First off, thanks to John and Joe for putting together a beyond successful tournament. I love you guys. I estimated over 600 people in the room at one point. Truly marvelous. Pun intended. They allow the MK community to thrive and be recognized time and again and without that support it's impossible. With that said I'll include Big E in here because he does the same and has been for 10 years. He won't let me not run MK.
To the MK crew, Phil, Nit, Rob, Rob, Simon, REO, Scott - all of you are family to me and thank you for supplying mentally and physically everything necessary to keep things together even when we were in serious trouble on Saturday, and I'll get into that now heh.
The power outage and the pools being sort of unconfirmed really extended the time frame. In the future I would like to put the brackets together based on people who are actually there if there's any way to do that. I walked in and never really noticed if people registered at the door like in the past, but I also know that even if people pay and register online, they don't always show up. Phil and I can handle brackets that with a 128 person tournament the day of, definitely if it's based on pools built from preregistration but I don't want to go through calling people who were never in the building so much again if I don't have to.
The pools suggested about 140 players but the real turnout was definitely more like 100 counting all the DQs of people who never showed up or left because it ran too late, I don't know if this caused a problem for any other pools, maybe we DQed too late into matches. We went until 3:30AM but I think realistically we could have finished by midnight in a moderately ideal setting, ie - if not for the 90 minute delay and extended downtimes at stations due to players not showing up. For the first 2 hours of pools A and B were spent re-rearranging the brackets as we went because so many players weren't answering to our calls or the PA calls. I asked everyone to raise their hand who was playing in MK and about 20 people did, but almost none of those people were in a match with other people, and there were about 35 to 38 people per pool. We would have had to DQ nearly half of the first rounds so instead we switched some non-essential matches to get players to actually go against each other, then DQed full matches, shrinking the brackets down. If the players who didn't show at all didn't answer within 5 minutes of their losers round matches we DQed them entirely. On top of that, we wound up losing a station at C during the second pools halfway in because the "Arena" PS3 system had to be taken, and my PS3 AV cable was being used for SSF4.
The problem with the stream matches was due to the fact that we didn't have any stream worthy matches at the time they were asking us to, so we sent anyone who was in a match with a known player, like Arturo, REO, Chris G, etc. I don't know how the times were slated for streaming but had we started 90 minutes earlier without the power failure, we would have been into the semi finals for winners at that point and it would have worked out well. Just bad timing and bad luck all around. Next big tournament if big E wants us to do MK9 brackets we'll see about handling it differently. Make no mistake about it though, I had a great time and would do it all over again. I really enjoyed getting to know the MK9 players because I'm sure many of you have noticed, I'm not around much on the boards anymore, not even on my own site.
Rob, thank you so much for handling those brackets so well. Next time we'll have things running much better, I promise you. I owe you a dinner, perhaps we can split a Crave Case in the near future. Your preparation at Valley Stream definitely helped you this weekend.
Phil, we're on another level when it comes to this stuff. I don't need to say any more, you know it all.
Nit, I'll talk to you at work heh but you did AMAZINGLY well for a guy who thinks he's too old to play. Your single best weekend. You should always support a $400 bar bill before you play, it seems to work.
AC1984, we didn't really get to talk until the end of the weekend. We need to play more, we gotta set up arrangements, I'll talk to Nit.
Dark Rob, you're always there for the community and represent many pieces of our puzzle, a lot of people probably don't realize it but I hope they do. You are currently teaching countless people how to play Sub-zero through your dominance. Must feel good to be able to teach me after the last year and a half of teaching you UMK3. We'll play soon.
STORMS, I just want to let you know that you are a major part of this MK family. All the other guys know what they do and what they are worth, and I just want to make sure that you do. We appreciate every little thing you do and trust me, I see everything. We've needed someone with your type of energy, dedication and desire to communicate with people on a different level than I have for a while and it's working out so well. It's hard to communicate this at the tournaments themselves, as you can see we're in the same room all day and we barely see each other. Players here need to realize that we literally work side by side in our effort. I'm so glad you have embraced the scene like you have.
REO, what else is there to say except that you are one of the single most impressive fighting game players I know. People still don't believe that you jumping into that hardcore MKII tournament at Winter Brawl and placed like 3rd or something ridiculous. I have to say they should believe it now when you dominate in all that is MK.
Organelle, I'm always happy to help people out at tournaments so they know what their options are if they want to start their own. Remember to ask around if there are groups of people in say a 50 mile radius of the area you want to run, because you generally pick up people in small packs. The scene we've built spans a very large area now and once you start running small ones, you might want to get involved with ours since you're in the middle.
Scoot Magee, I met you on Thursday at the Valley Stream casuals and it was simulataneously a pleasure and extremely frustrating playing your Reptile. I wish I had more time to seriously learn this game because it's definitely fun, but I get lost in the recovery times, mix ups and hit levels since I am not familiar with them. You are definitely a player to watch out for and I see big things coming your way. Good luck man and I hope to see you soon.
BATTLEBEAR, as always nice meeting you and I'm glad your experience was positive and no one rubbed you the wrong way. Make sure to reintroduce yourself to me because I met a ton of people who knew who I was and I didn't know who they were. I'll be honest I didn't recognize Michelangelo when he introduced himself to me then I realized hehe.
Thomahawk, I want to thank you again for helping us out. You allowed us to avoid a potentially ugly situation and I've never been thrown out of a building but it might have happened. We'll leave it at that heh. I'll see you again soon, and great work overall in the tournament, you impressed me and that's why I picked you with confidence.
ReyTheGreat, we had a fun set of Smoke vs Smoke. I hope to give you a better challenge if we get to play again in the future. I'm seeing about getting us back the air throw to Smoke bomb in some form or another. Keep your fingers crossed.
SwiftTomHanks, not a problem, I was being pulled in so many directions I probably didn't even realize it was you who told me you were leaving, especially because of so many new faces. You weren't the only person I was calling numerous times hehe.
Kona, you gave me a nice beat down in MK9, I will definitely play you again and get you some UMK3 training in. You're extremely talented.
Crazy Dominican, we really got to talk a bit more at this tournament than at ones in the past. Great set we had in the tournament, and congratulations on your very high placement in MK9. I always enjoy your company and am looking for to seeing you again at Summer Jam.
Spyk, always nice to see you and I hope we get some kind of thing going with the scene you're working on in North Jersey. Post that up everywhere you can, you'll get bites. We'll talk in depth next time I see you.
Michelangelo, it was a pleasure and honor meeting you. You are a true king and have so much respect. Keep your Kabal train moving.
Spencer, I've had the chance to get to know you for a while now all I can say is you're on your way up the ladder in no time. Extremely impressive display.
Chris G, fun times as always, you got me again in UMK3 but next time you're gonna feel it, I promise hehe. Again great job in MK9 and Marvel.
K Hunter, Darth Arma, Magneto Halfway, didn't really get to talk to you guys outside of pool stuff and handshakes. I watched your shit and I may not have known who you were before, but I know now.
BlueIX my man, you will get some UMK3 Sub-zero lessons from me in due time. You will realize the power behind this character. It locked so deep in the frozen ice because it's so potent. Always great to see you.
David Gem, your MKII skills are legendary, we'll have to pump up another big MKII tournament for the next one. Hope you're there.
Tom Brady. Who could forget Tom "Hitman" Brady? This guy is like a necessary evil. We're like the Professor X and Magneto of the MK community. Let me be the first to post this. After EVO, every UMK3 tournament we run on the East Coast will be a "Tom Brady Challenge" and in this instance I mean the fate of the UMK3 scene lies in the hands of whoever plays against him. The banner will be "Defeat the Evil Tom Brady to keep the UMK3 scene alive" because if Tom Brady ever wins a UMK3 tournament, we will stop running UMK3 forever! That's legit. Mad respect Bill, we've done our bit for King and Country, I'll talk to you soon.
Quick shouts to JeRon, I always run into you at least once during a weekend, Arturo for being a Legend, Spooky, Technician at Super Turbo stream, (I believe that was your handle, we go waaaaay back, memory is foggy), Bisonopolis for waving to me as I left the parking garage on my way home, Voytek for always being a trooper, supporting your friends, drinking a lot, not snoring on the floor in the hotel, and being legitimately 2 meters tall in your stocking feet.
Last but not least, Seth Killian, an honor to meet you. I was blown away that you even knew who I am or that I use to make combo videos. I felt special. You are the ultimate pillar of this community.
I'm sure I missed people, you all know who you are, if you shout me I'll shout back! Quick shouts to DreemerNJ, Konqrr, Tim Static, Cowboy Hat Matt, NoDoubt, ComeBack Kyle, Krazybone, Julian and others who couldn't be there and I'm sure wanted to be. I was sad that we didn't even run UMK3 casuals on Saturday. No time, no room. UMK3 felt like a major after throught but next tournament it's coming back full force.
