Countdown to Evolution 2011! And A History of Dustloop x Evolution

With Evolution 2011 being only 2 weeks away, I thought it would be appropriate to not only give a heads up, but also recap a little bit of Dustloop's history with the Evolution series as well. Before I go into story mode, a couple of reminders about Evolution 2011:

[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

• Last date to register for Evolution 2011 is July 18! Register at http://evo2k.com/.
  
  
• Wireless Dual Shock 3 controllers are banned for the tournament. No, this is not some anti-pad player movement; you can still use pads, just not the Wireless Dual Shock 3 ones. Click here for more info on the ruling.
  
  
• Evolution 2011 begins on July 29, so if you're going to the event, keep in mind that the festivities start on Friday morning (if you're only playing in the BBCS2 main event tournament, that starts on Saturday, but show up on Friday anyway to enjoy the event beforehand).
  
  
• If you can't make it to the event, rest assured that there will be not one, but multiple streams of the event courtesy of the IPlayWinnerxTeam Spooky crew. Stay tuned to this page for streaming info.
  

With that out of the way, I guess it's story time for a little history lesson on the Dustloop scene and Evolution. Before Evolution became rooted in the glitz and glamour of Vegas, it all started in empty ballrooms at universities, and the games weren't played on consoles back then. And that is where the journey begins...

In the beginning...

...Guilty Gear XX was created. It was the year 2002, and the big games at the time were MvC2 and CvS2 (ironically, SF3:3S has been out for a while by then, but it wasn't played as widely as the other two until that obvious moment in 2004, but that's a whole other story), and most importantly, arcades still existed in the United States. In this story, the arcade on our trip down memory lane is the legendary Southern Hills GolfLand arcade (aka SHGL) in Orange County, Southern California. Before SHGL was demolished in 2003 to make way for apartment complexes, it was the arcade to go to in Southern California for top notch competition in the big 2 games, with weekly tournaments reaching up to 128 entrants in each game.

One day, a GGXX cabinet showed up at SHGL. People started to play it in between the downtime from waiting for their tournament matches or the long lines at the MvC2 and CvS2 cabinets, and they actually found the game quite fun. By then, almost everyone has given GGXX a spin (yes, some of your favorite old school SoCal Street Fighter players played some GGXX back then), and tournaments were being held for it at SHGL. An English online information hub for GGXX was started at gamecombos.com (the precursor to Dustloop.com) by trag, and people began looking up combo vids, match vids, and started breaking down the game. After that, Sols were dustlooping all over the place, Slayers were biting people to death, and Eddies were learning how to control the shadow. At that time, Evolution 2002 was strictly a Capcom-only affair, but the tourney began to evolve (harhar) in 2003.

Evolution 2003 - Cal Poly Pomona, Southern California

Evolution 2003 was the first time the Evo series began adding non-Capcom games to its lineup such as Tekken Tag Tournament, Virtua Fighter 4:Evolution, Tekken 4, Soul Calibur 2, and of course Guilty Gear XX. Tournaments were still played on arcade cabinets, so they hauled in a number of cabinets for each game into the ballroom at Cal Poly Pomona, which is no easy feat in terms of manpower and finances. With that said, the first Guilty Gear XX tournament was ran, and the top 4 (off the top of my head) were:

1st - Daigo Umehara (Sol)

2nd - Miu (Sol)

3rd - ID (Sol)

4th - Mago (Johnny)

...Kind of ironic, since the game has yet to turn into a full-fledged Eddie-fest. Overall, it was a successful tournament despite the abundance of TEYAHs. Daigo pretty much Ume-Volcanic Vipered his way to the top spot while the rest of the American players that didn't have access to arcades with GGXX were still trying to grasp the game, since it has only been a couple of months before Evo when the game came out on consoles. Nevertheless, Evo2004 was shaping up to be even better than 2003, since everyone would have enough practice by then.

Evolution 2004 - Cal Poly Pomona, Southern California (Part Deux)

The big change from Evo2003 to Evo2004 was the move towards consoles. With arcade cabs being labor intensive and costly in setting up, the move to consoles was seen as an alleviation to the forementioned problems, but there was an obvious backlash by the arcade players (especially those that played games that have differences between the arcade and console versions, no matter how small they were). Nevertheless, the players evolved to the external circumstances, and the top 4 results for the Guilty Gear XX tournament were:

1st - Daigo Umehara (Sol)

2nd - Kindevu (Eddie)

3rd - RF (Faust)

4th - Kensou (Chipp)

It was a much more varied character lineup compared to 2003, but Daigo repeated his 2003 performance, Ume-Volcanic Vipering and Dustlooping his way to the crown. However, Guilty Gear XX #Reload was released that year with revisions, and was coming out on Japanese PS2s only...

Evolution 2005 - Green Valley Ranch, Las Vegas

The move to Las Vegas in 2005 came with a surprise; Evolution partnered up with MLG, back when MLG only covered Halo. Before the move to Las Vegas, Evolution got by with very few, if any, sponsors. It was a strictly community-run event, with the expenses coming out of the pocket of the organizers. But with the move to Las Vegas, Evo was able to not only escape the stigma of college ballrooms, but were able to alleviate some expenses by partnering up with MLG. That year, Guilty Gear XX #Reload was in the lineup, and the top 4 were:

1st - RF (Faust)

2nd - Kindevu (Eddie)

3rd - Miu (Sol)

4th - Marn (Eddie)

And out of the top 8, there were 5 Eddie players, so the evolution of Guilty Gear to an Eddie-fest was already underway, and not to forget, gamecombos.com evolved into Dustloop.com. However, changes to Evolution 2006 thankfully lessened the impact of Eddie-fests in a big way.

Evolution 2006 - Red Rock Resort, Las Vegas

After partnering up with MLG the previous year, Evolution was able to secure Toyota as a sponsor for 2006 (and 2007). With Toyota as a sponsor, Evolution was able to throw regional tournaments under the Evolution name before "the big one" in Las Vegas. Hence, Evolution East and Evolution West were born. Not only that, but Guilty Gear underwent yet another change in which not only did they switch to Guilty Gear XX Slash, but they changed the main tournament format to 3v3 teams. The change to teams meant Eddie-fests were tempered somewhat, since there were no duplicate characters allowed on each team. The top 4 results at Evo Vegas were:

1st - Ruu (Bridget) / MINT (Testament) / BAS (Eddie)

2nd - Daigo Umehara (Sol) / RF (Faust) / Kindevu (Eddie)

3rd - Alex G (Dizzy) / FlashMetroid (Jam) / Mynus (I-No)

4th - Cue (Eddie) / Juicy G (Sol) / ElvenShadow (Faust)

So yeah, Japan takes the top 2 spots, but the character variety was very nice, especially with Ruu aka "the best Bridget player that ever lived" showing us what Buri was capable of in the right hands.

Evolution 2007 - Green Valley Ranch, Las Vegas (Part Deux)

Evolution returns to the Green Valley Ranch, except without MLG assist this time. Also, with Toyota sponsorship, Evolution was able to throw even more regional tourneys under their banner, so not only did we have Evo East and West, but North and South as well. However, a dilemma would appear with Guilty Gear that would change the world forever (well, it was bound to happen, whether you blame the parties involved or time itself, I'll leave it up to you). Guilty Gear was changed to Accent Core in the middle of regionals thanks to console release, so some regional tourneys were ran with Slash, and others used Accent Core. Nevertheless, the switch to Accent Core changed things up because people only had less than 2 months to practice on the new version before Evo Vegas, which to this day still remains a source of bitter debate over whether it was wise to switch or not. Anyways, top 4 results for that tourney were:

1st - Yossan (I-No) / Gibson (Eddie)

2nd - Alex G (Dizzy) / FlashMetroid (Jam) / Marn (Eddie)

3rd - MINT (Testament) / BAS (Eddie) / Kami-chan (Slayer)

4th - Juicy G (Order Sol) / AKA (Millia) / Blacksnake (Venom)

So yeah, a 2-man team of one of the best I-No players in Japan and a good Japanese Eddie player wins a 3-man tournament. Also, Guilty Gear gets dropped from the Evolution lineup the next year after some drama I don't feel like recapping.

Evolution 2008 - The Tropicana, Las Vegas

Evolution's sponsorship with Toyota expired, so they're back to doing one big main event in Vegas only. A lackluster game lineup plus Guilty Gear not being a main event game plus it being at the Tropicana left a lot to be desired. So yeah, Guilty Gear was a side tournament at this Evo, but that didn't deter people from showing up. As a result, the Guilty Gear side tournament ended up outdrawing some games from the main lineup, and as a reward, was given a spot back into the main lineup for Evolution 2009.

Also, the revealing of Street Fighter 4 and BlazBlue:Calamity Trigger at this Evo was a foreshadowing of things to come.

Evolution 2009 - The Rio, Las Vegas

With the release of Street Fighter 4, BlazBlue, and Tekken 6 breathing life back into the community, Evolution came roaring back from a muted 2008, and thus we have the modern Evolution era. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core was a singles tournament this time around, but the emergence of BlazBlue put the community on notice, as almost 200 entrants entered the singles side tournament sponsored by Aksys Games. The grand finals of that side tournament was played on the main stage, with HeartNana's Noel winning over Goryus' Nu-13. Not to forget, both players qualified for SBO that year as well. Anyways, the top 4 for the Guilty Gear tourney was:

1st - Latif (Eddie)

2nd - Marn (Eddie)

3rd - FlashMetroid (May)

4th - Hellmonkey (Baiken)

And with that, Guilty Gear (and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, for bonus story points) is retired from the main Evolution game lineup (until it gets re-released on XBL/PSN or a new Guilty Gear comes out), but with the emergence of BlazBlue as a spiritual successor, the Dustloop community is still involved with Evolution.

Evolution 2010 - Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas

Evolution 2010 was a weird year because BlazBlue was not in the main game lineup due to the game being in version limbo; BlazBlue:Continuum Shift was revealed, and with that, the community was given a choice of having an outdated version of BlazBlue in the main lineup, or not having BlazBlue at all. Since the majority of the community was waiting for BBCS (which in fact, came out on consoles just a week before Evolution 2010), along with the burnout of how BBCT developed competitively, the community turned down its spot in the main lineup, which was then given to MvC2 as a last hurrah for that game. Nevertheless, people still travelled to Evolution to play in the BBCS side tournaments, with Spark winning with his Hakumen over Veteru's Ragna in the finals. And later in the year, BBCS2 was released in Japanese arcades...

Also, Guilty Gear lived on in the form of side tournaments, albeit with some hilarious drama in the grand finals involving one of Evolution's directors.

Evolution 2011 - The Rio, Las Vegas (Part Deux)

With the release of BBCS2 in Japanese arcades, a severe case of deja vu was developing over BlazBlue and Evolution. Some form of BlazBlue has yet to be featured in Evolution's main lineup, but luckily, BBCS2 was released on consoles in May, which meant BBCS2 was a go for Evolution 2011. Also, the flames of Guilty Gear are still being kept alive via side tournaments again, proving that while people may move on to other games, Guilty Gear will never die. And games that die will always get revived in some form if the demand is there. This year, SF3:3S is being revived through an Online Edition version of the game being available on the XBox 360 and Playstation 3. And the producer of 3SOE? None other than Derek Neal, a.k.a. Goryus...

And with that, the story has reached its present point. It is up to you, the community, to continue the story...