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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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~ 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.

----

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.

----

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!

Re:flection - Climax of Night [re:run]

It's actually been a little while since Climax of Night now, I've put it off for a while, right? Let's just say for a while that I've been [working on it] and I hope you let me off with just this.

On the front end, I'll say that I definitely enjoyed the event. It was nice to see so many people that I hadn't seen in a while, as well as meet new people for the first time. I'd been in an advisory role of sorts for Climax of Night too, so even though I wasn't one of the main components of creating the experience (I think), I was lucky enough to still be able to see behind the scenes all of the effort that brought this amazing event to fruition.

I can't speak enough about the efforts, expertise and creativity of the Climax of Night team. This dedicated group of people are some of the best in class and I find myself very fortunate to be able to work with and watch them at work. A lot of other gushing I could do about the event has been said by many others, so I guess I'll call this section here (lol).

--- Before Pools ---

As far as my player experience was, I felt like I had a strange sort of mood going into the event. It was my first real major post EVO (went to RBC Philly however) and while I felt like I was still growing, I don't think I had any particular goals going in. I more or less expected to get out of pools, maybe play a match or two in losers and then scratch out. I was pretty okay with that, actually...

Then I saw who my opponent was supposed to be in pools: Silent is a player that I respect, playing a character that I thought I generally had an expectation of being able to handle. When we played at EVO though, I ended up coming away from playing him (and Boogie/MateoKK) with more questions than answers. Looking back at the EVO videos, the matches were a bit closer than I thought, but I had gotten handled pretty thoroughly.

I think I'm a rather vengeful person--- in game of course, so I naturally wanted to avenge my loss to him. In that, I found my goal for the weekend. "I want to beat Silent and get out of pools in Winner's Side," was basically what I told myself. So, I stacked some of the earlier work I did for anti-Phonon with some theory crafting, some studying of common strings that I saw he liked to do and a small bit of watching/giving advice for when Squish played against Clim the week before.

--- Saturday Pools (UNI) ---

Mentally, I traced my way through the brackets. I had to play Melonade's Gordeau, AC's Hilda, SmartSteer's Orie before fighting silent. I think that I ended up starting pretty slow against Melonade, her neutral was pretty good, but it didn't seem like she was that confident on offense, so I was able to slowly pick my way in after getting her Gordeau to the corner and work my mixup from there. After that, I played AC in a pretty basic way, I think. I tried to keep my pressure relatively safe against VO and tried to mix up my throw timing without committing too much on offense.

After that, I had to wait a little bit before I was able to play Smart Steer. I knew going in that I usually do pretty well against him, but the Orie MU is such that could easily go wrong if you get too complacent. Thankfully, I took the first game pretty cleanly. The second game got pretty slopping with a few drops and honestly some lax judgment calls, but I ended up winning that set.

At this point, I had accomplished my base goal. I got safely to Winner's Finals and I was guaranteed out of pools. I wanted to beat Silent and get out in Winner's but the main portion had been done. So, when we met up, I was pretty relaxed. I knew what I had to do and I had practiced it coming up to the event. And actually he showed me one of the tricks I had practiced the first thing into the set, 66b (1) 22a 236b. You can actually stand parry every part of that, but if you parry the 22A, it ended up locking out the cancel (on the dummy). If you parry the 236b, there's nothing that phonon can do and you get a guaranteed 5a or 5b punish which I did at the round start. I could have done a better combo, but I thought that showing him I had an immediate answer was probably better than attempting something harder.

Looking at it now though, I think both Silent and I ended up playing really nervously and sloppily lol. There were a lot of drops on both sides and surprisingly, especially in the last games, he let a LOT of jumps through that were really risky. Eventually it seemed like he got worn down and I won the set 2-0. I hope that I get to see Silent again soon and we can play another set, lol.

But nonetheless, I got out of pools in Winner's Side with my opponent being burgertime. The last time I saw her, we played at Combo Breaker where I lost a FT7 6-7. I had some ideas of what I wanted to do, but I didn't have to play again until 11am on Sunday so I figured that it would be fine to worry about it later lol. I still had Melty Blood to do and the Teams Exhibition that I ended up running.

--- Saturday Pools (Melty, UNI Teams) ---

Melty went about as well as expected. Because Paragon Dissonance wasn't there, I got a bye (woo) before losing on stream. I got the first game against the Ryougi I played, but once the switch to Tohno was made, it was basically a wrap lol. I lost to (nycz)brandon's Ryougi off stream to go 1-2, about as well as I expected to do.

Later that night, DataFGC's KARA and I would end up running teams together. I'll say on the front end that I'm really thankful for Kara and she was an extremely important part of getting the event to run. With it being pretty late in the night, a lot of the players had already played and wanted to do other things. Additionally, Melty pools were going strong and we had a mix of player and volunteers who were held by it and the other tournaments going on. Thus, we had a lot of drops and difficulties wrangling everyone. I was also playing in the event, which did not make things any easier lol

That couldn't be helped, but Kara was absolutely fantastic. Once everything finally got running, I'd say that it went as smoothly as it could have. As far as my performance went, I was on Team Nebraska (and Co[lumbus]). We played against Team Canada with Psykotik, Rikir, Smartsteer and Chunk Brinkston. I ended up squaring off against Psykotik who I managed to beat, though we ended up tying 2-2 to force a tiebreaker. I believe that Bearzerg and Smartsteer had to face off, with BearZerg ending up as the winner, so we moved on to face the New York team... Which we were swept by lol.

Now that I was eliminated, it was easier to focus on finishing out the event. By about 11pm, I was done and starving so we went out to get some food and that ended my night.

--- Sunday (Top 48) ---

After grabbing some delicious breakfast at ATL's breakfast club with a lot of the NE UNI gang, I went back and prepared a little for Top 48 (functionally Top 24 for me, as I was in Winners). Unfortunately, I didn't get much practice against Merkava... but I thought that my gameplan was probably fine. A little before I talk about the match, I was asked if burgertime and I planned on matching colors with the stage by both Brett and Tari, but we ended up getting Amber Streetlamps on Random... and I chose to play the color I did as a shoutout to ITTN.EXE and because the Browns were playing later that day. So it ended up being a huge coincidence.

As far as the gameplay went... I really just didn't feel like I could start well against her. In retrospect, I don't think how I wanted to play it was wrong per se, but it didn't end up working out that well. I had a few drops like the kill confirm in round 1 game 1 or on some missed conversions, but Sylvie had controlled the pace of the match throughout and won in straight games. There are some decisions that I'd want back, but them's the breaks, right?

I left the ballroom for a bit to use the bathroom and gather myself before I went to play against Psykotik to get into Top 16. This potential matchup was one that I had actually looked forward to, since I had also lost what I thought was a pretty close 3-1 at EVO on my recording, which was his revenge for our MM back at Combo Breaker that I won 5-0.

As I think the nature of our games are now, Psykotik and my match was a pretty grueling affair with slow pacing, timeouts and clutch moments galore. One of the key decisions that I think truly dictated the match was Joe's refusal to make a big commitment at round start. I would take space and jump or try to shoot a fireball round start and he had the 214x series ready. So, on about 5/9 round starts, I think that I lost the first interaction.

Our first round ended with a double down draw on a tatsu vs thrust interaction that turned into a timeout win to put him up 1-0. I followed that with two time out rounds in a 3 round game to take game 2 ,before we had a back and forth three rounds in the last game that he got the better of after catching my backdash with forward movement. The things that I remember sticking out were that he teched I think all but two or so throws, so it was very difficult to open him up.

Psykotik ended up popping off after the win, which I was really happy about, honestly. I didn't feel too beaten up about losing to Joe and Sylvie (though I'm obviously a little salty about it now--- I wish I won lol) and it's honestly really cool to know that I was pushing someone that much to want to beat me.

Psykotik has been one of the players I respect the most and one of the players I've wanted to beat throughout the version. I had lost to him in New York back in 2018 when we played and I worked really hard to improve on my matchup against Orie. Every time that we had ended up playing up until this year, I felt like I was always behind. But when I saw him at CB, I had basically been beating him throughout the entire weekend before our MM. That was pretty important to me, because I had thought that only I had thought of him to be a rival of mine lol.

To see the work that he put in every other time I'd played him (from CB to EVO to CoN) was pretty inspiring. I felt like I had to be on my toes every time and I was always refining my game to be able to do well. Thus, even though I lost and it's likely the last time that I'll be able to play him in this version, I'm pretty happy to see that someone was looking at me that seriously as a player.

But that ended my tournament run, just shy of Top 16. T-17th/237 is a placing that I'm pretty content with. I think I'll do a shorter blog post later recapping my thoughts about the year, but I think that by the end of the version I've truly put myself in the high level of this game. I don't think that I'm a top player... but I know that I'm a high level one at the very least.

--- Sunday (Post Brackets) ---

After I was done playing in tournament, I felt pretty listless, so I hung around watching the rest of Top 48->16 then got some lunch and took a nap before I came down to watch Melty prior to Top 16. I was actually zoning out as they started to do the transition to it and Shinobi came up on the mic. Not really focusing in on what he was saying, I happened to look up and I saw Miller and Dante just looking at me. I kinda blinked my eyes and while Shinobi was still talking, they were like "We already know that they're talking about you. Go up there!"

So that's the story about me realizing that I was being recognized for my efforts in the community, lol. Even thinking about it now as I type this with this neat trophy next to me, it feels kinda surreal. I recognize that I do a lot for the scene and I know that my (relatively) large following is partially before that, but it's still wild to actually be acknowledge for stuff that I do. It's so natural to just do what I end up doing that I don't even really think about it... but I really appreciate the award and everyone that worked on putting it together.

I'm extremely thankful for everyone that I've gotten to meet, play with, and interact with because of this game. Playing UNI has lead to some of the coolest experiences in my short 28-year-old life. As we finish out the year and move towards the next version in 2020, I hope that the community will be able to continue along this path that I'm so proud to be able to take. I also want to thank #blackexcellence for doing the damn thing, DATAFGC and funkyp's team for the event as well as all of the Climax of Night staff, artists, volunteers and more that make events like this special. I'm extremely honored to have been able to work with you all for this event. Melo and Chaesu, thank you so much for the gifts again, they have made me so happy.

Normally, I would do a long extended shoutout section at the end of something like this... but I think that I'll just end it about here. It's been a pleasure being a part of this wonderful community. Please look forward to my personal 2019 reflection and the Year-End-Review which is to come before the end of the year!

Reflection - Evolution 2019

So, I've been back home for about two days by now and I feel like I should write a reflection post about EVO.

If I'm being honest, I think it was the worst feeling tournament experience that I've ever had when travelling to UNI. I was pretty sour about my placement at Michigan Masters, but somehow this one felt even worse. I'll go ahead and mention that the UNI bracket experience wasn't one that I thought was bad. I'm a little bummed that I didn't get to play on stream in R1 pools like it was initially suggested that I would be able to do, but that's the nature these events.

Ultimately, I ended up tying for 65th out of 1100-odd entrants at the current largest tournament in the world for UNI. I think it's important to present that in this way because it's still a feat worth talking about, even if I currently don't really think that way.

I'll also get my tournament losses out of the way now, because I feel like I lost to two players that I respect and I don't really want to describe that in a way where I use the other things as an excuse for why I lost to them. First:

- vs jct/Waterloo Hilda (Hilda) [1-2]:

This set is a bit of a blur, honestly, but as far as I can recall I think our set went like: 0-1, 1-0, 0-1. The things that stuck out to me were how strange his neutral choices were compared to any other hilda I played. He played the 66x 22x whiff game really well and I hadn't really been able to control the GRD cycle as well as I wanted because of that.

Offensively, I also recall autopiloting my pressure in a way that he felt comfortable green shielding against me and I didn't react to that in time to punish him. Additionally, he fielded 5[C] which I blocked... but didn't parry for a full punish, an important part of snagging control early. I think that I blocked more of the mix early, but he gained success late in part of being able to control the GRD cycle well.

I was upset at my loss, but I understood that he played me like a fiddle to do it.

- vs WindGodDude (Seth) [1-2]:

When I looked at the bracket really early, this was actually a potential opponent I really dreaded having to run into. Seth is one of the least common characters that I've played against and while I know of some answers to parts of his pressure/gameplan, I haven't practiced against him enough to really feel comfortable.

The first game I lost, I know I generally ate shit on mashing and getting hit by 5C late staggers for a bunch of damage. WGD didn't really feel like he did a lot of sophisticated stuff, but I'd have to think it's because he didn't really feel like he needed to. In the second game, I think I ended up hitting him with CH 5B a bunch which is like 3100 a pop at least, then I wanna say he got hit with IW in the corner at some point and died. It's the nature of things.

The last game, I barely even remembered what happened but I think I lost in two straight rounds. I didn't feel upset about this one because WGD is strong and I don't really understand how to fight Seth. I tried to play it on the ground and just autopiloted stuff I use online + vs what I used vs TTK Touma months ago.

---

Outside of the tournament proper, I should also mention some of the fun things that I was able to do as well before I forget them, lol.

- On Thursday night, I got to hang out with Fox (Gun) and Shinobi before we went to get dinner with French Bread. I greatly enjoyed talking with the team through RyoRca-san and sharing a bit of the experience of North American UNI alongside Fox and Shinobi. I was a bit intimidated, but I hope I did it well lol.

- On Friday afternoon, I spoke with Besteban about UNI and Climax of Night. Esteban is a fantastic dude who asked really good questions and I'm honored to have been able to speak on behalf of the community. I'm looking forward to his release on Hold Back to Block and I hope everyone else is too!

- On Friday night, it was honestly really fun being a part of the UNI crowd that stayed around to watch and phone record matches from Semi-Finals. Watching high level players play and discussing various cool things about it is always fun. (As an aside, I always feel like I enevitably piss you off so if I did, I'm sorry Mia/Glaceon! orz) Transitioning over back to the stage and sitting down to watch Top 8 qualifiers was also great.

- Friday night (cont:), it was maybe a small gesture, but after Top 8 was solidified, I'm happy that I got to walk and talk with you, Rei as we went to grab alcohol at Fat Tuesdays. I was basically on my last legs, but being able to unwind in that way meant a lot to me. You're super cool and I hope we can drink and play at a less hectic event next time.

- Saturday morning, sitting in and playing against Pfhor, Lukada and jct before Top 8 was fun. Probably the most fun I had playing the game the whole weekend, lol. Side betting during top 8 and talking to Fox (Gem), Rei, Taicus, Tari and Coma was really enjoyable. Seeing my boys Suika and Cookie kill it on the mic was amazing!

- Saturday afternoon, it ended up being pretty fun being able to commentate matches and give insight along with brandon, cookie, silent and later suika. Playing with Nekomiko and boogie was also a pleasure. I got to see Alyssa at her art booth and chat for a while, I love seeing her so it was always fun!

- Saturday night, ramen with Squish, Redblade, Isaac, and silent was a good cooldown from a busy day.

- Sunday night, curry with TG, Magnets, ZachCat, Phaze and the other guy whose name I don't remember was really fun, too.

- UNI @ food court was generally cool to see and I'm glad that people enjoyed it as much as they did. UNI suite was also very lively and it was amazing seeing all of the faces around and that the French Bread team stopped in to see everyone!

- Everyone that I met or got to see again from the UNI side. You guys are great and are a large part of why I even continue to want to do stuff like this. Thank you.

---

Now, with all that said. Thursday was one of the worst flight experiences I've ever had, as being up at 3:30am (eastern) for the flight, delays, more delays and then arriving by myself in Vegas fucking sucked. I'm glad that I met up with Cathaticus and Koover at the airport, but still ended up having to navigate by myself to get to my various destinations.

I got there at the Mandalay 12:30pm pacific, though my sponsor and hotel room (in the Tropicana) wouldn't be available until 6pm. After waiting in line with all my shit to get my badge, I ended up parking in the food court by myself until I saw Gamegenie555, where at that point I set up UNI. Later, I ended up seeing Rikir and Fox (Gun), plus some others and so that was generally what started UNI at the food court.

https://twitter.com/EnginoJuushichi/status/1157052551725850624

Nevertheless, I still had obligations to go to dinner which got pushed back to 7-ish so we stayed there until like 6ish, then after trekking to Fox's hotel (Mandalay) thinking I'd drop my stuff off and go to dinner with FPan, we ended up having to meet up with Shinobi downstairs. I found out then that my sponsor was in badge line back past the foodcourt, so I had to have them wait as I tracked Zankoku down to get my room key. I went back to meet with them, but they were already at the Luxor, so I took all my stuff and cabbed there to Shinobi's room before going to dinner.

Then I trekked back to Shinobi's room, got my stuff, then finally went back to my own hotel room at roughly 11:15 pm. I then preceeded to sleep like shit and wake up multiple times before scraping like 6 hours of sleep.

Friday morning linecon -> playing round 1 pools (12pm) happened. But, because of the line situation, I was extremely hesitant to leave and pay x amount of money to go back to the Tropicana to rest and I interviewed with Esteban at 4p before my 6p round 2 pool. From there, I stayed around until all of the T8 qualifiers were done, so another full day.

Saturday morning was okay, I met up with TG and sleepy to eat at the Luxor buffet for breakfast. Watched top 8 and when I went to go play afterwards, I was interrupted in the middle of a money match to be asked about exhibitions. Lost said MM in the last game, then scrambled over to manage that. Found out hiari forgot about his exhibition so I had to figure out how/where to contact him.

In addition to that, because of how our schedules kinda ended up, I didn't really get to hang out with any of my Sugoi Factory teammates, many of my friends from the Midwest and by and large, I ended up having to trek to and from places largely by myself when carrying a bunch of shit in an area I had never been to. Oh, and I ended up feeling like I wasn't playing well all throughout Sunday. I basically didn't want to do anything except stay in my hotel room the whole day, but that would have made me feel even worse than I already was.

So yeah, it was a bit of a word vomit but that was my EVO experience this year. Bit of a downer, but I'm looking forward to the next event nonetheless. See you next time!

Reflection - KVO x TSB and Prior

So, at the time that I find myself writing this I am back in the US.

It's been a long and annoying trip home so far and yet still one that I have at least 8 more hours left to do (Seattle to Atlanta takes a while, go figure). I don't know if I'm exactly in the best place to write the reflection as I am now, but I think this is probably one of the times where I can say what I want to say without too much of a filter.

First things first, I would have to say that my time in Osaka was absolutely wonderful! I'll get into more of that a bit later, but to truly start my reflection of this event--- I have to backtrack a bit:

--- Frosty Faustings ---

The completion of Frosty Faustings brought with it great accomplishment for me along with an extra... something as well. I managed to successfully play my way through my bracket with close shaves over Zen (Enkidu) and Miller (Linne) before playing what I think even now is my best tournament set of UNI, beating Rikir 2-1 in Winner's Side Top 16 to qualify for Top 8. This lead me to a showdown with Redblade and his Wagner in WSF. It was a spot that I thought I would get to by nature of the level of play I thought I'd been playing at before the tournament--- though I didn't mention it to many people outloud.

I've had the fortune of being able to play Red a lot over the course of the Late[st] version of the game, as well as Sometimes Fendo from New York--- the two Wagners that I think make up the three best Wagner players in the entire World right now. The practice and preparation I'd come to develop has led me to relative success in the MU through a win over Eagle in our exhibition at CEOtaku and a positive record on every Wagner that wasn't either of them in tournament play.

Additionally, if there is anything that anyone who knows me well is aware of--- it's that I have pretty thorough countermeasures for individual players I have note of. By and large, I have a solid profile of the types of things that Redblade likes to do, but among the MOST important things to know about him is that you have to make sure that Redblade doesn't get comfortable in his cues and offense early. With this in mind, I knew that I couldn't make too many mistakes and needed to start fast.

If one looks at the footage/pictures of the group of us in Top 8, I think it's easy to tell how tense I was, lol. It was my first time playing on a stage like that in front of everyone, first time coming through a large tournament from winners against a player I knew I had to work really hard against. To say that it overwhelmed me wouldn't be incorrect, but I think it'd take away from Redblade and Shaq (unist player)'s play throughout the top 8. Needless to say, I went home a respectable 5th.

At the same time though, I was having doubts about how much further I could really go. It's a fact that I shouldn't try to get caught up too much in results and the like, but one of my big motivators are my peers and how I do against them. Redblade and Magnets in particular have been difficult for me no matter what I've done for a while, so the doubts, excuses and frustrations really set in internally (and externally, lol).

"Is this my character that's holding me back?" "Why am I working so hard?" "Is it because their characters are really strong?" "What am I missing that everything I'm doing isn't paying off?" These thoughts are increasingly ironic to have, I know, as I'm managing to improve even in my own internal metrics. But even so, I was ready to drop Akatsuki in the time between Frosty and Michigan Masters.

--- Michigan Masters ---

I ended up going through Michigan Masters and finishing in the Top 16, losing to Karuda (Yuzuriha) and White Beast (Vatista)... again respectable losses. By themselves, I don't think that I felt too bad about those losses. However, the money matches that I did with Squish (vs Akatsuki) and Clim (vs Pho and Merkava) revealed both my improvement, how close I felt like I was getting to the top levels of play in NA--- and yet how far I still had to go. Kind of lost, I was so frustrated that I ended up crying on the way home.

It was liberating in a way being able to vent that way, but what loomed truly over where I might want to go in UNI was this trip to Japan. It was equally for leisure, since I had finished up a pretty tough semester for school, as well as for playing UNI and testing myself. I knew from my games up to this point that there was no point in putting large expectations on myself to "do well". So; I wanted to avoid going 0-2 in bracket, learn as much as I could, play some of the players I'd been able to come to get to know in Japan and finally see if I wanted to abandon Akatsuki for the rest of the year in lieu of Orie or Nanase.

--- KSB ---

The trip from Columbus to Osaka was a long one, taking me from Columbus through Minneapolis and Seattle to Japan. I prepped a lot, just to be safe. Brought melatonin, a neck pillow and other odds and ends for that 11 hour trip from Seattle to Osaka--- but no matter what, I just couldn't stay asleep for long. This ended up being a consistent theme throughout the weekend, 3 hours here, 4 hours there... but never a "full night" of rest until the one day after tournament where I stayed up for the meetup. I'm still a bit worried actually about normalizing my sleep schedule once I finally stop in Columbus as well. Nevertheless, I got in and had a good dinner with some friends from Ohio Smash and set up in my hotel in Nippombashi to netplay in Japan--- another consistent theme of my trip.

I'm thankful to Clearlamp for setting up a meetup for console and PC UNI alongside the arcade on Wednesday, but I think that if I hadn't been able to netplay in the comfort of my hotel room, I wouldn't have gotten acclimated as much as I had for the tournament day. I had a blast being able to play Tsumo, Kyou, Trista, Cool and Sweet and others while resting from day trips and exploration and I also got to try to apply countermeasures to some of the stuff I saw players doing and prepare how to change my offense to match it.

I didn't win a lot while I was playing--- especially in the early parts of the week and change I was there, but it was certainly valuable experience. Being able to match faces to names and voices I'd seen on twitch chats and in footage is extremely precious to me. My Japanese is extremely weak, but everyone was very patient with me and seemed generally excited to speak and play with me. It was especially fun being able to meet and spend time with Peke, tuna+, Libekichi, Umakool, Hachi, Trista and LENee. I was happy to be able to see Senaru and Clearlamp. It was extremely fun being able to talk with the players from North America as well. The experience of being able to do match reports, see what everyone else is up to, speak about each other's thoughts and share information in a foreign place is honestly a really unique one.

But I suppose I should go into the nuts and bolts of my tournament experience, huh?

--- Tournament Day ---

Well, my first opponent was a Wagner player named Shiratama, who seemed relatively new to UNI. We had ended up playing in casuals in the morning after being let into Misono Universe. I ended up winning that set 2 to 0 without anything of particular note happening. So, my lone goal for tournament played had been achieved. I was not going to go 0-2. I also managed to win my first round of Koihime Enbu 2-0 against a character I'd never seen before. So that was 2/2 on not going 0-2, yeah!

However, in UNI things were going to immediately get more difficult. My next round opponent was set to be ARIA, a Yuzuriha player who I had been able to play on Wednesday night at the meetup. I think I went something like 2-6 against them and I didn't feel very comfortable with that MU at all--- but he ended up being busy so I got a DQ and moved on, oop lol. 2-0 (1-0).

My next opponent was one that I and everyone who watched my early streams in Japan were familiar with--- Kyo Gordeau. I'll put it pretty bluntly, I got fucking sauced up emphatically by this man as bad as Nishine was cooking me and unlike with Nishine, I didn't have any sort of gameplay nuances to lean on that I felt comfortable with. His movement, move choice and positioning was very much unlike anything that I had seen since Hiari and his Gordeau (vs Squish in Sweden). I spoke with some of the guys and figured that this set was an auto loss so fuck it, let's try out Orie. The first round actually went pretty well, but I spaghetti'd a kill confirm that would have ended the first round and he ran me back from there. What little confidence I had with Orie was gone, so I was just gonna pick my shit and die trying to gain as much as I could with Akatsuki. He made short work of me and I was sent to losers, no harm, no foul. 2-1 (1-1)

After that, I had a bit of a wait as losers was resolving itself. I ended up losing my round two Winners match in Koihime to the 2018 EVO champion eda, in a Gakushin mirror and then was eliminated soon after that by Kei.

As it came to be, my first loser's match was going to be Needle (Vatista). There's a small story to this one too. So, much like Orie, Vatista is a matchup that I have relative pride in. I'm very experienced in it and I typically do well against Vatista players that I play as well. After watching Needle play squish in casuals, I asked squish to hop off so I could play him. I ended up not adjusting very well to how he played Vatista and lost 0-2 in that casual set, but I was salty and felt like it was pretty winnable. As I was getting up, Needle turned to me and said "ganbarimasu". I'm sure that he meant nothing by it and I ended up just smiling and saying thank you, but I was smoldering, lmao. Nevertheless, I sat down, put my music in and started the set with Needle in Losers. I don't remember too much about it, but I do remember losing the first game and then locking in and winning the next two with clean jumps and play. Ultimately, I won the set 2-1 and sent Needle out of the tournament.

Later, when I sat down to play him in casuals, he said something akin to "Again? No...!", so I have to say that I was pretty vindicated. "I'll try harder next time for sure~ : )" - is something I'll keep in my heart and in this blog, of course.

In any case, my next round opponent sat down soon after I had defeated Needle. I'll admit that I initially didn't even know who it was, between not formally meeting or playing them and being so locked in. I won the first game quickly in two rounds against this Phonon I wasn't too familiar with and... then I noticed that a crowd was surrounding me. So, after losing a close game 2, I went back to character select to take a quick breather and change the song that I was listening to. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a song that immediately stuck out to me on shuffle or through searching and I could tell that mateokk was waiting for me to hurry up so I just picked a song. I think I threw myself out of my element or maybe mateokk figured out the wavelength I was on, but I ended up sputtering out and losing 1-2 to finish at 25th. I came to later realize that mateokk was the #1 Phonon in arcades. So, my losses were to 1st and 7th place--- and the respective top ranked players of their characters. Not that bad, lol.

After that, I stuck around to play casuals and watch the conclusions of my NA friend's tournament runs before I went back to my hotel to take a nap to prepare for the big meetup at night. Admittedly, I passed out during Grand Finals, so I didn't see Kyo's win in full until I watched it on the ANIMEILLUMINATI channel when I woke up on Saturday. As far as the meetup went, it was extremely fun! I can't sit very well cross legged or anything like that, so after a while of playing it was pretty uncomfortable but aside from that it was a very chill environment.

Everyone sat around drinking, eating, talking and playing various games. People were playing Samurai Kirby, some Melee was happening, old Melty, old Blazblue, some Exe: Late, Mario Party and Cart. I got to play a lot of players like shimazaki, crow, notes and ouhittou. I think the only player I didn't have a chance to play against was Hishigata, actually. Nevertheless, tired and happy I packed up my stuff and headed to the station at around 5am, lol. Got a full 9 hours of sleep that night, the best sleep I got my entire time in Osaka.

--- Cyclops ---

The last sort of tournament report I have is for the Cyclops meetup. I met up with LTP earlier in the day on Monday to grab some lunch and then we went back to my hotel in order to--- you guessed it, play some netplay. It was actually super fun to watch the players online try to deal with LTP's Phonon. I wish that I would have organized a meetup with some of the other players to watch and talk with them while we played netplay in Japan. In any case though, Osaka got it's first bad rainstorm which convinced most of the regulars to stay home. LTP and I also basically flipped a coin on whether we would go or not, but eventually decided to go. I took my recording setup as planned with me to Cyclops and saw Arslan playing some of the Japanese players in Tekken too!

My first round in the Cyclops weekly was yet again--- a Wagner player. I was pretty surprised though, as I got cooked in the first game and went down 0-1 quickly. But, I made some adjustments and ended up pulling that one out 2-1. After that, I played LENee who I learned from RAL days before is a pretty notable netplay Yuzuriha. I was dreading it already considering my luck against Yuzu throughout the weekend, but I think I did alright in my Winner's set in spite of losing 0-2. I had some ideas about where I wanted to approach and what I wanted to do to bait certain reactions out of him.

My next round was against Muon, who would have been my opponent to attempt to qualify for Top 16 had I beaten mateokk. In casuals with him, I had done pretty well. I think I won our first casual set 2-1, so I had a general idea of how I wanted to approach how Muon played as well. It ended up working too, as I won our set in losers 2-0. I was pretty excited about that too, as I think historically Eltnum has been a really difficult matchup for me as well. This set up a rematch with LENee that went a lot better than the first set that I had with him. We went down to the wire in game 3 and he clutched it out to move back into Grand Finals to face LTP who had beaten him before. LTP ended up winning the tournament from winners and I got third, not too bad I think.

Finally, that brings me to the closing thoughts and observations from my time in Osaka on the UNI side.

--- Final Thoughts ---

I can't say for sure that I won't ever have feelings about dropping Akatsuki, but I think for now there is no reason for me to drop him. He's by and far my best character, I believe more in my ability to play him at higher levels, though I know that the top of the top levels of play are still a ways to go for me. I enjoy playing Akatsuki a lot too, which is arguably the most important thing!

The key takeaways that I have from this trip are: 
- That I can play well against strong players in North America or abroad.
- That I can do it while playing Akatsuki by himself.
- That I can make the necessary adjustments to varying play-styles.
- That I can continue to trust in the process that has gotten me this far AND in my ability to distill down new information to use.

Some of my observations about how Japanese players play are: 
- That they are very good about proximity control. They generally have well informed decisions about what buttons to hit and the spaces that they are the best to hit them at. Long distance dashes will see players move forward to meet with fast attacks or hanging back and checking greedy movement with things like 5C.
- That they almost never give up obvious assaults or overheads. You really, really have to put some sort of information on the table that forces them to have to second guess anti-air OS. Or to simply block your high attacks.
- Almost everyone has a strong fundamental understanding of their character/your character's options. This much is probably obvious because they have had access to the game for a while.
- Generally have worse raw damage combos. I think maybe because the nature of arcade/console that the average player hasn't optimized their routing or anything. Even the stronger players had combos that I felt were lacking at times. The top level players generally have things optimized, but I think players generally stay in their comfort zones in regards to confirms.

Well, that about wraps things up for this one. Thanks for reading.

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