This doesn’t just pertain to SF4 persay, but more to fighting games in general.
While 1v1 is always incredible to watch, I think with the numbers and the international presence that these games now have we should perhaps turn to team tournaments.
SBO has always been a prestigious tournament, and while some that has gone away it still means something to have won or to have even qualified.
My point is this:
Out of all the killers in the community regardless of nationality, match ups make up too much of an outcome. If you OCVed in a team tournament, that shows for a fact you know your shit and deserve to have won.
In a simple 2/3 set, a lot of it might depend on match up experience. If you played Zangief and lost to a Dhalsim, that’s just a horrendous match up.
Team tournaments might make some people groan due to their length, but I think that should be the way some tournaments should be heading. One person might also just outplay another, but what does that mean? Daigo outplayed Gamerbee to make it into top 8 and then proceeded to lose both to Infiltration and then Xiaohai. Gamerbee was still in grand finals.
Think about how Mago and Fuudo lost to Dieminion. He played so well, but Guile is a known bad match up for Fei Long.
Infiltration also ran a train through the entire tournament, but he didn’t have to run through anyone in the losers bracket, who knows what could have happened if he played anyone in there?
Point being: I put the title “world champ” with a grain a salt on whoever wins Evo in Street Fighter. It’s just hard to pin point the best as it all comes down to match up knowledge and individual decisions. Much like how Daigo got owned by Poongko last year, but then bodied him in a FT10.
Daigo outplayed Gamerbee. Infiltration and Xiao Hai then outplayed Daigo, eliminating him. Gamebee outplayed his opponents and went on to Grand Finals. Guess how:
Strange how that works, huh?
Changing the standard format to Teams would not change that.
This is true of any team based competition as well. Certain teams are built to beat to others and provide difficult matchups, that’s the point. Bottom line is the best players or teams find a way to win regardless of if a matchup is in their favor, the point of who is a bad matchup for whom is irrelevant.
What ifs mean nothing.He beat who was placed in from of him. Thats all that matters. What if the Miami Heat played the Bulls in this years playoffs? What if the Penguins made it to the Stanley Cup finals instead of New Jersey? What if Jordan never retired in 1994. Who cares? That’s not what happened.
No different than if a team does it. Who won this years tournament? Daigo may have beat Poongko in an FT10, but lost to him when the stakes were highest last year. Oklahoma lost the Season series to the Spurs, but beat them in the NBA playoffs. It doesn’t matter. The better player makes the right decision and executes a gameplan.
No one in any competition “deserves to have won”. The person who deserves to win, is the person that does win,
Teams favors sponsored players. The rest would be forced to play with people who are not at their level. EG team, MZC team… Which random team can beat them? Just look at KoF, what if CafeID played as a team? They would stomp everyone.
Correct, but not only was AE top 8 entirely boring as hell because everyone was getting 0-2ed, but there were so many top players that didn’t even make top 32.
Players I would have liked to see play, due to the fact that they’re great players but did not happen due to the fact that there are more top players who participate every year.
All I’m saying is I feel we’d get a bit more consistent results and better finals if it was 2v2 or 3v3.
Zangief getting outplayed by Dhalsim is hardly getting outplayed as it is a shitty match up. Or remember how last year FChamp lost to Julio’s Yun because that match up was close to laughable.
Not necessarily talking KOF as I have almost no knowledge of of that game.
As for sponsored players, that’s what I want to see. There might be a few random upsets like Eric Hai beating up Tokido, but those players are considered “top” for a reason. The more good street fighter played the better, the more faces we see higher in the brackets, I also think would be better.
No-Name-Joe’s team probably wouldn’t make it to top 32, but would any of them have made top 32 in a singles tournament?
Well, then I say let’s make teams of 10 people so we can get everyone in the finals. And just because SF4 wasn’t exciting for YOU, doesn’t mean it was boring.
Just look what happened with SFxT - was it better because of the teams ? A lot of people dropped it just because of the team system.
That is an entirely different game and mechanic. Two people playing at once vs two-three people playing separately.
As for getting everyone in finals, I’m not knocking the top 32. They qualified and those who lost are going to have to wait until next year. Infiltration bodied everyone he played in top 8.
It was boring.
One vs one two/three games works better with smaller numbers. When there’s anyone in just the top 32 who could have taken first, I don’t want to just them lose just because of a shitty match up.
You act like it’s impossible to ever adapt/learn/win a shitty matchup and that the whole tournament format needs to be changed to accomodate this.
If you have an issue with Poongko/Dieminion being unable to adapt to/learn a matchup… here’s an idea. How about we have Poongko/Dieminion improve their ability to adapt/learn their bad matches and win next time. lol.
Also how does a team tournament solve anything? You can have Joe Nobody on a team with Infiltration, and Infiltration plays the entire tournament and OCVs everyone. lol. Joe Nobody ties with Infiltration for first place without even having won a game.
Are you stating that a team format would be better because top players got eliminated and didn’t make top 32? I’m having a hard time understanding your reasoning. If a player has an off day or simply loses to another players better tech or experience, then they deserve to lose. What is sounds like is that your saying just because someone is considered a top player and you want to see them play in the finals that they deserve to be there.
If Justin Wong is on a team with Infiltration and Combofiend. Both combo and justin lose their matches but Infil OCVs the other team to go to the next round…How does that prove that they deserve to be there any more then if they each had individual matches? Because Infil carried them in?
I’m partial to watching good games and seeing the players I want to perform.
Gamerbee stated that Adon-Guile is a 7-3 match up and he definitely made it look that way.
Plus the way Poongko was performing, I’m not surprised he lost.
My opinion is that with the sheer number of players that are exceptional at this game, that I would like to see more players play each other. With teams, that’s more of a possibility, plus with a chance for better results.
Combofiend and Justin Wong are both exceptional players regardless of who carries who. I’m aware that’s the one glaring flaw of team tournaments.
Seeing everyone go out 0-2 and having Infiltration roll a train over the competition was unsatisfying to me. The results could have been varied in a multitude of ways had one game gone different earlier in the tournament.
You can play a bad match up as well as you want, a bad match up is a bad match up.
Plus Daigo vs Xian shows you about counter picking haha.
I admit I’d be interested in a round robin, but that would only show who’s better in that small group of players. There were a lot of matches I wanted to see outside of that group.
And why not? I was dissatisfied with the AE tournament. I managed to get actually enjoy SC5 and KOF a great deal more than AE despite not playing either of those games.
