PixlBit

Hello everyone, welcome to the second day of EVO Week here. Before we get on with the topic for today, just wanted to post the official stream schedule for the weekend.

MarkMan, community manger for MadCatz, has also posted a schedule for a stream that MadCatz is doing featuring Tekken, Soul Calibur, Skullgirls and Persona 4 Arena.

There are many streams beyond just these two happening at EVO. I hope you can find something that you enjoy watching. Now on today’s topic, my favorite EVO moment.

There have been a lot of awesome moments from EVO though out the years. Probably the most famous EVO moment, the one that had probably introduced so many to the tournament and competitive fighting games (including myself), is known as EVO moment #37. Taken from the finals of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike at EVO 2004, it features a three now famous and legendary players in the scene: Justin Wong playing as Ken, Diago Umehara as Chun-Li, and commentating that match, Seth Killian. What follows is a true spectacle of human engineering and is pretty much apart of fighting game community lore. Ten years later, all three of the men now are important pillars of fighting game culture. Wong and Umehara are now famous sponsored players for MadCatz and Evil Geniuses. Seth Killian would eventually go on and join Capcom in overseeing the return of Street Fighter and much of Capcom’s last generation of fighters until leaving the company 2012. However, while truly a great moment, I wouldn’t chalk it up as my favorite. My favorite would actually be from last years Street Fighter EVO and it wasn’t the final match either. What it was though, was the main reason why I love competitive fighting: its unpredictable.

Setting the scene, its losers finals for Super Street Fighter 4 AE: 2012 version. Its the final chance for these two players. If one of them wins, they move on to the finals, sending the other one home. On one side, you have Evil Geniuses’ PR Barlog. Known for helping make Barlog/Boxer a serious tournament threat in Street Fighter 4, he the last American player in the tournament and possibly poised to go to finals. However, he faces a serious threat in the form of Korean player Infiltration. Infiltration isn’t just a great player of Street Fighter, he was EVO champ from last year. While having a hard time in the tournament during this EVO, his amazing Akuma pressure game is reminder that he’s no push over. Even though he is in loser finals, he’s not going to down quietly. However my favorite part of this match isn’t just the game play but the critical change Infiltration makes midway changes the momentum of the match. I’m sure many people have seen this clip already, and I apologize for over selling the moment a bit, but that’s why I love it so much. There’s just that element of unpredictability that happens in high level play that makes games so beautiful. That one moment where everything changes is so awesome and makes the players who can capitalizes off of those moments into legends.

What your favorite EVO Moment?