So for those of you who may not know: I went to the
EVO World Championships in Las Vegas on July 6 - 8; the largest fighting game tournament in the world. Obviously, this is getting its own mega-post. So get cozy, it's gonna be a lengthy one!
Because EVO is such a large tournament, they break up the whole tournament into multiple smaller tournaments for each game to quickly cut down the number of participants. If a player makes it to the end of each smaller tournament, they qualify for the next part of the tournament.
Brackets can be seen here (while available) for examples. All tournaments are double-elimination. The order is:
Pools - Pool consisted of 16 people at EVO. The top 2 players advance, one in winners bracket, one in losers bracket. They remain in the same position as they move to the next portion of the tournament.
Quarter-Finals - Another tournament of 16 people or so, taking the top 2 from each pool and placing them in these brackets. Top 4 advance.
Semi-Finals - This is when it gets to about Top 16. Top 8 advance.
Finals (Top #) - Usually this is Top 8, but can be Top 16 (making Semi-Finals Top 32). These will decide the final ranks for the tournament players, winner takes all.
I went to EVO mainly to enter King of Fighters XIII. I'm ass at the game, but I love it so much. I wanted to take the trip to learn more and play more. Vegas sounded like a fun trip to take, anyway. I planned to play Skullgirls while there but the game is dead in Colorado. Any passion I had for Skullgirls was taken to the grave. Furthermore, I enjoy King of Fighters XIII a lot more, regardless.
-------
Thursday's Travels
My flight to Las Vegas was scheduled to depart around 6:45 PM, so I had a whole day to just lounge around and wait. Well, I would be lounging around but I was so damn restless and excited that I hit training mode a few different times during the day while waiting to leave to the airport. Around 2:30 PM, my ride took me to the airport. I wanted to leave for the airport early, so my ride could get back before rush hour traffic.
I get through all the security, make it to my gate with pleeenty of time to spare only to hear an announcement over the intercom talking about my flight to Las Vegas...and that it had been delayed to depart at 10:30 PM.
Oh...
My god...
So now I'm in it for the long run. From 3:30 to 10:30 I'm going to be sitting at the airport. This became a full-time job, and the only payment I got was a $5 voucher to use at "any U.S. airport", which wasn't accepted when I tried to use it in Las Vegas because it wasn't marked by the people who gave it to me...
Whatever, there's only so much I could do anyway, so I begin playing my Devil Survivor 2 on my Nintendo DS. Not even 10 minutes pass before I hear behind me, in an excited and too-loud-to-be-that-close-and-yelling-in-my-ear voice, "What game is that?!"
I look back to see a younger looking boy, maybe 14 or 15 years old, in the airport seats behind me, staring at me wide-eyed and smiling with glee. I, politely, respond "Devil Survivor 2."
"Oh.... you're good at it, huh?!" he yelled
enthusiastically again despite, obviously, not knowing the game.
"Yeah, I guess I am?" I said, unsure of how to respond.
"You wanna see my DSi?" He yelled again with his same unending pool of excitement. I assume it was because he found one of his own "kind": people who like video games enough to play in public.
I mentally responded "Not at all". But, I smiled and said "Sure" anyway.
Thirty minutes later of watching, mostly, not-entertaining
Flipnotes animations, and him turning to me and yell-asking "That's funny, right?!", his little brother comes over and asks if I know anything about Bakugan.
I think "No, fuck off kid." but respond, "I'm not familiar with it."
"Do you want to play?"
I mentally responded "Not at all". But, I smiled and said "Sure" anyway.
So now I'm playing Bakugan Battle Brawlers, which is a terrible "fighting" game. Big brother is telling me to use this certain dragon dude because he's the best, but I decide to try all four characters because I wasn't about to take information from some scrub before going to EVO! (<- 100% actual thought) I was going to break this goddamn meta-game
in two.
I am now a Bakugan Brawler. Bitches love Bakugan Brawlers.
After trying all the characters, I found the character that worked with me the most, and started winning with him from there. The kid said I was cheating....
...To be fair, I was trying my best to get to that "cheap shit" point of the game, I won't lie. So yes, I was trying to "cheat",
but I don't make allowances for young boys! I gotta level up my game before EVO! Gonna run Bakugan money matches on the place! Gotta work on that meta before I get there and body fools.
(In all reality, the game was still ass.)
The whole experience was made more awkward and annoying by their dad, who was just
glaring at me the whole time like I woo'd them over to me. I'm just thinking, "Dude...you have the power to pull them away at
any time. They're YOUR fucking kids, don't look at me like my DS was some kind of tool of a pedofile and that I'm some kind of molester waiting for his chance." The dude looked hardcore as hell, too... like worked for a drug cartel or something. Eventually, I make a call to my friend, Jill, to get away from the whole situation. I make
SURE the conversation goes long enough until I board the flight.
I get on the plane, excited that I'm finally going to leave. I look over to my right and across the aisle, guess what two kids I see?
Oh you have GOT to be kidding me...
...Fortunately, they were silent, so I got to listen to my music the whole trip there. Thank
goodness.
I finally get to Vegas, and go ahead and pay for a shuttle to where I'm staying, Caeser's Place. I, as ordered by my friend I was staying with, I sent her a text when I landed, a call I got on the shuttle, and text when I got to the hotel.
Somehow, and I'm not even logically sure
how, they are half way across the strip when I arrive at the hotel. It wasn't a short trip either, though not synonymous with a
SLOW trip: I had the Crazy Taxi of shuttle bus drivers. He sped so much, ran so many lights, honked at people who were in crosswalks
legally, and still almost ran over a number of people and almost got into many car accidents. My original thought of "Oh, I'm the last stop? That's great, I get to see a lot of stuff!" turned into "Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! Maybe I should just walk from here?! Oh fuuuuck I'm too late!!"
I've waited nearly 10 hours to get into Vegas and my hotel due to delays. I'm tired, mentally exhausted, and now I have to wait for my friend to come back from halfway across the strip. Well that's fine, nothing to be mad over anyway, I mean...Y
a know...It's whatever...
OF COURSE I'M GODDAMN FURIOUS!
I just prop myself against the fountain in the registration lobby, trying not to fall asleep right there. I just feel so exhausted and angry, and I thank my wonderful friend Jill for being my rant-to gal during all this. Seriously, give her a round of applause, she saved me from two different situations. After angstily texting with her for 30 minutes, my roommate I'm staying with shows up. I don't say much, go to my room, apologize for my bad mood, but don't say a whole lot more.
I prep for bed, but all the tiredness I had before disappeared. I couldn't sleep now that I was here. I rolled and turned and nothing was coming for more than short, 10 minute bursts. I finally sat up, and just stared out the window, letting all of the tournament excitement sink in. Thoughts rapidly flowing through my mind...
"Am I good enough?" "Can I land that combo" "What happens if I get in this situation?" "I hope I get to play Bala" "Ugh, I'm going to go 0-2, aren't I?" "If I go 2-2, I'll be happy...right?"
At some point when the sun was coming up, I finally caught an hour of sleep before my alarm went off.
Tournament time.
-------
Friday's Fights
I get up, shower, and stretch some to wake myself up as much as I could. I even did some push ups to get the blood flowing. I got my arcade stick and walked out to the ballroom where EVO was being held. My pool was at 8:00 AM, so I wanted to make sure I was on time.
When I arrived, I saw some guys from New Mexico. I took the time to chat with them as some other fellas from Colorado showed up a bit later. The doors to the event did not open on time, like any U.S. major tournament, and the tournaments started around 8:30 instead.
While there were some amusing chants of "LET! US! IN!" some people took it too far. Namely, one plus-sized fellow who was trying to get everyone "hype", was instead pissing a lot of people off because he was loud, annoying, and possibly VERY drunk, or other drugs, at 8:00 in the morning. When he was met with resistance, he really tried to start shit. Called people pussies when they wouldn't fight him(?), and even when they walked away, he kept going on and on about their salty vaginas', their moms, anything to try and get them to swing at him.
I'm a patient guy if I, logically, understand why I'm waiting. I understood the reason for the wait, but MAN, I wanted to be inside instead of being stuck near this dude! Haha!
Finally, they open the doors to EVO. The opened doors functioned similar to a broken dam. I look for where I need to check in at while moving through the rushing torrent of other EVO-goers. I'm not the biggest dude, and I don't have a large-sized and/or bad-ass girl(or boy)friend to protect me, either.
Note to self: Get bad-ass girl(or boy if desperate)friend to protect me next year.
And this is my girlfriend, Heidi. She enjoys hurting people and long walks on the beach decorated with the people she killed.
I arrive at my pool, check in with the pool runner, and await my first match... which actually never happens. Apparently it's just a guy who wanted the shirt, which is a shame as it was PZPoy and he is
actually decent at Marvel. So that "wins" me my first match, and I advance.
While waiting I'm watching as many matches as I can, trying to see what everyone is doing, who to watch out for, besides Igl|bala: the number one seeded person in the whole KoF tournament. While watching, I was rather surprised...
There was only one person (besides bala) I was concerned about possibly losing to. The one guy who seemed to have good grips on what he was doing was a Duo Lon player. I studied his match closely so I could be ready for what he could do. Most players were getting beat by his Duo Lon alone, so I became afraid that I could be next. Even if I took out his Duo Lon, I didn't know what his other characters did. What consoled me is that I probably had more Duo Lon experience than most of the players there (yet again, another KrsJin mention).
I played the Duo Lon player after my first tournament match I got to play, which I bodied him hard. I was surprised to find out that while he's good with Duo Lon, he probably plays in a group of people who have very few answers for Duo Lon's shenanigans. Because of that, he didn't seem to have answers for when I was able beat out a lot of his attacks, or when I punished his teleport moves. I was able to rip through his Duo Lon, and the rest of his team, rather quickly.
The reason for the rest of his team being rip-able like a wet piece of paper I believe is because he only got to warm up with his first character, Duo Lon, in his previous matches. Because of this, he came in cold with his other characters. With my answers to his Duo Lon and overall match advantage, I was able to take it against him and advance.
Next came bala in winners finals of the pool. This was the high-achievement goal I wanted to reach. The 100G/Platinum Trophy achievements. Leading up to my match with him, bala asked who he was playing next. His friends and colleagues pointed to me, quickly followed with "He's free", "He's nothing to worry about", or something similar.
...It's not like they were wrong, but
FUCK, I'm standing
RIGHT HERE. If you took 4 steps forward, you could touch me! I'm not good at King of Fighters XIII, okay, but this does
not equate to being deaf!
Regardless, the match with bala went poorly, but I feel it was the best I could do with my 8 months worth of knowledge in ANY King of Fighters game. He played the exact same team and order as Pedro, the top player in Colorado: Mr. Karate, Hwa Jai, Flame Iori.
From the two matches with bala, because I obviously went 0-2, I realized that his Mr.Karate, compared to Pedro's, is not that good. I really think Pedro's is a lot better, and I went through bala's Mr.Karate without much issue. On the other hand, bala's Hwa Jai was MUCH better than Pedro's.
I don't have any answers for Pedro's Hwa Jai. With bala doing things I haven't seen, in addition to the things I already have trouble with when playing against Pedro, he completely wiped my whole team out out with his Hwa Jai. Still, I was able to make it to his second character in both rounds, so that's a personal victory.
This moves me into losers finals. I'm spending the time before the losers finals match thinking through my game with bala, but doing my best to focus on the next one as I'm one match away to making it out of pools; Trying to refocus my game on being aggressive and not scared, which happens often to tournament players.
The losers finals match begins, and I instantly rush down his ass. With him having characters like Athena and King who are really good at keeping people out of their zone, he was not expecting this and could not respond. A few good reads and combos later, I take the first match very convincingly, only having any trouble on his last character, Yuri. This gave me a lot of confidence going into the second match, knowing that my game plan worked and worked well.
The second match begins. I, once again, go on the offensive. I make it through his first character, Athena, pretty easily again. When I got to his King, everything went downhill quickly.
I kept running into fireballs like an idiot while trying to chase after him, taking a lot of free damage and almost none of it from combos; all of it from my impatience. The first match caught him off-guard but now that he had his bearings, I was just giving him the round from being too brainless. I lose the second match in a shameful manner. I give myself a little time to think about what just happened, before starting the third and final match. I remembered a little piece of advice when fighting against King, "Walk. Don't run or dash." As I've never played against a King before, I don't have much match-up knowledge. With this advice alone, I begin the third round.
I take a little more time to analyze what he does in certain situations with his Athena, as she is also a zoning character. I play smartly around his attacks and punish him, quickly taking out the character again. Next comes King. Using my advice I remembered, I walked to catch up to him, instead of trying to run to get in. Surprisingly, it's a stupidly strong tactic. Given your reaction time is good enough, you can block fireballs from REALLY close range if they throw it. Eventually, he backed himself into a corner with his runaway fireball game. I took this opportunity to attack freely, beating his King, which left his last character, Yuri.
I have some experience against Yuri, so this match was not entirely new to me. Just the same as the first match against my opponent: I rush him down into a corner quickly, then I play smart and LET him make mistakes trying to get out of the corner. He makes the biggest mistake against my character, Kim, and does a neutral jump while I'm half a screen away.
Kim likes people being helpless at about half a screen away.
That's right, I Neomax'd him as a punish. I even swiped my arm at the last kick because I was feeling myself so much. Of course, the guy was NOT happy, saying it was unnecessary. I could care less, he neutral jumped in a poor spot, he ate the punish. I take the final match, 2-1, advancing into the quarter-finals pools. Score one for Colorado KoF!
I was pretty damn happy. I accomplished my reasonable goal: go at least 2-2 in pools; and then some: face bala, make it out of pools. The quarter-finals started on Saturday at 10 AM, so I had some time to spare until then.
First, I watched two other players from our state, Edgar and Spineshark, play in their pools at 10 AM. Edgar made it out of his pools, in losers also. Score two for Colorado! Edgar played really well and I believe his style of using a lot of strong normal moves did him well in catching all his opponents off guard. He also combo'd a lot more, one of Edgar's main problems leading up to EVO.
Unfortunately for Spineshark, he did not make it out of pools. He went 3-2, so he did well. I believe his impatience did him in some as he faced people who liked to jump a LOT, but Spineshark did little to punish the jump-ins. He leveled up hard about a week before EVO, just in time, and it really showed in his matches. He said he did better than his own goals, so I am happy for him.
Lunch and a beer later, it was time for Pedro to play. Pedro, being Pedro, played, generally, well. He had some issues in playing his Hwa Jai game properly. I don't know if it was nerves or what, but he was basically playing with only two characters and still doing well. Pedro made it out of his pools in losers bracket, but not without devastating others.
A girl from Japan by the gamer tag of Mepu competed in the same pool as Pedro. She had an awesome play style: She carried around a giant pillow and a footstool. When she played, she set the pillow on the floor, sat on her knees on the pillow, and placed her arcade stick on top of the footstool. Everyone was watching her because she was such a unique player...and that she was from Japan, cute, and playing really well.
She may have been a bit of a
fighting game celebrity already, upon further research.
Pedro faced off against Mepu in the losers finals of his pool. It was a good match. Pedro hardly knows the Goro match up so it became very close at the end of each game. Pedro pulled through, advancing from his pools, but Mepu was very distraught by her loss.
After the match, some fans of Mepu wanted to take a picture with her. She complied, posed, and did her best to smile... But it was too late. She was
obviously on the verge of tears. After the picture, she took her footstool/pillow combo to a corner near where the match was played, and she started crying.
She continued to cry for around 30 minutes. Her boyfriend, I assume, was comforting her for the first 10 minutes before he disappeared. I never saw him come back, either. She probably wanted him to go away for the time being, or he possibly had a tournament to attend to. Regardless, the joke is that he when he whispered in her ear before the match, he said, "If you don't win this match,
we're done." Eventually, two friendly Ibuki and Chun-Li cosplayers comforted and stayed with her until she was able to get up and leave.
I watched and laughed because I'm an insensitive asshole. I'm not letting Pedro live this down for the next couple months because I'm an insensitive asshole.
With that, 3 out of 4 Colorado KoF players made it out of pools, not including those who entered
only for the shirt. That's pretty damn good! I'm more proud of myself because unlike Pedro and Edgar, I don't have any history of KoF experience; I'm coming from straight scratch. This closes KoF for the day for Colorado.
I "participated" in Skullgirls. Though, by the time I got to play, I was a few drinks under. Oops. Furthermore, I had to play Severin first round. Oops. He pretty much did his
patented long combos to me. My next match didn't go a whole lot better. I could combo, but I couldn't block worth a shit due to sloppy, drunk reaction times. I forgot who I even played in the second match because it was
much later, which means more drinks. He came up to me later and said that he played me in Skullgirls, where I responded, "I really can't remember... but good job!" hahaha! Oh well~ Went 0-2 in Skullgirls.
I spent the rest of the day continuing to drink, party, and brag about Colorado's KoF power.
-------
Saturday's Showdown
I woke up Saturday morning with a bed all to myself because my roommate went off and got drunk elsewhere and never came back <3. The best roommate (when I can get into the room)! A lot of Colorado guys were playing in their Marvel pools at 8AM, so I headed down early again to be in attendance.
I got to catch a number of matches from the early morning Colorado Marvel pools before the KoF quarter-finals pools started. Most of the guys did well. I believe three advanced out of pools: one in winners, two in losers. Unfortunately, I didn't get to watch the whole thing because my KoF quarter-finals pool began.
My first match was against a Mature player. I have NO clue what to do against Mature as we don't have a Mature player in Colorado. A lot of it was me guessing through the match-up. I didn't know what was punishable, barely know what her moves are, and I think he caught some wind of that on our last round (score was 1-1) because he got really aggressive with Mature. All I could do was guess. While it was enough for me to bullshit through my first match, it didn't work on the second and third matches. It shut me down hard, and that's where my tournament life ended, sadly.
While upset, I wasn't disappointed. I performed well despite the lack of match-up knowledge. And right then and there, I became hungry for the next tournament, the next major, the next year as a whole to really get to learn this game more and do even better next time!
Because my match was so early, I got to catch Edgar's first match. He lost in a similar manner: lack of match-up experience against Raiden. This guy's Raiden tore through Edgar so badly, it looked like he shouldn't have been Top 32. With no advice to offer Edgar, I had to watch Edgar get brutalized and eliminated.
Pedro played well, despite continuing to have trouble using Hwa Jai. Pedro made it to semi-finals of his quarter-finals pool, but lost the same way Edgar and I did: lack of match-up experience. A Goro player was his block, yet again. The match itself was good, but the other player was too much for Pedro, eliminating him from the tournament.
We were all planning to do it anyway but we clearly saw the necessity to pick up new characters when we got back to Colorado. The lack of match-up experience through the whole roster was our greatest weakness. Since EVO, we've all started on learning new characters, so we'll see how this helps us when we go out of state and play again.
No one is ready for the man who fights for Cancer cures.
I took this time to get drinks and walk around the rest of the tournament floor where certain companies set up booths to show off their games.
Played a single game of Persona 4 Arena where some guy just went hard on me when I didn't even know the controls. He knew this; I asked him what the controls were. Whatever, he's dead whenever the game comes out, anyway. /salt
Played
Spy Party quite a few times. The creator of the game ran the booth. He implored everyone to read the instruction booklet first, and then play two practice games, one from each role: the sniper and the spy. I was concerned at the amount of information to take in before the game could be played. Though, once I got through my first games, I found it to be really
really fun! It's definitely worth a check as it's the kind of game that always keeps you on the edge of your seat; a constant intense tension that most games do not have.
I finally got to play
DIVEKICK! It was everything I imagined and more! The game is incredibly fun! Parodies, jokes, and Easter eggs hidden all throughout the game. It is
made for the modern day fighting game player. I went back there a couple of times with its long line because it was worth it. I implore you to go ahead and donate to
their Kickstarter so that they can bring DIVEKICK to the PC.
Give this friend a DIVEKICK! But if friendship mean nothing...!!
Throughout the day, I got to speak with a few other people I've seen at previous majors, too. I realized how quickly one's friendships can expand with others who don't even live close to you. The social aspect alone is a really fun experience. To commemorate the evening chat,
Juicebox gave me a condom. Hahaha!
The rest of the night was spent hanging out with the New Mexico crew, exploring Vegas and making ridiculous jokes about everything ever. Found out I have no game against girls drunker than me, too! I knew the exact lines I wanted to say, but man, drunk me moves so mentally slow, and drunker girl moves so mentally fast!
Maybe she should be playing fighting games, not me...
-------
Sunday's Surprises
Phew, finally to Sunday. Stick with me a little bit longer, because there isn't as much to type about here, trust me!
Sunday is EVO's finals day, where everyone gathers to watch the finals of each tournament. Some of the New Mexico crew went to the ballroom early to grab good seats for the day. I came down a bit later, finding where I was sitting: The last row of the first section with 7 others, so we were rather close to the front. Two others in our group showed up with bags of McDonalds. They purchased a number of different breakfast sandwiches and hash browns to keep up fed while watching the tournament.
Awesome! And by "Awesome!" I mean I felt like a gross pig by the end of the day.
I later made a similar run for lunch when I had a break, during the finals of SFxT. Outside of small breaks to move around between games, I sat in my same spot for about 12 hours.
Anyone watching the stream could hear the cheers, yells, and excitement in the background. Yes, you can hear it, you know it's going on, but it's completely different when you're IN the hype. People go buck WILD in the crowd, then YOU are the one who is going buck wild. The hype sweeps over people to yell, scream, and act like a damn fool. I love it. At some point during Marvel, people started booing Filipino Champ. I personally love him as a player, so when he started raising his arms to bring in the hate, myself and a few people in the audience, stood up and raised our arms the same. People laughed and boo'd, it was all in great fun. Incredible matches all around though. All the finals were just insanely hype to watch. Even Soul Calibur V, which I have hardly touched.
KoF finals were the craziest, though.
After a whole day of sitting, when Street Fighter 4 ended, my EVO day was over. I went to buy one of the Colorado players a drink, because I bet (stupidly) against Infiltration who made
a mockery of top 8 in Street Fighter 4, so I ended up missing the Street Fighter 2 tournament finals that happened after. Damn!
Because my friend had her flight early Monday morning, I spent the night just chilling with her around the casino. Not because she necessarily didn't want to sleep, but some other people from New Mexico who had to check out of their hotel ended up crashing in our room, leaving no spots to sleep (we thought there would only be two of them; there were five).
My flight was at 10 AM, so I decided not to sleep until I got on my flight. When I did, I crashed HARD for the entire trip back. It was a good close to my restlessness throughout the weekend of EVO. I got to see so much, do so much, and enjoy so much while there. I even dreamed of next year's EVO as I slept through the flight. I didn't come close to doing everything I wanted to do in Vegas, or EVO! I can't wait until next year. I'm hungry to do better...and the training starts now!
LET'S GO EVO2K13!!!
