Evo 2016: World's biggest fighting game event

[ah]

Evo 2016 is THIS WEEKEND!! If you like sitting at home watching people in another country play children's videogames from the fighting genre, it's time to get excited!!

 

Overview

 

Ever has Evo been the main event in the fighting game scene's calendar, and this year excitement for SFV, funding from various publishers and a lot of Smash players promise to make it the largest fighting game event yet held - by a significant margin. Expect to see great play in games you didn't know you liked, news and hype for games current and forthcoming, and generally lots of happy faces. Best enjoyed in the company of fellow fighting game fans, this thread is here so you can chat away no matter which game you prefer. It's four days long and at the end a grown man cries - what's not to like?

 

Suggested thread etiquette

 

Use spoiler tags when discussing match results or player names once brackets are in progress - say what you like, but don't spoil the fun for people who want to watch the footage later

 

Don't be too rude about the games you don't like - don't spoil the fun for people who have bad taste in fighting games

 

That's it!

 

Schedule and stream links for main games:

 

https://www.twitch.tv/srkevo1

https://www.twitch.tv/srkevo2

https://www.twitch.tv/srkevo3

https://www.twitch.tv/srkevo4

https://www.twitch.tv/capcomfighters

https://www.twitch.tv/tekken

 

UK time schedule:

 

 

Local time schedules:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

Schedules and links for side tournaments (all times below are local time not UK time):

 

 

More useful google doc with stream links which may be updated if more stuff gets organised: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bbMHRl8AGHeFmCQ01X-jtjgakxsDXTARYUh0vfC-0_k/edit#gid=0

 

And here's the original stuff I posted before I found the above two items:

Spoiler

 

 

 

Anime stuff (more info: https://animevo.moe/):

 

 

KOF14: http://atlus.com/king-fighters-xiv-heading-las-vegas-evo-2016/

 

Soul Caliburs 2 and 5: https://8wayrun.com/threads/jul-15-2016-evo-2016-side-tournaments-las-vegas-nv.19394/

 

Project M: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/47aycf/project_m_evo_2016_side_event/

 

 

 

Other stuff

 

Brackets for main games: http://evo2016.s3.amazonaws.com/brackets/index.html

Player locator (find a player in the brackets): http://evo2016.s3.amazonaws.com/brackets/players.html

USF4 side tournament: evo pls

[Qazimod]

Biggest fighting game event until Rllmuk's WBO16 online SFV tournament, surely.  Separating talk from the main game threads could be a good idea - the SFV topic is so busy with other chat that people who don't visit the thread might not be aware about Evo.

 

Personallly I'm keen to check out SFV matches when possible - this will be its first big outing since launch - and if there is a panel for SFV news (as suggested recently) I'll definitely tune in for that.

[ah]

To help get in the mood I've been dabbling with a few different games over the last couple of weeks (Revival will be delighted to hear that I even gave Killer Instinct a try - or Arbiter vs Raam single-player as I might as well call it in my case - and didn't immediately hate it), and today I spent a happy morning working through youtube and pulling together a list of my favourite matches from previous years, trying not to overlap on games wherever possible because otherwise it would just be all SF4 matches. I'm a filthy 09er so anything before that is based on hearsay rather than personal memory of what was good (unless otherwise noted, where I've included two videos it'll be the full match followed by a highlight cut from that same match). Would love to see other people's favourites. Fall down the youtube rabbithole with me and waste your evening :-)

 

2015: Woshige vs Ogawa (Guilty Gear Xrd: -SIGN-) - Woshige goes toe-to-toe with the GG great and pulls out a clutch win, only to realise too late that there was one round left to play.

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4-cyZJfU7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G8oHukH_pE

 

 

2014: Dogura vs Garireo (BlazBlue Chronophantasma) - Inarguably the greatest match of 2014, this is a study in mid-match adjustment, emotional control and the will to win against the odds.

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrvY6BbiUE0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oEUzldybvQ

 

 

2013: Justin Wong vs Chris G (Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3) plus the following year's runback - I am a jwong fanboy. The comebacks, though!

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73fcZo4fq6o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GbEAE_rcfw

 

 

2012: Bala vs MadKOF (King of Fighters XIII) plus bonus Floe playing a one-player game - the match that put KOF on the map for a new generation of street fighter fans.

Spoiler

 

 

 

2011: Poongko vs Daigo (Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition) - you keep rolling the dice and they keep showing sixes until it starts to feel like magic.

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6sFms_oPQU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5z9uFNTmN4

 

 

2010: KBeast vs Marn (Tatsunoko vs Capcom) plus bonus mike ross hype - seeing a great set in a game you never played is half the fun of Evo.

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsrWRENWZYg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzsdvsTMsz0

 

 

2009: Justin Wong vs Daigo (Street Fighter IV) split into two videos - SF4's first year and arguably the closest the US came to a win, this shows how involved the crowd has always been in the flow of key matches. With "no standing at the front" a rule for this year's top 8, who knows if that will continue.

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYmn8uxUWGw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvxzstlZt4

 

 

2008: John Choi vs BAS (Capcom vs SNK 2) plus bonus nuki hiding behind a table in 3s finals - bu... but I thought BAS was unbeatable?? CvS2 is very fun to watch.

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4uwSsESj8I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pe_yK71Zqc#t=2m27s

 

 

2007: Justin Wong vs Yipes (Marvel vs Capcom 2) - never give up. Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_GFqRIU6Pg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVmc5ZepdVs

 

 

2006: Afrolegends vs Daigo (Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting) - oh you want two comebacks in one round? Watch some SFII.

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/TlpKqkKd2dM

 

2005: this one's a blank for me, how about the ST top 8 (Super Street Fighter II Turbo) - I'll never understand this game but it's always good stream-monstering fodder.

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0l538HxqgGo&list=PLNEDfJZKAl4txs6QsP1oUZSDwIlDdF4r5

 

2004 Justin Wong vs Daigo (Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike) - you'll have seen the highlight clip before. Let's go Evo hype!

Spoiler

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnEWSO6NrQo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np_5BHmaSI4

 

 

2003: I'm done... Maybe some GGXX would be interesting? The video ends with "and Daigo wins", anyway, so there you go (Guilty Gear XX)

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/ut3DOkF3Ubw

 

2002: This tournament was actually held before videos were invented sorry, and in any case they only played games I've already picked for later years' selections. ggs

[Space Renegade Ulala]

I am SO EXCITED. Gonna stock up on coffee and trash talk.

[ah]

I may well be spending my Evo weekend with JLM and his Marvel-monster friend, so last night I put UMVC3 in for half an hour of training mode to remember how the game works and found that...I don't remember how the game works. I can't even remember my Spencer/Missiles combo, and I'm pretty sure it's one I invented because the real combos were too hard, so it's not like I can look it up. Something like air magic series, knee drop ground bounce, ground series into up grapple, missiles hit, ground series into air series, down grapple wall bounce, something something super. I couldn't get the timing on calling missiles right and couldn't get the something something after the wall bounce either. I think it was down-zip, qcf+S. And I think I had a second assist call somewhere. How time passes and memory fades.

 

Hoping for KBR vs one of the gods for that grand final. I would say ideally ChrisG so he gets a last shot at the title but I'd obviously be lying because, as noted in my last post, I'm a jwong fanboy.

 

Anyway, I was coming here to post about last year's USF4 fantasy top 8 because I just found the details and don't think I ever shared the results.

 

 

It's a four way tie for most correct guesses - Curtis, Qazimod, Spuck and Camel all got in there - but only Qazimod had all three finalists in his selection. Mind you, only Curtis had seven top 32 players which is similarly impressive (well df0 also managed this feat, but he somewhat scuppered his own chances of winning by picking Kazunoko twice and thereby reducing how many of his picks made top 8 - I've checked the results can confirm Kazunoko didn't make top 8 twice in USF4 at last year's Evo).

I give the maddest of props to Qazimod personally, but technically the game was to pick the top 8, not the winner, so all four guessers are to be congratulated on the quality of their reads.

I've also added in a chart or two just to make the image extra purple.

I'll happily run this again if people want to pick their top 8s for this year? It would seem like SFV would be the game to do it for. We can reveal the results next July. If you're interested then check the brackets (link in first post) and place your bets.

 

[Qazimod]

Technically angel took it...

[angel]

this is true.  very excited to see some SF and MKX, we've had SGQD last weekend and now evo, sleep patterns gona go to absolute fuck.

[joffocakes]

I'm working at 7am on Monday because I forgot all about EVO. This makes me sad.

[ah]

I just went to add that to the first post, but as I was doing it I realised the times looked suspiciously civilised so went and checked. Have now added a different schedule to the first post which matches my own maths (event starts at 4pm on all three days and end way too late, as they should).

 

Also updated details of side tournaments with better information. There is a SFxT tournament on the Saturday! And BAS is running a CvS2 tournament! Still no SF4 - I guess it is having at least one year in the wilderness :-(

 

Oh and don't worry Joffocakes, I will make sure to text you the SFV result the moment it happens so you don't have to watch it (kidding).

 

 

 

[Nate Dogg III]

Just going to get this out of the way now: fuck Smash. 

 

I'm excited for everything else though. 

[yashiro]

Yeah the original was PDT, my bad.

[krenzler]

I'm as casual as can be. Which means someone who loves to follow these events (mainly SFV and some SFIV for me*) but doesn't actually play them.. Everytime I consider starting up I come to the realisation that I'm just not hardcore enough for the hours needed (and the cost of a good fightstick). 

 

EVO last year was the first for me and I've been following all of the SFV Pro Tour this year. 

 

* Stuff like MvC3 is way to busy for my brain to process and MK is a bit too juggle-heavy for my taste. I prefer the SF look and the way it feels (looks) more grounded and "chunky". 

 

Looking forward to PR maining Balrog (if he does) and how far he can take it. Also curious to see if Phenom can make it to top-8. And would love to see a Zangief go far.

 

Will we see some more Guile players I wonder - I'm a little surprised how few we've seen so far.

 

[Moodmon]

Assuming he is still playing him, maybe try and look out for ChrisG's Guile .  I'm not aware of anyone else maining him that is notable (might get the likes of Nuckledu pulling one out).  Probably some I've missed though.

 

Zero idea who is going to win, but echo sentiments it is likely to be an all Asia top 8.

[Dig Dug]

Might as well talk about smash bros seeing how I'm into that.

 

So Melee is missing quite a few people this year in terms of top players. PPMD (one of the 5 gods) is on an extended break from competing because of health issues brought about from a hormone deficiency and depression. Leffen (only non-god to beat all 5 gods in tournament) hasn't been in the US last year as he was denied entry for using a visitors visa to enter the US when his sponsorship by Team Solo Mid and his tourney winnings meant he was technically coming into the country to work. He had been given a temp visa which would have allowed him to compete at Evo but because they are now processing a new visa for him he is no longer allowed to use a temporary one, meaning he is stuck in Sweden for a few more months. Considering he has spent all year complaining about tournament rulesets not being to his liking and not being allowed to skip round 1 pools (because according to him he'll just win anyway) a lot of people are saying good riddance. There are a few other high ranked players apparently not going (Silent Wolf, MacD, aMSa, Professor Pro) but for the most part pretty much everyone is making the trip with over 2000 players signed up for it.

 

The favourites to win Melee are Mango, Armada and Hungry Box. Mango won back to back Evo tournaments in 2013 and 2014, he also came 3rd at evo 2007 (his breakout tournament). He has been having occasional slumps in play over the last year but recently he has come back in full force 3-0'ing Armada , what is impressive about the win was he did it with Marth despite being a Fox/Falco player, his play is currently going through a transition as he is beginning to fully take advantage of modern advanced tech after originally stating that he would win without using the likes of shield dropping (now he is considered the best in the world at it).

Armada was the winner of last years Evo and also won the super major Genesis 3 back in January, for most of the last year he looked unbeatable having switched characters from Peach to Fox, the last few months however his momentum has slowed down with Mango, Hungrybox, Mew2King, and Leffen all taking sets off him in tournament. The Swedish Sniper will want to reclaim his evo crown but he'll face a lot of resistance.

Hungrybox was come 3rd, 2nd, and 2nd in the last three Evo tournaments, earning him the title of "the giver of free evos" by Mango who defeated him on the way to his two evo wins in 2013 and 2014. HungryBox is considered THE Jigglypuff player in Melee and was for years one of the most despised players of the game as many saw Jigglypuff's defensive, safe,  counter attacking play style as going against the spirit of the game. With him consistently getting top 8 in almost every tournament he has entered over the last 6 years people now give HungryBox his due. normally a consistent player in making top 4 at tournaments HungryBox has recently been facing stronger opposition, going to close sets with other high ranked players outside of the top 5, Mew2King, who at a time looked unable to beat HungryBox, recently beat him 3-0 in tournament, as did Wizzrobe, the 18 year old multi-game prodigy who 3-0'd HungryBox with his Captain Falcon.

 

Although Mango, Armada and HungryBox are the 3 favourites there are many dark horses in this tournament.

Mew2King is the last of the 5 Gods entering evo, having being competing at the top level since 2005 Mew2King is one of the most experienced players to be entering Evo. The past decade has seen Mew2King go through several highs and lows, at Evo 2007 he was eliminated by Mango and Chillindude (missing top 8) despite being one of the favourties to win the tournament. After 2007 it would be 5 years before Mew2King would finally beat mango in tournament. Mew2King is unpredictable and has in the last few months gone from beating the likes of Armada and HungryBox 3-0 to getting eliminated in tournament by a Captain Falcon player for the first time in 10 years. he is also the only one of the 5 gods to play Brawl and Smash 4 at the top level.

Other players worth looking out for are Westballz (best Falco in the World), Plup (Sheik player, also considered to be the best Samus), Axe (best Pikachu in the world, top 8 the last two Evo's), Wizzrobe (a top player in Smash 64, Melee, Project M (retired) and Smash 4 despite being 18 years old).

 

A lot of complains get thrown at Melee for a number of reasons. one complaint is the time the game takes to run, with games being played with 4 player stocks and an 8 minute timer Melee has a bad habit of running over at tournaments, last year at evo HungryBox and Armada played twice in top 8 with nearly all of the matches going to time, much to the ire of Street Fighter fans everywhere. An other complaint is aimed at the attitude of the community, Melee fans only care about Melee. At least years Evo guilty gear fans had to crowd around a phone in the hallway to watch top 8 as the main hall had been occupied by melee fans who were waiting for top 8 Melee to start. Melee fans are also gaining a reputation for booing other games off stage, at Apex 2015 they booed Smash 4 players off stage after grand finals and cheered as melee top 8 started, there were heavy complaints about this at CEO last month with Melee fans doing the same to Killer Instinct. Melee is also the game with the least amount of player cross over at evo, interestingly Smash 4 and Street Fighter V have the largest player cross over of any game.

 

 

Anyway here's a melee video.

Mew2King vs Shiz, RoM 2009, the most watched match of all time.

 

 

Smash 4:

Smash 4 was an easy pick for Evo last year, ZeRo had been on a winning streak since the games release having won every tournament he entered. He ended up winning Evo without dropping a single game. His winning streak would carry on until October when he finally lost at MLG Gand Finals to Nairo. Despite this blip he continued his dominance over the scene winning all the way up to Genesis 3, after Genesis ZeRo took a break from the game because of a hand injury.

Quite a lot has changed in the last 2 years. When Smash 4 had its first major at Apex 2015 it was something of a disaster, everyone played incredibly defensive, there was a lot of camping, games were going on for a long time, Diddy Kong was overpowered and desperately needed a nerf and the whole thing soured people on the game. It lead to 2 stock games becoming the standard even though its predecessor Brawl played with 3 stocks, so desperate was the Smash 4 seen to distance itself from the hate it (and also become more crowed pleasing because we esports now) had been getting for being slow and boring game that they even agreed to Evo's ruleset which allowed the use of custom movesets. At first people believed custom moves were the way to go in order to speed up the game, however many of these moves were never intended for serious play and over time players found them to be less enjoyable, more degenerate and overall a worse way to play the game. After many tournaments and many balance patches the game has now reached the point where players have optimised their play with the meta becoming diverse which is finally a relief as so far the games meta had been dominated by select characters, first Diddy Kong, then Sheik, then Bayonetta (who was so good some tournaments banned her), the closest character to being on the level of those 3 at the moment in terms of sheer power given to player using them is Cloud but even he is not close to the level of the previous 3.

 

Anyway lets talk about the players. Smash 4 in the last few months has been a roller coaster with everyone beating each other, it's impossible to pick a favourite for Evo right now. so here's a quick run down of top players (I'm assuming they've all entered).

ZeRo (Diddy/Sheik) - won evo 2015, had a 50+ tournament winning streak, dominance ended following hiatus from injury and Sheik nerfs.

Nairo (Zero Suit Samus) - First person to take a tournament from ZeRo, arguably the best American player.

Dabuz (Rosalina) - Came 2nd at Apex 2015 and was blamed by people for making the tournament run too long with his then campy Rosalina, has been getting top 2 in many tournaments since the games release.

Mr. R (Sheik) - This dutch player came second at Evo last year and is by far the best European player. Has never won an American National or Major and has gained a reputation for making bad luck in big matches where he loses to gimmicky stuff.

Abadango (Mewtwo) - This Japanese player isn't considered the best from his nation but he has had the most presence at American tournaments, he has constantly changed his play over the course from games life jumping from Pacman, to Wario, to Meta Knight, to MewTwo. His performances with MewTwo moved the character from Lower-Mid tier to high tier.

Ally (Mario) - Canada's best player. Spent a lot of time saying that Mario isn't very good and then beat Zero two tournaments in a row with Mario. Back in Brawl he was far and away considered the best Solid Snake player and still actively players Brawl.

Larry Lurr (Fox/Donkey Kong) - Larry Lurr's play style baffles a lot of people, his performances with Fox often make people debate whether Fox is top 5 in the game. Fox is one of the hardest characters in the game to play at the top but he makes it look easy having recently beaten ZeRo and using Fox's move sets to beat people in ways that makes him look like a genius in comparison to other players.

VoiD (Sheik) - This Sheik player is considered to be the player to have mastered Sheik better than anyone else, unlike most other players he utilities Sheik's entire move set and has won many games by punishing mistakes as hard as the character can, easily winning games off of strong mix ups and strings.

Ranai (Villager) - Considered to be Japans top player Ranai upheld his reputation by coming 3rd at Genesis 3, although losing to both ZeRo and Dabuz the games were so close that they could have easily swung his way on another day. ZeRo has remarked that his match with Ranai was the hardest match of his career.

ANTi (Mario and ever y other character) - ANTi has a reputation of being able to pull out characters unexpectedly and win with them. Having recently won CEO he is a top pick to go on and win the tournament. 

 

Honorable mentions:

Tweek (Cloud), Zinoto (Diddy Kong), Hyuga (Toon Link), K9sbruce (Sheik/Diddy), Mew2King (Cloud), False (Sheik/Marth/Ryu), Komorkiri (Cloud/Sonic), FOW (Ness), ESAM (Pikachu), iStudying (Greninja).

 

Some smash 4 videos:

Dutch player iStudying and his Greninja.

 

Mew2King 3-0'ing ZeRo because he's Mew2King and will just do shit if he feels like it.

 

 

That's my Smash Bros Evo Preview. This took me some time to write.

 

 

[ThePixelbarks]

Good work on making an Evo thread!

 

I wanted to make a little site that tracked what was playing on all the streams at any time, and offer a way to switch between them that you just can't get through the twitch site itself. So decided to open it up to others as well, because, well, why not.

 

http://www.rllmukevo.tk

 

REALLY excited about this years Evo. Mainly for Tekken 7, mind you.

[Dig Dug]

Also not sure if they are doing it this time but Saltybet normally turn off Mugen during evo and let people bet on the evo matches instead.

[ThePixelbarks]

I do believe so, looking at saltybet's twitter account

[ThePixelbarks]

Actually, decided to make a muk only version of that site:

 

http://www.rllmukevo.tk

 

So we have own own chatspace (doesn't need any signing up to use) away from the crowd. Hope you guys like it, if you see anything that needs to be changed or added, just say!

[Qazimod]

srkevo1/CapcomFighters is live! With no picture! See you in the above link.

[Dig Dug]

Also here's a multitwitch if your internet is up to streaming all 3 evo channels and capcom fighters at the same time. http://www.multitwitch.tv/srkevo3/srkevo2/capcomfighters/srkevo1

[ah]

KOF13 side stream is up if anyone's tiring of SFV pools: https://www.twitch.tv/kingsofco

[strawdonkey]

This fucking thread. A love letter to fighting games. You guys.

 

THIS WEEKEND

[Dig Dug]

Smash has been fairly interesting, not too many big upsets but I laughed my ass off watching a player called Kiraflax lose to a guy called Pu55yk1ng. Kiraflax is infamous in the scene for his salt when losing.

 

[krenzler]

Bumping this to the frontpage as day 2 is just starting.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

Imagine being some random schlub in the pools thinking "all I need is a good draw and some luck and I might get fa- oh fuck, it's Infiltration"

 

It'd be like fighting a tank with a plastic spork.

[Orion]

Some poor lad got Daigo last night and then decided to go with Ryu. It did'nt last long.

[Nick R]

The Crazy Blk Dude, there, with his intimidating disguise. Who was that mysterious masked man? Will we ever know? Yes we will.

 

(Who updates those brackets? Cos they're a bit out of date now. )

[krenzler]

Man, all the fiddling around with (getting sound to the) headphones and the thousand button presses when changing from stick to pad gets a bit tedious at times..

 

Other than that it's been enjoyable so far. 

[Dig Dug]

 

Tekken 7 top 8 was awesome and I'm definately going to get the game when it comes out.

Smash 4 top 32 has been pretty good today, shame top 8 for Smash Wii U is best of 3 with top 3 being best of 5. Melee was always the problem game with timeouts because everyone plays incredibly safe where's smash 4's scene has pushed for quicker play more and more in the last year. Anyway watch that kamemushi guy who plays megaman, he's a genius.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Training stage being banned is just the best thing.