What’s better: a master of one character, or a jack of all characters?

Evo Championship Series
1

I noticed something in regards to the rules. In all Capcom authorized tournaments, the first character is picked double blind if these professionals accuse each other of playing defensve matchups and are gun shy about selecting their character first. Then the winer is considered “the visitor” for the next game and must stick with the same character. The “home player” can play the matchup game and knows who the oppoenent is playing as next. and so forth until 3/5 is decided.

For the most part, a person with an unstoppable character can dominate. He may be a great (fill in name of character) player, but others would argue he’s like a one-hit wonder.

There is a big difference between the one-hit wonder and a consistent player who has more than one way to beat you and can adapt to a challenge. One plays a fighter well, the other is a good fighting game player.

If Street Fighter want to crown the best individual single-player character, then mission accomplished. But if you want to show they are not just a one-hit wonder, here’s a rule suggestion that will add variety and show breadth in talent, not just depth in one character. I believe it would also be more interesting to watch for a spectator’s perspective.

What if instead of the Visitor Player MUST keep his character, instead he both MUST CHANGE his character, and the choice is known before hand so the home team can select based on that choice, if he decides to play the “matchup game”.

If more than one thing is picked, like 2 characters an game in Marverl Vs Capcom Infinite, or 3 characters in Capcom vs SNK 2, or a character and an Ism in Street fighter Alpha 3, then first the visitor makes the first single choice, then the home team responds, and back and forth.

By the way, one other rule in a 3 out of 5 series, once you win with a character (and an Ism, a Gem, etc.) you can’t select it again in that same 3 out of 5 series. (And on team games, each individual is no longer eligible, so if you choose Wolverine and Ryu, and win, neither Ryu or Wolverine can be selected individually, even with a different partner, in that 3 out of 5 series)

I guess it’s up to Capcom to decide what kind of champion they want. They are the ones footing the bill. I’m just giving a suggestion if they are looking for a more well-rounded champion than there currently is.

P.S. I just read certain stages are illegal in certain Street Fighter versions. I can think of 2 reasons combined. One is the stage effect game play, (And I always thought the stage was just the background, not interfering in the match in Street Fighter games) kind of like a lot of the tournament-illegal stages in Smash Bros. And the other reason is because either the stage design is asymmetric (like quite a few stages on Injustice 1 and 2 where the stage effects gameplay, and one player has an advantage) or there is some randomizer that is asymmetric, (like a hammer appearing next to a player in Smash Bros.) I never noticed stage makes a difference in a fight in Street Fighter, so I set it on Random, just to get the show on the road. Vega can climb the walls on any stage, not just his home stage.

2

There is no such thing as a one hit under u ness they only win 1 tournament. Playing one character doesnt make you a one hit wonder, it means you play one character.

Playing multiple characters works for some people, for others it doesnt. There’s no reason to force someone to play multiple people and where does it end? The guy who can play everyone is the best?

This is over complicating something for the spectators benefit and nothing more and imo that isn’t a good enough reason.

3

I didn’t say Capcom should necessarily do it. As a matter of fact, in a competition I’m going to hopefully have in Ohio something called Jack Of All Games, the general idea is if you play 4 different games, sometimes radically different, who would come out on top, kind of like Iron Man of Gaming. It’s to show the most well rounded, best overall gaming.

This is a made for twitch event and is primarily a spectacle first and a game tournament second. If you’re not a fan of fighting games, you might not watch a bunch of high level fight gamers. Same with any one single game or genre. But if you’re a “paper tiger gamer” (a mile wide and an inch deep) you’ll find this interesting. It’s like in the same vein that The Price Is Right succeeds as TV, its variety. It appeals to wide variety. Some people like some games more than others.

I guess it depends on if you like the classic “pre-TV” sports like Baseball, Basketball, Football, etc, or if your idea of an athletic competition is more the speed of Gladiators or Ninja Warrior.

The first Video game competition I knew of was the made-for-TV Starcade. There were also non-televised individual game tournaments in the 80s. The average Joe watched the first, the uber fans of the game watched the second, usually after losing in the early rounds.

I guess if the purpose is to promote Street Fighter to non-gamers, my format would be better. But if it’s mainly for the players and uber fans of Street Fighter, then the current format is perfect.

There’s room for both, and some players might be better if they can focus on one main. My best friend, Jamal “Zophar321” Nickens is the opposite, he’s probably not going to be a number one gamer in one particular game, but he won 2 competitions where there were multiple games in the tournaments, one where the games were known in advance, so you could practice, and one where there was no knowledge of the game or practice beforehand.

And yes, based on Street Fighter 4, there are 2 separate scores, an individual character score, and an overall score. So Capcom recognizes there are 2 kinds of games, those who want to master one character to death, and those who think, I pay for 30 characters: I should use them all.

I guess the analogy to music is a one-hit wonder (great at one character in one game), a one-hit-per-album wonder (good at one character but carries over to to newer games), a one-album-wonder (someone who knows all characters but only seems to prefer the rules set of one particular game) and a perpetual-hit-maker (knows a lot of characters in a lot of games)