Electric Cancel 4: World tourney... Oct. 26th

EC4 results and comments

So I haven't seen anyone else post about yesterday, so I'll jump in!

First up, raw numbers:

T4 tournament: 100 entrants
TTT tournament: 65 entrants
VF4 tournament: 12 entrants!

I guess everyone can get the results from the electriccancel website but:

1) MadDogJin (Kage and Lei-Fei in the finals)
2) Andy (Pai and Aoi)
3) Spotlite (Akira)

And here's a picture! Note grib and plague smirking in the background =]

So the Korean Tekken champ also took the VF4 tournament. Mildy annoying - I was really hoping that Andy or Spotlite would keep him in his place, but it was not to be. Still, congratulations and respect to MDJ - he's an excellent player who brought some amazing skills to bear (he has the fastest hands I've seen - between rounds he would tap the start button so fast it made a kind of whirring noise!).

Andy and Spotlite both played really well to get 2 and 3 respectively. Andy, you were in good form, and I think the final could have gone either way. All the fights were great to watch.

My personal highlight was losing (!) to Talis/Plague. We had a terrifically close fight. His Akira vs. my Jeffry. It was best of five matches, and he had me 2-0. I managed (by abusing hellstab -> low throw) to claw it back to 2-2. Then we had a very tense deciding match, which I think went to the last round and very short energy bars before I was defeated with relentless d/f+P+K!.

I also had fun fighting an LA player I hadn't met before, and who's name I didn't catch. He had a nasty Wolf! He told me after our fight (which he won) that he has played against ShinZ a few times back in the VF2 days in Korea. Nice!

Anyway, it was a really fun day. X-Topia is a great arcade, and I'm really glad I went along if only because now I know about it.

What did everyone else think?

Finally - thanks to the organizers (I think it was Tom... unfortunately I'm not 100% sure who did what, so I'll just say "the EC crew"). The EC crew did an excellent job of organizing a large tournament that ran smoothly, and I'm very grateful they included VF4. Let's hope there's more entrants next time.

grib

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

Wow, I'm also suprised nobody'd posted anything yet. Even though this tournament was pretty small, I felt that in some ways, it was even more exciting than the E3 tournament, mainly due to the mystery of Mad Dog Jin. I think most of us were really curious to see what he was gonna be like, and for the most part he plays VF4 really nicely. It was cool that after having many of the people on the board to to Japan/UK etc to play with people, someone came HERE to play (Tekken) with us.

I don't have time to get into it all, but it was double elim, with Andy and Joey facing off for the champs of the loosers bracket, and me and MDJ in the winners bracket. The fight between Andy's Pai and Joey's Lau was really nice, they are both great players and know each other's style really well. Andy ended up taking it, and fought me, as I had just lost to MDJ's Kage.

The tournament was running under somewhat tekken-ish rules, so that players were allowed to change characters whenever they wanted. It was supposed to be that only the loosers could change, but nobody listened, and no one said anything, so... I think this really worked in MDJ's favor, as when he was loosing he'd just change to a different character.

This was tough for me somewhat, as I spent the little bit of mental prep I did thinking about how to fight his Lei, then he chose Akira (his best character IMO), and after I beat him the first 2 fights, he switched to Kage. His Kage style was REALLY strange to me, and he won. Against Andy in the final, he switched even more.

I'm not trying to make excuses, because there aren't any, we lost /versus/images/icons/wink.gif! But, if there's an EC5 VF4 tournament, we should be really strict about no changing characters in VF4, as I think it's a "tekken" idea anyway.

I asked MDJ about the scene in Korea, and he said "many people play, everyday". So it's no suprise that his skills are on par with and in some cases above our best players. His Akira was really stylish, using lots of b+P+K+G- SPOD, escape-bodycheck, DLC etc. Like Moonsuk, he never went for the easier, best damage options, like SDE- DJK. I think the sabaki-SPOD is the only case where the coolest looking option is the best damage as well. But his play is not on the level with moonsuk/shinz, since I think he spends most of his time playing tekken. There were a couple big holes in his game if you watched closely (no throw escapes).

Anyway, thenks to the EC people for putting this on, thanks to the Korean guys for coming, congrats to MDJ for winning, and to Andy for 2nd place!

Spotlite

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

First off I just want to congratulate every one of the regular SoCal players (spotlite, Joey, gribbly, plague and Catherine) for doing well in the tournament. Nobody lost in the first 2 rounds. Not only did we take 2nd and 3rd, but Joey took 4th, and plague took 5th/6th (abuse that +!). And, I'd pretty much say that spotlite, Joey and I are basically evenly matched, so 2nd, 3rd, and 4th could have gone to any of us - except that I have the feeling that spotlite or Joey would have done better against Mad Dog Jin in the finals.

The tournament was definitely exciting. I was really nervous in my first round match against Mad Dog Jin, since he decided to play Lei Fei against me rather than Akira. I've got tons of experience against Akiras -- 3 players in SoCal use him almost exclusively. On the other hand, nobody in SoCal uses Lei Fei, with the exception of Catherine whom I don't play very often. So I lost really badly in the first round, 3-0.

Throughout the rest of the tournament, Mad Dog Jin would not use Lei Fei, until he played me again in the finals. I guess he saw that I wasn't so hot against his Lei Fei during practice play.

His style is to attack all the time. As spotlite mentioned, he doesn't really throw escape, but since he continually attacks with small, uncounterable moves - lots of Ps and elbows - he can be difficult to throw. He uses a few more dangerous moves with Akira, like the bodycheck, but with Kage (never goes into jumonji) and Sarah (uses only P when in flamingo), it's pretty much all little safe moves. It was disappointing to see him switch to Kage from Akira after losing the first 2 to spotlite and then to take the next 3. Had he stuck to Akira, I'm almost sure that spotlite would have beat him.

I'm not trying to complain that the tournament was unfair, as I'd be a hypocrite since I changed to Aoi after losing to his Lei Fei in the first 2 rounds of the final -- the rules were that you could change characters if you lost. He changed to Kage when I picked Aoi, and after I took 2 of the next 3 rounds, he switched back to Lei Fei and took the next round for the win. In the end, he played well, and showed me how much work I need against Lei Fei.

On a final note - what is the best option after guarding Lei Fei's ++, , +? Half the time, MDJ would do another ++, , +, and the second part would hit me if I dodged (maybe I'm going in the wrong direction?). He also would follow up and +. Is backdashing a good idea?

Andy

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
" VF4 tournament: 12 entrants!"

[/ QUOTE ] WTF?!

Next time I visit my family out there I hope the VF scene is better, especially with Evo released. It's sad to hear that a tekken player (of all people) won. Sounds like a good tourney though, despite the small crowd. What's it going to take to get a decent VF scene in America? /versus/images/icons/mad.gif /versus/images/icons/mad.gif

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

Hey Andy! Congrats on 2nd dawg. After Lei's DS-+, its not a bad time to LINNEY!! /versus/images/icons/wink.gif he's at like +7 on block and even more on hit. later dude.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

"Good evening from X-Topia and welcome to EC4! The land of 1000 Tekken players all armed with huge ass homemade controllers."

Wooden boxes covered with sticks and buttons as far as the eye could see. One was festooned with Britney Spears pictures - the joystick came out in her cleavage (at least it wasn't down below). Another box was gigantic, 27 cubic feet perhaps (I think he had a refridgerator inside to keep a sixpack cool).

On to the main event...

My first match was won decisively against an Akira I hadn't met before. This put me in a match with Mad Dog where I lost 3-1 (nice to have gotten one win off of him when he switched to Shun). He started with Akira (I had practiced with him before the tournament and knew when he would throw SPODs - I blocked them all and punished with throws - too bad I couldn't reverse or evade). Our matches were somewhat close, but he clearly had better skill than I. His switch to Shun at the third fight allowed me to win. His following switch to Kage made things more difficult. I would have lost sooner had he not missed two TFT followups. Hello losers bracket.

"and plague took 5th/6th (abuse that +)"

That was a tough fight I had with Cameron. I did have him 2-0, and he decided he wasn't going to lose 3-0. I pulled off a couple of low throw escapes after hellstab -> d+P+K+G, but he was blocking all my SHRMS and DBLPMS. I resorted to + abuse folowed by SGLPM to push him out of throw range and took advantage of him hitting the wall. I admitted to him my victory was last resort bullshit. Final score was a very close 3-2.

My final match was with Joey. His Lau was absolutely on fire. I've found that if I can't disrupt his flow, he's just unstoppable...

I couldn't disrupt his flow.

The rest of the tournament was very exciting. Spotlite should've beaten Mad Dog Jin in the winner's bracket. That could've left him facing MDJ again in the finals. But Andy might've pulled out all the stops and eliminated MDJ. A classic Los Angeles matchup would've then ensued.

Thank you to the Electric Cancel and Zaibatsu groups for putting on an excellent show. Much appreciation goes to Mad Dog Jin for coming here to play. His technical performance was more than inspirational (his use of Akira's b+P+K+G, f+p, DLC in both directions and a few Lei Fei combos that Catherine will certainly use to crush me at home - were quite exciting to say the least).

The afternoon was well spent.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

damn...damn... double damn... I shall return with fury /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

i attended the ec4 tourney and i happened to see a good amount of the vf matches. though i came mainly for tekken, vf is a very good game and i was glad to see it was given a chance by the ec staff. i was somewhat disappointed that not many usa players seemed to care about it (but it was good to see the 12 that did show up and compete). though mainly a tekken affair, vf was held becuase maddogjin wanted to compete in a vf tourney as well. with that said they included it also... the fact is tekken 4 and vf4 was won by mdj..yes a tekken player. but it's pretty weak to criticize or be annoyed by this if you didin't make an effort to stop this from happening. no point in complaining if no effort is even made to at least check it out or compete. a few made an effort to inform the vf community of the event and i personally wanted many vf players to show (becuase let's face it..i had a feeling mdj would dominate tekken and i didnt want to see him win everything). but regardless, though i'm a newbie i thought the vf players there were good. just curious how any of the vf attendees felt about mdj's skill as far as vf. how would u think he'd fair had the better players from other areas in usa had shown to battle him?

btw, about the char change policy. is this really a big issue among vf players? i'm curious becuase i thought the "winner keeps same char" while "loser has option of changing" rule to be common among fighting game tourneys. in many tourneys i've attended or seen...capcom (mvc2, cvs2, streetfighter etc), tekken tourneys, and soul calibur tourneys..this rule has been used without complaint and as acceptable. obviously in 1 match single elim tourneys this cant be the case, but i see nothing wrong with such a rule and with such a number of matches played. being able to adapt or use a variety of chars well is a skill imo, just as much as using only 1 char to solve all problems. just curious on your points of view.

i'd hope that tourneys would eventually be held for vf with such a following like ec4 had (there were alot in attendance). among the fighting games, it seems that vf doesn't generate a following or gathering of such magnitudes--at least not here in america, but any effort like how ec has done should be commended since any tourneys held here is good promotion in my book. what's stopping vfdc from holding tourneys like this but for vf? or have they done so already?

regardless, good showing at ec4. btw, please reassure me that there are more than 12 people in usa/LA/socal region interested in vf..and that many of them were just not available for whatever reason. i hope the tekken atmosphere didn't turn people away--if so, why?. this vf4 tournament was taken seriously and most tourneys would be cancelled with such a low turnout imo...but it was held anyway and given a chance.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
what's stopping vfdc from holding tourneys like this but for vf? or have they done so already?


[/ QUOTE ]
Members of VFDC HAVE held tourneys before. Check out the most recent one at NYG3:
http://207.44.144.49/~admin1/media/nyg3movie.zip

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

i also attended EC4, and i have to agree with shockwave. i was very disappointed that only 12 players showed up for this tourny. 2 of the players didnt even play VF4, they entered for fun. i think it's kind of lame that people didnt show up because it was a tekken based tourny. everyone says how great a game VF4 is, and how everyone should start playing it, but a lot of people also play games because of the community. now i know people have a life and cant go to eveything, but this wasnt a very positive showing of the vf community. EC crew was also interested in bringing the top players from korea for vf but i dont think that will happen now. you can flame me as much as you want, but this is my opinion.

but much respect to the players that showed up, i really enjoyed watching the matches, VF is like tekken but with more throws and d+1's...lol

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

Actually, one could say that the most recent tournament held with VFDC members attending was this one:

Toronto tries to hold tournaments every so often. Mostly in the arcade. Although this latest Evo tournament was a last minute thing, all of our tournaments are announced online and quite often we'll have people come up from the states. That being said, there will be more Toronto Evo Tournaments, and people are more than welcome to come and play.

cheers,

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

You can't expect a tournament to have a big showing of competent VF players if it's part of a Tekken tourney as a "side" event. How hard is that for you to understand?

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
VF is like tekken but with more throws and d+1's...lol

[/ QUOTE ] Maybe you should read more about VF before you make generalizations like this.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

SHUT UP DRE, I said for long time that attitudes like yours kills VF. You DID less for VF than the organizers of EC4 tourney.

And LLanfair, what are you talking about. Are you saying spotlite and others are not VFDC members? The last tourney with VFDC members was EC4 tourney, period.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

VFDC keeps wiggin out...arg

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

Well, Hyun, technically yes...however, that's what this thread is about! I was responding to DRE who was talking about the "last" tourney and had mentioned NYG3 and I was just bringing up that there has been another since then. But anyway...

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

Response to Shockwave:

"...but regardless, though i'm a newbie i thought the vf players there were good. just curious how any of the vf attendees felt about mdj's skill as far as vf. how would u think he'd fair had the better players from other areas in usa had shown to battle him?"

MDJ had excellent technical ability with Akira and Lei-Fei. Very flashy and effective with both characters. I certainly was outdone by him. As Spotlite pointed out, he didn't use many throw-escapes - however, as Andy mentioned, he didn't leave himself much chance to be thrown in certain cases, either. I can't speak for playing abilities outside of Los Angeles other than what I've seen on the NYG3 clip. Blonde_one, IMF, Ghost_dog, and the rest look to have the skills to best me - but I can only guess about how they'd fare against mdj based on what I saw him do at EC4. Maybe SoCal's own Mike92123 could've taken him... hard to say.

"btw, about the char change policy. is this really a big issue among vf players?"

I don't think it was a huge deal - although I think Spotlite would've won the winner's bracket had there been no character changes - and I might've lost 3-0 instead of 3-1 against mdj had he not changed characters (in that case, the winner changed characters - but I really didn't care to protest).

"I'm curious becuase i thought the "winner keeps same char" while "loser has option of changing" rule to be common among fighting game tourneys. in many tourneys i've attended or seen...capcom (mvc2, cvs2, streetfighter etc), tekken tourneys, and soul calibur tourneys..this rule has been used without complaint and as acceptable."

All the VF tourneys I've attended required the use of only one character throughout the whole tournament (you give your name and choice of character when you sign up). In arcade VF, the winner doesn't have the option to change characters. Regardless, I lost fair and square. No complaints from me.

"...please reassure me that there are more than 12 people in usa/LA/socal region interested in vf..and that many of them were just not available for whatever reason."

Three regulars from my group (Brisal73, vf4akira, and Mike92123), and quasi-regular Sol_fizZ were unavailable for EC4. I wish I could list another 40 people, but I don't know that they exist (sad to say). My wife and I held get-togethers at our place 4 times in 2002 that were open invitation. Three setups were always available. Our biggest get-together totaled nine people (including ourselves) with three known players being absent (gribbly, Sol_fizZ, and Harlock). Our last get-together was our largest and I thought it was fantastic, people played from 7:30 pm till about 4 am. Based on my experience the past year, I can't say there are more than 12 or so active hardcore players in SoCal.

"I hope the tekken atmosphere didn't turn people away--if so, why?. this vf4 tournament was taken seriously and most tourneys would be cancelled with such a low turnout imo...but it was held anyway and given a chance."

I had some reservations (totally unfounded) about this being a Tekken event. All reservations vanished the moment I stepped in X-Topia - it was a beautiful place, the EC4 officials were very professional and pleasant. The crowd was excited. They put an end to any preconceived notions I had that Tekken players are any different than VF4 players. I think we're all fighting game players allowed to express personal choice in the games we wish to play - very cool, indeed. And the VF tourney was taken seriously - I agree. Thank you.


     
Response to MadKatJun:

"EC crew was also interested in bringing the top players from korea for vf but i dont think that will happen now. you can flame me as much as you want, but this is my opinion..."

Your opinion is totally valid. It meant a lot to me that the vf tournament was held and I'm honored to have had the chance to fight Mad Dog Jin. I don't expect EC crew to bring ShinZ or other heavies for a 12 person VF tournament (especially if they don't also play Tekken). It really is too bad. I will say that if VFDC ever holds a tournament like EC4, I hope we bring ShinZ, Mad Dog Jin, include Tekken tournaments, and invite everyone from EC and Zaibatsu to attend. You all did a cool thing by including VF4, thank you again.



Response to DRE:

"You can't expect a tournament to have a big showing of competent VF players if it's part of a Tekken tourney as a "side" event. How hard is that for you to understand?"

I don't think VF was billed as a "side" event although you may have perceived it that way. EC4 was sponsored by Electric Cancel and Zaibatsu (I think). Dou you really think it would be billed as a VF4 tourney that also features Tekken? Please don't speak for me or other competent VF players - I don't think you can really know why or why not EVERYONE ELSE didn't show. It's their business and I don't imagine they ran it by you first. Blonde_one, IMF, and Stompoutloud said they planned to show. Too bad they didn't. Besides, the only reason people do anything is because they want to (I don't like speaking in absolutes, but I believe this very strongly). You follow your blanket statement with an insult to a non VFer that actually cares about our scene. I don't think that's too cool. That's all I can say.


"------------------------------------------------------------------------
VF is like tekken but with more throws and d+1's...lol
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maybe you should read more about VF before you make generalizations like this. "

I think he was joking. You weren't there to show him any different.

I hope there will be VF4 or evo at EC5. I plan to show up. Maybe I'll go a step further and spearhead a plan for the "Time to Play in LA" tournament when EVO comes to a console.

Wouldn't that be cool.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

For the record, I was simply stating that I wasn't surprised at the low participation of VF players because it was a <font color="yellow"> TEKKEN </font color> event. Is that clear enough for you? Have I spelled it enough for your sensitive little mind to grasp? Use some common sense for a change. Obviously, ANY tournament is better than no tournament at all. For the time being, pull your head out of your ass and STFU. /versus/images/icons/tongue.gif



to Plague:
My response to "MadKatJun" should have been phrased differently, since it wasn't meant to be an insult. I was simply giving him what I thought was good advice.

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Please don't speak for me or other competent VF players - I don't think you can really know why or why not EVERYONE ELSE didn't show.

[/ QUOTE ] When did I ever claim to speak on behalf of other VF players? Either you're on some (exceptionally good) crack, or you're just not reading the same message board as me. I'd tell you to STFU, but only Hyun deserves that.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

dre - the comment about VF with the d+1 and throws was a joke...emphasize on the "lol" part.

the whole point of having VF4 at EC4 was because Tom thought there was a very big scene behind it, plus he wanted to give american players the chance to play foriegn competition. but the main thing was that , if VF showing was good, he was going to hold a big tourny and bring the top korean players here. the VF tourny was taken very serious, even though it was a tekken based tourny. if there was a VF tourny and you had tekken on the side, a lot of players would come, especially if there was a korean player coming.
i guess the whole point is that the EC crew brings the koreans over here with their money, they make their money back from donations and some from the tourny. they could have had MVC2 or some SF game and got a lot of people to show, but they gave VF the chance.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

My response was a bit hasty, and uncalled for. If you'd responded by calling me a jerk, I would have deserved it. I guess I was simply shocked at the small number of people involved in the VF tourney.

 

Re: EC4 results and comments

Exactly, that's why it pisses me off that I couldn't make it, and that no other VFers outside of SoCal tried to make it to EC4. This seems to prove that VF in NA doesn't deserve attention. I can't argue really.... Maybe if there had been more notice in advance, FL as well as others could have shown? If VF is featured again at EC5, FL will come. I'm sorry we weren't there for EC4.