“Most%” is returning for the first time since its original appearance nearly three years ago. This is an All Advancements-esque speedrunning tournament run by Oliver, who you may know as the co-founder of MCSR Ranked.
Open qualifiers will take place this Saturday, 5th July. “I wanted to do it exactly a year after the first one, and have it be a continuous thing, but then I got really involved in MCSR Ranked,” Oliver tells us. “I would’ve liked to host it a lot sooner, but this is the time that I had available, so I’m really excited to bring it back.”
“My first tournament ever was called Not Very Frightening Invitational, which was also an AA tournament,” Oliver says. All Advancements is one of the most popular categories for Minecraft speedrunning, but tournaments for the category can be hard to run. “Most% was kind of my attempt to bring All Advancements to a tournament in a more digestible way. Especially at the time, three or four years ago, All Advancements would take four or five hours just to play a single seed, which is hard for people to watch.”
The premise of Most% is that it takes some of the goals and strategies from All Advancements, but completely changes the context in which they appear. The focus is no longer on the harder advancements that can take hours to complete, but on shorter term decisions and time management. Each match starts with six players trying to win the seed. “You’re always fighting for the next elimination, which is in fifteen minutes, and kind of forces people to make the decisions that will have an immediate benefit,” Oliver tells us.
When Most% was run for the first time, each round was an hour and fifteen minutes long, but the time has now been cut down. “I knew that if it was the same amount of time, people would run out of stuff to do by the end of the seed. I’ve lowered it to only an hour, but I’m expecting people to get very similar results because people have gotten about 20% better,” Oliver tells us. This change makes sense, since back when the original Most% was announced, even the top runners held times longer than four hours. Runs under three hours are now normal for those at the top of the leaderboards.
Most% will be run using the MCSR Ranked mod, so most randomness that affects players will be standardised. “We’ve boosted some rates for certain things – like wither skeleton skulls have a two times higher chance to drop, and tridents from trident drowneds will drop more often – all in the same goal of creating a faster-paced event,” Oliver says. “Cutting down on that excess time will make it more exciting, and more skillful for the players.” From his point of view, spending long amounts of time trying to get rare drops isn’t engaging for viewers, and is counter-productive in an event that focuses on maintaining a fast pace throughout.
It is clear that a lot of work has gone into making this event as fun and energising as possible, despite some of the constraints of the format. “I think it’s just a fun time,” Oliver says. “It is a very unique format that is different from anything else that’s out there.” Previous tournaments, for example DrAAft, have put on All Advancements events, and there are several more classic speedrunning competitions where the aim is beating the game, but none do what Most% does. “With the Most% format, none of the players have a set idea of what their strategy is, and so they’re taking it as they go. I feel like that’s a lot of fun to watch because it introduces a lot of upset potential.”
Open qualifiers are taking place on the 5th of July, and anyone is free to sign up. The qualifiers will be structured slightly differently to accommodate the large number of participants. All players will compete together with the bottom sixth of players being eliminated at each interval, instead of single eliminations. The top 36 players will make it to the actual event and compete in a bracket-style tournament. The event will be streamed on Oliver’s Twitch channel over the next few months.
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