H-Town Showdown 2K15

Shortly after Kombo Klash in 2015, I became aware of an important tournament in Houston called Texas Showdown and it was the next Texas tournament that would have Killer Instinct as a main game in their lineup. I began to get ahold of local players that I had met there in San Antonio to see who would be interested in making a trip to Houston. After texting and calling everyone, I only got confirmation from a local tattoo artist, named Chris de Leon. We had met there in San Antonio and we exchanged info. Leading up to the tournament, I had asked Chris if it would be cool with him if I had invited Hunter, the girl whom I was seeing at the time, along with us on the trip. He gave me the thumbs up so I asked and Hunter was interested in going and she made arrangements to have that weekend off.

The time to take off came around and we all met up at my house to leave in Chris' truck. It was going to be my first trip with Chris and this would be Hunter's first experience with competitive gaming in real life. Everybody was excited for different reasons, and that includes me. I was excited to see my mom during a semester, I was excited to have my girlfriend be with me at a competition, and I was excited to see all the friends I had made at Kombo Klash as well see how much I had grown in the several months in between.

A 6 hour drive later we ended up at my mom's house and began to unload the truck. My mom had made some enchiladas for us before we headed to the venue to get our badges for the competition on Saturday. We all sat down and enjoyed our food while watching Futurama. As we began to to head towards the venue, I made Chris be in charge of GPS because even though I have driven in Houston before, I wasn't familiar with the location of where the venue would be. We hit the road and started to get our cash together so that we could pay the tolls.

Once we arrived at the venue, we made sure to go to the check in desk. Chris and I had already registered so we checked in and we picked up our passes. Seeing as how I had invited Hunter on such short notice, we had to get her a spectator pass which was something like $20. We figured that since we were already there, that we would take a look around and see if we could find any of our friends around. Chris went to go look at see what the vendors had, while Hunter and I had gone by the Killer Instinct stations to check out the crowd. I immediately found my friends Ken(Bass) and Daymein and introduced Hunter to them. I began to catch up with Daymein while Bass was getting to know Hunter.  At one point he had asked me how I met her, because for some reason Hunter was being nervous and didn't wanna say. So I told him that we had met back when we were in High School and he said that was pretty cool. Hunter had pulled on my arm and asked if we could go look at the shirts, so we dismissed ourselves to go take a look at the vendors. Now Hunter was one of those super extra girlfriends, which isn't a bad thing, so when she saw this cool shirt she had asked me if I would be willing to wear the shirt together like some couples do. I checked out the shirt and it was this solid black shirt that had this cool little monster on it that was mashing buttons on a fightstick, and I told her that it was a sick shirt and to let me know how much it was for two of them. She said not to worry about it and that she would get it for us. So while she was in line to go pay for the shirts I decided to out into the parking lot and get her some Korean soda that she was looking at from this Korean food truck that was out there. I got her a bottle of strawberry soda and took it back in just in time to catch her finishing up with the vendor. I gave her the soda and I began to pack the shirts into my backpack. Chris had just caught up to us, and we had decided to call it a day and go back to my mom's house and maybe get some games in time for tomorrow.

There was actually an accident on the way home so a 45 minute drive turned into an hour and a half drive and we got home around 10 and hit the sack from there.
We wake up the next day, eat some pancakes, and head over to the venue in order to get some practice in before the tournament started. We hopped on our phones to figure out who was in what pool and I quickly learned that I was going to be in a pool with Daymein who was a friend that I had made back at the Kombo Klash event in San Antonio. I had decided that it would be in my best bet to avoid playing him until it was in tournament, so I played Bass until the tournament started and we were just having fun playing the Spinal mirror.

At 4p.m. the tournament began and I sat down to play some local Sabrewulf player and we shook hands to jump straight into it. Hunter stood behind me interested in seeing her first Killer Instinct tournament match. Sure enough I beat this local guy 3-0 and we talked a bit before I reported the score to the Tournament Organizer.

"Raven is Raw is going to be playing Daymein next so after the match is completed at station 2 make sure to jump on and play your match," said the TO.

"Wow, you have to play your friend already? I thought you two would've played later on," Hunter said as she was grabbing onto my backpack.

"Yeah that's what I was hoping for as well. Oh well it looks like I gotta beat his ass to make it further," I stated as we walked over to station 2.

Let me say this right now, beat his ass I did not. Daymein had been practicing a brand new character since we had played at Kombo Klash and he had been watching my tendencies as I was playing Bass because he knew my breaking patterns. Before I go tell you how I had figured all of this out, let me tell you about the breaking system in this game. Killer Instinct has a combo breaker system that allows the person being hit by a combo to break the opponents combos by breaking with the corresponding strength that the enemy uses. Lights, Mediums, and Heavies are the three strengths and you use these combination of buttons and timing to break your opponents combos by reacting or guessing their inputs. This means the person being hit can break combos until they lockout by doing the wrong input or being hit with a counterbreaker by the person doing the combo. A counterbreaker is when the person doing the combo knows that the opponent is going to attempt at breaking a combo and does a counter to punish them, but leaves the attacker vulnerable if they were wrong. Counterbreakers are high-risk high-reward plays, so I learned that Daymein had been watching my matches with Bass when he counterbroke me four times in a row to get a perfect victory over me in the first match. Now anybody who plays fighting games knows that getting perfected by your opponent can be one of the most demoralizing things to ever happen to you because that means this person just beat your ass without you landing a hit on them. The next two matches weren't that much better because Daymein beat me convincingly to put me into the loser's bracket basically at the beginning of the tournament. Luckily for me, there is no footage from those matches.

I was pretty abhorred about the set and Hunter immediately knew that I was upset so she came by and helped me look past the results and focus on the next match.

I won the next couple of matches to eventually face off against the FGC legend, Mr. Street Fighter himself, Alex Valle. As someone who joined the FGC in the year 2013, I didn't get to see a lot of Alex Valle in games aside from Street Fighter 4 and 5. Alex Valle is a natural and his years of experience in Street Fighter had me interested in playing him and finding out if the skills transfer over at all.

Texas Showdown 2015 Raven is Raw vs Alex Valle (Click me)

After my match with Alex Valle, I had to face against Daymein in order to make it into Top 8. It would've been my first Top 8 at a Major Tournament, so the pressure was on! I had to make the adjustments in order to beat someone who had just handed my ass a perfect. I was on edge and I'm sure Daymein was feeling confident.

I was able to bring out the W and solidify my position in Top 8 by taking the set all the way to game 5. I won and although I was ecstatic that I made my first Top 8 at a Major, I did feel guilty that I had to send one of my friends home early!

Later that day, we had our Top 8 matches and this was a foreign experience for me. There is an added pressure to playing in a Top 8 because the matches are displayed on the big screen with no other distractions. That means at any given point during the tournament that all eyes are on you with the commentators analyzing your every move for the room to hear if they weren't watching already. All of these factors can really add up and that's not even considering the fact that you have to play someone in what is a virtual boxing match where you trade blows. It also didn't help that I was the first match of Top 8 against a fellow Texas player, Sickle. Sickle was someone that I had met back at Ultra Arcade but we had never played in tournament before. We are the first match in the link down below.

Texas Showdown 2015 Top 8 (Click me)

Although I only got 7th at this tournament, I was happy to see my training partner Thrashheavy take 3rd place and it was great to see UA Bass take the entire tournament home and becoming an honorary Texan.

The First and Certainly Not the Last

After driving for the four hours it takes to get to San Antonio, I ended up at Ultra Arcade located on 5946 Blanco Rd, San Antonio, TX 78216. I arrived around noon to find a crowd had gathered outside the arcade waiting for the doors to open. As I scanned the crowd to see if I recognized any of the people there in tournament footage, I noticed the Evolution 2014 champion CDJR along with the runner-up Rico Suave. These two were arguably the best to be playing the game at the time, and I had the opportunity to play against them in a local environment. The doors opened and we all went in to pay our fees. It was $10 for the tournament registration and $10 for the venue fee.
Once registration was completed, the organizers had decided to do a role call to make sure that all the information was correct. I patiently waited my turn as the people around me were being called left and right. "Raven is Raw! Raven is Raw!" I hear my tag being called out and I raise my hand to let the tournament organizer know I'm present. "Alright you're checked in.

"Hey you're the Spinal player Raven is Raw, right?"
I turn around and see some long haired dude and reply "Yeah I am. What's Up?"
"I'm Bass, we played online like a week ago. I'm a Spinal player from New Jersey and we played the mirror match. Do you want to play while we wait for the tournament to start?"
"Sure, sounds good to me" I say as I retrieve my controller from my backpack. 

An hour later, and after losing about 20 matches to Bass, the tournament starts. People begin playing their matches and I have a weird combination of anxiety and confidence as my name gets called out to play. I sit down, take out my controller and headset, take a deep breath and plug in. I shake hands with my opponent and choose Spinal. As the game loads up the match, I begin to focus on the task at hand. 

"Good Games," I say as I shake my opponents hand. I was the victor as I won 3 matches in a row to take the set at 3-0.

I continued to play through the tournament and winning until I ran into Bass, the guy that had been beating my ass all day. Knowing that my Spinal wasn't up to par with his Spinal, I immediately decided to use characters that gave Spinal a hard time despite me lacking the skill and knowledge needed to win. With that being said, I got annihilated 3-0 and it showed to me that it was one of the worst ideas I had ever had. Sadly all of this was off stream so I don't have any footage of this.

Losing for the first time in tournament definitely had an effect on me. I lost some of my focus and I didn't remain composed. I wasn't playing as strong in my next match which almost got me knocked out of the tournament. When it came down to the final match, I took a moment to gather my thoughts and took a deep breath. After that I felt a moment of clarity and just completely destroyed this person to send myself to the Loser's Finals of my pool. 

Loser's Finals is when two people in the loser's bracket make it to the end to try and make it out of the pool into Top 8. They each have lost at least once so whoever loses is knocked out while the winner stays alive to fight again. As I reached that part of the bracket, I take a look to see who stands in my way to make it out. I see Bass is my opponent and I immediately make the choice to play the Spinal mirror and give it everything I have. Bass lost to Rico Suave who had just gotten 2nd place at the largest Killer Instinct tournament of the year. We look at each other and realize that there is going to be a runback and the winner will be a part of Top 8 and take home some money.

We sat on the arcade couch waiting to be called for our match on stream in front of everyone in the arcade. I figured to converse with Bass about things outside of the game because I had never met anyone from the east coast. We started talking about college and life after high school. I learned that he studied Computer Science when he was in college which is what I was studying at the time. He even offered me to go up and stay with him whenever I want, which is completely crazy because I've barely known this guy for a day and half and he was already offering me his place to crash at. I learned his real name and exchanged info.

"Raven is Raw and Bass NS, you're on stream right now. Bass you're on first player and Raven you're on second player," Brandon Alexander, the owner of Ultra Arcade, tells us. 

We walk up to the station, shake hands and sit down to plug in. The game loads up and we both scroll over Spinal. This is going to be a mirror and we know it. All those matches we played earlier are going to be information for this match right now. I decided to give it my all because if I didn't then I would be going home. (Link of the match down below)

Kombo Klash 2014 Bass NS vs Raven is Raw

It was a good set between us, but I ended up losing and getting knocked out at 9th with Bass moving on to make Top 8. That set would be the beginning of a friendship that would last years to come. I also met Thrashheavy and OMGWTFrank who happened to be locals from the valley and we exchanged info so that we could hang out and get some games in at home. That was basically the end for the first day and everyone got to chill and grab food as they waited for Top 8 the next day.

Top 8 the next day started at around 2:00PM and people were excited to see who would win it all and become the first qualified player for the Killer Instinct World Cup that would be taking place in January of 2016. As players began to get ready and people were showing up to watch, I found myself getting some games in with Bass and he began to show me some things with Spinal. He was finally called to get the matches started and I went to watch the Top 8 with the crowd. As the day went on and the games had more and more stakes on the line, I began to fall in love with the atmosphere and the idea of competing as a hobby. I was excited by the idea of learning and getting better, and to be able to see the improvement just enticed me. Grand finals was between C88 MyGod and Mortality's Rico Suave. Both of these players had been a part of the Top 8 at EVO 2014 and we were going to see a runback. MyGod was a Sabrewulf specialist and Rico Suave had a Glacius ready to counter pick MyGod. It came down to the last game with Sabrewulf clawing his way into close quarters with Glacius using all of his powers to keep him at bay. MyGod's Sabrewulf won the spacing battle and went on to win the set and walk away with $1500, an all expense paid trip to Japan, as well as be the first qualifier for the World Cup in 2016.

It was my first real experience with the Fighting Game Community and I was in love. I knew that this was just the beginning for me.

KIWC 2017

So when I started to do these blog posts, I had the intention of doing them all in a chronological order. That being said, I decided to do this post after the tournament that occurred on the weekend of March 10-12 2017. That was the weekend of the 2nd Annual Killer Instinct World Cup in San Antonio, TX. 32 top players from across the globe played for their piece of the $30,000 prize pot. The event was held at the Tobin Center for Performing Arts with players duking it out in front of a live audience in the thousands and even more tuning in via Twitch.tv.

I played in the Top 32 on Sunday in hopes of taking it all. The good thing was that by already playing in the Top 32, I was guaranteed to take home a minimum of $200. I was ecstatic that this year I get to play because last year I wasn't able to qualify to make it into the final bracket via the Last Chance Qualifiers (I will go into detail about that in another post).

Sunday started after a short Saturday night's sleep because everyone who was playing on Sunday was required to be at the venue by 9AM. The fact that we needed to be there so early was not helped by Daylight Saving Time which had us lose an hour of sleep in the middle of the night. As all of the Top 32 players began to arrive and we were getting situated into the dressing rooms backstage, fatigue began to overcome me, so when one of the runners came by to take orders for all the players, I made sure to get a vanilla coke with a bacon and egg breakfast sandwich, to get caffeine and food in my system to help me get through the grueling day that lay ahead of me. After orders were picked up, event organizers told us that we would be called into the conference area once all the food was back, so that we could eat and that they would have Xbox Ones set up in there for us to practice before the bracket began.

45 minutes later we were called from our dressing rooms to eat and practice, and so as they escorted us to the practice area there was an official in there who was reading out the bracket for the Top 32 players. People scarfed down their meals and gathered around the setups to get whatever practice they could squeeze in before the bracket started in 15 minutes.

As people began to be called for the matches out on the big stage, I focused on being mentally ready for what lay ahead of me. I sat down with my music playing and began to think of all the matches that I could potentially face and what my options were with Spinal in each of them. Before I knew it, I was called for my first match against UA Wheels who is a friend of mine and a great disabled player. We've played together so much that at this point we already know each others habits and it just becomes a matter of adapting to each other. As I walked onto the stage, it was an amazing feeling to be on such a stage in front of 5,000 people in the stands along with the 30,000 viewers at home watching via the Twitch stream. I sat down across from my good friend Wheels and we began the match. I had my first ever mistake of pressing the pause button and forfeiting the first match. It didn't phase me but it was an unfortunate circumstance because I can't give an opponent like Wheels a free round like that. We continued to play the set out and Wheels took the set 3-1 (I'll link the video down below).

Killer Instinct World Cup 2017 UA Wheels vs Raven is Raw

I had lost my first match of the day and as I went backstage to the practice room, I was notified by the Tournament Organizer that the first round of the loser's bracket would be getting run in there and that I would be playing Hologram in the next 15 minutes. The first round of the loser's bracket was played so there isn't any footage of this set, but I ended winning the set 3-1 using Spinal against his Thunder.

Later on throughout the day, I ended up playing my third match against UA Guttermagic who also played Thunder against me. It felt great to be back on stage against one of the greatest players that I have watched play the game for the past 3 years. He started off the set strong by winning the first two matches in convincing fashion but as my tournament life was on the line, all the information I gathered in those matches let me make a great comeback. With my back against the wall, I won the set 3-2 by doing a reverse sweep (I'll link the video down below).

Killer Instinct World Cup 2017 UA Guttermagic vs Raven is Raw

My last match of the tournament was against Mentality's Letalis Venator. He is a great Aganos player and he destroyed me. My unfamiliarity against that character ended up being my downfall. His knowledge and his abilities allowed him to win the set 3-0 (I'll link the video down below).


Killer Instinct World Cup 2017 Raven is Raw vs MnT Letalis Venator

That was the end of my tournament life as a competitor, but that didn't stop me from watching the rest of the tournament and cheering for the rest of my friends still in it. The event had great production value and some of the best matches that you could ever ask for. The Top 8 was phenomenal and had some of the best players in the world duke it out for cash and glory.

After going 2-2 in the world's largest Killer Instinct Tournament, I ended up walking away tied for 13th in the world. This placing got me $500 in the bank and I was just happy to see the results of all my work. After a year of work and adapting as time went on, I got to say that I am 13th in the world for the game I love, and now it's time for me to take a break and prepare for whatever lies next in the competitive landscape.

The Most Important Step of a Journey is the First.

After playing Spinal for a couple of months, I started to learn more and more of the Fighting Game Community. The FGC is a group that plays fighting games at a competitive level for glory and prizes at tournaments across the globe. I came across the FGC as I was looking at YouTube videos so that I could become a better player. I happened to click on a video titled "EVO 2014 Killer Instinct Top 8" and this is where my eyes were opened. I learned that Evolution Championship Series is the world's largest fighting game tournament and is annually held in Las Vegas during the summer. I eventually found the trailer for EVO 2015, and I will post it below so that you guys can take a look and have some idea about it.

EVO 2015 Trailer (Click Me)

After I viewed that video, I began to look up any Texas competitions that were happening soon, so that I would get some experience. After some Google search, I came across a website that was advertising a Killer Instinct World Cup. I decided to do more research on this Killer Instinct World Cup and it led me to Ultra Arcade's website who were the people in charge of the event. They also said that there would be qualifying events throughout the year and that the first event would be held in December of 2014 at Ultra Arcade in San Antonio, Texas. Kombo Klash was the first qualifier for the KI World Cup and would be open to the public for registration via Twitter. So I signed up for Twitter and made sure to contact the Ultra Arcade twitter so that I could register for my first tournament that would go under way in December later that year. I was officially registered and ready to go to my first tournament and I couldn't wait to see where I stood as a player with some of the greats.

Bad to the Bone

"C-C-Combo Breaker" This phrase used to boom through arcades, and that was part of the charm of the original Killer Instinct. The game was unapologetically loud and in your face in hopes to get kids to come over and spend their quarters. Now, I was not gifted with the experience of playing the game in the arcades, but I was able to enjoy the game from the comfort of my home via the game's release on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Playing it on the SNES was not as rewarding as playing the arcade version of it but I didn't care, I was hooked.


Being a fan of the series since I was kid, meant that I was exposed to the roster. As stated before, this roster was extremely diverse and had all kinds of stereotypes/archetypes such as a female raptor who had been genetically spliced named Riptor to an ice alien named Glacius who had crash landed on Earth in hopes of finding his lost comrades.

Riptor

Glacius

The cast had amazing variety but there was one character that I was immediately drawn to as a kid. There was a skeleton that carried a sword and shield who had the ability to mimic his opponents. This character had a red bandana along with armor that gave us an idea that he was a pirate in a former life. This character's name was Spinal and I fell in love with him since the very beginning. He had a ghoulish laugh that he would let out as he was beating the opponent and during his win animation.

Spinal

When I heard that we were getting a new game, I was anticipating the reveal of Spinal and his new design. As the game was getting closer to release, the developers had stated that the game would launch with six characters, and that fan favorites Spinal and Fulgore would be released in January and  March of 2014 respectively. On January 30th of 2014, the Spinal reveal trailer was released on YouTube stating that we would get Spinal on January 31st.

Killer Instinct Spinal Reveal Trailer (Click Me)

Spinal in Killer Instinct 2013

I remember watching the trailer in my calculus class and just being so excited that I would be getting a new version of my favorite character in the franchise and that he was essentially going to be playable the next day. I watched just about any YouTube video I could, so that I could hear other people's impressions and predictions of him. I knew from that day on that I was going to play this beloved character because I never thought that I would get another version of him. For those of you who happened to click on the link and watch his reveal trailer, hearing his cackling laugh at the end gave me chills down my spine.

A Dream Come True

In 1994, Killer Instinct was released in arcades across the country with a SNES port on the way. After much success, production soon began on a sequel. In 1996, Killer Instinct 2 was released in arcades with Killer Instinct Gold being the port that would make its ways to homes everywhere via the Nintendo 64. The franchise was a hit and people would flock to these machines as the game would scream "ULTRA!!!!" across the arcade. The game is remembered for some if its key design points such as being able to break your opponents combos and its diverse cast of anything from a killer robot who looks like a cross between the Terminator and the Predator named Fulgore to a werewolf named Sabrewulf who resides in his family castle and can control the bats that plague the estate. Many people were hopeful that the franchise would be able to use its success as a way to stay in the fighting game genre along side other favorite franchises such as Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, but sadly that wasn't the case. Fans never got any word of a sequel and could do nothing but hope for a 3rd installment in the franchise, so when Rare, who was the company who developed the first two Killer Instinct games, was purchased by Microsoft Studios, things began to look bleak for the future of the franchise.

Fulgore

Sabrewulf

In 2013, almost 20 years later after the original game's release in arcades, fans got a taste of what they thought could only be a dream as the Xbox Press Conference unveiled an exclusive trailer at the Electronic Entertainment Expo.

Killer Instinct E3 Reveal Trailer (Click Me)

It was official, Killer Instinct would finally get a 3rd installment and it would be exclusive to the Xbox One. It looked true to form with long combos and veteran characters returning.

I'm Damian Gonzalez and ever since I saw that reveal back in 2013, I was grateful that we would finally get another Killer Instinct. I wasn't old enough to experience the games in arcades but I had both the SNES port of the original and the N64 port of Gold and remember growing up playing these games and loving them. As soon as I saw the trailer, I told myself that I going to put in as much effort as I needed to be great at this game. Little did I know what that would require from me and the journey it would take me on, along with those that I would meet on the way. This blog is to share some of the experiences I can attribute to Killer Instinct over the past few years with anybody who comes across.