EVO Time Again!
Each Summer, the best fight-gamers from all over the world gather in Las Vegas, Nevada to battle it out for the title of world champion. The Evolution Championship Series (known commonly as EVO for short) was founded to be the world finals for fighting games. But since its inception, it has grown into a full- blown fighting-game-centric Comic-Con. (good-golly that's a lot of hyphens)
Ever since my good friend Hola Bird introduced me to the world of competitive streetfighter 15 years ago, I've made an effort to watch as much of the event as possible. But this weekend, I will be attending the event in person for the first time. (I'm so excited I'm positively giddy.)
While I love to watch these matches online, I am downright mediocre when it comes to the caliber of play you need to participate in these tournaments.(I've stressed this multiple times in previous entries) I have attended exactly one other major tournament in my life, Canada Cup 2010. I am going to share that dismal experience here. (I've hinted at it in the past, but here comes the full story.)
You may have some major fiasco in your past, the type of event that you avoid recalling whenever possible, and when it does come up, you speak in hushed tones, changing the subject as quickly as possible. These are the moments you refer to as 'the insert-word-here incident'. Among those of us involved, it is referred to as The Canada Cup Incident.
Your personal incidents may have left deep psychological scars that will never heal. But, most likely your shame was private, perhaps shared among a few old friends or petty enemies. The Canada Cup Incident was broadcast over the internet, and can still be found if you search deeply enough through the annals of YouTube. (I will post a link at the end of this post, something I promised myself I would never do, but perhaps the time has come)
The whole thing was Hola Bird's idea. "Come with me to Calgary", he said. "It will be fun!", he said.
I wouldn't say it was no fun, but it certainly wasn't pleasant.
After weeks of preparations, planning and training, we set out for homeland of our northern neighbors, ridiculous dreams of championship trophies and internet fame in our heads. I got my passport solely for this event, it remains the only time so far that I've ever left the country.
One of the events at Canada Cup 2010 was a team Street Fighter event. It was designed for 3 man teams, when one team member lost a match, the next would rotate in, and so forth until one team was eliminated. The winning team would move one, and the losing team just lost their entry fee. (No consolation bracket in team tourneys, losers!)
Hola Bird and myself formed a team with another Street-Fighter-loving Montanan, a fun guy that goes by the handle Bonzai Boomerang. Before our match even started, we all knew there would be trouble. We were called up to the main stage, and informed our match would be taking place on stage, streamed online, against a team named 'team third place'.
Why did they pick the name team third place? Because they already knew they would be taking third place. Third place behind a team that had Daigo and Mago, and another team that had Justin Wong and Mike Ross.
So, I just threw some names out that probably meant nothing to most readers. But allow me to equate them to some names you probably do recognize. If this had been baseball, the names might have been Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. In Basketball, it would be Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. In cricket, Sachin Tendulkar and Sir Viv Richards. Icons of the sport, in other words. And we were pitted, round one, against the team that was expected could only possibly lose to these giants.
We...lost. and when i say we lost, I mean we LOST. In the three man team format, we did not make it beyond their point man. In between Bonzai Boomerang's vicious slaughter and my own, (Bonzai played first position, I was second, and Hola Bird was our anchor) there was a forced reset of the console, (there was some sort of sound issue with the stream) and that technical issue took much longer than it took their point man to wipe out our entire team.
As it turned out, the entire time we were getting our asses handed to us, the commentators for the stream were roasting our poor play for all of the internet to hear and laugh (and laugh and laugh). While it can't be argued that we sucked HARD, I would like to take this moment to point out this wasn't exactly a fair matchup. In Street Fighter 6 terms, it was the equivalent of 2 silver-ranks and a gold-rank being matched up against 3 legend-ranks players. The layman might equate it to watching someone who jogs a couple times a week enter the Olympic trials.
These people play at a level I can barely comprehend, let alone achieve. So, while my play has undoubtedly improved since The Canada Cup incident, my expectations have vastly diminished. EVO doesn't have a team tournament, but I did register for the Street Fighter main event. It is double-loss elimination, so if I do better than 0-2, I will consider it a small victory.
If you have any desire to track the progress of me and my crew this weekend, you can do so at start.gg.
My handle is Atmaweapwn. The rest of the crew is Hola Bird, Bonzai Boomerang, and Sammich.
If you enjoy watching people get ridiculed as they are destroyed by vastly superior players, you can find the videos of Team Carne Crew vs Team Third Place here and here.
Wish me luck.
No comments:
Post a Comment