#my BYOC screenshots | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

clickbliss · 5 years

Text

How to watch and how to organize a Puyo Puyo Champions Tournament at AnimEVO

Image: A screenshot of Shirobrawl and S2′s match in the top 8 of the 2019 AnimEVO Puyo Puyo Champions Tournament

By Don (@opobjectives)

EVO 2019 was held a few weekends ago in Las Vegas, with thousands of people competing in a range of competitive games. While the spotlight was on fighting games with larger communities and budgets, a variety of side tournaments were held at the same time under the AnimEVO 2019 umbrella. Side tournaments are a hallmark of the fighting game community, often relying on self-organization and focusing on games produced by Japanese game studios. Rather than being on EVO’s main stage, they rely on their communities for broadcast, commentary, and organization. All of that is why the tournament that I wanted to tune into the most was the self-organized, six hour, double-elimination event for Puyo Puyo Champions.

Image: Tables with Puyo Puyo Champions and Puyo Puyo Tetris setups in the Bring Your Own Controller room at EVO 2019. Source: @zanverse

While run largely under its own steam, the tournament was helped along by AnimEVO’s scheduling and held in EVO’s Bring Your Own Controller (BYOC) area. The stream was being hosted by PX, a Puyo Puyo player who also competed in the tournament. Another frequent North American competitor, Kiyobi, had approached AnimEVO to run it. Following the tournament, I spoke to both about how it went and how they pulled it off.

To me, the production of the tournament and how it manifested on its Twitch stream became as interesting as the tournament itself. I started watching out of my own interest in Puyo Puyo, which I’ve enjoyed since the North American release of Puyo Puyo Tetris in 2017. As I watched, the close-knit community and interplay between the stream’s chat, commentators, and tournament competitors was plain to see. I became curious about the community and how it was keeping it together, especially while watching how their roles fluidly changed between streamer, commentator, organizer, and player.

There wasn’t much in the way of sponsorships or bright lights, but there were impressive efforts at broadcasting. That came into focus as the pools gave way to a tight bracket of top 8 matches. Puyo Nexus provided some money for the pot, and a spokesperson for SEGA made a brief appearance in chat to confirm that there would be updates for Puyo Puyo Champions. For the most part, though, the tournament was about, and supported by, its own community. PX kept working to keep his streaming setup running in the cramped BYOC area, Kiyobi kept contending with simultaneous tournaments and competitors who had not heard about the reserved tables for side tournaments, and Zan kept commentary going. It was all running off the AnimEVO ethos - “If a game isn’t being run at AnimEVO, it’s because no one stepped up to dedicate their time, money & effort to... run it.”

After the tournament, Kiyobi explained to me that he started running Puyo Puyo tournaments only recently, after the release of Puyo Puyo Tetris. Starting out as a player, he ran tournaments for Puyo Puyo Tetris in 2017, 2018, and again this year. While that game allows for competition across both puzzle games, it also allowed for competitive Puyo. It was the first such official release in North America in years. From there, Kiyobi said, “it was only natural I graduated that format into Puyo Champions this year.” The spring 2019 release of Puyo Puyo Champions might have made for a scramble to get it set up for AnimEVO, but as Kiyobi was already organizing tournaments for Puyo Puyo Tetris, it was just a matter of juggling schedules and setups for another day.

Although it was a side tournament, Puyo Puyo Champions still attracted competitors that don’t often meet in person. From the much more developed Japanese scene, Live and his compatriot CaO wound up in the grand finals. Enroute to that, the North American scene was well represented in a match between S2 and Shirobrawl. While Shirobrawl is from Nevada (where EVO is held), S2 traveled from the other side of the country for a live matchup. Having never before attended EVO, S2 also came prepared with homebrew software that helped identify the length of combo chains and their trigger points. This helped stir up escalating hype on the stream whenever chains would go over 10, which would result in a “!?” being displayed. In one particularly exciting moment, this preceded an 11 chain combo and cancel between Shirobrawl and S2.

That was the kind of move that makes Kiyobi insist that Puyo is a fighting game. While it has the form and roots of a puzzle game, competitive Puyo features fighting game elements like cancels, meters, and harassment. Players can get greedy with their combo chains, leaving it too late to touch them off and then being punished for their timing. As a scene, it looked right at home at AnimEVO. As an international scene, however, it was clear that North American competitors had some catching up to do.

Puyo Puyo has a long history as a series, but most of that series never had official releases in to North America. As PX explained to me, in Japan the scene has been developing throughout that 25-year history, through arcades and home versions. In Japan, Sega even sponsors Puyo Puyo as an official eSport. All this segmented, regional development has led to some lopsided matchups at Puyo Puyo Tetris tournaments in the last few years. And this year, for the Puyo Puyo Champions tournament, despite a relatively even top 8, it was two Japanese competitors in CaO and Live who progressed to the grand finals.

twitch

Video: The local recording of the Finals, from ShiroBrawl and CaO’s Losers Final set and then the Grand Final between CaO and Live. Uploaded by PX after the end of the tournament, this is a lot smoother than it was over hotel wifi.

In the end, after overcoming CaO 10-4, Live lifted the trophy. It took the shape of a figurine of Puyo series protagonist Arle. As Kiyobi put it, “I saw the figurine and was like ‘oh man, that's a gorgeous figurine. That'd be a sick PPC prize!’” He picked it up, brought it to EVO, ran the tournament, and handed it out as an award. After all, if you want the game on the lineup, it’s your responsibility.

Photo: Live posing with the AnimEVO 2019 Puyo Puyo Champions grand prize. Souce: @livedesu

*Edit: A previous version of this article stated that Sega had confirmed downloadable content for Puyo Puyo Champions. After I went back over my notes, I can only confirm that the Sega representative had teased an update. This might take the form of further content, or simply of future patches to the game.

#Puyo Puyo Champions #animevo #fgc

1 note · View note