Card Games and Evolution 2006

Years later, Capcom would deny me the use of the Street Fighter license for this game.

Evolution 2006 went even smoother than any of our past tournaments. There were of course lots of great matches, which maybe I'll get to talking about in a later post.  

For me, though, the highlight was finally playtesting in public the Street Fighter card game I've worked on for months. You can see from the pic that it was popular, and people even played money matches in it.  

The game uses a modified poker deck (so you can play poker with the same cards, too). Each deck represents one character, and there is no deckbuilding or card trading. This is a stand-alone card game not a tcg. It's not a tcg. It's not a tcg. That gets lost on a few people so I figure it's best to say it three times. The game is designed to test exactly two skills: 1) yomi (the ability to read the opponent's mind) and 2) appraisal/valuation (the ability to judge the relative value of pieces in the game). I figured nothing else was important so I threw out everything else to keep it simple.  

Oh and by the way, the game is based on paper, rock, scissors. After years of looking at how paper, rock, scissors worked and didn't work in various games (and writing articles about it...), this is me trying to demonstrate how to do it right. My tagline is "it's the best game of paper, rock, scissors that nature will allow."  

Now, what's very unfortunate is that there are already two other Street Fighter card games out there. One is by Score and distributed by exclusively by Blockbuster, and--surprise--it doesn't sell well (isn't Blockbuster obsolete by now?). The other SF card game is published by Sabertooth games as part of the Universal Fighting System. You can play Soul Calibur 3 cards, Street Fighter cards, and Penny Arcade cards together. That one manages to sell well, which is quite a hindrance to me. Check out this bad card from this bad game.

This card damages the Street Fighter brand.

IF YOU ARE SKIMMING, NOTE THAT THIS IS TOTALLY NOT MY CARD GAME, thanks.  

What really gets me is that Sabertooth has created a terrible, terrible game. It's clunky, bad at capturing the license, inelegant, and has lots of terrible art. I don't even know where to start with this "Yoga Short Kick" card. To be fair, it also has some great art by Udon, but much of it is copy and pasted from their comics. Anyway, this game is offensive to me as a game designer and Street Fighter player. It's kind of a toss up between the Sabertooth game and SF Hyper Fighting on 360 when it comes to what is damaging the Street Fighter brand name most these days. sigh.  

I will most likely move forward with a my own characters in an online version of my card game, and have the Street Fighter (and Virtua Fighter!) characters ready once (if) I can make the business deals with Capcom and Sega.

This is the greatest card ever (not) created.In other card game news, details of the World of Warcraft TCG are out. I've followed them closely and I can't even tell you how impressed I am. I tried for literally *years* to make a card game as complex as Magic: The Gathering, yet better and different (my SF card game is not part of that; it's way simpler). Anyway, what I did come up with on that front looks disturbingly similar to what the WoW TCG is...except they did it better than me. They were a little more clever here and there and really made it come together. Simple and good resource system, good combat system, and good hero system. I will say that this game is so far the ONLY trading card game that has the potential to be better than Magic: The Gathering, in my opinion. Note that I'm not even talking about the Warcraft license, just the game mechanics themselves. Oh, and it also happens to have great art and great card layout.  

I'm not surprised to find out that Brian Kibler is one of the leads on the project. I read his articles and tournament reports for years. Brian, I still remember when you beat Jon Finkel at Pro Tour 2000 with an Armadillo Cloaked Rith for the win. They called you "the dragonmaster" back then. My hat is off to you guys at Upper Deck right now, more than to any other game developer out there. Coming up with a trading card game on par with MTG is about the tallest order you could have, and I think you guys did it.

I wonder if I could release a card game through Upper Deck with similar rules but with a different license. Hmm...  

--Sirlin

Evolution East 2006 Report

The setup phase for Evolution East was tricky, but once the actual event started, it ran smoothly. We had plenty of space and a pretty good turnout of players for most games.

Dead or Alive 4 had 30 players this time (same as Tekken 5!), rather than 9, so there was actually somewhat of a real tournament. I entered, again with zero practice for months. I won some, lost some, and was eventually eliminated. I don't even really remember by who, as I wasn't serious about this tournament (and had already qualified from Evo West anyway).

At the last minute before the Guilty Gear XX Slash team tournament, Tom Cannon, the original founder of shoryuken.com asked if I'd join his team. Tom had never played even one game of the Slash version of GGXX and this was just a "for fun" thing. I rounded up Mopreme, another person who had never played Slash before, and we entered. I didn't really expect to get anywhere and I had already qualified for GGXX at Evolution West anyway. Little did I realize that the Evo East competition in GGXX wasn't anywhere near the level as the Evo West competition (sorry guys, not trying to trash talk, just telling it how it is). I beat entire teams by myself, sometimes losing only 10% life per round. Note that I went back to Chipp for this tournament, who I still claim is not at all good, but the Curse of Chipp dooms me to forever be a little better at playing Chipp than anyone else.

Anyway, we eventually played "team Yaa." Their first player plays Sol, and I'm sorry to say that he is one of the worst Guilty Gear players I've seen play the game, lol. Next they had a Testament player who I beat pretty easily. Finally, they had an Anji player who totally rocked me. He really had amazing mixups and good combos. He didn't even really need tricky mind-games because his mixups were so powerful, that eventually I'd guess wrong and die.

I thought I actually had a shot at beating everyone else there except for the Anji player and Marneto, but Marneto must have scrubbed out and lost, I don't even know to who. My team then somehow had to fight team Yaa, AGAIN. I beat their first two players easily again and was double eliminated by the Anji player. What a terrible way to be kept out of the top 4 teams for Sunday. During the Sunday matches (on stage, everyone watching just one game at a time), team Yaa inflicted the Sol player on the audience again and again. It was very hard to do commentary during this. I wanted to say "uh...so...nothing good is happing at all...not sure why this is a finals match...hmm....," but I mostly said nothing at all during those matches. The Anji player went on to get 2nd overall.

I somehow managed not to qualify in SF2 AE again. It looks like I had the hardest bracket again with Chris Li, NKI, Jeron, Julian, and other known players. While at Evo West, I fought against only Ryu and Dhalsim. At Evo East, I fought against only Champion Bison and ST Chun Li. I was ready to specifically beat Champion Bison, and I was looking forward to showing that "he's not all that."

I faced Jeron's Champion Bison and beat him 2-1, where I used Honda and ST Bison. I then faced him again and lost 2-1 with the same character matchups. If my honda made him block a good jump-in, I could usually ride that to 100% damage because Champion Bison can't get out. But when he knocked me down, he was able to do the broken cross-up psycho crusher on me over and over, and I just couldn't block it. One round, I took 100% damage to repeated psycho crushers that seemed unblockable. My total record against him was 3-3.

My other loss was to NKI, who went on to get 3rd in the overal tournament. NKI's Chun Li is legit and good. I did get a perfect on him with honda and won the first game, but I lost the next, switched to ST bison and lost. Ouch.

Some of the Champion Bison players didn't even know how to get out of another Champion Bison's lockdown. They sadly demonstrated that knowledge of the nuances of the game is not really necessary if you have the unfair psycho crusher and a scissor kick that combos into a dizzy and a redizzy. I'll finally admit that Champion Bison makes the game much worse than it would be without him.

My current opinion is that Champion Bison, CE Guile, and HF Ryu are the best 3 characters in the game.

Next year we'll surely have real Super SF2 Turbo rather than AE, as ST will be part of Capcom Classics Collection 2, produced by me.

--Sirlin

Evolution West 2006 Report

Evolution West was overall a great tournament. We had a huge ballroom that might have made us "the first fighting game tournament ever with too much space." Also, our new format of doing one game at a time worked exactly as planned. If was much easier to get the players in the right place at the right time with this method. Also, it was great that we had so many casual play stations in the same room as the tournament. This allowed players to practice for for their matches ahead of time.

As for my personal performance, I wish I had done better. I got top 8 in DOA4 (qualified), but hardly anyone even entered. I hope about 100 DOA players magically show up at our Las Vegas finals, because the total lack of support from the DOA community we've seen so far means we won't be able to feature the game next year. Too bad, as I think it's a pretty fun game.

In Guilty Gear, my team got 3 place, qualifying for a spot in the final brackets at Las Vegas, but this was mainly due to my teammate Ruin's performance. (XenoTiger also did well). I wanted to play first in our rotation, but Ruin was certain that he should play first, so he did. His plan was to single-handedly beat the entire field, and he practically did. His Eddie ripped through victim after victim, including top players like Ken I (Potemkin), Justus (Zappa), and Deuce (Faust). I played Potemkin and didn't accomplish much, unfortunately, except 28 wins in casual play, lol.

Going into this tournament, I thought Eddie was top tier, despite what everyone else says. I'm more sure than ever now. The ability to lock down an enemy while controlling two characters at once (Edddie) is just too good, even with all the nerfs in GGXX Slash.

Also note that before the tournament I ranked Slayer as top tier. Paul Kugler (slayer) was on the 2nd place team in the official Evolution West tournament and he also *won* the unofficial singles tournament. Slayer just flat-out does too much damage. Aba was my other pick for top tier, and Combofiend's Aba got 2nd in the singles tournament. I know that this isn't enough data to conclude tiers, but my predictions are sure looking good so far.

I said Ky was 2nd tier (despite everyone in the world saying he's top tier) in Slash, and after seeing Heidern's Ky (wow!), I finally get it. I'll finally put Ky in the tier 1 list. Sol still seems tier 2, but Said (aka ID) puts him at the bottom of tier 1. Semantics, really.

SF2 AE was pretty disappointing for me. I'm not happy with getting 9th, as I really wanted at least top 8. I ended up losing to the 2nd and 3rd place finishers: Alex Wolfe and Alex Valle. Even though I planned to play mostly ST Honda and ST Bison, I ended up playing HF Ryu almost the entire tourament as a counter to other people's Ryu's. It worked in the early rounds, and then I faced Alex Wolfe's Dhalsim (the only non-Ryu I'd face all day). I picked HF Ryu and Alex kind of laughed. I started the round with 8(!) consecutive helicopter kicks, demonstrating that the move is too good. I gave Alex Wolfe the opportunity to throw away the game here, but he cleverly did nothing and ducked almost all of them. Anyway, I beat him decisively in the first game. He stuck with Dhalsim and he won game 2. I really should have stuck with Ryu, but I switched to ST Honda and lost. Most of the game, I couldn't get in, and I finally got one ochio throw in the corner (should lead to 100% damage), but I did stand jab too slow as he got up (Dhalsim gets up slightly faster).

Against Valle's ST Ryu, I played HF Ryu and won the first game. He then switched to CE Ryu and won the next two. I think HF Ryu is clearly superior to HF Ryu, but whatever. Valle used Valle skills and won.

Here is what I wanted to say before the tournament about character rankings:

* HF Ryu's helicopter kick is one of the best, if not the best, moves in the game.
* CE Guile might be the best character in the game. WW Guile is almost as good, but he only has one sonic boom speed and can't do reversal attacks.
* HF Zangief is "secretly" good, but nearly no one has the skill to play him. Ironically, Alex Wolfe does, but he plays Dhalsim as his main so no one even realizes the Zangief threat.
* Chamption Bison is the most overrated character in the game. He isn't even as good as ST Bison. CE Bison has faster scissor kick startup and can combo after the scissor kick, leading to a dizzy and redizzy. He also has weird properties on his torpedo that make hit randomly hit as a crossup. But ST Bison has a super (CE has no reversal attacks AT ALL). ST Bison has better crossup attacks that lead to an easy dizzy combo. ST Bison's stand short allows him to tick into throw (usually untechable, too, unless the enemy is an ST character). ST Bison had a high priority jump strong. CE Bison is a one trick pony who can't get out of traps and has no reversal. There's no need for an "I win more" button, when what you really need is a little more defense.

*ST Vega would be good, but his input recognition on the off-the-wall attacks are broken. Same goes for HF Blanka.

*ST Honda is pretty good, but he still can't beat Guile or Ryu, really.

*HF Sagat is pretty good, and straight up better than CE Sagat.

After the tournament, I still believe pretty much all of that except the CE Bison part. Even though CE Bisons lost more than they won at Evo West, I finally saw the power of "scissor kick lands = you die." It is admittedly scary. Also, a perfectly executed CE Bison trap (scissors, low strong, stand forward, repeat) is *very* hard for an enemy bison or dhalsim to get out of. Watson demonstrated this on stage in a tournament match against Dhalsim.

It's interesting that the top 2 finishers in SF2 AE (Graham Wolfe and Alex Wolfe) both played ST characters (ST Balrog and ST Dhalsim).

Anyway, thanks to everyone who came out for the event. I hope to see even more people at Evo East, and I look forward to facing the competition there.

--Sirlin

Evolution Fighting Game Championships 2004

I am back from Evolution 2004. www.evo2k.com. It was huge and awesome and there's so much that went on that I can't begin to convey it all here. Many of the best players in the world were there, competing in 9 different fighting games. I am one of the organizers of the event, and I ran a sizeable portion of the Super Turbo Street Fighter 2 tournament.

Anyway, here's how I did. On Day (qualifying pools day), I did not lose a single ROUND in either game I entered (ST and GGXX). This included a win against two-time US national champion Jason Cole, in 4 straight rounds. (Um...why were he and I in the same qualifying pool? I think we really need to seed by ranking, not just by region next year.) Oh, I played only Vega the whole time in ST. Cole played Chun Li against me first, then switched to Dhalsim. I played only Chipp the whole time in GGXX.

On Day 2, I won some matches in Guilty Gear, but lost (barely) to an Axl player who made top 8. I felt like that was mine to win, but oh well. I later lost to an Eddie player who trains with the great Kensao (Chipp player), which means he had plenty of practice against Chipp. I feel I must be honest here when I say that this Eddie player completely destroyed me. It was not close at all. I finished 17th.

In ST, I had been waiting all year for my rematch with Daigo. After retiring Dhalsim, setting Bison aside and focusing on Vega, I felt I was ready. I have beat both Choi and Valle in tournaments with Vega, so I was mentally prepared to face Daigo. The brackets even worked out right for me, as Daigo was on my path. I faced Alex Valle and the winner would not only qualify for top 8 (day 3) but also play Daigo on stage the next match. I wanted to win that one so bad, but Valle proved too tricky and took the match. In loser's bracket I somehow managed to lose to Jessie Howard (Jessie, you are good, but I'm coming for you next time ;) ). So two Old Ken players knocked me out of the tournament, I finished 9th. In case you think Old Ken counters me, I invite the rest of you to play Old Ken against me in a tournament and see how you do. ;)

My claim to fame was the GGXX #reloaded tournament. I have played #reloaded like 2 times ever (one of those times was when I qualified for Team USA lol). I know the differences Chipp has in #r, but since I did not play #r on purpose (since Evolution's main Guilty Gear tournament was Non-#r this year) people did not expect much of me. I teamed up with Destin and famed Japanese Sol player Miu. We faced "Dream Team USA" of ID, Ruin, and Chaotic Blue. Those are probably the #1, 2, and 3 players in the US. I personally beat ID (top Sol) and Ruin (top Edddie) consecutively, to the amazement of the crowd. Chipp power! My friend Miu was able to clean up Chaotic Blue for me. We took 3rd place.

Oh, and I shouldn't leave out Kuni. He is the Japanese liason, since he speaks very good English. He plays ST Zangief(!) and there is nothing like him in the US anywhere. He wins the unwinnable matches and managed not only to qualify for top 8, but to take 3rd place in ST! He beat down Hondas, Balrogs, Sagats and Dhalsim's like they were nothing...all considred nearly impossible matches. I hung out with Kuni quite a bit, and with the Japanese Guilty Gear players Miu (4th place, Sol) and Kindevu (2nd place, Eddie). They're all very friendly and gave me a glimpse of much higher level play than I had ever seen before in person. I will almost certainly be retiring from Chipp and taking up a new character. For sake of surprise, I'll keep that character secret for now!

--Sirlin