EVO 2017 Line up

Off-Topic
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Hello, KI Community!

Joey Cuellar announced that EVO 2017 Line up will be revealed January 24th. It will be 7 games that will win the ticket to the main stage, and of course I am rooting for KI to make into the Mandaly Bay on Sunday, but this post is about our bets for this year’s line up. My 7 candidates are:

SFV
Tekken 7
Guilty Gear Xrd -Revelator-
Killer Instinct
King of Fighters XIV
Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Injustice 2

The speculation is on, folks! Which game do you think the 7 choosen ones will be?

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No way they just take out the Smashes, those are some of their biggest money makers.

SFV
Smash
The Other Smash
Tekken
Marvel
Injustice (Didn’t it get delayed to later in the year though?)
King of Fighters

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I think it’s good to say that, even if KI couldn’t make into the line up, we mustn’t be salty about it. EVO line up is a reflection about the game’s community activity. If KI be out of the line up, that must be an incentive for us, the KI Community, so we can think of what can be done to strengthen our community and to appear in the 2018 line up.

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Well, what are the qualifications to get into the lineup?

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KI has 0 chance this year. If there are only 7 games, they pick themselves:

SFV
Melee
Smash 4
Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator
Tekken 7
Injustice 2
KOF14

The only game I can maaaaaaybe see not on this list is KOF, but I think the chances are very slim they will replace that with another game. Marvel will take a year off before MvCI. Pokken won’t return because Nintendo abandoned the game quickly and needing two Wii Us per setup is too much. KI won’t return because it had the lowest tournament entries each year it was at Evo (despite having year-on-year growth), and it’s on Xbox One in a landscape dominated by PS4s.

SFV and both Smashes are no brainers (huge money makers and the top entered games last year by a wide margin). Xrd, Tekken, and Injustice each bring in a unique subset of the FGC that might not have otherwise attended Evo (anime, 3D, NRS scenes), so if you’re a business and want to have lots of entries, these games need to be there, plus Tekken has a Tekken Tour and Injustice is likely to be supported as much as MKX was. KOF is the wildcard game but it will also have an official tour and it’s been a few years since KOF made it to Evo.

If the game’s list is not exactly this, I will be very surprised.

I’m mostly sad that, in a time when the FGC is supposedly growing with lots of good games to play, Evo decides to shrink its game roster. KI might have been picked as the 8th game, maybe. But it kinda shows the reality of the “true FGC” in a lot of ways, too. If you aren’t playing one of the mainstream games, the mainstream doesn’t care about you, despite the encouragement the people at the top try to give you about keepin’ on going and strengthening your scene (as they just go play/talk about SFV).

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7, that’s it? Wasn’t last year 9? Well, lets put it this way. Street Fighter V and Wii U Smash are about as close to a lock as you can come. That leave 5 slots.

Well, there’s Injustice 2 and i’ve really heard nothing about it at all. Unless EVO has some knowledge that general public does not, there’s not much to go on there. I don’t feel confident it’ll make it with no info, no solid release date, no general knowledge of the gameplay. That’s too many questions for my taste.

Good shot titles, without knowing what criteria they base it on?

Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3? Might even be it’s swan song from the EVO circuit if Infinite meets expectations. But it IS on it’s way out, i can’t remember which tournament it was (one that Alex Valle was involved in) but UMvC3 didn’t make the cut initially. Might be here where it gets the door shut if they’re limiting the list.

Tekken 7, pretty good shot. I can’t say much because i don’t follow Tekken at all, but i know it’s players do show up a little bit. Plus, it’s very different from most of the other fighters.

Killer Instinct and Mortal Kombat XL are both in unique boats to me. MKXL has had tons of money thrown at it by the guys behind it (forget the names) and KI has the KI World Cup that they’ve used EVO as a premier event. Course, money behind a game doesn’t mean everything. The biggest diference between them being that KI is locked to Xbox and PC, while MKXL isnt.

Pokken Tournament? I was suprised at how much of a draw it was at last years EVO. Not the most entertaining thing to watch though, in my opinion. Plus, i think it’s not as big a draw in the states as it is overseas where, i believe, Pokemon is maybe stronger than here.

Guilty Gear Revelator? I have no idea how that game works, but i’ll be damned if it’s not fun to at least watch. Plus, i think there’s been a trend of anime fighters taking up a slot at EVO in the past few years that has worked well for them.

Smash Melee? This one is tough. Project M support died some years ago, but they have been going strong for a good long while. I’ve learned to not doubt smashers since their game is like the new Marvel vs Capcom 2. Then again, Nintendo nearly killed that party last year too, and they’re hard-headed. Plus, as a company, is it practical when something like that can happen again unless they worked it out?

King of Fighters? I’m not at all sure on KOF. Everywhere, i hear it’s a solid game. They even just patched it and upgraded the visuals, too. But online can be like a deadzone sometimes. Just how deep is the player base? Deep enough for EVO Championship Sunday?

I’m going with Street Fighter V, Sm4sh, Guilty Gear, MKX, Tekken, Smash Melee and KI. Yeah, i’m hoping for KI, and it’s a homer thing.

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Both MK9 and MKX were released in April, and both were at Evo their first year.

Given that NRS knows the power and importance of Evo, and that Injustice 2 is close to done and will launch “some time” this year, I think it is 100% guaranteed that it will launch in time for Evo (ie, most likely April), and that Evo will pick it as a game. Having a very new game at Evo is often pretty exciting, actually. There is an arms race for cheap tech, the game being unsolved means lots of exciting scrambly moments, and new blood can come out of nowhere and surprise people.

So yeah, I have no doubts IJ2 will be out in time for Evo and that it will get chosen over MKX for the NRS slot.

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I hope KI makes it for the 2017 line up!

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What about that japan evo they discussed last year? Despite not taking place at the same time as the NA evo…or is that going to be a later date?

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@FengShuiEnergy I think it’s going to be a later date.

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both smashes
sf5
mvc3
kof14
xrd
t7

nrs buys 8th spot

or

both smashes
sf5
nrs game
kof14
xrd
t7

wiz says “oh yea and marvel” at the end of the stream

dream lineup

melee
sf5
mvc3
kof14
xrd
t7
ki

donation drive and skullgirls actually gets it this time

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But isn’t Injustice 2 one of the big games being affected by the voice actor strike? It makes sense with the time table of when the strike started and when they stopped showing new content. And when they finally did show new content it was the same characters we saw before, perhaps because none of the unrevealed characters have been voiced yet? Also their unwillingness to officially announce a delay could be to prevent the strikers from feeling empowered.

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I have always felt that EVO should limit games to one per series; I find it frustrating that there would be two Smash games taking up roster slots (though I understand that might be money motivated based on signups).

Personally I would make the Smash community vote ahead of time on which of the two games would be run.

Same goes for other series; only one Marvel (so no MVC3 once MVCi is out), only one MK/NRS game, etc.

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I agree either throw out melee (the relic) or Smash4 (the one that seems to pander mostly to FE fans)

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A LOT of truth. I really don’t see KI making it another year at EVO, four years for effectively what has been one game would be pretty crazy in EVO lifetime. I’d LOVE for KI to be there next year, but it gets overshadowed by Capcom Pro Tour as the creme de le creme of FGC. While IG supports KI with plenty of blood sweat an tears, an the core player base does the same, I also look at smash and their growth. Smash got HUGE over time with consistency. GGXrd’s support has been an oddity to me as arc sys supports it just as much as IG does KI, but for some reason they have more pull. Perhaps it’s based off name alone, as KI had been dormant for a decade. The games I’d love to see at EVO

GGXrdR
KOFXIV
Tekken 7
KI
Smash 4
SFV
Melee

Injustice I feel would be dependent upon the time frame of release. Perhaps it’ll have a special showing at Evo, an I can honestly see KI be taken over by UMvC3 considering the entrants it gets STILL.

Realistically, I don’t see it deviating much from your list at all.

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If some outside factor ends up delaying INJ2, then that is unfortunate, but I do believe it has always been NRS’s plan to release the game in time for Evo.

Even if NRS can’t confirm privately to Evo that “yes for sure our game is going to be out in April” because of the voice actor’s strike, then I wouldn’t be surprised if Wiz just says “Injustice 2 if it’s out, otherwise MKX” as the announcement.

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NRS = NetherRealm Studios. Thank you, i kept wanting to say Midway and i know that’s wrong.

Basically, everything you said i can’t really disagree with. My reasoning is that i feel like EVO is trying to expand more, and no fault on them. Growth is great! So do you grow with a core stable of games that have served you well in either prior tournaments, are guaranteed cash cows or just popular? Or go into the unknown. Granted, that unknown is a DC backed game where people probably know Batman and Wonder Woman way before Liu Kang and Kitana. And there is definitely players and money there. Safe route or experiment? I think they might go safe.

For me, i feel like the safer money rests on MKX. If Injustice 2 makes it over MKX, i wouldn’t be too suprised. If BOTH made it, i’d cry foul.

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Good reasoning in this prediction, as big of a KI fan as I’d like to think myself as, it makes sense. Tough pill to swallow, however, it is always a good thing to hear the things you don’t want to hear that have a good logical reasoning behind them.

I do have hope, and Mr. Wizard does appear to enjoy the game per previous talks about it (at least at face value). We shall see!

Also, we were not the last placing entrant numbers in 2014, IIRC

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I fully expect that theres gonna be 8 games, be it through drives, nrs buying a spot, or just general “one more thing” trolling. They’re definitely scalinf back after all the issues last year, but cutting 2 games is probably also seems too overboard.

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Man, you’d think now that fighting games are actually creeping back into the mainstream they’d show off more of them at what’s supposed to be the biggest FGC event of the year.
I guess they don’t want that title anymore?
I’m pining for KI and Skullgirls to get in, but honestly after 2016 happened I’ve gotten really good at letting dreams die.

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