The Earth Tower kicked off on Saturday, April 15th in Brooklyn, NY. Deo was set up at the merch table at the event. At the merch table, you could buy lanyards, a Pink Mess plushie or pin, hats, playmats, jerseys, and Native booster boxes.
As a spectator, the only way to get the Earth Aura and Earth Tower promos was to purchase the $150 bundle on the MetaZoo marketplace before the event. Additional promos were not handed out at the event, making this Earth Aura and Earth Tower Promo much rarer than its Water counterparts.
Afton, Isaac Sky Lee, and Michael Peckham were signing both days at the event with lines that almost never died down. This was my first time meeting Isaac and Michael at an event. At the end of day two, if you got a card signed by each artist, you were awarded a spoiler pack per artist.
MetaZoo unveiled a new banner at the event featuring ten tower symbols; Water, Spirit, Neutral Lightning, Frost, Forest, Flame, Earth, Dark, and Cosmic (sorry light). These are the symbols that will be used on the merchandise sold at the Tower events, so we’ll be seeing a lot of these this year. Also on the banner is a series of beasties, and there’s a lot to unpack here. We see Mishipeshu and Loveland Frogman from the Water Tower, Sinkhole Sam and Pink Mess representing Earth, and we also see a bunch of familiar beasties representing the other towers. However, the notable takeaways here are the Chibis! We already know that Chibi Squonk will be featured for the Forest Tower Plushies. The same goes for Exploding Rabbit for Flame and The Monster of Partridge Creek for Frost (The Frost Tower will likely be this winter after Caster’s Cup 2023). New Chibis that we haven’t seen include Boogeyman, Mike, The Headless Chicken, and Flatwoods Monster. Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on these Chibi plushies! Boogeyman and Mike, The Headless Chicken are going to be amazing!
On day 1 of the Tower, 148 casters duked it out to make it to the top 32. There were seven rounds each allotting 50 minutes to play 3 games. I saw a bunch of familiar faces from the Water Tower and a bunch of new faces competing in the Earth Tower. Many of the games could be on the main tables during the Twitch stream, hosted by Emelio and J Logan Dick. The casters that made it to the top 32 to, in alphabetical order are: Abel Jacoby, Ben Ritt, Dylan Tran, Easton Evans, Edward Chalupa, Esther Ellis, Evan Andriella, Giuseppe Pucci, Herman Herrera, Isaac Garcia, Jayson Weirson, Jerry Miller, Johnny Dunn, Jonathan Isler, Jordan Heiss, Ken Adams, Kevin Luu, Liam Pfeiffer, Logan Schneider, Luis Perez, Mario Gonzalez, Michael Galarza, Michael Beaumont, Nicholas Blandin, Noah Duncan, Peter Baiocco, Russell Kenny, Ryan Miller, Stephen Silverman, Taylor Hassall, Terry Miller, and Zak Hampson.
On day two, the Top 32 casters from Day 1 participated in 5 rounds with 3rd place going to Kevin Luu, 2nd place going to Herman Herrera, and Abel Jacoby taking 1st! Abel was declared the Tower Caster of the first Earth Tower. However, the journey didn’t end there; In the final match between Herman and Abel, a bad call was made which caused Herman to then concede, making Abel the winner of the Earth Tower. Because of this, Abel and Herman were both called back to the table to play a fourth game without their side decks. The winner of that fourth game would then determine who the true Earth Tower caster would be. Though, in that fourth game, Abel was still able to take the win and become the Earth Tower caster! This is a momentous occasion for both MetaZoo and Abel. A little over a month prior, Abel proved his mettle as a caster by taking 2nd place in the Water Tower. He then moved on to win the next tower!
After all was said and done, prizing was handed out to all of the top 32. This included exclusive mats, hats, tower building promos, as well as cash and product pricing. First through third place also had all of their travel expenses covered by MetaZoo.
In order, our top 32 casters for Earth Tower are:
32nd: Jonathan Isler
31st: Noah Duncan
30th: Jordan Heiss
29th: Taylor Hassell
28th: Edward Chalupa
27th: Russel Kenny
26th: Jayson Wierson
25th: Dylan Tran
24th: Isaac Garcia
23rd: Peter Baiocco
22nd: Jerry Miller
21st: Terry Miller
20th: Nicholas Blandin
19th: Mario Gonzalaz
18th: Ester Ellis
17th: Michael Galarza
16th: Stephen Silverman
15th: Easton Evans
14th: Zak Hampson
13th: Johnny Dunn
12th: Giuseppe Pucci
11th: Michael Beaumont
10th: Logan Schneider
9th: Ben Ritt
8th: Luis Perez
7th: Ryan Miller
6th: Liam Pfeiffer
5th: Ken Adams
4th: Evan Andriella
3rd: Kevin Luu
2nd: Herman Herrera
1st: Abel Jacoby
I’d like to say a special thanks to the staff that attended the event to make sure it ran smoothly. To the tournament organizer Fajir. And to the Judges: Colt Chibigo Hays, Trey Dempsey Gabriel Martinez, Justin Schroeder, Darrin Shernak, Zackery Joy, Elliott Evans, Patrick K, and Zeke Ramirez. Also, a special thanks to Deo, Ted, and Andy for being there to facilitate the event and make sure that everything else ran smoothly.
Much like the water tower, this was an amazing event to attend. Everything went very smoothly without a single disqualification, and the venue choice was very interesting. It was an art gallery that hadn’t fully been set up. Really, all that was there was the lighting and that was the only thing that went wrong; The lighting. I would imagine that the venue was checked out in the daytime, but as soon as nighttime hit, the lighting was very bad. Some tables had no light whatsoever and casters were taking out their phones to use the flashlight to read the cards. All of the lighting in the venue consisted of track lights with directional spotlights (like you’d expect in an art gallery). But overall, the casters did a great job and overcame that obstacle.
It was great to see a bunch of familiar faces from Ohio and a bunch of new faces in the community. I really appreciate all of you that approached me to introduce yourself and took some time out of your day to talk with me. Meeting the community is the highlight of the trips that I’ve taken this year.
I’d also like to shout out all of the content creators that were at the Earth Tower. Over the coming days, Harley and Turmentic will both have videos detailing their experiences at the Earth Tower. Also keep an eye on MetaTalk, which features Logan Schneider and Herman Herrera. They both did very well in this event. MetaStainky from Podcast in a Bottle was also competing, so keep an eye on their podcast if you’re not subscribed (It’s a really good podcast). Esther Ellis, who does the Towers podcast (which is also amazing and reminds me of Radio Lab), also competed in the Earth Tower, taking second place on day one moving into the top 32. Please check them out and subscribe!
After going to the first two tower events, I can say that this is going to be a great year for competitive MetaZoo play. There’s a lot of excitement around this format with casters needing to think outside the box to compete at the Towers. There is always room for improvement, however, so I can’t wait to see how the Towers morph over the coming year and how the next cycle for the Towers is going to be different.