State of the Site: DuelCircle Media’s 10th Anniversary
In honor of DuelCircle Media’s 10th anniversary, I wanted to personally peel back the curtain a bit, given that DuelCircle Media hasn’t really had a direct discussion with the community at large in a long while.
Before DuelCircle Media became DuelCircle Media, there was the 2015 Winter Christmas Clash tournament, the first significant offshoot of the PvP scene for the community. Fellow creators from Duelist101, the Wizard101 Central tournament masters, the Legends of the Spiral tournament masters, and an array of content creators surrounding the game came together to create a showcase of the best players before there was a ranked leaderboard within the game itself.
Over the years, the brand expanded outside of just tournaments. We wanted to create content that would positively impact the community, and we did just that. From Fansite Festival livestreams and interactive events, to showcasing the community’s talent through various contests, to holding live in-person events to bring the community together in new ways, we’ve accomplished quite a bit.
A trend across some of the other community fansites as of the past few years has been a decrease in content output. While current content creation adapts to include short and longform video, we still believe that written content is important to the community.
It’s no secret that we haven’t created any written content over the past few years either. The way I’d like to describe the current state of content at DuelCircle Media is that things are similar to how the state of Pirate101 was before the Gamigo acquisition; basically in a perpetual maintenance mode. We’ve had numerous projects on the backburner, that’ll hopefully see the light of day. We hope to eventually create regularly scheduled content again soon.
It’s unfortunate that over the past year, we’ve seen a few fellow fansites shut down or become fully dormant. Life happens, people get busy, people move on from the games. Nonetheless, the community thrives most when our fellow sites and creators are still here, dedicating their time into positivity amongst everyone. Internally, things have been similar. Some of our leadership, writers, and tournament volunteers have joined the gaming industry, some have moved on from W101/P101, and some are prioritizing education and life.
At the end of the day, everyone’s a volunteer in this little passion project we call DuelCircle Media and we try to support, accommodate, and adapt. Things may have been, and may still be bumpy from time to time in terms of things going as-planned, but we appreciate those who bear with us.
A lot can change over the course of 10 years. What hasn’t changed is the dedication to the community at large here at DuelCircle Media. For the most part, I personally work in the background on most projects for DuelCircle Media. I may have been a participant in the original 2015 Clash tournament, but I am no expert on the state of the game.
My personal role for at least the past 7+ years has been the role of a production assistant, although I’ve worn other hats when needed. I always make sure that everyone internally has the resources needed to succeed. It would be wrong of me to personally take credit for the work that has collectively been done.
Just like everyone else internally at DuelCircle Media, I too have gotten busy and have deprioritized things at times. I have not always been available to provide support when needed. Nonetheless, our priority as a whole has always been to support the community and create a positive environment over the past 10 years, and we plan to continue for years to come, one way or another.
I might be the spokesperson for DuelCircle Media as of late, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication from so many volunteers, to put on a project such as DuelCircle Competitive, with so many moving parts week-to-week. At DuelCircle Media, we are truly made by many. When it comes to DuelCircle Competitive for example, it is a multi-month project that involves graphic designers, in-game facilitators to help things move along on gameday, to media production, as well as storytellers and analysts. We’re proud to have been the bridge to careers in the game industry for several community members and enjoy seeing former volunteers thrive.
Years ago, we had begun the process to create an external ethics and advisory board to effectively guide DuelCircle Media and keep us in check. This is not something that any of DuelCircle Media leadership, including myself, would have direct involvement with. Things would continue operationally internally, while this ethics and advisory board periodically checks on things and helps us as a brand, continue to make a positive influence in the community at the end of the day. We’ll have more to share on this eventually, as we’ve made groundwork towards finalizing the external ethics and advisory board, but things are moving a bit slower than we’ve hoped. Nonetheless, it’s a necessary and warranted long-term goal of ours.
While we currently no longer have official fansite designation status with KI, DuelCircle Media is still focused on creating positive experiences among the community. For the most part, we’ve been self-sustainable as a brand. The unfortunate consequence of losing official status is that people trust prize codes that are directly provided from the KI community management team to not be fraudulent and lead to chargeback account bans.
When it comes to at least 80% of all DuelCircle Media prize codes, they’re purchased in-person with cash from retail stores such as GameStop and Kroger. We typically catalogue all of our gift card codes and receipts in the event of a technical error, but this is the best way to maintain that our prizing is trustworthy. We’re proud to have had zero issues since we’ve transitioned to predominantly physical gift card codes for our periodic contests and DuelCircle Competitive campaign.
Make no mistake: while we haven’t been producing content lately, we still have a bit of festivities spread out throughout the rest of 2025 in honor of DuelCircle Media’s 10th anniversary.
DuelCircle Competitive has evolved throughout the years, from a three day 64-person tournament to being a multi-week, league-based tournament. We kick off the 10th anniversary iteration of DuelCircle Competitive, with this year’s tournament on August 2nd.
Prospective players can apply now through Sunday, July 27th for a chance to compete. For more details on the 2025 DuelCircle Competitive season, click here.
Also being announced today is the return of MSPaint Manders, a staple contest here at DuelCircle Media where we encourage you to intentionally create a terrible drawing of a mander.
Somehow, the community continues to impress with an eclectic mix of mander art that parallels the infamous bold and brash masterpiece made by Squidward. Send us your mander art, and we might send you some awesome prizes. Learn more and enter today through Sunday, August 10th by clicking here.
Whether you’ve supported DuelCircle Media recently, or have been along for the ride over the past 10 years, thank you. Your support truly has a meaningful impact on everything we collectively do at DuelCircle Media. We’re here to stay, and we hope the community enjoys what we have planned for our 10th anniversary campaign, and beyond.
Let’s get to work,
Michael Firehammer @MikeFirehammer
DuelCircle Media covers game news, tips and tricks through informational guides, interviews among community members, and not to mention flat out fun things for everyone. We create content on multiple platforms whether you’re someone who likes articles, short and long form videos, podcasts, or livestreams. Check out DuelCircle Competitive throughout the year for our high-stakes community PvP tournaments!