Archive / Ramblings / Evo 2024 (7/21/2024)

First off, casuals. I played a LOT of them. And they were pretty fun! It made me realize how few people actually know the Bedman? matchup. I was able to give people advice though, which felt good to do. I managed to keep a win streak going on one of the stations for around 7 rounds, before being absolutely demolished by a Sol player. Also, incredibly, I managed to take a single match off of Daru, which was cool. Overall casuals were fun and I think they were really good practice for the tournament.

Keychains!

Bag!

In the artist alley, my only real goal was buying keychains from SpaceDey. I already have her Bedman and A.B.A (Strive) keychains for my purse/shoulder bag thing, and wanted more. A lot more. I got Bridget (XX), Bridget (Strive), Elphelt (Xrd), Elphelt (Strive), and Robo-Ky. I was also going to get A.B.A (XX), but she was unavailable. And now they are all on the bag! Which gives it the downside of being quite noisy when I move. But thats fine! The keychains are worth it!

Finally, I want to thank the person that helped me get a controller converter. While I never ended up needing it, apparently some PS5s weren't accepting PS4 controllers, which could have been very bad during the tournament. They were extremely patient with my terrible ability to take directions. I unfortunately didn't write down your name,, but you know who you are. Thank you.

Tournament day! My pool was at 10 AM, the earliest possible time. And it started off quite well...

Aaroncvx

Bread on Fire

vs.

Axl Low

Bedman?

Axl is a pain for Bedman to deal with. Bedman's poor approach when combined with Axl's chain normals make it hard really hard to get in. But, I managed. It went to the last hit of the last round on match 5, but I did it. Also, he actually used One Vision! Which is is annoying for me to deal with, but cool to see since it is uncommon in my experience.

taters

Bread on Fire

vs.

Millia Rage

Bedman?

I really did not expect to actually be on stream. And being commentated by Sajam and JMCrofts, no less! Which makes it all the more unfortunate that I got completely demolished. Millia is Bedman's worst matchup by a pretty large margin, with only Chipp even coming close. Overall though, it was a cool experience even if I lost horribly. (VOD starts at 1:23:30! Match starts at 1:25:50!)

Wins

Bread on Fire

Losses

385th

out of 2064

So in the end, I went 3-2 my main goal was escaping pools, and while I didn't quite make it, it was only by a single match. I am proud of what I did. Especially with Bedman's... questionable balance. And I am not trying to say I am this heroic and incredible player pushing the boundaries of a terrible character or anything. I am just a slightly above average player playing a below average character, and with that level, I am happy to have gotten 385th place.

Afterwards, I ended up watching the finals for a bunch of games. I hadn't really planned to do that, but was temporarily burnt out on Strive and needed a very short break.

First up was the Mortal Kombat 1 finals. They were surprisingly enjoyable! I still don't really like it as a game, but as a spectator it isn't that bad. And of course it was really great to see SonicFox win.

I will be honest and say I remember very little of UNIB2S:C. With one very particular exception: Eltnum's command grab super. The crowd's reaction was excellent.

Also, I need to note that the crowd was generally just incredible during the whole thing. The immediate uproar whenever the chipotle ads came on was priceless.

Finally, Third Strike. My one true hope going into Evo was for one thing: something to rival Moment 37. And I got it! Not just that, but it was with Hugo, a grappler, an incredibly rare sight in top 6. And what a moment it was. Truly incredible. I only wish Hayao ended up winning the whole thing. Either way though, the whole top 6 was a great time all around.

I won't be discussing the strive announcements or leaks here, they are getting their own discussion later.

First up was Granblue, which I know very little about. It was fine. Luckily most people didn't have the foresight to get there early for the other games, meaning I got one of the best seats in the arena and maintained it for the whole night.

Guilty Gear Strive!!!!!!! My main game!!! What a surprisingly diverse top 6. Happy Chaos, Ramlethal, Asuka, and Sol were all pretty expected, but I'm sure no one expected to see an Anji. Giovanna was also a bit unexpected, though Jack-O was a bit more expected. Anyway, the top 6 was excellent. Seeing Sol versus Jack-O was amusing, but the real star of the show was Asuka's cubes. Hearing a thunderous "CUBE!!!!!" pretty much every time he did a spell was hilarious, and I will never see an Asuka match in the same way again.

Tekken 8 started off with announcing Heihachi is coming back. And while the crowd seemed to love it, I've seen pretty mixed opinions of it online. As for the top 6 itself, most of it was spent with the crowd rooting against the current Dragunov player of the match, since there were three of them. And luckily, Dragunov didn't win!

Also, around the start of Tekken 8, the arena reached capacity. Which is a problem because capacity only accounts for about half of the number of people there. I luckily had my seat from the start of the day, but a ton of people sadly didn't get in. I hope that is fixed next year.

Street Fighter 6 was of course the most popular game there. It was very fun to watch. I do feel bad for Nemo, however. Controller issues suck. In the end though, I was very happy to see Punk win.