ACF Nationals. It was also cool to have dinner with Athan Juritsch, Franklin Wu, Deepanshi Matai, and Yihong Chen after Consensus Nationals. Hopefully I will be able to interact with CanQB more next year.

All in all, I think this year was an excellent year for UBC quizbowl. We made both ACF Nationals and ICT(though, in the words of Russell, we did play in a bit of a "mickey mouse" region) and we didn't lose every single game. I feel I improved greatly from last year where I was getting carried by my teammates. I think I lost my only chance to ever answer a question with Calgary in quizbowl(Micah is more Calgarian than me at this point) and I ended up throwing multiple games at Nats. I believe in good things next year, hopefully we'll be able to send a full team to Consensus nationals as well 2 teams to ICT next year. I strongly believe in our D2 team and the players on it. This summer I hope to retire from Quizbowl to pursue carding full time so that we'll be able to give our graduating players(Russell, John, Alan) a good sendoff next year. Thank you everyone!

[retrocraft]

All rise! The Honourable the Chief Judge and the Circuit Judges of the Court of Appeals for the Canadian Circuit. Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! All persons having business before the Honourable the Court of Appeals for the Canadian Circuit are admonished to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting. God save the Canadian Circuit and this Honourable Court.

AH YONG, Circuit Judge:

Regrettably, I have not played much quizbowl in my final year of closed eligibility. My first and only ballot is, therefore, biased towards ICT/Nats performances and vibes-based impressions. Should you believe this constitutes reversible error, you may motion to stay the issuance of this ballot’s mandate pending filing of a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court of Quizbowl no later than seven days from the entry of this forum post. See Fed. R. App. P. 41.

1. Caleb Ott, Waterloo. Amalgamated Transit Union Loc. 1309 v. Laidlaw Transit Ser., 435 F.3d 1140 (9th Cir. 2006).
   While he bemoans his lack of “real knowledge”, he should take pride in the exponential growth of his knowledge base. After all, the Ninth Circuit ruled that “less [knowledge]” actually means “more [points]”. 435 F.3d 1146.
2. Ben Chapman, Toronto. Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S. 452 (1997).
   A menace since my very first quizbowl tournament (2022 DII SCT). Similar to the recently-overturned Chevron deference, Auer deference is a recognition that courts are not experts and must defer to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations. I defer to the statlines.
3. Liam Kusalik, Waterloo. Ass’n for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., 569 U.S. 576 (2013).
   “I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except . . . fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief.” 569 U.S. 597 (Scalia J., concurring).
4. Sky Li, Toronto. Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7 (2008).
   She destroyed us in our game against Toronto A at Nats. Has a “likelihood of success on the merits” against the strongest teams here and south of the border.
5. Mattias Ehatamm, Waterloo. Lavoie v. Canada, [2002] 1 S.C.R. 769.
   However much I wish to discriminate against him for being an American citizen, I am bound by the Lavoie court to respect his quizbowl ability equally regardless of citizenship.
6. Jared He, Waterloo. NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., Inc., 395 U.S. 575 (1969).
   I remember the days when I used to be able to outscore Jared. Gone are those days. One of the chief evangelists of the card check, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in Gissel. Thankfully, the rest of us “are not obligated to accept a card check”. 395 U.S. 609 (Warren C.J.).
7. Gareth Thorlakson, Toronto. Morning Star Coop. v. Express Newspapers Ltd., [1979] F.S.R. 113 (Ch.).
   Although only a “moron in a hurry” would conflate speed-check Consensus with quizbowl, Gareth remains a beast at both. I shouldn’t be mad that law students beat me to law tossups, but here I am.
8. Micah Coleman, Waterloo. Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993).
   He could name more obscure sincerely-held religious beliefs than every brief filed on the Hialeah docket. At least one scorekeeper pre-filled 30 when reading a belief bonus to Micah, which he did, of course, promptly 30.
9. Tony Chen, Toronto. Mayo Collaborative Servs. v. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 566 U.S. 66 (2012).
   A biology alum and current law student, he belongs on the Mayo court declaring a “method for determining the proper dosage for thiopurine drugs” based on “levels in a patient's blood of . . . 6-thioguanine and its nucleotides (6-TG) and 6-methyl-mercaptopurine (6-MMP)” is simply “obvious”.
10. Michael Du, Waterloo. Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 581 (1889).
    I ought to disqualify Michael for being an “ethnicities player”, whatever horrible implications that carries, but Chae Chan Ping (the Chinese Exclusion Case) held that such discrimination falls within consular nonreviewability.
11. Adrian Wong, Ottawa. Brown v. Bd. of Ed. of Topeka, 349 U.S. 294 (1955) (Brown II).
    Amazing performance at ICT. Buzzes “with all deliberate speed” on every category.
12. Parth Jagtap, Toronto. R. v. Oakes, [1986] 1 S.C.R. 103.
    An all-around great guy to spend the day in Chicago or DC with. Like Oakes citations in Canadian judicial opinions, he’s one of the staples of my quizbowl career who I look forward to seeing.
13. Nicolas Edwards, McGill. Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General), [1930] A.C. 124 (U.K.P.C.).
    Another wonderful person who’s made the circuit into the “living tree” that it is. Also, uh, contrived last name commonlink.
14. Raymond Chen, Toronto. Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (1964).
    “I shall not today attempt further to define [what makes a quizbowler good]. But I know it when I see it.” 378 U.S. 197 (Stewart J., concurring). Raymond is a good quizbowler.
15. Kunaal Chandrashekar, Toronto. United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, 241 U.S. 265 (1916).
    In an attempt to nerf Kunaal and restore Waterluvian dominance in 2025–26, the Quizbowl Bureau of Chemistry banned caffeinated drinks. After being clearly bribed by Toronto, the Supreme Court disagreed.
16. Ishan Joshi, Toronto Metropolitan. Kimble v. Marvel Entm't, LLC, 576 U.S. 446 (2015).
    An impressive solo-er and a staple of my trivia career since high school. But “with great power, there must also come great responsibility” to not win the neg prize. 576 U.S. 465 (Kagan J.) (quoting S. Lee and S. Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No. 15 (1962)).
17. Jack van Nostrand, Toronto Metropolitan. Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964).
    I think it violates the Fourteenth Amendment for TMU to have two good solo players now.
18. Cormac Beirne, London. Hall v. Brooklands Auto-Racing Club, [1933] 1 K.B. 205.
    Most likely to have actually been a “man on the Clapham omnibus”.
19. Maude-Sophie Lockman, Ottawa. Palsgraf v. Long Is. RR. Co., 248 N.Y. 339 (1928).
    When a victim’s ability to play quizbowl is impaired by a series of comically catastrophic driving incidents, can she sue to recover lost points? Benjamin Cardozo in Palsgraf would sadly suggest not.
20. Halee Carey, McMaster. Grube v. Pa. Labor Rels. Bd., 212 A.3d 105 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 2019).
    In Grube, a Pensylvannia judge rejected the electronic card check and required physical cards. I will never forget the physical cards that Halee was reviewing on the Chicago L trains last year. I saw those and swore I’d include her on a player poll.
21. Elijah Mandelbaum, Guelph. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
    I appreciate you for your efforts to expand the circuit into smaller schools and establish a permanent presence in Guelph. Like Miranda did for constitutional rights, you have expanded the awareness and reach of quizbowl.
22. Russell Nip, British Columbia. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, 221 U.S. 1 (1911).
    Fellow business student! It’s a shame we rarely get to see you guys, and I blame all geographic divisions on the 1911 geographic breakup of Standard Oil.
23. Ian Theysmeyer, Ottawa. Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444 (1938).
    Your MacVanity pack has been instrumental in my evangelism of Canadian quizbowl to the American heathens. A unanimous Supreme Court ruled in Lovell that the government may not require permits to proselytize, a ruling upon which my deranged vanity pack spreading relies.
24. Rayton Lin, Waterloo. Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC., 372 NLRB No. 130 (2023).
    Cemex is the NLRB’s likely illegal expansion of the card check doctrine in direct violation of established Supreme Court precedent in Gissel and its progeny. Liable to be overturned on appeal.
25. James Ah Yong, Laurier Waterloo. United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 (1938).
    A fourth footnote on the Waterloo B team.

Honourable mentions to every one of the hundreds of players I have played in the past four years. I love being a part of the community.

In the spirit of cross-border cooperation, I collectively nominate for the community ballot

• The Reach-pilled New York circuit players (Zaid Asif, Chauncey Lo, Cooper Roh, Hazel Singh, Rishi Swaminathan, et al.). Owens ex rel. Owens v. Lott, 372 F.3d 267 (4th. Cir 2004).
  “We may look to ‘a consensus of cases of persuasive authority’ from other jurisdictions, if such exists”. 372 F.3d 280 (cleaned up, emphasis added). I hope there will be a NYC Consensus mirror in fall.

who I consider amici canadae for their adoption of Canadian trivia and therefore eligible; and

• My fellow HONK! editors and writers, especially Jessie Cubilla, who poured so much soul into a great tournament which managed to get cross-border mirrors.

A rookie ballot will not be forthcoming considering how few tournaments I played provinceside this year.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgement of the District Court for the Western District of Ontario, Waterloo Division, is reversed and this case is remanded to that court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

[russn1]

A sick year for UBC Quizbowl, we miraculously qualified for ICT and were able to represent UBC at ACF Nats for the first time. Our qualification methods could be described by a certain tossup... It was very fun to meet people for the first time and face off against many Canadian teams this year. Hopefully, we will have such opportunities next year as well.

I was browbeat by multiple members of UBC Quizbowl to have a theme for my ballot this year, so I'm just giving every player a different antibiotic, with each school being given antibiotics in the same class. What the drug treats has nothing to do with you because I mostly have no idea. My other idea for a theme was accounting ratios... anyone want an accounting ratio?

Main Ballot:

1. Caleb Ott (Waterloo) – azithromycin
Most first buzzes at Nats in the circuit and the carding GOAT

2. Tony Chen (Toronto) – lomefloxacin
K-Trash 3 Champ

3. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo) – erythromycin
Usually the lead scorer for the 2-time undergrad champions, good luck in Maryland!

4. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto) – ofloxacin
2nd scorer at ICT and Nats for an extremely successful Toronto A team, when we running back Nestle A?

5. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo) – clarithromycin
Best science player in Canada with a very low neg rate

6. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto) – ciprofloxacin
Amhist and NAQT GOAT. Good luck with lawyering!

7. Adrian Wong (Ottawa) – tobramycin
Very impressive statline at ICT, was really fun to get a rematch at Nats

8. Sky Li (Toronto) – levofloxacin
Strong FA player and important part of TorA

9. Michael Du (Waterloo) – telithromycin
Strong hist player and Best rice player

10. Parth Jagtap (Toronto) – gatifloxacin
Did a great job leading two different teams to 2nd bracket at ICT and Nats (NYU in shambles)

11. Jared He (Waterloo) – spiramycin
Score clue GOAT

12. Raymond Chen (Toronto) – gemifloxacin
Excellent lit and bio player, did well leading Toronto B at Nats

13. Micah Colman (Waterloo) – roxithromycin
Airdrie…

14. Nicolas Edwards (McGill) – linezolid
Glad I was finally able to meet you at ICT. Congrats on a great year and enjoy retirement! (I am waiting for you to accept my LinkedIn request)

15. Kevin Ye (SFU) – bacitracin
Cross-town rival and best PNW player

16. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto) – enoxacin
Rhymes with Tunnel???? Important contributor to strong Toronto B teams

17. Matthew Wang (UBC) – metacycline
Best UBC player, one of the best RMPSS players in the circuit

18. Russell Nip (UBC) – doxycycline
why are you a science player??

19. Jack Van Nostrand (TMU) – rifampicin
Decimates lower dot difficulties

20. Colin Veevers (Ottawa) – neomycin
Excellent science player and support to Adrian, nice to play against him multiple times this year

21. Ben Wismath (Toronto) – nalidixic acid
Had a very impressive Winter and good supporting stats at Nats

22. Wenying Wu (Toronto) – moxifloxacin
0 negs at Nats!

23. Albert Li (Toronto) – norfloxacin
should play more

24. Tai Belke (UBC) – minocycline
ROTY, insane geography player. Next year Tai will tear up D2 ICT.

25. John Chen (UBC) – demeclocycline
Top scored UBC in Nats prelims, best "real knowledge" player at UBC

HMs: Jason Zhang, Kevin Le, Andrew McCowan, Anne Fjeld, Marcus Forbes-Green, Joey Sun, Rayton Lin, James Wang, Maude-Sophie Lockman

To my Nats/ICT teammates Tai Belke, John Chen, Matthew Wang, Joshua Yamada: Thanks for being great teammates, I am very proud of you all and our achievements this year. I hope that next year will be even greater for UBC Quizbowl. None of this would have been possible without you. I promise to start carding for real this summer.

Thanks to all the execs at UBC Quizbowl that helped me run the club this year.

Shoutout to TDs and staffers this year, without your contributions, none of this would be possible.

Good luck to everyone who is leaving the circuit/retiring from quizbowl! I wish you success in your future endeavours.

I will be back next year to finish my biochemistry minor (now do you get why I play science?). See you all then!

[abovethetreetops]

Rookie Ballot:

1. Amir Dolansky (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS8sWhrTnZo (choosing classes for your party)
2. Elijah Mandelbaum (Guelph)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XZtL06616g (COKE VS PEPSI BLIND TASTE CHALLENGE)
3. Ava Butler (McGill)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQlqrDL5N9Q ( when a song comes on shuffle that's more intense than your current mood is ready for)
4. Tai Belke (UBC)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24eOt6Hj53M (asking a question on twitter)
5. Deepanshi Matai (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTi_4458Nl4 (Let's Try $1400 WORTH OF CAVIAR)
6. Gabriel McMurren (Guelph)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4P2N5fyqbo (facing the final boss after doing every single sidequest)
7. Abhay Ariyappillil (Ottawa)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Kj_Rv-dDs (i'd die for you, senshi)
8. Brendan Bridle (Queen's)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiqRKlpsavA (how different players build their decks)
9. Dilen Moodelly (McMaster)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bre0moeCMFU (youtubers are so helpful)
10. Nicholas Kwan (Toronto)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngXB0Lw-PeY ("I HATE YOUR FORK")

SUPER MEGA BONUS ROUND COMMUNITY BALLOT

Since I might as well see this theme to its logical conclusion, some shoutouts as I leave Ottawa:

Joe Su
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYXHnkhRwCY (harem anime where everyone but the protagonist is sentient furniture)
I like to think we're all just sentient furniture in Joe's world. Nonetheless, Joe is a stalwart cornerstone of the community, and one that I've very glad to have learned from over the years. His help at Fall was greatly appreciaated, thank you for all the help despite the headaches it must've caused you. I applaud you as always, and wish you all the best.

Zhenglin Liu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaU1mexik8c (how different players build their decks)
Half of Zhenglin's deck is 4k planned out, the other is pure vibes. Notably it still forms a cohesive framework for gameplay however. This analogy doesn't make sense, much like much of what I say to Zhenglin. Still, he tolerates me, somehow understands whatever drivel I tell him, and proceeds to read a round of quizbowl in sub-30 minutes, for which I am immensely grateful. He's great and I admire him greatly.

My Nats teammates, Adrian, Maude-Sophie and Colin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_o2hhSgfJ8 (anime fans)
Great team, no notes. See video for more information. Gonna miss all of you next year, I had a really fun time. Shoutout to Adrian for driving me to Oshawa GO for SCT.

Marcus Forbes-Green
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vvwwMG2tfx4 (Why do anime girls eat like this)
Just a chill guy, you know? Thanks for reading the Fall finals.

Staffers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlMU6p9OzMg (when someone asks to schedule a meeting for something that doesn't need one)
Thank you all for taking the time out of your busy lives to volunteer, and to keep help us setting record-breaking tournaments. The Ottawa has tons of consistent standout staff who are always happy to lend a hand who have made our club as successful as it was over the past few years. Cameron, Christine, Shuying, Brendan, and everyone else, thank you for coming out.

uOttawa Exec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPxDiyVmZ6c (before and after watching a sports anime)
You guys have all been great, it's been a long and challenging year, and I want to highlight the hard work the exec puts in keeping things running smoothly.

Everyone Else
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Q58Rnzz88 (Jason's favourite AFA clue)
This is a great circuit with great people. Shoutout to everyone across the circuit who makes things happen, and who make sure we get to eat dinner after tournaments. You guys are truly wonderful, and I look forward to another fruitful year. ICT and Nats were also both very fun, and it was great to get to see UBC this year.


It's been a good year. To all my buds at Ottawa, best wishes. You'll be out of there faster than you know it!

If I TD next year, let it be known that it was under duress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrgxHDoe8gA

[NedWards]

Rookie ballot. heads up some of these players were born in 2006. iconic movies from this year include Cars and the first High School Musical. My Chemical Romance released The Black Parade. Michael Ryder scored 30 goals for the Montreal Canadiens. feel old yet? you’re welcome.

1. Tai Belke (UBC)

Going to Nats automatically makes him ROTY imo. that he scored a significant amount of points there only adds credence to my argument. also he owned me on lit at both PLAYTIME! and DART so

2. Ava Butler (McGill)

RUMSFELD! hudson river school enthusiast is already a top vfa player on the circuit. spent most of the year getting her reliable and very high-efficiency 15-20 ppg as McGill A’s fourth scorer, but I think she’ll get opportunities to show off her generalisty abilities (see: acf fall 2024) next year when she’s free from playing with a chucking ballhog like me. deep pockets of knowledge in socsci and ofa (esp. jazz and fashion) + guaranteed one successful britlit heat check per tournament. perhaps most importantly has the god-given ability to successfully convert bio FTPs. most clutch TU 20 player on McGill A when the game is on the line (see: Edvard Munch logo shot vs. Western at acf winter, bio powervulch vs. Toronto A at DART)

3. Amir Dolansky (Toronto)

Tai and Ava have deeper knowledge in their specialties and have lower neg rates, but Amir’s the best all-around threat among the rookies and scales up pretty well. locked tf in against us in our d2 sct game, came the closest to handing McGill A a loss. future menace fs

4. Elijah Mandelbaum (Guelph)

First off shoutout to Elijah for like creating a club from scratch and all that, that’s a big deal and should be applauded. very very good at geo and very fast on the buzzer, just needs to scale up a bit in some more mainstream categories. lots of dawg.

5. Gabriel McMurren (Guelph)

Knew about Gabe because of him getting hyped up by the Van Oorschots, Caleb/Micah, Rowan, etc., but this was the first time I played him in a non-Consensus format and he delivered. did very well at the tournaments he played, will no doubt be a d2 sct menace next year with his strong generalism.

6. Charlie Ruff (McGill)

Charlie’s so good. he puts the fear of a secular God in Asha. already seems to scale up to 3-dot in thought and has a strong biochem knowledge base at lower difficulties. seems to be expanding into lit. cook the d2 sct field next year I believe in you

7. Denali Tran-Le (McGill)

Another pro-ready Lisgar freshman. has pretty deep knowledge in math/cs, physics, and afa. put up a good fight at d2 ict. seems to have adopted a james ferrabee mentality re: carding so ppg increases are coming soon. wish you were still d2 eligible but go get em next year and keep up the love of the game!

8. Deepanshi Matai (Toronto)

solid 4th scorer on the joey/franklin/yihong team that put up strong results in the back half of the season. good vibes. the f1 yapping at mrna was enjoyable.

9. Chris Wang (Toronto)

Impressive buzzes all season, especially in lit. has strong specialist abilities that pair well with Amir’s generalism. kudos for playing hard stuff like penn bowl this year.

10. Brendan Bridle (Queen’s)

Plays science I think? good support for Andrew especially at SCT. statline from CALISTO indicates a lot of potential and with some scaling up this guy will no doubt help Queen’s push for an ict qual next year.

HM: Alberta. turns out Anne Fjeld isn't rookie-eligible rip but Alberta as a club joining the circuit along with Guelph was really nice!

okay just the community ballot left to write. i'm not crying you're crying

[Cowler]

Ranking
1. Ben “rice” Chapman (Toronto)
2. Caleb “whole deck” Ott (Waterloo)
3. Mattias “big diesel” Ehatamm (Waterloo)
4. Liam “science” Kusalik (Waterloo)
5. Gareth “traitor” Thorlakson (Toronto)
6. Adrian “doctor” Wong (Ottawa)
7. Tony “brazen” Chen (Toronto)
8. Sky “weary” Li (Toronto)
9. Parth “m8” Jagtap (Toronto)
10. Micah "islands and isekais" Coleman (Waterloo)
11. Nick “deep ties” Edwards (McGill)
12. Michael “ethnicities” Du (Waterloo)
13. Jared “clock drawing test” He (Waterloo)
14. Raymond "" Chen (Toronto)
15. Kunaal "tunnel" Chandrashekar (Toronto)
16. Colin "lasers" Veevers (Ottawa)
17. Kevin "card check" Le (Carleton)
18. Ben "weeb" Wismath (Toronto)
19. Kevin "SFU" Ye (SFU)
20. Jack "one man army" Van Nostrand (TMU)
21. Wenying "literature" Wu (Toronto)
22. Albert "retired?" Li (Toronto)
23. Russell "business" Nip (UBC)
24. Andrew "queens" McCowan (Queens)
25. Asha "silent killer" Basu (McGill)

Rookie ballot
1. Tai Belke
2. Amir Dolansky
3. Gabriel McMurren
4. Elijah Mendelbaum
5. Ava Butler
6. Brendan Bridle
7. Abhay Ariyappillil
8. Seth Allen
9. Charlie Ruff
10. Chris Wang

What an incredible year for the circuit! Incredibly difficult year to rank everybody since the circuit is as talented as ever, and frankly anyone could be moved around and still have a completely reasonable ballot. Shoutout to everyone who put in the effort to make all the tournaments run this year. Here's to the next!

[benchapman]

1. Caleb
2. Liam
3. Tony
4. Mati
5. Gareth
6. Adrian
7. Ben C
8. Sky
9. Parth
10. Micah
11. Michael
12. Raymond
13. Jared
14. Kunaal
15. Colin
16. Wenying
17. Ben W
18. Nick
19. Jack
20. Albert
21. Russell
22. Asha
23. Kevin Y
24. Jason
25. Ishan

[kevinale7297]

1. Benjamin Chapman
2. Caleb Ott
3. Mattias Ehatamm
4. Liam Kusalik
5. Gareth Thorlaskon
6. Adrian Wong
7. Sky Li
8. Tony Chen
9. Michael Du
10. Micah Colman
11. Jared He
12. Parth Jagtap
13. Raymond Chen
14. Nick Edwards
15. Kevin Le
16. Kunaal Chandrashekhar
17. Colin Veevers
18. Ben Wismath
19. Albert Li
20. Wenying Wu
21. Russell Nip
22. Kevin Ye
23. Jack van Nostrand
24. Asha Basu
25. Andrew McCowan

HMs(in no particular order): Maude-Sophie Lockman, Rayton Lin, Jacob Bicol, Stefan Vlad, Ian Theysmeyer, James Ferrabee, Nabhaan Farooqi, Jesse Chusing, Marcus Forbes-Green, Jason Zhang, Tai Belke, Matthew Wang, John Chen, James Ah Yong, Stuart Chandler-Baas, Anne Fjeld, Franklin Wu, Joey Sun, Yihong Chen, James Wang, Halee Carey, Amir Dolansky, Elijah Mandelbaum, Gabriel McMurren, Ava Butler, Kevin Anderson, Dawson Teu, Aedan Cooper, Felix Healey, Uday Bhardwaj, Chloe Wei, and Luke Sloan.

Shoutout to my Carleton teammates(some of whom have already been listed), those being Alden Thompson, Stuart Chandler-Baas, Kevin Anderson, Valerie Brown, Nicolaus Derikx, and Stefan Mihai.

Also shoutout to Christopher Komban Subhas who was a teammate during UG Nats' Online Mirror.

Rookie Ballot:
1. Amir Dolansky
2. Tai Belke
3. Gabriel McMurren
4. Elijah Mandelbaum
5. Ava Butler
6. Deepanshi Matai
7. Brendan Bridle
8. Abhay Ariyappillil
9. Denali Tran-Le
10. Chris Wang

[eeveetrash666]

The evil Kevin Fan has decided that there is in fact a timeline for publishing your poll, so if you wanted a writeup or had any complaints about my conceit, sorry not sorry.

1. Ben Chapman - Bombardiro Crocodilo
2. Tony Chen - Bpmbombini Gusini
3. Mattias Ehatamm - Frigo Camelo
4. Liam Kusalik - Giraffa Celeste
5. Caleb Ott - Tralalero Tralala
6. Gareth Thorlakson - Brr Brr Patapim
7. Sky Li - Frulli Frulla
8. Adrian Wong - Lirili Larila
9. Micah Colman - Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Tung Sahur
10. Parth Jagtap - La Vaca Saturno Saturnita
11. Michael Du - Il Cacto Hipopotamo
12. Kunaal Chandrashekar - Cappuccino Assassino
13. Jared He - Chimpanzini Bananini
14. Raymond Chen - Trulimero Trulicina
15. Nick Edwards - Bobrito Bandito
16. Jack von Nostrand - Glorbo Fruttodrillo
17. Ben Wismath - Cocofanto Elefanto
18. Albert Li - Burbaloni Lulilolli
19. Colin Veevers - Brri Brri Bicus Dicus
20. Wenying Wu - Bluberrinni Octopussini
21. Jason Zhang - Ballerina Cappuccina
22. Kevin Le - Boneca Ambalabu
23. Joey Sun - Trippi Troppi
24. Asha Basu - Los Tralaleritos
25. Rayton Lin - Pot Hotspot (Hotspot Bro)

HMs in approximate order (if you're in this section you've escaped the wrath of my conceit... for now):

Russell Nip, Kevin Ye, Ishan Joshi, Maude-Sophie Lockman, Matthew Wang, Anne Fjeld, John Chen, Marcus Forbes-Green, Halee Carey, James Ferrabee, Andrew McCowan, Stefan Vlad, James Ah Yong, Tai Belke, Yihong Chen, Franklin Wu, Ian Theysmeyer, Jacob Bicol, James Wadsley, Amir Dolansky, Jesse Chusing, James Wang, Yusuf Baig, Nabhaan Farooqi, Xavier Spano

[KStan25]

Rookie Poll:

1. Ava Butler (McGill)
Ava is really good. Joe has told me a lot about how great of a player Akhil was, able to get a consistent 15-ish PPG at Fall level and Nats level all the same, and Ava was really close to that kind of niche on McGill A. Her generalism is really underrated too, not helped by always being on a team with such monsters, but she’s consistently a fantastic contributor on bonuses, much more than her stats show. Ava played a pivotal role in a really successful year on McGill A and did great in Chicago. She also won Fall with great stats without any of her later McGill A teammates, and played just about every tournament she could except Arcadia and the hard opens. I’ve also never seen anyone get as excited about a question as Ava got about the Jane Austen streak at Consensus. Will do even greater things next year.
2. Tai Belke (UBC)
Tai was really impressive the few times I got to play him. First saw him at one of our high school tournaments last year and I was really impressed that someone from Vancouver was trying to play our Eastern time tournaments and reached out to us from the forum post, and he did great there. Has kept that up all of this year, barely missed out on a trip to D2 ICT but helped UBC qualify for Nats and did a fantastic job there. Looking forward to seeing him lead UBC to D2 ICT next year.
3. Amir Dolansky (Toronto)
Amir’s generalism is probably the strongest of anyone on this list. Puts up great numbers all the time, even on teams with very experienced players at Penn Bowl and Regs. On that nervy morning of SCT, where one loss might have ended our ICT chase before it even began, the two teams I was worried about the most, and who did indeed drive us the closest, were Carleton and Amir’s Doronto. Amir got 60 points that game and converted so many bonus parts with his typical quiet assuredness, we were lucky to escape that game with a win. He also did really well every other time I played him, like at Fall, Penn Bowl, DART, and PLAYTIME. Excited to see his ICT run next year.
4. Elijah Mandelbaum (Guelph)
Incredible dawg levels, playing just about every tournament he could and set up a club in the process. Elijah is a fantastic player, and Guelph had a great year with him at the helm. Will really challenge for an ICT berth next year.
5. Denali Tran-Le (McGill)
I think McGill B has been really overlooked in these rankings, and the one to lose out the most from that is Denali. Denali top scored in that famous McGill Fartlets 210-200 McGill A result at Penn Bowl, a really amazing game on a table with monsters. He’s been one of the hearts of the club all year with an infectious passion for trivia and the game, and an eternal drive to get better. The only person I’ve ever met outside of the Sonic Symphony Concert I went to who can sing all those songs with me, and one of the best car rides I’ve ever had was driving back from Fall with him, Uday, Wadsley, and Luke and playing Nintendo music. Denali filled some critical gaps in AFA and math/CS on our McGill B SCT/ICT team, and he and Ferrabee made a fantastic combo on science bonuses all day. Played every closed academic tournament he could, and was a fantastic teammate in Chicago. Says “I carded this” too much, something to work on next year. Our club is in capable hands with him in a leadership role. Also a great dodgeball player.
6. Charlie Ruff (McGill)
Charlie came from out of nowhere and is already a top 5 science player at the club, and with Henry and Nick gone he’s probably top 3 at thought. Took a bit of time to get his buzzing radar right, but once he was calibrated he started killing it. Also played just about every tournament he could, he top scored on decent teams at Winter, SCT, and MRNA, and has really good depth of knowledge in his categories. Will be a critical part of any McGill team making it back to D2 ICT. Very reliable football player for the Quizballers.
7. Deepanshi Matai (Toronto)
A very solid 4th on good Toronto teams with Joey, Franklin, and Yihong. I don’t know anything about literature but Ferrabee and Parth tell me their depth of literature knowledge is immense, so I trust that. Hope you enjoyed Montreal, and it was great to see you in Chicago.
8. Gabe McMurren (Guelph)
Gabe has always sounded like “the one that got away”. I remember reading Andrew allude to that once in a previous player poll, and the Glebe kids in the circuit always mention how he was so much better than them. I’ve seen how good he can be at Consensus first hand, so it was great that he was finally able to get some Quizbowl in, and he killed it at Winter and SCT. Time allowing, he’ll be a key part of Guelph’s ICT run next year.
9. Henry Siegler (Toronto)
Henry did really well at a series of tournaments all year and scared the crap out of me at SCT when he almost led a very impressive Toronto H to a perfect 7-0 in prelims which would have forced a three team playoff for the top bracket between McGill A, McGill B, and Toronto H. Solid player, maybe I'll actually meet him next year.
10. Larry Sun (McGill)
Larry is the GOAT. A great history player, an American, and put up solid numbers to win Fall, HONK, and Consensus Novice back-to-back-to-back. Also did great at Fall novice before that, inflicting the only defeat of the day on winners McGill C. Larry has carved out a very solid niche for himself as a history/current events player with some great high school stock knowledge on some of the teams which lack that, and he put up great numbers at Winter and SCT. A decent athlete that kicked the Quizballers’ asses at basketball and showed up with some solid performances as a super sub in dodgeball and soccer, Larry will be an important part of the club for years to come.
11. Brendan Bridle (Queens)
I found it really hard to separate Henry, Larry, and Brendan, but ultimately Brendan was the one that barely missed out. Had some really solid numbers next to Andrew on solid Queens teams. Negs a lot but shows a lot of dawg. Almost pulled a 2-person Queens to the Carleton CALISTO title. Apparently has started carding too. Will be part of a dangerous Queens team next year.

Honourable Mentions:
Like last year, McGill is the only team I’m comfortable talking about the novices as a relative expert, so these honourable mentions will only be McGillians. That said, there are a lot of great new faces on the circuit, and I hope you all had a great time playing trivia and keep coming to your local practices and/or to tournaments. I do want to give two shoutouts though. First is to Guelph’s Dylan Steptoe, who would absolutely be ranked on a Trash poll if we still did those. Second is Cormac Beirne.

Ella Tang and Anthony Gagliano were around last year but only really started playing tournaments this year, and they are very solid players. Incredibly strong niches, Ella is genuinely one of the strongest AFA players in the East and ditto Anthony with Math/CS and Myth, great presences at practice, and people that can drive which came in handy quite often this year. Both are also pretty sneakily good in other categories, but not the greatest buzzers, so their impact on bonuses is a lot bigger than what their stats show. Ella has another year and Anthony is starting a Masters at McGill, so I’m really happy to see we’ll get a decent amount out of both of them for a while longer. Anthony has also been a great contributor to Quizbowlers dodgeball, so I’m glad to keep that continuity next year.
Malcolm Meyn, Chloe Delabbie, and Olivia Latva-Kokko were also great novices. Malcolm did great next to Uday at SCT, and does great at practice but was too busy to play more tournaments. Hopefully things look better next year. Also a solid dodgeball player. Chloe and Olivia combined to win Novice, and were solid support players whenever they played harder tournaments, especially on McGill D at SCT. Chloe is also a really cracked football player that I think we kind of let down by not supplying her with consistent numbers at our Quizballers games.
For the first time in my time at the club, we seemed to get a lot of people that would show up to practice very consistently all year and play few, if any tournaments. Compare it to last year for example, where we seemed to get 12-20 people signing up for tournaments and practice almost exclusively consisted of those same 12-20 people after the first month. Not that that's a bad thing, but it's a different feeling at the club, which I think is really interesting if nothing else. The novices I've mentioned here are all part of that, with most playing 1-2 tournaments all year, but there are several more as well, which I think is really good for the health of our club as more than just a competitive endeavour. There were some very good novices at McGill who played no academic tournaments, and I think the circuit should be on watch for them if they are able to play more next year. And even if not, I'm happy to see more people choose to spend their time coming to our humble little abode at a distant part of campus, meeting and befriending a lot of cool people, and getting to both learn and share some fun and interesting knowledge.

Community Poll:
The circuit wouldn’t be what it is without the incredibly supportive people at all levels: whether you run a club, staffed a tournament, or were just a friendly competitor at one event, you make the circuit what it is and make it the best in the world. Thank you all!

Toronto does a great job of anchoring the circuit, and their legion of execs keep such a colossal club running smoothly. I don’t know who has official roles over there, but everyone there does such a great job of making it a great guiding light for the rest of us to follow behind, and runs the biggest and most important tournaments with aplomb year after year. Once again a huge shoutout, thanks, and congratulations to Ben Chapman for running a 28-team ACF Winter and Raymond Chen and Sky Li for running a 28+6 team SCT flawlessly. These are awesome events that bring the circuit together twice a year, and the circuit wouldn’t feel as connected without it. There are also a lot of really great Toronto people making CanQB a more welcoming and wholesome place. Special shoutout to the GOAT himself David Snodden, who has declared so many GOATs that I can’t keep track of all the names. Good luck at Western!

Elijah has done a phenomenal job of basically starting his own club at Guelph, and them being able to host an event by the end of the year is amazing work. Elijah’s enthusiasm for the game and the circuit is infectious, and I’ve been really impressed and really happy to see his work pay dividends. Keep it up champ, and go kill it at SCT next year!

Ottawa is the Toronto of the East, and the team there does a fantastic job of anchoring the Eastern circuit. They give us numbers and host great events, so a huge thanks to Ian Theysmeyer, Sam Montgomery, Stefan Vlad, and everyone else at Ottawa who runs things there. Also a shoutout and thanks to James Wang for all the work he does year after year. ACF Fall is always a great event and it wouldn’t be like that without the amazing work you do to run it. It sucks that you chose Toronto over McGill and we can never field Team James (McGill), but alas. I’ll see you in the OISE director’s box at SCT and Nats next year. Also want to shoutout Felix Healy, one of the only white people on the circuit who cares about cricket, along with David.

Carleton as a club always seem to punch above its weight, and Stefan Mihai is a huge part of that. He does a phenomenal job running Carleton and getting them to tournaments, and is one of the friendliest people on the circuit. Thanks for all you do Stefan, and all the other people running things at Carleton, and I look forward to many more competitions against you guys next year.

McGill has had a great year as a club. Sweep of the podium at Eastern Novice, 4 top bracket teams at ACF Fall, great finishes at ACF Winter, 2 teams at Penn Bowl, 3 teams at Regs, 4 well placed teams at SCT, two academic tournaments hosted in-person for the first time in maybe a decade (run at a profit this time too), and 2 teams qualified and sent to D2 ICT (the second time ever a Canadian team has achieved two D2 qualifications in the same year). There have been a lot of great players coming through the club, but our admin has also been really good at fostering that development, driving people to get better, and putting together some really complementary teams. Charlotte Bauer has kept us solvent despite some setbacks from many different levels of McGill admins and made sure we get reimbursed on time, and our very own Dick Cheney and George Bush of Asha Basu and Nick Edwards make the teams, organise our calendar of events, and keep many people involved and engaged with the club, all while showing immense dawg for their own playing careers. We hosted two in-person tournaments and two online high school tournaments this year, and everything worked out really well. Despite what my annoying backseating might make you think, I think you guys have all done a fantastic job, and the club has run really smoothly this year despite the myriad of external challenges. Thank you for all the hard work you've done.

I also want to shoutout to the many people who make practices work at the club: we had two practice rooms running almost every practice, something that’s only really happened in the last two years, and more cases of three practice rooms being needed than I can ever remember in my time at the club. Devito, Luke, Uday, Ferrabee, Wadsley, Nick, Asha, Anthony, Francis, Charlotte, Jen, Rowan, Charlie, Ava, Denali, and many many more have done wonderful jobs volunteering to read in turns and keeping people engaged week after week, giving us some really great depth of readers and personalities, and doing a great job of making sure people feel welcome and keep coming back, even if they never so much as consider playing a tournament. Also a special shoutout to the Montreal people and ex-McGillians that show up to practice sometimes and some of our social events, including Derek So, Sam Baker, Akhil Garg, Russell Valerio, Elena Bai, Nadia Dakdouki, and one-time appearances of Cormac Beirne and Joe Su. Your presences are always welcome and Derek in particular was a great help and volunteered a lot of his time to read for us and play with us in the leadup to ICT. Thanks also to Henry Atkins, who is always great to see at every tournament he staffs and plays, and who very kindly volunteered to read for one of our high school tournaments.

I think it’s been a really great year for our humble little circuit, the best in the world. Thanks to every tournament director and staffer, and all the people doing things to make our circuit bigger and more welcoming. I’m really looking forward to another year of playing in the new “biggest Canadian Quizbowl tournament of all time”, and getting to hang out with and learn from so many people.

[Alea]

Rookie Ballot:
1.Amir Dolansky
2.Elijah Mandelbaum
3.Tai Belke
4.Gabriel McMurren
5.Ava Butler
6.Charlie Ruff
7.Dilen Moodelly
8.Matthew Stasiw
9.Denali Tran-Le
10.Victor Xu

I originally had Amir fourth on this list, but the more I revised it, the more he kept creeping up. So much better than last year's crop of rookies, especially at McGill.

[liverlife]

Player Poll:
1) Tony Chen (Toronto) - Praia do Leme, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
2) Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo) - Praia da Baía do Sancho, Fernando de Noronha, PE
3) Benjamin Chapman (Toronto) - Praia da Barra da Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
4) Caleb Ott (Waterloo) - Praia do Porto de Galinhas, Ipojuca, PE
5) Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto) - Praia do Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
6) Liam Kusalik (Waterloo) - Praia do Boldró, Fernando de Noronha, PE
7) Adrian Wong (Ottawa) - Praia de Ipioca, Maceió, AL
8) Sky Li (Toronto) - Praia de Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, RJ
9) Parth Jagtap (Toronto) - Praia do Pontal do Atalaia, Arraial do Cabo, RJ
10) Michael Du (Waterloo) - Praia da Baía dos Porcos, Fernando de Noronha, PE
11) Jared He (Waterloo) - Praia do Porto Santo Antônio, Fernando de Noronha, PE
12) Micah Colman (Waterloo) - Praia de Boa Viagem, Recife, PE
13) Nicolas Edwards (McGill) - Praia do Forte, Mata de São João, BA
14) Kevin Ye (SFU) - Praia de Atins, Atins, MA
15) Raymond Chen (Toronto) - Praia de Lopes Mendes, Angra dos Reis, RJ
16) Matthew Wang (UBC) - Praia de Maresias, São Sebastião, SP
17) Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto) - Praia do Cachadaço, Paraty, RJ
18) Russell Nip (UBC) - Wreck Beach, Vancouver, BC
19) Jack van Nostrand (TMU) - Praia de Canoa Quebrada, Aracati, CE
20) Ben Wismath (Toronto) - Praia de Geribá, Armação dos Búzios, RJ
21) Colin Veevers (Ottawa) - Praia de Ponta Verde, Maceió, AL
22) Wenying Wu (Toronto) - Praia de Itaúna, Saquarema, RJ
23) Tai Belke (UBC) - Praia de Itamambuca, Ubatuba, SP
24) John Chen (UBC) - Praia de Jabaquara, Ilhabela, SP
25) Anne Fjeld (Alberta) - Praia da Joaquina, Florianópolis, SC

Rookie Poll:
1) Tai Belke (UBC) - Praia de Itamambuca, Ubatuba, SP
2) Ava Butler (McGill) - Praia de Pitinga, Porto Seguro, BA
3) Elijah Mandelbaum (Guelph) - Praia de Leste, Pontal do Paraná, PR
4) Amir Dolansky (Toronto) - Praia de Piratininga, Niterói, RJ
5) Gabriel McMurren (Guelph) - Praia Brava, Matinhos, PR
6) Joyann Hua (UBC) - Praia do Iporanga, Guarujá, SP
7) Seth Allen (McMaster) - Praia da Pedra do Sal, Parnaíba, PI
8) Charlie Ruff (McGill) - Praia do Cururupe, Ilhéus, BA
9) Dylan Steptoe (Guelph) - Praia Central, Guaratuba, PR
10) Chris Wang (Toronto) - Praia de Camboinha, Niterói, RJ

I'm admittedly not super dialed into QB at large, but I had a great time at ICT in spite of the impossibly difficult academic trivia tournament of it all. Shoutout to the people I met there, you were all really nice and made it a bit less daunting for someone like me who pulled up almost exclusively to play the trash portion of the distro. Of course, a massive shoutout goes out to UBC Quizbowl for an awesome year!

This poll is based on a mix of stats and vibes; after all, Moneyball goes a long way, but sometimes you just gotta be a “that boy nice”/“he got that dawg in him” ballwatcher. Hope you enjoy the theme!

[LordFred]

1. Caleb
2. Gareth
3. Tony
4. Chapman
5. Liam
6. Mati
7. Adrian
8. Sky Li
9. Parth
10. Micah
11. Jared
12. Michael
13. Raymond
14. Kunaal
15. Albert
16. Colin
17. Wismath
18. Wenying
19. Nick
20. JVN
21. GOATSON
22. Matthew Wang
23. Russell
24. Marcus
25. Asha

Honourable Mentions:
Bryan Ugaz, GOATTON, Joey, Yihong, Amir, Ishan, Floormac, Elijah, Halee, Kevin Le, Tai, John Chen, Nabhaan, Andrew McCowan, Maude-Sophie, James Wang, Anne Fjeld

[franklinwu]

Another year, another community ballot. What an eventful season of quizbowl! There are so many people I want to shout out this time around. Without further ado:

My SCT/ICT teammates - The trip to Chicago is genuinely the highlight of my entire time at university. Thanks for being amazing teammates.

Joey - Toronto's #1 League and gacha player. Thanks for being a great teammate and TorQB president. Sorry about that one tossup at ICT.

Deepanshi - Thanks for putting up with the countless times I yapped about trains this year, and for introducing me to the world (read: rabbit hole) of coffee. To the Lake Shore Limited.

Yihong - We may not agree on tomato and egg, or seafood, or jianbing, but we can both agree the jibaritos we had in Chicago were pretty good. Sorry for that one tossup at ICT (again).

Teammates - Thanks everyone for being amazing teammates. I really enjoyed playing tournaments with you all!

Athan - Great buzz on that comp sci question at SCT. Thanks for playing Consensus and Penn Bowl!

Ben Chapman - We tore it up at Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Playing COOT with you was also a blast!

Matthew - Hope your stats project went well! Hopefully you can fit some more tournaments into your engsci schedule next year.

Kunaal - Consensus GOAT, Venetian WOAT. One day I'll be able to buzz on geometrical frustration, whatever that is.

Marcus - #1 wetlands enjoyer, brought to us from the carboniferous period. Say, which high school did you go to again? (Congrats on your graduation!)

Albert - Amazing history player and treasurer. Thanks for playing HSNCT with me!

Sky - Empress Dowager of TorQB. Thanks for having me on your team for PLAYTIME!

Raymond - Thanks for your constant reminders to go learn clues, and for TDing SCT. Good luck wherever you're off to next!

Jesse Ward-Bond - Thanks for driving us to COOT! Still can't believe you ended up on the Toronto Star.

Community - This circuit is filled with amazing community members. Sorry if I've missed anyone!

Parth - Thanks for introducing us to Mecca (Madras Curry). Best of luck with your new job in the UK! Pouring one out for Bob.

David - The GOAT himself. Thanks for always reminding me about my beverage escapades.

Ethen - Fellow amateur radio and aviation enjoyer. Play more tournaments!

Tony - As others have mentioned, Guardian of Okonomi House. You're a beast.

Ellen - VP social, fellow STA237 victim, and #sports yapper extraordinaire. I hope the Canucks win something next season.

Chris - Another TorQBer in the pockets of Big DMoney. Always good vibes. Good luck on your research position!

Wenying - Thanks for running lit bootcamp with Raymond. Good luck in your gap year!

Nameer - Still the undisputed yap king of TorQB, and fellow Danganronpa/combinatorics enjoyer.

Rayton - You deserve the brazen bull for your online practice antics and that macvan pack (/j). Playing against you is always a blast and your knowledge of amhist is out of this world.

Elijah - You deserve something way worse than the brazen bull for your ballot theme (/srs). Great job this year with the Guelph club, can't wait to see Guelph tear it up in D2 SCT next year.

James Wang - 同志。Excited to see you next year in Toronto! Thanks for volunteering to TD next year's SCT and Nats.

Jesse and Stefan - Thanks for hosting me for Regionals! The drip was insane, and our game during playoffs was definitely the highlight of the tournament for me.

Uday - Thanks for hosting me for MRNA! You've inspired me to acquire my own city parking sign for my room (so far I've been unsuccessful).

James Ah Yong - Thanks for showing us around Chicago!

McGill A and B - Thanks for the great games throughout the year. It was awesome seeing everyone at ICT and MRNA.

TDs and staff - Y'all make the (quizbowl) world go round. Thanks to everyone who staffed a tournament this year, the circuit literally cannot exist without you!

The rest of CanQB - Wow, our circuit is huge now. Thanks everyone for an amazing year. See y'all at the next tournament!

[JanGusEnjoyer]

Here's my only ever player poll. If you want an explanation for your character of choice you can ask, but there might not be one. I'll maybe get a community ballot out later.
1. Liam Kusalik (UW, John of Gaunt, R2)
2. Tony Chen (UofT, Fool, Lear)
3. Mattias Ehatamm (UW, Hal, 1H4)
4. Ben Chapman (UofT, Jaques, AYLI)
5. Caleb Ott (UW, Octavian, JC)
6. Gareth Thorlakson (UofT, Lord Chief Justice, 2H4)
7. Sky Li (UofT, Eleanor, KJ)
8. Adrian Wong (UOttawa, Doctor Butts, H8 Doctor Caius, MWW)
9. Parth Jagtap (UofT, Osric, Ham.)
10. Michael Du (UW, Grumio, Shrew)
11. Raymond Chen (UofT, Prospero, Temp.)
12. Micah Colman (UW, Autolycus, WT)
13. Jared He (UW, Feste, TN)
14. Kunaal Chandrasekhar (UofT, Third Murderer, Mac.)
15. Ishan Joshi (TMU, Chorus, H5)
16. Colin Veevers (UOttawa, Theseus, MND)
17. Nick Edwards (McGill, Talbot, 1H6)
18. Wenying Wu (UofT, Jack Cade, 2H6)
19. Russell Nip (UBC, Rival Poet, Son.)
20. Ben Wismath (UofT, Benvolio, RJ)
21. Kevin Le (Carleton, Costard, LLL)
22. Albert Li (UofT, Enobarbus, Ant.)
23. Asha Basu (McGill, Warwick, 3H6)
24. Andrew McCowan (Queen's, Henry VII, R3)
25. Jack Van Nostrand (TMU, Gower, Per.)

HMs will be in the community ballot if it ever comes out

[lkusalik]

1. Ben Chapman - Commander Spock (TOS)
One of the strongest and most complete generalists in the circuit, to the point where I feel like I wouldn’t be particularly surprised to see him get a good buzz on basically any question in any category of the distribution. While Toronto A tends to be pretty balanced in scoring due to all 4 members being phenomenal players, Ben seems to pretty consistently be one of their top 2 scorers, earning him his place on this list.

2. Mattias Ehatamm - Captain Jean-Luc Picard (TNG)
Had a particularly standout performance at UG nats, top-scoring the Waterloo team on our undefeated run and putting up over 50 ppg as a top 10 individual scorer, but also maintained a consistently high level of play at other tournaments though the year. While definitely strongest in literature, he’s also quite a good generalist, able to get good buzzes across the humanities distribution, as well as in a few pockets of science that relate to his coursework. Can neg a bit heavily at times, but that usually doesn’t stop him from also getting a lot of tossups and being a strong scorer on a strong team.

3. Caleb Ott - Lieutenant Commander Data (TNG)
One of the most dedicated carders on the circuit (at least when it comes to making them, reviewing them is another matter). Has incredibly deep pockets of knowledge across large swaths of the distribution, as evidenced by his first buzz/top 3 buzz stats from nats. However, I’m not convinced that his breadth, in terms of being able to consistently get mid-to-late buzzes on just about anything that could come up, is nearly as good as his depth, even within his categories, so he ends up here.

4. Tony Chen - Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (TOS)
In addition to wide-ranging generalism, Tony also has very deep specialist knowledge in both literature and biology that really shone through at nats, where he top-scored Toronto A. However, his results from earlier in the season weren’t as consistently excellent as those of Ben, Mati, or Caleb, so he gets ranked below them.

5. Gareth Thorlakson - Captain James T. Kirk (TOS)
Toronto A’s history player who’s especially strong on NAQT questions, putting up an impressive performance at SCT and top-scoring Toronto A en route to their historic 3rd place finish at ICT, but didn’t do well enough at non-NAQT tournaments for me to be able to justify a higher ranking than this.

6. Sky LI - Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (TOS)
Sky is a strong fine arts player with impressive generalism as well, but tends to get shadowed quite heavily by the rest of Toronto A, leading to somewhat lower ppgs than most of the other players around this part of the ballot. Should have considered stealing more buzzes from them to gain additional player poll clout.

7. Adrian Wong - Dr. Julian Bashir (DS9)
The quintessential “humanities generalist” who’s also picked up a bit of bio knowledge from being a med student. I don’t think he really has deep specialist knowledge of any particular area in the same way those ranked above him do, but he has very impressive breadth and has been an impressive leading scorer for strong Ottawa A teams all year.

8. Liam Kusalik - Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge (TNG)
The players I’ve ranked above myself are all what I’d term elite generalists - players who are enough of a threat on enough of the distribution to make their teams instantly scary, regardless of who they’re playing with. I am decidedly not that, since my coverage outside of science and thought is generally quite spotty, and my high ppgs are partially attributable to the fact that I’m not actually shadowed that much on my categories despite playing on a strong team. That said, I think Nats and ICT showed I still have a pretty solid lock on the science even when playing tough opponents at high difficulties, and I think I have a pretty good case for being the best specialist in the country.

9. Parth Jagtap - Lieutenant Commander Montgomery "Scotty" Scott (TOS)
Had very impressive nats/ICT performances that probably would have been enough to net him this spot all on their own, but has also served as a strong leading scorer on Toronto B/C teams throughout the year. Yet another player who seems to have developed the ability to get good buzzes all across the humanities distribution, he does have a tendency to neg a bit excessively sometimes, but overall it doesn’t seem to have hurt his team’s tournament finishes all that much.

10. Michael Du - Lieutenant Worf (TNG/DS9)
Moved up a few spots due to strong performances at nats and especially ICT after some weaker showings earlier in the year. His strengths in history/geo/ce are well known, though both Mati and Jared do steal some buzzes from him in those areas. Less appreciated is the fact that he’s also developed into quite a strong religion player and has some good pockets on knowledge in science that unfortunately tend to get almost completely eclipsed by me get like 50-75% of the science tossups at basically every tournament we play.

11. Jared He - Commander William T. Riker (TNG)
In addition to being a strong AFA specialist, also has a very broad knowledge base across lit, arts and even parts of history that often end up being overshadowed a bit by Mati. Also actually made some taxonomy cards after I told him it was my least favourite part of science. Opposite to Michael, is dragged down a bit by weaker nats/ICT showings after stronger performance earlier in the year.

12. Micah Colman - Captain Benjamin Sisko (DS9)
Strong beliefs/history/geo/AFA player whose knowledge base is essentially the perfect complement to Caleb’s. Consistently gets a lot of points as the second scorer on Waterloo B, and is also quite a good generalist at lower difficulties, as shown by his strong performance soloing the McGill site of MRNA. Ultimately I think that Jared and Michael come out a bit above him after factoring in the greater shadow effects they play under on Waterloo A, but Micah is also a very good player and I could see an argument being made that he should go higher.

13. Nick Edwards - Captain Kathryn Janeway (VOY)
A wide-ranging humanities generalist who consistently put up gaudy numbers at 2-dot tournaments, and his performances at penn bowl and regs also show he can comfortably anchor a team at 3 dots. McGill A was rather unlucky to miss out on the top bracket at D2 ICT, but Nick still put up a strong individual performance that netted him an all-star award.

14. Raymond Chen - Captain Jonathan Archer (ENT)
One of the strongest lit and bio specialists in the country, though he usually doesn’t buzz much outside of those categories. That said, his depth within them means that he will be a solid contributor to basically any team he plays on and unsurprisingly he scales up quite well, as shown by his strong performance at nats.

15. Kunaal Chandrashekar - Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III (ENT)
Was a key supporting player on many strong Toronto teams throughout the year, and is one of the few players in the circuit who might actually have a higher get:neg ratio than I do. Figuring our how to order him and Raymond was tough, especially given Kunaal’s top-scoring of Toronto B at regs and strong performance at MRNA, but ultimately I had to give Raymond the edge for superior depth in his categories.

16. Colin Veevers - Senior Chief Petty Officer Miles O'Brien (TNG/DS9)
Best physics player on the circuit, and is also pretty good at the rest of science as well as being a decent generalist to boot. Did well as a second scorer to Adrian on Ottawa A this year and honestly I’m a bit surprised that I’m ranking him this low, but that’s more a testament to how strong the circuit has grown overall than any lack of skill on his part.

17. Albert Li - Quark (DS9)
Only attended regs and SCT this year, but put up strong supporting performance on Toronto B at both those tournaments, Probably deserves to be higher, but unfortunately given how competitive the player poll has become I can’t do any better than this without more data to justify it.

18. Wenying Wu - Ensign Hoshi Sato (ENT)
Also only played 2 tournaments this year, in her case regs and nats. Though I ranked Albert above her since he did better at regs when they were both on the same team, Wenying’s nats performance was especially impressive, putting up nearly 20 ppg without negging once and while having Raymond shadowing her on lit. Like Albert, would probably be higher on this list if she had played more.

19. Ben Wismath - Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (TOS)
Had very strong showings at winter, where he comfortably top-scoring the eventual 3rd place team that also included Kunaal as a member, and Arcadia, where he outscored both Kunaal and Parth when all three were on the same team. Also performed well in a supporting role on many other strong teams throughout then year, though it seems he can sometimes get shadowed a bit by Parth when they play together (I think they both play lit?).

20. Kevin Le - Constable Odo (DS9)
Didn’t play that much this year but tended to put up good numbers when he did, and was particularly impressive at regionals where he didn’t neg once while leading Carleton to a top-bracket finish. Is strongest in history, but also must be at least somewhat of a generalist given how many tossups he is capable of getting.

21. Kevin Ye - Neelix (VOY)
Much like the Kevin ranked immediately above him, data for ranking Kevin Ye is also somewhat limited and often consists of him putting up relatively high numbers while playing easier sets. Kevin Le ended up being the higher ranked Kevin due to some strong performances on harder sets like Arcadia and regs, but this Kevin also seems to do pretty well as a generalist at lower difficulties and has some impressive depth in physics/math, so I could see an argument that he could go a spot or two higher.

22. Matthew Wang - Commander Chakotay (VOY)
Deciding which of Matthew and Russell to rank higher was rather tough, since they tend to put up quite similar stats when playing together and I’m not familiar enough with the team to take into account much beyond the raw stat reports. Thus, in a bit of hometown bias, I’ve decided to give this spot to my fellow Calgarian.

23. Russell Nip - Rom (DS9)
Together with Matthew, lead a strong UBC A team that performed well all year and earned respectable finishes at both ICT and nats. Unfortunately I don’t really have much else to say about this ranking, since I didn’t get a chance to see UBC play this year.

24. Asha Basu - Ensign Harry Kim (VOY)
Was a strong supporting player for Nick on McGill A all year and is consistently the team’s second scorer. Has deep specialist knowledge of philosophy and math which complements Nick’s generalism quite well, along with various other pockets of knowledge in other categories.

25. Jack Van Nostrand - Lieutenant Junior Grade Thomas Eugene "Tom" Paris (VOY)
Put up an insane performance soloing D2 SCT, but his numbers weren’t nearly as good while doing with Ishan at Winter and Playtime. Might deserve to be higher, but without more data on how he scales up to higher difficulties this is where he ultimately ends up.

HMs: Maude-Sophie Lockman, Rayton Lin, and Joey Sun, all of whom I gave serious consideration to for the last few spots on my ballot before finding entirely arbitrary reasons to exclude, and probably many other deserving people who missed out for the equally-arbitrary reason of my not giving them sufficient consideration.

For those who haven’t heard yet, I finished my degree at Waterloo this past term and have now absconded back to the blue skies and open prairies of Alberta. I don’t really plan on playing tournaments anymore, at least for the immediate future, though perhaps one day I’ll decide to pick up a buzzer again to try my hand at a CO or play the online mirror of the next edition of Lore Dump (if such a set is ever written). Before I ride off into the proverbial sunset, however, I’d like to say a few words about my time in the circuit:

To my Waterloo A teammates, Jared, Mati and Michael: Thank you for doing such good job of covering the 14/14 of the distribution I don’t care about so I could focus on the 6/6 that I do. It’s been a pleasure playing with you over the past few years. I’m proud of what we achieved at the national tournaments this year, even if it wasn’t necessarily everything we could have aspired to, and I think they made a pretty good swan song to end off my playing career.

To everyone else in the Waterloo club whose time overlapped with mine: Thank you for making the club such a welcoming and enjoyable place where I could geek out about all of my nerdiest interests. This club has been a big part of my life through the entire 5 years of my degree, and my time at university definitely wouldn’t have been anywhere near as enjoyable without it. Whatever your role, past or present, I’m grateful for the part you played in making the club such a unique and wonderful place.

To the rest of the circuit: Thank you all for helping to create such a wonderful and vibrant community. It’s been great to see the circuit continue to expand and grow every year, and I’m happy to have been able to be a part of it. I wish you all all the best for the future, wherever you may go and whatever it may bring.

[cott]

I was thinking of associating each person with an overdue card - as you may know, I have more than 25 to choose from. Maybe next year...

1. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
2. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)
3. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
4. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
5. Tony Chen (Toronto)
6. Sky Li (Toronto)
7. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)
8. Adrian Wong (Ottawa)
9. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
10. Micah Colman (Waterloo)
11. Michael Du (Waterloo)
12. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
13. Jared He (Waterloo)
14. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto)
15. Colin Veevers (Ottawa)
16. Ben Wismath (Toronto)
17. Nicolas Edwards (McGill)
18. Albert Li (Toronto)
19. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
20. Kevin Le (Carleton)
21. Russell Nip (UBC)
22. Matthew Wang (UBC)
23. Kevin Ye (SFU)
24. Jack van Nostrand (TMU)
25. Jason Zhang (Toronto)

I want to thank everyone who has made this year of quizbowl possible - writers, editors, TDs and staff, drivers, and of course players - including

Ben, Sky, Raymond, and Ian Theysmeyer for TDing Winter, D1 SCT, D2 SCT and Regionals, respectively;

Kane, for driving me to many tournaments and for being the #1 Lit writer;

Mati, for his excellent work growing and running our club, and distracting me during the science bonuses at MRNA;

Maude-Sophie, for making the trip to Nats possible and really fun;

and Micah, for being a really good and super fun teammate.

[mehatamm]

An unthemed player poll, with no attached justification:

1. Caleb Ott
2. Benjamin Chapman
3. Tony Chen
4. Liam Kusalik
5. Mattias Ehatamm
6. Adrian Wong
7. Gareth Thorlakson
8. Sky Li
9. Michael Du
10. Micah Colman
11. Parth Jagtap
12. Raymond Chen
13. Jared He
14. Kunaal Chandrashekar
15. Nicolas Edwards
16. Colin Veevers
17. Ben Wismath
18. Ishan Joshi
19. Kevin Le
20. Jack van Nostrand
21. Albert Li
22. Asha Basu
23. James Wang
24. John Chen
25. Miriam Tam

And now with the boring part out of the way, some reflections:

In the summer of 2022, I went to my first QB practice, brought by Michael Du who I knew from my CS classes and from nerding out about history and politics with. I wasn't a particularly good student at the time. I was feeling quite lost in my program and spent most of my time reading. UWQB's then-president, Zach Bernstein, did the bit he usually did at the start of each term's practice: he had a room full of first-time QB attendees gave their names, programs, and a fact about themselves (I think I said something about Edward Gibbon). Zach proceeded to rattle off all two dozen of the names given as he introduced us to the rules of the game and people looked on in surprise. When I was president myself, I considered doing it several times during introductory meetings but never believed in my abilities enough to try. At that meeting, like most initiates, I sat around knowing nothing until I finally buzzed on a Romulus fact I learned from a Historia Civilis video. The Quizbug caught me, and without knowing much about dots or distributions I soon played my first tournament: Ontario Hybrid 2022, at which we lost every game. My only remaining memory from the tournament is an embarrassingly late buzz on Siddhartha, a novel I then would've confidently described as within my 3 favorite books ever.

The Quizbug maintained its hold. Never before in my life had I met people who shared some of my eclectic interests, readily shared theirs with me, and generally cared about culture and the classics. I say this with full knowledge of the Quizbowler's stereotyped "fake knowledge" and too much familiarity with how cursory flashcarding is rewarded over genuine engagement, but Quizbowl has truly made me feel that the project of liberal arts education is still alive. Seeing people genuinely excited about intellectual history makes me glad I never solved a single Leetcode. Without Quizbowl, I might have succumbed to the obscurantism of a CS degree, and definitely wouldn't find myself starting a PhD this fall. It helped remind me how valuable learning in its myriad forms was, and gave me a better bearing on my place in the world than I ever could have hoped. Thank you Quizbowl for the book recommendations, because there was no way you could have ever convinced me to read Tristram Shandy, the 2nd best novel ever written in English, had I not been consumed by the world's silliest hobby.

Toronto A: Thank you for being the best circuit rivals we could have hoped for, and for properly playing the evil empire. Your nationals finishes made us proud this year. I enjoyed every one of our games, even the ones where we lost terribly. Ben and Sky, best of luck obtaining your JDs.

Michael Du: You introduced me to Quizbowl, for which I cannot thank you enough. You've been on my team since Ontario Hybrid, and served as my Dmitry Medvedev when co-op demanded it. Nobody else can match your navigation abilities from my passenger seat, nor has anyone else been present for every single one of my vehicular mishaps (shoutout to the Morrisburg sauna). I appreciate your ability to thumbs-up every bounceback, even when you don't know it. I hope you someday get that job writing middle-eastern intelligence reports for the CIA.

Liam Kusalik: Not to be hyperbolic, but I don't know how I'll ever survive not having you on my team in the future. Thank you for watching half of TNG season 2 with me that one time, solving a CS365 problem in your head from the backseat of the car despite not having taken the class, and for (I hope) forgiving me for this year's nationals tournaments. I had a panicked flashback the other day to negging you out of a physics tossup for absolutely no reason. There's a reason every single ACF set discussion forums thread shouts out your submissions, and you demonstrated it with your impeccable HONK! contributions. May you have a wonderful time back in Alberta, and may the Quizbug gnaw at you just enough for you to join my team for CO2026.

Jared He: I'm sorry for stealing your valor as a student of the humanities, but I hope you understand it belies my envy of your courage to switch out of a CS degree. Thank you for embodying the Apollonian to my Dionysian, I wish I could leave Letterboxd reviews even one third as sincere as your review of Cloud Atlas and I will forever hold you responsible for this club's excessive use of "card check" in casual conversation. Someday they will write an Argonauts leadin you won't neg on, and thank you for being my #1 supporter when I confidently suggest something stupid on a bonus part. Bonus conferral will not be nearly as comical without someone else to laugh at stupid names with. Thank you for making HONK! happen through sheer force of will, and writing all the memorable and heinous questions not to clue A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. According to Pausanius, you need to clear those AFA cards (especially the score clues).

Waterloo B: git gud. You guys are sickos, make sure the club doesn't collapse without me next year. I'll enjoy losing to you at Nats!

Miriam Tam: Thank you for staffing every Waterloo tournament without fail, and serving dutifully in our club's least superfluous executive position, Trash Master. I'm sorry for being a horse.

Jessie Cubilla: That you had seen every SAW movie genuinely made me feel more welcomed when I joined the club. I look forward to writing HONK! TUAH with you. Come back to the circuit... please...

To anyone not mentioned, thanks for being a part of a community that in its entirety means more to me than I can express here. Just know, it's gloves off at Nats and ICT next year.

[KawaiiPotato]

Damn, it's already the end of another year of quizbowl.
I can't believe that, in these four years, I managed to develop a more toxic relationship with a game than my twelve-years-long hostage situation with League of Legends. Or, if you're my grade 9 and 10 science teacher, L**gue of L*sers.
Anyway, this community is full of wonderful people, so I'd like to shout some of you out. Which, now that I think about it, means that this is all your fault.

Firstly, I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to Albert Li for being the club's treasurer and agreeing to moderate two CanQB meetings. Throughout this past year, I've felt incredibly safe and secure with the club's finances in your hands and sitting beside you whenever we went to the bank as my financially illiterate brain struggled to process what the other side of the table was saying. I can't overstate just how much I've come to rely on Albert both as a financial advisor and a friend.

I of course need to give a huge shoutout to Raymond Chen and Ben Chapman, two incredibly helpful members of the TorQB general exec team that ran the club from the shadows and also TD'd the two largest tournaments of the year. Raymond has been a huge influence on my personal life too, showing me the ways of how to be more of a functional human being in various circumstances, though evidently I still have ways to go. Ben always shows up as the de facto voice of reason in the club, providing me time and time again with simple yet elegant solutions on how to approach quizbowl problems. He'd make a very good lawyer. Has anyone suggested for you to apply to Toronto's Law School program? Here's the link if you need it.

Additionally, I'm eternally grateful for Wenying Wu, for all of the help you've provided regarding graduate school applications and proofreading my Statement of Intent. The atmosphere is always fun and easygoing with Wenying around, and I'm going to miss both you and Raymond a lot next year. Excellent contributor for our bake sales as well; your apple tarts are as crunchy as porcelain.
Another person I'm going to miss dearly is Marcus Forbes-Green, who bailed me out of enjoying an extended vacation in El Salvador. Thanks for hanging out, especially at airports. I'd love to try more weird drinks with you that actually have unconventional flavours, unlike Pineapple Fanta.

I'm also very grateful for all of the guidance that Sky Li gave me during our regimes' transition period and onwards. I don't think I would've kept the club nearly as stable without the template that she set in the two years before my reign and all the pointers on how to do things. Thanks for your assistance for matters regarding both quizbowl and academia. Sorry for using you as an FAQ at times though; I promise I'll make it all up by being extra 4.2-kiloyear-event-pilled.

My frequent teammates Yihong Chen and Franklin Wu deserve a shoutout too. Big thanks to Yihong for taking over operations whenever I didn't feel like it and doing some of the more menial work upon request. Yihong's also a great partner to have for group projects, I wish you the best of luck as the next Big Brother. Pilkmaster74 is a very sincere person that I'm honoured to have as a friend, even if it's for DEI(stands for Dongbei) reasons. Also thanks for letting me leech a meal off you. I'll return the favour someday, I hope. Both of you have been great friends and teammates this past year and I'm not sorry for negging you out of things. Good luck heralding the new era of TorQB!
TorQB general execs Athan Juritsch and Nameer Qadir were also insanely helpful in every situation where I was busy or just felt lazy. Both of you have been an incredible presence and sorry for making you handle some of the less fun tasks teehee :P. On TorQB execs, I'd also like to highlight my wonderful VP Social, Ellen Ge, who handled all the social things that I, a player of League of Legends, would not be familiar with. Ellen is paramount to this year's vibes, a role I'm sure she'll continue to excel at on the MRNA V editing team. Thanks for being just about the most fun person to see crash out. Chris Wang and Olivia Parisotto have been incredible to have around as well, and no doubt shaped so much of TorQB culture. A bit of a stab in the back from Olivia though, who ran the election to get me dethroned.
Additionally, Cunnel Chandrashekar and Parth Jagtap were incredible friends, colleagues, and quizpilled maniacs. To kunaal, I hope that, someday, somewhere, I'll see you eat during a quizbowl tournament. To Parth, thanks for showing us to Madras Curry and being an all-important figure in post-practice dinners. I'll miss you too next year, and thanks for all the clues you've taught me. Less quizpilled but just as amazing a friend is Jason Zhang, no doubt the biggest knower of what psoriasis looks like. Good luck editing for MRNA V!

I'd like to also highlight Mattias Ehatamm, Ian Theysmeyer, Nick Edwards, Stefan Mihai and Halee Carey, who were especially amazing to work with in CanQB. Sometimes I can act a bit negatively towards things but be assured that I wholehearted appreciated your contributions and presences in the circuit. The circuit would not run as smoothly as it did without them. Based off previous CanQB meetings, Caleb Ott and Miriam Tam were also both great contributors who deserve the recognition for what they do for their club.
Additionally, I have a shoutout for James Wang, puller of Gachas and loser of the Mandate of Heaven. Thanks for housing me multiple times and destroying my Gacha luck. It's okay though because I quit almost every game two weeks after downloading them. Now accept my Arknights friend request before I ride off the sunset and never log on again.

More rapidfire shoutouts:
I also very much enjoyed conversations with Jared He and James Ah Yong, fellow rookies of the 2021-2022 cohort.
The most successful double agent of Waterloo, Rayton Lin for absolutely deranged practice-attending behaviours.
Incredible dawg-havers Asha Basu and Micah Colman, both of whom went great lengths for tournaments this past year, and arduous ones too (especially for Micah's two national tournament appearances).
Maude-Sophie for housing for ACF Fall and driving much of the circuit.
Deepanshi Matai, a friend and utilizer of TorQB's voice chats.
Tony Chen.
Stefan Vlad for organizing housing.
Elijah and the Guelph club.
Everyone who TD'd, staffed, and/or housed someone.
And a shoutout for every teammate I've had this year - Franklin Wu, Yihong Chen, Sky Li, Raymond Chen, Athan Juritsch, Aaron Dos Remedios, Marcus Forbes-Green, Amir Dolansky, Deepanshi Matai, Parth Jagtap, David Snoddon, Wenying Wu, Kunaal Chandrashekar.

To Arizona State University and Michigan State University - it was fun having you guys around for tournaments!! You should come over more, even if it's just our online mirrors. Bonus shoutout to fellow rhythm game addict Jason Thieu. And speaking of Rhythm games, also Robert McKinnon for introducing me to the new local arcade.

And a general thank you to all who took part in Canadian Quizbowl this past year, whether you've joined a club to try something out or a mainstay in the circuit. Hope to see all of you again and have a hawktuahstic year!

Alright now that the shoutouts are over with, here is a list of - *Ahem* [Toronto Mans voice] "bare wasteyute opps, Nyeah eh crodie?" - most of which are travel related.
- Air Canada
- Brendan Iribe Centre
- Martin State Airport Station
- GO Transit
- Toronto Transit Commission
- Majority of Toronto members at MRNA IV: Herd Immunity Main Site after the final
- Anderson Buzzer Systems
- Quizbowl
- 7:51 A.M.
- weather
- currency conversion ratios
- eduroam
- Rosemont, Illinois
- my spinal cord
- Mannheim Water Treatment Plant
- @booonucks

[russn1]

Rookie Ballot

1. Tai Belke (UBC)
2. Ava Butler (McGill)
3. Amir Dolansky (Toronto)
4. Gabriel McMurren (Guelph)
5. Elijah Mandelbaum (Guelph)
6. Joyann Hua (UBC)
7. Matthew Stasiw (Toronto)
8. Charlie Ruff (McGill)
9. Brendan Bridle (Queen’s)
10. Denali Tran-Le (McGill)

#FreeJYamada
Shoutout to Josh whose second ever qb tournament was D1 ICT. This guy upped his scoring from D2 SCT to D1 ICT which was pretty impressive. Unfortunately, he fell one tournament short of rookie poll eligibility within the circuit. Pretty unfortunate as we got him onto our team after most of our circuit tournaments had run. If he had been eligible, he would make a strong candidate for the back half of this poll.

[coolguyjess]

1. Ben Chapman
2. Mattias Ehatamm
3. Caleb Ott
NB: President of the Republic of Anki with an approval rating exceeding 100%. I genuinely respect this guy’s carding abilities so much and I aspire to reach those heights one day myself.
4. Tony Chen
5. Liam Kusalik
NB: I will never forget the one semester Ottawa practice actually had a science player (other than Ian Theysmeyer, of course). A joy to practice with and honestly a joy to play against as well since I’m normally kind of checked out of those games anyway.
6. Gareth Thorlakson
7. Adrian Wong
8. Sky Li
9. Micah Colman
NB: Ottawa just isn’t the same when Micah’s off doing school in Waterloo. Why even show up to practice if there isn’t a 50% chance either an isekai or a gacha game will be cited as the reason he knows something? Why play a tournament if he and his cat ears are competing in the West rather than getting a third of his powers in a single tournament in one game against you? Come back soon, and bring your gluten-free open-faced raw grilled cheese sandwiches and Ankidroid.
10. Parth Jagtap
11. Michael Du
12. Jared He
NB: Loved the parts at HONK! where there would be an insane question and we’d ask who wrote it and then every single time they said Jared He.
13. Kunaal Chandrashekar
14. Raymond Chen
15. Nick Edwards
NB: Absolutely nobody scared me more this year than Nicolas Edwards. He got 11 tossups against me during the first tournament I played this year and had me quaking in my boots every time we played after that. Closest thing I’ve ever had to a boogeyman.
16. Colin Veevers
17. Kevin Le
NB: Best card-checker in the circuit and will use any and all of his insane pockets to test you with a name you’ve never heard about in your life.
18. Ben Wismath
19. Wenying Wu
20. Jack van Nostrand
21. Russell Nip
22. Albert Li
23. Kevin Ye
24. Stefan Vlad
My Rat Room Compatriot unfortunately loses points for inventing left turn theory, guessing Mexico three times in a single game, breaking statistics by entering his name with two spaces, sending “tens win games” to the slaughterhouse, and an innumerable amount of other crimes against both quizbowl and humanity. I must say he does gain some back by being a terrific club leader (and roommate) but it’s not enough.
25. Rayton Lin
NB: i think its hilarious u kids talking shit about Rayton. u wouldnt say this shit to him at nats, hes jacked. not only that but he wears the freshest clothes, eats at the chillest restaurants and hangs out with the hottest dudes. yall are pathetic lol

[NedWards]

Community ballot (and some final thoughts). It’s very hard for me to put into words how much quizbowl has meant to me over my undergrad years, or what competitive trivia as a whole has meant to me for half my life. I’ll try to keep this short and sweet.

TDs, staffers, olds, and community-at-large:

None of this would be possible without your hard work and dedication. There are too many people for me to list here, but I appreciate the sound advice and volunteer work of many members of this community over the age of 25.

In particular - Micah, Maude-Sophie, Kane, and Tony have heard me yap a lot during Discord study sessions or Zoom calls or whatever. thank you for letting me be my occasionally unhinged self.

Other CanQB presidents/execs

Keeping this circuit going is a team effort, and it was a pleasure to be part of that team with you all. Special thanks here to Joey Sun and Ian Theysmeyer for running the two traditional tournament host clubs, and doing it well.

D2 ICT opponents

Kicking a medium amount of American ass in Chicago was the highlight of my quiz year. But as much as it pains me to admit, you were all very nice people and really fun to play against. Shoutout to Georgetown, super classy (and ultimately better) opponents who we faced off against twice, and Georgia Tech, who were extremely pleasant companions while walking to Giordano’s.

to the wider quizbowl world: YOU SHOULD ALL PLAY CONSENSUS TRIVIA.

McGill Trivia Club I

It really felt full circle sometimes, watching the first-years and novices play this season. It’s so, so cool to see former rookies become the new vets and build a new, modernized club every year, and I’m glad to have a bird’s-eye view of that now. I’m grateful for many people that I’ve met at this club, past and present. Thank you for being in my life.

If I could go back to 2022 and had 10 seconds to give my rookie self some advice, it would be to just have a good time, no matter what. Consider that my words of wisdom for future McGill quizbowlers, I guess. And if you must card, do so in moderation.

McGill Trivia Club II (Execs, Specifically)

The abdication of leadership responsibilities is truly a joyful moment. That being said, I’m enormously thankful for my fellow execs, without whom this club would be an anarchist dumpster fire. Devito’s vibes will forever be immaculate. Rowan is the Great Communicator, and did good work growing the online club presence. Charlotte is a financial wizard, incredibly competent, and has the patience of a saint for trudging through the muck of student union bureaucracy. Asha refused to coup me, even after I begged her to, and instead helped me manage logistical responsibilities and meet deadlines.

To all of you: I’m very proud to be your friend.

McGill A (2024-25 Edition)

From an interpersonal standpoint, this year was the most fun I’ve had playing quizbowl with other people, ever.

Maybe because of how complementary our skills are. Being a generalist means I lack a lot of deeper knowledge, relying on my speed to win late buzzer races. When I took wild swings out of category, it was usually a bad idea. With you three, trust was absolute. There were no worries when you buzzed. And I could lock in on specific categories, be a more efficient player. I don’t think the improvements to my game would’ve been possible without our team setup.

Maybe it was the constant jumpscares of me sending card checks in Discord DMs. In a stunning turn of events, you all seem to have… enjoyed it?

Maybe it was the snacks. Whether they were chocolates, fortune cookies, or Skittles, using Pavlovian conditioning to encourage 30s was objectively a genius move.

Maybe it’s the team chemistry we developed from playing so much together. I’ve got so many fun memories from outside our games, too. Going with Asha to McDonald’s for the fries and to Burger King for the veggie burger, never the opposite. Wadsley teaching me about Inspect Element and yapping with me about terminally online current events content. Ava powering art stuff in practice without looking up from her knitting projects. All of us eating pizza and drinking tea in Asha’s basement during IQBT qualifiers, the three of you watching me spend an eternity picking drinks at a Chicago corner store. It’s the little things that stick.

Or maybe it’s because you’re all amazing human beings who happen to be really good at this game.

We may be the worst tossup team of all time and total PPB frauds but my goodness, it was an absolute blast being PPB frauds with you three.
You’re all lovely people and I will miss playing with you dearly. have fun with my anki decks lol

The Future

To my chagrin (and unlike one of the most epic dreams I’ve ever had), quizbowl doesn’t have a major sports league affiliated with it, and there is no draft or millions of dollars or sold-out arena buzzing to wait for. So now that I’ve graduated, I’ll be disconnecting from quizbowl. Not from the people, of course, just from playing. I might pop in to play some opens if I’m free, and I’ll provide staffing support if needed. I’m also planning on staying semi-involved through writing. But from a closed player POV, it’s time to move on. I am now retired.

Depending on where life takes me, I might end up in grad school, but it’s not a guarantee. maybe I’ll get on the jeopardy grindset idk

Okay, CanQB, it’s been a delightful four years. Bye! (for now…)

[raytonlin1]

Main Poll (with conceits):
This is me adding a player poll conceit to my earlier main ballot (top 25) because I was bored (although it ended up being a little long so maybe it was a bad idea). With Primal Kyogre coming up, anyone reading who is playing needs to study up on their Pokemon TCG history (The only people I know who actually played the Pokemon TCG are Joey and me but I’m sure there are more!). This kinda ended up being an excuse for me to talk about PTCG competitive history, essentially.

1. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo) - Hitmonchan (Base Set 7)
   Haymaker is one of the first deck archetypes in the Pokemon TCG, and it is characterized by Basic Pokemon (Hitmonchan, Electabuzz and Scyther) who have good damage on low energy cost attacks. Hitmonchan is the face of the deck, with its 1 energy Jab attack for 20 damage which is what you will almost always use with it. Liam is a specialist who will get his 6/6 reliably and is easy to build a team around because he covers Science all by himself. Let’s hope power creep doesn’t come for him at Chicago Opens for years to come.
2. Sky Li (Toronto) - Tropical Beach (BW Promo 28)
   Sky is defined by her generalism which allows her ability to get buzzes on any part of the distribution. She is also a strong anchor on teams with every type of player as a result, which is rare. Tropical Beach is similar, being important for the slower setup heavy Stage 2 decks of its era such as Deluge Blastoise, or Sand Slammer Flygon. Its most iconic use at the World Championships is in 2011 as part of Ross Cawthon’s 2nd place deck called the Truth, which used Vileplume (which prevented both players from using Item cards) and Reuniclus to keep high HP cards like Zekrom and Donphan Prime alive. This was the first tournament Tropical Beach was legal in and Ross used a rogue (non-meta) deck that made use of it amazingly.
3. Caleb Ott (Waterloo) - Garbodor (Guardians Rising 51)
   Trashalanche Garbodor is infamous for how meta-warping it was for a 1 prize card, as it did 20 damage for each item card in the opponent’s discard pile. When it got released item-heavy draw engines became much worse than using Supporters, and it got paired with other strong cards like Drampa GX who could take advantage of the opponent’s slower setup. Caleb completely changes the way you have to play against him because he is a specialist at like half the distribution at least, and he can target your weakest categories. Trying to be aggressive against Caleb is hard because of how he can recognize early clues so being aggressive will likely lead to many negs, just like if you try to use an aggressive item-based draw engine against Garbodor.
4. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo) - Origin Forme Palkia VSTAR (Astral Radiance 40)
   Mati is a horse like Origin Forme Palkia, and he should ask Jimothy Cool to join the Horse Council. Palkia’s Subspace Swell attack does more damage for each benched Pokemon, and Mati is similar because he performs at his best with his teammates. Palkia’s VSTAR ability allows you to attach 3 Water energy from the discard pile to your Water Pokemon, providing important energy acceleration, just like Mati does a great job getting novices introduced to the game and being an important part of the club.
5. Parth Jagtap (Toronto) - Marnie (Sword & Shield 169)
   Parth has a British accent, like Marnie who is from Galar. Marnie was a staple Supporter because she provided both consistency/draw power and hand disruption in the same card. Parth also provides a lot of coverage in one team slot, such as football and F1 knowledge and Madras Curry evangelism.
6. Tony Chen (Toronto) - Uxie LV.X (Legends Awakened 146)
   Tony by a twist of fate hated biology lab work and so joined TorA, being a clutch tossup 20 player at Nats at their highest performance ever (4th). Uxie LV.X was part of an infamous Game 3 in the Masters Division Finals of the 2010 Pokemon World Championships where Yuta Komatsuda had to top-deck draw it on the final turn of the game or else he would lose, and he did. Tony’s ability to be clutch at the end of games makes this an apt comparison, if I say so myself.
7. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto) - Shiftry (Next Destinies 72)
   Gareth is the best NAQT player of all time in my mind. Shiftry is interesting because it was never good in the Standard format, but after Forest of Giant Plants (Ancient Origins 74) got released Shiftry became the only viable deck in the Expanded format because of how much draw power there was and you could use its Giant Fan ability to leave your opponent with no Pokemon in play. You could really only play Baltoy (Ancient Origins 32) in other decks, as it was the only Pokemon with the θ Stop Ancient Trait that made it immune to Shiftry’s ability. Shiftry quickly got banned before any Expanded format tournaments with the combo happened, much like how Gareth is now banned from NAQT tournaments by virtue of no longer being closed.
8. Ben Chapman (Toronto) - Professor's Research (Sword & Shield 178) + Battle Compressor (Phantom Forces 92)
   GENERALIST and likes White Rice, which is very plain. Professor’s Research is the best draw supporter of all time (with the same effect as Professor Juniper and Professor Sycamore before it) and you automatically included 4 of it in every deck while it was at its peak. Professor’s Research is consistent and not very exciting but you always want it anyways, just like Ben. Battle Compressor allowed you to choose 3 cards in your deck to discard and was used in a lot of different ways, such as being able to thin your deck of tech cards not needed for the current matchup or for putting Supporter cards or Energies into the discard pile to be retrieved with cards like VS Seeker or Dark Patch. However, my favorite use of it is in decks that use Flareon (Plasma Freeze 12), Vespiquen (Ancient Origins 10), or the Night March Pokemon from Phantom Forces. These decks do more damage the more Pokemon there are in your discard pile, which is mostly done through using Battle Compressor, and like Ben, they only get stronger the more they play (did you know Ben started playing quizbowl in grade 8?)
9. Michael Du (Waterloo) - M Audino-EX (Fates Collide 85)
   Probably the biggest proponent of the Waterloo Theory of Stock, where anything you have seen before is stock even if it was never actually clued before. Shintaro Ito used M Audino-EX to win Worlds 2016 despite the West never encountering the deck in high level play before.
10. Micah Colman (Waterloo) - Iono (Paldea Evolved 185)
    Micah is a proponent of VTuber and Iono is a VTuber. It is also one of the most important consistency Supporters in the meta right now, as well as being solid hand disruption. It is basically the current version of Rocket’s Admin and N in terms of how it is used.
11. Adrian Wong (Ottawa) - Ultra Ball (Dark Explorers 102) + Lysandre's Trump Card (Phantom Forces 99)
    Adrian claims to retire but he always comes back. Likewise, Ultra Ball has rotated out before but always seems to come back and become the dominant search card in the format. Lysandre’s Trump Card was the first card to be banned from Standard play in the modern era because its effect of shuffling both player’s discard piles back into their deck was too game-warping (decks often could draw their whole deck using item-based draw and Shaymin-EX (Roaring Skies 77)'s Set Up ability), and I think this reflects how Adrian always seems to come back.
12. Raymond Chen (Toronto) - Venusaur (Base Set 15)
    Like Base Set Venusaur, Raymond is old. Raymond has been a steady presence in the circuit for the longest time and has been important in imparting the wisdom he’s learned through his experience on the circuit through CanQB server posts, and the Lit bootcamps he ran with Wenying. Venusaur’s Energy Trans Poke-Power is very similar, allowing you to move Grass energy from one Pokemon to another as often as you like during your turn, so even when a Pokemon moves to the bench, your new active Pokemon can use those energies to attack. Raymond also likes Bulbasaur a lot which went into this selection.
13. Jared He (Waterloo) - Garbodor (Dragons Exalted 54)
    Jared cards Trash and has arguably become a mainly Pop Culture player now. There are a couple of Garbotoxin Garbodors who are used to prevent abilities from being used by either player, and are often played with strong, consistent Basic decks who want to disrupt the opponent’s setup, but this is the OG. It was also used alongside Seismitoad-EX (Furious Fists 20) whose Quaking Punch attack prevented your opponent from using Items and was one of the most annoying decks in the format while it was legal.
14. Nick Edwards (McGill) - Shaymin (Unleashed 8)
    Nick keeps losing to his B team. In the 2012 World Championships, two Mewtwo/Darkrai decks were playing in the Finals and it was game 3. Harrison Leven was one card away from winning the game if he had Shaymin in his deck to use Celebration Wind and move his energies and win the game, but it was in his prize cards losing him the game in one of the PTCGs most iconic moments.
15. Kunaal Chandrasekhar (Toronto) - First Ticket (Dragon Vault 19) + Arceus & Dialga & Palkia-GX (Cosmic Eclipse 156)
    Kunaal has some of the fastest buzzer speed in the circuit and wins buzzer races with ease, having made the transition between Cansonic and Quizbowl formats amazingly. First Ticket allowed you to take the first turn if it was in your starting hand. Unfortunately, it was never used and it became literally unusable after the rules changed and the player who went first was decided before the starting hands were drawn. ADP completely warped the game, as Altered Creation-GX allowed you to take 1 more prize card for each Pokemon you knocked out. Playing against Kunaal feels similar as the game speeds up whenever you play against him, and he also is so consistent on bonuses so you feel like you have to get even more tossups just to keep up.
16. Ben Wismath (Toronto) - Super Rod (Noble Victories 95) + Team Magma's Groudon (EX Team Magma vs Team Aqua 9)
    Ben is the biggest weeb and one of the biggest visual novel lovers in the circuit, as well as a detective genre enthusiast. Looker is a member of the international police who gives you the Super Rod in the post-game of Black and White (the games with the best story in the main series) and tasks you with finding the Seven Sages of Team Plasma. Super Rod in the TCG (which has a similar effect to the earlier card Night Maintenance) recovers Pokemon and Energy from your discard pile, much like how Ben has saved his teams from dropping bonus parts that would have been embarrassing, which I got to see myself as his teammate at Penn Bowl.
    
    The very first World Championships in 2004 was swept by Japanese players playing Team Magma decks centering on Groudon, which came out of nowhere in the West who were mostly playing decks like Blaziken. This surprise breakout is similar to Ben's 2023-24 season when he broke out to lead his D2 ICT team to 9th place and did really well at 3 dots.
17. Stefan Vlad (Ottawa) - Luxury Ball (Stormfront 86)
    Stefan likes saying Balls randomly, although I don’t know when it started. He also loves Hearts of Iron 4 and gets a lot of buzzes off it. Luxury Ball allows you to put any Pokemon from your deck into your hand, but you can’t use it if you have one in your discard pile already. It’s the type of card you always want in your deck as there is no reason not to have it, just like how there is no reason to not have Stefan on your team.
18. Kevin Le (Carleton) - Eelektrik (Noble Victories 40)
    Kevin did a great job leading Carleton this year, and he staffed a lot of tournaments as well. Eelektrik originated the archetype of Stage 1 Pokemon whose abilities allow you to attach a discarded energy card onto one of your benched Pokemon, which would later be used by Bronzong (Phantom Forces 61) and Malamar (Forbidden Light 51). Eelektrik helps keep the circuit running, like how Kevin is important in making the Eastern part of the circuit running.
19. Albert Li (Toronto) - Gallade (Secret Wonders 6)
20. Wenying Wu (Toronto) - Gardevoir (Secret Wonders 7)
    Albert and Wenying didn’t play much but they played really well together on Toronto B at Regs. Gardevoir/Gallade was the BDIF (Best Deck In the Format) for years because of their synergy and their ability to always have an answer to any situation, just like how both can pull first lines out of nowhere.
21. Colin Veevers (Ottawa) - Pow! Hand Extension (EX Team Rocket Returns 85)
    Just when you thought you were safe, Colin returns to the circuit and helped contribute to how Ottawa was a top team this year. Pow! Hand Extension provided disruption when you were behind on prize cards, either by moving your opponent’s energy on the field or forcing them to switch their active Pokemon, and was extremely powerful.
22. Asha Basu (McGill) - Dragapult VMAX (Rebel Clash 93)
    Asha has insane real knowledge and can completely shut me down on Thought sometimes. Dragapult VMAX decks are similarly frustrating for me to play against because my evolving pokemon always get knocked out by the damage counters that Max Phantom places on my benched Pokemon.
23. Jason Zhang (Toronto) - Slowking (Neo Genesis 14)
    Slowking notably got printed incorrectly in the West, which made its Pokepower effect stack (Mind Games makes the opponent flip a coin every time the opponent played a Trainer card in order for its effect to work). With Sneasel, it became the BDIF until it was banned. Jason isn’t banned, but he does make us all play Mind Games whenever he goes to Pizzaiolo or other pizza places instead of Pizza Pizza despite being the President of the Pizza Pizza fanclub (which makes him a “Pizza Pizza Trader” according to David Snoddon).
24. James Wang (Ottawa) - Team Galactic's Invention G-103 Power Spray (Platinum 117)
    Power Spray is the only card that I know of that you could use on your opponent’s turn. It allows you to prevent your opponent from using a Pokepower if you discard two cards from your hand and it was a staple of the very powerful SP decks during the DPP era of the game. It is pretty Chemistry sounding, and I guess it can represent how James didn’t want me to play Fall before I was freed from the Brazen Bull (and then put back in it again).
25. Maude-Sophie Lockman (Ottawa/Waterloo) - Thought Wave Machine (Neo Destiny 96)
    Maude-Sophie is well known for her buzzing and negging often, although the negs are usually reasonable (or because of French). Thought Wave Machine is a risky card that ends your turn no matter what, and you can return your opponent's attached energy into your hard depending on how many heads you flip in a row, so when you see it you have no idea if you get any value from it. I think this represents how you feel when you see Maude-Sophie buzz against you. I also really wanted to get this card onto my ballot because I think it has a funny name.
26. HM: Ishan Joshi (TMU) - Tickling Machine (Gym Heroes 119)
    Ishan has gotten his neg problem under control mostly, but his reputation still precedes him. Tickling Machine is an old Trainer card which on a coin flip can prevent your opponent from using any cards in their hand next turn (which is very POWERful) if you flip heads, or end your turn immediately if you flip tails (much like a neg). It is a very risky card that you would only use if you didn’t plan on attacking that turn anyways, and like an Ishan buzz you never know what you’re going to get when you see one.

[KawaiiPotato]

Player Poll
1. Caleb Ott - Gateway Arch
2. Ben Chapman - Cloud Gate
3. Mattias Ehatamm - Azorius Guildgate
4. Tony Chen - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
5. Liam Kusalik - XOR
6. Sky Li - Xuanwu Gate Incident
7. Gareth Thorlakson - Watergate
8. Adrian Wong - Brandenburg Gate
9. Micah Colman - Gate of the Sun
10. Parth Jagtap - Long-run Aggregate Supply
11. Raymond Chen - Eight Gates Released Formation
12. Jared He - www.kongregate.com
13. Kunaal Chandrashekar - Steins;Gate
14. Michael Du - Hexgates
15. Nick Edwards - Horatio Gates
16. Ben Wismath - Heaven's Gate
17. Albert Li - Turkman Gate
18. Wenying Wu - Torii
19. Colin Veevers - ResearchGate
20. Jack Van Nostrand - Baldur's Gate
21. Kevin Le - Ishtar Gate
22. Jason Zhang - Oceangate
23. Ishan Joshi - Edward Newgate
24. Matthew Wang - Lion's Gate Bridge
25. Marcus Forbes-Green - Agate

[Protean]

1. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto)
2. Sky Li (Toronto)
3. Tony Chen (Toronto)
4. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)
5. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
6. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
7. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto)
8. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
9. Benjamin Wismath (Toronto)
10. Albert Li (Toronto)
11. Joey Sun (Toronto)
12. Jason Zhang (Toronto)
13. Yihong Chen (Toronto)
14. Amir Dolansky (Toronto)
15. James Wang (Toronto)
16. Marcus Forbes-Green (Toronto)
17. Franklin Wu (Toronto)
18. David Snoddon (Toronto)
19. Matthew Stasiw (Toronto)
20. Athan Juritsch (Toronto)
21. Theodore Lam (Toronto)
22. James Xiao (Toronto)
23. Samuel Zheng (Toronto)
24. Frances Corban (Toronto)
25. Ellen Guh (Toronto)

[coolguyjess]

Rookie poll!

1. Tai Belke
2. Amir Dolansky
3. Gabriel McMurren
4. Elijah Mandelbaum
5. Brendan Bridle
6. Ava Butler
7. Chris Wang
8. Charlie Ruff
9. Anjali Rao
10. Abhay Ariyappillil

Honourable mentions go out to Simon Choist, Deepanshi Matai, Denali Tran-Le, Dylan Steptoe, and my not-listed-above Ottawa GOATS: Sai Yarlagadda, Graydon Allard, Cole Patreau, Tom Chekan, and Daniel Yang. Special shoutout goes to Denis Tyan.

[Protean]

A second ballot has just hit the forums and you’re all about to wish I just stuck to the Toronto ballot.

Everyone has a gimmick these days, so aside from the joke ballot I’ll refrain – I got that out of my system in player polls past that pre-date every person on this ballot other than me – unless you consider producing the longest, driest, most technical ballot possible in hopes of boring you to death a gimmick. I hope you’re excited for a stream-of-consciousness vomit overexplaining every single decision I made.

I attempted a primarily stats-based ballot, which I quickly learned was a fool’s errand doomed to failure. I’ll leave some comments where I thought something was interesting or about particularly close/interesting comparisons, but to be quite honest I don’t know enough about many of the people in contention to be able to comment on every individual entry. This is also why I preferred to try and rely on statistics as much as possible as opposed to vibes (not that I think there’s anything wrong with that), because there’s plenty of people who merit consideration who I have no absolutely no vibes about or haven’t even seen play. That said, I don’t claim to be objective or free of bias, but alas. If you have questions, concerns, or complaints, please direct them to James Wang.

Parameters

• This will be primarily based on statistics, with nuance modifiers applied where I subjectively see fit in an attempt to account for external factors such as team composition and shadow effects.
• This will be an attempt to evaluate each player’s performance over the course of the entire year rather than a snapshot of who the best 25 players are at the end of it. I don’t think the latter framework is invalid, but it does seem to make the first like 75% of the year pointless which I don’t like.
• This will be heavily weighted towards three dot tournaments and higher. Two dot tournaments may be used a bit more towards the bottom of the ballot or as tiebreakers, but I believe that this circuit is strong enough and deep enough that in order to be considered a top player you have to show out at three or higher. One dot or field-restricted tournaments will not factor much if at all.
• It’s hard enough to try and make sense of the numbers when I do know everyone at a tournament, so aside from making direct intra-team comparisons I also only looked at Canadian tournaments with the exception of Nats and ICT. For practicality, this did include the PNW tournaments attended by UBC, but I felt very, very unqualified looking at those.
• If players being compared were in the same bracket/had a common set of opponents I used statistics from all games. If they ended up in different playoff brackets I compared their prelim stats.

Methodology and Caveats

• Essentially what I did was split players into very broad tiers initially based on vibes and then tried to do a comparison of their performances at all 3 and 3+ dot tournaments (also Arcadia) before ordering them based on who did the best overall across all of them relative to the others, subjectively considering team strength/shadowing and field strength.
• This worked decently well for the first third to half the ballot but quickly started falling apart beyond that as people played fewer of the same tournaments, didn’t have the same teammates, and/or all had very similar numbers. Particularly near the bottom I’m not very confident as there are many more deserving players than there are spots. Also I ran out of time so I had to start scuffing a little more – I did still try to look at as many stats as I could but didn’t get to make as many notes as I’d like. In a perfect world I’d spend another 10 hours staring at hsquizbowl.org but I’m pretty sure Kevin Fan is about to drop a meteor on my house.
• Don’t ask me what I’m doing when comparing players who didn’t play the same tournament. I don’t know either. Try to incorporate it into my holistic impression based on opponents and team comp, I guess, but there’s no real way to do that objectively.
• I generally didn’t look at buzzpoints, because that’s too much even for me.
• In a lot of instances (e.g. when the numbers were very close) I did have to make judgement calls on what I personally valued more. For instance, (for totally, definitely, non-personal non-biased reasons) I don’t value putting up big numbers at easier tournaments or on less strong teams as much as how much I think someone would hypothetically tribute to a contending team. These calls were also almost certainly biased towards people I see play more often and know well.
• A lot of subjective adjustments are also bourne of my personal knowledge of players and teams, which unfortunately I could only do for those I know well. For example, when looking at the stats of my Toronto B teams I took into account that history had the least intra-team shadowing compared to literature and to an extent science. It also seemed to me that science on Waterloo A or literature on Toronto A were subject to something similar to varying levels. For teams I’m less familiar with I had to mostly take the numbers at face value.

The Biggest Disclaimer

Doing the exercise this way does make me slightly uncomfortable in the “talking about real people that you know as if they were faceless professional athletes” dehumanizing kind of way, as discussing why you put X player over Y player naturally leads to feeling like you’re talking down on Y. I’m hoping it doesn’t come across that way, but if I cross any lines please let me (for real, not fake replacement me (James Wang)) know and I will do my best to rectify any mistakes I make.

I want to be clear that if you appear on this list, I have nothing but respect for your playing ability. If you do not appear on this list, I also have nothing but respect for your playing ability. This game is hard, this game sucks, nobody is good at it, it’s actually deranged behaviour every time someone decides to pick up the buzzer again. Yet we all do because we’re qbpilled freaks, and every time we do we contribute something to the Canadian Quizbowl community and ecosystem, that’s much more important than an arbitrary list of arbitrary length. This of course also applies to those less inclined to buzz themselves, who nevertheless contribute by reading, scorekeeping, or just by generally providing the benefit of their presence – in all the important ways, you are even more insane in the membrane for sticking around without the addiction to hearing the little sound and seeing the little light. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I’m glad for it.

Okay It’s Already Been Like 1000 Words Here’s The Actual List

1. Caleb Ott (Waterloo)
2. Benjamin Chapman (Toronto)
3. Mattias Ehatamm (Waterloo)

The first surprise came right away in that Caleb wasn’t as clear-cut of a #1 as I thought he would be, providing an immediate discrepancy between what my vibes were and what the numbers said. There were more tournaments than I expected (ARGOS, WAO, Nats) where I think others put up a better performance. That said, I did still put him at 1 because overall he has the complete package and has been doing it the most consistently: the power numbers and PPG pop, he’ll whip off crazy early buzzes relatively often to keep the fear of god in you (is this what the kids call “aura”), and most importantly he wins games (beating Toronto A three times and finishing above Waterloo A at both ARGOS and WAO).

The first judgement call came immediately afterwards, between who I think were the best players on the best teams this year. Out of the eight “three” dot (including Arcadia) and up tournaments this year, I would give Mattias the advantage on five or six of them relative to the rest of Waterloo A: he was relatively clearly the top performer at Penn Bowl/Arcadia/SCT, slightly ahead of his teammates at WAO (missing Liam), and performed roughly similarly to Liam by the numbers at ICT and Nats but while dealing with a lit shadow from Jared and history shadow from Michael all year.

There’s more parity for Toronto so it’s less clear cut but I also think Ben had the most consistent Toronto A campaign this year as well, being the top or co-top performer the most often: at Penn Bowl (with Sky, who had ~3 PPG more; missing Tony), Arcadia (with Sky), ARGOS (unambiguously), Regionals (~3 PPG more than Sky and Tony), and Nats (with Tony, within 1.5 PPG). While he’s not clearly the best performer at all of these tournaments, he’s in the mix the most frequently: Sky (Penn Bowl, Arcadia) and Tony (WAO, Nats) both feature twice (maybe thrice if you give them all Regionals) and Gareth once (ICT).

Mati’s numbers were consistently ever so slightly better than Ben’s (around ~2-5 PPG higher) all year with the exception of ARGOS, where Ben was ahead by quite a bit. You’d be happy to start a team by drafting either of them, both being very strong generalists (shut up, Ben) with specialties that compete with them best of them. Both also deal with a decent amount of shadow from their teammates. Ultimately I went with Ben because I think – if you’ll permit me a spot of Toronto jingoism – he was doing it on a slightly stronger team, with Toronto A finishing ahead of Waterloo A at every tournament this year except Regionals.

4. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
5. Sky Li (Toronto)
6. Tony Chen (Toronto)
7. Gareth Thorlakson (Toronto)
8. Adrian Wong (Ottawa)

Every single blurb is going to start with “sorting this section was very difficult” and “you could probably defensibly put these in any permutation” so let’s just imagine they’re there from now on. Liam had a pedestrian (for his standards) Penn Bowl, but led his team at ARGOS (outscoring both Sky and Tony), absolutely crushed Regionals, and performed about as well as Tony at Arcadia, ICT, and Nats. It seems like Sky’s strong first half has been lost to the sands of time a bit, especially since the second half was comparatively weaker, but she performed as well as Ben at Penn Bowl and Arcadia, outscored Tony at ARGOS, and did about as well Tony at Regionals. Tony meanwhile had a very strong second half, top scoring WAO and as well as Ben at Nats and ICT (behind Gareth for the latter).

I do think that it’s less crowded trying to get points from science on Waterloo A and similarly that there is less lit/life sci competition on Toronto A (I see you, though, Benjamin) compared to not-those categories. Between ARGOS and Regionals (+ Nats and ICT being a wash) I think Liam gets the nod above Tony and that the shadowing effect doesn’t quite narrow the gap enough for Sky. If I was doing a snapshot of today, I would’ve put Tony ahead of Sky but I think Sky had a better first half. This still puts Tony a bit ahead because Nats and ICT are worth more, but it becomes pretty even again to me considering the coverage of the team. So it’s pretty much a coin flip, except Sky said to me at some point to bump her down and she can eat shit.

Okay, the rest of the ballot will not be quite this granular because I would die on the spot if I continued to try (plus it’s a lot harder to do/even more subjective when most of the people being compared aren’t playing on the same teams at the same tournaments), but hopefully this is illustrative of how I’m approaching this.

9. Micah Colman (Waterloo)
10. Michael Du (Waterloo)
11. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)

Caleb has tended to draw the attention but Micah has had a really, really good year, even (juuuust) outscoring Caleb at the two 3.5 opens. One could say Parth and Michael tend to play on more complete teams, but it’s really hard to argue with how much better Micah’s numbers are (+ those less complete teams have finished above them a decent amount).

Michael had slower showings at Penn Bowl and Regionals, two tournaments where Parth was excellent at – to me, more than enough to mitigate any team effects. That said, Parth also had a down tournament at Arcadia (26 PPG, 10/21/20 to Michael’s 40 PPG, 15/26/9) and a middling WAO (20 prelims PPG, 3/14/9 to Michael’s 32.86 PPG, 6/16/4) while on a team that finished lower. They both did quite well at Nats and ICT, with Michael having ~4.5 fewer prelims Nats PPG than Parth but on a top bracket team and the two of them performing nearly identically in the second bracket of ICT. They both deal with some shadowing (Ben Wismath on lit, Mati and Jared on history) so considering their teams overall the edge feels like it goes to Michael.

12. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
13. Kunaal Chandrashekar (Toronto)
14. Jared He (Waterloo)
15. Nicolas Edwards (McGill)

Really getting into the weeds, now. At this point, trying to do direct tournament comparisons becomes a headache as team compositions start to change and not everyone attends the same tournaments. In general: Jared had a really strong Penn Bowl and Regionals but a weaker Nats, Kunaal had a great ARGOS and relatively pedestrian Arcadia, Nick always crushes it but usually on lower-scoring or shorthanded teams (and didn’t play either 3.5 dot or 4 dot), and I had a decent Arcadia and good Nats, especially taking into account Wenying for the latter. In short: it’s a mess.

You know what you’re getting from me: literature, biology, and literally nothing else. I play 6/6 and really only specialize in 5/5, but I’m good enough at it that it almost always translates into somewhere around 20-30 PPG regardless of team/tournament. The other three are all solid generalists, Jared being humanities-based with focuses on FA and pockets of history/lit, Nick being a very strong history player who can buzz on what seems like anything else outside of science, and Kunaal being clues-based.

Nick seems like he could definitely go higher, but I’d have liked to see him do it at 3.5 or 4. My feeling is that Jared was a little bit ahead until Nats, which dropped him to a little bit behind (and it’s tough “penalizing” someone for what’s really just one off tournament but the margins are pretty thin). Similarly, I had Kunaal a bit ahead of me but Nats set us into a dead heat. I do think that out of this group my specialties are probably the strongest/scale up the most (at the expense of providing zero other value), which to me provides slightly more marginal value in a vacuum. Look, please just let me have this, okay?

16. Wenying Wu (Toronto)

Wenying Wu is my one big indulgence this year. Because I’m constantly indulging her bullshit. Also because having only played Regionals and Nationals, she probably doesn’t quite have the body of work this year to separate her from the pack below but just this once I’m going to “just trust me bro” you about someone I personally know when I say she’s annoyingly good. She is definitely the person on this list who has the highest proportion of her buzzes from “I read that [for class/for fun/[Anna Karenina] when I was 13 or smth for some reason]” or, like, having an Edith Wharton phase in tenth grade (??) instead of Studying Quizbowl. It’s annoying because I do study quizbowl a bunch and still don’t outscore her by very much.

Some bare bones justification. Aside from me, she’s probably seen as the most narrow specialist on this list. We are both literature specialists. We played both of her tournaments together. At Nats, she was only ~2.5 PPG behind Kunaal – replace me with a non-lit person and Wenying is very possibly the top scorer of a second bracket Nats team. As-is, she scored roughly the same at Nats as the players ranked around her here despite the huge shadow.

17. Colin Veevers (Ottawa)
18. Matthew Wang (UBC)
19. Benjamin Wismath (Toronto)
20. Russell Nip (UBC)

Man, I have no clue. I struggled a lot with the UBC players as I find it nearly impossible to compare between sites with no common opponents. Within UBC, Matthew seems to be the top scorer more often than not but by slim margins (Regionals by 6 PPG, ARGOS by 5, ICT by 3; Russell took Nats by 2ish). Colin, who is an elite physics player, very strong science player, and solid generalist, scored roughly as much as them in the same Nats + ICT prelims and had a strong D1 SCT (UBC appears to have played a combined field so I won’t try to compare). Ben acquitted himself well at SCT on Toronto Benbenson against a very tough field as a lit and religion guy and also scores around that 20 PPG ballpark of everyone else here as well. I gave it to Colin here because Adrian is a very, very strong generalist and it doesn’t help to be playing with James eating into the science as well + I slotted Ben in between the UBC players because he usually plays with Parth who will take a lot of the lit, but again this isn’t a type of accounting I can do for UBC so who knows??

21. Albert Li (Toronto)
22. Kevin Ye (SFU)

It looks pretty dramatic because of how many spots down it ends up, but the difference between 16 and 22 seems quite small if it exists at all; there’s just a million people clustered here. Both Albert and Kevin seem like they should be higher. Albert scored about as well as I did at Regionals, albei(r)t with freer reign on the history and other, and did quite well at D1 SCT in a field full of teams with A-tier history players. I’ll also note he’s one of the few weirdos in this country who seem to like American history, up to you if that’s a plus or not. It doesn’t feel quite right to knock him down for inactivity when I elevated Wenying despite that, but I weigh Nats more than SCT and thought Wenying had the stronger non-Regionals tournament.

Kevin Ye certainly seems like he has the skill to be higher, but he didn’t play very many (Canadian) tournaments and since Canada Is Not For Sale I didn’t want to look at American tournaments (I don’t feel comfortable trying to extrapolate much from tournaments where I don’t know who anyone is – I mostly used UBC’s ARGOS/Regionals to help decide internally between the UBC players who were on the same team – and also idk it looks like he played some of them as Berkeley anyway so). I also didn’t really look at DART, which was an easy tournament and while not officially field-restricted had over half the ballot informally agree to sit out. This leaves two two (haha) dot tournaments, Playtime and Winter. Kevin performed well at both, though as a duo – he did a bit better (0.5-1ish tossups) than Jack, who also played as a duo and who I have next, so this seems about right based on the Canadian tournaments.

23. Jack Van Nostrand (TMU)
24. Kevin Le (Carleton)
25. Asha Basu (McGill)

If Wenying was my big indulgence, Jack is a small exception I’m making in that I’m basing this mostly on easy tournaments. He played Playtime and Winter with Ishan, leading a duo TMU to good finishes (9/16 and 9/28) and both times outscoring Ishan, who isn’t a slouch himself. He also did play a harder tournament in ARGOS and did quite respectably despite the relative layoff from quizbowl. I’m not sure I could put him higher without more 3 or higher showings, but hot damn did you see those D2 SCT numbers?

Kevin and Asha round out the bottom. In addition to putting up good numbers at Arcadia shorthanded, Kevin also took Carleton pretty far through the gauntlet of a pretty hefty D2 SCT field and led a top bracket Regionals team this. While there are a lot of players who are deserving of the late spots and these will always be pretty extreme judgement calls, I think the combination of individual achievement and team finishes is impressive enough to land here. Meanwhile Asha, who almost certainly has the most dawg in this country, has been putting up strong numbers all year across every level of tournament. As I’m ranking across the entire year the consistency is hard to argue with, especially when it includes D1 ICT, Regionals, Penn Bowl, and both 3.5 opens.

Honourable Mentions in No Particular Order (Also I’m Definitely Going To Forget Someone, I’m Really Sorry Ahead of Time)

Non-Toronto People

Maude-Sophie Lockman (Ottawa) quietly had a very good year, both in a support role for a full Ottawa team (even outscoring Colin at Penn Bowl) and putting up strong numbers leading an Ottawa team herself into the top bracket of Arcadia. Possibly tied for most dawg with Asha, I literally cannot believe how much she drives for this stupid game. Rayton Lin (Waterloo) has had some great showings playing with Caleb and Micah and led a strong D2 run of his own. Andrew McCowan (Queen’s) continues to be very good, continuing Jack’s proud tradition of absolutely tearing up D2 SCT while also putting up a shiny PPG at Regionals level.

Out west(er than Ontario), Anne Fjeld (Alberta), John Chen (UBC), and Tai Belke (UBC) seemed to start finding their footing in the latter part of the season. Anne put up gaudy two dot numbers and came within a spot of ICT qualification while John and Tai started pulling closer to Matthew and Russell in scoring as we got to the end of the year (and also helped contribute to a decisive UBC win over my Toronto B team at Nats).

There’s no way I got everyone who could’ve conceivably been included – roughly seventy-four thousand people received votes this year – but rest assured there’s plenty of people I haven’t named that are brilliant at quizbowl (including the girl reading this).

Toronto

It’s insane how deep the Toronto club ran this year. Jason Zhang and Joey Sun rotated in and out of my ballot at various points, Jason being a very strong science and AFA player who provided really key support to a lot of the Parth-led teams and Joey very capably leading the D2 team and capping it off with a really impressive run at Nats on Toronto B. Speaking of the D2 team, I can only speak firsthand about the members I played with but all four of them have improved remarkably over the course of the year. Franklin Wu played a strong second scorer to Joey for much of the second half while Yihong Chen likely has the deepest (though also most situational) knowledge of the team and in the circuit, which he really used to step on my head a bunch at WAO.

Seeing resident dirt guy M[1 blocked message] F[1 blocked message]-G[1 blocked message] become more active over the last two years has been a treat and he’s really developed into a dangerous player even at four dot, outscoring Ben Wismath at D1 ICT this year and having twice as many powers as Kunaal + Ben combined. I also suspect you’ll be seeing Amir Dolansky on quite a few ballots next year. He’s not loud about it (which most of us could learn from), but that guy just puts up points. He led his team of first years (the only such team in the top bracket) to an upset finish over Joey’s D2 team and came rather close to qualifying for ICT. There’s a lot of other cool Toronto people but this isn’t a shoutout post, which I’ll save for later if I find the energy and will to do a community post after putting myself and you through this for no reason. It’s a list of HMs: genuinely, if you had put any of these people on the back end of your ballot I wouldn’t have batted an eye. They’re really, really good.

Okay Bye

If you read all the way this far – no you didn’t, you’re full of shit and I don’t believe you. Go back and read it through for real. This still isn’t a community post so I’ll keep the sign-off brief and save it for then. This may or may not be the end of my closed career depending on how much I can lock in over the summer. If it is, thanks for everything. If it’s not, well … Kevin, you can send that meteor now.

[IncompetentIdiot]

Main Poll (30 Ballots)
1. Ben Chapman, 707 (median 2, max 1, min 8; 12 first-place votes)
2. Caleb Ott, 696 (median 2, max 1, min 8; 12 first-place votes)
3. Mattias Ehatamm, 675 (median 3, max 1, min 7; 1 first-place vote)
4. Tony Chen, 651 (median 4, max 1, min 9; 3 first-place votes)
5. Liam Kusalik, 650 (median 4, max 1, min 9; 2 first-place votes)
6. Gareth Thorlakson, 620 (median 5, max 2, min 7)
7. Sky Li, 589 (median 7, max 2, min 8)
8. Adrian Wong, 554 (median 7.5, max 3, min 11)
9. Parth Jagtap, 477 (median 10, max 5, min 13)
10. Micah Colman, 474 (median 10, max 8, min 13)
11. Michael Du, 459 (median 10, max 8, min 14)
12. Jared He, 419 (median 12, max 6, min 17)
13. Raymond Chen, 399 (median 12.5, max 9, min 16)
14. Kunaal Chandrashekar, 355 (median 14, max 11, min 17)
15. Nicolas Edwards, 337 (median 15, max 11, min 21)
16. Colin Veevers, 245 (median 17, max 14, min NR)
17. Ben Wismath, 216 (median 18, max 16, min NR)
18. Albert Li, 182 (median 19, max 15, min NR)
19. Wenying Wu, 177 (median 19.5, max 16, min NR)
20. Jack Van Nostrand, 161 (median 20, max 15, min NR)
21. Russell Nip, 139 (median 21, max 17, min NR)
22. Kevin Le, 134 (median 21.5, max 15, min NR)
23. Kevin Ye, 98 (median 24.5, max 13, min NR)
24. Matthew Wang, 94 (median 23.5, max 16, min NR)
25. Asha Basu, 46 (median 25, max 20, min NR)
RV: Ishan Joshi, 43; Jason Zhang, 30; Andrew McCowan, 19; Stefan Vlad, 13; Maude-Sophie Lockman, 11; Anne Fjeld, 11; Halee Carey, 8; Joey Sun, 8; Tai Belke, 8; Rayton Lin, 8; John Chen, 7; Marcus Forbes-Green, 7; Elijah Mandelbaum, 6; James Wang, 5; Ian Theysmeyer, 4; Miriam Tam, 4; James Ferrabee, 2; James Ah Yong, 2

Rookie Poll (15 Ballots)
1. Tai Belke, 139 (median 1, max 1, min 4; 8 first-place votes)
2. Amir Dolansky, 133 (median 2, max 1, min 4; 5 first-place votes)
3. Elijah Mandelbaum, 114 (median 4, max 1, min 5; 1 first-place vote)
4. Ava Butler, 108 (median 4, max 1, min 6; 1 first-place vote)
5. Gabriel McMurren, 101 (median 4, max 3, min 8)
6. Charlie Ruff, 36 (median 8, max 6, min NR)
7. Deepanshi Matai, 25 (median NR, max 5, min NR)
T-8. Chris Wang, 24 (median 10, max 6, min NR)
T-8. Brendan Bridle, 24 (median NR, max 5, min NR)
10. Seth Allen, 23 (median NR, max 6, min NR)
RV: Denali Tran-Le, 19; Joyann Hua, 15; Matthew Stasiw, 12; Abhay Ariyappillil, 12; Henry Siegler, 7; Dilen Moodelly, 6; Dylan Steptoe, 6; Nathaniel Hall Godfrey, 5; Stephen Ottewell, 4; James Tang, 3; Susanna Liao, 2; Anjali Rao, 2; Evan Chan, 1; Nicholas Kwan, 1; Larry Sun, 1; Victor Xu, 1; Daniel Yang, 1

Full results for both polls are available here.