The Midwest Network 2007-2008 season: AKA, STEP YOUR GAME UP!

Regional Matchmaking Midwest
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Attention Mods: If you can, please sticky this thread, thank you

I’ve wanted to do this for some time now, but whenever I would try to attempt to
do this, either my delivery wasn’t right, or I felt that this wouldn’t succeed. I picked this day, because it’s a new season, a season where we start off fresh, and can prepare for the future events. The reason why I wanted to do this, is because the Midwest, we are almost always overlooked. It is understandable, the West Coast and the East Coast are huge power houses, but it doesn’t make sense that we could be up there (maybe even on top) as well, but we are usually “looking from the ground-up.” The Southwest has greatly improved, and I expect the Atlantic South area to increase their level of skill to rival the Pacific, and the Atlantic North; we should be doing the same thing.

Now I know one of the problems with the Midwest is that we are considerably further apart compared to the other coasts (you can get from New York, NY to Philadelphia, PA in about an hour, while it takes 7-8 hours to get from the Twin Cities, MN to Chicago, Ill.) There is not much we can do to be able to close the distance gap between us, but what we could do is encourage travel to other places (possibly helping your fellow gamer by lodging them at your place, if you have enough room,) give them some type of certificate discount to lessen the strain of travel (gas money, food, etc…,) add some type of incentive (to test your skills to see how you stack up against others.) Something else that is important is to give others advice, especially for people that might not be as good and already know that they might not make it far in a tournament. I can’t name names right now, but I’ve read stories about people that were once scrubs and were given advice by some top players, and now they are consistently placing high at tournaments, or even winning it.

Although this topic isn’t a strategy thread, it doesn’t hurt to help give tips in games someone needs help with (whether giving them a link to a past thread with said strategy information, or just telling them.) One word of advice that I would like to post that elite players themselves have admitted is “Trial and Error.” Match videos are great, but they are kind of a short-cut; you might see someone do something spectacular or damaging, and you might figure out how to do this… what you won’t know is how they set up that specific tactic. Your flaws will start to be seen, and you’ll just be a one trick pony. It’s always good to test out various scenarios, even if it might not seem realistic… the most prepared for the most unexpected is the one that stands the highest chance of winning the battle.

With this said/posted, there is something that I think should have been done a while ago, and it’s a shame that it hasn’t been done… a solid power ranking system. Now, before you post about APEX, what I am thinking of will be nothing like that system. The system that I plan on using is a system that is based around the skill of the player. The problem with APEX, was that the system was more dependent on who traveled more (had more money, or more free time, etc…,) so you had someone who was probably an average or above-average player ranked in the top 3, and yet one of the best players in the nation is no where in the top 10-25. The way I plan on doing this is by tallying individual state tournaments throughout the Midwest (this helps benefit people who don’t have the resources to travel, or can’t.) Now, to be ranked in the Midwest power ranking, it is required that you would travel to the tournaments. I’m still trying to sort this out, so that there are very few holes for this ranking system, but every ranking system is flawed in a way, but we can minimize it so that there are no posts that say “This is BS.”

What I’m trying to say is that this will be sort of similar to a boxing ranking (without the corruption;) in boxing, you can fight and win as much as you want, that still doesn’t mean you’ll be top 10, you can also go to just one tournament (most likely a major, if you want to be ranked high,) and you can be ranked number one. We will have our “Champions of the Midwest” at what ever game they played.

I have a list of games that are already being played, games that I would like to see played more, and games that while they are good, probably don’t have much of a chance to be played in tournaments, outside of casuals (due to how old the game is, or just unpopularity of it):

Games that are being played right now in most tournaments:

-Capcom Vs. SNK 2
-Guilty Gear XX Accent Core
-Marvel Vs. Capcom 2
-Melty Blood: Act Cadenza
-Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike
-Super Smash Bros. Melee (Or Brawl, when that comes out)
-Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
-Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection (Or Tekken 6, when that comes out)

Games I would like to see played more:

-Arcana Heart Full (PS2 release in October)
-Battle Fantasia (ARC only, though)
-Garou: Mark of the Wolves
-King of Fighters: MIRA
-NeoGeo Battle Coliseum
-PC Doujin fighters (Akatsuki BLITZKAMPF, Eternal Fighter Zero, Monster, IaMP)
-Samurai Shodown 6
-Senko no Ronde SP
-Soul Calibur 3: Arcade Edition (or part 4, if that one is any good)
-Street Fighter Alpha 3 (there isn’t any reason why we aren’t playing this)
-Tekken Tag Tournament
-The King of Fighters XI
-Vampire Savior
-Virtua Fighter 5

Games that are good, but have little chance of being played much:

-Fatal Fury Special
-Psychic Force 2012
-Real Bout Fatal Fury 2
-Samurai Shodown 2
-Samurai Shodown 5 Special
-Street Fighter 2 Turbo: Hyper Fighting
-Super Dragon Ball Z
-Street Fighter EX2+/EX3?
-Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters (SNES version)
-The King of Fighters 98
-The King of Fighters 2002
-Tobal 2
-Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
-WeaponLord (SNES)

You might have noticed that some of the games that are in the “would like to see more of category” are newer games, this is because we need to be able to play these newer games (that are good,) instead of letting them die off. That doesn’t mean you should stop playing older games, my favorite fighting game is considered ancient by many (HF, ST,) but it gives us a head start against the other coasts, and makes it so that we are the region to beat at whatever game.

There will be a list of local and major tournaments happening at specific dates and locations; here is the early workings of it:

Local Tournaments:

Regional Tournaments:

Major Tournaments:

-East Coast Championships 12.5: October 2007: Dunnelen, NJ
-North East Championships: December 1-2, 2007; Philadelphia, PA
-Midwest Challenge: February 2008; Chicago, Ill
-Norcal Regionals: ?
-Final Round 11: March or April 2008; Atlanta, GA
-Evo South: ?
-Texas Showdown: March or April 2008; Houston, TX
-Evo East/ECC: Memorial Day Weekend 2008; Stamford, CT
-Evo North/MWC: June 2008; Northbrook, Ill
-Toronto Championships: July 2008; Toronto, ON, CAN
-Juarez Tournament: July 2008; Juarez, MX
-Evo West: ?
-Evo World: August 2008; Las Vegas, NV

Something else I would like to see more of are rivalries happening within the Midwest, this creates stronger players and a stronger bond within your respective area. Who would fare better between Chicago and Detroit, how about another MN vs. WI battle, what about North Dakota and South Dakota? We need to make more of these happen.

Here are all the states in the Midwest, let’s get to know one another:

Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
North Dakota
Ohio
South Dakota
Wisconsin

Also, if anyone has suggestions for getting newer players, please post them, so I can put them into this post… all relevant suggestions are welcome! remember, there is nothing to lose with this system, and a lot to gain.

*Note: I’m going to take up the first 4 posts, because I might need to input future information there, just in case the first post can’t hold so much information.

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The power rankings and stuff would be to hard i think to organize.

How about we just have a “people who are good at said game list” and let people nominate people.

Its going to be difficult finding new players/attracting more people because A.) we pretty much already know everyone who plays and B.) Most of the players have already been playing for so long so there is a large skill gap.

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Yeah, honestly, simply put, i can’t travel much, so if theres a buncha south dakota tournies, then all the south dakota guys are gonna get high rankings. I can only take trips for big tournies out of state maybe once a month at best, and this was during the summer, prolly less when school starts. I think it also creates resentment. The solution really is to just have more people willing to use their house as a tourney and more people willing to go to tournies, regardless of skill level.

And arcana is gonna be big when it comes out. Bigger than Melty, no doubt.

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That’s the thing about it, that has been done for a long time… that’s the reason why I would like to have this… instead of saying that this person and that person is a top player, we should do it as "this person is the best, then this person is the second best, then this person is the 3rd best, etc. How silly would it be if in sports, we had people saying “this team has a good record, that team has a good record,” instead of “this team has the best record, that team has the second best record, etc.”

That’s not what I’m trying to say, though… it isn’t necessary to attend all the tournaments, and it’s very hard to attend out of state tournaments in the Midwest as it is; what I am trying to say is to encourage more in-state tournaments (which would be easier on people who might not have the time to travel out of state, which would also encourage rankings of who the best in-state players are; also, we would encourage rivalries, which forces players to step their game up to the next level(s). Also, this would encourage more travel to the major Midwest tournaments, like Midwest Challenge or Midwest Championships. Again, it’s not required that you travel to every tournament, but it is at least suggested that you go to one of the major Midwest tournaments. I’ll explain the rankings a little better in a little while.

And good job putting much effort into hyping up Arcana Heart FULL.

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I just think a power ranking thing like this wont work very well.

6

Why are there never any tournaments for anything in Michigan other than SSBM? I like SSBM and all, but I won’t be able to compete at EVO next year unless I can really practice.

7

I would like to see KI 1 on one of those lists

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1st & foremost, I think this is actually a pretty cool concept here Tarkan. This lets ppl know what is being played, & who are the best in those respective games. Good job on getting something up like this bro. :tup:

2ndly, I do agree w/ Humbug about this being difficult 2 organize. If I’m understanding how you wanna do things correctly here, ur gonna have ppl put up names or lists of names of ppl who they think are the best in a certain game. It sounds great, but in theory, how’s all of this gonna be accomplished, especially if someone’s biased about saying that they are the best, or that the area they are from is the best. You’ll probly get a whole lot of that, & that doesn’t really accomplish anything besides create rivalries.

Now I know that creating rivalries between areas, states, or regions are one of ur goals 4 this, but that kinda sorta already happens anyways w/ the presence of tournies & why ppl go 2 them. They wanna see if they are the best & how well ppl do from their respective area.

This is a wonderful idea & that’s awesome that ur doing this Tarkan, but it is going 2 be tough putting all of this together w/out having any flaws w/in the system 4 this.

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Creating lists of “X player is better than Y player” is never a good idea. Most of the people “voting” would be ill-qualified and just doing it based on a couple matches or heresay. I think a list of who plays what games at tourney level is pretty sufficient per state, which is a cool idea.

But I mean everyone knows already Chicago “beats” everyone besides very close to NE in skill and number. If we did a round-robin for all MW players every month, lol, this list could actually be accurate of “who’s best.” If you HAVE to do sort by “skill” just put what tourney placings people have under their belts.

Seriously, the MW scene is small enough that we don’t have the skill or amount of players to be playing like 50 different games – the FG scene in general is shrinking, what we need is more people getting better at the MAIN games.

Fugee and I have been working to make Season’s Beatings a new Midwest major. I hope everyone checks us out who wants to see big names (CA, NY, and MW) in the Midwest outside of Nickels. I def agree that region could use more unity to up our skill.

Advice for n00bs: TRAVEL TRAVEL TRAVEL. You’ll learn more driving two hours to fight a proficient player than scrubbing around for months and trying to learn from vids. Plus you’ll make a lot of new friends and get plugged into the scene.

Fighting games are incredibly rewarding, much more so than any kind of videogame (I think) but they do require patience and time. Thankfully not THAT much $$ since fighters are almost all console now :slight_smile:

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Looks like you’re 30 minutes away from Detroit, 3 hours away from Columbus and Cincinnati, OH, 4 hours away from Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto, and 4.5 hours away from Indianapolis, and Pittsburgh.

That’s what I don’t want to do. It’s got to the point where we know who our top players are, but we don’t know what order they should be ranked as. It creates credibility, it creates competition; that’s what this site is about.

A rivalry, I believe, is when two (or more) people/groups are on an almost equal standoff, where people want to see, or know about who won or is winning. Tournaments do bring rivalries, but the rivalries I’m thinking about are not just individual players (which is great, by the way,) but cities, states, and regions. I’m sure that people try to increase their skill after they have been to a tournament, but the power of a city/state can do much more. Look at 3s, that game was nearly dead in the United States, until the Japanese destroyed us; now, our best players can compete with their best players, or at least give them a run for their money.

That’s why this topic was made, it takes a group effort to get something big done.

Like I said before, we already know who the top players are; we don’t have anything to lose creating a power ranking, and if this ranking doesn’t work, then we can just scrap it. BUT, this isn’t APEX, this won’t (hopefully) be biased, and this might be the best thing that has ever happened to the Midwest. It will be a group-based effort where not just anyone can say who they feel should be in a certain ranking… everyone can have input, but it has to be credible.

If Chicago beats everyone, then let’s change that. The only way of changing this is to get better. You might say that some people don’t have much competition, but how is it that Popoblo is probably the best CvS2 player in the Midwest, yet he barely has competition, or NKI is top 3 in the Midwest in ST, but he barely has anyone to practice against? Round-Robin is the best way of knowing who the best players are, but it is obviously too time consuming, unless you have many sets of TVs and consoles, and the number of people in the round-robin is less than 20.

Tournament placings are sometimes inconsistent; what I want to do is take all the tournament placings (state and regional,) and then organize it, so that the results look very consistent.

I agree, that we should prioritize the major games before playing the lesser played games, but we should at least play the newer games, before they die out. Some of the newer fighting games that have came out are definitely tournament-worthy, and it will be a shame if people neglect them for other reasons.

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Chi beating everyone I don’t agree to that. In the Midwest I don’t see a dominate force anymore. The crown is up for grabs how I see it. I will say if anyone was close to it, it would be Chi but as far as them having that title I don’t think so. I agree about having rival states, because look at college football, basketball, and professional sports they all have rival teams that counter one another. I think some kind of round robin based tourney is needed to compare the Midwest states best players and from that decide in what game which state is top in. From there if your looking to make your state much more a force in that respected game then if you can travel to a tourney do so just to gain that skill. I also think we should take a lesson from what Texas was doing. They established a method of point rankings between Houston, Dallas, and Austin in all the respected played games. It is a great way to measure your sister states an keep skills balanced that’s how Texas did it. TaKan is right distance is an issue, but I think if every Midwest state has a tourney and ppl attend ( if possible to), and by coming up with a system of ranking that works the mid can’t help but grow again and be dominate. Props to Takan for making this thread. Sticky it!

P.S. Also I think that the midwest should have a website so states can keep up with what’s going on in the midwest scene. Post up our own footage just from the MW on the site just to help assist growth for the scene.

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uhhh what games does chi not have the best players for save cvs2?

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WI,
working our way up from the bottom

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Haha. Seriously though, IL/CHI > Midwest in the 2D games that matter. Not to say that people from OH, NE, etc can’t beat IL/CHI on any given day, but consistently, Team IL/CHI places higher or wins more tourneys than other Midwest players. Not starting a midwest flame war, just stating facts.

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Yea Chicago has the most game:

1: Chicago(mvc2,3s,gg)
2: Stl (T5,GG,NKI in ST)
3: Ohmaha (3S,GG)
4: Detroit (CvS2)
5: Milwakkee/Racine (T5)
6: Indiana/Ky (Cvs2)
7: Ohio (used to be GG but I think it’s smash)

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  1. Me(snuggles, and snuggles…)

needed excuse to sign in anyway.

17

not only Chi but central IL too haha

UIUC 4 LYFE

18

Yeah aaron step your game up!:arazz:

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Honestly I don’t think the Chi can beat us (Detroit) in 3s. I don’t think so. I’m willing to prove that. As far as GG I’ll give that to Chi, and really I know we’re good in Tekken as well I also I’ll say MvC2. This is 50-50 for some reason I can’t get on 50-50 though. So this is Blizz niggas! To those that know. Me and Grego are the only ones here that really and rarely play 3s, but honestly I don’t see a dominate force in anything but CvS2, and GG. Everything esle to my knowledge is open. The MW is so scattered that I think rival cities might spark something back up. Mos def in my city cause niggas having a hard time getting comp around here. I’m all for this though and I feel like 3s should and will be Detroit’s. Big words but I can back them. Next big tourney the D will be there.

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Are you serious? I really have no idea what you could be basing that from. How many majors have you been to where you actually played them, or majors, period?

Chi’s been ahead of the region in 3s since forever. Flo qualified for Evo, George is really good, and they actually have a scene. Even if you think of yourself as on the same level with them, you said yourself that you’re two players from MI compared to… Nickels. I think Humbag’s got you too :slight_smile: Bet it