MVG | Vayseth · @Vayseth_
29th Jan 2018 from TwitLonger
Regarding Frostbite 2018 and the lack of Japanese/Top Players (Tokaigi 2018)
Hello everyone! Vayseth here. I am currently packing up and getting ready for my return trip to the United States after spending ~2 weeks shooting Vayseth's Voyage x Evo Japan 2018. We started filming at Genesis 5 and ended here in Tokyo, Japan.
We will have a version of that documentary available on Friday, February 9th at Frostbite so please check it out if you are at the venue or LIVE on stream if you are not able to attend the event. We will have a small panel hosted by Coney where we will talk about the entire experience after the viewing. We are excited to tell this story and hope you all will enjoy our film!
Now, I want to address something that until only a few hours ago I was not able to talk about: the obvious conflict between Tokaigi 2018 and Frostbite 2018. There is a lot of misinformation floating around on Twitter and Reddit that unfortunately I was unable to address and correct until Tokaigi was ready to announce everything on their end. I apologize for the wait but please understand.
First of all, I want to make sure everyone knows that Frostbite as a tournament series is not a one-trick pony. We are not some "Japan Saga" every year where we are going to be inviting Japanese hidden bosses over to battle against "Team USA" and shake up the bracket. That was the marketing for last year's event. I do not think it is smart for any event to paint itself into a corner and be known for only one thing. It does not allow your brand to expand and do new things. I just want to clarify from the start that we never, ever intended on doing the crew battle again, nor did we want to fly out a bunch of players again.
Frostbite is, and has always been, in my eyes, an event where people show up to have their breakout tournament. In 2016 Ned had his first series of explosive wins against ranked players and we started the Low Tier Hero award. In 2017, I used the connections I had made from living in Japan for 6 months to recruit players from Japan to answer Anti's burning tweet:
https://twitter.com/Anti/status/784788941631283203
"Japanese players said they keep winning the crew battles because they keep breaking up the US top players into regions, true s***"
"Well fine, if that's how you feel, let's settle it on the battlefield," I thought as I was planning Frostbite 2017. We had already confirmed Shuton and T and eventually it had blossomed into a beautiful 10v10 crew battle that to this day has well over 500k views on Youtube. I hand-picked the Japanese crew with the help of the 5 players I was able to confirm at that time: Abadango, Komorikiri, Kameme, Shuton and T. I told them I specifically want people that no one in the US knows and with characters that no one in the US plays at a high level.
My bet was, one of these 10 players was going to make crazy upsets in the bracket because no one knows who they are and no one knows how to play against their character. Tsu was the 10th player to be confirmed. I honestly never would have guessed he would be the one to get us all to ask, "Who is the best?" over and over throughout the bracket.
"Tsu is the best!"
However, all of this kept in line with the marketing and themes we wanted for Frostbite. Players from underrepresented regions and low tier or otherwise underrepresented characters coming specifically to our event to have their breakout event. Nearly every player who participated for Team Japan ended up on the PGR and was flown out to tons of tournaments afterwards. This was no accident. That was the entire point all along. No one knew Japan like I did and I wanted to make sure everyone knew these players' names.
Fast forward to Frostbite 2018. In the planning stages I was very adamant about refocusing the branding on the themes we want Frostbite to have: Low Tier Heroes, Worldwide Legends, Community Leaders. "You're going to fly out artists not players for the next Frostbite??" some members of the Frostbite 2017 team asked me. Yes. Yes, I am. I want to make sure Frostbite is a great experience for everyone. You are going to an event, not just a tournament.
Going forward I want to continue this trend of having guests of honor at my events. People who can advertise smash outside of the smash scene and give attendees a reason to go to my events. I want attendees to be able to meet them, buy their merch, see their panels, and have multiple reasons to #ComeToFrostbite other than seeing the best team in the midwest put on an amazing tournament. Nowadays there needs to be more reasons for people to come to your events.
Now onto the burning question everyone's asking: Why are Tokaigi and Frostbite on the same date? Well, seeing as I would have much rather been at both again this year I am the least happy about this. The truth is, we only had one weekend to do Frostbite 2018 at the venue we selected and we went with it. This means I would not be able to go back to Japan to help Tokaigi this year which is a huge bummer. It also meant all of the top Japanese players who want to have a chance at entering Tokaigi could not enter Frostbite.
Why? Tokaigi has a rule for all of their qualifiers that you may not enter the qualifying events if you cannot enter Tokaigi itself. To confirm yourself for Frostbite would mean preventing yourself from entering what have been and will be the biggest tournaments in Japan this year. Only Komorikiri decided he wanted to go to Frostbite and forego entering every other tournament in Japan.
This also meant that they were going to invite four top players again. Now, as the person partially in charge of finding players for Tokaigi, this presented a potential conflict of interest. However, I would never, ever deny someone a chance to go to Japan and have an amazing experience if one was offered just because I want them to come to my event.
They originally chose Larry Lurr (never been to Japan before), VoiD (very popular player in Japan), Ally (extremely popular player in Japan), and ZeRo. ZeRo obviously was unable to attend due to his retirement. Therefore, they extended an invite to Nairo, someone extremely important to Tokaigi itself. All of these players accepted their offer and now would join all of the other players unable to #ComeToFrostbite
MKLeo later then asked me about Tokaigi and said he really, really wanted to go. He wanted me to find any possible way for him to go. As the four players had already been decided, I told him his only way to enter would be to change his flights so he would be leaving Japan after Tokaigi and that he would have to enter a qualifier just like Nairo did last year. This would also mean he would be unable to #ComeToFrostbite
Now nearly every Japanese player who came to Frostbite 2017 and five top players from North America would be unable to go. However, this fits perfectly in line with what Frostbite wants: new talent, big upsets, breakout tournaments. Now the field is even wider open than it was originally and someone is going to surprise everyone, come out of nowhere, and have an amazing tournament. It is going to happen. That is how our team has designed the event.
We are super excited to have players from all over the world who want to #ComeToFrostbite We still have plenty of players coming from Japan, but they are players that no one knows yet! We have a group of players coming from Europe, some from the Middle East, some from Latin America, and more.
Last year, Frostbite 2017 answered Anti's question and started a year full of TEAM JAPAN invasions. If I had to pick what question Frostbite 2018 is going to answer it would be...
Is Smash 4 dead?
The answer is no. Smash 4 is very much alive and we have even more players, content creators and leaders out there than people know about. Who will be the next Low Tier Hero? Who will be the next Worldwide Legend? Who will be the next exciting player to show up on that Top 8 stage?
Only one way to find out.
#ComeToFrostbite