The Return of The Studio's Rap Battles

By Champion Albert. Art by Litra.
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Rap battles by Litra

Introduction

Looking to spit some lines from your mixtape, but no one you know will listen? Well, you're in luck! After a three-month hiatus, Rap Battles are returning to The Studio! This time, the staff of The Studio are mixing things up with a couple new elements to add to this popular in-chat competition.

General Information and Procedure

Every Saturday at 6PM EST, The Studio will host a Rap Battle. To sign up, users can PM a room staff member and ask to be added to the list of competitors. The minimum number of signups needed for a Rap Battle to take place is six. The ideal number of participants is 8, 16, or 32, as these make for an even bracket. However, Rap Battles may contain any number of users, as long as that number is greater than six.

Any participants that sign up for a Rap Battle must be present in the room at least ten minutes before the competition is set to begin; this is the time when we will be conducting a Roll Call. If you are not present for the Roll Call, you will be disqualified.

Once the list of participants for the week has been finalized, the names of the participants will be transferred to a bracket on challonge.com where they will be randomized to form the lineup for the Rap Battles.

When it is time for the Rap Battles, the selected host will introduce the event as well as give a brief overview of the procedure and rules for spectators who are not familiar with them.

Upon time for each round to begin, modchat + will be set, and the two participants rapping in that round will be voiced. The participants will then "rap" when given permission by the host.

After each round is finished, the selected judges will vote to determine who of the participants had the better rap. Once the winner is chosen, they will move onto the next round and the procedure will repeat until one winner is chosen. The participant who wins the final round will have their username put on The Studio's website and roomintro until the next winner is chosen in a future Rap Battle.

Here is an example from one of the past winners of a Rap Battle. This rap from Legendary Xernn is an example of what we're looking for:

Yo, your shit is not important, stop ranting about nothing.
I wear all black and bandanas, I'm thugging.
When my gang pulls up on your street, you better start runnin.
I'm gon' ruin you like Amanda out in public.
Am I up against Always or lightruce, I really don't care.
I'm gonna win and burn both you, like solar flares.
I rule this room, call me Mr. Mayor
I'ma take you to class, degree and a major.
Tryna call me on a pager, you can never reach my level.
You might as well run away, like you saw the devil.
Don't fuck with the wrong person, bitch you better be careful.
You'll be looking for a place to stay, like a lost Dwebble.

[21:33:12] %Always: all the jokes I can make now,,,

Yo Momma made the best one.
Sit down, take a breather, cause I just won this one.

Judging Information

Instead of using strawpolls to determine winners of each round of Rap Battles like The Studio used to do, there will now be judges that determine who moves on and who doesn't. The judging panel will include:

Prior to the start of each Rap Battle, The Studio's room staff may choose three users who they feel meet the standards for being selected as a judge. Judges must not have any bias when it comes to evaluating participants' raps, and they must equally judge participants based on content, not based on favoritism. These judges must also set an appropriate example for other members of chat. These users must be notified and confirmed by the Thursday before the Rap Battle is taking place. If no users are found, their slots may be replaced with other The Studio room staff members to accommodate for the missing slots.

Rap Battle Guidelines

There are a couple of guidelines that participants must abide by when participating in these Rap Battles.

  1. This is a room activity that takes place in the chat; therefore, all regular Studio rules and Pokemon Showdown! rules apply.
  2. Raps should not contain generally negative content targeted at a specific chat member, race, gender, religion, etc. In addition, raps must be free of overly sexually explicit content.
  3. Don't promote or advertise your raps to get votes or skewer the results.
  4. Raps do not have to make references to content relating to Pokemon, but it is highly encouraged.
  5. There is zero tolerance for plagiarism. Raps must contain ALL original material. If it is found that a participant is using content that is not their own (lyrics from a song or another participant), they will be automatically disqualified.
  6. Raps can be prepared ahead of time. They do not have to be "free-styled" in chat.

Keep in mind that these guidelines operate on moderator discretion. If a moderator feels as if a participant is not abiding by the rules of Rap Battles (or general rules of the chat), they may take action.

Featured Rooms / Guest Judges

As mentioned before, The Studio's staff have incorporated some new elements to spice up the Rap Battles; one of these new features is the opportunity for staff from other rooms on the server to be Guest Judges!

Each week, the staff of The Studio will choose one room from which they would like to have room staff judge alongside them for the course of the rap battle. For example, if the Cosmopolitan Room is chosen for a specific week, three of its room staff will be chosen to judge with three staff members of The Studio for that week's competition. The Studio's Room Owners will contact Room Owners from the chosen room to confirm the partnership at the beginning of the week. The featured room's staff will then be able to decide amongst themselves which three staff members will be selected as guest judges.

Leaderboard Information

There is a leaderboard on our website for Rap Battle participants. The scoring system is as follows:

Participants will receive one point for each round they win in a rap battle, an extra one point for making it to the finals, and three points for winning the rap battle. This means that the size of each Rap Battle bracket will affect how many points each participant will receive.

Conclusion

The official revival of The Studio's Rap Battles will take place on March 12th at 6PM EST.

If you have any questions regarding any of the information presented, please feel free to PM one of The Studio's Room Owners, or check out our website by clicking here!

We hope to see you at our next Rap Battle!

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