All right, I got some time, so I'll go over some of what I felt were the best moments this Evo. It was a
great year. I'm only gonna focus on Melee and Street Fighter, but know that other games had some pretty hype moments as well.
Here's a highlight video for Melee:
So, as you probably know, HungryBox ended up being Melee's Evo champion, which is a little controversial. A lot of people aren't exactly the biggest fans of HBox, mainly because of the character he chooses to play, which is Jigglypuff.
Melee is known for its extremely fast and technical gameplay. It demands a lot from your fingers and even more from your mind to play at a competitive level. The strongest and most tournament-viable character in the game, Fox, also happens to be one of the most difficult characters to use efficiently across any fighting game. Watching a strong Fox play is like a work of art--and the same could be said of other characters like
Falco,
Marth, and
Captain Falcon.
So much Captain Falcon.
In fact, this Evo marked the first time a Falcon player has ever made it to Top 8, and you can bet your ass he was a favorite to win. No Captain Falcon player has ever won a big major, so people were pretty excited to see if he could do it. He's called S2J, and he was eliminated by HungryBox. I believe he took 5th place, which is unprecedented.
S2J (arguably the best C. Falcon in the world) vs. Westballz (greatest Falco player in the world)
The community is a little divided on Jigglypuff, however. She's a very floaty character that requires relatively low APM, making her playstyle a little bit on the slow side, and her skill gap is arguably one of the lowest in the game, making her relatively easy to play and use effectively. She has a very defensive bait-and-punish type playstyle, which means that, instead of being on the offense, she'll typically spend entire games hanging back, waiting for her opponents to make mistakes, and then punishing them hard. This requires a lot of patience on both player's parts, making her very frustrating to play (and, for some people, watch).
Not to mention, she has a special move called Rest--but instead of restoring health like it does in her games, it causes an explosion, for... some reason. So, when Jigglypuff nudges up to her opponent and falls asleep, her opponent will be blasted away. And since she has a lot of excellent moves in her kit (like her throws) that allow her to easily set up and land this trump card of a move, it basically allows her to get extremely early KOs. This is called a kill confirm, and Jiggs has greater access to kill confirms than any other character, making her very scary.
Some people argue that Jigglypuff's playstyle goes against the very foundation--the very reason Melee is popular in the first place. People like watching high-speed gameplay with crazy combos. They don't necessarily like Jigglypuff's "campy, passive" playstyle, and they don't like how she basically has a kill button for a move.
Personally, I love Jigglypuff, and HungryBox is probably my favorite player. I've been following him since 2013. I'm not bothered by his playstyle--he does what he has to do to win, and I don't care what anyone says--I think Jigglypuff is fun as fuck to watch. I love campy, defensive play. So, watching him finally win his first championship after all these years was very cathartic. It sucked to know that so many people were mad about it, though. It kind of put a damper on my own happiness.
I mean, for fuck's sake, look at this awards ceremony, and compare it to three years ago:
So yeah, I just thought I should give a little bit of context before I post the grand finals for you. HungryBox tends to be a popular player with people who don't necessarily understand how Melee works, but people actually kinda despise him in the FGC, because Jigglypuff, to them, is the antithesis of what the game stands for. It disappoints me how these guys were unable to conceal their hatred of him during the ceremony for the sake of sportsmanship. I know it's the biggest stage ever for fighting games, but it just kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
HungryBox vs. Armada (2015 Evo Champion, best Peach player in the world, one of the greatest Foxes ever)
Amazing, amazing match. Loved every waking moment of it. The reason it's forty minutes is because HungryBox had to fight Armada twice, because he was coming up from the Loser's Bracket while Armada was still in Winner's. Armada at this point in time is still considered by many to be the greatest Melee player in the world, and HBox is considered #2, so there was a lot on the line--and he pulled it out in such an intensely entertaining fashion.
If you find yourself to be one of those players who can't stand Jigglypuff, though, I can understand.
In that case, here's the entire Top 8, if you're interested:
And it looks like Peach posted a Street Fighter V highlight video for you already. That was an incredible finals, too--probably the best overall event since Evo 2012--but unless you're American, you probably won't give as much of a shit about it. You see, out of the 5100 players that signed up to play Street Fighter V, only
one American player made it up to the Top 8. His name was LI Joe, and... Let's just say that
nobody expected
him of all people to make it that far. People were clamoring for people like Justin Wong, or maybe Chris Tatarian, or maybe even K-Brad, but LI Joe was definitely an eye-opener.
He didn't end up winning, but he put on an amazing show--and you know me. I don't really care much about national pride or anything. But as an American, it was hard not to root for him based solely on that. It helps that he's just a great, conscientious, fun-loving guy, too.
Here's SFV's entire Top 8, if you have three hours to burn.
Oh, and by the way, that cool stage that they used for the whole finals? That stage was created specifically for this event. Pretty cool, huh?
Evolution 2016 - See you next year