Qblitz
Qblitz is an online quizbowl company, founded circa late 2018 by Dr. Noah Prince. It offers a platform for asynchronous online tournaments that fills a similar niche to NAQT's Buzzword. Qblitz hosts both academic tournaments (its "Challenge Sets") and pop culture tournaments written by the larger community.
Features
Tournaments in Qblitz replace the moderator with a recording of the questions, which is played for each participant locally. This allows players to compete asynchronously: each can hear the question, buzz, and type in an answer entirely separately from their teammates and opponents. The system keeps track of the exact moment when each player buzzed and uses this information to determine who won a tossup. The procedure for doing so is identical to that of in-person tournaments (i.e. "the first to buzz wins the tossup unless they neg"), with a special case for both players answering correctly at the end.
Because buzzpoint stats are tracked for every player and every team in the absence of an opponent, there is nothing stopping preventing a team's performance from being compared to more than one team. In any given game, the difference between playing one team head-to-head or every other team in a simulated round robin is simply a choice in format.
There is a "stat system" provides statistical analysis, feedback, etc.
Tournaments and Events
Qblitz played its first online tournament in Spring 2019. Benjamin Fry became the Season Finale Champion, while Anson Berns and Mark Bailey placed 2nd and 3rd respectively. Yuti Das and Ameya Singh were the top Middle School finishers in the competition.
Side events
Qblitz is a natural choice for remote cooperation audio tournaments, a category conceived of by John Lawrence during the COVID-19 pandemic. As with other audio tournaments, sound clips are arranged pyramidally and serve as clues in place of spoken text, but now team members can take advantage of the platform to play independently of one another. As the majority of its academic competitions are at the high school or middle school level, these side events are the major use case of Qblitz in the collegiate and open community. Most tournaments thus far have been doubles format.
Results
Qblitz does not currently publicize stats from tournaments, so these tables are necessarily incomplete.
Challenge
| Event | 1st Place | 2nd Place | 3rd Place | Top Individual Scorer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| September 2020 | Carmel | Auburn | Hoover | Samanyu Dixit North Carolina Science and Math |
| October 2020 | Auburn | Detroit Catholic Central | LAMP | E.F. Knoxville |
| November 2020 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Hoover | Nathan Beck Streator |
| December Challenge | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Anonymous | Anonymous California |
| January 2020 | Detroit Catholic Central | Auburn | Centennial | Jisoo Park Centennial |
Side events
| Event | Results |
|---|---|
| MARCATo | unknown |
| PAveMENT (December 7 - 18, 2020) | "When you were partying, I studied the Bladee" (?, ?) |
| MIKE | unknown |
| Dede Allen Memorial (October 18 - 27, 2021) | "Clifford Galiher" (Clifford Galiher, ?) |
| Pavement II (November 1 - 12, 2021) | "They did surgery on a Moby Grape" (?, ?) |