2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

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IncompetentIdiot
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2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by IncompetentIdiot »

This is the 2021-22 edition of the Canadian Player Poll. Feel free to submit ballots for any or all of the three 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. Players are automatically eligible for the main poll if they played the Canadian site of either 2022 ACF Regionals or 2022 NAQT SCT. If they did not play either of those tournaments, they can gain eligibility by playing the Canadian sites of two closed unrestricted-eligibility tournaments (or semi-open on a school team) and collecting 500 parrainages from national or local elected officials from at least 30 different departments or overseas collectivities, with no more than a tenth of these signatories from any single department. Those tournaments are listed below:

2021 Penn Bowl
2021 ACF Winter
2021 ARCADIA
2021 HARI
2022 ACF Regionals
2022 NAQT SCT
2022 WORKSHOP
2022 MRNA VACCINE

The rookie poll will include 10 players in their first year of university QB who played 2022 ACF Regionals or 2022 NAQT SCT or at least two tournaments listed above or below:

2021 NAQT Collegiate Novice
2021 ACF Fall
2022 Boilermaker Spring Novice

To my knowledge, the following individuals are rookie-eligible. Please correct me if I've omitted anyone. didn't try that hard this year tho lol so lmk

British Columbia: John Chen, Russell Nip, Joyce Xi, Alan Zhang
Ottawa: Neerav Mullur
Manitoba: Charbel El-Kefraoui, Derek Harris, Cate Giffin, Giorgio Karam
McGill: Elena Bai, Skyler Bohnert, Francis Dinh, Nicolas Edwards, François Ferland, Laurel Johannson, Teegan Nordstrom
McMaster: Yusuf Baig
Queen's: Joey Chong, Daniel Dickson, Ashley Gifford, Alexandre Joissains, Mike Ross, Jocelyn Tweedle, Kevin Wang
Toronto: Benjamin Chapman, Cole Franklin, Kary Ishwaran, Federico Knaudt, Albert Li, Cam Miranda-Radbord, Calvin Rieder, Roensa Salija, David Snoddon, Joey Sun, Jesse Ward-Bond
Waterloo: James Ah Yong, Jared He, Willie Lei, Miriam Tam, Avani Trivikram
Western Ontario: Bob Gao, Samantha Keow, Lauren Stoyles

Aside from those listed above, you may also want to consider these other tournaments where eligible players competed:

2022 NAQT SCT (West)
2022 NAQT ICT
2022 ACF Nationals

By popular (Raymond's, so idk actually) demand, I'll also calculate a community ballot. Rank 10 people for the abuse they have taken as moderators, etc.

You are also welcome to consider side events or any other criteria, so long as they occurred during the 2021-2022 competition 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 on Discord and Messenger. Polls close at 8 PM CEST on 24 April.
Last edited by IncompetentIdiot on Mon Apr 11, 2022 3:19 am, edited 2 times in total.
Kevin Fan
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by MMSANCHEZ »

1. Lia Rathburn
This Lia person seems pretty good at quizbowl, but she probably just frauds everything. Fake knowledge.

Ok, more seriously it’s just ridiculous how good Lia has gotten at so many different categories this year. Her base in History and Beliefs has expanded to all of the humanities and even biology, making her a true threat on everything. Her ICT cemented this for me, where she finished second in the field in Powers per game, and went 2/7/0 against Chicago A to give us a shot at making the second bracket. I’m excited to have another year with Lia anchoring UBC A and hope she gets a chance to play both Nats.
2. Henry Atkins
Despite scaling back his playing this year, Henry had really good performances at both ICT and ACF Nationals. In addition to being a great quizbowl player, Henry has been a huge part of the Canadian community ever since I started playing, and we’ll miss him next year.
3. Kevin Fan
If you told me before the start of last year who'd be eligible for this poll I’d have thought Kevin was a lock for third, but his reduced activity combined with a lot of the players right behind him taking a big step forward made this very close. That being said, the performance he put in beside Henry at ACF Nats this year is something I don’t think anyone below him on this list could have done, so I’m confident he’s still here.
4. Ian Chow
After playing ICT mirror with Ian last year, I knew he’d have no problem anchoring a strong Toronto in D2. However, even more impressive to me was ACF Regionals, where he led a strong Toronto A to a 9-0 finish, ahead of Lia, Kevin and Henry led teams. Fun guy to talk to and have around on the circuit, and excited to see where he can lead Toronto next year.
5. Tony Chen
Tony has solidified his status as a super generalist this year, and of all the players on the circuit, I feel he’s the one most liable to snipe a good buzz regardless of the category. Western is gonna be a terrifying two headed monster with him and Jay next year that’ll definitely be in the conversation for strongest teams in Canada. Worse than Gareth at 1v1ing me though, probably because he smiles when science comes up, rather than memeing about it for half the tossup.
6. Sky Li
I think I might have underrated Sky last year because he immediately started putting up very strong stats when not shadowed by Colin or Jay as he was for most of last year. Teams with Sky and Ian combined for very impressive all-encompassing generalism, (check out their HARI PPB) as well as lots of early buzzes in pretty much anything. Sky’s prowess in Fine Arts is well documented, but I found myself being impressed by how many categories he really knows a lot about.
7. Cormac Beirne
In Cormac’s second year anchoring McGill teams he’s taken it to another level, top scoring for teams in contention to win nearly every event. His best event was probably Workshop, where he had more than a power a game. Ultimately I put him 7th because I don’t think Cormac’s been quite as consistent tournament to tournament as the players above him, but I could see a ranking as high as 5th, particularly if looking at peak performance.
8. Sam Hauer
Sam turned in another really sick year with UBC. Even while playing with an increasingly monstrous Lia, he always puts in great support on the A team and showed what he could do without Lia’s shadow with a very strong MRNA. It’s a shame Sam couldn’t make ICT this year, but very much looking forward to another year of sick buzzes and hilarious accents to come.
9. Raymond Chen
One half of Toronto A’s terrifying Literature duo, Raymond’s had another really strong year, particularly considering the increased shadow he has playing with Wenying. Finishing off the year strong by scoring around the same as Sky and Ian at ACF Nationals is what motivated me to put him ahead of Wenying, but it’s very close.
10. Wenying Wu
BC reach is alive and well. Wenying has improved a lot this year, and done a fantastic job playing alongside Raymond. Toronto A has become brutal to try and take literature off of, and she’s a big reason why, but underappreciated as well is her propensity to contribute early buzzes in other areas of the distro as well.
11. Adrian Wong
Adrian’s done a remarkable job leading McMaster at many tournaments this year. The win over UBC at ACF Winter was a really impressive game by him, getting 6 tossups (most of which quite early).
12. Benjamin Chapman
I’m really glad Ian got Ben as a teammate for ICT this year. Contrary to what he’d claim, I think Ben is the best all around science player on the circuit right now, and his very competitive results at both Nationals back that up. Definitely my pick for Rookie of the Year, Ben’s gonna ensure that Toronto is very tough to take Science and AFA off of for the years to come.
13. Max Gedajlovic
I think my generalism has improved a fair bit this year resulting in more varied buzzes, but I’ve clearly been usurped by Lia as main Lit player on UBC A. I still don’t power a ton, but I think I’m pretty good at getting some mid to late buzzes in, which I think still provides some value.
14. William Dawson
Will killed it at ICT this year, pulling sick buzzes out of nowhere and only getting better in the playoffs against second bracket teams. I agree with Lia that he’s arguably a top 5 NAQT player, and he consistently performs better in person than with online events. I think a return to more in person events next year will see him move considerably up this list.
15. Peter Wang
I unfortunately couldn’t make Arcadia, but Lia told me about Peter’s very strong performance, particularly on Literature. I ranked players like Adrian and Ben ahead of Peter largely because of Regionals, but I could see that being a disservice to his (and Liam’s) more specialist profiles.
16. Jet Dong
Jet’s definitely still good, but I can’t justify higher than this based on the amount he played this year.
17. Liam Kusalik
What I said about Peter largely applies to Liam as well. He’s a great science player, and I found out from the summer D2 ICT mirror that he can pull out great buzzes on all sorts of topics (First lined a tossup on Mauritania). His generalism has been steadily on the rise as well and I could easily see him in the top 10 next year.
18. Kais Jessa
Another strong year from Kais, supporting Cormac on very good McGill teams. Kais’ classical music coupled with Cormac’s VFA makes McGill A’s fine arts feel unassailable for UBC at least, though I’m curious how that goes when they play against Sky.
19. Devan Greevy
Like Kais, Devan does a really nice job filling in the gaps for Cormac, mainly in Literature and American History I believe. Devan deserves more credit as a generalist as well, that gets mostly shadowed by Cormac, but she showed at tournaments like ACF Fall that she’s very capable of getting good buzzes on most of the distro.
20. Kane Nguyen
Kane powered a lot at SCT, and has just in general impressed me a great deal this year. He gets some really good buzzes on VFA, and does a nice job supporting Adrian on science as well.
21. Parth Jagtap
Parth always seems to get at least one really good buzz each time we play against him. I think he mostly buzzes on Lit and Beliefs, but his generalism has come along a lot as well this year, as seen at SCT.
22. Yadu Kukenthiran
A strong history player is exactly the compliment Tony needs, and that’s what Yadu provides Western. Not quite the generalist most of the people around him on the list are, but I feel like his knowledge scales more, as he gets a solid number of buzzes in at 3 dot events as well.
23. Andrew McCowan
Really solid humanities based generalist. He beat Brian and I at STASH last year, and seems to have given several good teams scares as well.
24. Minh-Tuan Phung
Did a nice job filling in on McGill’s D2 ICT team after Jet dropped. Seems to get about as much as Kais and Devan when playing with Cormac, but is a bit lower because of a much higher neg rate.
25. Gaian Valdegamo
Gaian did well supporting Liam at a lot of tournaments this year. Got a really impressive buzz on a Paul Klee tossup when I showed up to Waterloo practice.

HM: Giorgio Karam, who arguably should be on this ballot based on his summer open performances and Bob Gao whose breadth wasn't quite enough to make the top 25 for me, but is as dominant on his 1/1 as anyone on the circuit. Carlos Doebeli went a really solid 0/11/0 in 7 2nd-bracket playoff games for us at ICT, including a game-winning buzz against Maryland. He played almost exclusively hard tournaments on full UBC A teams which hurt his PPGs, but had a really solid showing at ACF Winter (the only tournament easier than Regionals he played.) If he played a few easier events with less shadow I think he'd make a good case for top 25.

Rookie Ballot
ROY
1. Benjamin Chapman
See above. Definitely one of the biggest impacts a Canadian rookie has had at the national level these last few years.
2. Giorgio Karam
Scored only slightly behind Kais at each of the 3 summer opens he played, where he did very well in a specialist role. Hope to see him at more events over the summer and next season.
3. David Snodden
Ian’s massive improvement in Literature made it a lot harder for David to get buzzes in when they played together this year, but he still turned in very solid support performances. Ranked this high because ACF Fall convinced me that his knowledge of the Lit canon is more consistent than the main 4/4s of anyone on this list besides Ben.
4. Nicolas Edwards
Pretty clearly the second best NAQT player on this list, Nick is a very strong trash player and has good generalism across the humanities. I think there’s a very good chance he takes a step forward next year and leads McGill back to D2 ICT.
5. Cole Franklin
Behind Nicolas because of SCT. However he puts up a very consistent 20 PPG at 2 dot events, which makes me think he should be ranked higher. Also subjectively I feel like he’s had some of the most buzzes that really impressed me of the rookies this year.
6. Albert Li
Really solid stats at Boilermaker and SCT this year, but unfortunately didn’t play anything harder. If Toronto makes a run in D2 again next year, I think he will be a big reason why.
7. Joyce Xi
Perhaps a surprising pick for top UBC rookie, but her Myth knowledge is the real deal and scales to regionals. She and Russell did a nice job leading UBC at SCT, and between them they cover science very well.
8. John Chen
John started the year with a good performance at Collegiate Novice, and did a good job playing alongside Will at ACF Regionals. Solid history knowledge and gets some very good buzzes in classical music and social science.
9. James Ah Young
Haven’t seen James play too much this year, but did a very nice job at SCT.
10. Russell Nip
Russell has without a doubt shown the most improvement among UBC rookies this year, doubling his PPG between Collegiate Novice and SCT. Chemistry and Classical music are his biggest areas of strength, but he’s been expanding his knowledge into the Literature distribution as well. Watch for Russell to develop into a top 25 player next year.
Last edited by MMSANCHEZ on Tue Apr 19, 2022 6:31 pm, edited 8 times in total.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by IncompetentIdiot »

I've received this anonymous ballot:
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Kevin Fan
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by tonychen »

1. Lia Rathburn
👏👏👏
2. Henry Atkins
Was gonna rank Henry first, but we need a little change once in a while. Also, Henry’s been soft launching the Lia > Henry narrative actually, which I’ve taken into account.
3. Ian Chow
Don’t worry Ian. Since you did so well this year, we’ll all collectively forget that NASAT existed.
4. Kevin Fan
I was told to put Kevin Fan in the top 3, but no one tells me what to do.
5. Tony Chen
We need to forget about lame, abstract concepts like “points” and “wins.” If we look at the most important stat (number of powers against Matt Bollinger), I’m up 1-0 on all of these chumps.
6. Sky Li
Surely everyone has forgotten that Sky Li was actually Tony Chen’s employee at OPPO before he launched his own company. We must pay respect to our roots.
7. Cormac Beirne
Probably my favourite player to get more powers at WORKSHOP than DII SCT (sorry Lauren, you’ll get ‘em next year).
8. Adrian Wong
Known for beating down UBC A at ACF Winter. Surprisingly, McMaster is actually held back from winning tournaments by Kane’s college sports knowledge. Who’d’ve thought.
9. Sam Hauer
So-called “nicest player in Canada.” Can’t be so nice if I’ve never heard of him. I also saw him take his hands off camera one time, so he’s basically worse than Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds combined.
10. Peter Wang
Remember when Waterloo won ARCADIA? Toronto, UBC, and McGill fans all in shambles.
11. Wenying Wu
No one who uses Twitch lingo outside of Twitch deserves to be in the top 10, unfortunately.
12. Raymond Chen
Sorry Raymond, I hate science. If you want a higher ranking you should forget science.
13. Liam Kusalik
I think we need less science players in the circuit.
14. Max Gedajlovic
I’m like 0-10 against UBC in tournaments but only 1-1 against Lia in 1v1s. Coincidentally, I was 0-6 against Max Gedajlovic in 1v1s at one point. I think we all know who the real carry on UBC is.
15. Benjamin Chapman
Negged 5 times in one game against me once. Great guy. Above average Chapman knowledge. Knowing science keeps him from being ranked higher.
16. Jet Dong
More data required.
17. Kais Jessa
The quintessential AFA player. Unfortunately also knows some science.
18. Will Dawson
I might be criminally underranking Will, but I don’t really know who I’d put him over. He was a bit lower before Max set the narrative.
19. Yadu Kukenthiran
Who?
20. Andrew McCowan
Almost prevented Western from attending ICT.
21. Devan Greevy
Definitely saw me at Target but didn’t say hi.
22. Minh-Tuan Phung
Plays riichi mahjong instead of competition rules, so he’s lost all my respect.
23. Kane Nguyen
Kane’s impressive SCT performance is greatly diminished by his love of college sports.
24. Gaian Valdegamo
Definitely one to watch out for next year.
25. Parth Jagtap
Parth Jagtap

HM: Simone Valade, Nicholas Edwards, Zach Bernstein
Tony Chen
Western University '23
University of Toronto '26
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by MordecaiRickles »

0. Bob Gao
1. Henry Atkins (McGill) – Rathburn shmathburn
2. Lia Rathburn (UBC) – ICT powers aside it still seems pretty neck and neck, I reckon. Henry was considerably better last year and while it's obvious she's as good as him now I'm not convinced she's meaningfully better. At this rate Lia will be stupendous next year, though.
3. Kevin Fan (McGill) – Easiest ranking of the ballot. Maybe not the only candidate for third below nats difficulty, but too good at central asian politics to be lower.
4. Tony Chen (Western) – Alas, what can I say?
5. Cormac Beirne (McGill) – Every ordering of 4-7 looked wrong, mostly because I don’t think anyone is clearly the worst of the bunch. Tony can apparently only power D2 SCT but has a nasty habit of randomly getting half the tossups in a game, so I guess he has to go at the top. I don’t think me, Ian, or Sky could be too meaningfully ranked, so I’m mostly basing this order off of my impression of our head-to-heads this year and also off of my enormous ego.
6. Ian Chow (Toronto) – Pretty clearly better than me or Tony at NAQT, which I suck at. That’s only one or two tournaments a year, though, and I felt like I did marginally better across the non-NAQT stuff this year. Combined H2H scores had (I think??) me at 8/23/3 (335pts) vs Ian at 1/23/6 (215pts). Shrug.
7. Sky Li (Toronto) – Would be pretty easy to argue Sky is the best of the four of us if you wanted to (see COOT). Still, H2H this year I’m at 12/23/4 (390pts) vs Sky at 4/18/7 (205pts). Not a perfect metric, but it at least somewhat captures the vibes from our games this year. Still, seventh seems wrong.
8. Sam Hauer (UBC) – I do not really know Sam Hauer, but I sure as hell know a top-10 Slavoj Zizek impression when I hear one. That’s what we’re ranking, right?
9. Adrian Wong (McMaster) – Should play more. Pretty much Tony but with fewer 100-point games and more upsets over UBC. Also less chumpy.
10. Peter Wang (Waterloo) – Hard to rank since he only played two tournaments but much easier to rank than last year when he only played one tournament.
11. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo) – Was he always this good? Seems like the best science player in the circuit from the perspective of possibly the least qualified person to make that call. Also ranked above other good ones for the following reason(s): He does not go to Toronto.
12. Ben Chapman (Toronto) – How come science players never come to McGill? We have science, I think. Very good. Underrated half of the Ian/Ben duo.
13. Raymond Chen (Toronto) – Raymond’s buzzes always feel impressive. Often those impressive buzzes are negs, of course, but they’re impressive negs. Ranked below Ben because I think Ian and Sky are pretty close but Ian+Ben seems a stronger team than Sky+Raymond. Who knows?
14. Jet Dong (McGill) – Might be higher if he played ICT and/or something Regs-y.
15. Wenying Wu (Toronto) – Says pog too much.
16. Max Gedajlovic (UBC) – Got many tossups at D1 SCT and man those are for sure a top 2 question format imho.
17. Andrew McCowan (Queen's) – He did a JVN at Winter. I was right to rank him last year. Should play hard tournaments sometime.
18. Devan Greevy (McGill) – Will be missed when she heads off to law school next year to pursue her lifelong dream of defending huge corporations against workplace injury lawsuits.
19. Will Dawson (UBC) – How does one begin to rank Will Dawson? Seems better than Max when playing with Lia, but not as good as a lead scorer? Maybe?
20. Kais Jessa (McGill) – Slightly held back by how specialized his buzzing is, but also remember Penn Bowl? Probably better at nats than the 4-5 people above him.
21. Giorgio Karam (Manitoba!?) – Beat Akhil to bio and Daniel to philosophy at various points over the summer. Big bible knower. Eligible!
22. Yadu Kukenthiran (Western) – Ugh god, I just remembered about Western.
23. Kane Nguyen (McMaster) – SCT powers??
24. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo) – Gaian… Giorgio. Giorgio… Gaian.
25. Parth Jagtap (Toronto) – Who the heck is Parth Jagtap and why does he know Age of Innocence clues?
HMs: Abbey Wilson (Ot..West..Tor..The School of LIFE), who managed to both sabotage Western and pull one of the all-time great pranks on UofT in one fell swoop. Also Minh-Tuan Phung (McGill), Gabriel Clark (Ottawa), Simone Valade (Let's just say McGill), and Jack Van Nostrand (Queen's), who would obviously be third or fourth if he were actually eligible.


The First Annual Cormac Bei Memorial Ballot:
1. Nicholas Edwards
2. Max Gedladjvic
3. Henry Atkisn
4. Max /gæ'dædʒ.lɑː.vɪk/
5. Devin/Devon/Deven/Devun/Devyn/Dev'n
6. Kais Saied
7. Minh-Huy Phung
8. Legal Tender Thorlaksen
9. Jules Bump
10. Raymond Wang (Toronto)
Last edited by MordecaiRickles on Tue Apr 12, 2022 4:49 am, edited 4 times in total.
Cormac Beirne
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by IncompetentIdiot »

At some point there was a writeup but Nadia advised me that it very likely violated common decency, forum rules, and anti-terror legislation. You'll just have to come at me directly if you want me to justify my takes.

1. Henry Atkins
2. Lia Rathburn
3. Kevin Fan
4. Sky Li
5. Cormac Beirne
6. Ian Chow
7. Sam Hauer
8. Tony Chen
9. Adrian Wong
10. Peter Wang
11. Liam Kusalik
12. Ben Chapman
13. Raymond Chen
14. Jet Dong
15. Max Gedajlovic
16. William Dawson
17. Wenying Wu
18. Andrew McCowan
19. Kais Jessa
20. Devan Greevy
21. Giorgio Karam
22. Yadu Kukenthiran
23. Gaian Valdegamo
24. Kane Nguyen
25. Parth Jagtap

Maybe I'll do a rookie ballot if I find time to read up on Bob Gao.
Kevin Fan
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Gene Harrogate »

Community ballot, presented in arbitrary order. Notably, responsibility for hosting and organizing tournaments seems to have been a bit more spread out this year. That strikes me as a good thing.
  • Kevin Fan,who TD'd multiple tournaments and literally drafted this thread during our bye at ACF Nationals. I'm a big supporter of Mr. Fan.
  • Her Most Splendid and Serene Excellency Nadia Dakdouki, "the Lion of Gatineau," Eternal President of McGill Trivia, Generalissimo of Armies, and God-Empress of Laurentia, who took over running the novice server for me unasked when I burned out last year. Always willing to put staffing over playing, and always looking out for novices especially. A good friend to many.
  • Adrian Wong, for getting McMaster to host and play things. TD'd two tournaments!
  • Rico Catibog I don't remember the last time Rico missed staffing a tournament.
  • Aaron Dos Remedios, a staffing machine and level-headed presence.
  • Joe Su, the community GOAT, who still staffs everything.
  • Raymond Chen, who seems to be Toronto's main organizational force in circuit conversations. I'll also praise Raymond's teammates Ian Chow, Jamie Chow, Sky Li, Michelle Prunier, and Martin Profant here, who each directed a tournament.
  • Brendan Mckendy
  • Christine Irwin Two Ottawans who staff a lot despite rarely getting to play. Thanks Brendan and Christine--I think you both read games for me at 2015 Carleton novice.
  • Max Gedajlovic, another important part of circuit discussions (and, as I understand it, UBC's de facto VP external). Has laudibly good takes on most things.
I also want to recognize Russell Valerio, Meghan Torchia, Cormac Beirne, Colin Veevers, Dennis Beeby, Lia Rathburn, Carlos Doebeli, Zach Bernstein, and I'm sure some others that I've forgotten. Last place goes to the entire University of Toronto for what they've done to our discord server.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Liarr »

And in 1718, upon a question referred to all the judges by King George I, it was resolved by the opinion of ten against the other two, that the education and care of all the king's grandchildren while minors, and the care and approbation of their marriages, when grown up, did belong of right to his majesty as king of this realm, during their father's life.

1. Lia Rathburn (University of British Columbia)

"When you repeal the law itself, says he, you at the same time repeal the prohibitory clause, which guards against such repeal."

2. Henry Atkins (McGill University)

But this must be understood with regard to an interruption of the right; for an interruption of the possession only, for ten or twenty years, will not destroy the custom.

3. Ian Chow (University of Toronto)

As, in an action on the case upon an assumpsit for goods sold and delivered, the plaintiff usually counts or declares, first, upon a settled and agreed price between him and the defendant; as that they bargained for twenty pounds: and lest he should fail in the proof of this, he counts likewise upon a quantum valebant; that the defendant bought other goods, and agreed to pay him so much as they were reasonably worth; and then avers that they were worth other twenty pounds: and so on in three or four different shapes; and at last concludes with declaring that the defendant had refused to fulfil any of these agreements, whereby he is endamaged to such a value.

4. Kevin Fan (McGill University)

But, to obviate all doubts and difficulties concerning this matter, it is expressly declared by statute 12 & 13 W. III. c. 2. that "the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof; and all the kings and queens who shall ascend the throne of this realm ought to administer the government of the same according to the said laws; and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same; and therefore all the laws and statutes of this realm, for securing the established religion, and the rights and liberties of the people thereof, and all other laws and statutes of the same now in force, are by his majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal and commons, and by authority of the same, ratified and confirmed accordingly."

5. Sky Li (University of Toronto)

And now by the statute 5 Eliz. c. 15. the penalty for the first offence is a fine of 100l., and one year's imprisonment; for the second, forfeiture of all goods and chattels, and imprisonment during life.

6. Cormac Beirne (McGill University)

For not only the king's ecclesiastical character, as supreme ordinary, but also the species of the goods claimed, which bear so near a resemblance to those in the archdeaconry of Chester, which was an acknowledged mortuary, puts the matter out of dispute.

7. Tony Chen (University of Western Ontario)

Thus it happened between the earls of Hereford and Glocester in 20 Edw. I. who raised each a little army, and committed outrages upon each others lands, burning houses, attended with the loss of many lives: yet this was held to be no high treason, but only a great misdemesnor.

8. Sam Hauer (University of British Columbia)

As to the first, violation of safe-conducts or passports, expressly granted by the king or his embassadors to the subjects of a foreign power in time of mutual war; or, committing acts of hostility against such as are in amity, league, or truce with us, who are here under a general implied safe-conduct; these are breaches of the public faith, without the preservation of which there can be no intercourse or commerce between one nation and another: and such offences may, according to the writer upon the law of nations, be a just ground of a national war; since it is not in the power of the foreign prince to cause justice to be done by his subjects by the very individual delinquent, but he must require it of the whole community.

9. Adrian Wong (McMaster University)

To these succeeded the bill of rights, or declaration delivered by the lords and commons to the prince and princess of Orange 13 February 1688; and afterwards enacted in parliament, when they became king and queen; which declaration concludes in these remarkable words; "and they do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises, as their undoubted rights and liberties."

10. Raymond Chen (University of Toronto)

Such as poaching, exportation of wool, and the like.

11. Peter Wang (University of Waterloo)

So that now the sheriff does all the king's business in the county; and thought he be still called vice-comes, yet he is entirely independent of, and not subject to the earl; the king by his letters patent committing custodiam comitatus [the custody of the country] to the sheriff, and him alone.

12. Wenying Wu (University of Toronto)

But in such a case he is permitted to kill the assailant; for there the law of nature, and self-defence its primary canon, have made him his own protector.

13. Will Dawson (University of British Columbia)

In like manner by the Roman law to cut down trees, and especially vines, was punished in the same degree as robbery.

14. Ben Chapman (University of Toronto)

It remains therefore that I consider.

15. Jet Dong (McGill University)

For since in laws all cases cannot be foreseen or expressed, it is necessary, that when the general decrees of the law come to be applied to particular cases, there should be somewhere a power vested of excepting those circumstances, which (had they been foreseen) the legislator himself would have excepted.

16. Max Gedajlovic (University of British Columbia)

These distinctions are now in a manner forgotten, except by the officers immediately concerned in this department; their produce being in effect all blended together, under the one denomination of the customs.

17. Liam Kusalik (University of Waterloo)

For, besides the scutages they were liable to in defect of personal attendance, which however were assessed by themselves in parliament, they might be called upon by the king or lord paramount for aids, whenever his eldest son was to be knighted, or his eldest daughter married; not to forget the ransom of his own person.

18. Devan Greevy (McGill University)

Christianity being thus deformed by the daemon of persecution upon the continent, we cannot expect that our own island should be entirely free from the same scourge.

19. Yadu Kukenthiran (University of Western Ontario)

The king therefore, in case a peer be indicted of treason, felony, or misprision, creates a lord high steward pro hac vice by commission under the great seal; which recites the indictment so found, and gives his grace power to receive and try it secundam legem et consuetudinem Angliae [by the law and custom of England].

20. Kais Jessa (McGill University)

And by statue 17 Geo. II. c. 39. it is enacted, that if any of the sons of the pretender shall land or attempt to land in this kingdom, or be found in Great Britain, or Ireland, or any of the dominions belonging to the same, he shall be judged attainted of high treason, and suffer the pains thereof.

21. Gaian Valdegamo (University of Waterloo)

Also peers of the realm, bringing an appeal, shall not be challenged to wage battel, on account of the dignity of their persons; nor the citizens of London, by special charter, because fighting seems foreign to their education and employment.

22. Kane Nguyen (McMaster University)

And, since it may thus commence in futuro, there is no need of a particular estate to support it; the only use of which is to make the remainder, by its unity with the particular estate, a present interest.

23. Parth Jagtap (University of Toronto)

And, of frank-tenements, some are held freely in consideration of homage and knight-service; others in free-socage with the service of fealty only."

24. Simone Valade (McGill University)

The cause is then ripe to be set down for hearing, which may be done at the procurement of the plaintiff, or defendant, before either the lord chancellor or the master of the rolls, according to the discretion of the clerk in court, regulated by the nature and importance of the suit, and the arrear of cause depending before each of them respectively.

25. Andrew McCowan (Queen's University at Kingston)

Queen Elizabeth, and the intermediate princes of the Tudor line, had almost the same legal powers, and sometimes exerted them as roughly, as their father king Henry the eighth.

A list, which no friend to his country would wish to see farther encreased.
Lia Rathburn
Eric Hamber Secondary School '16
Langara College '18
University of British Columbia '20, '23

"I've decided I'm going to retire from playing to card full-time." - Milan Fernandez
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Gene Harrogate »

No schtick this year because my machine-learning-generated poll didn't pan out.
  1. Lia Rathburn: “I'm generally more impressed when someone knows a lot about boring ancient stuff than when someone knows a lot about regular stuff (or even fun stuff).” Congratulations on the great year Lia.
  2. Henry Atkins: An honest bit of self-assessment: I think I play pretty similarly against most competition, which is both a strength and a weakness (at ICT it meant that we had similar kinds of losses to both top-bracket and bottom-bracket teams, and didn’t finish very well). Lia’s well-roundedness means she faces that problem less, I think. But I also think I still improved from last year, and I'm proud of my first (and last) nats season.
  3. Kevin Fan: Kevin’s a baller. He buzzed early and often at Nats (mostly in world history). A linguistics/computer science double major, which means his knowledge of languages is unparalleled.
  4. Cormac Beirne: I reckon the value of having one of Cormac, Ian, Sky and Tony versus the others comes down entirely to context. I therefore choose to exercise my God-given rights as an American and put Cormac at number 4 (sorry, commies!). Cormac keeps McGill’s long streak of having the best VFA player in the circuit alive. Workshop. Java.
  5. Ian Chow: Did you know Ian was Toronto's fourth scorer at last year's Regionals? Honestly, I think I fear Ian more than Lia. Great guy, great taste in music.
  6. Tony Chen: Phoney Chen is the most complete player in the circuit apart from Lia, which means he can always get points in the other team's worst category. Especially when the other team's worst category is "mawashi"---A certified Cornell-killer. Do I feel bad for labeling Tony a chump? Nah.
  7. Sky Li: Sky was probably the third-best player during last year's Summer open season. Arguably better than Ian, but I trust the Toronto players.
  8. Adrian Wong: Good. Similar to Tony, hard to rank compared to more shadowed players.
  9. Sam Hauer: oi bruv u wont sum scoring. Sam Hauer would be third on my fear ballot because 1) he knows a lot about political philosophy and 2) his clutch buzzing denied McGill B a finals appearance at the DII SCT in 2018. The only player to make me stop reading from laughter.
  10. Will Dawson: High proportion of buzzes he should be ashamed of knowing, which is why he’s good at NAQT.
  11. Raymond Chen: Belligerent. A top literature player on the circuit, maybe the best at world literature. I first played Raymond at the 2015 ACF Fall in a game that finished 280-270.
  12. FIDE Master Max Gedajlovic: Similar player in buzzing style to Adrian and Tony but plays with Lia. Goes below Will I think only because mostly going off marginal value to a team at a 3-4 dot tournament. High upset potential from late-clue mastery.
  13. Ben Chapman: It's been mentioned that Ben negs too much sometimes, but his ability to scale as a specialist was evident at ACF Nationals. A top player and community fixture for many years to come, I'm sure. Still, do attendees of Hunter College High School get to count as first years?
  14. Liam Kusalik: Points for impressive efforts as an anchor. Might be the best all around science player?
  15. Peter Wang I'm going to impute some scaling ability to the notoriously hermetic Peter Wang despite lack of data, because of his buzzing style. Clowned on McGill at 2020 Regionals and the ARCADIA prelims.
  16. Jet Dong: Jet was great at Winter but I can’t really rank him higher when he doesn’t play anything harder. I hope Jet chooses to play more, because he really is very good and likely to scale well with a bit of experience.
  17. Wenying Wu Wenying unfortunately gets pushed down in this very close group thanks to her narrowish specialization. Still, I have no doubt Wenying would do well at a four dot tournament thanks to having randomly read The Blind Owl or something.
  18. Devan Greevy Improved a ton in the past year! Another very good literature specialist, especially on American and Latin American stuff. Giving Wenying the benefit of the doubt here for playing on strong Toronto teams, but Devan's stats have been quite good.
  19. Kais Jessa Kais has the best 1/1 in the circuit and has been another strong supporting player. Might've been higher on this list if we got to see how he could do at 4 dot level. A genuinely funny guy.
  20. Andrew McCowan I wanted to rank Andrew higher for his strong Winter performance, but there's unfortunately not a lot of data on him. I hope he gets a chance to play ICT next year.
  21. Kane Ngyuen You probably know Kane as a lockdown plant bio-getter, but did you also know he has deep knowledge of contemporary art? Also, a real nice goofball.
  22. Gaian Valdegamo It's really lame that I can't find room for Gaian higher, because he is a very impressive player with a lot of good general knowledge about the world--which is why, for instance, he crushed Erik's immigration pack at MacVanity. With a little more knowledge of core 2-dot quizbowl canon, I predict high finishes for Gaian in the future.
  23. Yadu Kukenthiran Another guy who feels like he should be higher. Has the unfortunate job of being a specialist in the most competitive 4/4 on the circuit, but does it well.
  24. Giorgio Karam Great debut at the summer opens, and good performance at DII SCT. Firstlined lots of philosophy and bio at online practices, I hope he can make it to some in-person stuff.
  25. Parth Jagtap Crushes 1-2 dot stuff, so makes it on the list. Feels like he's improved a lot recently. Calls football "handegg" though so doesn't get to be higher than 25.
Also, shoutouts to Simone Valade, a good bio player and #trashgod who stepped in to make our Nats team happen; Nadia Dakdouki, a great myth-knower whose attitude kept us going at ICT; Gabriel Clark, who barely missed eligibility; Jack van Nostrand, who only played one tournament but would likely be #3; Nicolas Edwards, a genies en herbe superstar and NAQT-killer in the making; Minh-Tuan Phung, who is number 26; Jacob Van Oorschot, who knows many impressive science things; Martin Profant, a very impressive bio/chem player; and Russell Valerio, a good NAQT player who heroically sacrificied his last SCT to fill our staffing shortage. Also Bob and Lauren on Western, who were very fun to hang out with.
Last edited by Gene Harrogate on Wed Apr 13, 2022 2:35 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Liarr »

A belated push, but in view of the threat of B-K5 White can do nothing else.

1. Ben Chapman (University of Toronto)

Compare these two diagrams, for instance. On the left is the position after the 14th move in a variation of the Queen's Gambit that for a long time was very fashionable in tournaments abroad. There is little life in this position, and it is not hard to foresee that the game will most likely end in a draw.

2. Nicolas Edwards (McGill University)

The continuation 7...P-K5 8 B-B2, Kt-K4 9 P-QR3, B x Ktch 10 Kt x B, Kt x BP 11 Kt x P favours White, who receives more operational scope for his pieces.

3. Giorgio Karam (University of Manitoba)

A typical picture of attacks on different flanks. But Black has already started his onslaught whereas White, it might seem, is still mustering his forces.

4. David Snoddon (University of Toronto)

A bold move, although it creates weaknesses in White's position. Novotelnov correctly reasoned that it weakens Black still more.

5. John Chen (University of British Columbia)

White does not like the continuations 19 B x Kt, P x B 20 Kt x P, QR-Q1 21 Kt x Bch, R x Kt, or 19 Kt x Kt, P x Kt 20 B x P, B x B 21 R x B, Kt-B5, or 21...Q-B7 with active play for Black (at the price of a Pawn, true). The text move, however, is unsatisfactory.

6. James Ah Yong (University of Waterloo)

The following position is from the Tolush v. Mikenas game in the 18th U.S.S.R. Championship. With White threatening 31 B x R or 31 B-Q5ch Black's position seems absolutely hopeless. Mikenas discovers a way of complicating the battle, however.

7. Joyce Xi (University of British Columbia)

To meet the varied demands of rank-and-file players, Soviet chess organizations are also publishing special books and pamphlets on chess problems. Works by such masters of composition as Troitsky, Kubbel, and Platov have become classics. Noteworthy books by Gulyayev, Gerbtsman, Umnov and Kolman, those connoisseurs of chess composition, as well as collections of problems and end-game studies, have been published.

8. Russell Nip (University of British Columbia)

In recognition of his tournament success, F.I.D.E. conferred the title of International Master on him.

9. Lauren Stoyles (University of Western Ontario)

Her first international performance was in the 1952 Tournament in Moscow. In that difficult battle with the best women players of the world she showed a good understanding of position, excellent play in the opening, and an ability to exploit material advantages. She finished with 10 1/2 points out of 15, in a tie for second place with Fanny Heemskerk, the Dutch champion.

10. Elena Bai (McGill University)

Still worse is 23 Kt-K2, Rx P or 23 Q-Q3, B x B 24 Q x Q, Kt-K6ch, winning a piece.


The text move threatens nothing and defends nothing.
Lia Rathburn
Eric Hamber Secondary School '16
Langara College '18
University of British Columbia '20, '23

"I've decided I'm going to retire from playing to card full-time." - Milan Fernandez
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Liarr »

I heard he presented Hygd with a gorget, the priceless torque that the prince's daughter, Wealhtheow, had given him; and three horses, supple creatures, brilliantly saddled.

Carlos Doebeli (University of British Columbia)

Nowhere, they said, north or south between the two seas or under the tall sky on the broad earth was there anyone better to raise a shield or to rule a kingdom.

Max Gedajlovic (University of British Columbia)

Then his rage boiled over, he ripped open the mouth of the building, maddening for blood, pacing the length of the patterned floor with his loathsome tread, while a baleful light, flame more than light, flared from his eyes.

Adrian Wong (McMaster University)

He was bearing in with open claw when the alert hero's comeback and armlock forestalled him utterly.

Ega Cheung (University of Waterloo)

Quickly the one who haunted those waters, who had scavenged and gone her gluttonous rounds for a hundred seasons, sensed a human observing her outlandish lair from above.

Ian Chow (University of Toronto)

And the Geat placed complete trust in his strength of limb and the Lord's favour.

Jamie Chow (University of Toronto)

The hoard is laid bare, but at a grave cost.

Martin Profant (University of Toronto)

They suffered a terrible severance from the Lord.

Michelle Prunier (University of Toronto)

I have heard it said by my people in hall, counsellors who live in the upland country, that they have seen two such creatures prowling the moors, huge marauders from some other world.

Henry Atkins (McGill University)

Shield had fathered a famous son.

Nadia Dakdouki (McGill University)

Hard-edged blades, hammered out and keenly filed, had finished him so that the sky-roamer lay there rigid, brought low beside the treasure-lodge.


They are fatherless creatures, and their whole ancestry is hidden in a past of demons and ghosts.
Lia Rathburn
Eric Hamber Secondary School '16
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University of British Columbia '20, '23

"I've decided I'm going to retire from playing to card full-time." - Milan Fernandez
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by benchapman »

1. Lia Rathburn (University of British Columbia)
Before ICT, I didn’t really know who to put first, but probably would have put Lia first anyway just because she played more. However, after Lia’s ICT performance, it’s impossible to rank her anywhere else even though Henry also played great. She was 5th overall scorer and got 25 powers (second in the field) while leading UBC to an amazing 9th place finish in DI. Very very strong at history, with great generalism and can even get a non-trivial amount of science.
2. Henry Atkins (McGill University)
I think this rounds out a pretty clear top 2. Henry only played ARCADIA, Regionals, ICT, and Nats, but in those tournaments demonstrated a habit of consistently getting lots of tossups.
3. Kevin Fan (McGill University)
I’m a fan. In all seriousness though, Kevin putting up over 20 PPG at Nationals while playing with Henry (who mirrors his categories) probably gets him this spot on its own. He also showed at easier difficulties that he has very strong generalism, such as top scoring at MRNA Vaccine.
4. Ian Chow (University of Toronto)
I’ve played a lot with Ian this year and have got to appreciate his skill at quizbowl. He’s strongest at history and geography, but also is a pretty good lit player and can buzz across the distribution. This made him a very useful teammate, especially on NAQT, such that he was the second overall scorer at both SCT and DII ICT. He also had a very strong Regionals, putting up about 45 PPG with really good teammates on a team that cleared the field.
5. Sky Li (University of Toronto)
Rounding out my top 5 is future ATC president Sky Li. I was aware of how good he was at fine arts and his strength as a generalist, but when I played with him at Nationals, I also got to see how much history he got. They get bonus points in my book for being a dual citizen like me, but lose them all because they’re from Boston.
6. Cormac Beirne (McGill University)
Strongest at VFA, but also knows a lot of history and is a good generalist. He has an utterly baffling distaste for questions by National Academic Quiz Tournaments though.
7. Tony Chen (University of Western Ontario)
This is harsh on Tony because he has better breadth than Sky and Cormac. That being said, I think that both of them have deeper specialties than Tony and also tend to play with better/more teammates.
8. Sam Hauer (University of British Columbia)
As a history-based player, Sam’s buzzing rate is significantly depressed by sitting next to Lia, who is at this point one of the best history players in quizbowl. However, he showed at MRNA that he can get a lot of questions when he’s not being omegashadowed by Lia. He’s also a strong music player, and has deep accent knowledge as well.
9. Raymond Chen (University of Toronto)
Part 1 of Toronto’s Terrific Twosome on Lit. He had a strong Nationals performance on that category and is also one of, if not the, best bio players in Canada.
10. Adrian Wong (McMaster University)
He usually plays shorthanded, but combines a strong humanities base with some impressive early buzzes in lit and history. Conservative almost to a fault on the buzzer though, as shown by his very low neg counts.
11. Wenying Wu (University of Toronto)
The other part of Toronto Lit (aka Toronto A). I think she scales up a bit better than Raymond on hard lit (because she does stuff like reading books), but I put Raymond above her because his bio is stronger than Wenying’s secondary categories.
12. Liam Kusalik (University of Waterloo)
In my view, Liam is the best overall science player in Canada, and seems to be particularly strong in physical/other science (a man after my own heart). Also a pretty decent generalist, as he showed at tournaments like HARI when he wasn't playing with Peter.
13. Peter Wang (University of Waterloo)
Waterloo are a tough team to play, and that is in no small part due to Peter’s generalism and good lit knowledge. He also seems to excel at getting "real knowledge" buzzes. Had an impressive performance at ARCADIA that led Waterloo to a deserved win.
14. Benjamin Chapman (University of Toronto)
I think I had a fairly strong Regionals, but followed it up with a really ugly 24-neg WORKSHOP performance (the nadir of which was the 0/2/5 game I had against Western that Tony mentioned). I’m ok as a generalist at 2-dots (MRNA) but beyond that I pretty narrowly stick to my main categories of non-bio science and music (especially at Nationals).
15. William Dawson (University of British Columbia)
I haven’t played against Will a ton this year, but he seems to be one of those players who improves a lot on NAQT questions. He moved up a couple of spots in my ranking for his very strong DI ICT performance in the second playoff bracket.
16. Max Gedajlovic (University of British Columbia)
A common theme with the UBC players is that it’s hard to evaluate them considering Lia’s shadow. However, I feel pretty comfortable ranking Max here considering his stats while playing with Lia, who’s also quite good lit player. Also has some decent generalism that he showed at MRNA. He and Ian should play a baseball tournament together at some point.
17. Kais Jessa (McGill University)
Has the best 1/1 in the circuit in music, but also seems to have good other science/physics knowledge which I gather is useful on a McGill team that otherwise doesn’t have that much coverage there.
18. Jet Dong (McGill University)
Jet’s good, especially at low difficulties (see: Winter), but it’s hard to rank him higher considering how little he’s played this year.
19. Kane Nguyen (McMaster University)
Had a good SCT, in no doubt due to the large amount of sports. Also has some good science knowledge, making him an effective teammate for Adrian.
20. Devan Greevy (McGill University)
A strong literature specialist that also has some generalism that shines when she isn't being shadowed by people like Cormac or at lower difficulties (see: her leading the McGill team at ACF Fall that beat us). It's a real shame she's from Massachusetts though.
21. Parth Jagtap (University of Toronto)
Very glad I could include Parth here, as he's been a fun teammate to play with this year. A good lit player, he also will get several very early buzzes on RM content per tournament and has good econ knowledge.
22. Yadu Kukenthiran (University of Western Ontario)
Good supporting player for Tony. Seems to have good history/geography knowledge that shines on NAQT questions, but also I think scales up better than a lot of people in this part of the ranking. Dominated the consolation bracket of Fall, so there's probably a good deal of generalism there that would shine more if Tony weren't there.
23. Andrew McCowan (Queen's University)
This may be a bit low considering Andrew's stats, but I think he falls off when playing harder questions and better teams. That being said, his scoring numbers are still impressive and demonstrate that he has good generalism. If it were easy to score as much as Andrew, more people would be doing so.
24. Gaian Valdegamo (University of Waterloo)
Strong performance at HARI (10 powers) and did well on the Waterloo team that won ARCADIA. Looks to have deep arts knowledge.
25. Giorgo Karam (University of Manitoba)
Haven't seen him play, but seemed to score well at SCT.

I'd also like to shout out a couple of my teammates this year who were close to making it.
Martin Profant has some of the best biology knowledge in the circuit and scales very well. He's also saved me from many an embarrassing neg.
Not only is David Snoddon a strong lit player (especially for a first year), he is a much better generalist than you would see from his stats. Ian shadows him a lot, yet he's still able to produce great buzzes and be a good team player on bonuses. Both Martin and David (and Ian also) were very fun teammates to play with at ICT.

My ranking of housewrite names this year:
1. Winter Closed
While it sadly won't happen until next season, Winter Closed was the best set name this year. It described when it would happen correctly (more than can be said for ACF Winter) and succinctly communicated the eligibility requirements. Simple and clear. 10/10.
2. Illinois Open
Illinois Open is good for the same reason Winter Closed is. The difference is that this time, we are given the geography of the group producing it, not when it will happen. Loses a point for possibly being a superset of Chicago Open. 9/10.
3. WORKSHOP
I don't actually know whether WORKSHOP stands for anything and can't be bothered to check. However, it again manages to convey the purpose of the set (as a way to help new writers gain experience). Still a bit cutesy though. 7/10.
4. ARCADIA
This is where things start to get a bit dicier. This name doesn't tell you anything at all. Is it written by people at Arcadia HS in California? Is it a play on words and we are supposed to "aid" an "ark"? Nobody knows. 4/10.
5. HARI
Literally named after a guy. Gets points though for being recursive. 3/10. At least it's better than...
6. MRNA VACCINE
While this was a fun set to play, its name is unquestionably the worst. It combines an incredibly contrived acronym with the opportunity to make loads of truly dreadful jokes. Is it supposed to make you feel sick for a day or two after you play it? 0/10.

Finally, I just wanted to say that it was a highlight of the season for me to meet everyone at ICT (and Kevin at Nationals). Hopefully we don't have an Upsilon variant that prevents us from playing in-person next year.

Rookie ballot to follow.
Benjamin Chapman
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

I don't want to write a full on community ballot this year, but I would like to praise Toronto for having a different Tournament Director for each tournament they hosted this year, giving many younger members of their club an opportunity to perform successfully in a leadership role.
Joe Su, OCT
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by skewit »

This would have been a lot more sentimental and genuine if I was leaving the circuit this year but y’all are stuck with me with at least two more years unless Raymond bullies me out of quizbowl so this is what you get. Apologies to anyone who dislikes their cloud type, consider becoming less like that cloud.

1. Lia Rathburn
Lia good. The terrifying thing about Lia is how quickly she improves; Gareth was telling us at Nats about seeing her improve from around his level to clearly better within the span of a single summer. Very occasionally will neg herself into oblivion, but I’d take that tradeoff for putting up 2/7/0 on Chicago A. If she ever decides to learn anything about CS or AFA, I may quit quizbowl on the spot. Lia reminds me of a nimbostratus cloud.

2. Henry Atkins
This was closer between Henry and Lia than I thought it’d be at first; second in prelim scoring and first in combined scoring at D1 ICT is no small feat, and he followed that by putting up 40 ppg at Nats. Henry will be greatly missed next year, for his general presence on the circuit as well as for his playing. Henry reminds me of a cumulonimbus cloud.

3. Kevin Fan
Unfortunately, I am not a Big Kevin Fan, as Raymond beat me to it. I would consider myself a medium-sized Kevin Fan due to my fear of Kevin Fan. Kevin reminds me of a cumulonimbus incus cloud.

4. Ian Chow
Ian Chow. Ian is probably the deepest of this tier of generalists on the circuit, always in contention on history and the non-biochem sciences as well as a good chunk of PSS and Lit. Obviously had amazing performances at ICT and Regionals, as well as day 1 of Nats. Also told me the funniest joke I’ve ever heard at Nats. Ian reminds me of a cumulus cloud.

5. Cormac Beirne
Cormac has been the leading scorer on a variety of McGill teams this year and tends to demolish me personally on VFA and history, which absolutely in no way influenced my ranking of him. Unfortunately, on full McGill teams he tends to get ubershadowed by both Henry and Kevin, which can depress his numbers. Cormac reminds me of a floccus cloud.

6. Sky Li
I like to think that I’ve gotten a lot better at scaling up this year, though I still have pretty glaring holes in VFA and I end up just praying that something that came up in my classes gets clued most of the time on history tossups. I remind myself of :cloud:.

7. Sam Hauer
Sam, despite still being a traitor, is a very strong AFA, history, and SS/Phil player who has the unfortunate circumstance of always playing on the same team as Lia, who covers almost all of the same categories. His performance at MRNA without Lia is much more in line with what I think his true ability is (i.e. closer to his ability to pull accents out of nowhere). Sam reminds me of a castellanus cloud.

8. Tony Chen
Tony Chen is a man of vision, vigor, and generosity. Tony Chen has led me in the past 18 years. These all are like a valuable backpack on my road ahead. I tend to value Tony’s generalism less than others I think, but he does still have extremely good specialist bases in bio/lit. My view of Tony may be slightly impacted by the fact that I play with Raymond, who (unfortunately for Tony) tends to be stronger at bio and lit. Tony reminds me of a lenticularis cloud.

9. Adrian Wong
I still haven’t managed to pin down Adrian’s knowledge base but he gets early buzzes across all of the humanities it seems. I find it extremely amusing how he seems to basically have stayed at HARI until he could dunk on Tony and then dip. Adrian reminds me of an altocumulus cloud.

10. Raymond Chen
I’ve played every tournament this year with Raymond, and, just like last year, it’s so nice being able to completely tune out on lit and bio questions; despite not buzzing on like 60% of questions, he’ll basically immediately guarantee a consistent 20-30+ ppg across all levels, including Nats; most impressively, he got 3 out of 4 lit against Texas A and on average got us more than half of the lit in every round, with an extremely high chance of nabbing us some biochem as well; unfortunately, Raymond also sucks and is a big meanie; Raymond reminds me of a congestus cloud.

11. Wenying Wu
Wenying’s lit knowledge is extremely deep because she actually like, engages with the source material or something lame like that, though she does have random holes occasionally on stuff she doesn’t care about. She also has extremely good knowledge on religion and myth from binging random Bible videos apparently and will buzz on phil/ss whenever she happens to have read Derrida or whoever for Shaun Ross that week. Also generally fairly willing to get dragged to get groceries, which is quite nice, even though she bullies me the entire time. Wenying reminds me of a humilis cloud.

12. Benjamin “deez nuts” Chapman
I’d put Ben as the best overall science player on the circuit (though he has some stiff competition in Liam) and easily one of the best AFA players, but Ben also has extremely good generalism built up from 5 years of high school quizbowl that means he’s a threat to buzz pre-ftp basically anywhere. Despite worries that he wouldn’t scale up, Ben was consistently getting great buzzes across the sciences at Nats (!!!). He does like his negs though. Ben deez nuts reminds me of a fractus cloud.

13. Peter Wang
If Peter had played more, I could easily see myself moving him up a few spots. Similar to Adrian in that I still have no idea exactly where his strengths in the humanities lie, but he gets a lot of good buzzes anyway, so who am I to judge. Waterloo’s win, with him leading the way, at ARCADIA was probably the most impressive regular season tournament run of the year. Peter reminds me of a cirrostratus cloud.

14. William Dawson
Will also hasn’t played much this year, but apparently destroys NAQT questions, which is borne out well by SCT and ICT. Will reminds me of an uncinus cloud.

15. Kais Jessa
Apparently, it is possible for Kais to be beaten to music questions, but I’m not convinced Ben isn’t just messing with me. Having such a deep specialty makes Kais a good fit for any team from 2-dot to Nats+ level, and he regularly picks up points outside of AFA too. For totally unselfish reasons, I’d love to see him come back to play next year. Kais reminds me of a cumulus congestus cloud with tuba.

16. Max Gedajlovic
Max is quite good at the whole buzzing thing, which is a very useful skill to have. Seems to have filled out his lit specialization with more generalism, which can only be a positive. Max reminds me of a stratocumulus cloud.

17. Liam Kusalik
Behind Ben, definitely the scariest science player on the circuit, but as with Peter, didn’t show up to as many events as other people unfortunately. His 28ppg at regionals (right behind me and only 4ppg behind Peter!) is extremely good at the hardest event he played at. Liam reminds me of a fibratus cloud.

18. Jet Dong
Jet would probably be higher if he played anything above Winter difficulty but as is there’s too many people who’ve definitely shown they can do well at higher difficulties. That said, his Winter and SCT performances were extremely impressive. Jet reminds me of contrails.

19. Devan Greevy
It’s great that Devan is from Massachusetts, but less great that Devan is so good on lit that she terrifies Raymond every time we play her. Devan reminds me of a nebulosus cloud.

20. Yadu Kukenthiran
Yadu is a great history player and a very good complement to Tony – I’m mildly surprised that I had to rank him this low; this whole stretch was brutal to try and fit everyone in. Yadu reminds me of a undulatus cloud.

21. Gaian Valdegamo
Very good VFA player who seems to also have a decent handle on other subjects as well. Gaian reminds me of a spissatus cloud.

22. Andrew McCowan
I haven’t seen Andrew play much but he had extremely good performances at SCT to lead Queen’s to top bracket and Winter, and just generally seems like a nice guy. Andrew reminds me of a cirrus cloud.

23. Kane Nguyen
I’m perpetually impressed by Kane’s willingness to solo / play on shorthanded teams to fill out a field if needed. Generally has good VFA + Bio knowledge, with a solid ability to do more generalism when needed. Kane reminds me of a volutus cloud.

24. Giorgio Karam
I’ve also barely played Giorgio but his SCT performance and some vague memories of him dunking on my team at summer opens makes me feel comfortable ranking him. Giorgio reminds me of a stratiformis cloud.

25. Simone Valade
Very good at bio and gets additional points for coming to Toronto next year 🥳. Simone reminds me of a vertebratus cloud.


Honourable mentions to the Torontonians who unfortunately just barely missed the cut: Parth Jagtap, Martin Profant, and David Snoddon. Parth has extremely good generalism at lower levels and can draw on belief/lit knowledge at higher levels, though he still has some trouble scaling. Parth reminds me of a lacunosus cloud. Martin is definitely one of the deepest life science players on the circuit and occasionally gets surprise buzzes elsewhere as well. Martin reminds me of a radiatus cloud. David’s improvement has been one of the most impressive feats I’ve seen from someone who didn’t play quizbowl before this year, and he also has extremely good (if often shadowed) generalism alongside his genuinely deep lit knowledge. David reminds me of a perlucidus cloud.


I’d also like to rank Toronto’s styles of scorekeeping:

1. Sky Li
Clearly indicates each team’s score, tossup answerlines, which team got each tossup, and individual scoring. Internationally acclaimed.

2. Ben Chapman
Doesn’t indicate which team got each tossup at a glance but does track bonus answerlines. Solid scorekeeping method overall, but could be improved by explicitly marking tossup values, dropping bonus answerlines in favour of checks and x’s, separating the page into halves for each team, moving the running score to the middle of the page, and keeping individual statlines at the bottom of the page, preferably with some pithy acronym using the first letters of each person on the team.

3. Raymond Chen
Loses points because he doesn’t actually keep score. Keeping track of identifiers is a good idea though.

4. Wenying Wu
“they said the score and i forgot immediately lol” – Wenying “tothefighthouse” Wu, October 23 2021, 6:06 PM ET

Community and rookie ballots are incoming eventually hopefully idk I should probably be finishing my thesis or an essay or something right now.
Last edited by skewit on Wed Apr 13, 2022 1:13 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by benchapman »

benchapman wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 8:29 pm Rookie ballot to follow.
I know my top 7 are the same as Max's but I came up with these independently. Either that or he did a great job setting the narrative.

1. Benjamin Chapman (University of Toronto)
2. Giorgo Karam (University of Manitoba)
3. David Snoddon (University of Toronto)
I think David has flown under the radar as a rookie because he didn't play the traditional novice events of either Collegiate Novice or Boilermaker. That said, the reason he didn't play those events were because he was too good for the intended purpose already, so I'm inclined to rate him above people who were eligible and put up impressive stats. I think he's also shown a greater ability to contribute to a strong team, such as at SCT/DII ICT. Even though he's being shadowed by top-4 player Ian Chow in his categories, he'll still put up some really impressive lit buzzes and always is able to pull something that the rest of us can't on bonuses. Definitely someone to watch out for in the future.
4. Nicolas Edwards (McGill University)
I ended up reading a couple of games at Collegiate Novice because someone couldn't make it until 12, and in one of those games I remember seeing Nicolas get something like half of the tossups and thinking "This guy looks like he'll be good". He also had a good SCT, leading McGill C into the top bracket and finishing 6th overall scorer. Doesn't scale up amazingly yet, but that's expected for someone in their first year making the switch from Génies en herbe to pyramidal quizbowl.
5. Cole Franklin (University of Toronto)
Cole top scoring at Boilermaker on its own probably puts him here. However, he's also shown an ability to contribute to stronger teams at regular season events. He had a good Fall while playing with David and me, and was the only one of us to know anything about "eating hot wings". He also impressed me at HARI when I played with him with his good math and philosophy knowledge (even though I was a bad teammate and negged him out of 3 or 4 of those questions). Has decent physics knowledge that would probably shine more when he's not playing with me.
6. Albert Li (University of Toronto)
Albert also had a strong Boilermaker. He has good history knowledge and is a player who also seems to align well with the NAQT distribution/question writing style. In particular, he knows a lot of American history and is quickly improving, such is his dedication to the "pk-bot-1" channel on the UofT QB server.

After here I couldn't come up with a super clear order and hadn't seen these players as much, so the next 4 players are all pretty close to each other.
7. John Chen (University of British Columbia)
Had a strong performance at Collegiate Novice, and also was getting over 10 PPG on Regionals while playing with Will.
8. Russel Nip (University of British Columbia)
Almost doubled his scoring from Collegiate Novice to SCT. He also was able to power chemistry at HARI, even though at the stacked playtest mirror apparently only two (2) people were able to do so.
9. Elena Bai (McGill University)
Got some really impressive buzzes on literature when I read for McGill at Boilermaker.
10. James Ah Yong (University of Waterloo)
Haven't seen him play that much, but has had strong stats at SCT and regular-season events, especially for a rookie.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by MRP77 »

I would like to open with a short introduction, given that despite completing my third year of quizbowl, I think I have been relatively quiet on the circuit. So, I am Martin and I am completing my third year at the University of Toronto, studying immunology and pathobiology. I did Reach for the Top in high school and my school (Port Credit Secondary School) was quite good, but no match for the competitiveness of the GTA and thus we were not very successful. I joined quizbowl in first year and found it very enjoyable (even more so than Reach) and have since dedicated nearly 1000 hours to it. Quizbowl has given me a lot, from a casual club to play and have fun after a long day of classes all the way to a community and a group of friends who I can banter with and ask for advice. Quizbowl has given me a lot and for that reason I have begun to try and give back to the community that so kindly took me in: I have staffed a tournament and even TD’ed WORKSHOP, and now I am doing this poll. I think this poll offers a chance of reflection and well-spirited debate among what is a close knit community. I hope my opinions will be taken well and offer players some much deserved praise and perhaps some pointers for areas to improve. I spent a long while thinking about how to make this objective, but I could come up with anything, so I decided that if it is going to be subjective, no use in hiding it. With that in mind, I tried to rank players very holistically using statistics, personal impressions, opinions of others on the circuit, team successes, and even team leadership (though it does not determine a players skill I believe it is a valuable asset for any team). I think I may have been biased towards players I played with or saw most often, which I think is natural and difficult to eliminate; if it comes at your expense I apologize and all the more motivation for next year I suppose.

Edit: I decided to assign everyone an element that fits their quizbowl play or role in the community. Hope you enjoy!

1. Henry Atkins (McGill)
This ranking was an extremely tough call between Henry and Lia. Both players are very strong and a true menace to play against. I think Henry’s play at Nationals and DI ICT were very impressive and he came in as top scorer at Regionals. We can discuss Henry’s incredible play all day. However, for me he gets the top spot because of the intangibles. In the summer I played with him on a very strong team and his team leadership impressed me. Additionally, he has been a foundation in the Canadian quizbowl circuit, all the way from sparking conversation in the discord to doing stats for players in the past years, and even inviting us to his room and to dinner during ICT. He made the circuit a welcoming and fun place to be. Now what does this have to do with quizbowl player skill? Probably nothing. Could this have gone in the community poll? Probably. However, as Henry departs on to great endeavors, I feel that as a token of my appreciation I must give him the top spot one last time.
Element: Carbon (C) - the element of life, like how Henry really was the life of the circuit for many years.

2. Lia Rathburn (UBC)
As mentioned, ranking Lia second is by nearly all measures an injustice. So I won’t try to justify it beyond what I have already said for Henry. Lia is such a strong player in basically all categories (I was surprised when she beat us to a science tossup), but beyond that I think, as others have alluded to, it is her ability to improve. Last year, I remember her playing well and being scary to play against, but this year she took it to another level. Incredibly impressive season at all types of tournaments and especially at ICT.
Element: Fluorine (F) - a terrifying element that scares chemists, like how Lia scares all of us as her opponents.

3. Ian Chow (Toronto)
I had the utmost honour of playing with Ian this season on several occasions. I’m always impressed by a player's generalism (how can someone know so much about so many categories?); with Ian it is doubly impressive: I hear a tossup and it is some random topic (as is the case in NAQT) and I think there is no way anyone knows… and then Ian powers it. His breadth of knowledge is impressive, but so is his depth in certain fields, a great help on bonuses. We can talk all day about his scoring stats, 2nd at DII ICT and SCT, etc., but what I think impressed me is that he leads his teams to good results. I have only ever won 3 closed tournaments in my career and every single one of them Ian was on my team and led us to victory. This year was no different: he was the top player on our ICT team which did quite well (as you might have heard). He also played crucial roles on the Nats team at Regionals in particular.
Element: Helium (He) - a humble yet valuable element; it is lighter than air and high flying as well as most commonly found out of this world (like Ian's skills) and among the stars the subject of study for any astrophysics student.

4. Kevin Fan (McGill)
Mercifully I only had to play Kevin a few times this year, but that did not stop him from performing very well against us and other teams. His stats speak for themselves, particularly impressive was his Nationals performance and top scorer at MRNA. Very impressive showing given the strong teammates he often has at McGill.
Element: Mercury - a scare but very useful element describes how Kevin is useful to his team but scary to play against.

5. Sky Li (Toronto)
Sky has played very well this season and as others have mentioned, he had strong showings in the summer and throughout the year. His generalism and deep history knowledge is what I find most impressive, allowing him to really turn the tide of a game. Sadly, I have yet to play with Sky because he is usually sequestered away with Raymond, but hopefully I will get the chance soon assuming Sky returns to U of T. Although a great quizbowl player, I do not recommend his services as a Boston realtor (I speak from experience).
Element: Silicon (Si) - crucial in electronics like how Sky is crucial to his team; also what other element would a CS student and TechBro Sky Li get?

6. Tony Chen (Western)
Tony leads the very scary and tough team to play against that is Western. He is easily able to get the majority of tossups in a game and containing him is a challenge for any team. As a fellow life science student, I am really in awe of how he knows so much literature, with great showings at SCT and ICT. Sadly, he will be a thorn in the side of Toronto for some time.
Element: Oxygen (O) - necessary for survival like Tony is to Western and reactive like Tony on the buzzer.

7. Cormac Beirne (McGill)
Cormac is also a great player and could have easily been a few spots higher. He had an especially strong showing at MRNA and helped McGill beat the eventual champions Yale at DII ICT. I am always impressed by his VFA and history knowledge, to the point that when I hear a VFA tossup I consider it points for McGill. I had the pleasure of meeting him at ICT and look forward to his strong performances in the future (just not against us).
Element: Lead (Pb) - found in lead paint used to make the paintings that Cormac often buzzes on; also a scary element like how he is to play against.

8. Sam Hauer (UBC)
I did not see much of Sam this year, so I will base a lot of this off of what other people had to say. Sam’s performances were strong despite playing with Lia, an impressive feat. An outstanding performance at MRNA, with strong buzzes in history and philosophy as always. His accents always spark a laugh and bring some much needed lightheartedness. Although I am sad that he left for UBC, I will always remember his entertaining practices.
Element: Lithium (Li) - found lithium ion batteries, Sam charges everyone with laughter with his great jokes.

9. Adrian Wong (McMaster)
Adrian makes playing McMaster a tough match, even when playing shorthanded. I can never really predict what Adrian will buzz on, as his knowledge is so broad. Impressive scoring at HARI and particularly low neg rate, made for a good season from him and McMaster.
Element: Titanium (Ti) - strong and reliable element that does not corrode, describes his play this season.

10. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
I have played with Ben quite often this year; so much so that I would be sick of him if he were not such an asset to our team. Coming from a strong background of quizbowl, Ben is very dedicated, coming to nearly all practices and did a lot to support our team at SCT and ICT by giving us the preliminary scouting report. As a science player myself, I can say with confidence that Ben is the best science player on the circuit (though it is close). He is able to buzz on physics even before I get a handle on the question. I would advise him to brush up on his biology knowledge more, but then he might not need me anymore. It is not just his science knowledge though, he frequently gets literature, history, and all sorts of stuff making him a good generalist. At the beginning of the season as his teammates we were often concerned about his negs, but to our delight he really improved that in the latter half of the season, making him a formidable force.
Element: Chromium (Cr) - can be dangerous (like Ben's negs), but give a good polish and right alloys and it shines bright, like Ben this season.

11. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
I always enjoy playing Raymond on biology tossups as I really get to test my knowledge against the best. However, on literature and for everything else I would appreciate him on my team. Raymond is more specialized in his play compared to the others up to this point, but I think he does what every specialist should: know one or two categories inside out. I think Raymond’s contributions are often overshadowed by his teammates but he is a key member of Toronto’s successes this year. Again I am impressed by life science people who know literature (perhaps I am the odd one?). Also, he is a great organizer and experienced member at U of T quizbowl helping us with the club and has the important duty of keeping Sky’s ego in check with frequent banter.
Element: Phosphorus (P) - two allotropes both which catch fire; fire like Raymond's buzzes and also makes up the backbone of DNA like Raymond is the backbone of any team and Toronto quizbowl; as a bio player I hope he appreciates that reference.

12. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
Great literature knowledge, but also very impressive at myth and religion. Wenying is a great member of the club, who can always be seen bantering in our discord and is a key contributor to any Toronto team, including our Penn bowl team which came first. Makes the specialist role look easy and supports generalist players like Sky and Ian very nicely, leading to impressive results this season. Also, I had a lot of fun writing WORKSHOP with Wenying and some of the other Toronto players.
Element: Thallium (Tl) - some say Wenying is toxic like thallium; all I know is she poisons my team's chances at winning.

13. Peter Wang (Waterloo)
Peter is someone I do not have much data on, so I really trusted everyone else’s narrative here. He was an important member of Waterloo’s ARCADIA winning performance and made them a very tough team to play against.
Element: Francium (Fr) - not around for much time, but when it is Francium like Peter has an explosive impact.

14. Will Dawson (UBC)
Many other players in the circuit were impressed by Will this season and I concur. I think if he played more he could have been ranked even higher, but as is he had strong performances at DI ICT which earned him this place.
Element: Uranium (U) - leads to destruction when denoted in nuclear bombs, just like how Will destroyed the field at ICT.

15. Max Gedjolvic (UBC)
UBC has not been fun to play against these past two years online (maybe we will get lucky and they stay in BC next season). He has great literature knowledge and has added some good generalism to his game. Adds depth to a very strong UBC team.
Element: Arsenic (As) - a common literary poison and found in old books making this perfect for a literature player.

16. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
Strong science player that made Waterloo a tough team to play against. As others have said he had strong performances at Regionals and ARCADIA. He also has some good generalist knowledge that adds to his game.
Element: Hydrogen (H) - used to model the atom and an element any science player appreciates.

17. Jet Dong (McGill)
At the lower level tournaments that Jet typically plays, he makes McGill a very tough opponent. I remember being impressed by his fast buzzes on a broad number of categories. With more data at tougher tournaments, he could rise some places.
Element: Osmium (Os) - a rare, but valuable element kind of Jet this season.

18. Kais Jessa (McGill)
When there is AFA tossup and Kais is playing it is almost a foregone conclusion he will get it. He fills an important area on McGill teams, while also contributing in categories like physics.
Element: Copper (Cu) - an important component of brass and instruments that play Kais's AFA pieces that he so frequently buzzes on.

19. Devan Greevy (McGill)
Devan has great literature knowledge which makes playing against quite frustrating and difficult. Adds depth to strong McGill teams and compliments their other players well.
Element: Americium (Am) - for an American a rather fitting element; also important in smoke detectors, like how Devan keeps McGill alive and going.

20. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
Parth is overall a great teammate and fun person to be around in Toronto quizbowl. However, his generalism is nothing to underestimate and his strong literature and religion knowledge makes him a top scorer at lower difficulties and effective at higher difficulties as well. It's always fun being on Parth’s team, but quite the opposite when you have to play him. I entered the club at the same time as Parth and I have watched as he has improved tremendously and shows no sign of slowing down.
Element: Sodium (Na) - for Nascar fan Parth sodium is perfect; also matches his saltiness that he brings to practice sometimes.

21. Yadu Kukenthiran (Western)
From playing Yadu in Reach to playing him against Western, he seems to have my teams number much of the time. He is very knowledgeable and compliments Tony very nicely on a strong Western team.
Element: Magnesium (Mg) - reacts with oxygen to make a bright light, which sums up Western's duo nicely.

22. Andrew McCowan (Queen’s)
Andrew has strong stats and is a good generalist playing for Queen’s. Without more data it is hard to judge his skill, but it seems like plays an important role in Queen's team both in matches and from an organizational standpoint.
Element: Calcium (Ca) - very important element and makes strong bones like what Andrew is to Queen's.

23. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo)
Strong VFA knowledge and some impressive performances for Waterloo this season. Makes playing Waterloo a challenge.
Element: Bismuth (Bi) - this rainbow coloured element surely fits an VFA player that buzzes on colourful painting clues.

24. Giorgio Karam (Manitoba)
I don’t know much about Giorgio so once again I will defer to others for their expertise. He scored well at SCT and so gets my pick.
Element: Neon (Ne) - shines brightly like Giorgio's debut performance this year.

25. Kane Ngyuen (McMaster)
Frequently solos or plays shorthanded, which is no easy task. He had our team on the run for the first half at SCT. Knows considerable amounts in various categories including biology which gets him my respect.
Element: Nitrogen (N) - for plant biology lover this is a perfect fit.

Honourable Mentions:

David Snoddon
A great teammate and very impressive performances at SCT and ICT. He played a very important role on our team. I am always impressed by how much literature he knows, but he is also a good generalist when not playing with Ben or Ian. He’s also good at hockey questions, much to my disappointment when gets them before me, but had many clutch gets over the year.
Element: Gold (Au) - the ultimate prize in sports, ac category David enjoys; also he was a valuable and reliable like gold currency to our ICT team.

Martin Profant (Yours Truly)
Time for some self-reflection. I think I have improved a lot during my time in quizbowl. Unfortunately for me, it seems I do not have the natural talent that other players and ability to know such a breadth of topics. As a clear science player, I do well in this category, but could improve my knowledge of physics and inorganic chemistry more. Now given the abundance of talent on my teams, I usually just cover biology and chemistry. I do this quite well as I have been the top biology scorer at nearly all the tournaments I played this year (I know big flex right?). I think I have the ability to scale my play well and I enjoy playing harder tournaments more due to the interesting answer lines. I think I am slowly improving my knowledge of myth and social sciences too. Overall, I am content with my role that I have analogized to an American football kicker, who has one job in the game. It has been a fun season and great seeing everyone this year.
Element: Selenium (Se) - very specialized in biology to act as an antioxidant, which describes my specialized role on my team.

Aaron Dos Remedios
Given that I have sort of amalgamated my community opinions here, I really want to express my deep thanks to Aaron. He is the heart and soul of Toronto quizbowl and we truly could not be as successful as we are without his commitment and dedication. He is at every practice and always available to read, despite not being a student. He frequently helps in organizing meetups and offers his level headed advice and takes in our banter chat. What really did it for me though was when I had posted my first published article in the discord, he was one of the first to read it and offer me congratulations. Similarly, he attended one of my talks for another club, all things he did not do because he had to, but because he cared. He has watched as grow as players and people, and we offer him a great thanks.
Element: Iron (Fe) - the element that built civilizations, much like how Aaron has helped build up Toronto quizbowl.

Jamie Chow
Great member of the Toronto community! Helped read nearly every practice and always participates in fun banter. She also recruited many members to the club this year and I played a great joke on her!
Element: Nickel (Ni) - as any geophysics student knows it is part of the Earth's core like Jamie is core member of Toronto quizbowl.

So after 2655 words (more now), I guess I will wrap things up. Perhaps I will do a rookie and community ballot at some point, but if not I wanted to leave this with the Canadian quizbowl community. It is difficult to express my gratitude for this community and I wanted to say thanks. Good luck to all with your lives outside of quizbowl!

Please address any complaints to: sky.li AT mail DOT utoronto.ca or benjamin.chapman AT mail DOT utoronto.ca
Last edited by MRP77 on Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by devan »

Got bored so I made a ballot. Some of the ranking takes might be bad but I think that’s kind of the point of a player poll. Also based mainly on vibes with occasional reference to stats.

1. Lia Rathburn: “Scary” is the adjective that seems to keep popping up with reference to Lia, which is objectively the correct take.
2. Henry Atkins: Didn’t want a solo picture with his ICT trophy, sad!! Could probably do with a bigger ego given how good he is.
3. Kevin Fan: His bonus consultation usually goes something like “oh, is this fuckin’ [random thing I’ve never heard of]?” with varying levels of incredulity/exasperation. And he’s usually right, so.
4. Ian Chow: Also very scary. I thought he really popped off at SCT but now I’m looking at his stats and am increasingly concerned that he’s just like that.
5. Cormac Beirne: Okay yes he’s very good at VFA and history and myth and lots of categories etc etc but peak Cormac is him buzzing and getting science that even he didn’t know that he knew. "Is this what a neutrino is?"
6. Sky Li: Toronto’s Massachusetts player >>>> McGill’s Massachusetts player.
7. Tony Chen: I did NOT see him at Target, smh. Bonus points for being the best-dressed quizbowler at ICT.
8. Sam Hauer: I know he does accents but I’m realizing now that I have no idea which subjects he plays because I’m never listening to the content of his speech.
9. Adrian Wong: Whenever I see him on Discord, he’s always listening to interesting music. Also doesn’t neg much, which I think is cool.
10. Raymond Chen: Gets cool lit buzzes while playing with Wenying. Kinda rude to have them both on the same team, tbh. Also gets buzzes on other less-interesting topics.
11. Benjamin Chapman: Apparently did quizbowl back in the old country. I think he was probably the person I played the most games against this year, so I’m pretty confident that he’s like… good.
12. Max Gedajlovic: Taller than his usual camera setup gives him credit for. Nadia and I’s primary takeaway from ICT was that UBC is very Tall.
13. Wenying Wu: Gets cool lit buzzes. I really like her discord username, it makes me laugh whenever she joins a server for a tournament.
14. Peter Wang: Did really well at ARCADIA. It would be great for him to play more stuff.
15. Liam Kusalik: I don’t pay attention to science tossups but he seems to get them quite often. It’s probably quite hard to be good at multiple types of science, so his buzzes are pretty impressive.
16. William Dawson: I haven’t seen him play much, but he did really well at ICT and Regionals.
17. Jet Dong: His ppg doubled the round he ate ice cream cake at like ten in the morning during SCT. Terrifying.
18. Andrew McCowan: I thought Andrew had a ton of great buzzes throughout the year whenever I played him.
19. Kais Jessa: Actively elects to connect the dots instead of listening to the questions outside of his interests which I think is admirable. He also ate like twenty freeze pops (this is not an exaggeration) during MRNA which surely boosted his ppg.
20. Devan Greevy: mom said it’s my turn with the stock clues
21. Giorgio Karam: Giorgio!!! Knows bio, philosophy, and religion which basically makes him better than all of us. Truthfully, I cannot locate Manitoba on a map, but I’m sure he’s doing great things there being a doctor and such.
22. Yadu Kukenthiran: Apparently learned many things in b-school. Definitely a top contender for next year’s Singapore player poll.
23. Kane Nguyen: Is also often listening to interesting things on Spotify when I go on Discord. Very different music vibe from Adrian, though.
24. Gaian Valdegamo: I didn’t play a lot of the same tournaments as him so this is probably underselling his ability, sorry.
25. Minh-Tuan Phung: Very chaotic. Very fun to play with. I’m never quite sure if he’ll join the tournament server/cross international borders to play quizbowl in a timely manner, but he always manages it.

Honorable mention to Russell Valerio who has never once not regretted buzzing on a tossup. Also to Martin Profant, who gets a lot of good science buzzes, Nicolas Edwards, who is excellent on NAQT questions, and Bob Gao, who disappeared for like an hour to try and find a trash bag for mid-tier deep-dish pizza remnants at ICT.
Last edited by devan on Wed Apr 13, 2022 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Devan Greevy
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Gene Harrogate
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Gene Harrogate »

Rookie Ballot:
  1. Tony Chen: After 3 years of excellent play, it's finally clear that Tony's earned it. Congratulations Tony, truly a deserving ROTY.
  2. Ben Chapman: Upon Looking Into Chapman's Performances, he's a very good player. Tall, which will help him take his game to the next level. EDIT: apparently not actually that tall.
  3. Giorgio Karam: Tough call here between Giorgio, Nick, and David. Giorgio has the most impressively specialized knowledge and the least amount of institutional support of the three, so I'll give it to him. I have no idea what height he is.
  4. Nicolas Edwards: Had probably the most impressive SCT of this bunch, getting his McGill team to top bracket. He's apparently the best post-secondary Genies en Herbe player out there: 5 star recruit.
  5. David Snoddon: Tough to rank, could have easily been second. Vaguely tall? I think?
  6. Albert Li
  7. Cole Franklin: Good class of Torontonians. With a summer of cross-training and kettlebells they're in a position to be very fearsome next year.
  8. Elena Bai: Also part of a good top bracket finish for McGill C at SCT. Seems better at mACF than SCT.
  9. Russell Nip: Gutted out the ARCADIA slugfest with aplomb.
  10. James Ah Young
  11. John Chen
HM to Lauren Stoyles and Bob Gao.
Last edited by Gene Harrogate on Sat Apr 16, 2022 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by wholelottared »

Here's my ballot, paired with rap lyrics that hopefully don't get removed for obscenity (Its 2022 smh)

Will be occasionally editing with explanations and alternative lyrics I ended up rejecting.

1. Lia Rathburn
"You can be the king but watch the Queen conquer"
~Nicki Minaj on "Monster" by Kanye West

2010 was Nicki Minaj's breakout year. After years in the rap game with respectable performances, Nicki dropped arguably her greatest verse ever on Monster and released her debut album to massive success, launching her on her journey to become one of the best-selling artists of all time and one of the most recognizable faces of hip-hop for a decade.

Its undisputed that Lia absolutely killed it this year. I hope that looking back, this was your breakout year too. It definitely seems like all of Canadian QB is collectively holding their breaths to see the level you take your performance to next year. I'm looking forward to it.

Sasquatch, Godzilla, King Kong, Loch Ness
Goblin, ghoul, a zombie with no conscience
Question, what do these things all have in common?

They scare me less than Lia.

Alternate lyric: "I feel like I'm Gucci Mane in 2006" (YoungBoy Never Broke Again, "Make no Sense")
Similar vibes, but I ultimately went with Nicki for girl power and the (somehow) less questionable behaviour.

2. Henry Atkins
"Cause if I'm second then that's still a blessing 'cause you took a second just to check me out"
King Los, "God, Money, War"

Henry's a humble dude with a huge amount of skill. King Los is probably one of the best lyricists in rap, the type of person that just leaves you in awe when they get in their groove. I've definitely been left in awe at Henry, since he's clearly one of the best players I've ever witnessed. Like the rather long wait between King Los' releases, Henry's only graced us with his presence for a few tournaments this year, but his showing proves that he's clearly one of the GOATs.

I definitely wanted to toy with the King/Queen theme for both Lia and Henry, especially when I looked at 2021's poll results to see that Henry was 1st and Lia 2nd. Hence the lines from the Queen of Rap and King Los.

I hope you finished your last year feeling like a King, Henry. You're one of the strongest pillars in our little community, and I hope you come back for open tournaments just to dunk on 20-somethings for years to come.

"So you ain't really rich if what's rich ain't in your core"

3. Kevin Fan
"You just a fan"
Brent Faiyaz, on "Crew" by GoldLink

I'm a big fan.

4. Tony Chen
“In a striped shirt like I'm Tony”
Takeoff, on "Versace" by Migos

[Chorus: Quavo]
"Versace (x36)"

Having roomed with Tony for ICT, I think his entire wardrobe consists of stripes, aside from his iconic "crocs".
Tony definitely doesn't need any Versace, his fits (and quizbowl skill) are already immaculate.

5. Sky Li.
"In reality I'm 5'4"
Lil Uzi Vert, "Sanguine Paradise"

Smol. Also pretty good.

Alternate lyric: "Can't fuck with nobody, not even my shadow" or literally any other line from "Sky" by Playboi Carti, off of (surprise) Whole Lotta Red

6. Ian Chow
"Your list is shit"

7. Cormac Beirne
"I know you want a break from Toronto"

8. Adrian Wong
"Right now, you lookin real sus right now"

9. Sam Hauer
"These hoes love my accent"

10. Raymond Chen
"Shout out to Toronto bitch I'm Tony in my city"

11. Wenying Wu
"Wu buck wild with the trigger"

12. Peter Wang
“Ayy, 12 (12) 12? (12?) Whoa! (Whoa!)”

13. Ben Chapman
"deez nuts on the ballot"

14. Max Gedajlovic
“Big 14, know what the fuck goin on”

15. William Dawson
“Bills so big, I call ‘em Williams”

16. Liam Kusalik
“Smarter science mixed with a odd alliance of fairy tale”

17. Jet Dong
“Fuck a cab, lets hop on a Jet”

18. Yadu Kukenthiran
“Pull up in the Sri Lanka”

19. Devan Greevy
“American Idol, one hand on my bible, one hand on my rifle”

20. Kais Jessa
“My man played with keys like he was Mozart”

21. Kane Nguyen
“Kane Season”

22. Andrew McCowan
“To my peoples throughout Queens, God bless your life”

23. Gaian Valdegamo
“You'll probably find one of them 'I like art'-type girls”

24. Giorgio Karam
“So let me get this straight, wait, I’m the rookie?”

25. Simone Valade
“Heisenberg, I’m in the lab, I deal with chemistry, ayy”
Last edited by wholelottared on Sat Apr 16, 2022 1:50 am, edited 8 times in total.
Yadu Kukenthiran
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by IncompetentIdiot »

didn't have time to read up on Bob Gao, but here ya go

1. Ben Chapman
2. Giorgio Karam
3. David Snoddon
4. Nicolas Edwards
5. Cole Franklin
6. Elena Bai
7. John Chen
8. James Ah Yong
9. Russell Nip
10. Albert Li
Kevin Fan
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by skewit »

I feel like I’m definitely forgetting some people here; many apologies to anyone I may have missed, as well as anyone who I couldn’t fit on the ballot. If there any typos or whatever my brain is completely fried at this point so y’all are just gonna have to accept them (in particular, I spelled Max's last name from memory so hopefully it worked out ok).

Aaron Dos Remedios
Aaron, as usual, has been one of the staples on the Canadian circuit this year and is always willing to staff events when needed. In addition, Aaron deserves special thanks for basically running Toronto practices for the last year, managing readers, practices, etc. I can’t imagine a Canadian quizbowl circuit without Aaron, and I hope that I never have to.

Raymond Chen
I know Raymond personally objects to being placed on this poll, but he deserves it for being basically the major driving force in Toronto’s exec, as well as one of the people on the circuit who yells at the rest of us to get our shit together and organize tournaments.

Kevin Fan
Kevin ran Fall and HARI this year and did it remarkably well. He also organized this poll for the second year in a row, though I question his decision to post it literally seconds after our game at Nats.

Henry Atkins
As I mentioned in my main poll, Henry has been a prominent figure in the circuit for as long as I’ve been here. This year, he ran both divisions of SCT extremely smoothly while staffing and has also been a large part of circuit discussions in general. It’ll be extremely weird next year to have a circuit without Henry around; I wish him the best in the future, though he definitely should just apply for a PhD at Toronto all the cool kids are doing it.

Lia Rathburn
Like Raymond, Lia is one of the most active circuit members in trying to get us to actually do things, which I value very highly because we as a circuit need it quite a lot tbh.

Max Gedajlovic
I know absolutely nothing about UBC’s club workings, but from what I can tell, Max is one of their driving figures in organizing their teams for tournaments and has been the main point of contact with the rest of the circuit for organizing tournament logistics.

Nadia Dakdouki
Running the Canadian Novice server is no small feat and, combined with her work for McGill and novices around the circuit in general, makes Nadia an easy inclusion for recognition.

Brian Luong
Brian’s always down to spend his Saturdays staffing, which is always extremely appreciated; he also pops into the Toronto server fairly frequently to commiserate with the rest of us, also very welcome.

Adrian Wong
Adrian TD’d two tournaments this year extremely well and also managed to get McMaster out to many of the tournaments this year.

Rico Catibog
Rico’s perhaps staffed slightly less than he’s done in the past this year, but he’s still one of the most prominent staffing figures on the circuit, and still finds time to run games of Only Connect after Toronto practices.

From a more Toronto-centric perspective, I’d also like to shoutout Milan Fernandez and Oscar Liang, who absolutely do not have to do as much as they do staffing on the circuit reading at Toronto practices, despite not technically being Toronto students. Many Toronto practices would not have run without both of their help.

In addition, I’d like to commend my fellow Toronto TD’s: Ian Chow, Jamie Chow, Martin Profant, and Michelle Prunier, who all ran their respective tournaments extremely well, especially for first-time TD’s.

Finally, thank you to everyone who plays on and helps out this circuit. I know it can be especially tough while everything is online, but y’all keep the circuit running and it’s been extremely fun to interact with everyone as much as I could this year (and hopefully for many more years to come).

...Also, because Wenying sucks and didn't want to make her own forums account, she requested that I add this message from her (this is not necessarily an endorsement of her message; also, any repetition with my ballot is on her):

"Seconding the Sky Points, but with addendums: Sky would definitely be on my community ballot if I were cool and hip enough to write ballots, due to all thankless internal work they've done this year to make sure UofT quizbowl remains functional (shaking people down for money, getting announcements out, recruiting for and organizing teams, just to name a few things) while also TD-ing Boilermaker. While I'm sure this is all just atonement for their many war crimes in a past life, it's still very commendable. Additionally, yep from a myopic Toronto-centric perspective, Milan [Fernandez] and Oscar [Liang] deserve a shoutout for being extremely indispensable to Toronto practices as readers despite no longer being students of the club. Also Jamie Chow has Chow'd stupendously."
Sky Li (they/he)
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by NedWards »

Decided to write a ballot. After some consideration, I’ve decided to not use any funny schtick and just do regular writeups: partly because I’m tired during finals, partly because it’s my first year and I need more data to execute a theme properly, and partly because I’m lazy.

1: Lia Rathburn (UBC)
I’ve only played against Lia 2 or 3 times this year. However, during each of those games, I felt a fear only understandable by players who had to defend prime Lakers-threepeat Shaq in the paint. Absolutely dominant player, whose number 1 spot is backed up by impressive stats at ICT (1.7 powers per game in D1!).
2. Henry Atkins (McGill)
Never played an official tournament game against Henry, but his stats show how consistently excellent he is, D1 ICT (top overall scorer!) and Nats especially. Also a fun presence during online practices. I believe this was his last year of quizbowl, but I’m hoping for a Super Acronym rematch soon enough.
3. Kevin Fan (McGill)
Got to see Kevin’s skill on full display when he carried our team at MRNA (scored a 6/4/1 against a strong Toronto squad). Very impressive ability to get hard parts on bonuses. Scored well at Nats too.
4. Ian Chow (Toronto)
Led Toronto to a very impressive result at D2 ICT. Scary to play against, completely annihilated my team at SCT. Also good stats at harder tournaments like Nats, Regionals, and MRNA.
5. Cormac Beirne (McGill)
The VFA master is always fun to play with or against at practices. Also gets very good buzzes in history. Carried our team at Workshop while simultaneously executing the vicious stabbing murder of a bubble tea cup, which was cool. Great at ACF questions and, despite hating NAQT, is good at that too. Looking forward to him unlocking club president powers next year.
6. Tony Chen (Western)
Great generalist. Also annihilated my team at SCT. All-Star performance at D2 ICT. 30’d a Squid Game-related VFA bonus when I was reading at an online practice once.
7. Sky Li (Toronto)
It’s hard for me to rank the senior Toronto players because I didn’t get a chance to play them that much this year. I’m relying on the narrative set by previous ballots. Sky seems to be a strong generalist who turned in a very good performance at MRNA and did well at Nats.
8. Sam Hauer (UBC)
My first time playing a full-strength UBC was at ACF Winter, where Lia would get tossups, followed by Sam answering bonuses in funny accents. Was a very scary experience. Sam’s definitely a great player in his own right, though, as demonstrated by a solid performance at MRNA.
9. Adrian Wong (McMaster)
Didn’t get many chances to play against Adrian this year, but he seems like a very good player. Strong performances at Regionals and Workshop seem to prove this.
10. Raymond Chen (Toronto)
Again, it’s hard for me to evaluate older Toronto players without enough empirical evidence. Raymond seems to be a very good lit player who also did well at Nats.
11. Wenying Wu (Toronto)
Lack of empirical evidence etc. Seems to be a very good lit player too. Good stats at Regionals. Unrelated to academic quizbowl, beat me on a *removed for being a spoiler* question at PAveMEnT II.
12. Peter Wang (Waterloo)
Didn’t get a chance to play against him this year, unfortunately. Seems like he did really well at Arcadia and Regionals, though.
13. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
A Toronto player I got to play multiple times this year. I think he won all those games. Great science player, impressive performances at harder tournaments, and without a doubt the first overall pick in our CanQB “draft class”.
14. Max Gedajlovic (UBC)
Fun fact about Max: his dad and my mom were Reach For The Top teammates in some long-ago 20th century decade. A very strong lit player who performed well at D1 ICT. Also a gifted creator of Mimir’s Well packets.
15. Will Dawson (UBC)
I might be underranking Will here because I haven’t played against him that much. Seems to be very good at NAQT, though, which is very cool. Good performance at D1 ICT.
16. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo)
I think the only time I played Liam this year was at MRNA, where he was very good. Science players scare me.
17. Jet Dong (McGill)
Playing against Jet is fun because he’s way better than me at all the stuff I consider myself good at. Firstlined a basketball tossup against me in practice. Hope he plays more next year, he’s really good.
18. Kais Jessa (McGill)
AFA god. Also very good at science, especially computer-related things. Still sorry about that time I negged “Muzio Clementi wrote hundreds of these…” with “symphony” when I was on his team at practice. Very good at Regionals, Workshop, and D2 ICT.
19. Devan Greevy (McGill)
A great literature player with good American History knowledge and a welcome presence at practices. Did very well at Regionals and D2 ICT. I believe she’s heading to law school next year: wishing her all the best. Sorry for saying “Ugh, Americans.” so much when I negged American content this year in practice.
20. Yadu Kukenthiran (Western)
Very good history player. Solid second scorer on a strong Western team. Makes cool music references.
21. Kane Nguyen (McMaster)
Knows sports, which is cool. Knows college sports, which is less cool but still pretty cool. Lots of powers at SCT. Apparently very good at plant bio?
22. Andrew McCowan (Queen’s)
The leader of the Queen’s team. Impressive stats at SCT. Played well in a nailbiter against my team at that same tournament.
23. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo)
Don’t think I had a chance to play against him this year, but had good stats at Arcadia and HARI.
24. Minh-Tuan Phung (McGill)
Did a good job leading our team at ACF Winter. Good performance at D2 ICT. Fun to play against in practice because there’ll be a lot of powers, a lot of negs, and a lot of entertainment. All-around solid general skill.
25. Parth Jagtap (Toronto)
Great stats at 1-dot and 2-dot tournaments. His team beat mine at SCT. Decent performances at harder levels. Seems like a solid generalist.

Honourable mentions: Simone Valade, Giorgio Karam, Martin Profant

Rookie ballot :
1. Ben Chapman (Toronto)
As I mentioned in the main ballot, Ben is clearly the best rookie. Getting a solid number of questions at Nats is a heck of an achievement for a first-year, as is the impressive D2 ICT result.
2. Giorgio Karam (Manitoba)
Got some really good buzzes at online practices this year. Also turned in a good performance at SCT.
3. David Snoddon (Toronto)
Had better stats than me at ACF Fall. Also scored decently at D2 ICT, no small feat. Overall, gets the edge over me for third place because of more consistently good performances. Understands sports references, which is very cool.
4. Nicolas Edwards (McGill)
After a great performance at Collegiate Novice, I had a much rougher time at both ACF Fall and Winter, which can be explained in part due to my bread-and-butter high school categories (sports and pop culture) not being represented as much. NAQT questions fit me a lot better (frequent trash content!!), leading to some good stats at SCT. Played harder tournaments (Workshop, MRNA), and though I didn’t score a lot, it was a useful experience and helped me better understand difficulty levels. Ahead of next season, my goal is to improve my skills in academia categories, with a focus on history, myth, and literature.
5. Albert Li (Toronto)
Turned in a monster performance when our teams played each other at SCT, beating me to a bunch of buzzes on history. Seems like he’ll be really good next year.
6. Cole Franklin (Toronto)
Top scorer at Boilermaker. Seems to have science skills. People that know science are scary.
7. James Ah Yong (Waterloo)
Led his team to a win over my team at SCT, if I remember correctly. Also did a decent job at MRNA.
8. Elena Bai (McGill)
Was a really good teammate to have at SCT. Better at academia-oriented questions than me (was definitely better than me at ACF Fall), which is a good skill to have. Could definitely be a scary player next year.
9. John Chen (UBC)
I remember this guy being good at Collegiate Novice.
10. Russell Nip (UBC)
I also remember this guy being good at Collegiate Novice.

Wanted to also give a shoutout to the rest of the McGill Trivia Club, who helped make my first year of quizbowl a fun experience. This includes, but is not limited to:
-Russell Valerio, the only fan of Crystal Palace I know and a very fun practice presence.
-Nabhaan Farooqi, who despite being a Tottenham fan, is a cool guy with elite video game and cricket knowledge.
-Sam Perreault, knower of Génies en herbe things and Quebec geography.
-Nadia Dakdouki, ACF Fall team leader and club president, who was very helpful as I learned the rules of the game and got to know the CanQB community. Also a very good myth player.
-Laurel Johannson, audio pack virtuoso and professional hater.
-Francis Dinh and François Ferland, my high school teammates who made the jump from Génies en herbe to quizbowl with me.

Looking forward to next year! (And trash tournaments.)
Nicolas Edwards
Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf '21
McGill University '24
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by dsnodds11 »

I want to start off by thanking everyone, quizbowl made my first year at university a lot better. I appreciate everyone who I’ve played against, who’s volunteered to help at a practice or a tournament, or anyone who’s helped this community stay alive in any way. I’ve had nothing but fun playing quiz bowl throughout the year and talking to other members of the community. I probably have a strong Toronto bias here, especially one geared towards people I’ve played on teams with, so I apologize for that clouding my judgment. I also haven’t played against or with some of these players a lot so I have to rely on statistics which sometimes isn’t a good thing, I apologize if these rankings are bad.

Player Ballot
1. Lia Rathburn
I don’t think I have too much to add here, but Lia is at the moment the best quiz bowler I’ve played against. She also has some of the best and worst discord reacts I’ve ever seen. She absolutely obliterates history but will crush your hope and dreams in every other category too.
2. Henry Atkins
Again I don’t have too much else to add here either but Henry is also an amazing player, the gap between him and Lia is very small, both had very impressive statistics at the DI ICT. Playing with him before the ICT, he knows a lot of things and will dominate you in every category. McGill is losing a generational talent.
3. Ian Chow
I have played with Ian at many tournaments this year and enjoyed all of them due to that, he is a tier one teammate. He is a very good generalist and an amazing team leader, and I’ve seen him buzz in every single category. Also is great at calming me down when I get tilted after a neg which isn’t an easy feat.
4. Kevin Fan
Don’t have much else to add since I haven’t played him a lot but even while playing with Henry Atkins put up phenomenal numbers at ACF Nationals.
5. Tony Chen
Played him multiple times, and was scary to play against in every single match, he also got the N Scott Momaday question in Learned League. Tony knows a lot of things and is making my step-dad proud at every tournament the way he dominates the field at every tournament. His soloing HARI and winning some games really showed his dominance.
6. Sky Li
I enjoy bullying Sky which counts for something, I think. However, he is not top 5 because he did not get the N Scott Momaday Question in Learned League. Furthermore, he did start the annoying “Ben Deez Nuts” joke is another knock against Sky. On the real, Sky is an amazing player, and the combo of him, Raymond, and Wenying give me nightmares.
7. Cormac Bernie
His power numbers at Workshop speak for themselves, he clearly stacks up well. He also has a great test in architecture, he had an amazing regionals performance too. I think he has a great chance of being Top five next year.
8. Sam Hauer
Gets shadowed playing with Lia, but in my 2 games against him, he had very impressive buzzes and pulls on bonuses in both of them. The act of him leaving Toronto is what guided Nietzche to write Birth of Tragedy.
9. Adrian Wong
Was very good at regionals and ACF winter he also destroyed me in Learned League (which isn’t necessarily hard to do), so he deserves a high ranking. He also lead McMaster to a victory over a stacked UBC team at ACF Winter and almost beat us.
10. Raymond Chen
Is a very good lit player, he and Wenying seem to be unstoppable as a one-two punch in that category, is also amazing at bullying Wenying and Sky so that counts for something.
11. Benjamin Chapman
I’m glad that I played every tournament with him, as Benjamin is amazing, particularly on AFA and Science, but is also a very good generalist. Benjamin has gotten at least one impressive literature buzz at each tournament, even though he claims that is his worst category. However, his invention of the intentional snails is what puts him out of the top ten.
12. Wenying Wu
Is an amazing lit/mythology and religion player, her obsession with Ice Cube reacting to my messages and with BuzzFeed quizzes are both negative qualities, but she has an awesome discord username and profile picture.
13. Liam Kusalik
Only played against him at regionals where he was amazing at the science and put up impressive numbers there. He, Martin, and Ben are the best science players on the Canadian circuit to my knowledge.
14. Peter Wang
Only remember playing against him at ACF regionals, where he was impressive. Was a key asset in Waterloo winning Arcadia which is pretty cool.
15. Max Gedajlovic
Played with him, a couple of times practicing before the ICT can confirm he knows literature very well. Is also incredibly nice.
16. Will Dawson
Had an amazing ICT and put up impressive numbers at regionals, I don’t think I’ve played him too often though.
17. Devan Greevy
Always seems to destroy me with facts and logic on literature tossups which is the most important category. Throughout the year she also proved to be a good generalist, especially at Fall when she put up impressive scoring numbers on a winning team. Where Devan dominated literature in the 3 games against us. While she was very kind in Chicago. she ignored Tony in Target which is very impolite.
18. Jet Dong
I would put him higher if he had played regionals but I’m not sure if he can stack up at higher difficulties yet, but at ACF winter he was very scary and almost destroyed our team.
19. Kais Jessa
Knows AFA, apparently. He puts big fear into the hearts of Sky and Ben simultaneously and stacks up very well. Definitely, a key asset for Mcgill to have around.
20.Parth Jagtap
I might be biased since I’m friends with Parth, but I feel others have underrated him. While his ACF regionals numbers weren’t as stellar as his other performances some of that was caused because he was very sick that day. Parth is a scary player who constantly beats me at literature tossups and knows a lot of other categories. I also think that Gwendolyn Brooks wrote the poem We Real Cool about Parth because he constantly lurks late. He also has a weird obsession with hating “handegg” as he calls it.
21. Yadu Kukenthiran
He is a very good support player for Tony but he uses TikTok enough said. However, he does have a great taste in music and can put up amazing numbers while playing with Tony. He also was the top scorer at ACF Fall which is pretty cool.
22. Andrew McCowan
Constantly puts up amazing scoring numbers and almost defeated Western at the SCT, though does benefit from playing on weaker teams. That said, he still is very good and getting his numbers is no easy feat.
23. Kane Nguyen
Knows football which is the only important thing. Also was very impressive at the SCT as Macmaster “had us in the first half not gonna lie”. He also frequently plays on short-handed teams or even solos which is not easy to do.
24. Gaian Valdegamo
I used to play against Gaian a lot at the Novice Canadian Quizbowl practices and I don’t think I have ever gotten a fine arts toss-up against him. Gaian is also a very good generalist who can buzz on almost every category.
25. Minh-Tuan Phung
Had a lot of nice history buzzes which defeated our team at ACF Fall, were very good at the SCT and the ICT also.

HM Giorgio Karam, who I’ve never played against but was very impressive at the SCT, I hope to see more of Manitoba in quiz bowl.

Simone Valade, who was very nice at the ICT and also said I’ll always remind her of George Costanza which made my day.

Martin Profant is a top teammate who fits perfectly on a team with me since we’re both opposites. However, his science knowledge unlike my literature knowledge is all real and very impressive. Martin was phenomenal at the SCT and the ICT as he was a great help on bonuses and was a nice combo with BEn which lead us to dominate a lot of science tossups. Martin is also very low neg and is very encouraging of others. However, him being a Leafs fan is why he’s never gotten a hockey tossup playing with me.

Rookie Ballot:
1. Benjamin Chapman: I don’t think I need to elaborate on this.
2. Giorgio Karam: Haven’t played against him but put up great numbers at the SCT despite being in a school with not a lot of institutional support.
3. Nicolas Edwards: I would say it’s close between Nick and me, but I’ll give him the edge for his better numbers at the SCT. He makes amazing sports referencing in the CanQb discord and has been improving throughout the year by a lot.
4. David Snoddon: I celebrate myself.
5. Albert Li: Has improved a lot in the short time he’s been playing quizbowl, was very impressed by his quick improvement in literature specifically. He has amazing history, and us political knowledge and I think will dominate NAQT for years to come.
6. Cole Franklin: Was fun to play with at fall, he knows philosophy, math and physics very well and can stack up pretty good at those difficulties demonstrated by his performance at HARI, and was amazing at ACF Winters. Sadly he does interrupt the question a lot during bonuses.
7. Elena Bai: I remember her getting some nice buzzes against us at the SCT and Winters.
8. Joyce Xi: Very good at mythology, and can stack up well with that category.
9. John Chen: He had a great performance at Regionals and fall.
10. James Ah Yong: was very impressed with his play in our game against him at the SCT and was surprised when he said it was his first tournament.

HM Skylar Bonhert: was pretty lockdown on history at Fall, was actually the top scorer in that category.
Lauren Stoyles: gets overlooked due to having (comparatively to the other rookies) lower scoring numbers but a lot of that can be attributed to always playing with elite players Yadu and Tony. She’s also incredibly nice.
Russell Nip: Should get a lot of credit for his massive improvement across the year!

Community Ballot

Aaron Dos Remedios: Aaron was one of the readers who were very welcoming to me when I joined the club and is a huge part of why I stayed, he is a very good reader and is patient even with dealing with my banter throughout practice. Even though, he’s not a UofT student he gives up a lot of his time, to help with the club which I appreciate a lot.

Henry Atkins is a very good reader in the Novice practices and was very inviting to everyone. He also was helpful volunteering and TDing at tournaments this year, it’s very sad that it’s his last.

Jamie Chow was very helpful volunteering for TDing ACF regionals, I think her nature of being kind to everyone is why she’s a perfect fit to read novice practices.

Ian Chow: He TD’ed collegiate novice which I think is important and he negged Ben a lot at Workshop. Was also one of the readers for me when I joined the club and is why I’ve improved a lot.

Oscar Liang: I appreciate that a non-UofT student volunteers a lot of his time to read. Volunteer and help the club in general.

Nadia Dakdouki: She’s a friendly person who volunteered consistently at tournaments throughout the year.

Milan Fernandez Although he likes to troll me, Milan is also someone who is not currently a student but helps out a lot at tournaments and practice.

Rico Caitblog He volunteered at tournaments throughout the year and when he shows us his Jeopardy or only connect practice is always a fun time.

Meghan Torchia She helped us a ton with the travel plans which Meghan is very knowledgeable in, she also TD’ed superacronym.

Max Gedajlovic: He is always saying intelligent things during Circuit discussions.

Colin Veevers: He was the first person to read for me at UOFT quizbowl and my first impression was clearly good because I’m still here, he also helped out a ton planning for our ICT trip and made the whole process easier.

Joe Su: Despite also being busy and not a current player, he volunteers our time and is actively trying to make the community a better place.

Lia Rathburn From what I’ve noticed, Lia is always trying to make quiz bowl fun, fair, and safe. One example is while she’s volunteering at tournaments Lia is a moderator who is the best at enforcing rules (two hands-on cameras etc.), which is much appreciated.

Zach Bernstein: I really enjoyed the sports tournament he wrote and organized as that was probably one of the most fun times I’ve had playing quizbowl this school year.

Dennis Beeby: I appreciate how often he roasts Parth during practice and how he volunteers at tournaments a lot.

Kevin Fan: he set up this poll and helped run ACF Fall which was my first tournament ever so that deserves a big thank you.

Raymond Chen: he constantly is trying to make the server more inviting for new players and makes sure that no one is left out. He is a great addition to our executive team.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by apoquet »

Here’s my ballot for the poll this year. I wasn’t going to make one initially, but I think that this could be a small step towards integrating the current Queen’s club into the wider Canadian circuit. I’ve felt that we’ve been quite distant from everyone else for the duration of the pandemic (especially after Jack left) but I hope we can be more involved in the future!

Queen’s didn’t play very many tournaments this year (or last year) for several reasons, so I found it fairly difficult to make my rankings. I haven’t played against many people on the circuit, and don’t know a ton about people’s categories/knowledge bases. I’ve probably over/underanked people based on either my ignorance of their ability or by overcompensating when trying to rank someone I know little about. I also think I tend to value vibes/impressions of people over actual stats - I guess that’s why I’m in arts and not science.

(Also a lot of my write ups are quite bland due to my aforementioned lack of information - sorry about that!)

1. Lia Rathburn


2. Henry Atkins
Lia and Henry are both very good at quizbowl. I don’t think I know enough about the differences between their two knowledge bases to decisively rank them, so I’ll follow along with the circuit’s general consensus that Lia is better. Regardless of this, I find both of them terrifying to play against, which I think is absolutely a compliment.

3. Kevin Fan
When Kevin started playing reach and QB tournaments in Ottawa when we were both in Grade 12, I was immediately fearful of his ability, and he has only improved since then. You represent the Bell lads well, Kevin.

4. Ian Chow
The 4-7 range in this poll is quite difficult for me to rank, but I’m giving Ian the edge solely because of how it felt to play against him. It seemed like he buzzed two lines ahead of where I would in all of those games.

5. Cormac Beirne
Cormac beat me in a reach 1v1 one time, so it stands to reason that he’s pretty good at quizbowl as well. He seems to put up a strong performance every time he plays, even when playing with Henry and Kevin, which to me shows how unique/deep his knowledge is.

6. Sky Li
Had good numbers on a strong ACF Nats team, as well as throughout the rest of the year.

7. Tony Chen
Also a player that I fear playing against. Gets buzzes across the board. I’m glad we won’t have to play vs a Tony-lead Western team at SCT next year.

8. Sam Hauer
Whenever I’ve played against UBC, I feel like I’ve been too distracted by Lia destroying our team to notice how good the other UBC players are. Despite being shadowed by Lia, however, Sam managed to consistently get points, including in our game against UBC, so a fairly high ranking seems justified.

9. Adrian Wong
I don’t believe I’ve ever played against Adrian, but his stats are quite good, so this seems like a reasonable place.

10. Raymond Chen
Evidently a strong player with deep science knowledge.

11. Peter Wong

12. Liam Kusalik

I didn’t get the chance to play against either Peter or Liam this year, but their win at Arcadia was pretty darn impressive, so I think it’s fair to rank them here.

13. Benjamin Chapman
Making a significant contribution on a team at ACF Nationals is impressive enough on its own, but doing so as a first year (even with quizbowl experience in HS) is quite the feat.

14. Wenying Wu
Another key component of Toronto’s core. Appears to have good literature knowledge and good vibes.

15. William Dawson
Had a strong performance at ICT, so I’m giving him a slight edge over Max.

16. Max Gedajlovic
Also an important part of UBC’s squad at ICT, and a strong player overall.

17. Jet Dong
Puts up some very impressive stats, and is very strong on lower difficulties: his performance at last year’s ACF Fall comes to mind. Not a ton of data to justify ranking him higher, though.

18. Parth Jagtap
When looking at everyone else’s ballots, Parth was the person who I felt was underanked the most. He’s crushed Queen’s every time we’ve played against him in tournaments, so I might be a bit biased, but I think he deserves a place here.

19. Kais Jessa
Possibly the strongest player in any one category on the circuit? Queen’s doesn’t have many really strong music players so it’s hard for me to tell just how good he is, but his consistent dominance in AFA is very impressive.

20. Devan Greevy

Seems quite good at literature. Had a very respectable performance at both SCT and ICT.

21. Yadu Kukenthiran
The first time I played against Yadu was when he soloed for Heart Lake at 2019 Ontario QB Provs, where he put up quite a remarkable performance. He seems to have gotten even better since, decisively beating Queen’s at ACF Fall and going on to put up solid numbers with Tony at ICT.

22. Andrew McCowan
I had decent stats this year, but most of my scoring comes from regurgitating the base level of QB knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years. Turns out scaling is hard.

23. Kane Nguyen
I commend Kane’s willingness to solo at tournaments. I didn’t play against any McMaster teams this year, but he seems quite consistently solid.

24. Gaian Valdegamo
Had plenty of very impressive buzzes in games against us, especially in VFA. Judging by the amount of pking he’s done in the CanQB novice server, I’m confident in saying that he’ll be quite the player in a few years.

25. Giorgio Karam
Respect for bringing a Manitoba team to SCT. Had a strong performance there - hope to see you guys at future tournaments!


I'd also like to give an HM to some of my Queen’s teammates, many of whom haven’t had a ton of opportunities to show their stuff:

Alex Wodzicki: definitely one of the best players currently at Queen’s, but has an (understandable) aversion to playing online quizbowl. If SCT is in person next year and Alex W is able to come, I expect he’ll demonstrate why he deserves a place in the top 25.

Alex Galvin: extremely talented, both in-game and in terms of administrative competence. I look forward to running the Queen’s club with her, and I hope she gets the opportunity to attend some in-person tournaments next year!

Kevin Wang: history player with a ton of depth, especially for a first year. Also one to watch out for in the future!

Benjamin Lohoar: was an absolute pleasure working with him these past several years. Hope to see you at some open tournaments some time, Benjamin!

Jack van Nostrand: the certified science god, now and forever.

Everyone else at Queen’s who happens to read this ballot: it’s been a super fun year for me, and I hope you enjoyed it too! There are too many of you to name here, but I look forward to more quizbowl with y’all in the future!

Finally, thank you to the rest of the circuit for all the hard work they do in keeping Canadian quizbowl alive! I think I can safely speak for the rest of the Queen's club when I say that we've enjoyed our time at tournaments this past year, and that's because you all make this community such a welcoming and fun environment.
Andrew McCowan
Glebe CI '19
Queen's U '23
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by MordecaiRickles »

Since Ben Chapman asked to "sea [sic] it," here's a Fear Ballot:
1. Peter Wang – Quiet and good at things I don't know. Frightening combo.
2. Henry Atkins – Henry is the only person who beats me to VFA, despite not being a VFA player. Always seems to beats me to clues we both know, which is slightly different than beating me to answerlines I know.
3. Ben Chapman – People who are good at things I know nothing about are (usually) more intimidating to play than people who are good at categories I can sometimes outbuzz them on. Ben, unlike other science players (or anyone else), has moreover achieved the impossible by beating Kais to AFA. That possibly should net him the number one spot.
4. Liam Kusalik – Like Ben but with less Kais-beating
5. Kevin Fan – What people often forget to mention about Kevin is how shockingly loudly he directs his answers, often from almost totally blackened video feeds.
6. Wenying Wu – Wenying frightens me not on account of her buzzes but on account of her discord messages, the most grievous of which surely constitutes an indictable offence.
7. Adrian Wong – Beats Lia sometimes. I expect to lose to Lia, I can never anticipate Adrian's buzzes.
8. Raymond Chen – Will he neg?? Won’t he?? It’s always a nerve-wracking game with Raymond Chen.
9. Lia Rathburn – Self-explanatory
10. Ian Chow – Lower on my fear ballot because his buzzes are frequently on things I'm also buzzing on. Nevertheless, Ian buzzes.
Last edited by MordecaiRickles on Tue Apr 19, 2022 12:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by DiegoForlandofHopeandGlory »

“If you watch me closely throughout my [McGill career] then you know that I make rash and awful decisions that I feel the need to stick by forever”
- Doc Brown

This is the algorithm ballot 2.0, expanded and enhanced. Enjoy

1. Lia
2. Henry
3. Tony
4. Ian
5. Sky
6. Kevin
7. Cormac
8. Adrian
9. Jet
10. Peter
11. Liam
12. Ben
13. Andrew
14. Sam
15. Raymond
16. Yadu
17. Wenying
18. Will
19. Zach
20. Max
21. Kane
22. Kais
23. Gaian
24. Devan
25. Giorgio

Hms:
Parth and Nabhaan who would have made it had Cricket (rightfully) been 1/1
Simone and Nadia who have been great presences for McGIll over my time here
Russell Valerio
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by mhyee »

I want to make it clear that my attitude towards these polls is strictly academic. Regardless of this, every single one of these players seems to value quizbowl very highly and will insist on taking my money if I win, because I feel pretty good when I win. No matter what difficulty level someone is on, their willingness to take a hit to ensure I reach my potential and not give up would be extremely low. I'm going to take what I can get from the bottom of the barrel and extrapolate from there into the regular distribution. Here are some questions I've heard from other teammates, none of which had an obvious impact on my rankings:

1. Lia Rathburn
Even though she's less than stellar at quizbowl, Lia's inoffensive generalism means that she's got good knowledge in a lot of categories. She's easily the best all-around generalist in the game, and her solid placement at number 1 on the all-time great list at number one is no mean feat. Lia is very good at the very difficult parts of the distribution, with very good knowledge in history, geography, and social science. Her ability to read and write science is clearly the most underrated skill on this list.

2. Henry Atkins of Massachusetts
Notable for his history specialty, Henry is a very good history player who can get tossups in any field, and is a history and geography specialist who can get tossups in any other field. He also does a good job of helping me out on the buzzer and doing a great job of helping me understand the tossups in practice.

3. Kevin Fan
Kevin had a great year playing with Henry at Regionals. He's a good lit player with good generalism and good history knowledge, and his strong history knowledge is complemented by good generalism and good history specificness. His history knowledge scales with the number of tournaments he plays and with the amount of stuff he's read. He gets questions of all difficulties, even if he doesn't know much about history. I remember him getting lots of good science questions at SCT, and he did pretty well at ICT. Even though he doesn't know many history/geo/social science, he's a good generalist and gets good history buzzes against pretty much any team.

4. Ian Chow (Queen’s)
Ian’s a great generalist and always puts up great numbers on solid teams. His history knowledge is also very good and he is very good at visual fine arts, as seen in his strong performances at ICT and Nationals. Ian also did a great job filling in at the Nats difficulty bracket for Peter Liu. I think Ian’s a natural player for the tournaments he plays, especially in history, but he can also buzz on bonuses and sometimes even science. Ian also had an amazing Regionals, where he had the most powers in history, and the best team at that difficulty. His high-scoring performance at MRNA definitely shows he’s still a very good player.

5. Cormac Beirne (McGill)
This man is terrifying. At lower levels he can buzz in anything, but when you put him in this high he can get questions on pretty much any category. His good literature knowledge has been supplemented by good history/current events knowledge for McGill. His math knowledge is often taken up with visual fine arts but he has also got strong knowledge of classical music and jazz. He's also an avid reader and avid TV enthusiast. A top quizbowl player when not trying to excel at quizbowl.

6. Sky Li (Toronto)
The third overall pick in last year's draft, Sky Li has extensive history and current events knowledge to go with a high power and ability to get points in any category. He has decent generalism but is stronger at history and statistics questions than most of Toronto's top players on the list. His neg rate of 21.4 percent is among the highest in the circuit.

7. Tony Chen
Tony has a lot of good history knowledge, which is why he was the top scorer at WORKSHOP in his first year. He paced the field at VETO and put up great numbers at ICT where he was the top scorer. He also had a very strong performance at EFT where he was the only teammate to have more than half of his buzzes on the buzzer. He's also a good generalist, being able to buzz out to the top of a pack on history tossups is no small feat.

8. Sam Hauer (UBC)
I think Sam has only improved in the last couple of years, but he still stacks up pretty well at Penn Bowl. Sam’s a very good generalist with great history knowledge from playing with him and Ian, and he’s also good at history, especially in the World Wars. He’s always shown a willingness to buzz when playing on a strong team, and he’s shown that he can get great buzzes at higher difficulties. Sam’s a strong history player with deep history knowledge, and he’s also shown that he’s been able to make clutch buzzes against a lot of teams this year, especially at Penn Bowl. I think McGill can definitely afford to take a chance on a top 2 pick this year who’s also on track to be a very strong player in their first five years.

9. Adrian Wong
Adrian has a lot of great knowledge in music, film and TV, and is a great generalist as well. He's an excellent team leader, especially on bonuses, which is very important in today's increasingly competitive online quizbowl scene. He's also one of the few people who actually attend tournaments, which is important for a team to have.

10. Raymond Chen
I think Raymond's reputation for great literature buzzes over and over again makes this ranking a bit difficult for me. He did, however, do quite well at the Chicago Open, leading McGill B to a top-3 finish at Regionals and finishing with 1.5 science PPG. However, he was also the top science player at the Toronto Open and I think that performance was deserved. Raymond was also a very good generalist, but he did worse at the Chicago Open, and worse at the Toronto mirror. I would rank him higher if he played more tournaments, but I would be less confident in saying he played any of those.

Thanks go to Jenny Mao and Joe Su for their comments and feedback. If this writeup seems a bit odd, here’s a hint: I didn’t write it. There's also an alternate version here.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by IncompetentIdiot »

Polls are now closed. Thank you to our record turnout of 18 voters for your awful and frankly hurtful takes (except Sky Li, saw some solid rankings there). Without further ado, I present to you your new first-term présidente de la République of Canadian quizbowl.

Main Poll (18 Ballots)
1. Lia Rathburn, 447 (median 1, max 1, min 2)
2. Henry Atkins, 435 (median 2, max 1, min 2)
3. Kevin Fan, 406 (median 3, max 3, min 6)
4. Ian Chow, 392 (median 4, max 3, min 6)
5. Sky Li, 365 (median 6, max 4, min 7)
6. Cormac Beirne, 364 (median 5.5, max 4, min 7)
7. Tony Chen, 360 (median 6, max 3, min 8)
8. Sam Hauer, 312 (median 8, max 7, min 14)
9. Adrian Wong, 308 (median 9, max 8, min 11)
10. Raymond Chen, 271 (median 10, max 9, min 15)
11. Ben Chapman, 252 (median 12, max 8, min 15)
12. Peter Wang, 251 (median 12, max 10, min 15)
13. Wenying Wu, 235 (median 12, max 10, min 17)
14. Liam Kusalik, 215 (median 13.5, max 11, min 17)
15. Max Gedajlovic, 199 (median 15, max 12, min 20)
16. William Dawson, 193 (median 15, max 10, min 19)
17. Jet Dong, 176 (median 17, max 9, min 19)
18. Kais Jessa, 136 (median 19, max 15, min 22)
19. Devan Greevy, 118 (median 19, max 17, min 24)
20. Yadu Kukenthiran, 100 (median 21, max 16, min 23)
21. Andrew McCowan, 90 (median 22, max 13, min 25)
22. Kane Nguyen, 72 (median 22.5, max 19, min 25)
23. Gaian Valdegamo, 51 (median 23, max 21, min 25)
24. Parth Jagtap, 44 (median 25, max 18, min NR)
25. Giorgio Karam, 31 (median 25, max 21, min NR)
RV: Minh-Tuan Phung, 13; Zach Bernstein, 7; Simone Valade, 6; Martin Profant, 1

Rookie Poll (8 Ballots)
1. Ben Chapman, 80 (median 1, max 1, min 1)
2. Giorgio Karam, 67 (median 2, max 2, min 6)
3. David Snoddon, 62 (median 3, max 2, min 4)
4. Nicolas Edwards, 61 (median 3.5, max 2, min 4)
5. Cole Franklin, 40 (median 5.5, max 4, min NR)
6. Albert Li, 33 (median 6, max 5, min NR)
7. James Ah Yong, 25 (median 8, max 5, min 10)
8. John Chen, 24 (median 8, max 5, min 10)
9. Elena Bai, 19 (median 8.5, max 6, min NR)
10. Russell Nip, 16 (median 8.5, max 8, min NR)
RV: Joyce Xi, 9; Lauren Stoyles, 4

Additional congratulations to Tony Chen, who was awarded ROTY Emeritus by the Veterans Committee.

Community Poll
Our winner this year is everyone who organized clubs, staffed tournaments, or otherwise contributed to the circuit. Congrats! In particular, I'd like to recognize the following individuals who came through for me when I TD'ed but haven't gotten a shoutout yet: Samuel Baker, Ian Dewan, Jet Dong, Catey Fifield, Artur Hagen, Andrew McCowan, Kane Nguyen, Simone Valade, Jack Van Nostrand, Peter Wang, and Vincent Yeh.

In addition to the exit polls above, full results will be available here once counting is complete. I hope to see you all again next year for more beef, cancelations, and uncontrollable crying.
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Re: 2022 Canadian Circuit Player Poll

Post by Protean »

All the best ballots are surprise midnight releases a month after the results have already been posted.

1. Lia Rathburn (UBC). Raise your hand if you’ve ever been personally victimized by Lia Rathburn. Lia started as a history player and has since become an everything player and I really don’t like that. Has made passing mentions of learning science (please god no) and as seen in her ballot can also shitpost with the best of them (:relieved:). I think the gap between Lia and Henry is not as large as some think – particularly, I think Henry merits more noise on the overall poll considering Lia has gotten top 15 chatter – but it is there and also I was 4-3 against her this year so it fits my narrative perfectly to have her be the top player

2. Henry Atkins (McGill). End of an era. I think Henry and I started our collegiate quizbowl careers at basically the same time, so I’ve never known a Canadian quizbowl circuit without at least one resident American, and he’s become a fixture of the circuit both as an organizer and a final boss. Like I said, Lia’s lead here is noticeable but small – I think Lia gets a boost from being a bit of a flashier player who whips off first line powers a bunch, but ultimately gets win games and I’ve always seen Henry as a steady, reliable player who you don’t always realize pulled 9 tossups against you until you look at the stats after. I know it’s a bit odd to use “steady” to describe a man who negs 5 times in a finals game but they still won so who can say it doesn’t work? Henry’s McGill B also handed my D2 team our only loss at D2 SCT and I’m still going to mad about it forever.

3. Kevin Fan (McGill). All of you small and medium Kevin fans that doubted should be ashamed of yourselves. You want intangibles? Intangibles is figuring out the Canadian Circuit Player Poll eligibility requirements and rookie list in the middle of ACF Nationals and having the thread ready to post within one minute of the last Toronto/McGill game of the year. Didn’t play a lot of tournaments this year, but generally kept pace with everyone below him when he did play, and then had the best Nats of any non-Henry Canadian player. A bit of an underrated shitposter too, but only because he’s a bit quiet/assuming: basically everything he does say is a shitpost. I’ll be real with you I don’t even know what topics Kevin knows anymore he just buzzes on shit and it’s scary and it sucks. Also should transfer/do grad school at Toronto.

4. Ian Chow (Toronto). It’s hard to describe how meteoric Ian’s improvement has been this year, especially in the second half. Honestly, I think Ian just has a really good memory (he says “oh yeah I remember hearing that from some old tossup”, like, a lot) and he’s finally hit a critical mass of quizbowl questions heard for it to start translating. Ian and Cormac have been close all year, but I think Ian comes out a little better after considering Henry/Kevin and Ben/Sky/lits shadow effects and he particularly set himself apart with a standout Regionals and absolutely murdering the NAQT tournaments, leading the Toronto D2 team to the highest finish in the history of the club. It’s pretty known that he’s an absurd generalist who can actually buzz on literally any part of the distribution, but I really want to point out that he sure knows a lot of lit for someone who insists he isn’t a lit player. Apparently plays online practice with his laptop balanced on his chin (??). The state of his bedroom (which may or may not contain an actual bed) is one of the Great Mysteries of Toronto Quizbowl.

5. Cormac Beirne (McGill). The classic “humanities generalist” (whatever the hell that means) with particular impressive VFA depth. God, you have no idea how much I was looking for an excuse to put Sky in this spot, but between the stronger Regionals, the Workshop showing, and only putting up ~8 fewer PPG while shadow realmed at Nats, I kept getting foiled by Crooked Cormac. He’s also shown a lot of versatility in adapting to different team roles, having competed for neg prizes while successfully anchoring teams but also managing to add a lot of value when playing with Henry and/or Kevin while cutting back on the negs. Will he neg?? Won’t he?? It’s always a nerve-wracking game with Cormac Beirne I actually have no idea what this or the “impressive buzzes” write-up mean but I feel extremely flattered anyway.

6. Sky Li (Toronto). Top five six player Sky Li. Oh well, maybe next year. Sky is already a strong AFA-based generalist, but y’all can look forward to the new and improved Sky Li after the intense carding regimen I’m about to put them through – starting with learning extremely esoteric facts like “what was Prohibition prohibiting”, “where is Boston”, and the concept of anal hygiene. In all seriousness, though, I’m very grateful to have been able to play the vast majority of my tournaments with Sky over the last couple years and am excited to have the next couple before they achieve their techbro dreams of absconding to Silicon Valley. Also takes my shit extremely well tbh, considering that they’re basically the Official Mascot of Toronto Quizbowl due entirely to my constant memeing on them. I almost had to k-means cluster Sky’s face at Nats, but luckily for them we made it to third bracket unscathed and they made up for it with a strong playoffs. (POST-POLL EDIT: TOP 5 PLAYER SKY LI WE DID IT REDDIT)

7. Sam Hauer (UBC). I miss Sam, Purveyor of Accents and Drinker of Tea. Every year in April, we celebrate Sam’s PPG dying for his sins: 1) being a history player and 2) attending UBC. The new testament to Sam’s ability is his managing to consistently put up 20-30 ppg while playing next to Lia, but I’m confident he’d be able to put up numbers similar to the people ranked around him if he was leading a team. Also knows a lot about SS, especially philosophy, and unlike all the other AFA players, actually knows about operas – hey how convenient, those are all things Toronto could use a bit of help with. It’s not too late, Sam. We have laws too, you know.

8. Tony Chen (Western). I think I perhaps value generalism less than most other people in the circuit, but Tony is probably the broadest generalist in the circuit (read: actually knows all the sciences): out of everyone in the country he’s probably a legitimate threat on more tossups per paсk than any other single player and can hang with the best specialists in the country in life sciences and literature. That said, I put him below the others in this tier because 1) I don’t think it translates to that many more tossups than them when you consider team compositions, 2) the others are a bit deeper in their specialties, and 3) most of the others had pretty strong showings at Nationals. We don’t interact much, but he seems like a funny guy who while you were out partying mastered the question mark react. Also a weeb. Seems like Western will be the single most interesting team to keep an eye on next year.

9. Adrian Wong (McMaster). A current McMaster student in the top 10! I think this may be a first in the history of the player poll, or at least the modern era of it (we don’t talk about 2016). Like with most generalists, I have a hard time pinning his categories down – he tends to play on extremely shorthanded teams – but at the very least his educational background is life sciences-adjacent and he seems to know a lot of history as well. Might not have the firepower of those above him, but I think McMaster could really make a splash at D2 if they ever manage to get all their players to a tournament at the same time.

10. Ben Chapman (Toronto). Ben deez nuts. I feel so dirty putting three Americans in the top 10 but Ben doesn’t give me much choice. Coming fresh off a runner-up finish at PACE with American UTS Hunter, he’s made a seamless transition to the university game, culminating in a fourth place finish at D2 ICT and an extremely impressive Nats debut. I think Ben is already the most complete science player in the country – there are players who are better than him at every subcategory, but nobody with coverage as complete and deep as him – and one of the top AFA players (albeit among like 4 people). And despite what he may tell you, he has started to develop a lot of generalist ability after being freed from the confines of playing on a contending team. Watch out for him – Ben is going to be a thorn in the side of a lot of teams for a long time.

11. Peter Wang (Waterloo). Possibly the most mysterious player on this list, which is wildly impressive considering it also features a person who’s apparently literally quit quizbowl and a guy from Manitoba who nobody’s ever actually seen. Probably deserves to be higher, honestly, but it’s hard to make the call since he only played two tournaments. One of them was, of course, the fabled ARCADIA where Peter led Waterloo to a tournament win over Lia-containing UBC team and a McGill team with both Henry and Cormac, which might just be the most impressive feat of the circuit this entire year. He’s really, really good at lit and he must be at least somewhat of a generalist as well – you don’t put up PPGs like that without some – but I have absolutely no idea what else he does because, again, mysterious.

12. Liam Kusalik (Waterloo). The third of only three complete science players active on this circuit this year – and as such, probably one of the hottest commodities in the country and he’s only getting hotter. Really had a statement year, cementing himself as a Waterloo anchor alongside Peter (see again that ARCADIA win). Can buzz on every science question, but also must know other things and I just don’t know what they are because I am so bad at paying attention to games. Shame he didn’t play SCT this year, but between him and Gaian I’m really looking forward to watching Waterloo duke it out with McMaster (and very possibly Queen’s???? :eyes: :eyes: :eyes:) at D2 next year. What I’m really not looking forward to is playing him even though he seems like a really chill and pleasant person.

13.
Wenying Wu (Toronto).

14. Raymond Chen (Toronto). Oldest player on the circuit. I think I’m pretty good, but also that I don’t keep up with the young whippersnappers as well as other rankings seem to indicate. I’m not self-deprecating/humble enough to not say that I’m one of the top lit players and stronger (maybe even strongest?) bio players on the circuit, but I’m a little hamstrung by the fact that I literally don’t really listen to like…any of the other tossups except chem (side effect of playing with Sky for 3 years ig) and it shows in the numbers compared to most of the people I put above me. In particular, despite being a literal child Wenying has been scoring comparably to me all year on the same team but outdid me at both 3-dots (Regionals and D1 SCT). I have better broad lit canon coverage than her, but even with my strong Nats I still think she scales up better than I do – she may read (lmao ikr? what a loser) more than anyone else in the circuit and it shows when she whips out a bunch of crazy first lines every tournament (and also does so when practicing on Nats). She’s also the worst person you know. Did I use the second half of my own entry on her so that I could snub her above*? Yes.
(*Huge thanks to Roensa Salija (Toronto) for putting together the Raymond Hates Wenying collage.)

15. Will Dawson (UBC). Lia makes ranking all the other UBC players really difficult (petition to excommunicate her from Canadian quizbowl next year) but make no mistake: Will is very strong and seems even stronger on NAQT (see his ICT performance next to Lia). Putting him 15 seems like an underrank but this seems to be more of a testament to how much better the circuit has gotten overall. I don’t really know Will, but I think(?) he’s yet another player who is pursuing something life sciences-related in school but is also really good at history? Did I miss a memo about this or something? Brb learning history I guess

16. Max Gedajlovic (UBC)
. A grizzled Reach veteran who has carefully crafted his skill at buzzing. We are not going to talk about that first D1 SCT game, which was a carry job by Gabo anyway at any rate no further questions at this time thank you have a nice day goodbye. Has shifted away from being a lit specialist into stronger generalism but is nonetheless still locked in the perpetual UBC nightmare that persists regardless of specialties or categories: dread it, run from it, Lia Rathburn still buzzes. I can’t really evaluate how good that generalism actually is since I don’t listen to 14 of the tossups but can confirm he knows a lot about books and stuff. I’m not sure how this lines up objectively, but it always feels like Max at least 2-2s me and not-uncommonly 3-1s me on lit. Pretty cool dude.

17. Kais Jessa (McGill). Much ink has been spilled about the vaunted “strongest 1/1 in the circuit” but one doesn’t score 33 PPG at a 3-dot tournament with just 1/1. I have no idea what he actually studies (some sort of engineering? Computer science? Math? Physics? All of these things are the same to me) but he definitely contributes a lot non-life science to a team that sorely needs all the science it can get. I know it’s to our detriment but it’s actually so funny watching Sky pretend they have full control of all their bodily functions whenever Kais shows up in the Zoom. Look, all I’m saying is that based on last year’s poll (EDIT: and this year’s!) only Toronto properly appreciates Kais and we could really use an AFA player. Solved pentago or something.

18. Devan Greevy (McGill). Oh my god someone yeet her out of this country already (edit: at the time of posting she may or may not have already been yeeted). I think I fear her more than anyone else on this list: I have no idea what it is but she consistently steals my lunch money and stuffs me in a locker on the lit whenever we play (and is also very mean to me? :( inb4 “some people need to be bullied more”) Luckily she will be returning to the Least Fun Place On Earth for law school next year (though if you’re reading this Devan it’s not too late to transfer to Toronto!) Studied lit for her degree which is, like, basically cheating. Ngl tho Devan may also actually be the funniest person on the circuit.

19. Jet Dong (McGill). A former high school player who didn’t play much but put up a lot of points when he did (though mostly on easier tournaments) and has now supposedly quit for good, so as you can imagine he’s very easy to evaluate. I don’t think I can really put him any higher than this when everyone above him has stronger track records at harder tournaments, but I have a suspicion that he’d be a couple of spots higher if he played a few more tournaments at his current level. As it is, I have absolutely no clue what he’s good at and yet somehow his Mysterious vibes still aren’t as strong as Peter’s.

20. Yadu Kukenthiran (Western). Two Western players! I’m not sure if this is also a first for the Canadian Circuit Poll but it certainly is cool to see. As a history specialist, he forms a really good one-two punch with Tony and had an important part in Western making the D2 SCT final over McGill as well as their subsequent 19th place finish at ICT. You might want to buy low on Yadu because I’m also going to leave you with the following facts and let you all draw your own conclusions: 1) after two paсks of Lederberg III, Yadu had 50 points and Tony had -5 and 2) halfway through some pre-Nats open paсk Yadu had 35 points and Lia had -5, after which we of course had to justly stop the count. Also had one of the most delightful player poll write-ups this year.

21. Giorgio Karam (Manitoba). Anyone from Manitoba appearing on this poll might win Most Unexpected Player by default. Didn’t play a whole lot but was pretty impressive when he did. As a med student, his biology is no joke as I saw firsthand playing with him at last summer’s NASAT mirror and also seems to be quite good at religion/thought. Managing to scrounge up an entire Manitoba team for D2 SCT was great to see – hopefully we still get to see a bit of them once online becomes a bit scarcer.

22. Gaian Valdegamo (Waterloo). Absolutely crushed our JAVA mirror and pks the shit out of VFA on the novice practice server. I’m not sure exactly how good he is at other categories since I don’t think he does science or lit, but he’s certainly capable of putting up a bunch of points even next to Liam and Peter – so probably pretty good. The Waterloo players need to play some harder tournaments to take the next step imo (or at least for me to put them higher on my ballot), but I think we can expect Liam and Gaian both to make strides next year.

23. Andrew McCowan (Queen’s). Looking at his numbers again, Andrew’s always been a pretty strong player but might have been lost in the shuffle a bit in part due to playing with Jack, but he had a chance to show what he was made of this year and he didn’t waste the opportunity. He seems like a decent generalist who knows a thing or two about books and has really impressive numbers, but he hasn’t yet shown that he can scale it up past 2-dot. Science may sink Queen’s yet, but he may be the key to Jack van Nostrand finally, finally qualifying for D2 ICT.

24. Kane Nguyen (McMaster)
. Quite possibly the only eligible player in this entire country to care about college sports and is really good at sports in general, likely contributing to his remarkable SCT performance. Also really good at biology, particular plant biology (can’t relate tbh) and is cultured enough to know VFA (still can’t relate tbh). Plays a lot of tournaments very shorthanded or solo, which deserves praise because I certainly do not have the endurance or attention span to listen to even half the questions per paсk. Please if there is a God out there let us see what a full McMaster A can do next year.

25. Simone Valade (McGill). Backstreet’s back. After seemingly retiring from academic quizbowl, faxed all of canqb “I’m back” and proceeded to outpower Sam, Max, and me at D1 SCT before playing both ICT and Nats but nothing else. Iconic. The brief interlude is ending and Simone returns from McGill to her roots in Toronto, bringing all the bio and trash expertise that entails. Will be cool to see her around even if she doesn’t want to play academic anymore. Other Fartlets should follow her shining example and transfer to Toronto.
Raymond Chen
McMaster University, 2017
University of Toronto, 202x
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