KOF XIII 7th General Thread: Evo 2012 countdown edition

[Diavle]

That's what Bala has always done though, he has always made character switches at the sign of trouble. Most of the SoCal guys do this, they don't stick to their guns.

I don't think we are at the level to be able to criticize Bala's play but if I had to say anything on it it would be that the guy has pretty much steam rolled every tournament since the game's release on console, heck even prior. He has had zero close calls. Zero. As such when he was finally pushed into a corner he had no experience as to how to handle the situation, how to adjust and try to download his opponent.

The funny thing is that at one point Mad Kof actually lost confidence and switched out one of his characters in favor of King but it was after he had won a match against Bala so they had him switch back to his old trio as per the rules. Best thing that happened to him.

[KLSADAKO]

What I'm also surprised is that decent solid players like Justin Wong, Ryan Hart and ChrisG  lost both games in their pools.. I thought all 3 would make it out of their pools as winners.. unless they only went to Evo to really try hard at AE and Marvel?

[-Azula-]

Bala really didn't do anything wrong honestly. He played his game and did everything he usually does. And he stuck with his money characters (Takuma and Shen). It really came down to MAD_KOF playing out of his mind. The dominate Bala we know was right there every bit as good as always! It's just MAD_KOF was playing at level 100 when Bala was playing at level 98. It was just a matter of someone having to lose.

What I want is to see Reynald and Romance play at that level. I know those guys are right there.

What I'm also surprised is that decent solid players like Justin Wong, Ryan Hart and ChrisG  lost both games in their pools.. I thought all 3 would make it out of their pools as winners.. unless they only went to Evo to really try hard at AE and Marvel?

I don't know much about Ryan Heart, but you can count Justin Wong out in this game. I was wondering where Combofiend was. He's actually good. I was expecting top 32 for him.

[KLSADAKO]

Bala really didn't do anything wrong honestly. He played his game and did everything he usually does. And he stuck with his money characters (Takuma and Shen). It really came down to MAD_KOF playing out of his mind. The dominate Bala we know was right there every bit as good as always! It's just MAD_KOF was playing at level 100 when Bala was playing at level 98. It was just a matter of someone having to lose.

What I want is to see Reynald and Romance play at that level. I know those guys are right there.

What I'm also surprised is that decent solid players like Justin Wong, Ryan Hart and ChrisG  lost both games in their pools.. I thought all 3 would make it out of their pools as winners.. unless they only went to Evo to really try hard at AE and Marvel?

I don't know much about Ryan Heart, but you can count Justin Wong out in this game. I was wondering where Combofiend was. He's actually good. I was expecting top 32 for him.

In fairness Reynalds should have beaten Madkof, it went down to wire..
yeh I think BALA played as good as he can, its just that he was so confused with who to pick as his point character..

I think Combofined lost to Dakou in the quarters..

[Diavle]

There's no way any of those guys were going to go far in the game, they focus on too many games and amongst them little on KOF.

Note that each player in the Top 8 was a KOF specialist, they didn't come for any other game. Feels so right.

[Tyrant292]

What I'm also surprised is that decent solid players like Justin Wong, Ryan Hart and ChrisG  lost both games in their pools.. I thought all 3 would make it out of their pools as winners.. unless they only went to Evo to really try hard at AE and Marvel?

Solid play or mastering the basics of 2d fighting games wont get you far in KoF. You really need to build up your skill and technique in this game to be somewhere. Technical 2d fighting games that have ALOT of variables e.g. (KoF, 3rdStike and marvel2), only having hard solid play wont cut it in those kind of games but it will help you alot in your progress and in your advanced levels.

As Diavle said they do focus on too many games and KoF is their last priority I think; they dont give it much time.

[KLSADAKO]

I think one of the biggest shocks is that Japan had no players in the top 8, I thought Kaoru would make it considering I saw two casual sets where he defeated Mr kof 5-0 and 5-2..

[Diavle]

Based on play seen I still think Kaoru was one of the best players at the tournament, just not his luck.

BTW what did you guys think of the Korean anti-Mexican strategy? Setting up a barrier so that they couldn't watch their hands. Stroke of genius I tells ya. That butt pillow they were sporting might have been overkill though lol.

Interestingly, ppl kept the barrier there and you could even see it in the SF4 top 8 (complete with the yellow Cafe ID t-shirt).

[solidshark]

Got me thinking about a lot of what-if's now.

-What if Dune and/or Ogoshoo showed up?
-What if Reynald sent BALA to losers in the semi's and faced MadKOF in finals?

Hopefull questions to be answered next year.

[KLSADAKO]

Got me thinking about a lot of what-if's now.

-What if Dune and/or Ogoshoo showed up?
-What if Reynald sent BALA to losers in the semi's and faced MadKOF in finals?

Hopefull questions to be answered next year.

Well Reynalds probably should have beaten BALA in their last 16 match, the score was 1-1 and both players were down to their last characters.. but Reynalds dropped the HD combo...

I was disappointed with the guys from China, the so-called GODs of 98 clearly don't play xiii as much..

[Light13]

EVO was an amazing experience I’m so glad I was able to attend. I got a chance to play a lot of casuals from a wide variety of skill levels from the lowest so some of the highest including top players from Mexico, Chile and Taiwan it was really fun. I have very little competition where I live and now I see how wrong I was playing the game. Grand Finals got me so pumped BALA and MadKOF put on a good show I would have been happy no matter who won. The crowd got into it in a way that I’ve never seen for a game at EVO. To think about 2-3 months ago MadKof thought he wasn’t going to make it to EVO.

[freddie1999]

What I'm also surprised is that decent solid players like Justin Wong, Ryan Hart and ChrisG  lost both games in their pools.. I thought all 3 would make it out of their pools as winners.. unless they only went to Evo to really try hard at AE and Marvel?

I don't know about Justin Wong and Ryan Hart, but ChrisG was in my pool and he didn't show up. Like only 5 showed up. Maybe the pros only wanted to focus on one game to increase their odds of winning and bailed on their weaker games.

At the finals, I thought MadKof's Doulon was the problem. Bala didn't have the time to find an answer for it and it looked like the constant character changing was him trying to find a counter.

[Saitsuofleaves]

The problem was he shouldn't have spent so much time trying to find a counter, and instead used his most comfortable point character (I'd say Billy) and just use him throughout.  He would've picked up on the matchup eventually and would've been good.  But he spent so much time trying to find a counter, Duo was just allowed to run train.

People forget, Mad_KoF ALSO has a huge stable of characters he plays, but he stuck it out with one team, even when Bala got a 2-1 lead on him in the first set.  Counter-picking will only get you so far.  While you should have at least a 6 character stable, you should have 3 go to characters in ALL situations.  Your true mains.  Those are the ones you go to when the chips are down because you know how to play them, it becomes instinctual.  When using characters that aren't your mains, you can be proficient, but compared to true masters of the characters your timing will be a millisecond off, your decision making slightly less clutch.  With your mains, it comes natural.  There's no thinking about the next step in matchups, you just do the step.  That comes over playing them over and over again in all situations, something you can't do if you're constantly switching around characters.

[Tyrant292]

I think one of the biggest shocks is that Japan had no players in the top 8, I thought Kaoru would make it considering I saw two casual sets where he defeated Mr kof 5-0 and 5-2..

I think the Japanese were just plain readable. We didnt see anything new from Tokido and Mago, their game style was really similar to the SoCal players (I am excluding Reynald and Mr.KOF, their play style is Unorthodox with their shenanigans). The Koreans were different in their play style, for example their EX Iori was something new, I didnt see anyone play EX Iori the same. They were not only surgical in execution, they were hard to read; every person who was knocked out by them was baffled.

The problem was he shouldn't have spent so much time trying to find a counter, and instead used his most comfortable point character (I'd say Billy) and just use him throughout.  He would've picked up on the matchup eventually and would've been good.  But he spent so much time trying to find a counter, Duo was just allowed to run train.

People forget, Mad_KoF ALSO has a huge stable of characters he plays, but he stuck it out with one team, even when Bala got a 2-1 lead on him in the first set.  Counter-picking will only get you so far.  While you should have at least a 6 character stable, you should have 3 go to characters in ALL situations.  Your true mains.  Those are the ones you go to when the chips are down because you know how to play them, it becomes instinctual.  When using characters that aren't your mains, you can be proficient, but compared to true masters of the characters your timing will be a millisecond off, your decision making slightly less clutch.  With your mains, it comes natural.  There's no thinking about the next step in matchups, you just do the step.  That comes over playing them over and over again in all situations, something you can't do if you're constantly switching around characters.

Well said. Hopefully people will learn from that mistake and people should explore the game more, there are still things which need discovering especially with the less used characters; who thought that we'll see Mature in the finals!

[4leaf]

What I'm also surprised is that decent solid players like Justin Wong, Ryan Hart and ChrisG  lost both games in their pools.. I thought all 3 would make it out of their pools as winners.. unless they only went to Evo to really try hard at AE and Marvel?

Ryan Hart was put to losers and eliminated by two SoCal players (if that even means anything anymore) although he shouldn't have been able to play in the first place due to him being disqualified for showing up 30min late. He really wanted to play even if he was reinstated back in the losers.