It was absolutely amazing to see VF at EVO this year. I remember watching it last year and thinking how awesome it would be if Sega released FS and it could somehow be at EVO next time, but I really didn't think that it would actually happen! And having the top 3 on the main stage on the main stream?? INCREDIBLE.

Shoutouts to everyone that attended, (Wish I could've been there too!), and congratulations to everyone who made Top 16! Of course, congrats to the top 3 as well. I was on the edge of my seat watching those, and Fuudo, you're INSANE(ly good).

Oh, and a big thank you to Jaxel for streaming it all, and to everyone else who made it all possible (commentators too!), and finally, thank you to Sega for, well, releasing the game! Can't wait for EVO 2013!

Was VF finals originally planned to be on the mainstage or was that something that got decided on the fly at Evo from the higher uppers?

Why feel bad? It's not like a wardrobe malfunction happen. 14Frame kick FTW YO! Shoutouts to Rip

If it had been a guy who screamed or maybe rage smashed his chair, we wouldn't be discussing the "why".


Congrats to all the players at EVO. It was great putting some forum names to faces as well as seeing their play style. Good stuff.

Shironuko, Gentleman Thief, Gamerbee, and Chief Flash were a blast to watch out of the Top 16. Shironuko and Gentleman Thief were so damn beast to watch. I also have to say that eventhough he didn't make Top 16 I enjoyed seeing Sam the Seed play as well. Still wish the GT VS Aopai match had been recorded.

Gentleman Thief is so nasty. He's the best American player right now.

Its what I was told would happen from the start... top 3 on EVO main stage. Why, do you have complaints?

Excellent stream and quality, great matches all around I have no complaints. This game has a great chance to be at Evo 2013 and the talk about the game is positive from non-vfers.

All videos are now on my youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL08CABE989A700487

Jaxel, it was awesome to put a face to the name, man. Thx for everything.

These two were an incredible combo at commentating. They need to be the only choices.

No idea why exactly but Shidosha is reminding me of Bert from Sesame Street here.

Amazing matches, feast for the eyes. I thought I learnt something from watching them, so I immediately went online and lost a few matches in a spectacular way ;-)

Next year I will have a full beard and a strong Akira

Hmm, well I have a few things to say. First of all, I lost in the worst way possible which is not feeling like I played at my best. I was very ignorant and didn’t heed some people’s warnings that offline isn’t the same as online and I thought my skills alone would carry me far. In a sense it did, in casuals I got 2 excellent on Itazan, had some really close games with aopai, and handled myself cleanly with other vfdc’rs. However, I have no previous offline tournament experience and the nervousness got the best of me. It didn’t help that I couldn’t bring my own stick which is stock joystick and instead had to use the really sensitive sanwa so as a result I only played at 40% of my potential which these factors combined. My hands felt heavy, my reactions were slow, could barely do any movements let alone fuzzy and all the previous 1 month of extensive practice went down the drain pretty much without being able to use any of it. I could hear people saying it was a upset and all that stuff when I lost and at my best I’m confident enough but not when I was choking like that, however I learned some very valuable lessons at the very least. It was a really humbling experience to lose early like that and I felt a lot of mixed emotions. Just thinking about it makes me depressed though so the best thing I can say to wrap this up is one of my favourite quotes from SDS: “Kamais, you still sweet offline.â€

I was really happy to meet my fellow vfdc’rs but I didn’t get to get in as much casuals as I wanted. It was my first time in Vegas and among other reasons didn’t get around to a ton of them. Thanks again to Plague for letting me in for casuals, thanks to Akai for being awesome both in vfdc and at evo ^_^ thanks to everyone who came to EVO and performed, win or lose to support VF. Although my showing is depressing, I was really; really happy with my mentor AyuFanb0y’s performance and my EVO highlight was when Itazan said good games to him with enthusiasm for the first time. It was nice to experience a whole different class in playing Japanese players offline, and I got a personal gift from Itazan as well as signatures from all the rest too on my new stick I bought at the madcatz booth!

It was a great experience overall and I hope VF makes it to EVO again next year where I will hopefully play at my best.

Mad props to Shidosha, Plague, LA_Akira, Jaxel, GoatCheeseBlues, akai, (anyone I forgot to mention.)

Next year I'll dress up as Lion (VF5-Type A.) I'll make it happen.

Awesome report man, and it sounds very much from the heart.

Tournaments can be very humbling and inspiring. Tournament nerves are crazy, some handle them better than others. Heck, for myself, I have to train with the belief that it is very likely my performance will take a 40% hit when I play in the tournament and I'm not kidding. That's kind of crazy, but sometimes that's my reality when I'm in a tournament... But I've gotten much better with more tournament experience, but still working on it.

That said, you got to experience a truly wonderful thing, despite the disappointment to yourself--but it sounds like the correct outcome has happened: you are inspired to improve, you are humbled but confident too, a fire has been lit and it should get better from there ^_^

Anyways, that's just what I'm thinking after reading your report. Awesome that you went and keep it up, man!