To be honest, it just felt like a lot of stuff just didn't go our way. From the power outage to the teams that no one knew we had until 2 hours beforehand, to the constant downtimes on the stream (terrible wifi made everyone use 3G/4G. I'm talking 56k to dialup speed here, so that was out of Bifuteki's control), to the timing of our singles tournament (running a final against Marvel Top 8 was brutal. Simply brutal.) Just so many things felt like the dice refused to roll in our favor that the real saving grace was that we were all able to get together and at least drink and play together.
As I said in KOFCast, I remember falling asleep during pools (only ran on 3 hours sleep before), and when I woke up we were still in pools 1 and 2. When I saw Soul Calibur on stream, I just couldn't believe it, thinking to myself "Since when has SCV been on the main stream in 6 months?" It's not necessarily a jab at SCV, but they do have a dedicated streamer in Jaxel, but because FilthieRich was there, they had to put SCV up on Spooky's stream. It was just so much bad luck, and it seemed like, with the exception of a (godlike) Persona scene, everyone got on spooky's stream. Persona was blessed enough to have stickbug hold their entire event and create a memorable Top 8. We didn't have a dedicated streamer like MK or Persona or the 3D fighters. We had none of those. Heck, we only had 4 setups and 1 1/2 hour warmup, and with 56 people willing to play KOF and a good number of them coming ONLY for KOF, it just looked really bad. As I said on the podcast, Romance and Bala took the risk of coming to NEC knowing fully well that KOF was a side tournament and nothing else so they shouldn't really be super upset. But just the way things were going period, even for a side tournament, it was easy to understand the frustration and anger everyone was feeling. We were all tired, and a bit agitated. I completely understand the reasoning why Bala and Romance came to NEC in the first place; and that was to show love to the EC KOF scene and, I think and believe, to get Spooky to stream at least Top 8 and show the stream that, hey, KOF is alive and well, and there IS interest for it. And the biggest thing was that there WAS a great amount of interest for it. I don't know how anyone else feels, but 56 people feels great in my book, and it was a solid amount of skill too.
So much bad luck happened that there's no way I could really say anything that could balance it out. KOF just wasn't in the cards in NEC. I didn't even know we had a $750 pot bonus; I just happened to hear it from a Tekken player.
In the end, I don't really think we were shafted, but with the way things were going, if you didn't know anyone in the staff to talk to and were just some guy who entered KOF cause you wanted to, it's not hard to think you did. Thankfully Bifuteki was there for us and took care of us through teams and Top 8, and I'm supremely grateful, but we all want to be on that grand stage, and show everyone just what they were missing the entire weekend.
-FM Sway