Just returned from a trip to Tokyo to participate in Cooperation Cup. Here’s some thoughts I’ve had floating around since I got back.
America had a team almost get to top 8 in Coop, and won a Japan vs America East vs West. In addition, I watched several Americans put together solid streaks in casuals vs various Tokyo competition often. My takeaway from this is that the top handful of American players can hold their own against the majority of Japanese players. The big boys of course continue to be a problem, and that’s the next mountain to climb. I look forward to everyone improving over the next year and performing even better next time around. Can we possibly see an American Dream Team for 2018?
My experience arcade hopping suggested that these days, 3s is far more active than any other part of the series in Tokyo arcades. I saw ST cabs seldom, never really saw CVS2/A2/A3 cabs, and the SF4 cabs generally sat empty. Meanwhile I could usually go to a lot of different arcades (just random arcades, not the 3s hotspots) and find 7-15 players playing on 1-2 cabs on any given night. I’m sure this is not the whole picture, and there are likely ST-specific spots and nights where they gather - just saying that based on my experience, I could easily find 3s games anywhere I went and not as much with other games.
NESICA 3s is like playing underwater and it takes about 15 seconds to realize why no one in Tokyo touches it or considers it a viable CPS3 replacement.
I found the hate from random guys from the FGC super weird and annoying. I read various twitters, articles, etc where people talked about “this is the time of the year where everyone gathers to pretend they like 3s” or “they just keep playing their dead game” or to remind people that American OGs didn’t like the game that much. When you watch a bunch of players gather to play their favorite game and take it to new heights each year, and decide that the best use of your time is to shit on it, you’ve really missed the boat IMO. Either enjoy it or don’t watch right? No one cares that you or some old guy from 1999 don’t like 3s lol.
Great love to all the English commentators. I really hope to see the English stream continue into the future. The core of the commentary team this year was great and I look forward to even better things next year.
Thanks to everyone who keeps playing this game, shows up to tourneys in America and Europe, flies to Tokyo, streams the game, and creates content for the game. The game continues to thrive because of passionate people who go the extra mile for it. See everyone at Coop Cup 2018.
Hey man, it’s great to see how strong you’ve gotten ever since that first time we faced off at EVO! I’m definitely proud of your progress, and thank you for the kind words!
I can echo these sentiments; Cooperation Cup was so dope, and I plan on coming back for next year!
Nice write up but personally I don’t really like your suggestion of ‘an American dream team’. Just my personal opinion as an outsider though.
Mainly because ‘dream team’ means splitting players from their friends. For example, the New York crew, I think it’s great that they have their local scene, play together, bond together and grow stronger together. They should keep doing that and enter the tournament as friends/comrades.
For 365 days who do they play and talk about 3s with? Each other. That’s a kind of friendship and that is more important than trying to reach far in the tournament. I remember back when SBO was still on and there’s one spot for an Australian team. The Melbourne scene and Sydney scene played against each other to decide who enters. A combined ‘dream team’ from the 2 cities would have been stronger, but it was more important to go together as friends as with your crew.
And secondly, I’m sure trying to determine on some kind of dream team would start so much debate and disagreement and make people feel so left out/disappointed. Btw Tebbo I don’t think Cruise belongs in that list… maybe put venom7 or nhk there instead.
I’m here for the dream team. I’ll be holding a tournament to decide the 3 best Americans in the galaxy who will join Manny and myself. I think the japanese will probably quit the game after we show up.
Definitely can’t agree with 7-15 players on a random night as a random arcade. A few maybe, but not that many. Unless you’re talking about over the course of the entire night, and some of them only played one game and left. Maybe every arcade you went to just happened to be a hot spot, haha. Definitely still alive though.
It’s cool that people are going to Japan though. Rad place, def recommend.
Oh yeah don’t get me wrong Denjizz actually plays, Cruise I know has turned out to play, so has Dyne I think right?
Just a joke. We’re all old people now, drama is for kids. I’m basically jizz’s #1 fan.
Also, there are a number of people who are still out there who were/are competitive in Japan.
There’s no surprise the strong players from the states can compete in Japan.
The best of the best are Japanese but under those couple guys there are plenty of US players who can and have competed with success.
I could tell you about it but we’d really need to go to Olive Garden.
Dicks Out! was like a foreign combo team then? Face = FaceNC the chun i assume? I don’t know the others, Dusty maybe Knuckleduster? I think a Makoto player from the same area as Face? Someone help.
theres definitely some places I wouldnt consider hotspots that still get consistent traffic. naturally its going to be a bit more active during coop season but you dont need to travel to newton or versus or mikado to get a good 3rd fix