I'm A Speedrunner series

I'm A Speedrunner... Get Me To The End Of There! was a video gaming speedrun tournament series held between December 2009 and November 2015.

I'm A Speedrunner (or IAS for short) was an open-entry tournament based on an ever-changing series of video games in which YouTubers raced each other in an attempt to be crowned champions. Unlike most kinds of speedruns, IAS tournaments were more known for Multi-Single Speedruns.

IAS tournaments began with group stages with each Group consisting of 4 (5 in the case of I'm A Speedrunner 1) competitors each with the top competitors in each group qualifying to the knockout rounds. Round 2 was usually, depending on how many signed up, followed by Quarter-Finals. If there were enough competitors, Round 4 would be another knockout round (usually Semi-Finals) and the Grand Final took place after that. A Triple Threat Match or Wildcard Match sometimes occurred between the losers, with the winner of that match going to the Grand Final.

The winner of each tournament received the I'm A Speedrunner Championship, however the concept of championships was not in existence for the first few tournaments.

Early Tournaments (2009 - 2010)
I'm A Speedrunner... Get Me To The End Of There! (abbreviated to IASGMTTEOT) was first conceived back in 2009 in a discussion between Mr100PercentGamer and Ratchet5 while Ratchet had been doing brief leagues on SpyroSpeedruns. The name comes from the TV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, and it became an inside joke within the Spyro community. Mr100P jokingly said that they should host a tournament called I'm A Speedrunner and Ratchet liked the idea and went with it.

IASGMTTEOT took place between December 2009 and January 2010 and had 20 competitors facing off against each other in Spyro games. The tournament had different rules than its successors. There were five people in each group and the rounds following it had three people each. LukeRF44 eventually won the tournament.

Six months later, I'm A Speedrunner 2 took place between July and August 2010 where 28 competitors faced off in Crash Bandicoot games. Current rules in future tournaments came into existence here, four people in each group. Round 2 introduced a short-lived rule where the top competitor of his group faced the 2nd person of another group. The tournament did go through some drama, but was ultimately successful. The winner of the tournament was CrashBandiSpyro12.

Golden Age (2011 - 2013)
I'm A Speedrunner 3 took place between December 2010 and January 2011 and saw a greater influx of new players than before. 48 competitors faced off in a second Spyro tournament. This was the tournament where a lot of well-known members of the community made their débuts. The winner of the tournament was Crash41596.

Breaking the usual formula, I'm A Speedrunner 4 had competitors face off against each other in Ratchet & Clank games. Although there were fewer that entered and a few hiccups occurred, the tournament went by smoothly, with series co-founder and ever-present competitor Mr100PercentGamer emerging as the winner.

I'm A Speedrunner 5 was the second and last Crash Bandicoot tournament, taking place between July and August 2011. The tournament introduced seeding, something that was put into use in later tournaments. Confusion emerged in the first few days as veteran Mr100PercentGamer remained largely inactive, before ultimately resigning. In the end, Samura1man would go about to win the tournament.

I'm A Speedrunner 6 was the third and last Spyro tournament, taking place between December 2011 and January 2012. The winner of the tournament was RabidWombatJR. After people had claimed to have gotten tired of Crash Bandicoot and Spyro games, voting was enforced which eventually lead to I'm A Speedrunner 7 centering around Disney games. Groups were not in the order of A, B and C and there were a few extra rounds in between. The winner of the tournament was CrystalFissure. In April 2013, CrashBandiSpyro12 appeared out of the blue, despite a self-expressed departure from the community, to ask people what they wanted I'm A Speedrunner 8 to be about, giving people a chance to vote. The tournament, beginning on 6 June 2013, would eventually center around Gex games. Again, CrystalFissure emerged victorious, being the only person to win two tournaments, and in succession, too.

Final Tournaments (2013 - 2015)
In November 2013, preparations for I'm A Speedrunner 9 were underway. Hostilities emerged shortly after IAS 8 concluded between certain members of the community, but eventually it was agreed that the tournament would be centered around Pac-Man games. Due to a falling out between Ratchet5 and CrystalFissure and Nintendogen64, conflict arose as to who was truly going to be hosting the ninth installment of the IAS series. Ratchet5 eventually conceded that Nintendogen64 and CrystalFissure could host I'm A Speedrunner 9 and he would host his own, non I'm A Speedrunner tournament. Due to I'm A Speedrunner 9 and Ratchet5's tournament overlapping in their planned start dates, CrystalFissure and Nintendogen64 decided to defer their tournament into the following year to allow Ratchet5's tournament to occur unimpeded.

Shortly after Ratchet5's non-I'm A Speedrunner tournament ended - which was May 2014 - preparations for I'm A Speedrunner 9 began. Originally this tournament was to be hosted by Nintendogen64 and was to be presented as a Single Elimination Tournament, meaning that instead of groups in Round 1, each competitor would face off against another competitor with the winner proceeding through the brackets and on to Round 2. Ratchet5 disagreed with this idea for numerous reasons, but mostly that it took the fun out of the group stage which had always been a highlight of the IAS tournaments. An executive decision was made that both Ratchet5 and Nintendogen64 would host I'm A Speedrunner 9 and that it would be a standard tournament based around the theme of Argonaut games.

The tournament saw only 24 people join, the least since IAS4. Round 1 went smoothly enough but when Round 2 rolled around it took over a month to complete even despite the fact that only 6 matches needed to be done. Several times, in fact, Nintendogen64 threatened to cancel the tournament and upload an alternative Grand Final which would feature himself, CrystalFissure and MrFraserFilms2009, with MrFraserFilms2009 winning the match. However, matches were eventually done and TheStickKid became the 10th IAS Champion.

During the final stages of IAS9, Nintendogen64, who had become irritated with everyone's lack of motivation thus leading to TheStickKid becoming IAS Champion, decided to start up the IAS Championship Scramble: an IAS competition, but not a tournament, that was to take place between IAS 9 and IAS 10. The general idea ws that anyone can race anyone with the winner of the match receiving 5 points and the loser receiving 2 points. The rules were more detailed but the abbreviated version was that the person with the most points by the end of each month gets to race the IAS Champion for the championship. This competition initially proved to be a greater success than IAS 9 and ended with TheStickKid retaining his IAS Championship over CrystalFissure in a 40 Winks speedrun. But as the next round, Survival, came along, inactivity became an issue, and the IAS Championship Scramble was abandoned.

Some 6 months after the IAS Championship Scramble, an unlikely group of TheStickKid, Supster131, DessertMonkeyJK, and DigitalMasterpieces joined forces to host I'm A Speedrunner 10, billed as: "The Last IAS Tournament" and was a Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games-themed tournament. By mid-2015, the speedrunning community was an entirely different place and almost completely unrecognisable from what it had been a few years prior. Despite having 32 competitors signed-up, IAS 10 was largely met with apathy. TheStickKid and DigitalMasterpieces both quit as hosts, and the tournament took a considerable time to complete its first round with many speedruns not being completed.

Controversy struck, however, in the knockout stages where tournament host Supster131 cheated by having Heydavid17 record his speedruns for him. Supster even had Heydavid play for him in the Grand Final and was therefore disqualified from the tournament. Ratchet5 subsequently exiled the one-time host from the community and he is yet to reappear. Manaidr won the tournament and became the 10th I'm A Speedrunner Champion.

Invitational Tournament
In an effort to close the IAS franchise on a high-note, Nintendogen64 revived his single-elimination tournament idea for the IAS Invitational Tournament. With a mere 10 competitors, the Muppet Monster Adventure tournament was the final canonical IAS tournament. It featured Nintendogen64 finally capturing the IAS Championship by defeating MuddyMaestro in the Grand Final. The IAS title was subsequently retired after this tournament.

Mainline Tournaments
End dates are determined by the time of the Grand final taking place before being edited and uploaded.

Legacy & Future
The I'm A Speedrunner series reached its natural conclusion by 2015, and coinciding with the end of the series was also when many members of the community either finished High School, began University and/or gained regular employment. The concept of IAS served as the inspiration for other tournament series such as "World Cup Speedruns" and "Old School Speedruns". In 2018, during a car ride between CrystalFissure, Nintendogen64 and Fromond, CrystalFissure & Nintendogen64, inspired by the naming conventions of New Japan Pro Wrestling's "International Wrestling Grand Prix" discussed the merits of hosting their own tournaments and thus the International Spyro Grand Prix series was born.

The "Get Me To The End of There" title from the original IAS tournament was revived in 2021 for the Super Crash League as a way to reference the past and reference the fact that elements from the IAS series were being paid tribute to in this Super League tournament.

This History of I'm A Speedrunner
In October 2021, to coincide with the Super Crash League, Nintendogen64 and CrystalFissure decided to host a series of podcasts under the banner "The History Of I'm A Speedrunner". This series told the story of the 11 mainlines I'm A Speedrunner tournaments and documented the more memorable moments, matches and competitors from the series' 6-year history.

Episode 1: IASGMTTEOT - IAS3 (2009-2011)

 * Guests: Nintendogen64, CrystalFissure, Al Molloy, KingEurope1 and LukeRF44

Topics:
 * The formation of the "Crass Community" from *Multiplayer speedruns* on the Spyro Speedruns YouTube Channel
 * I'm A Speedrunner...Get Me To The End of There
 * I'm A Speedrunner 2
 * MowMowClub2 closing the SSspeedruns YouTube Channel
 * CrashBandiSpyro12
 * TheSaggers1997
 * RedDevilDazzy2007
 * I'm A Speedrunner 3 aka "The Big Bang"