The 2023 March Micro Tournament - Updated Daily
It is time! Welcome to the 2023 edition of the WatchCrunch Micro Tournament. Thank you to the community for all the feedback and brand recommendations. I did my best to incorporate as many as possible based on community activity and awareness.
As stated last year, the goal is to raise awareness of lesser-known brands. We are going from 32 to 64 brands, so this is truly March Madness. If your favorite brand was excluded, it was not intentional and it does not make them a lesser brand. Even with 64, it was hard to narrow the field. This year the focus is on smaller shops that do not necessarily have the means to compete with the larger independents like Christopher Ward, who we all know and love. They generally have small batches, limited releases, and fewer resources than the big players. There are several takes on what is a micro/independent, etc; Let's all agree with the spirit vs. personal interpretations.
We have four brackets centered on pricing. In many ways, winning one of these brackets is its own victory.
Seconds - Brands largely at and under the $500 range
Minutes and Hours - Brands largely in the $500-$2000 range
Date – Brands around and above the $2000 mark
For the most part, the brackets were randomized using excel, only moving a few to avoid two heavy hitters going at it in round one. For the sake the the tournament a #2 seed is just as much an underdog as a brand drawing a #8 or #15 being a favorite. I repeat, rankings mean nothing.
Rules:
To avoid spamming feeds, this will be the only post to track the tournament's progress. So as the kids say, Follow, Star, etc.
Four matchups a day (2 from each side). Each will be a separate post to allow for civil debate. The first matchups drop Monday 11PM ET.
Be respectful of all the brands and members, even if the vote does not go your way. This is meant to be lighthearted fun to help raise awareness of 64 awesome watchmakers. A delightful outcome last year is many of the brands participating in the discussion and we anticipate the same this year.
Voting will commence at approx. 12 AM ET until about 11 PM ET each day. Note, it is just me running this, so I will do my best to honor those times within a reasonable tolerance. I make no promises I will not crash on the couch one night. :-)
Voting is based on the overall brand, not the individual model or sample photo.
There are no rules on how you should choose, but you are welcome to civilly debate quality, value, heritage, etc.
The bracket will be updated regularly (edited original post to cut down frivolous posts).
Once all the match-ups are concluded, we will proclaim a WC Community Winner.
Ties will go to the brand with the most user-owned photos of their watch in the poll discussion.
All posts will be under #microtournament
The old posts will remain since I cannot close them, but no changes will be made once the bracket is updated.
Lastly, let’s have fun.
Organizer Note: I discovered I uploaded a duplicate (old) bracket on day two that still had Serica accidentally duped (see early comments below) in the Minutes bracket and did not have Formex as intended. To fix my gaffe, I re-added Formex on the next upload. This resulted in them switching spots. Reminder, these matchups were randomly selected, so the swap has minimal impact, especially since they are in the same bottom half of a bracket. Apologies for the unintentional mix-up.
Watch enthusiast who insists on the next watch being the last.
Wow, thanks for putting this together! It will be fun to watch. 🍻
no pun intended
Excellent line-up! This should be fun.
Exciting! But, You've got Serica in there twice. Maybe you meant to include Smiths? (Cuz you should!)
Looking forward to it, thanks for putting this together !
Nice! Serica in there twice. Lol Cheers!
Let's gooooo!
How is Fears in this list?
Farer was a juggernaut going through the competition last year. This year all the #1 seeds are vulnerable. I have my eye on a #4 seed gaining momentum, if only they believe in themselves and play their game.
Holy hellyeah!!!
Exciting! But, You've got Serica in there twice. Maybe you meant to include Smiths? (Cuz you should!)
Thanks for the catch, will fix before launch. There is a set list.
Nice! Serica in there twice. Lol Cheers!
Fixed! Somehow I added them twice vs. Formex, fixed.
How is Fears in this list?
It was a dead brand for over 40 years, relaunched from ashes a handful of yeas ago by a great-grandson, who never knew about the company and by all accounts, a small brand. Nivada Grenchen is similar in that fashion.
Farer was a juggernaut going through the competition last year. This year all the #1 seeds are vulnerable. I have my eye on a #4 seed gaining momentum, if only they believe in themselves and play their game.
To be fair, the seeding was randomized. :-) No true #1 or #16 seeds.
Ohhh sooo many brands !! Exciting let’s go!
Day 9 Update: And like that, we have our first four teams in the Sweet 16. Day one of the second round had our most daily votes yet, which is a good sign as we close this up in the next week. Baltic has been on a tear and faces off against Brew next week in what should be a heated debate. Once again, congratulations to all the brands so far and I am not looking any more forward to some of these match-ups on day ten. Good luck to all.
Will be posting an update a little later than usual as I will not be home until after midnight ET.
Day 10 Update: Half of the Sweet 16 is in place and we have some monster match-ups already. I said it before, but any of the brands coming out of the four brackets have a victory in their own right. We continue to get massive voting turnout, so I am looking forward to seeing what happens in these last two days of second-round match-ups.
Day 10 Update: Half of the Sweet 16 is in place and we have some monster match-ups already. I said it before, but any of the brands coming out of the four brackets have a victory in their own right. We continue to get massive voting turnout, so I am looking forward to seeing what happens in these last two days of second-round match-ups.
After all round of 16 contenders are finalized, could you kindly post an updated bracket photo? Thanks for doing this fun competition for the 2nd time around.
After all round of 16 contenders are finalized, could you kindly post an updated bracket photo? Thanks for doing this fun competition for the 2nd time around.
Absolutely. I update the photo every night. Once we get through the whole tournament, I’ll share a single final post.
Day 11 Update: I cannot believe how many folks are still playing along. I thought perhaps after a few days, hype would die down, but nope, still getting close to 500 votes each match-up. Surprisingly, despite the handwringing many of us feel in making these votes, most are making the same votes as there has only been one close match-up in this round. Will the last matchups of round two bring another? There is one I can think of, but again, I have been totally off in predicting how close some of these would be. What is your take? Will we start to see closer matchups or will some of these titans continue their march to the final four?
Day 12 Update: And like that, we are down to the final 16 and the tournament will come to a fast close. Today we saw some closer matchups. Haleios and Nivada Grenchen were neck and neck while Studio Underd0g seems to be anything but an underdog so far. The sweet 16 brings some monster matches and this is where things get interesting. It will be very interesting to see who the WC community sends to the elite 8. Good luck all!
Fun thing! But Maen should be way higher, a bit meh to put them up against Vaer and Baltic😩
Fun thing! But Maen should be way higher, a bit meh to put them up against Vaer and Baltic😩
They make some great watches, no doubt. Hell hath no fury like a random number generator. They are responsible for the closest match-up so far and yes, in other matches, they may have fared a little better.
Day 13 Update: I'd tap the mic and ask if folks are still here, but the Monta V. Formex matchup brought over 500 votes. That may have been the match-up I was least looking forward too. I think each has the potential for a final four run in any other bracket, but alas the bracket gives and takes.
The first matchups in the sweet sixteen saw three relatively close matchups, which gives me hope the last four matchups in the round will also be close. Brew was the first brand to keep Baltic under 400 votes, but could not stop the French brand in their attempt to make it back to the final four.
Another matchup I dread, the artisan dial makers facing off, AnOrdain vs. Kurono. Will @Deeperblue's crystal ball hold true or are we looking at two Asian powerhouses facing off in the elite eight? All I know is we have three days left after this round and perhaps, just perhaps, I can maybe go to bed early again. :-) Best of luck to the remaining brands.
Day 14 Update: There is now 8. Vario had a great run and happened to run into a brand determined to face Baltic in the elite 8. On the other side AnOrdain continued it's march and now faces off against the powerhouse that is Ming in the next round. We also get the upstart vs. the veteran. Can Studio Underd0g and Richard's whimsy dials overcome Formex? Lastly, Nivada Grenchen Vs. Zelos. Who will move onto the final four? We will know tomorrow around this time.
Fun fact that may only interest me. We had 16 countries represented in the tournament. Here is a breakdown based on HQs (not where they were made as that is very challenging to track down for most micros). In another life, I would do a breakdown on average movements, sizes, etc, but a person has to sleep, eat, and have a basic life. :-)
Day 15 Update: What a banger of a day. This is the first round in the tournament we averaged over 500 votes per matchup and two of the matchups received the most votes in the tournament. Just wow. Thank you all for continuing to put up with these posts. The good news? Only two of these will show in the feed today. AnOrdain eeked out a win over Ming, who received the most votes on the losing side of a matchup for the whole tournament. AnOrdain goes on to face Zelos who has surprised every opponent so far defeating many fan favorites along the way.
On the other side the two highest vote-getters in the tournament resulted in a surprisingly one-sided result, but props to Lorier for an excellent tournament and being the closest competitor to Baltic so far. They will face Formex who went through arguably the toughest bracket in the tournament, also beating fan favorites throughout.
As stated at the start, winning any of these four brackets in and of itself is its own victory as they were paired with like-market watches. Congratulations to each and best of luck in the final four.
Day 16 Update:
Could we have asked for a closer set of matches for the final four? Both were within a percentage point and the winner was never clear throughout the day. Once again, the votes in his round exceeded all the votes in the previous rounds with lots of folks jumping in to push their favorite to the finals. Congratulations to all the brands, but sadly, we have to have a cutoff time for voting and when 11 struck Formex and AnOrdain were left standing. This will make for an intriguing final. Good luck to both brands.
Day 17 Update.
Please check out this thread for a full tournament recap. Thank you all!