Micah Ernst, 23, of Meadville, Penn., took the Verizon FiOS Grand Tournament, Verizon announced today. The gamer won $100,000, the largest single prize in an online tourney, in the 6,000-person tournament. The finals were played live in Hermosa Beach, Calif. over Verizon's FiOS Internet service.

"We congratulate Micah on his impressive win," said Brian Angiolet, director of Marketing for Verizon. "It was exciting to see him and the other finalists compete live against each other, using a 30 Megabit-per-second FiOS Internet connection delivered over our new, all-fiber network. It's clear that FiOS Internet is breaking the barriers to fun on the Internet and is creating new levels of interaction for everyone who uses it."

Ernst plans to use the cash to pay off his student loans, buy a big-ass TV and make a trip to New Zealand, while I would have used the $100k to pay someone to build me a mansion out of watermelon flavored Jello.

Oh well, each to his own. Hit the jump for the finalists and their pay-outs. Brian Crecente

Name/Hometown Prize

1. Micah Ernst, Meadville, PA $100,000
2. Scott Rogoff, Trumbull, CT Alienware Prize Systems & Monitor
3. Zachariah Kendall, Colville, WA Alienware Prize Systems & Monitor
4. Kenny Wells, Towson, MD ATI Radeon X1900 XT Series Video Card
5. Brian Kihneman, Austin, TX ATI Radeon X1900 XT Series Video Card
6. Dominic Anderson, Portland, OR ATI Radeon X1900 XT Series Video Card
7. Richard Oliver, Virginia Beach, VA Saitek Gamers Keyboard
8. Stefan Hock, Trumbull, CT Saitek Gamers Keyboard

I don't know what your thoughts are, but I think this has been the best contest to date. Not only were some of the entries worthy of blogging about, but the voting process was a ton of fun to watch.

Let me know what you think about the contest. Now without further ado, the winners:

With 24.7 percent of the vote 8-Bit Picasso Enters Blue Period, Cites "Need For Change" took first place with about a 75 vote lead.

I Am Blue took second place with 495 votes, or 21.5 percent of the total.

And with just 13 votes less and 20.9 percent of the vote, DS Cake took third.

I know I was going only giving prizes to the top three winners, but I decided to grab something out of my collection of swag to give to fourth place entry Katamari Damacy. I'll be sending him a Fire Emblem T-Shirt and Donkey Kong Country 2 long sleeve shirt. I know it's no DS, but it's better than nothing.

Thanks again to all of the entries and those that made the final cut, you guys all rock.

I'll be sending requests for mailing addresses out to the winners in a bit and then forwarding that info to Nintendo for them to ship the prizes.

You there! Yeah you, with the cookies crumbs stuck in your huge beard! Just a friendly reminder that your chance to vote for your favorite blue finalist ends tomorrow. The winners will be announced shortly after. If you've yet to vote, click on the link below and make your mark on gaming history.

And the Finalists Are... [Kotaku - Vote here!]

SM

Voting ends Thursday. I'll announce the winners Friday and send the information to Nintendo for them to ship out the prizes.

Click on the link to vote, or check out the poll if you already have voted.

And the Finalists Are [Kotaku]

The voting ends Thursday. I'll announce the winners Friday and send the information to Nintendo for them to ship out the prizes.

Congratulations to the finalists and thanks to everyone who entered, these were really hard to pick through. There were plenty that I loved that just couldn't make the final cut. (I actually first narrowed it down to 30 or so entries.)

Click on the link to vote, or check out the poll if you already have voted:

(Scroll to the bottom for larger pics of the entries.)

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