Woodsball Manifesto by Rob "Tyger" Rubin

[Brokeass_baller]

Tyger's fall from grace was kinda sad. When I was young, I loved his videos. He seemed like a decent, helpful guy. But just a few years after that, I realized he's just a strange, sad, and grumpy old man.

[Lt. head-shot]

I'm in the same boat. As a kid with a new hobby and access to Youtube, I found his stuff pretty quickly. 2007-2008 time frame. Tactics, gear reviews, gameplay... all info for me to consume, and I happily did. There was a lot of great info for someone brand new to the sport. Now I see the old youtube channel now and basically all of that has been removed. Only stuff as old as 2010 and its all from when he went cringe and started talking about paintball from a basement...

[Brokeass_baller]

He took the old videos down? That's a shame. I can't remember how I discovered him, but it was probably 2002/2003 and he had the videos up for download on his Web Dog Radio site (I never understood that name). They were a great resource. I was really getting into speedball, and I didn't really know the names of everything or how to play the bunkers. His videos were a great help.

My friends and I threw together a rag-tag team and played in a local novice blowback-only tournament. Part of our practice routine was to study his videos after school, and then go out into my buddy's tall fenced in yard and practice with plywood bunkers. It must've helped. We took 3rd place for the series. Lol

[martix_agent]

His videos were actually really helpful. It's a shame he has removed them, and also went full grumpy man. Why remove them?

[un2xs]

Apparently he had at least three channels showing paintball content. (At least one includes his Expert Village content.

WebDog Paintball

https://youtube.com/user/WebDogPaintball

WDArchives

https://youtube.com/user/WDRarchives

TygerWDR

https://youtube.com/c/webdogradio

Perhaps these hold the videos you seek. Or... maybe not.

[Brokeass_baller]

WDArchives has the videos I was talking about! And there's a season 3! Awesome! Thank you! So much nostalgia from these!

[Trbo323]

There's so much hypocrisy here it's hilarious

1) in a nutshell, he is complaining about how the "woodsball" crowd is being attacked for not changing by in turn.... Attacking other sections of the sport

2) I've always felt the vast majority of the "we are being attacked" in paintball is way overblown. Someone makes an off hand comment like "I really don't like woodsball" and someone else overhears it and in telling it to their friend it turns into "man this guy at the field was totally hating on woodsball"

3) he is complaining about the"mainstream" not understanding woodsball players by using examples of.... Him not understand other elements of the sport

4) he is saying that "others" (yeah ok, that's not ambiguous at all) are saying the woodsball players are inferior. Which by logic means the (speedball) players are considering themselves superior. But then he is putting a trademark on every time he writes "woodsball"? I'm sorry what? Who thinks they are superior?

It's a lot of word salad to dress it up and make it sound good but at the core it's someone just trying to be a victim for no real reason

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

[coyote]

His ego and identity are tied up in something he does.

All the while complaining about folks who's egos and Identities are tied to something they do

I'm happy just getting to play paintball s few times a year. I'd be even happier if I can get some more PAINTBALL PLAYERS to join me.

[martix_agent]

Join a scenario team. It solves both wanting to play with others, and you wont' have to feel horrible only playing a few times a year.

[coyote]

Been on a scenario team for 18 years. Captain for 12.

My point is we don't have enough people playing paintball to divide them into "us" vs "them".

[Bow]

I liked tyger for ages, but he changed. The nail in the coffin for me was his documentary.. I was one of the first guys to fund it, was promised a physical copy and a tyger patch. Never got either. After a few emails he went radio silent and I never looked into him again.

I'll personally play on any field with any marker. I don't like using an electro, but the field doesn't change my mindset on how to play or why to play. At the end of the day I shoot people and they shoot me, I had fun. I don't get why people are in such an on rails mindset most of the time. Just doesn't compute to me.

[Meleager7]

I like today how speedballers have returned to the woods! Yes, their speedball electros are a challenge to deal with sometimes, but man, are they ever easy to spot in the woods ! Thank you Mr Agg, for wearing your bright white Dye I4, just for me !!!

[coyote]

Something that I think often gets overlooked;

Every woodsball field I have played at had a big footprint, trees, and other terrain. It was a location suitable to playing woodsball.

Most if not all speedball fields I have played have little nature in common with a woodsball field. Most were or are currently adjacent to pasture or other types of agg land (hello the Mr pun).

In my minds eye a woodsball field is a luxury. I have played in places like Fernley Nevada and Modesto California. You ain't gonna play woodsball in those environments.

[lhamilton1807]

I always played renegade/outlaw ball so I never got into the whole tourney scene. I don’t recall the I’ll feelings toward each other because it was a miracle at times to get 20 players to show up.

I think it’s important to remember where as a community we’ve gone wrong, so this is important from that perspective. It hasn’t aged well for all the reasons posted above, and I’m happy to see the paintball community take a much more inclusive approach today. Seems like everyone I see on the field or in the woods is glad there are potential targets and teammates around.

[Magmoormaster]

In my minds eye a woodsball field is a luxury. I have played in places like Fernley Nevada and Modesto California. You ain't gonna play woodsball in those environments.

What an underrated comment. I grew up in Arizona, played paintball for 3 years there. I played bush ball a couple times at a friend's property, but otherwise it was some sort of speedball. Even after having moved to Utah, I didn't play woodsball for several years just out of convenience. And at this point, I still prefer speedball. I play paintball to shoot people, not to play hide and seek. I often get bored on woodsball fields. It also doesn't help that the main woodsball field around here is frequented by a group that seems to go out of their way to create drama.

[coyote]

There are days I feel a lot more like gun fighting then deer hunting.

I have had the great luxury of having 10 -12 commercial fields within 90 minutes of home for going on 25 years.

Sometimes my mood and motivation dictate my destination.

Many MCBers have a single outlaw option, or lone commercial field to play at. I can pick and choose. That's not lost on me.

[The Inflicted]

At the time that he published this, he was largely punching up. The industry and the media had elmost entirely ignored "woodsball" by this point. This was especially obvious if you started in the very early days, when APG would publish articles like "The Art of Back Shooting", or even the first televised tournament. By this point, there were open and energetic debates on whether or not camo did anything to help and, the idea of putting anything other than a hopper or a tank on your gun was stupid. The typical mindset held by the overarching community is that you'd start with a rental at your local po-dunk field, get good, get a (insert high end double finger electro, a 'jersey', paintball pants), join a team and then compete. "Rec-ballers" was a derogatory reference to those folks who never moved into the tourney scene.

Honestly, without sentiment like this, 'woodsball' wouldn't have become a thing. Specops PB proved that there was an unsupported market and ran with it. MagFed paintball probably wouldn't have taken off without this and, First Strikes might not have happened either given the small competitive field formats that we still see today, and the fact that the competitive circuit banned Flatline and Apex barrels already.

Today, with the industry as it is overall, it's kind of wierd to read.

Agreed. People who stuck with the hobby should be thankful that the sentiment Tyger was expressing is now irrelevant. Looking back today, when Planet Eclipse now offers a magfed gun and multiple high-end markers in camouflage or subdued colors, it's sometimes difficult to remember a time when most of the industry was hostile to anything but the tournament scene.