I will try to give some feedback for ya, Bear. This tournament was one of the worst I've ever had to participate in. But I do not blame YOU for trying your best to make it better for a player like myself.
To start off, I am constantly surprised at the amount of setups at tournaments of this size. Time and time again, it's just never enough. I'm currently seeing a new trend in nationals where these setups are slowly starting to deplete with the more entrants they are given. I believe this has to do with he fact that tournaments of this size are no longer grassroots-provided like they've always been in the past. Players aren't expected to have to bring their setups to events like these anymore to help speed up everything, and we put our faith in the TOs, sponsors, and whoever else to give us enough. I don't know the specifics behind this type of thing like you do, Bear, but when my local monthlies have almost TWICE as many setups with not even a TENTH of the amount of entrants THIS one had.......it's just kinda sad to think about. There MUST be a way to improve on this.
Next is how pools were ran. Two setups per pool? It's ok, we can make it work somehow. Finish in almost two hours? Alright, made it just in time for the next pool to get going. But the almost two-hour delay after round 2 of pools were supposed to start? Good Lord. "I hope I can get out of here before midnight, if I'm lucky," I thought to myself. what exactly went wrong? Was it because the staff had to run the bracket pools on a piece of paper instead of a program on their phone to manually update with? I assume you had to make those changes yourself AFTER you were given all of the pool sheets. We used to do that at my local monthlies back in Houston, and it was ABSOLUTELY unessesary. What is this, the STONE AGE!? I know EVO doesn't use smashgg, but there's GOT to be a better way to do all of this.
And speaking of issues with time.......oh boy. OH BOY, OH BOY. The TIMESLOT we were given. 8pm Friday round 2 pools (that DID finish at midnight) into 8am top 32 the next MORNING? Hello? Yes, this is sleep. I'm not at the PHONE RIGHT NOW because I'm still playing against a VILLAGER and a SONIC at almost 12AM from the NIGHT BEFORE. Please leave your message NEVER!?
You and I both know that the worst part about this event was the amount of time we were given to finish it. You did DAMN good for what you were given, Bear. But no one, and I mean NO ONE, should have to go through that. I only managed about four hours of sleep before I had to get up and get ready to start walking over to the venue (even from the Westgate, I hate that walk). I got to play one or two warm-up matches before I played ESAM, and I didn't see him get to play ANY at all. They didn't let people into the EVO room until 7:50am, so I was lucky to get a few minutes of play in before my match. And to top it all off?
Best of 3.
You're telling me.......I had to wake up early in the morning.......with little to no time to prepare myself.......to play in Bo3 sets.......against some of the BEST players in the WORLD.......
What could possibly go wrong.
"You made 9th place, Trela! You shouldn't be talking about playing bad!"
We are supposed to be at the most prestigous, top-of-the-line fighting game tournament in the whole damn WORLD. The F**K I can't talk about how we played.
I don't care how I did in the end. Those matches did not bring out the best in me or my opponents. It was more of a matter of who could stay awake the longest, or so it felt. Why must winning feel this way for me? Do my wins truly hold weight? Only between the exchange of eyes of two top players can one understand how I feel. Funny, too, that I had Zan record my set with Mr. R for me. I'm scared to watch it.
If we are given another chance at EVO, Bear.......let's make it worth it this time. Let's improve to make it better. We need better.
No, we DEMAND better.
