The 2024 March Micro Tournament - Final Four Recap
Congratulations to Baltic. The full recap can be found here.
________________________________________________________
Welcome to the 2024 edition of the WatchCrunch Micro Tournament. Thank you to the community for all the feedback and brand recommendations. Last year, we had close to 30K votes during the tournament, can we get to 50k this year?
The first two years of this tournament, I leveraged the platform to highlight amazing brands I personally liked and wanted to see get more awareness. I never anticipated it would take off. THANK YOU. Reminder, while the title says “Micro” as we’ve grown to acknowledge, is a nebulous term. The brands represented run the gamut from small independents to various types of “micro” brands.
This year, I will be taking a slightly different approach; I took all the suggestions and past participants reviewing over 100 brands. Each brand was then sorted and ranked by a formula weighing two key WatchCrunch measures; Total Posts and Followers. I also factored in previous tournament performance. Lastly, there are a few wild cards I wanted to simply put in and their rankings may reflect it; who knows, we could get a Cinderella story. After crunching all that data, I was able to put together a solid list of 64 brands.
Unlike years past where I used a randomizer for rankings within a price range, these are now reflective of the popularity of each brand on WatchCrunch. The top four seeds using my formula were Baltic, Zelos, Lorier, and Spinnaker.
If you do not see a brand you like, or want to see your favorite brands ranked higher, start posting about them and be sure to tag them. Making these cuts is always the hardest part as there are many brands I love like Lundis Bleus, Ophion, and De Rijke, that simply did not get the traction in years past and we had to make room for new names to help bring attention to. That does not mean you should not check them out all the same! 😀
Friendly reminder: Previous winners are promoted to the Hall of Fame allowing room for new blood. Farer and Formex being our first two.
For those not familiar with the rules, they are as follows:
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 drops Wednesday night at 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 brands. Brand owners and designers are here and will actively participate, what you say will be seen.
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 and good luck to all the brands.
PS; One year I will figure out how to do this so we can run a fun bracket contest, but my skills end at my excel doc! Anyone that wants to take a stab at that, have at it.
PPS; Please let me know if I missed anything, misspelled any names in the bracket etc, I will update it before we start on Thursday. I checked the list multiplate times, but proofreading is not my strong suit and I do my best.
Watch enthusiast who insists on the next watch being the last.
What do you think of this format? What match-ups are you looking forward to/dreading? Which is the toughest bracket?
Some tough early matchups: Monta v Halios and Serica v Traska. How do I pick 😦
What do you think of this format? What match-ups are you looking forward to/dreading? Which is the toughest bracket?
Hours has the toughest bracket while Baltic should easily walk into the final four.
Great job putting this together! Crazy to see the Final Four 🤙🏽
I really like Fleux and Xeric. Don't see either if those on there. No biggie. I must admit I have high hopes for Wise, Nivada Grenchen and Kurono Tokyo. Excites to see who wins every matching though. Going to be fun.
My answer to your question CB is...
Jack Mason, Nodus and Studio Underdog will make it much farther than they should in the rankings due to their popularity.
Better (meaning higher quality but less popular) brands won't make it out of the first or second rounds due to this memberships' lack of familiarity with the quality of the watches and the brand names.
For example, it would shock the heck out of me if a brand like Knot made it past the first round despite the many Grand Seiko fans on this list who are unaware that Knot uses the exact same polishing on its cases as Grand Seiko and high-end Seiko watches. I purchased one just to examine it and it definitely stands up to close inspection and the dial work is amazing.
A wrist shot from the collection...
I really like Fleux and Xeric. Don't see either if those on there. No biggie. I must admit I have high hopes for Wise, Nivada Grenchen and Kurono Tokyo. Excites to see who wins every matching though. Going to be fun.
Both good brands, sadly not enough room for everyone.
Seeded too high, IMO
Serica
Brew
Maybe Ming.
I'm hoping for some upsets!
Let's goooooooooo!
My answer to your question CB is...
Jack Mason, Nodus and Studio Underdog will make it much farther than they should in the rankings due to their popularity.
Better (meaning higher quality but less popular) brands won't make it out of the first or second rounds due to this memberships' lack of familiarity with the quality of the watches and the brand names.
For example, it would shock the heck out of me if a brand like Knot made it past the first round despite the many Grand Seiko fans on this list who are unaware that Knot uses the exact same polishing on its cases as Grand Seiko and high-end Seiko watches. I purchased one just to examine it and it definitely stands up to close inspection and the dial work is amazing.
A wrist shot from the collection...
Absolutely love it Mel. They were one of the few I used a wild card on. Sadly, there is never one right way to do the rankings, but if anything has proven itself in these tournaments, is low cost/value oriented brands tend to beat whimsy and artisan watches. It pained me not to include Lundis Bleus, arguably one of the best dial makers in the world right now, but they barely made a dent the last two years.
Seeded too high, IMO
Serica
Brew
Maybe Ming.
I'm hoping for some upsets!
Let's goooooooooo!
I was very surprised by the seeding, but the community spoke. While I would be surprised if this ends up all chalk, it will be a good lesson all the same.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out, for sure.
Brackets like this can be chaotic, because some people separate how they vote online from how they vote with their wallets & others don't.
Either way, gonna be a blast.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out, for sure.
Brackets like this can be chaotic, because some people separate how they vote online from how they vote with their wallets & others don't.
Either way, gonna be a blast.
100%. I also think WC is filled with lurkers, so just because something is popular with those that post, does not necessarily mean it will be popular with those simply willing to click on a poll.
Can’t wait! So many brands here…like March Madness!
Thanks CB!
Loving it so far!
Mostly since my underdog team of Habring2, Kurono, and Underd0g is still in it.
Hope Horage also advances, but I know Swiss watches with in house movement design and build, tend to do poorly! 😬
Thanks CB!
Loving it so far!
Mostly since my underdog team of Habring2, Kurono, and Underd0g is still in it.
Hope Horage also advances, but I know Swiss watches with in house movement design and build, tend to do poorly! 😬
Clearly, I’m a fan of recognizing the more “affordable” side of independents, thus Horage’s (and others) inclusion. I hope they do well.
@AllTheWatches observed: so far 26 of the bracket winners have been Choice A in the poll. As of Wednesday evening.
@AllTheWatches observed: so far 26 of the bracket winners have been Choice A in the poll. As of Wednesday evening.
Definitely a trend. Choice A is also the factor it’d. There was a pretty bid delta popularity wise for most matchups in the first round. Last year it was pretty balanced when the matchups were chosen by a randomizer.
Week 2 is already shaping up to be tough and juicy
Week 2 is already shaping up to be tough and juicy
The rounds will start to fly by!
I'm guessing Kurono vs. Brew for the final.
It’s kind of a shame that spinnaker has gotten this far tbh, not really a microbrand in the true sense of the word
It’s kind of a shame that spinnaker has gotten this far tbh, not really a microbrand in the true sense of the word
I appreciate the take, but as the original post states above, the term microbrand is really nebulous and the partipants reflects small independent brands of various backgrounds and manufacturing/distribution methods. This started a few years an under the guise of “microbrand” largely because alliteration, IE March Micro Madness. I would not get hung up on the name vs. the spirit of the what we are doing.
I'm guessing Kurono vs. Brew for the final.
That is an interesting take, but I can see it.
If I were a betting man…
Baltic vs. Monta (can’t pick beyond that although maybe Monta).
If I were a betting man…
Baltic vs. Monta (can’t pick beyond that although maybe Monta).
Monta and Lorier will be a very interesting match-up.
Monta and Lorier will be a very interesting match-up.
Agreed, I just have a feeling of a strong pushback against acrylic brewing 😄
Agreed, I just have a feeling of a strong pushback against acrylic brewing 😄
I do hope most will look beyond some of their watches having acrylic. My Zephyr for example does have sapphire. I will be posting a picture when the poll goes up.
If I were a betting man…
Baltic vs. Monta (can’t pick beyond that although maybe Monta).
Well, glad I’m no betting man 🤦