So EVO is happening in a few days and I am especially excited this year because I somehow managed to get a chance to attend the event. I am going to EVO to play in the Skullgirls side tournament, and it’s a funny story that the reason that I can even attend EVO is because Super Smash Brothers Melee beat Skullgirls in the EVO donation drive back in February (in which I endlessly pushed for Skullgirls), which gave my older brother a reason to attend EVO and a reason to take me with him. Keikaku doori. But of course, since I’m actually attending EVO, this means that I really have to step up my game if I hope to get far in the tournament.
I’ve been playing Skullgirls since the day it released, and even in the 8 months that I had to wait for the Xbox patch to finally release I still managed to get in a lot of training mode time and matches with other players, so I know a lot about the game. But of course, knowledge can only take you so far in fighting games. You have to improve on your execution, your reactions, your ability to adapt, your ability to read your opponent’s mind (read: educated guessing), and a lot of other stuff, and those come from playing with other players in real matches. Right after the Xbox patch released back in May I somehow managed to finally get my hands on a PS3, and because not only does the PSN community have more players but also the best players in the Skullgirls community, I spent most of my time playing on the PS3 playing against the best of the best to improve my own play.
Because of all of that practice I feel like I have a good shot of getting at least top 16 at EVO if I’m in a good condition that day. That is, if I don’t get hit with the tournament and flub up with my execution, but that’s just something that I’ll have to deal with the day of the tournament. I feel like a big factor in how I perform at EVO depends largely on what characters I face. I’m planning on playing solo Ms. Fortune at EVO, and because I’m playing solo I’m already at a disadvantage (teams of 2 or 3 characters are better than solo characters), and some match-ups are insanely difficult without an assist to help me out. I’m mainly talking about Peacock and Double, with Peacock’s great zoning ability and Double’s cathead shenanagins which are like a combination of Vergil’s spiral swords and Strider’s Ouroboros. It’s not fun to deal with, especially without an assist. But even still, I’ve played against the best Peacock and Double players so I know how to deal with the match-ups, so we’ll see how it goes.
Lately I have not been getting as much practice with Skullgirls as I would like. Or at least, not as much practice on the version of the game that will be played during the EVO tournament. The PC beta for Skullgirls just released, and in that build there are Squigly and several updates to the game that change quite a bit; I’m a part of that beta and just on the first day I spent around 8 hours messing with the character changes and the new systems. This is a problem because the Squigly update and the version currently out on the consoles play quite differently to the point where it is easy to pick up habits on the PC beta that completely will not work on the console versions. Secondly, my PS3 is currently broken and the Skullgirls community on the Xbox seems to be waning a bit, so it can be quite difficult to find a challenging opponent at times. Regardless, I’m not too worried; even if I lose out early in the tournament, I can still enjoy myself at EVO by playing the PC beta with other members of the community or the PC beta tournament. All I care about is doing my best and having fun.
But yeah, overall I am extremely excited for EVO and I am confident in my ability to do well at the tournament thanks to all of the practice I’ve had. I also cannot wait to meet other members of the fighting game community and watch some of the hypest moments in fighting game history unfold in person before my very eyes. July 12th can’t come soon enough!