EVO 2023 Lineup Wish List

Well, fighting game fans, the lineup announcement show for EVO 2023 with IFC Yipes and Ryan Hart is not that far and I have a wish list of games I want, including the ones that I know that they are gonna be in the lineup with comments about them.

But before I get to the wish list, I want to relay about last year's EVO. It became a blast since the pandemic started. We were locked up in our house and doing social distancing for two years. After two years, EVO is back in Las Vegas with Skullgirls' mainstage debut as a cherry on top. The crowd was wild and the tournament action from last year was more hype than ever. Now that's a unique thing that gets the Johnny Test and Sonic Colors Ultimate seal of approval.

What make it so is the following things, the return to Las Vegas after two years since the pandemic started, the EVO 2022 reaction skit and Skullgirls' debut as a main game. So glad that EVO is back and better than ever. The community grew over the years and we've been supporting it for years. I wish I was there, but not only the tickets are expensive. I am not ready to participate in an offline tournament and I'll probably just have to fake it.

Alright, enough with the past. On to the wish list for EVO 2023.

Street Fighter 6 - I know this game isn't out yet and could flop like Keef always says, like with BBTAG, Samurai Shodown, Granblue Fantasy Versus and Guilty Gear Strive, but I'm telling you, it comes out before EVO because it starts early August at Mandalay Bay, so I figured that I want to put this in my prediction. It looks enjoyable with the VS. intro resembling the WWE-style entrance, paint effects, real-world elements like sweating and damage effects on their clothes and lv. 3 supers being much more cinematic and these are something that I will experience time and time again. Its predecessor is in the lineup for EVO Japan probably for the last time.

Guilty Gear Strive - It had the most signups last year to be played last in the Sunday finals. I know that it's gonna be in this year. I couldn't watch the Top 8 action because it ran way past my bedtime. This game is in the lineup for EVO Japan and we are gonna get reveals for this game. Plus, crossplay is coming too.

Tekken 7 - Of course, you know that this game came out almost six years ago. We all know that this game is gonna be in the lineup since it is on every EVO, including the online one. In last year's EVO, we get a teaser for the newest game, Tekken 8. It looks amazing. The Heat system is out of this world and that's the replacement for Rage Drives. After all, Heat Smashes can be used as Rage Drives if you watched the keynote. And there are in game intro dialogues between two certain characters too. With it being in the EVO Japan lineup, we may get reveals.

The King of Fighters XV - Last year, this game made its mainstage debut and they have announced that crossplay is coming to this game like with Guilty Gear Strive. I was hyped for it too. This game deserves to be in this year's lineup because I know it will be and I really got to find a team to lab with. Since this game is in EVO Japan, the reveals are coming.

DNF Duel - One of the newest games by ArcSys that couldn't make it in last year's lineup. But it made it to the Vortex Gallery lineup. I put that on there because it needs to be in this year's lineup. And we're getting a Season 1 Pass of this game that contains Spectre and four TBA characters too.

Soul Calibur VI - I know we've seen this game in action back in 2019, but I want this to be in this year's lineup so that it can be relevant again for a possibility of a Season 3 Pass and announcement of a next game of the franchise. But that probably won't happen until Tekken 8 comes out.

BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle - This game was announced back in 2018 and 2019. I really want this game to be in this year's lineup really bad so that we can get the 3.0 Character Pack and hopefully crossplay. I have a wish list of characters I want.

Them's Fightin' Herds - Back in early 2022, Modus Games came to be to form an acquisition of MANE6. That benefitted the only thing we requested. Console ports. They are expensive and time consuming projects and they had no plans. But with the help of their new partners at Modus, they are made possible to benefit setting up the console version on offline tournaments going forward, so I wanted this to be in this year's lineup. But that's not the only reason. The other one regards the announcement of a Season 1 Pass benefitted by Modus' acquisition to give them more than one combat dev so that the new Story Mode chapters and new characters can be developed simultaneously.

Skullgirls 2nd Encore - This game finally got its mainstage debut last year after years since the game came out, apart from the fact that it gets a spotlight in EVO Online because of rollback netcode and the reveal of Marie is the cherry on top. Its mainstage debut was the reason why EVO 2022 deserved the Team Sonic Racing seal of approval knowing that I bought the Switch version at a discounted price so I can play it on the go. Since Them's Fightin' Herds is in my wish list, I decided to put this on here so that both games that use OtterUI can be in the lineup together as brothers, knowing both of them have Season 1 Passes with four charcters.

These are the games I want in the lineup. And forgive me if I didn't put in any of the Smash games. Neither of them didn't make it last year because Nintendo decided not to continue the tradition and they don't want to work with Sony. The lineup reveal is two days away and we're gonna find out if Nintendo allows any of their Smash games to be in the lineup.

Once the lineup is revealed, a Keef video I will look forward to as always.

Joe's Segues - 2/12/23

Back with another set of segues this year and it's gonna be shorter than usual because it is time for the next SML Happened today and I'm gonna pull a Goremiser and highlight what happened in the SML. Without further ado, time to dive right in.

In the dry match of Buzzards vs. Crocodons, oh, my god... both teams were doing so darn crappy and that's why that was a dry match. We've seen less hits throughout the game and that didn't meet up to my standards. We've seen a lot of zeros until the Buzzards managed to finally score a run literally in the last inning. I hope we don't see another dry match ever again.

Round 6 has came to a close. Originally, I want to set up eight rounds, but I'm gonna make Round 6 the last one.

As such, the final standings are up and the Phase 2 League is done and dusted. Nemesis, Overdogs, Buzzards, Sawteeth, Beewolves, Freebooters, Crocodons and Sirloins have punched their ticket to the Phase 2 Playoffs, I feel sorry for the bottom four that couldn't make it. Especially that match of Sirloins vs. Herbisaurs, which was a good one because the carnivores managed to knock the hervibores down to the 9th seed to get the Sirloins to the 8th seed so that they can qualify.

Congratulations and hats off to the eight teams who qualified for the Phase 2 Invitational. Only one champion will qualify for the Super Mega World Series to fight the Phase 1 champs, the Moose. If I compare the qualified teams for the Super Mega Phase 2 Playoffs to the qualified teams for Season 9 of the SMITE World Championship...

Nemesis = Camelot Kings
Sirloins = Highland Ravens
Sawteeth = Olympus Bolts
Beewolves = Hex Mambo

Overdogs = Jade Dragons

Crocodons = Oni Warriors

Buzzards = Atlantis Leviathans
Freebooters = Tartarus Titans

These are today's highlights I went over. In the previous segues, I mentioned that the next simulated season gonna have a different format. I am gonna explain this now.

In this next simulated season, the twelve chosen teams are divided into two groups of six teams consisting of the American and National divisions. For the American division, we have Freebooters, Buzzards, Wild Pigs, Beewolves, Sawteeth and Moose. For the National division, we have Blowfish, Crocodons, Herbisaurs, Moonstars, Nemesis and Wideloads.

There are three matches per round. The top four teams on each group will punch their ticket to the Super Mega Playoffs. The two teams that are crowned champions in the playoffs will face off against each other in the big kahuna, the Super Mega World Series. It is the Super Bowl of baseball. That's the object of this league.

And that's all I had to highlight for now. Remember, 2023 is gonna be big.

Joe's Segues - 2/4/23

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the first set of segues of 2023. It's a New Year, but it's the same old me. We're gonna do big things throughout 2023 and it's gonna be big. This one is gonna have an interesting topic that we'll get to later on. But before we dive right in, I want to thank you all so much for making 2022 the best year it deserved to be. Without further ado, let's dive right in through this first set of this year.

It has been a few weeks since the SMITE World Championship began and it was a big blast. That took place at the Esports Stadium in Arlington, Texas. Look at the colors and the physique of the stadium. Eight teams, Camelot Kings, Highland Ravens, Olympus Bolts, Hex Mambo, Jade Dragons, Oni Warriors, Atlantis Leviathans and Tartarus Titans made it this far. Each of them had theme songs.

Can you believe the action there? Isn't it wild that on the fourth quarter finals match, the Titans have beaten the Leviathans as revenge since they lost to them in last year's Worlds? Their theme song sounds like I was watching a Guilty Gear concert. Oh, man, the colors. Good stuff to the Titans out there.

We seen a lot of sweeps except for the one craziest between the Jade Dragons and the Tartarus Titans. Both of them went back and forth. Titans took Game 1, Dragons took Game 2, Titans took Game 3, Dragons took Game 4 and Titans took Game 5 to fight the Camelot Kings in the finals. At the end, the Kings have won Worlds to become your SMITE Season 9 World Champions and they haven't even lost a single game. They are truly the Kings, so good stuff to them.

As such, the Season 10 update is out. Go check it out. It has been a decade since SMITE launched and we let it flourish over the years. Even the Fire Giant is being a playable God and that's the way to celebrate 10 years of SMITE. Except that it is called Year 10 divided into four seasons. As always, here's to the brighter future of the wonderful 3rd person MOBA we love and SMITE Pro League Season X. I'll be looking forward to seeing the pro players play on the new Conquest map.

All of you Paladins players out there. I hope you are hyped because Season 6 is upon us and it has some changes to healers in the game, the return of Payload and the new Champion dubbed Nyx, Queen of the Abyss. You heard it here. Season 6 entails the emergence of a new threat coming to the Realm. If you don't know who Nyx is, she is the Queen of the Abyss that rekindles the Realm as Azaan tries to burn it using the power of the Pyre after he clamed that destroying the Realm is the only way to stop what's coming. As such, Season 6 is about the Abyss vs. Pyre war.

If you watched the Season 6 Update Show or read the patch notes, Nyx is a Front Line. What makes it so is that she is taller than other champions and has them thick legs to classify that. Her kit is amazing and I can't wait until the update releases. And that dress she is wearing is awesome, but evil. There is one quality of life change that caught my eye. A new UI for the profile page. There is a new item type that is gonna be revealed in a future update and I am curious to see what the new item type is gonna be.

Couple days later since the update show, Evil Mojo is gonna do away with the yearly Season Pass going forward. They usually do this, but not having a Season Pass this year benefits allowing the 2022 Season Pass to be available for the foreseeable future. That means it will be available 24/7 and you can buy it any time without worrying that it's gonna be kaput. We're seeing new Champions getting added now in a faster pace and existing maps getting reworked. Here's to a wonderful Season 6.

And finally, for the Paladins side of things, the Assembly of Champions has officially discontinued. The team said that their program didn't turn out well as they hoped. It's because the people who are outside the program were frustrated that the team didn't listen to them. That's why they had to discontinue the program. It benefits allowing the team to listen to everyone in the community when it comes to bug fixes.

Since 2019, the Assembly of Champions program was created and it has the chosen ones who the team works with. Up until this year, they have learned that their program didn't turn out well. That made people outside of the program frustrated that they won't listen to their feedback, so they had to discontinue the program so that Evil Mojo can finally listen to the whole Paladins community in general. As such, since the Assembly of Champions is discontinued this year, I have my feedback below.

• In-game dialogues between certain Champions also varying by skins
• Fourth ban slot for Ranked to have four bans on each side with eight banned Champions in total
• Major bug fixes (Mainly for the ones that linger for years.)
• Pre-match lobby time increase to 90 seconds
• King of the Hill as a separate game mode from Onslaught

But on the SMITE side the things, the Olympians Council is still going as this year's group is revealed. It was also started back in 2019 along with the Assembly of Champions and it turned out well throughout the years for Titan Forge, who are the developers of SMITE.

Now with that out of the way, it's time for the most interesting topic for this set of segues called "SML Happened". It's a highlight that I pull a Goremiser to give you a recap on what happened in the Super Mega League I am running. Time to dive right in.

First up, in the match between Herbisaurs and Freebooters, we went into the Extra Innings phase after the score is 5-5. Both teams were doing great and pretty darn amazing. The Freebooters managed to bounce back by scoring their match closing home run to secure their win and wrap up the match in the Extra Innings phase 6-5.

And second, in the match between Nemesis and Sawteeth, it has that comeback moment that happened that I'll get to later. The Nemesis taken first blood in the 2nd inning with two runs. The early stage has a small drought, up until Sawteeth managed to bounce back in the final inning by scoring that two-run homer and a closing home run to secure the win and Nemesis got their first loss in the league courtesy of Sawteeth as revenge after their loss to them in the small tournament where four new teams battle it out. That's some good crap like when the Tartarus Titans were able to beat the Atlantis Leviathans to complete their revenge in Worlds.

When the Freebooters and Sawteeth made a comeback with the match wrapping home run, it's like that one part in Yu-Gi-Oh! where Yugi busted out Exodia to beat Kaiba as his trump card. That is some good crap there and that's what it's gonna be called; the Exodia Comeback. My heart was racing at the moment too. Esports can be a little weird sometimes. When the Camelot Kings are crowned champions, they deserved a literal crown. It's weird, it's strange. As such, SML Happened and that's what the name of the highlights is gonna be.

Round 5 is finished. Just three to go. Only the top 8 teams will punch their ticket to the Phase 2 Super Mega Invitational and one champion will face off against the Moose, who were crowned Phase 1 Super Mega Invitational champions to punch their spot in the Super Mega World Series. The Overdogs haven't dropped a single match so far and there's a good chance that they will automatically punch their ticket to the Invitational, but it is unclear that they will remain the first seeded team.

But before I close this out, I'll explain what I'm talking about. The Super Mega League I'm setting up is similar to the SMITE Pro League where the qualifying teams earn their ticket to the SMITE Masters and the SMITE World Championship, but different. There are two phases and ten to twelve chosen teams on each phase. The top 8 teams will qualify to the 8-team Super Mega Invitational after certain number of rounds. The two teams who are crowned champions on each Invitational will qualify for the big kahuna, the first to four out of seven Super Mega World Series.

To help me decide which teams to be in the league, I use this above random wheel to choose which of the certain teams to make it rather than using the list randomizer. The team the wheel lands on gets a spot in the league. This is gonna help me decide going forward. Who knows? Maybe once this season ends, the next one might be different.

Well, thank you all for listening. That's all I want to say. I look forward to seeing you in the next one. Here's to a wonderful 2023.