Expectation - animEVO 2018

What a time to be alive for a player of this niche anime title. As I've begun to write this, I have to admit that I've been blown away. Around this time last year at AnimEVO 2017, UNIEL amassed a respectable 57 entrants, but many eyes were locked on the late[st] version's Japanese console release less than a week later. Japanese players in arcades had been playing for a few years up to this point and Exe: Late was feeling a bit stale, even among the most dedicated players in the West.

Over the course of this year tournament entrants and interest in the game has slowly but surely risen. Success in early majors in 2018 certainly helped propel the excitement brewing in the community, but an equally fervent fan base has garnered interest by lauding praises of its strong and and flexible system, in-depth tutorial and the welcoming player base. "Play UNIST" and other similar messages are not uncommon tweets to see popping up in the FGC twittersphere.  
Additionally, in the span of just three months, the Under Night community will have had 3 of it's largest events in the history of the game, in very different parts of the country. 173 entrants in Chicago at Combo Breaker 2018, 112 in Orlando at Community Effort Orlando (CEO) 2018 and now 210 rolling into Las Vegas for AnimEVO 2018.

Needless to say, the community for this game has certainly been growing as of late and this time we've even pulled entrants from Europe, Japan and South Korea! I'll try to document our growth with a little more depth in the Year in Review for 2018, so please look forward to that later down the road!

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But, we'll move on to the event itself! This is what we know so far--- The organizers for the event from the animEVO staff are DJCream and Brett. They have teamed up with Aksys Games to run the tournament from their booth at EVO! It will be run on Friday, August 3rd starting at 10am PST. There will be four waves of pools followed by Top 24 and it will be streamed on Darkandark's Twitch Channel. Top 4 will be played on an official EVO side stream on Saturday, August 4th around 4pm PST on Twitch.tv/EVO2. Pictures provided by AceKingOffsuit.

• UNA1 and UNA2 (10am PST)
• UNB1 and UNB2 (12pm PST)
• UNC1 and UNC2 (2pm PST)
• UND1 and UND2 (4pm PST)
• Top 24 to Top 4 (6pm PST) 
• Top 4 (Saturday, August 4th @ 4pm PST)

The brackets have been put up on Smash.gg here.

Tournament Favorites

- Clim: It feels like it wouldn't be fair not to first mention the Merkava/Phonon from Western Canada, as he's fresh off of two big wins at Combo Breaker 2018 and CEO 2018. A powerhouse in multiple anime games and historically a threat in any event he enters, one has to wonder if he will extend his dominance over the US here as well. An interesting note for viewers at home, this will be his first interaction with the West Coast UNI field since Anime Ascension 2018 in April where he finished 5th, losing to Arizona's Squish and Northern California's Tari. Both of these players will be in the field of competitors this time around.

- Squish: It seems difficult to talk about the top levels of NA UNIST without mentioning Squish in the conversation. 2017 into early 2018 was marked by his amazing Akatsuki play as he traded tournament wins with the East Coast Hyde, Infinity at CEOtaku 2017 and Frosty Faustings X. The late winter didn't cool his momentum as he stormed through Winner's Side at Anime Ascension. Eventually, he was upset in Grand Finals from losers by NorCal's Lolimaiko to place 2nd. Work related issues held him from Combo Breaker and CEO, but he was recently flown out to spar with some of Europe's best. Seemingly refreshed, he's poised to make another strong run at EVO.

- Lolimaiko: The much beloved "old man" from Northern California who has fantastic control over one of the more technically intensive characters in the game: the charge motion, goth-lolita robot, Vatista. Alongside the two previous entrants, Maiko has been a threat in the West since the previous version of the game. Curiously, Lolimaiko ended up winning Anime Ascension after admitting that he did not have much time to practice after registering a mere two weeks away from the event. At that tournament, he managed to defeat a long time demon and navigate an odd match he ended up losing at CEOtaku 2017 against Trill's Chaos--- twice! With more recent practice, maybe he will be able to take his 2nd major in as many tries.

- Tari: The laid-back tyrant who stands at the top of what is almost certainly the strongest region in North America, Tari boasts mastery of another of the more difficult mechanical characters in UNI; the iaido swordswoman, Yuzuriha. This year has seen him able to travel a bit more than in the past; specifically to AA and CB 2018. At Anime Ascension, he was upset in Top 16 by the eventual winner Lolimaiko and lost a close 2-1 set to NA's premier Chaos, Trill. A clear favorite to win Combo Breaker, he took a surprising upset to Chicago Hilda RoyalHeart in pools before being dispatched by New England's Redblade to finish at a surprising 9th. Still, he boasts one of the last major set wins over a red-hot Clim. It would be wise to keep an eye on him in this tournament as well.

Reflection - SBR3

Quite a small amount of turn around time between the first post and a new one, hm?

I figure that I should write a bit of reflection about the tournament from last weekend. On the front end, I had some complicated feelings. I was excited coming being able to play some more UNI after Combo Breaker and it would be against strong competition. Magnets and Miller(2B) have been really making waves in majors and larger regionals, really feeling like they were hitting the next level. I didn't feel like I wasn't improving, but comparing their successes and my progress certainly was getting in my head, lol. Plus, Miller beat me last time we played, so I wanted to beat both of them.

Of course, jasepi had also registered. Given that he was in the area and I definitely wanted to play him again, I told him about the tournament. Nevertheless, I kinda felt my stomach drop when I saw him on the reg list. It's obvious that he's really strong and I wasn't sure if my win over him at Youma was a fluke or not, so I had a lot of doubts~. On the way up, Silmerion and I had a long talk about the stuff I just mentioned... and it really helped, lol.

I can't speak for everyone else, but I certainly have a lot of doubts about my play, my growth and a bunch of other things. I think that this is not uncommon for other players too.

But, moving on... got into Farmington Hills and kicked it with FGC and Smash players alike. It was pretty neat to be able to see familiar PM faces and kick it with the UNI players as well. About 30 minutes after arriving, I sat down with Magnets to play a First-to-Five. Honestly speaking, I felt like both of us played kind of sloppy. The games were full of drops and weird decision-making, but I ended up winning it 5-1. Admittedly, I was pretty surprised... but I've played against Eltnum a lot, so I'm generally comfortable with defending against the character.

There were a few more exhibitions before I got back on to play against Miller with my Orie. To some extent, I like this matchup more than Akatsuki vs Linne... but I specifically played Orie to prepare her at game speed for some games down the road at CEOtaku. I don't play her a ton these days and it probably showed early in the games as I dropped the route I'd been practicing a lot. Miller's movement also really scrambled me early and I wasn't sure if I was going to get folded down 1-2 at one point. Somehow or another, I pulled it out 5-3 and finished the night.

I didn't sleep very well and woke up at like 6:30 am, so I wasn't sure how I would do. I grabbed breakfast, hung around with the PM players a bit and then started warming up with UNI players in the morning. Thankfully UNI wasn't until like 5, so I ended up being able to take a nap. Boy did it help, too. Though, Akira almost beat me in Round 2 Winners. He took the first game pretty definitively and I had to fight back to take the next two. I was kinda shook.

The next round, I had to play Footwurk's Gordeau. I felt like it would be a really good test of things I mentally prepared for in case I ran into jasepi. His movement reminded me of some of the other EL Gordeau players I got to play back in the day, but I was thankfully able to pin him down and take two games somewhat cleanly.

Next up was Winner's Semis vs jasepi. This set... did not start well. I went for a stand shield for mortal slide, but he ran up and grd broke me with a low. I'll say in retrospect that the grd break got me to focus instead of playing to some sort of expectation, but honestly that would be bullshit lol. I lost the first game pretty definitively, but locked in to take the second one. the third was pretty back and forth. I can't explain how I felt my defense changed, but I held on to take it at the end.

I ran off to lose a PM doubles game before playing Magnets in WF. I actually watched the VOD from the previous night with breakfast, took a small amount of notes and adjusted my play a little. I felt good teching throws defensively and mashing on certain strings and so it built up confidence to make some of the daring plays from game 4. I won that 3-1 and moved on to GF.

After coming back from one last PM doubles game, which I unfortunately blew for our team, it was time for Grand Finals. jasepi had moved through Miller Linne in LSF and beat Magnets 3-1 in LF to see me for the rematch. I don't think I changed my approach up too much from WSF through the first couple games and though they were tense, interactions were tilting in my favor while up 2-1.

At this point, jasepi switched to using more 4B, to check my dashes in and to space me at ranges he felt more comfortable in. For the record, 4B is a standing version of his running B, 10 frame startup, -2 on block and tumbles on counter hit. A pretty strong button, and one of my favorite additions from EL to ST on any character. I wasn't quite comfortable engaging with this move and he used it to effect in game 4. Game Five was close like WSF's game 3, where I fought back from a deficit and finished by landing two throws I'm surprised that worked to take the tournament.

Overall, it was a fun time, being able to head out and hang with my friends in the Midwest at SBR3. The post-tournament dinner was delicious. The after hours suite was cool, drinks were had and I spent a bit of time in another friend's hotel room before turning in for the night. I'm glad I was able to go and look forward to continuing my progress at CEOtaku 2018.

Ideally, my next blog post will be a bit shorter...

Welcome to the Show

Greetings everyone!

This is the first post of hopefully many that I create for this blog. I would imagine almost all of you reading this has probably come from one of my social media accounts and are familiar, but to move forward with decorum:

My name is Juushichi. Currently, I am sponsored by Sugoi Factory for Under Night in-Birth Exe:Late[st]. I'm from the Midwest state of Ohio and main Akatsuki in both this latest version and the previous version, Exe: Late. By this point, I've had a bunch of different roles in this community. I've run tournaments, done commentary, supplied pot bonuses, run side events, helped fund players to events, created and moderated spaces of discussion for the game and many more things. "UNIST Enthusiast" probably puts it mildly...

Nevertheless, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to have additional place to ramble on about this game that I love so much. I'm still figuring out what exactly I'm going to do with this space, could be observations about my play, thoughts on where the community is going or hype building for upcoming events. I'm sure that I'll figure something out along the way. This is absolutely where I'm going to stage the 2018 Year in Review, however.

To wrap up, I thought about a basic tagline, but in the middle school spirit of Under Night I drafted a blog description that fit me as well. It's a bit embarrassing, so I hope that you, the reader, can forgive me or that you can laugh along with me. I hope that you are looking forward to more posts from me in the future.

See ya!