April Annihilation Wrap-Up

After Winterbrawl 3D, I was excited to see what we could do at other FGC events. I was all too happy to accept the opportunity to run a community tournament at April Annihilation, and see how well VF could stand on its own merits. Imagine my surprise over the course of the past month to find out not only were we getting more support than I expected for a community tournament, we were also getting stream time! The treatment that VF gets at FGC events, even for a game as old as ours, is really reassuring to me. I think that April Annihilation turned out to be a different event than I thought it would be coming into it, and I'm happy to say it exceeded my expectations.

The Tournament
I had arrived early in the morning to bring setups and get our space ready. While I was there I got to know a few of the people entering other games at the event, and was excited to find a bunch of them wanted to play casuals of Virtua Fighter. Of these people, three ended up joining the tournament! I was really pleased to see VF getting attention from people who hadn't played much, or had fallen off when the local scene died down. This was also what I was hoping for, as getting new blood into the game is an important part of why we go to FGC events in the first place. Even though some travel issues kept people away again (and in the case of @Tricky a broken arm! Get well soon! Dodge accusation avoided!), we still pulled in more people than WinterBrawl and had a full 8 man bracket!

Results:
1. @Terracrush
2. @AkiraZero
3. @Harpooneer
4. Tokyo Rising
5. NejiForReal
5. Bacon
7. Maestro
7. Tomcat



The Event
I was very impressed with the event, just like at WinterBrawl. The hotel was big, and two ballrooms were used to split up all the games, with a retro section and vendors in the adjoining space. Security was pretty solid, which is a sad necessity in today's tournament environment, but it's nice to see that things weren't falling through the cracks. Since I arrived early, I got to meet with Shock, the streamer who would be broadcasting our tournament on Kombat Network. I really need to give these guys a shoutout. They were incredibly professional, really accommodating, and ran the stream well. Definitely check them out when they stream the next MK, there's a really long history going back to crazy UMK3 combo videos. Speaking of which, Shock brought his custom UMK3 rig, including the wild arcade layout with block in the middle. I remember never having big enough hands to play with it when I was a kid, so you know I was all over that thing getting destroyed by MK players.
I really recommend that VF players make it out to more of these types of events. We were taken care of really well, and a lot of people were talking about VF and were willing to give it a shot. I can definitely speak to the BigE Gaming events, as they seem to give 3D a lot of respect. Between Pokken, DOA6, Tekken, and SC, there was a lot of 3D action to watch, and a lot of players to interact with. Big thank you to everyone who came, hope to hear more from new or returning VF players, and looking forward to the next event!