Getting hyped for this tournament and seeing how many invites are left. I was wondering who will be the last invites from Japan be? Is it more or less whoever is available and can come? Or can we have a poll with who we would want to be invited? Maybe have the last 3 be people who play characters not yet selected for the tournament.
My votes go to Komoda(Blanka) and Muteki(Guile).
Where are the gief players, seriously… Someone invite Pony or Gunze plzzzz
There may be one more invite but most likely that is it.
Yes, it’s more of who is available to attend. ST players aren’t sponsored so they have to pay for everything and a couple of players were interested but said they couldn’t attend because of the cost. Another player had some interest but couldn’t take the time off.
Any leftover Japanese invites will be added to the Last Chance Qualifiers at EVO so it’s looking like there will be 6 or 7 spots up for grabs, which is even more incentive for everyone to enter the LCQs!
see if chosu wants to come! he’s the coolest.
Isn’t Sako going to be at Evo anyways?
Any T. Hawk players?
Needs more character variety. We gotta get some more Blanka and Kens in this tourney.
Why do you guys think it’s easy for the players to fly all the way to Japan to Las Vegas for a tournament when they are not even sponsored? they have received an invite already but they were not able to go or something.
Damdai and Papercuts.
They aren’t Japanese last time I checked. 
if Sako is at EVO he should get an invite. Also could remaining Jap invites go to a classic American ST player who is going to EVO? Watson maybe?
I doubt Watson has any interest to play ST, especially on Japanese cabs. But Sako should definitely be considered as a possibility.
Wish there were more japanese representatives but I agree with othartheom why not give some of the invites to some classic ST players like the wolfe brothers. I know this is wishful thinking but what about Tomo? He would really build up the hype for this tournament and he is a legend.
We need some:
Top Kens: Mattsun, Aniken
Top Guiles: Muteki, Kurahashi
Top Blankas: Komoda, Nakamu
And top gief players as Born2SPD said.
Almost all of the Japanese pros are aware of ToL at this point.
So no need to suggest who else to invite. They all know about it.
They cannot come because
a) Cannot get the time off
b) Have no budget to come
Quite a few top Japanese players (read: big, big names) have expressed interests if there is a community donation drive to cover their travel expenses.
Do you think it can happen? It’s about $1300 for the plane ticket.
That would require 130 ppl x $10 or 65 ppl x $20 or 13 ppl x $100
And all of these donors would have to agree to invite the same player…
Also all these OG American players are invited. They either cannot attend EVO (watson) or simply decline because they are not in tip top shape now.
And yes, sako is invited but I don’t think he will be entering (same reason as OG American players)
I am unemployed atm, which is the reason I stopped donating to GGPO and this sort of stuff. Else, I’d do it. Find me a control engineering job in the US and I get them there, lol.
A message from mattsun to me in facebook:
“If there is an opportunity, I wish to go to the United States. I am looking forward to it.”
This was around one month ago I’d kill to see this happen, maybe someday, Mattsun attending EVO! that would be a dream come true!
Mattsun and Aniken are my favorite Japanese top players.
Just for the record… we wasn’t talking about ToL. but he has the interest to travel to U.S someday.