Hey, it's Luke with Out of Darts.
Today I wanted to do a little shout-out for the Dart Zone Pro Tour.
Dart Zone has made a huge splash in the hobby over the past just a couple of years which is really
incredible considering we're in the middle of this illness and all the other craziness going on.
They were kind enough to send over this care package which I
assume contains some blasters and other goodies for their upcoming tournament.
Dart Zone Pro has been partnering this year with Drac to put on the foam pro tour.
The foam pro tour is the largest competition that exists in our hobby space.
There are four qualifiers that are spread throughout the continental us, and then the
final takes place the day before FoamCon -- that's two days before EndWar this summer.
The first qualifier was in Sanford, Florida.
That has already passed, and there's already been a winner.
The second qualifier -- I’m gonna read these off just to make sure we've got the info correct.
However, we will have all of the links in the description, of course.
The second qualifier is April 23rd, and that's in new jersey.
The third qualifier is in the bay area near San Jose; that is May 14th.
And the fourth qualifier -- which is your last chance to qualify,
is two days before FoamCon, which is July 14th.
Now, unfortunately, this year, I’m really disappointed, but I’m not going to be at EndWar.
The dates changed, and when you have a family and you have to plan summer events,
stuff gets booked up.
Unfortunately, I’ve got
something near and dear to my heart: we have a family reunion with about 50 or 60 people.
Oh gosh, with all the kids, it is 60.
It's just too fun to see the family, and it's been three years with
everything that's been going on, so I’m really excited to see my family.
I am unfortunately choosing to see family over going to EndWar.
EndWar is always my favorite event of the year or one of my favorites.
It's really it's the most fun.
It's the biggest, and there's a lot going on
and I’m really excited that Dart Zone has stepped up to not only sponsor but financially sponsor
and help promote the event with giveaways and all of the stuff that goes into that.
Not only is there prize money for each of the qualifying tournaments,
but the final tournament has a first-place prize of $10,000.
Second place is $4000, and third place is $1250.
If you're first place, that comes out to $2000 per player, which is pretty substantial.
I've played in plenty of paintball tournaments that had smaller pots than that
and some that were larger, but obviously, paintball is still a much larger sport.
(And that was 25 years ago. It's been a little bit).
So, let's get right into this box!
And thank you, Dart Zone, for sending this to me.
They've been really nice and at sending things and keeping me in the loop on their products.
Oh, this is quite…
Okay, first of all…
Hold on, hold on, we're closing this again.
We're re-boxing.
I just noticed some nice touches.
So, we've got this great logo up front.
On the back, we've got their QR code, which is cool, and then I noticed one nice little touch
is that this side's got this cool red logo which is pretty sweet.
Then, on the back, there's like a ghost logo; it is just ever so faintly there that is super cool.
Dart Zone really made a splash in the hobby.
They've got three pro blasters, which are the blasters allowed for use in the final tournament:
That's the Mark-I and 1.1, the Mark-II, and the Mark-III.
The Mark-I was a fabulous springer.
It's the predecessor of the nexus; it's a very good blaster.
The Mark-II is one of the more powerful and reliable sidearms,
and the mark iii is a flywheel powerhouse.
We've done mods for all three, we really like all of the blasters, and
honestly, I just can't wait to see what the Mark-IV is.
But there's only one pro; let's get going here!
So, this is cool.
They've actually got all the information printed visually in here.
I'll have to have perry here shoot some content of just this to show that separately,
but I’m going to dig in.
What is this?
Okay, goodbye bubble wrap(!)
This is interesting packaging.
So, there are just darts scattered; I like that.
Personally, I would have gone with filling the entire thing with darts.
(that's just me selfishly wanting darts).
But we got a shirt in here which is covered in the packing fuzz.
What is this?
Oh my.
We'll just get that everywhere.
Is this a joke?
We got a patch.
That's pretty sweet.
I am going to start a patch wall,
but I have to decide how big of a piece of patch material to get.
Then we've got a little booklet.
Oh, this might actually have to go up on the wall because I think…
Yeah, it's a little target.
That's pretty cool.
And it's got all the dates and everything.
And then a hat.
Awesome.
Then in, the bottom.
This is like is this core fiber.
It almost looks like coconut fiber, but I don't know.
It's everywhere!
It's raining packaging!
Perry's over here rolling his eyes because he just cleaned and vacuumed the studio this morning!
Where's my knife?
What?
Oh, I changed pants this morning.
Thank you.
Perry, for the win!
So, we are going to gently—
That is a nail file.
Do you know what?
Scissors or any blunt object will really do it.
We'll just do it that way.
I know what's inside this box.
This has got to be the Mark-III.
I don't think there's anything that goes in a box quite like this.
Dart Zone's branding and packaging.
(Aside from that promotional material. There's fuzz everywhere).
Their branding and packaging is solid; they've done a really nice job.
Inside here, we have got the full mark iii experience.
Let's get that out of its –
I want it back!
Dart Zone is also providing all the materials for the actual tournament.
So, you'll get to use their darts (assuming a bunch of brand-new darts) and their blasters,
which I think is kind of fun, actually.
I know there's been some complaints or speculation on the actual requiring to
use these blasters at the end. But, I think at the end of the day, Dart Zone's putting
a ton of money and putting a lot of risk in our hobby to actually get this in front of people.
I think it's totally reasonable for them to have their blasters be the final
blasters that are used in the actual final match.
The cool thing about that is everybody has an identical level playing field.
I'm not entirely sure what the makeup of the individual
blasters is, whether you get unlimited of each or if you get a certain number.
Regardless, each team gets to make the same decisions:
They've got one powerhouse flywheeler, they've got a sidearm, and they've got a springer.
They all have pros and cons and reasons why you'd want to use one or the other,
and I think that's really cool.
I'm really excited.
I am not going to be at most of the events.
I might make it down to the May event, but I’m not
entirely sure if that's going to work out with the schedule.
It's going to be a really great first year of the Dart Zone Pro Tournament,
and I do hope that we see it back year after year.
I will absolutely be at EndWar and the Dart Zone Pro Tournament next year in 2023, providing that
the date doesn't change again, but I hope you all have a great time out at the events.
We'll have all the information down in the description.
As far as other events where you can come and hang out with me:
I'm going to be at the San Diego Nerf Club.
They have two games:
One is the 30th of April, and the other is the 1st of May, so I will be there that whole weekend.
I'll be at both games there.
I'm flying down to see my buddy Eli,
and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the southern California group nerfs.
It's one of my goals to get out to different parts
of the country and take a couple of different trips each year.
This year I’ve finally been able to travel again.
I'm getting down to San Diego, and, of course, I got out to Georgia about a month ago.
Thank you so much for watching!
I hope you'll go check out these tournaments.
I cannot wait to see some of the gameplay footage,
see how you all fared, and see who takes the number one spot home.
Until next time, I’m out of darts.
It's just covered in this stuff!