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.
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