@tournamentofhate: Considering the number of entrants I'm not sure they can put Marvel that close to the end. Even though it usually gets plenty of views I don't see it going after MKX at all.

I've bookmarked the page, we'll just have to wait and see what the official pools look like.

• KI is growing bit by bit, it's far from dead. It's had a large gap between games, no fanbase outside of the USA and no established competitive scene to my knowledge. It's done quite well for itself considering.
• That sounds a very likely Sunday line up, I'd guess that Melee gets main event status for Saturday, Tekken 7 on Saturday too, and P4UA and KI on Friday.

That would make Melee & pools all Friday, Wii U pools all Saturday, USFIV and Marvel also be split between Friday and Saturday, maybe split Tekken 7 and KI between Friday and Saturday... I'd have thought there'll be a bunch of players signed up for both GG and P4UA so split those up too.

That leaves MKX, which may or may not get split in half over the 2 days, honestly I have no idea how it'll all work out, or how many streams they'll use.

Capcom Fighters will handle USFIV pools and then they might need srkevo1, srkevo2 and srkevo3 to handle it all this year, 3 streams might not be enough.

So when does EVO become a 4 day event?

@hassun Do work, figure out every single pool! The evo pool lists have always been something I wait for someone else to explore.

@fredchuckdave: Gackta and LPN; Reiketsu and Brenttiscool; Wolfkrone and Kazunoko are not only in the same pool but are also each other's first opponents; Kindevu and Arturo; Inco and Damdai; Gachikun, Nerdjosh and Alex Meyers;

One of my favorite things about being live at EVO last year was everybody running from the off-stream USF4 setups at the back of the room to tell everybody else when the top players were getting eliminated(namely Daigo & Infiltration). Then seconds later it would scroll on the big screen over the matches that were being streamed and the crowd would gasp. It felt like you were in the middle of a massive battlefield and giants were falling down everywhere.

@tournamentofhate: ShinAkuma666 collected many scalps that day.

@hassun: Those aren't final, but if they're anything to go by, Team Madcatz (Mago/Daigo/Tokido) have some pretty free pools.

That sounds awesome! Are you going this year too?

@viciousbearmauling: I did mention that earlier:

Also if you think the MCZ boys have it easy, take a look at Infiltration's pool!

Unless those Byes get filled in it will be V E R Y E A S Y for the MMM.

@hassun: Luisthepanda DA GAWD

Infiltration truly has become an American.

For all the remaining MK fans (I'm sure there's only me after the tanyapocalypse) out there you might want to check out the premier tower this week:

I was going to but the Canadian dollar is doing absolutely terrible right now, the whole trip would have cost me at least $500 more than it did last year. I mean it was amazing being there in person but I was exhausted for almost a week after I got back lol so I'll save a lot more energy watching it from home this time.

@tournamentofhate: Damn, that's a lot of money!

1st draft of the brackets is up, we've got:

FRIDAY: USFIV, Melee - 1 pool, Wii U - 1 pool, Persona 4AU and half of GGXRD

SATURDAY: MKX, KI, UMVC3, half of GGXRD and 1 remaining Melee & Wii U pool each

Tekken 7 brackets haven't gone up yet, safe to assume they'll be Saturday

Bracket list

Player search

@flstyle: Do we know the order on Sunday yet?

Pimpimjim is apparently in one of the MKX pools. Collusion!?

Perfect Legend against Eita first round, wouldn't it be amazing if he lost?

@fredchuckdave: Not yet!

Honeybee Vs Valle first round, also Honeybee's name is Tim and thus he shall be called Tim in all future discussions.

Jwong vs a guy with 5 sponsors 2nd round.

@fredchuckdave: That tower looks like a fucking nightmare to play

@hmoney001: Lol 4/5 Strider

More info on the Topanga Charity Cup courtesy of Shoryuken.com:

What?

The Topanga Charity Cup is -as the name implies- a charity tournament. It started in 2011 a to raise funds for the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and has been hosted every year since. The money this tournament raises will be forwarded to the Japanese Red Cross Society.

Format: 5v5 single elimination team tournament. Players are limited to 1 character. Winner stays on (so 1 player can defeat and entire enemy team).

Where?

Tokyo, Japan

When?

4th of July 2015

The tournament starts at 10:00 local time which is:

18:00 in Los Angeles/PDT (July 3)

21:00 in New York/EDT (July 3)

02:00 in London/UTC

03:00 in Berlin/CET

Time converter: http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?pl=1&lid=1850147,2950159,5128581,5368361&h=1850147&date=7/4/2015|2

Additional info:

Main stream: http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv224069963

Secondary stream: http://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv224070148

Click on the Shoryuken.com link to see all the teams. Spoilers: There are a shitton of them.

Some of the highlights:

Team Kachitagari

• Tokido (Akuma)
• Sako (Elena)
• Fuudo (Fei Long)
• Choco Blanka (Blanka)
• YHC-Mochi (Dhalsim)

Team Topanga

• Kazunoko (Yun)
• Momochi (Ken)
• Nyanshi (Sagat)
• Jyobin (Ryu)
• Nemo (Rolento)

Team Shinonga

• Daigo Umehara (Evil Ryu)
• Mago (Yang)
• Bonchan (Sagat)
• Oshino (Adon)
• Misse (Makoto)

Team Korea

• hydeBUFFY (Adon)
• Infiltration (Decapre)
• Saulabis (Rufus)
• DBKoopa (Yun)
• BigDanmul (Makoto)

Yubiken

• KichijojiKEN (Ken)
• Santarou (Sagat)
• Shiro (Abel)
• Dashio (Seth)
• Kim1234 (Dictator)

KokuNuki to hashiritai

• Kokujin (Dudley)
• Nuki (Chun-Li)
• Santosu (Poison)
• R (Guy)
• KSK (Hugo)

@starvinggamer: I think it's worth it for the finale, though admittedly you just kind of sit around dodging stuff. It's definitely hard to keep ground combos going consistently but air combos aren't too bad so you can give it a go with the 3 or 4 characters that can sustain those for a while. Either way hopefully there's a frosty the snowman brutality tower.

@hassun: Last year they had Kazunoko, Nemo, Bonchan, Fuudo, and Tokido all on the same team; though I believe they only wound up getting second. Nice to see Daigo has more than just himself on his team this time around.

Xiaohai vs. Haitani in round 2, someone's taking an early trip to the losers bracket!

Looks like most of the EVO bracket combinations I listed earlier have already changed.

@flstyle: Sucks for Haitani. Haven't really seen him perform to his old level recently and Xiao hai is in top shape and extremely hungry.

@fredchuckdave: The winning team last year was Kachitagari (Tokido, Sako, Fuudo, Kazunoko, Bonchan) so yeah that was a pretty good team. :V

The winning team in 2013 was Kore de Dou da!? (Michael-tan, Darui, Machaboo, KOICHINKO, Kyoku) though.

@flstyle: Wow can't believe Marvel is second to last. Hopefully it will manage to be as hype as last year. I think Ultradavid is right though.

@hassun: I was close!

@starvinggamer: That logic didn't apply to KoF apparently (which consistently had the "best show" prior to 2014, obviously it was BBCP last year). Schedule is actually kind of of irritating since I might be in church when MKX is going on, of course if there's no tanya nerf I guess that's alright.

@starvinggamer: If it's the confirmed last appearance of UMvC3 I can somewhat understand but those are still really high honours for a game with comparatively few entries.

I hope they make Smash 4 the main event on Saturday at least.

Wow MKX gets an early slot huh? I'd have expected it to be up there since it's the hot new thing.

Also, Yatagarasu comes out in like 5 days get hyped! No one is hyped. I hope it's good though!

The return of the classic!?

Also a handy EVO2K15 bracket tool/viewer here: http://evo2015.j.layershift.co.uk/

@l1ghtn1n: Yeah seeing it on streams it definitely looks like it's missing a lot of quality of life features. And those images of the commentators look sorta grungy.

In other news, Battle Fantasia was just announced to have a PC release. You know, one of the very first games that Jeff quick looked on this very site. I distinctly remember him urging people to hop in online with him since there weren't a lot of people playing.

@fredchuckdave: Looks like NRS is going to go for it. I think the EVO patch cut-off date is July 8 and NRS is going to release the Predator patch July 7. This means they have ONE chance.

@hassun: I think they have a chance to redeem the public audience but it really does seem like no matter what they do the FGC crowd is already too angry with past decisions. 2 weeks = fuck this game forever apparently. So what do people think, if they left Raiden at 55% corner combo damage and Kung Jin at 45% damage midscreen but also left Scorpion with his free block string and never released Tanya would the game never have fallen out of favor? I'm pretty sure SFV would have deteriorated interest regardless. You can't really be selective about the whole patching thing (you nerfed MY character!?), seems like Capcom just leaves their games the way they are for quite a while even if something is obviously broken and that seems to work pretty well for them. Marvel is unable to be patched and apparently is the "best show" (not gonna lie I'm actually interested in Marvel at EVO though it is rarely interesting outside of that context).

@fredchuckdave: I'm not all doom and gloom about MKX (although having to play on the janky PC version decreased my interest in the game quite a bit). They still have quite a window before SFV hits and a lot of money is being thrown at the competitive scene. A bad showing at EVO would be devastating though so

Regarding UMvC3, it's probably in a more interesting state than it has ever been but at the same time putting it up there just because it gets the most views does not do other games justice. If other games don't get a prime spot it'll be hard for them to ever outdo UMvC3. You have to give them a chance.

The other (sad) fact about it is that, despite being called an international event, EVO is really just a very large American event both in terms of players and in terms of viewers. The better the North Americans do, the more people are going to watch it. I'm willing to bet CEO did not get the massive increase in viewers because of its (great) production values. It got them because the US players did extremely well.

More like years of bad choices with their previous games and no indication that they've learned anything with the way they've handled MKX. "Fool me once" and all that jazz. Also don't remember anyone bitching about the Raiden and Kung Jin normalization, more the random buffs/nerfs that seem premature at best and completely arbitrary at worst. "Hey let's take one of the highest-execution characters that no one is complaining about and no one is dominating with and make her even higher-execution 3 days before a major so players that main her won't be able to adjust". Doesn't exactly inspire confidence in your competitive scene.

I'm not done with MKX, I'll keep tinking here and there, but I can't blame any players who don't want to invest the time in MKX because it's way too unstable.

Source

Character specific fixes

• D'Vorah (Swarm Queen) - Added 2 buffer frames on Bug Bomb dash cancel combos if the opponent is in hit stun
• Ferra/Torr - Deep Stab now does full damage when thrown backwards
• Ferra/Torr (Lackey) - Back Breaker now does full damage when thrown backwards
• Jacqui - Added 7 damage to Bionic Blast in all variations
• Kitana (Royal Storm) - Bounce Back has 14 frame startup (down from 23 frames)
• Kitana (Assassin) - Punishing Poke now correctly gets a damage buff from Sharpen / Razor Blade
• Kitana (Mournful) - Reduced the block stun on the first Glaive of the Enhanced Glaive Throw by 8 (no longer jails from up close at min range)
• Kung Lao (Tempest) - Hat Dance is +12 on block (down from +27)
• Liu Kang (Flame Fist) - Fixed a bug where the recovery on Shaolin Flame (24) and Shaolin-ferno (15) using the other’s value
• Shinnok - Hell Sparks / Hell Blast when enhanced is +14 on block (down from +24)
• Tanya - Slight damage scaling adjustments
• Tanya - Removed the invulnerability frames on her Teleports
• Tanya - Added 10 recovery frames after landing from a Teleport naturally
• Tanya - Added 10 recovery frames after landing from a Teleport after a missed or blocked normal attack
• Tanya - You can no longer chain into ground attacks or 2in1 special cancel after landing from a Teleport after a blocked jump attack
• Tanya (Pyromancer) - Added 5 recovery frames to Air Fire Blasts after a Teleport

So Sunday order is same as last year basically(replacing anime game with anime game, and MKX takes KI's spot). Thing about Marvel is the top 8 is always hype as shit, so glad to see it get pre-main event. Hopefully ChrisG takes it this year, but it's looking like a JWong repeat.

@starvinggamer: I'm not defending the D'Vorah nerf or anything which I pointed out was bad in the first place (though it impacts like 2 people so it's essentially nerfing Honeybee and PPJ); but the Hellfire blockstring was definitely broken and to quote you from earlier in this thread "The only thing that got changed for Scorp was 214. It only prevents Hellfire Scorp from getting like guaranteed 15% chip after a BnB, otherwise I don't see how this blows up his combos. Use 114 instead of 214 and get like 2% less damage boohoo."

I mean if they want to patch the game frequently it's their perogative provided they don't do it 3 days before a major. Ultimately patching will eventually lead to a more balanced game but the very act of patching is sufficient to kill people's interest in it supposedly. I'm sure there were plenty of sad Raiden players that continue to be sad (and that nerf really did cripple every combo that had lightning mid string in a way that none of the other damage nerfs have).

I don't think NRS was given a fair chance, I'm sure MKX will continue to do fine in general but as you said the whole "fool me once" mindset means they have to make the game perfect from the getgo or no one will stick with it other than NRS players. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the whole jibber jabber died down and people went back to it because they don't have anything else to play.

@hassun: CEO did well because it was Japanese Street Fighter, the American dynamic helped sure but if it was only American players at CEO it would have done terribly.

Hm... D'Vorah buff seems... weird. It makes the timing closer to how it was before, but only on hit. So players will need to learn two different timings depending on hit or block? Doesn't exactly reduce the execution barrier. Bionic Blast was a garbage move so it's good that got more damage. It will be interesting to see if Kitana players actually start reversing projectiles. Also seems like they're going in hard on guaranteed chip strings which seems super stupid. They never did that much damage when compared to the meter investment and were a cool alternate strategy.

Man... Tanya... actually some of those changes seem pretty smart, but they might have gone too far in the other direction. Removing invul frames is fantastic. Don't think her damage was a problem. 10 frames on landing makes TP too easy to punish imo. Well, sucks to be all the players who invested all their efforts trying to ride the Tanya Train to Moneytown.

@starvinggamer: Kitana players reverse projectiles all the time when they're going for that Brutality! Too bad it only works on atrocious players.

And yeah Tanya's TP is a good way to kill yourself now, that's cool. I guess if you hit confirm off of F2 you can still get consistent good damage with DN that's more or less risk free. Tanya had to work really hard to get 38 with Kobu and was incapable of going over like 35 with Pyromancer so not exactly a damage machine before.

Edit: Come to think of it DN doesn't really get hurt that much assuming you can still pogo off of teleport. So Tanya just has 2 shitty variations now.

@fredchuckdave: I still have no problems with the Scorpion bug fix/nerf. And no one says they have to make the game perfect from the get-go. I'm certainly not saying that. The problem is that if you don't let your game breathe, it's hard for players to see your decisions as considered rather than reactionary. If something is legit broken, then throw out a quickie patch to fix it. That's the strength of the way they handle their attack data. But getting rid of something that seems strong before players have really had a chance to explore only serves to kill interest.

And yeah, ~35% for one bar is already average imo, especially considering she can't rely on TP spam to open players up any more.

This. NRS seems to rebalance stuff at the slightest hint of something being overpowered. They don't give the game room to breathe on its own. There is no time for players to hit the lab and discover if something is truly powerful or if the reaction to said OP move was just day 1 scrub complaints. Case in point: People were calling out for Rose nerfs after EVO last year. But it turned out that although she is really good, she's not on the level that required her to be nerfed. People learned the Rose matchup and the opinion changed.

What does that mean? Because people definitely are not watching these streams because the Japanese players are on. Otherwise way more people would have watched Hypespotting, Stunfest and SEAM or even the Asian ranking tournaments.

Curleh Mustache West 4 - July 11th

Southern California

BT|Clockwork
BT|Viscant
Paradigm
KiT|Cloud805
Rusty Shackleford
TMP|NYChrisG
KillerKai
EG|Justin Wong
Miniboss
CorkyJay
BT|NerdJosh
Dr. Snaketits
j2jin

Seattle

Kyle P
Darryn
Rattana

Arizona

BT|Angelic
FizzyKupz

Las Vegas

HB|Buttons

RyanLV

HB|Dustin

I Heart Justice

HB|Sora

Quackbot

Northern California

Shorty

PG|Filipino Champ

ApologyMan

CJ Showstopper

EG|PR Balrog

jeopardy

MC|GCYoshi13

Taekua

Central California

Chris Schmidt

XSK Samurai

Looks like that new FGC documentary is coming along nicely and is probably going to be released before the year is over.

Upates go here: https://twitter.com/ShankarFilms

You might remember Shankar from this classic EVO2K4 documentary: https://vimeo.com/5112043

@hassun: It's the combination of the two generally speaking, the US scene is definitely not what drives the views upward though; hell I can't even name 5 players I'd be excited to see from the US that are actually likely to do well in tournaments (for example: I like Jwong a lot but Rufus is boring as shit to watch also he doesn't necessarily fall under the latter part of the statement anyway). As far as why as many people don't watch the European or Asian events that's usually just the timezone.

@thunderslash: Rose is still top 5, nerfing her is not out of the question and a big part of Luffy's success is how good the character is. A big part of Momochi's success is how good Ken is (though only in Momochi's hands). I don't think Street Fighter would instantly die out if they nerfed Rose, Evil Ryu, and Ken. They certainly have nerfed characters that only one player plays before, Xian can testify to that.

@fredchuckdave: Agree to disagree I guess. US players beating Japanese players (not even Asian players in general) is viewership catnip if you ask me. There is a real inferiority complex thing going on there.

@hassun: I mean that might be why it grew higher over the course of the top 8 but as far as being at 60-70k that was just the good timezone + East/West competition. If the top 8 was all Japan then maybe it would have been 50-55k to start with or something. If the top 8 was all US and no Japanese players attended CEO it would have been like 25-30k.

@fredchuckdave: Yeah but they didn't nerf Gen right after Xian did well at a tournament for the first time and 3 days before a major, backed up by years of a similar approach to balancing.