KOF XIII 9th General Thread: New Year, New EVO, New Challenges in 2013

[KLSADAKO]

Maybe Kou Kou was nervous, I mean this was like his first time away from Japan..
I'm sure he be ready for Evo..

[PureYeti]

I miss Stunfest and NCR except winner and loser finals so congrats for Romance taking it.

[Great_Dark_Hero]

Let us congratulate Romance on winning NCR2013!
The matches that followed were really intense. Lot's of good stuff!

[Tyrant292]

Ok there it goes.....

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=558880

Hopefully its great news.

[Mikel]

Guess what game is finally coming to NESiCAxLIVE...

http://via.me/-ca2vmkk

You guessed it, KOF XIII Climax.

[Reiki.Kito]

Apparently, KOF XIII is available on steam as a searchable application. So is 98 and 2k2 UM. It's not just a rumor or anything, you can actually search up the game on their search engine. It doesn't go to anything yet, but hopefully that will change.

[Killey]

On the topic of Evo since it's a month away now.

From an outside perspective, the skill gap looks too strong in North America with Romance/Reynalds/Luis Cha/Mr.KOF and the occasional appearance by Xian dominating the NA scene. The North American scene is starting to look stale with overall entrants for KoF on the down turn, though I did hear that UFGT had 70+ entrants, and less stream time in general. I also haven't seen a lot of TC guys attend a lot of the NA tournaments like RealKim, Ricardo, Yoshi, and ChrisKOF so they might have changed things up. Not really sure what's really happening in the USA scene for KOF, tbh, but I remember when TRB use to get 40+ players and now they're struggling to get 20 participants.

This being said, Evo looks to be even more interesting this year with a lot more strong foreign players showing up. I've read that a lot of the strong Mexican players will  be participating this year. I think last year, not all of the players had transitioned to XIII at the time but at this point most people have made the switch. Based on the Tijuana tournament last weekend and the tournament/ranbat vids Bala has been posting; the Mexican player base looks incredibly strong. It also looks like Bala is leveling up considerably in Mexico, due to the stronger player base but this is purely speculation on my part. I heard he had some Visa issues so not sure if he's able to attend Evo this year.

Japan will have a stronger presence at Evo this year with several notable players entering including Kaoru, Kyabetsu, and Gosho (Gyosou?). Given the extra year for the Japanese to absorb KoFXIII, I wonder how strong they are now. Kaoru was one of the favorites to make top 8 last year but he ended up losing in top 32 and Kyabetsu was just shy of making top 16 I think. Should be interesting to see their development since Evo. Tokido and Mago haven't been attending as many North American tournaments this year so we haven't seen a lot of KoF play from them in a while. I'm not sure how sharp their skills are at the game now. On top of this, there's a lot more anti-character strategies vs Hwa Jai and Mr.Karate now.

Xiaohai and Dakou went MIA in KoFXIII since last year so not sure where they're at in the game. Last year, it seemed that both players were more focused with SF4. For those who do follow SF4's player base we saw Dakou almost make top 16 (I think?) while Xiaohai made top 8 at Evo and eliminated Daigo from the tournament. Xiaohai also participated in Topanga League's recent tournament with a 4th place finish; however, his words after wards indicated he was going to train even harder at the game. Xiaohai just qualified for Evo in SF4 by winning a Chinese major with Dakou taking 2nd.

Cafe ID said they would be returning to Evo this year but it looks like they've been streaming other fighting games on & off. Poongko has been practicing with Cafe ID this year so I'm sure he's improved since then but he wasn't particularly strong in the game. I'm not sure whether Mad KOF will be able to retain his championship this year but I guess part of this will be the luck of the draw in pools.

[Ky0]

The biggest KOF Tournament ever?

Potential other names?

[Killey]

The biggest KOF Tournament ever?

Potential other names?

Not really sure, there's a ton of players I would like to see show up from last year as well. ZeroBlack from Chile was just shy of making top 8 getting eliminated by Mad KOF.

[Great_Dark_Hero]

Oh man. EVO2013 is just around the corner. We got a some pretty really intense competition going on as usual - especially according to what Killey shared with us.
G.E.T. H.Y.P.E. Some other players that I know who are going to EVO as of now are ShinKensou, JuiceboxKing, Tofusoup, and Renic. (Juicebox and Renic are seen constantly training against each on the stream - Renic already showcased a lot of improvement in a very short period of time). Naoki himself is also going to EVO as well. I saw a lot of Kula's replays on DarkGeese's youtube channel and that guy is a beast! Last, but not least several of cool members here on DC are already making arrangements to go EVO2013.

[Light13]

I didn't know Naoki was coming that's great. Dune also mentioned Koukou and woo were coming to EVO on a tweet although he didn't say if those players were trying to come or are confirmed. I also hope Mexico can send their strong players here.

[KLSADAKO]

The biggest KOF Tournament ever?

Potential other names?

I think it will be the biggest KOF XIII Tournament ever no doubt about that..

Another guy to watch out is Yang Yao Ren, this guy is my pick to win it, based on his movement and spacing, I have seen no one play like him.. his Ex Iori is on another planet..

I just hope it gets as much stream time as it did last year, but what with more games in the evo line-up..
I think we're looking at finals on Sat..

[Light13]

We should be able to see more of Ren and ET this month on South East Asia Major. I have hope KOF will have a Sunday spot since it was so hype last year.

[KLSADAKO]

We should be able to see more of Ren and ET this month on South East Asia Major. I have hope KOF will have a Sunday spot since it was so hype last year.

I think Sunday finals will be the main 2 capcom games, Injustice and Tag2..

Kof was mad hype last year, but ppl complained that it took to long, which is why it will prob be moved to Sat, along with MK9, P4 and SFXT..

[Kane317]

Not really sure what's really happening in the USA scene for KOF, tbh, but I remember when TRB use to get 40+ players and now they're struggling to get 20 participants.

In all fairness, we hit 40 like once or maybe twice.  In the 30s like 4-5 times.  The rest hovered in the 20s and teens depending on time of year.  So if you consider TRB on every week for the last year plus, it's not easy to maintain high numbers every week...