EVO (Evolution Championship Series)

[Kaioshin Sama]

It's that time again fighting game fans! This year Team Spooky and IWP are streaming the whole thing and you can find it on the main EVO website which I will link when I get home later tonight. Currently holding out on the chance of an archive which would seem probable since these streamers tend to archive their stuff, but I have no idea if the scope of EVO comes with any video rights issues that would prevnt them from doing that. If not I'll sadly have to miss the finals for SFIV Arcade and MVC3.

Anyway the games this year are Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Tekken 6, Mortal Kombat 9, and Blazblu Continuum Shift 2. Currently the stream seems to be divided in 2 with the first being Street Fighter and the latter being MK. Guess which one currently has more viewed by a wide margin?

[OceanBlue]

Here's the Evo site:
http://evo2k.com/

Streams here:
http://evo2k.com/live/

The schedule is on the stream page. Hoping for a huge viewer count.

Edit: Eh, I'll post the schedule here for convenience.

Thursday, July 28th

2:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Early Badge Pickup, Outside of the Pavilion Ballroom
10:00 PM: Official Evo Pre-Party @ Insert Coin(s)

Friday, July 29th

Tournament Schedule
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM: Pool Play, SSF4:AE, MK9
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Quarterfinals, SSF4:AE MK9
8:00 PM – 11:00 PM: Semifinals, SSF4:AE, MK9

Panel Schedule
10:00 AM: Feed the Stream Monsters: A Guide to Broadcasting Fighting Games
12:00 PM: Skullgirls: A New Age of Heroines
2:00 PM: Inside the Mind of the Beast: Daigo Umehara Exposed!
4:00 PM: Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Past, Present, and Future!
6:00 PM: Screening, Bang the Machine

Saturday, July 30th

Tournament Schedule
8:00 AM – 6:00 PM: Pool Play, MvC3, Tekken 6, BlazBlue CS2
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Quarterfinals, MvC3, Tekken 6, BlazBlue CS2
8:00 PM – 11:00 PM: Semifinals, MvC3
12:00 AM: MvC3 EC vs. WC 5 on 5 Exhibition

Panel Schedule
10:00 AM: King of Fighters XIII: Panel and Discussion
12:00 PM: Street Fighter III: Online Edition, Reinventing a Classic
2:00 PM: Namco Bandai – Get Ready for the Next Panel!
4:00 PM: New Directions in Street Fighter X Tekken
6:00 PM: Screening, King of Chinatown
7:15 PM: Screening, Focus

Sunday, July 31

All times are approximate! We will also have some surprises in store throughout the day.
10:00 AM: Blazblue Finals
12:00 AM: Tekken 6 Finals
2:00 PM: Mortal Kombat 9 Finals
3:30 PM: SF3 Third Strike Exhibition
5:00 PM: Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Finals
6:30 PM: Screening, Balrog: Behind the Glory.
7:00 PM: SSF4:AE Finals
9:00 PM: Closing Ceremonies

[RWBladewing]

It's pretty sad but I was looking forward to watching this all year since the last one. I'm not an amazing fighting game player myself but I love watching these matches. Glad to see Blazblue featured this year.

[OceanBlue]

Originally Posted by RWBladewing

It's pretty sad but I was looking forward to watching this all year since the last one. I'm not an amazing fighting game player myself but I love watching these matches. Glad to see Blazblue featured this year.

It's not sad at all. You can't imagine how excited I was for MBAA to be one of the main games for EVO 2010.

Too bad it was all Kohakus and V.Sions though.

[Westlo]

Top 32 for SF is about to start, this was the highlight of last years Evo by far imo, don't miss it.

First couple of matches are Alex Valle Vs Daigo and Momochi Vs Tokido.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Spoiler for Image size:

Did this really just happen, cause that was pretty fucking cool?!

This is also the first time I've seen SFIV:AE version Yun. I thought that character list on the selection screen looked bigger than I'm used to (SSFIV owner).

Also I don't think I've seen a match without a Fei Long yet.

I'm extremely jealous of Combofiends shirt.

Combofiend vs. Flashmetroid was an amazing match. So even, so technical and right down to the last round. Couldn't have called it at any point.

Justin's been slipping these days. What the hell was that, he had him?!

[Westlo]

Justin's mainly been focusing on MVC3 (he feels since he was the MVC2 champ he should be the MVC3 champ) and has been having trouble sticking with one character. Seems for this Evo he decided to just run his old Rufus.. he still put Mago (Top 5 in Japan) into losers earlier which was one of the best matches of the tournament.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Justin's mainly been focusing on MVC3 (he feels since he was the MVC2 champ he should be the MVC3 champ) and has been having trouble sticking with one character. Seems for this Evo he decided to just run his old Rufus.. he still put Mago (Top 5 in Japan) into losers earlier which was one of the best matches of the tournament.

Makes sense I guess. Combofiend just got eliminated but I expect him to run really deep in MVC3 if not win it. He won Final Round's MVC3 tourney if this year if I'm not mistaken.

Gotta love Alex Valle. Guy is old enough to be the guy he's playing againsts dad. To bad he got horribly cheesed by Sagat.

[Westlo]

Here's the bracket

http://challonge.com/evo2011_ss4ae_support

And Shiro's Makoto is just so excited, every time I've seen him compete he wins in some crazy manner most of the time.

And Valle didn't get cheesed by that Sagat, if anything RF outValled Valle if you know what I mean... and RF is the defending Japanese National Champion (along with Momochi & Kindevu) as well as the defending SBO champion (again with Momochi & Kindevu) is a great Guilty Gear player as well (He also won Guilty Gear @ SBO last year). His resume speaks for itself.

Edit- Good shit Justin but you have to play the loser of Tokido and Daigo if you can make it past Gamerbee/Dr Ray. Would be good to have another Justin vs Gamerbee match after how epic their match from last year was.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Westlo

Here's the bracket

http://challonge.com/evo2011_ss4ae_support

And Shiro's Makoto is just so excited, every time I've seen him compete he wins in some crazy manner most of the time.

And Valle didn't get cheesed by that Sagat, if anything RF outValled Valle if you know what I mean... and RF is the defending Japanese National Champion (along with Momochi & Kindevu) as well as the defending SBO champion (again with Momochi & Kindevu) is a great Guilty Gear player as well (He also won Guilty Gear @ SBO last year). His resume speaks for itself.

Edit- Good shit Justin but you have to play the loser of Tokido and Daigo if you can make it past Gamerbee/Dr Ray. Would be good to have another Justin vs Gamerbee match after how epic their match from last year was.

Yeah RF's use of fireballs to control his opponent and keep him out is a valid and effective tactic, it just looks boring and cheap.

I think we just saw the end of Justin Wong. Was that a worse finish than last year?

Wow Daigo just completely took Tokido to pieces! Probably the fastest match I've seen tonight. That was insane!

Yun seems really overpowered. Lot of boos from the crowd. I can see why Daigo looked like he'd achieved a whole new level a bit clearer now. Not to take away from Daigo and what he puts into perfecting his game, but he's got an almost insurmountable advantage with mastery of a character like that.

[Blackbeard D. Kuma]

As I suspected, SSF4 AE is a bore fest to watch. Yun and Fei Long primarily dominate the game and the character variety in this tournament has been low to say the least. Such is the result from a deliberately unbalanced game. The finals for this game won't be as exciting as those of its predecessors.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Blackbeard D. Kuma

As I suspected, SSF4 AE is a bore fest to watch. Yun and Fei Long primarily dominate the game and the character variety in this tournament has been low to say the least. Such is the result from a deliberately unbalanced game. The finals for this game won't be as exciting as those of its predecessors.

Sadly have to agree with you. I've since gone back and watched every Yun and Fei match and they seem absolutely dominant in the hands of top tier players. Yun has no real weakness that I can spot and Fei just controls that mid-range as Seth kept pointing out to the point where the opponent has no real options.

Both characters need toning down in the next patch. I'm pretty sure Seth is taking notes on this already to bring back to the office.

[Westlo]

There's 2 Yuns, 2 Vipers, 1 Zangeif, 1 Akuma, 1 Fei Long and 1 Seth isn't too bad. There wasn't a single Yang in Top 32.... last years Top 8 was a Daigo procession and was a bore.. this year you have Daigo Vs Poongko which a lot of people want to see... and Fuudo beat Daigo 10-5 in a session before they left for Japan..

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

Yeah RF's use of fireballs to control his opponent and keep him out is a valid and effective tactic, it just looks boring and cheap

That's how Alex Valle primary plays period, if you're not playing Ryu and Sagat that way you're playing them wrong. Fireball to DP trap is the essence of SF.

[Westlo]

Next Evo gonna be crazy looking @ the numbers for this one.

Evo 2011

SSFIVAE - 1456 Players (down from 1700 players, but with MVC3 and MK9 it was expected to take a hit)
MVC3 - 1072 Players
MK9 - 516 Players
Tekken 6 - 224 Players
Blazblue CS2 - 208 Players

SSFIVAE2.0 should still pull at least 1200 next Evo, UMVC3 could be in the 800-1000 range, SFxT should be 1000+ who knows how high it can get, MK9 should stick around.. maybe 300-400? Higher if MK10 is out.. Soul Calibur 5 should be bigger than T6 and BB was this year... and speaking of Tekken who knows, Tekken Tag 2 could be out which should revitalize that scene.

Evo 2012 line up heavy hitters will be

Streetfighter X Tekken
Super Streetfighter IV AE 2.0
Ultimate Marvel Vs Capcom 3

And the rest of the games would be out of

Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (I think this is a lock if released in time)
Mortal Kombat 9/10 (Another lock if WB give them bundles of cash again, but it deserved entry this year for sure)
Soul Calibur 5 (No Tekken Tag 2 would increase its chances, but if the reception is good and the playerbase is there than it should get in anyway)
Streetfighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition (Could come back in a big way)
King of Fighters XIII - (No chance really)
Blazblue CS2 (or 3? A revision is on the way) - (No chance really)

Only problem with 3 big games is that it kinda ruins the 2 stream setup since one of them would have to make it onto the B stream. But who knows maybe UMVC3 will be a flop and SFxT and SFIV make MVC3 a distant third in popularity.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by Westlo

There's 2 Yuns, 2 Vipers, 1 Zangeif, 1 Akuma, 1 Fei Long and 1 Seth isn't too bad. There wasn't a single Yang in Top 32.... last years Top 8 was a Daigo procession and was a bore.. this year you have Daigo Vs Poongko which a lot of people want to see... and Fuudo beat Daigo 10-5 in a session before they left for Japan..



That's how Alex Valle primary plays period, if you're not playing Ryu and Sagat that way you're playing them wrong. Fireball to DP trap is the essence of SF.

I thought there were 3 Yuns for some reason. 6 characters in the top 8 isn't that bad actually. By the way is it true that Old Sagat from SFII was so powerful that he was actually banned in a lot of arcade competitions during the 90's and holds some sort of distinction for being one of the most toned down characters from game to game?

Also so Daigo can potentially lose to some of his Japanese rivals? This sounds like a must see, but sadly I'll be at work so I'll have to rely on finding some videos on youtube or something.

Also again....MVC3 kind of becomes a boring game to watch after a while unless top players are involved. I'd even go so far as to say the game is almost a little too busy. Looks fun as hell to be playing, but I found my attention wandering a lot more than when I was watching the SFIV action the night before.

[Westlo]

You have to know MVC3 (by playing or watching a lot of vids) to be able to watch it and appreciate it imo. If you're just use to say SFIV it definitely is a lot more busier... but yeah I didn't even bother watching the pool play for MVC3.. I think I started watching just prior to Top 32.

Anyway Blazblue Finals just finished...

1. Spark
2. Lord Knight
3. Tokido

That Lord Knight and Tokido Winners Finals match was so fucking intense, pity it wasn't best of 5 matches... and Spark was just so damn dominant.. ran over both Tokido and Lord Knight....

[Kaioshin Sama]

Pretty good collection of MVC3 from yesterday at Iron Monk Productions youtube channel. He seems to have all of it, though which match was the one that people keep talking about where Justin came back? That's the one I want to see most now cause I missed it while cooking up some food and came back only to hear them talking about Justin Wong being Justin Wong.

SygacityGamers seems to have all of the important matches from SFIV:AE this year if people havent' seen those yet.

Originally Posted by Westlo

You have to know MVC3 (by playing or watching a lot of vids) to be able to watch it and appreciate it imo. If you're just use to say SFIV it definitely is a lot more busier... but yeah I didn't even bother watching the pool play for MVC3.. I think I started watching just prior to Top 32.

Anyway Blazblue Finals just finished...

1. Spark
2. Lord Knight
3. Tokido

That Lord Knight and Tokido Winners Finals match was so fucking intense, pity it wasn't best of 5 matches... and Spark was just so damn dominant.. ran over both Tokido and Lord Knight....

I've watched enough to be able to follow the speed of the game just fine (I watched with Reckoner a bit last night and got the usual commentary about how the game is hard to follow, which it really is when you first start watching. I initially had no goddamn idea what was going on in the games at Final Round XIV until I had watched about an hour of it), but it still kind of gets boring after a couple hours which is why it's nice that it's now been well archived (for some reason Evo has it all in one giant mostly unloadable 10 hour flash video on the stream website so I strongly recommend the Iron Monk vids for watchability and convenience). There's only so many times you can watch a guy decide whether he wants to finish off a 5 bar Phoenix or go for the time out. Phoenix makes for by far the most boring overly tentative matches IMO while Tron makes for some of the glitchiest looking ones. There were several times last night that I saw where the commentators didn't seem to know what was going on in the middle of a Tron super and it just sort of seemed to connect at unexpected frames from time to time.

[Westlo]

The Justin moment was this one.

His two real classic Evo moments are the Daigo parry and this vid.

This shit from morning pools was nuts lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OBcwIxacHc

Everyone was using Phoenix wrong!

[Kaioshin Sama]

Ah okay I did seen that one then. They must have just still been talking about it an hour later or something and I thought he'd come up to play and pulled of another crazy comeback.

This Deathwish guy is my hero. He dared to try something different, looked like a complete idiot with his button settings and then apparently it all turned out to be some crazy fake out and he just annihilated the guy. I assume he's gone by now though.

[Royal_Devil]

A Phoenix may have one but that Tron comeback...wow