Evolution East 2006 Report
The setup phase for Evolution East was tricky, but once the actual event started, it ran smoothly. We had plenty of space and a pretty good turnout of players for most games.
Dead or Alive 4 had 30 players this time (same as Tekken 5!), rather than 9, so there was actually somewhat of a real tournament. I entered, again with zero practice for months. I won some, lost some, and was eventually eliminated. I don't even really remember by who, as I wasn't serious about this tournament (and had already qualified from Evo West anyway).
At the last minute before the Guilty Gear XX Slash team tournament, Tom Cannon, the original founder of shoryuken.com asked if I'd join his team. Tom had never played even one game of the Slash version of GGXX and this was just a "for fun" thing. I rounded up Mopreme, another person who had never played Slash before, and we entered. I didn't really expect to get anywhere and I had already qualified for GGXX at Evolution West anyway. Little did I realize that the Evo East competition in GGXX wasn't anywhere near the level as the Evo West competition (sorry guys, not trying to trash talk, just telling it how it is). I beat entire teams by myself, sometimes losing only 10% life per round. Note that I went back to Chipp for this tournament, who I still claim is not at all good, but the Curse of Chipp dooms me to forever be a little better at playing Chipp than anyone else.
Anyway, we eventually played "team Yaa." Their first player plays Sol, and I'm sorry to say that he is one of the worst Guilty Gear players I've seen play the game, lol. Next they had a Testament player who I beat pretty easily. Finally, they had an Anji player who totally rocked me. He really had amazing mixups and good combos. He didn't even really need tricky mind-games because his mixups were so powerful, that eventually I'd guess wrong and die.
I thought I actually had a shot at beating everyone else there except for the Anji player and Marneto, but Marneto must have scrubbed out and lost, I don't even know to who. My team then somehow had to fight team Yaa, AGAIN. I beat their first two players easily again and was double eliminated by the Anji player. What a terrible way to be kept out of the top 4 teams for Sunday. During the Sunday matches (on stage, everyone watching just one game at a time), team Yaa inflicted the Sol player on the audience again and again. It was very hard to do commentary during this. I wanted to say "uh...so...nothing good is happing at all...not sure why this is a finals match...hmm....," but I mostly said nothing at all during those matches. The Anji player went on to get 2nd overall.
I somehow managed not to qualify in SF2 AE again. It looks like I had the hardest bracket again with Chris Li, NKI, Jeron, Julian, and other known players. While at Evo West, I fought against only Ryu and Dhalsim. At Evo East, I fought against only Champion Bison and ST Chun Li. I was ready to specifically beat Champion Bison, and I was looking forward to showing that "he's not all that."
I faced Jeron's Champion Bison and beat him 2-1, where I used Honda and ST Bison. I then faced him again and lost 2-1 with the same character matchups. If my honda made him block a good jump-in, I could usually ride that to 100% damage because Champion Bison can't get out. But when he knocked me down, he was able to do the broken cross-up psycho crusher on me over and over, and I just couldn't block it. One round, I took 100% damage to repeated psycho crushers that seemed unblockable. My total record against him was 3-3.
My other loss was to NKI, who went on to get 3rd in the overal tournament. NKI's Chun Li is legit and good. I did get a perfect on him with honda and won the first game, but I lost the next, switched to ST bison and lost. Ouch.
Some of the Champion Bison players didn't even know how to get out of another Champion Bison's lockdown. They sadly demonstrated that knowledge of the nuances of the game is not really necessary if you have the unfair psycho crusher and a scissor kick that combos into a dizzy and a redizzy. I'll finally admit that Champion Bison makes the game much worse than it would be without him.
My current opinion is that Champion Bison, CE Guile, and HF Ryu are the best 3 characters in the game.
Next year we'll surely have real Super SF2 Turbo rather than AE, as ST will be part of Capcom Classics Collection 2, produced by me.
--Sirlin
July 20th, 2006 at 6:57 am
I’ve found that the cross-up Psycho Crusher isn’t too hard to block if you know the timing for it. Don’t try to watch it cross you up to make you decide which way to block, just know that if it starts at X time before you get up, then its going to cross you up. The only annoying thing is Bison still lands in front of you, so you have to be prepared for that. If you’ve got a charge character, you’re kinda boned here as you’ve either lost your charge, or whatever move you do next will be a special.
Should you be allowed to enter ST next year if you’re producing the game?! ;) Having people that run the brackets enter tournaments is one thing, but then having someone that made the game enter is almost on the point of broken… Then again, you didn’t actually make the game, more just producing this version of it.
July 20th, 2006 at 7:05 am
“My current opinion is that Champion Bison, CE Guile, and HF Ryu are the best 3 characters in the game”
They are certainly the highest rewarded with the smallest amount of effort, that is for sure. I don’t know if they are the best in the long run, but for the majority of play in tournament, your pretty much right on.
Sorry to see you didn’t qualify in Evo East, you had som tough draws in both events but Vegas may prove better for you.
- Alex
July 21st, 2006 at 12:04 am
To Playing to Win:
I think my brackets at both Evo West and East make it pretty clear that I did not rig the brackets, lol. They were, in fact, randomly generated with no seeding.
Alex, thanks man. ST Dhalsim is probably one of the top characters too, so you’ll be fine.
–Sirlin
July 21st, 2006 at 5:16 am
No sorry, I wasn’t implying you were rigging the brackets! I know you’d never do that :P. It was more part of a train of thought of mine: whenever someone not-so-in-the-know of gaming tournaments asks “Since you’re running the competition, can you enter it too? Wouldn’t that be unfair?”, I respond with “No, I didn’t make the game, so its completely fair.”. You can see what I meant here.
Still no HF Zangief?
Speaking of which though, how is ST on CCC2 coming along? I’m really looking forward to it. It will be nice to have an arcade version I can play at home without having to buy a cabinet for or go through illegal emulation to play.
July 21st, 2006 at 7:08 am
I think you’ve addressed this before earlier, but I’d like to bring it up again. Is there anyway you could create a programmable opponent in the training mode for ST on CCC2?
In both 3S and CvS2 on console you can program the training mode opponent to do certain moves.
I think it would be helpful just to figure out every little nuance in the game like which attack reverses which jumping attack, how to time your vertical jumps over projectiles, etc.
Is CCC2 going to be for PS2 only? Will there be any online play?
July 21st, 2006 at 3:23 pm
As dictated by Capcom, CCC2 is PS2/Xbox with no online. Remember that all the games are emulations, not ports, so adding any extra modes at all is next to impossible. That said, we are trying very hard to add training and versus modes to ST. With the schedule at hand, we will not be able to add programmable opponents in training mode, though. I would really like that feature, but I’d also really like to fix all the bugs and get our other features working correctly. We’re putting in even more extras this time than we ever have before.
Playing to Win: HF Zangief is good, but hardly anyone in the USA can play him. I know what to do with him, but my execution is lacking.
–Sirlin
July 21st, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Ouch, thats hilarious. I’m pretty sure I know the Anji in question and have gone to a few gatherings with him. I had no clue his team sucked so badly though. Josh has a pretty nuts Anji, probably one of the best in the nation (Kenji used to own that shit but last time I saw him play it was kinda disappointing. I think Anji not being bottom tier anymore blew his mind too much).
East coast results for Guilty Gear were hella wacked, but whatever. Tough luck on AE. I was kinda surprised when I saw no real results coming from CE Bisons in the West.
I’m kinda surprised theirs issues with programmable opponents. I might not understand some of this stuff well, but would it really be that hard for the emulator to remember and replay inputs onto the second controller? As far as I can assume this doesn’t need anything to be touched in the orginal code. Then again I’m going to guess the added modes (training and verses) are a tad hackish to begin with..
July 23rd, 2006 at 5:38 am
re: EVO East GGXX
Marneto just entered by himself, so that’s why he didn’t qualify. The two teams that were considered the favorites (Florida & Texas) both suffered upset losses; Florida lost to Jamie Austin’s team and Lincoln’s team, and Texas lost to Florida & Lincoln.
However, the midwest wasn’t there, and they’re stronger than EC; the Chicago team won MWC, and the St. Louis/Nebraska team won the Ohio State tournament (still the largest Slash tourney in the US, and had many of the same people as EVO East). Japan’s gonna take EVO Finals, but past that I think it’ll be midwest & WC placing.
July 24th, 2006 at 11:04 am
VTYME Slash results:
1st Final Showdown (KY)
2nd AJ (PO)
3rd Steve Harris (KY)
4th Combofiend (ABA, OS)
5th Marneto (ED, ABA, KY)
5th Kyle? (MA)
Maybe Slash is just kinda random somehow? Curious to hear any thoughts…
July 24th, 2006 at 11:22 am
I think Teams just turned out random in the east due to the unequal level of competion and a surprise team. The lack of quality teams allowed a lot of weak times to do well up until the finals, while the good teams eliminated each other and got taken out by the MYSTERY TEAM.
At least thats my guess. Los Vegas will probably generate more predictable results.
July 24th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
I was curious if Evo calls local media stations and tells them about the event, and if they contact any of the large game information sites about the events. It just seems that the largest fighting game tournament in America should at least get a mention on these IGN and Gamespot and the like. A search of IGN draws a blank and gamespot has articles about Evo 2k4, but nothing on the more recent events.
July 26th, 2006 at 12:44 am
Evolution news gets rejected from games.slashdot every year. Penny-arcade never mentions us either, probably because of PAX. I’m used to being ignored by all media outlets. It’s seems to be much easier to get mentioned if you are a fakey corporate-run events with no real comp or players than if you are the legit real-deal who draws top competitors from 30 countries every year (Evolution).
We don’t have a dedicated PR person either, but we finally have a business development person helping. If you want to do PR for Evolution, drop me a line.
–Sirlin
July 26th, 2006 at 10:54 am
I wonder if part of it isn’t that Evo doesn’t offer as much cash as tournaments like WCG.
The amount at stake is a major factor in drawing interest in these sorts of things; I am thinking of TV poker, where most people watch it because so much is on the line (game show appeal, if you would).
You made a huge leap in that area this year though, and if you continue to grow you’ll surely get the respect you deserve.
August 1st, 2006 at 6:28 am
MLG is having a lot of success with Smash Bros Melee. While I haven’t attended any EVO events, it doesn’t look good that you guys completely ignore the most original and successful fighting game in the past 10 years!
August 3rd, 2006 at 2:26 pm
It’s not ignored. Smash gets enough air time in other communities.
And that’s what EVO is–a community. Certain people congregate toward certain games. It’s possible that Smash (perhaps the new one) could be at an EVO. Right now the EVO community is mainly SF, GG, and Tekken players.
Just like other communities, like MLG, have smash, sc, and halo. Quite a strange blend. But it’s quite a different beast than that of EVO. Why doesn’t MLG have more stuff from EVO?
Your definition of success and original could be different from others’ too. GG and Smash are both newer games. They have a great variety, and are very very fun. They set new standards and explored new areas. But they’re very different. It could simply be that those differences keep them in their respected communities. That’s not to say many Tekken, SF and GG players don’t love Smash. (It’s my guess that more people from EVO have played Smash competitively or very well, than people at MLG have played GG like that.) Much of it has to do with the community, the prep behind such large events, and some other stuff I don’t know about.
August 5th, 2006 at 4:33 am
Well, obviously SSB is not ignored; as I said, MLG runs well-attended Smash tournaments. I did say it is ignored by EVO which, like you said, is a decision made by that community.
Since EVO bills itself as a fighting game tournament (plus Mario Kart! quite a strange blend), the question of them hosting Smash is more relevant than someone like MLG hosting DOA or Tekken; MLG seems more concerned about userbase size than any specific genre.
Anyway, sure, my definition of success and originality may be arguable. I still think Smash is a fresher/more original game than something like GG, which feels like more of a refinement and extension of many existing 2D fighter ideas. As for success, sales figures are a good indicator. The SSB & SSBM wikipedia entries have some numbers, but I don’t have access to any others.