Reflection, Future Deliberation - Combo Breaker 2022

Hello everyone, it's been a while. Honestly, I haven't had an inkling to write for a minute, but I think I'm in a place to actually do it after some time. I realize too, that I didn't write much about my perspective as a player at CoN and truth be told, I don't remember enough about it now to make a post about that. My bad~

Over half a year since Climax of Night Type-4 [arising!] and a few events travelled since. I had a healthy Top-8 appearance at Frosty Faustings this year and a respectable 3rd place showing at Crossover Arc in New York, where I bought the new laptop that I'm keying this blogpost with! Then, with my sponsor Sugoi Factory disbanding and the sort of lull that I've been in since. Let me say that there's nothing for me to go into in regards the the last point and I would prefer not to be asked about it either. I'm very appreciative of the many years that I'd been able to work with such a cool team and the achievements that sponsorship has allowed me to hit. I won't say that I'm opposed to joining any sort of team that might be interested in having me, but I'm also not actively looking for anything right now either. Understandably, I also understand that Under Night (UNI) is not a sexy draw for this sort of thing at the moment in spite of it's dedicated player base and I'm not the most decorated player either. It is what it is.

With all of that out of the way, we are now over a week past Combo Breaker 2022.

I find myself pausing as I write that without too much to say actually... and this will be meaningful as I transition into a recap of that weekend's events:

~o~o~

On Thursday, our car took the trip over from Columbus to Schaumberg out from the morning and arrived at a healthy spot in the afternoon. The trip was a little longer than I had anticipated, so I was very happy to see that so many people were already set up in the lobby and playing! Once I dropped my stuff off at the hotel room, I was already down and mingling with them. It was so nice being able to catch up with some that I hadn't seen since Frosty Faustings or earlier and meeting some people for the very first time. I played some casual matches with Yuuno, Squish, Masoma and foxof then played some extended matches with Jaca. It was super enjoyable! After a while, where I had set up my recording setup for people to play at, I went down to get my badge and to confirm my vaccination. The latter line went smooth and my time in the former was absolutely brutal... The Hot Honey Chicken Sandwich from Wendy's was absolutely brutalizing my stomach while the line was actually not moving. The large group in front of us constantly had people coming and going, chatting them up while not paying attention while the line was already going slowly for registered badge pickup. Eventually my group, which included Ebonic Plague just cut them in line to get our own stuff. I took care of what I needed to, met up with Fran for dinner and ended my night.

~o~o~

Friday was a pretty up and down day. My stomach was still messing with me a bit, but Suna, Silmerion and I took a trip to the grocery store nearby. I picked up some pedialyte, high fiber protein shakes, cliff bars, a fruit blend and water for the morning/midday. As mentioned in one of my tweets, I always try to eat lean on the days that I will actually be playing and will attempt to hydrate myself as much as possible. Today was going to be a long day as: I expected to run a good batch of the exhibitions I had planned for the weekend, had my own pool wave to play at 3pm CST and also had the exhibition on Pange Battaile vs Clim's Phonon later in the day. The distance from the hotel rooms to the ballrooms in question weren't terribly long, but they were not short either.

Nevertheless, things didn't start as planned. Canada had gotten held up with rescheduled flights the previous day and also a good bulk of the players would be arriving in the morning. I feel like I didn't quite communicate that I would not be waiting in the ballroom, but would be waiting in the lobby to commence the exhibitions. I made an assumption that they would know some information and I was wrong. For the record, when doing anything with recording setups like the Avermedia LGP series, the official tournament consoles are leased out by third-party affiliates (like DeadState or Gaming Generations) and they have a strict clause about what gets plugged into their peripherals. My stuff cannot be used on tournament setups at any given time. It'd been a while since we did an event and I think people navigate naturally to the ballrooms and stay there, much to my chagrin. After waiting until a bit after noon and not hearing much from anyone, the only initial set that I had been able to record was Carp vs Smartsteer. I was already annoyed and short, annoyed at yet another setback on something I was making time to arrange and be present for and tweeted in frustration that I was never going to do something like this again. It's like the 3rd time I said I'd stop doing it or so, but we'll try our best to stick to it lol.

Either way, I'll soapbox for a little bit for the readers of the blog: By nature of how events work and how people tend to act at events, I think it is absolutely imperative that players who are interested in improving do *something* to make a record of their progress. In the past, I ran exhibitions and other events with the goal of showcasing talent of players in longer formats that you may not see in tournament sections or to show of competitions between regions that do not normally see each other. Honestly speaking, I think I'm one of the few people with this interest. There's more people now than there were, but I think it'd pretty damning for players to ignore the opportunity to showcase themselves. I get really annoyed and feel like I'm wasting my time organizing for people who might say that they want things--- showcases, opportunities for improvement, footage to study, but don't take advantage of opportunities I or someone else gives them. I've tried to be flexible and organize around people and I've consistently come out more bitter about doing it. So, I won't! I'll try to hold my tongue and stop being pedantic if I see complaints though. Either way, I don't think I should have to ask people to record themselves. You should know who you want to play and how you want this information recorded. If you want to improve, do the work. I'm still willing to help anyone who wants to help themselves, but you have to fucking want it for yourself. There's no point in me having all this equipment, knowledge and so on and not using it.

Off the soap box and back to the tournament. I want to say that I felt like I was mostly playing at the level that I expected could do well. My stomach was still bothering me quite a bit, but I think it was still within reasonable expectation for me to do well. My first match was against BigBoyFargo who also played Akatsuki. It honestly didn't start all that good and I felt like I was reverting back to some of the old habits from previous tournaments rather than the stuff I was practicing leading up to CB. I got a 2-0 win after struggling at first and sat down to play Spoinkman in WQF of the pool. The first game basically went according the expectations and I felt like I won it pretty convincingly, but the second match felt... weird. There wasn't really anything in particular that wasn't working from a gameplan perspective, but all of my timings were off. Things that I felt would be combos would drop because I was too slow, extensions that I would be automatic I would miss and tactical unforced errors just kept adding up to a 1-1 split. Then Spoink simply took it from me in Game 3. Just like that, I was in losers.

With a congratulations to Spoinkman, I turned to focus on my next few opponents. I had to fight from a deficit vs SlamDonkey and against Miller2B, two Linne's... a matchup that I positively despise lol. Well, vs Miller is more or less a 50/50 considering our history and familiarity with each other. He'd beaten me in our last CB appearance (CB2018) and beat me in Columbus, so I was happy to get some revenge on both of those counts. Finally, I had to play against EthicsBuster's Byakuya to get out of the pool. If I'm to be honest, I don't remember much about this set except that I survived it. I think I won game three by timeout?

In any case, I wouldn't know my opponent until the next day so I finished my pool and went back to my hotel room to rest for a bit. I had thought that my exhibition was at 7pm, but it was actually at 9... right next to the stage that Tekken was doing NA vs EU. So, I went down and loitered for a little bit before returning to my room to lay down. Thankfully, I had requested to go first because I am "old". Prior to the tournament, I had asked Gosuda to help me prepare for Clim and so I was able to take some notes and write up some of the things I expected of him and what my approach would be. Around 9, I made my way to the Low Kick stage and helped brrrr set up the console in question before sitting up and waiting for things to begin.

The first two games started really slow as I was still feeling a bit lethargic and wanting to catch what sort of patterns that clim would be shooting for. I basically knew and had internalized that there was a spacing where he would disengage from Akatsuki and shifted up to playing a resource game from there. When I got hit at first, I more or less allowed myself to get thrown to death to feel out what sort of offense he would be running before making more decisions. I went down 0-2 and then made a run to 4 straight after I felt more acclimated. After two more games, we finished up at 5-3 my favor! Honestly speaking, there was a lot more that I was hoping to show off, but I'm thankful for the opportunity against such a strong opponent. I basically left the stage and went back to my room to fall asleep, lol.

~o~o~

Saturday was a lot less exciting of a time in the morning. I went to the hotel restaurant for breakfast with Miller and Silent and then went down to play in the ballroom. I had told myself and the people yet to do exhibitions that I would not even bother to attempt to run exhibitions or lug my recording setup anywhere on this day. I personally didn't have to play again until 4pm or so and had planned to spend a good chunk of the morning watching Vampire Savior after pools began. Upon getting my personal fill of casual matches just before pools for UNI and Melty were to start, I was making my way to the exit when I saw Shinobi looking around. I said what's up and he asked me if I knew where Suika was. Unfortunately, he had mentioned that he was held back in Vancouver due to a positive COVID test. It didn't seem like that was quite communicated to staff, so it seemed like Shinobi needed someone to fill in for the block. We did a short look around, but I didn't see anyone who would be ready as it was going to start imminently. With that said, I offered to help out with commentary if he needed. Lo and behold, I ended up taking the 10am MBTL block alongside Akimi out of nowhere. It was actually really fun and I got to learn more Lumina and provide color commentary for a game I hadn't played too much! Unfortunately, I missed a lot of VSav going back and forth between UNI pools and that room but it was still pretty enjoyable.

After VSav Top 24 was settled, I ended up chilling in the crowd to await my own Top 32 match after the last pool wave. The rest of the morning and early afternoon's festivities lead SwirlyGlasses to be my opponent. By this point, I was actually fairly confident in my abilites vs Hilda and felt like I had a good shot to win the set. I hadn't actually gotten any Hilda games during the weekend, which was probably to my detriment but even when I went down 0-1, I had mostly felt like I was a few adjustments off from taking the set in 3 games. I felt like I had a pretty dominant game 2 in spite of some mishaps, but things fell apart much like they did in the 2nd game vs Spoinkman. One thing that stuck out in particular were two opportunities to land Kamikaze against no resource Hilda that I had messed up. In game 3, it was more of the same and some long perfects sealed my fate at 25th place. As it turned out, had I won I would have had to fight Masoma... so I suppose I wasn't too beat up about it. I watched the rest of the crazy results until we had settled on our Top 8, then went to get some food with Ebonic Plague and Miller at Miller's Tavern. After a pleasant dinner, I turned in for the night.

~o~o~

Sunday was another pretty chill morning, where I went down and mashed casuals until it was time for UNI Top 8. I got to root for my boy Foxof as he progressed to winning his first major along with the many hype sets along the way. I also finally got to sit in Vampire Savior from Top 24 to Top 8 and had a good time. I pitched for VMP to try to make it up for the tournament I'm hosting in Columbus on July 16th and hopefully we'll be able to see a bunch of people come through for it. It was amazing to see Ethan (MiniMaw)'s run to 2nd place and also to see Zach (Ailerus)'s consistency in winning yet another Combo Breaker. I believe it's his 3rd one? Honestly, the North American Vsav scene has to be one of my favorite FGC scenes and I'm always happy to be around them and watch them. I don't play it as much as I probably should, but I've always said that them, the NA Skullgirls scene and the Midwest Brawl/PM scene were my inspirations as far as TO and event organization goes. But after that, I lingered around to see a couple of the people I hadn't seen up to that point and left the ballroom to set up my stuff in the hotel lobby.

It was there that I ended up finishing the last three of the planned exhibitions. Unfortunately, because Silent and Psykotik were too good at their games, I wasn't able to record their "secret" FT10 that I had planned. Joe went on to get 3rd in BBCF after doing the same in UNICLR, so he ended up pretty busy. Silent and I ordered a deep dish as I had the last few people do exhibitions. We were eventually joined by Yuuno, squish and many of the others later who all ended up playing on the setup for a while. I had sat down to play Ayr for a bit, intending to record a set when str4ng3r walked up and asked to pull Ayr away for a picture with the rest of the Vatista players there (flank, wootboost, jaca, foxof, and of course foxof42). It was there that I consigned them for the birthday kumite that I had been planning--- turned into a Vatista kumite, minus Foxof. The result is already up on Youtube, but it was really fun! Afterwards, we went to the bar and they all bought me drinks to celebrate my birthday! I turned 31 on the day and had passed it more or less the way I had wanted. Compy and some of the CBus VSAV crew joined us in drinks, since yesterday had been Compy's birthday as well. After we departed from the bar, I chilled over by my setup for a bit before breaking it down and going back to the room.

Monday we just checked out and went home, lol.

~o~o~

In recap... though it didn't start the best, I had experienced a pretty good birthday weekend. Now that I'm past it, I'm in a bit of a bind as far as what I want to do. I have a tournament on the horizon to prepare in Juu Yon Kakuto Geemu in July, a potential travel destination for MOsh Pit in Missouri, but other than that I think I'm going to chill until September for potentially CEOtaku. I don't have any tournament aspirations except for putting myself in the position to play my best and so things feel a bit hollow. Spitballing it with Gosuda and Vynis last night after mulling it over with myself during the week, I think for the rest of the year I'll be seeking out specific opponents at each of the events that I'm at to play long sets at. I want to take notes and prepare specifically for certain opponents, which is something that I haven't actually done much of since the Yomi days. So, for JYKG, CEOtaku and CoN5, I'll be diligently working on people to play FT10s with. This is the next step for me to keep myself invested, I think. Maybe I'll also approach people for money matches as well.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I recently made a new matchup chart for Akatsuki, but honestly I don't feel like I have things together enough to feel comfortable about it. We'll see what other content I ended up making. I do plan to restream cool stuff and tournaments coming in the future though, so look forward to that. Until next time.

Reflection, Observation - [exposition] @ Climax of Night Type-4

So, first things first... I would like to say that I consider this undertaking to have been a pretty modest success. I'll go ahead and say that I want to elaborate on this feeling a bit later in the blog post. This is being written in one shot, so I don't know if it will be short or if it will be long. Forgive me for this, lol.

-----

Nevertheless, this sort of undertaking is not something that is new or unique to the greater FGC. The Smash community actually undertook an even greater endeavor all the way back in 2011 at DBR's Genesis 2. The hardware that they used was significantly less sophisticated and easy than the Avermedia LGP2 products that I used, but they were still able to capture the entirety of that tournament's post-pools bracket--- a feat that has yet to be frequently replicated in modern times.

I don't believe that this is due to lack of trying in contemporary times either. I recall a conversation with Rick back at Combo Breaker... perhaps it was 2018 (?) where I had asked him if it was okay for me to plug in my LGP into one of the tournament setups in order to record some of the pools matches of the day. It's been a while and because I don't want to put words into his mouth, I'll paraphrase what I remember the gist of the conversation to be.

Your modern tournament these days have their tournaments supplied by hardware owned by various supplying groups for events. DataFGC, Gaming Generations and DeadStateDesign are common ones that one might see at events. These organizations have contracts with the tournament organizers which dictate how their systems are to be used. For Combo Breaker, audio equipment and controllers were allowed to be plugged into those machines--- things like capture cards were not.

This is one of, if not the main reason that any time that I do recordings at events, I make sure that I generally bring and supply my own equipment or collaborate with other volunteers to use their own. For [exposition], it was collaborating with CookieFGC and foxof42 primarily... but Data, Airco, sixfortyfive, Shinobi, Hagure, OutlawVinegar and other team members helped me put everything together to make it as smooth as possible. It would have not been possible with out them and it was quite the ordeal to do honestly, even though I did not have too much in the way of roadblocks in organizing this. I'll detail a bit of this in the next coming section.

More or less, I don't believe that anyone who wasn't involved even know that I later drafted up a Project Proposal for this event to pair with the Data Capture Sheet graciously crafted by Hagure. It actually started in general with a verbal proposal and a conversation with Shinobi. I wanted to do something specifically in collaboration with Climax of Night--- which meant that I wanted direct assistance from the group in order to do it. This would be a much more involved process in certain ways than simply to run an exhibition or do a teams tournament like I had done in previous years:

- Needed to schedule around times I expected people would be willing to show up to play.
- Needed to train people on how to record, what expectations were, etc.
- Needed to directly ask some of my peers to assist me and collaborate that expectation between them and Shinobi directly.
- Needed to calculate how much time a set would take per game and how much data each day would roughly take up.
- Needed to calculate how much time it would take to transfer data at the end of each day.
- Needed to take time for setup and also for teardown prior to the agreed-upon time schedule.
- Needed to do ad-hoc advertisement of the event at the event.

-----

But, we'll move onto actually talking about how it went down.

On Friday, it was a lot more of a hodgepodge than I thought it would be. Shinobi and the team were still very much in the midst of setting up the ballroom and more when we started to set up. We were going to be out in the ballroom floor, outside of the actual tournament room, which meant that we needed to move around some of the tables that were negotiated for artist alley vendors. We also needed monitors and power, which the team was graciously able to procure for us. I had Shinobi buy a hard drive for the footage to be placed on, as I had specifically stated that I would not be uploading this stuff to my channel. I wanted players to feel involved more intimately with CoN's branding and also had my own things I had planned to upload outside of this project. Nevertheless, we had to borrow sixfourtyfive's drive because Shinobi's hadn't actually come in yet. We also didn't have a PS4 for DFC:I, so I asked Airco if she would graciously loan it to me for two hours. She did and we were up and running.

Except... no one was sitting down to play! Everyone had lined up in order to get their badges after playing downstairs, but there was no one sitting down. Fame was also on standby near our MBTL setup, but more people had decided to go to the 4o4 tournament than I thought... so I ended up coercing people to sit down as I saw them finishing up with their registration particulars. Eventually, we had gotten a big enough crowd to run it and things were going smoothly.

Until we found out that something odd was going on at the UNI setups. I had both UNI setups plugged into my power strip, and for those who are familiar with that gigantic hoss of an item... this is not an uncommon thing. However, for whatever reason, when a player would plug into one of the PS4s, it would disconnect a player from the adjacent setup. This also ended up happening as far as I knew at the tournament portion for pools as well, so when I noticed it, I let shinobi know about it as well. I learned that for Sunday, I needed to put everything on its own power.

We began to tear down at 9 and then I had to borrow sixfortyfive's hard drive to start uploading everything there. This process overall ended up taking two hours (with other miscellaneous running around), which was much longer than I had expected. Foxof and cookie got to hear me grumble and complain for a while and I'm thankful and apologetic that I had them accompany me through that, lol. It was certainly a dark time as everyone else went off to enjoy the rest of their evening. Overall, I had been running around from about 5:45 to 11 or so in order to get this popping.

-----

Sunday was a lot less dramatic/traumatic, though because of the time setup, I ended up missing a large majority of the Top 8. At about 6:30, I called cookie and foxof to get their equipment and meet me in the Peachtree meeting room to set up. Once they dropped everything off, I didn't want to hold them to stand by there with me so I let them go in order to set up by myself. Here, I'd also like to say how thankful I was to OutlawVinegar for sticking around with me and helping me set up as well. I threw up the stream on my tablet and went to work getting everything ready for that as well.

In any case, a lot of the WASD crew ended up popping by afterwards to play some games when the Top 8 had completed and I was able to finish up successfully. For Sunday, just as a pragmatic sort of choice, we went with 3 setups that were all Under Night. Even so, with the amount of people who had come through, I do wish that we had one more to accomodate people. There were a lot of players who were waiting one or two sets deep in order to play against their opponent. First-to-three was both relatively short and longer than I would have expected, actually. With that said, I closed up a little early and began the teardown and footage capture transfer process. This time, I was done a little bit before 10:30 and got to chill out with everyone else before I went to bed that night.

Overall, I think the feeling that I have coming away from this particular side project is... relief. I'm glad that I'm done with it. I'm happy that it seemed to be successful and I'm glad that it more or less did what I set out to do. I do wish that I had advertised it and pushed more newer or lesser-known players to play some sets on the recording. I remember encountering some people who thought they weren't good enough to get sets recorded, were too rusty or things of that nature. To them, I want to say that this is what it's for! It's for you, who review and learn something against players who you don't normally encounter! I sincerely hope that it was able to be that for those who were able to participate. You can also find the footage in question here at the Climax of Night [exposition] Library!

This feeling of relief extends itself to my overall feeling about doing community work. It's taken me about 4 years of heavy community involvement, but I think that I'm mostly done with it. Done volunteering, done coming up with crackpot ideas to do various things, done adding significantly more to my plate at events I'm trying to compete at a high level for. I find it pretty hard to just mess around at events. I don't love to drink and get drunk. I have a relatively low threshold of the amount of games that I play against people over the course of any given day. This was how I ended up channeling that energy, but I think I'm actually ready to give it up. I'll be happy to advise people who want to continue this path, but I think my road has been traversed to my heart's content.

Thank you for reading up to this point! My next post will be about my experience as a player at Climax of Night: Type-4 [arising!]. Please look forward to it.

Publication - Statistical Data from 2019-2020 UNI[st] Major/Important Top 8's

 Surprise blog update time!

For those of you who are avid followers of my blog, you'll know that for at least a few years of UNI[st], I had created year end reviews. With my looming graduation from Ohio State University and some issues with motivation and energy, I decided not to create a review for the whole community. However, as a part of the work that I did to prepare for the ultimately failed undertaking, I collected a lot of data. Data that I will release soon below. Initially, as per the terms of the year end review, I only had covered 2019 events... but when I sat and thought for an extra minute, adding the 2020 events that fit the criteria wasn't that hard.

I will list tournaments of "significance" and the Top 8 below. Events that break 64 entrants or more fall under this category. I've also added in every Red Bull Conquest qualifier from 2019, though if they had less than 64 entrants, I did not list them in character usage table. Without further ado:

Contemplation - Thoughts and opinions on optimizing what happens behind the curtain

Greetings all, glad to see you back. Or, if you're a new reader, welcome to my blog. Typically, this space has been used for me to speak about Under Night directly, be it my own thoughts about the game version, my character or something else.

Today however, I will be speaking loosely about Tournament Organizing --- or TOing for short. For an additional bit of a background, in addition to being a player of Under Night, I have a relatively long history of organizing events for fighting games in my local area of Columbus, Ohio. I've detailed this  more in my personal review blog posts, but I have also assisted with organizing parts of events at larger tournament events. I've also done my fair share of spin-off events such as exhibitions and team tournaments at these events as well.

There is a necessity for me to state that a large majority of my comfort zone with organizing events is at the local and smaller regional volunteering levels. I've paid out of my pocket to obtain spaces to hold events, but I have not particularly been familiar with hiring streaming talent for really large events. So... if you're looking for advice for purchasing contracts for venue internet (most relevant for streaming), how to handle negotiating with hotels for ballroom arrangements or what is or isn't a reasonable price for streaming services, this is not quite the blog post for that. Please talk to your local streamer/venue for more details there!

Oh, I'll also mention that this operates under the assumption that you have a venue in mind or you've secured a venue. This isn't quite a "start from scratch" discussion, but more of a "here's stuff to think about" kind of deal. As far as how to obtain a venue, there are many ways you can approach them, so I won't give detailed advice on that. However, churches, community centers, various spaces on college campuses, bars, LAN centers and restaurants are some such locations that I have seen work. Do research to see what works best for you!

---

There are generally six areas that I think that warrant important attention when it comes to improving the tournament experience for both the organizer and attendees. I gave some of them funny names and phrases, but there's certainly more formal ways you can describe them. In order, they are:

1. Spatial Awareness
2. Staffing
3. Venue Fee/Payment
4. Equipment 
5. Gaming!! (w/ some bracketeering)
6. Time Mastery Tips

Keep in mind that most of the early parts apply primarily to offline, but some of them apply to online as well! 

-o-

To lead off, let's talk about Spatial Awareness. More literally, I'm talking about the layout of your space and theoretical floor plans for your venue space. I actually think that Organizers are really good at this step, so I won't really need to talk about this deeply.

One of the things that I do in any sort of space that I plan to use is to do a walkthrough of the area. On the surface, this can mean looking at the physical layout of your space, looking for electrical outlets and mentally (or physically) placing tables where you need players to sit. 

If you want to think about it more critically, I think it's important to keep in mind how you orient your tables in order not to block walk paths to important sections of your space (like bathrooms, exits and the TO area). This means keeping in mind standing space behind your setups (as people like to stand and watch games which are not being streamed), allowing a room for chairs to be scooted up forward or back, as well as the physical distance between two players sitting at a setup.

A general rule of thumb is that the corner of a typical rectangular folding table is the best at arranging people to sit around and not bump others and also that two setups will rest there. If you have space to use the other side, a good optimizing point could mean that a 3rd setup could be rested in the middle, oriented oppositely from the other two. This allows that third group of two people to sit comfortably.

It's also very important to designate a space for yourself (or your staff) that is relatively isolated from setups for you to conduct your activities in peace.

-o-

Speaking of Staffing, we should have a brief discussion about this as well. 

Honestly, much like anything else... this is going to be context dependent. I generally am the only primary organizer in anything I'm directly running, but because I often collaborate with other local TO's (like TheKiest or compy905), the roles end up blending more than anything. I'll go loose and fast about my opinion on staffing though.

I believe that as a TO, you should have a strong understanding there should a primary organizer for any sort of individual game that is being run. You personally might be the primary organizer for multiple events, but I think that there should be an understanding that someone needs to run point on any given game. I think it's also important to understand that you should know who is expected to perform a given sub-role in your event.

Roles in this sense include common things like Streamer and Bracket Runner. For some of you, all of the roles and sub-roles are going to be your responsibility. But even with that being the case, I believe that you can and should get assistance with this as necessary. In regards to bracket running, I pretty firmly believe that two to three active people should have access to being able to enter results into a bracket. Obviously, it should be people that you trust though. It should go without saying that your streamer should be one of them, if you have one lol.

If you can solicit dedicated volunteers to help you on a consistent basis, absolutely do that! Though, if you are being paid or are paying fellow staff, then I think you should also pay them, too. Or, if there are other incentives like reducing or refunding venue fees where applicable, that should apply to them.

For online tournaments, I think it's basically a requirement that you have more than one person able to report scores for your events to speed up the experience for your events. There's even less overhead to deal with online compared to offline.

-o-

Speaking of money, I'll touch on this with a lot more hard opinion lines than anything else. This section will mostly apply to Venue Fees, Entry Costs and Incentives. 

The first thing I would like to mention about this is that it is up to your own interpretation what the Venue Fees are going to apply to. There is a conversation to be had about whether Organizers should pocket money pertaining to Venue Fees or not. There's a lot of nuance and context involved in this and as such, I will not be taking a stance on this. That's something that you will have to negotiate with yourself and your community.

Some venues will expect you to pay them directly, every time, for using their space. This will likely mean that there is little negotiation around how much you are required to charge patrons for occupying that space. You can choose to charge more to recoup costs, there are options like Matcherino incentives that could allow you to take a cut back as well. You could put in a tip jar or something similar.

Some organizers have arrangements with venues where they are not charged for spaces that are used and organizing money is used towards improving or purchasing new equipment. In Columbus, for both the Smash and General FGC space (I've separated them here because our smash scenes are large enough to be autonomous rather than any statement that they are or are not FGC members--- I think they absolutely are.), we pooled together resources to buy pads, tables and extension cables that we transport from our various venues to assist with organization.

As far as Game Entry cost, I personally tend to err on the side of lower entry as it encourages newer or less experienced players to enter events more frequently. $5 is the typical cutoff for entry, but I think that you can go as low as $2-3 dollars if you want more player retention. This is less enticing for top players who want more money, but honestly speaking I don't care much about them here. I think broader player retention and engagement is more important in most circumstances! For the record, I also think that a wider pot distribution for top placings (1st through T-5th or more) is more preferred than the typical one (1st-3rd) for the same reason. 

Along those lines, I think that incentives also go a long way towards player retention as well. I didn't mention this outright in this blog, though I've done it in social media, but my background is influenced by the Eastern Midwest Smash (mainly Brawl and PM) communities, so this influences my thinking here.

With that said, we've given incentives in the past for players who do things like:
- bring a carpool of players from other areas (discounted/removed venue fee for drivers)
- bring setups that are used for the tournament
- volunteer or staff the events
- travel from far distances (gas reimbursement)

Again, I think these things may or may not be feasible depending on your arrangements... but I think as a TO, it enhances the experience for attendees if you are able to do something like this. There is room for events like raffles and more that you can think of if you don't want to do these. If you can do it, you should!

-o-

With that out the way, we're going to talk about Equipment! Well, I'm going to specifically talk about gaming equipment here. A lot of these topics are going to refer to topics that I've talked about already and will be referenced in topics I talk about afterwards so this individual section will be short.

The most important thing that you'll have to consider is how you're going to get the equipment in question to run. Often times, organizers will use their own equipment towards running events. There is also high incentive for organizers to use community supply. Some venues (LAN centers) may have components that can be used to lessen the burden and some don't. Keep in mind the solution that is best for you. 

The main thing that I think you will need to think about in regards to equipment after acquisition is: "How many setups do I expect to be able to use for [game] at any given time?" Understanding how to answer this question depends on a few different things, but I'll lay out some sample sub-questions to answer for yourself.

- How long do I have the venue for?
- How many people have or are expected to enter the bracket for [game]?
- How many games am I running at the event?
- What is the tournament format for [game]? Swiss? Single Elimination? Double Elimination? Round Robin?
- How long, on average, does a set of [game] take to complete?
- With the expectation of {x} entrants for [game], how long should a round (Winner's Round 1, etc) take to conclude in <tournament format>? 

Now, it's perfectly feasible to run events without thinking deeply about all of these things. Many events do this already, even. Many events also could serve to be run more efficiently. I've been in plenty of events, both online and offline that have loads more dead time than they have any business having. I think consideration of these ideas will only help your tournament thrive, though.

-o-

Finally, it's time to talk about Gaming!!! Yaaaaaay! Well, kind of.

Let's start by talking about intention. Please, don't boo me yet... I have a good reason to mention this first. When I say that we need to think about intention, I think this informs a lot of the previous sections too. I think you have to ask yourself what kind of event for your game(s) you want to run in the first place. If you just want to run a bracket for your friends and see who is the best, ignore the next paragraph.

Do you want to just run one game? When you run the game(s) that you're running, what kind of environment do you want to encourage? Do you want a event to help teach new players? Do you want individual players to play as many games as possible? These questions inform the format that you're going to choose to use for your event.

Alright, if you skipped ahead... welcome back! It may be obvious when I say this, but single elimination takes much less time than double elimination. Round Robin and Swiss can take more time than double elimination, as well. I feel like I need to restate this because, again, I've noticed some organizers aren't as cognizant of the time they are asking of their attendees when running events. Your individual game also informs how long your events are going to take.

It is also important in that sense to be aware of what your community wants. It's perfectly good and should be encouraged to ask your players what they want and get feedback about different ways that they can stay engaged. I've played in many double elimination brackets in my life and honestly, they get kinda boring. 

Speaking of double elimination though, let's have a short lecture about bracketeering and time mastery!

- The largest collection of players is going to be in R1 Winners. Most, if not all of your players are going to be playing at this phase. Half of them will be sent to Loser's R1.
- Half of those players in Losers will be finished at this point. I know I'm sounding obvious when I'm speaking here, but stay with me.
- Your objective is to remove as many players from your workload as possible in regards to Winners progression.
- Ideally, you will want the winner of a Losers set to be waiting to play the loser of a Winners set as quickly as possible. This removes more players from your workload.

-o-

Finally, here are some of my tips for Time Mastery in regard to TOing in action.

[Before the event]
- If possible, set up your venue space either the night before or hours before attendees are expected to get to your event.
- Pre-seed your brackets as much as possible. Yes, you may not get all of your attendees until the day of, but this helps shorten a step at the venue. It's much easier to add someone and slightly adjust your brackets from there.
- Organize areas of your venue where your individual games are kept together. If possible, don't have players walking from one area to the next to play the same game.
- Stagger large events with pools waves so you are not running everything concurrently. Make sure to also stagger start times between different games in case you need to use the same setups for them.
- Multi-Game Masters (1): These are players who are expected to do well in multiple games. These are players like HARD BREAD, Justin Wong or VickiViper. These players require an extra amount of attention and you will be managing them. Make sure fellow TOs know them and their rough schedules. Hold their matches off as long as you can relative to their other brackets.
- Multi-Game Masters (2): Implement some sort of system specifically for them. Keister and I designated a spot in the venue for Fizzle, who was talented in Melee, PM and Brawl. We literally set up 3 setups in one area and had opponents go to him so we could track him at all times. Figure out a solution that works for you. Actively communicate expectations w/ your fellow TOs. Stagger event start times to avoid as much bottlenecking as possible.

[At the start of the event]
- Stop ALL action and get the attention of your attendees. Take this time to re-explain expectations, staff/ bracket reporting channels and open for questions right there. This will save you a lot of time in the midst of an event. People will ask you about restrooms, food options nearby and more.

[During the event]
- Utilize your attendees as much as possible. Tell player A and player B to look at each other and communicate to them where you expect them to play. Point it out to them. Allow them to keep track of each other.
- Set up the baseball system for players: At Bat (Active), In the Bullpen (Up Next), Warm Up (On Standby). Set expectations for players where they know who they're playing, where they're playing and when they're playing. This is especially salient when you have limited setups.
- Remind them about where to confirm the results of the set.

[Miscellaneous]
- Generally... for the love of god do not stream every game in a round. Pick two or maybe 3 games per round (if applicable) to stream ahead of time and keep your bracket moving.
- Allow your streamer to report the bracket matches they're streaming, or to be told the results of a match to report.
- Try to enter your own events to get a feel of how things run and understand how to optimize. Utilize other staff members or volunteers to help you with some parts where you're playing. Reporting results and updating scoreboards on streams can absolutely be taught to people if you're comfortable letting off the reigns.
-- If you enter your own events, play your own matches among the last of any given round, at least up until you are potentially holding up round progression by not playing.

Contemplation - UNI[cl-r] Akatsuki (ver. 1.06)

This blog post is going to be a bit different than my blog posts up to this point and I'm honestly not sure if this will be very long or short. I'm honestly writing this on the fly, so we'll see how coherent this ends up being. Forgive me ahead of time. Also assume that my thinking reflects only up to today. I'll be breaking down my thoughts in the following categories:

1. UNI[st] -> UNI[cl-r] Important Components (And Why It Matters!)
2. Change in my personal combo routing.
3. My Thoughts on Akatsuki: Matchup Chart Discussion.
4. My Thoughts on Akatsuki: How I feel playing MUs.

----

UNI[st] -> UNI[cl-r] Important Components (And Why It Matters!)

First things first, I'll start from the base of the 1.03 patch notes that are listed here. You'll have to scroll all the way down to get to Akatsuki's section. Even though the current version is ver. 1.06, this is the last significant character balance patch, released in Quarter 1 2020. I will not cover everything here, but I will cover what I think are the most important changes.

-> 214[a] or Increased (IC) 214a:
This move has been added in [cl-r] and honestly, it's one of the best possible moves he would have gotten. At the start of the version, I wasn't terribly impressed by this move. It's a whopping -10 on block does not prorate that favorably and only allows for one falling normal on CS, so as a move to present to an opponent on offense, it's a big gimmick.

It's true strength lies as a linker towards the end of a combo. This move lets you to combo into grounded normals such as cl.5b -> cl.5c as a precursor to an air throw, allowing you to control positional disadvantage for the opponent. Because air throw is your second most favorable knockdown, this is extremely important. It also allows you to microdash 2a underneath the opponent to keep them going the same side in the combo, a technique found and popularized by Firery. 

-> j.6[c] or Increased (IC) jump 6c:
This move has been added in [cl-r] and this might be the best change that Akatsuki received in this version of the game. It is an absolutely militant jump in that is hard to anti air, is +2 on shield and is massive damage if you manage to get hit by or grd crushed by this move.

It also functionally removes the necessity to do a fireball relaunch into the j.bca air series to unlock high damage for Akatsuki. In addition to that, it has great synergy with both the 2c series of enders and the 66c linker near corner, assuming you save your ground and wall bounces to allow them.

-> j.214c or jump 214c:
Knocks down. This move is extremely important for combo ender theory. It is our third most advantageous ender behind air throw and Kamikaze, Akatsuki's Infinite Worth. It is also our third most damaging combo ender, behind Kamikaze and 22a -> 22c, making it our second most damaging combo ender for 100 meter. Because of the knockdown property, it is your go to usage of 100 meter. 

It also cannot be forward teched unless the opponent was comboed very high in the air.

-> 236a:
Floats opponents on grounded hit. This change is probably my personal favorite change, because I use fireballs quite a lot. It turns extended pokes into meterless full combos mid screen or corner with microdash f.5b and allows you to combo for a lot of damage from round start distance. I think it's extremely important for any budding Akatsuki player to be able to recognize the ability to combo from this move because of this, but even if they don't, the opponent is still locked out of forward tech. This allows for safe pursuit options. 

I'll go as far as to re-emphasize that if you aren't comboing from this, you are missing out on the benefits of playing a character like this. It is a necessity at higher levels of play to punish mistakes.

-> 22a:
Changed timing of invulnerability to jump and dive to be earlier. This move is throw, head and dive property invulnerable from frame 1 to it's first active frame on frame 5, making it one of the best moves of it's type. When paired with CS or 100 meter (236c/j.236c, ideally) it is one of the most dangerous moves in the game.

I think mastery of this particular move will be one of the things that truly differentiates an effective Akatsuki player on defense versus any other aspiring player. This move is broken. If you can time this as late as possible, this move will beat any jump-in in the game. I'm still trying to learn how to use this move better, it's that important. 

-> Air Throw:
Proration reduced. This move is very good as a starter now because of it's reduced proration, allowing you at the minimum 3000 damage without meter or vorpal as a factor, if you know the appropriate route. I have pushed combos close to 3300-3400 before meter or vorpal comes into play, so it will serve as a key anti-assault option select on defense. Compared to the paltry 24-2600 damage in the previous version, you should use this move.

-> j.236a: 
Recovery greatly reduced. The jury is kind of out on how useful this move actually is as far as strength... but it is still a good multi-purpose tool. It can be used as a plus frame okizeme setup in the corner, can be used against stand tech for a good punish, is not a terrible jumping option and is relatively safe on block at -3. It also serves as good combo tool on air throw combos because of the (7) j.2c -> j.236a link in air throw and in some advanced corner combos.

And why it matters?

If I were to summate this succinctly, UNI[cl-r] Akatsuki gets better knockdowns to continue pressure, gains more damage on the whole and has a lot more versatile usage for meter. I've emphasized this in some discussion to Japanese Akatsuki players, but I think that Akatsuki absolutely should be using meter as much as possible. He builds a lot of it and gets great cash out for it in almost any situation.

More demonstration of his knockdown changes in UNI[cl-r] is wonderfully presents by Marmo in a video of my ender theory posts in the discord. Other usages for moves and tactics are listed in Akatsuki's Mizuumi wiki.

----

Change in my personal combo routing

So, this section will probably not be that long compared to the above, since I think there's not so much to cover here. It took me a little while to adjust to the new routing that was added in UNI[cl-r] and honestly speaking, I'm still getting around to optimization here, but here goes:

-> omission of (linker) 2c > 6b
This is probably the most important change in the majority of my routing and it helps explain a bit of the linkers below. Contemporary combo knowledge from UNI[st] (and my doc, which is currently outdated) will tell you to slap this in literally everything. It was a component for the most damage in combos in [st] and still is for a few combos in [cl-r], but I have shied away from this for a few reasons, one of which because it spends two bounces right away.

-> (linker) 214[a]
This particular linker has high synergy with the contemporary combo [ex: 5a 5b 2c 6b 66b cl.5c 6c 214[a] {delay} cl.5b cl.5c j.AT = 2965 (3256)] but also has synergy with the modified launcher [ex: 5a 5b 2c 2b 6c 214[a] {delay} cl.5b cl.5c j.AT = 2483 (2727)]. The latter is less damage, but has more flexibility. You can do the microdash under for more damage and on stronger combos, this allows for other modified linkers.

-> (linker) dash 214a
This particular linker works in combos that have as much or more favorable proration than counter hit f.5b starters. It allows for more corner push and unlocks more damage when combined with other components. This linker also stars in the highest damage 6c start combo.

-> (linker) 66b > f.5c
This linker was found by Kilimine and expanded on by perhaps the most infamous player u4ick, who is also known to have one of the strongest Akatsuki's in the country. This is a very high damage linker that has high synergy with combos that omit linker 2c > 6b. The reason behind this is because j.6[c] will use one of your bounces after f.5c.

-> (linker) j.6[c] > 66c
In the above link in the 66b > f.5c linker, the second combo shows off the j.6[c] > 66c linker, which allows for Akatsuki to easily transition from midscreen to corner. As you can see, it also unlocks a lot of damage. As an aside, the 66c near-corner link is also possible as a part of the fireball relaunch near corner.

-> (ender) 2c > 2a whiff
This is one of my favorite enders, shown off in the okizeme guide above. It's +30 or so and has high synergy from j.6[c]. You can also do it from j.bca relaunches if you feel dedicated to tsumo-style enders.

----

My Thoughts on Akatsuki: Matchup Chart Discussion
(Link to Old is here)

Matchup Chart changes from May 2020:

= Disadvantage: No Change

= Sl. Disadvantage: Hyde (Evenish > Sl. Dis), Lond (Evenish > Sl. Dis)

= Even Enough: Enk (Sl. Dis > Evenish), Mer (Sl. Dis > Evenish)

= Sl. Advantage: Pho (Evenish > Sl. Dis)

= Advantage: Car (Sl. Ad > Adv)

Why?

I'm actually still kind of wavering on Hyde and Enkidu's placements because they could be flipped or they could be both in Sl. Disadvantage.

One of the big changes is that Hyde players have gotten so much better about placing active moves into where Akatsuki wants to be. Because of Hyde's own fireball and 22x, Akatsuki's fireballs are sealed pretty well, forcing him to have to box with Hyde. Hyde, Akatsuki, Enkidu and Gordeau's backsteps are really strong for repositioning, but the former three are also very good at pressing fast things to check what Akatsuki wants to do.

I realize that this may be hypocritical because Enkidu vs Akatsuki is actually extremely similar as far as neutral goes. In addition, I think Enkidu is very adept at picking apart both Akatsuki retaliation and also in sealing retreat/backstep. Unlike Hyde, however, I think that Akatsuki has an easier time of sticking to Enkidu once he's there.

-> Londrekia is difficult for a lot of the same reasons that Hyde is, actually. The difference is that Londrekia's general ability to deal with fireball through tools like 4C, j.3b and 214C (which hops mids/fireball) all transition straight into an extremely powerful position in the corner.

Once you get to the corner, 4C and 5b(b) and smart positioning seals off a lot of Akatsuki retaliation. It's one of the current most oppressive positions I feel like I play, even more so than Byakuya web setups and Vatista gem setups. Attacking through FF is also really difficult, but honestly I feel like this feeling comes exclusively from fighting Foxof. Latency makes things more difficult, but I think even offline these positions will be difficult for Akatsuki.

-> Merkava is a character whose neutral presence I felt more troubled by before because of lack of matchup experience. I think changes to Akatsuki like 214C's acceleration, a true knockdown from j.214b, 22a and ICj.6C all combine to allow Akatsuki to fight airborne Merkava quite well and trace his landings.

Akatsuki is a character whose increased ability to generate hard knockdowns allows him to attack from advantage more often. Merkava's best abare options typically comes from low attacks and the combination of Akatsuki's fast attacks and tatsu killing both lows and divekick makes offense really tenable for him. Merkava's offense is also really potent if he has meter, but I think the neutral dynamics have shifted closer for Aka's comfort.

-> Phonon is a character that I felt a lot more comfortable with towards the end of ST. I was sort of at the point where I thought the MU was a sleeper slight advantage point in that version of the game. I think running offense, especially with meter is very strong against Phonon. I think the nerf on 2a is very important for Akatsuki's pressure structure. Parry is a very good answer to air fireball and other air moves.

That being said, after I played against Silent online, I came away very impressed by various utilizations of 6FF. I might go as far as to say smart utilization of this move is the new future for that character. I also think that set plays with Phonon's new air movement has some usage in confusing Akatsuki's decision to anti air. Phonon pressure and offense w/ long distance TRMs and a maze of buttons are still things to consider when playing.

-> Carmine is a character I still need more experience in playing against. Talking to Pinku and Spinach reveals to me more about the holes that Akatsuki can bully him. 5BB is basically an RPS point against Carmine, because it's a 5f gap. 22B beats everything and punishes 5BB outright, but FFOS and 22a (beats strike, throw, jump) both turn into combos if Carmine decides that he wants to test something else.

Akatsuki still basically negates his reversals when he utilizes 214b on Carmine's wakeup, a thing that has carried over from EL. Force Function, though it does not delete 6b anymore still serves as a good answer to various setups and he cannot generally be fuzzied on defense. 

----

My Thoughts on Akatsuki: How I feel playing MUs
(Link to Old is here)

I'm kind of burning out here, so this section will be fun, quick and dirty. 

-> Angry Face: All these characters are constantly either fucking pressing buttons into your dashup, are half the screen away from you or are playing the "I'm not touching you :)" game when your back is in the corner with there being little you can do to deal with it. They have good ways around my fireballs or basically touch me and I'm highly likely to lose the game. 

-> Slight Frown: These characters roughly play the same range as me, but they have good abilities to shift their movement either with backstep, air movement or another particular movement vector. Because the effective range is similar and they have longer reach on average, it's a chore getting them to sit still and respect my offense.

-> Neutral Face: These characters are characters where the pace of the set is really slow. I think that I have solid answers for the first 3 and the MU flow feels relatively solved for now, but obviously it's not so easy that just because I understand, it means that I win. I actually currently feel like I'm close to solving how vs Vatista is supposed to be played, but it's nebulous still. Don't ask me about it yet.

-> Smiley: These matchups are rich in interaction and by that I mean, I get to do my dumb shit within reason. These are nice and comfortable matchups where I generally understand how they're supposed to work. Hilda and Phonon are more touch-and-go than the others, by nature of polarization for Hilda and slightly because of the similarity Phonon has to Slight Frown characters. Luckily, Phonon's fireballs are nice parries and she explodes for doing some canned options.

-> Aggressive Smiley: I have a nice time just moving these characters to the corner and making sure they explode like Patrick did when he got lasso'd by Sandy in that Texas episode. I feel like I really understand how Chaos wants to play Akatsuki and it's an extremely fun matchup. Gordeau suffers against Akatsuki and I'm glad. Perish.

Reflection - Personal 2020 UNI Review

It's been over a year since my last blog post...

But, I hope that you all forgive me for not writing as much here this year. With COVID affecting everyone in various ways and the uptick that came towards the end of my time at Ohio State University, I ended up being way too busy...

That being said. Now that I've graduated from OSU successfully and have taken a break from work, I have some space to write. I'll go straight into the next part without much delay.

----

~ Competing in 2020 ~
Offline Major

It probably works out quite well that this post comes out after the previous year's reflection, because I can talk about my mindset at the start of the year. At the end of last year, I was feeling very content with where I was skill wise compared to the rest of the country and among my Akatsuki peer group. I didn't feel like I needed to prove anything and honestly speaking, I was pretty hesitant on leaving my side of the region to continue to compete in the last few months of UNIST.

With that being said, I found out that the latest demo for UNICLR was due to be shown off at Frosty Faustings and I thought to myself that I should go. I had some money in excess, I told myself that I wouldn't take things super seriously and I scrambled last minute to make arrangements for where I would end up staying at the event. For those who may or may not know me, especially the last bit is extremely out of character for me, lol.

I also decided to do my best jasepi impression and entered the event with a joke name: SUGOI | perc nowitski. It's a name I still think is funny and I did go out of my way to tweet out that this is what I was going to enter as, but it ended up backfiring for me because I still went unseeded. This was going to end up backfiring on me pretty badly LOL.

So this is the backdrop to me going to Frosty Faustings. I got there on Friday with all my stuff, trying to find the people that I ended up rooming with. Unluckily for me, the hotel that the event was actually being hosted at was not the hotel that I would be staying at, so I ended up carrying around all of my shit for basically the entire day. If I recall correctly, I did end up taking my stuff over late in the afternoon before pools were supposed to begin.

With all this involved, my trip through pools was a very short one. I played and defeated a Byakuya player named Reyban, who told me that a discussion we had at CEOtaku (2017?) was one that helped him continue his interest in UNI. Even though the set was 2-0, it was a very close set. I lead Orie because I felt more comfortable with playing the neutral in that MU at the time.

The next round, I played dmcAxle, an Eltnum player from Canada that I would come to know a little better over the course of the year. I don't actually remember too many details about this set, except that I feel like I went up 1-0 and gradually felt the set slipping away from me until I lost, lol. Axle is really strong and Eltnum is a character I struggle with, so even though I was disappointed that I lost, I tried to focus on losers.

Ryan Hunter had also been upset by Frankentank's Wald in the Winner's Side of the bracket, setting me up for a matchup I had been dreading a lot. Ryan is an extremely strong Yuzuriha in my mind and I remember that our games had split when we played at Climax of Night [re:run]. Given the circumstances, I did not want to play him at all, but alas...

I didn't really get to play him, because I was kept out and dispatched in 4 straight rounds to be eliminated by his Yuzuriha. Out at 65th place... I'm actually still a bit sour about it now, but what is done is done. I know not to play around with entry next time.

Aside from that, I had a lot of fun messing around with the demo there, talking to my peers and such. I had a really fun time playing casuals when I decided to and in watching everyone play in their various games. 

That basically wraps up the majors section of the year.

~ Competing in 2020 ~
Offline Local

As far as local events, I continued to compete in the Burst and Brews locals as well as choosing to travel up to the Equalizer events in Toledo. From UNIST through to UNICLR, I continued a small streak of 1st places through tough competition. That ended up feeling pretty good, I suppose.

More importantly, I have to admit that I'm hoping that there is still some interest from the local scene in UNICLR when it's safer to host and run events again. Nearing of the start of the pandemic, the event that I ran: "Trying to Learn? The Answer is [cl-r]" ended up relatively small, though it was enjoyable. Makai World Cup 2020, which I was working on UNIclr for was also cancelled. 

The main TO for our Burst and Brews local stepped down prior to the swing of the pandemic and we lost the venue that I ran Trying to Learn at. I'm not sure if we still have our Donatos local venue, so the state of Columbus UNI is one that I'm actually pretty worried about. I'm sincerely hoping that we'll have accessible venues in the future and that we'll get a strong, feature rich update to UNICLR that will encourage players to want to pick up the game again. I think that this current version of UNI is very good and that we have the potential to come out as a community strongly again.

~ Competing in 2020 ~
Online

 As far as competing online goes, I'll be speaking the least about this section, I guess...

I entered a fair amount of the Lunar Phase Online events as they ran in the summer, generally finishing in the top 8 or better. I also competed in one of the Low Kick Esports Midwest UNI events and placed 2nd to Duesta. I entered Quarterly Rapport and I got 2nd to Garmfield there as well. I also entered two teams tournaments (Stand Tech Accidental Desperate Struggle 1 and 2) which were both won by my respective partners and I; BloomingLotus (formerly Royal Heart) and StarxUnderscore. I played in an exhibition with Darkhero and Big Black that I won few games in...

Finally, I placed 3rd in ESL's November UNI Monthly final on PSN, losing to Big Black and nyczbrandon.

----

To end off this reflection, I'll mention some of the things I ended up doing without directly competing in events.

- Early in February, I showed up in Hold Back to Block's Documentary on UNI:

- In April, I updated my combo document and uploaded a video component for it:

- In May, I began commentating online events alongside Gosuda, my usual commentating partner. We've commentated Southeast events, Low Kick Esports events in the Midwest and Lunar Phase Online events in the East Coast.

- In June, I worked with Frosty, Redblade and Chickzama to produce an online UNICLR Exhibition for the Color of Change.

- In August, I worked closely with Redblade on gathering talent, organizational duties and collaboration with the Japanese scene for his Rebirth of Division exhibition series. I also commentated the Southeast and Southwest portions alongside DrunkSuikaIbuki! 

- In September, I created my own advanced trials for Akatsuki for interested players to attempt and then followed up with the last 7 in October.

And last but not least, I have a certain project that I'm hoping to push out by the end of the year, so please look forward to it!

All-in-all, even with the pandemic changing the dynamic of how I interact with the community, it feels like I was able to accomplish quite a bit. I'm looking forward to conditions improving in the next year, so I can go back at it harder than ever. Thank you for reading!

Reflection - Personal 2019 UNI Review

Hm... so.

Functionally, with the conclusion of what is most certainly the last local of the year, I feel like I can safely say that my 2019 UNI season has concluded. As I start writing this, I'm struck with the feeling that this has been a pretty long year. Often, when speaking about having a long year, I think that there's a negative connotation that follows, but when I stop and think about everything, quite a lot has happened!

I mentioned this in a tweet, before but all of the stuff there had all happened in the same year. I think that I should probably talk about my year as a player first though and contrast that with my goals from last year's review:

- Secure myself in Top-16s at majors. (2/6) [X] -

Frosty Faustings XI: 5th / 177

Michigan M@sters 2019: 13th / 124

KVOxKSB 2019: 25th / 95

Combo Breaker 2019: 25th / 427

Evolution 2019: 65th / 1024

Climax of Night [re:run]: 17th / 237

Well... I think that I fell short of this specific goal that I wanted to set. I think that the quality of play in North America and in myself has definitely risen drastically over the course of the year, but if I'm looking at this objectively, 33% is missing the mark. I'm not really too unhappy about missing this goal and I think that I want to attempt this goal again in 2020!

- Top 8 at a major. [O] -

Not much really to say about this one, I hit my first Top 8 at a major level with Frosty Faustings XI! I achieved this one pretty early in the year, so I was pretty excited about that. I also had a shot at doing it again at Climax of Night, so I'll change my goal for 2020 here to Top 8-ing two majors!

- Become the best player in the Midwest. [X] -

I'm proud to say that I'm not at the top because the Midwest is so strong, but it also tears me up inside that I didn't get this goal. With Magnets alone, I think I went 0-5 in sets this year, so that is something I wanna improve on next year. I won't list the order, but I would say that the players (to date) that I'll have to pass up in regards to placements if I do wanna become the best in the Midwest are: RoyalHeart, UNIST_Player, Magnets and Duesta.

This doesn't ignore my rivals from Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky. Ohio and other parts though. Once more, I'll be trying for this goal in 2020. I happened to notice that I didn't really win anything outside of Ohio as far as regional events, too. 2nd at Makai (in Ohio), two Boiler Rooms, and at Summer Games 2. Then, 13th at Michigan M@sters, and 5th at Frosty Faustings... I guess I should put in that I wanna win something outside of Ohio too then, huh?

I've generally done well on the East Coast, with 9th at Duel Moon and 5th at Red Bull Conquest Philly this year.

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As a community member, I took a bit of a step back from doing community-run events by myself. What I did do though this year was:

- Helped seed numerous tournaments this year.
- Organized and ran UNI @ Makai 2019.
- Organized and ran the 2v2 side tournament at MiM@s 2019.
- Volunteered as a senior bracket runner @ CB 2019, assisted in running and organizing the 4v4 Teams Exhibition with UGS | Havard and Queen of Moths.
- Organized and ran random 2v2 teams reverse selection and run part of UNI Singles @ Lunar Phase 20: Bodega Special along with the Lunar Phase Production group.
- Organized and ran NA/EU vs JP Exhibitions at EVO 2019 with DJ Cream and Hagure.
- Performed in an advisory role for CoN [re:run] and ran the 4v4 Regional Team Exhibition alongside Team DATA's Kara.
- Ran UNI brackets, commentate and setup stream matches for RAJ 2019.
- Provided commentary at Columbus locals, Frosty Faustings (Top 16), LP20 (Top 8), AnimEVO (exhibitions).
- Wrote a combo document for Akatsuki players.
- The stuff in this aforementioned tweet.
- Streamed some primers and did pools analysis for UNI majors.
- Recorded casual sets and MMs for the folks back at home at various events on my YT channel.
- Wrote a few blog posts here and there (lol).

So... maybe I didn't take as much of a step back as I thought that I might have. It's interesting when you actually itemize all of this stuff, huh? Uh... I'll be planning to do some of these duties in 2020 but probably not all of them again.

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As far as facing into 2020 with the end of UNIST and the incoming of UNICLR, I've been left with a few thoughts. I also wasn't able to hit the goal of becoming the best Akatsuki player in the US by the time this version ended, since Squish is honestly just too amazing. I think I was largely in my own head and too stubborn to admit how much I respect Squish and how he plays but those sort of feelings have dissipated. I don't think that I've hit his level yet, but in CLR I fully intend to pass him up. I think that I can relatively confidently say that I'm in the Top 3 of Akatsuki players worldwide as this version of the game comes to an end, but in CLR I wanna make that Top 1. Who knows if I'll be able to achieve that or not, but we'll give it our best for as long as I'm able.

Also, I want to continue to be a force for good in our community and help in creating or maintaining an environment that feels comfortable and safe for players to interact with both outside and inside of the Midwest.

Finally, I've gotten the go ahead from the head honcho to announce that I've been re-signed for the next year with Sugoi Factory with an additional caveat: I'm also available to seek out additional opportunities too. So, if there is a team that is seeking to breaking into the UNI space for next year and are looking for a consultant or a coach for their new potential prospect, feel free to reach out to me via Twitter DMs or through this email account: enginojuushichi@gmail.com. Let's talk!

With that, I'll end it here. See you again soon, for this year's scene review!