Press Play to Start: EVO tournament shows value of overcoming adversity

Happy fall semester everyone! Whether this is your first or last fall at USC, make sure to enjoy it to the fullest.

Although this inaugurates my fourth and final year here, I still can’t enter the right mindset for school. It seems that after spending the entire summer lazing around playing video games, I have grown too soft and spoiled to hit the ground running. As such, while I will do my best to deliver top-notch commentary, please forgive me if these first columns have one or two rushed transitions. Unlike what long-time readers may tell you, they are an anomaly and absolutely not a long-running tradition in this column. No, no need to check. 

Still, it’s not like I threw all my business standards out the window once summer started. Even though I barely left my bed in all those months, I still kept an eye on what was happening in the professional gaming scene. And while I’d love to be called a “dedicated columnist,” it’s mostly because EVO 2022 was going on.

For those of you who don’t know what EVO is, let me explain. Evolution Championship Series is one of the largest fighting game tournaments in the entire world. Featuring a roster of the year’s most popular games, together with some fan favorites, the event is usually a great showcase of the very best that the fighting game community has to offer. 

This year was no exception, and every single game featured incredible matches. We had the spectacle that was pro-player SonicFox winning the Skullgirls championship and canonizing themselves as one of the best fighting game athletes in the world. We also had the thrilling Tekken 7 matches, where the game’s highly advanced technical elements were once again pushed to the limit as long-time player Knee secured his third EVO win. But for me, the game that shined the brightest this year was Guilty Gear Strive, the newest addition to the famous Arc-System Works series of the same name.

Now, full disclosure, Strive is the only game that was featured in EVO that I actively play. But, even without much knowledge, it isn’t hard to see exactly why the game took center stage in the competition. Mixing a low entry barrier with a high-skill ceiling, Strive creates an environment that welcomes casual and pro-players alike. Not only that, but with its colorful cast of characters with charming moves and specials, the game is outright fun to watch, even with zero understanding of its inner workings.

Yet, what made it stand out to me didn’t have anything to do with the game itself. No, Strive was one of the best games in EVO because of its amazing players. Featuring a roster of players from all over the world, the athletes on the stage were filled with personality and incredible skill. The matches were incredibly close, and every minute was filled with tension and anxiety as the top players went head to head. In the end, pro-player Umisho took the trophy home after an incredible grand final, becoming the first ever Guilty Gear Strive EVO champion. 

But why am I talking about this now?

Well, usually I try to use something that happened — especially a failure — as a learning experience for the rest of the esports industry. Sometimes I go the other direction, showcasing something positive and drawing wider conclusions from that. In other words, I use something that happened as a jumping point to a possible, better future. This time, it’s neither here nor there. No, the reason why I chose specifically to talk about the Guilty Gear Strive EVO 2022 championship is that it shows, in purely realistic terms, how a tournament should be held.

I know that some readers may be scratching their heads since I’ve been building up this tournament as a perfect championship. In many ways it was, but perfect does not mean that it didn’t face any setbacks. And when we’re talking about the Strive EVO 2022 championship, there were almost too many setbacks to count. Take for example the time an avid fan distracted an athlete mid-match with their incessant screaming, requiring the pro-gamer to directly confront him, or the fact that the championship itself ran almost two hours late, resulting in the grand finals being held in the early hours of the morning. These errors, both of which could lead to a disastrous performance by the main athletes, are incredibly hard to recover from, and a disorganized tournament could lead to a fatal end.

And yet, this was not the case for EVO. Even as the hours dragged on and production lost their tight grip on the show, all the different components of the tournament still came together to deliver the best show they could. Staff and commentators put up incredible levels of energy to keep the hype going within the audience. The viewers, on their end, also cheered on the gamers with all their hearts, directly interacting with them after every win and loss in typical fighting game fashion. And of course, the athletes themselves pulled through all their fatigue to deliver the show of their lifetimes. 

While I love to talk about what ideally should happen, we now have a tangible and concrete example of how to run a perfect esports tournament even when everything seems to be falling apart. And while all some readers may take from this is to “power through,” the real reason why Strive’s EVO run didn’t end up in complete disaster has nothing to do with endurance, but rather the dedication and support that each component gave to one another. For a couple of brief hours, everyone in the venue came together in their hopes of striving to hold the best tournament they could, creating the perfect homage to the game – even if just in name.

Guilherme Guerreiro is a senior writing about esports. His column, “Press Start to Play,” runs every other Monday.