X mania history

Hi, I’m interested in the history of the japanese x mania tournament. When did started, what is the format, the level and expression of the tournament compared to sbo, evo and stuff.

The only thing i suppose is that the level must be pretty high, and its an exclusive ST tournament and even being a one-game exclusive tournament the number of players is pretty high.

Thx

It started in 2000 and is held annually, around August/September. Single elim. No cash prizes. X-Mania, being a ST+AE only competition, attracts all the top players and ST specialists, so the match quality is quite high. The ST scene is well and truly alive in Japan, and any at least decent players enter into X-Mania, for fun, making the brackets quite large.

SBO had ST in its debut year (2003) but dropped it since then.