Congratulations to Team Spooky and iPLAYWINNER as they will team up to broadcast Evolution 2011 World Finals next month at the Rio Casino and Resort in Las Vegas, Nev.

Team Spooky, led by Victor "Spooky" Fontanez, has broadcasted the majority of the circuit events this year. They did not broadcast Evolution 2010 but did run the Salty Suite, which included the famed Salty Runback match between Arturo Sanchez and Daigo Umehara.

IPLAYWINNER is led by Neidel Crisan, and they will be broadcasting next week's NorCal Regionals 9.

More info about Evolution 2011 can be found on the tournament's main site. no comments

Latif, the online warrior known for playing Super Street Fighter IV and Guilty Gear, has joined Team Brokentier.

The announcement was made Saturday night during the ReveLAtions tournament in Los Angeles. Latif is currently in attendance competing.

Latif is a multiple-time winner in the Peaceful Jay tournament series - he won the second Salty Conflict Online Tournament - and was once a member of Team Peaceful Jay (PJS). However, he announced this morning he was leaving, and the Peaceful Jay staff said he was moving on to "bigger and better things."

His signing is the third player movement in the last 24 hours; Japanese player Mago has joined Team MadCatz, and Carl "Perfect Legend" White is with Dominion Method Gaming. no comments

Carl "Perfect Legend" White has joined Dominion Method Gaming. The announcement was made Friday afternoon, just moments after the team said it was sponsored by MadCatz.

White, well known for competing in Dead or Alive tournaments and more recently Mortal Kombat 9, will join a staff of 11 players in Super Street Fighter IV and two in Tekken 6.  It's the team's first signing since Brandon "Dr. Chaos" Ellerbee was released by the team last month. 

He is scheduled to compete at CEO 2011, an Evolution 2011 circuit event, this weekend.  no comments

When the 2007-08 NFL season began, the Madden community was ready to get into action, and that meant going to all of the Madden Challenges, preparing for the next Players Bowl or studying up for the upcoming Mid-Atlantic major events. This was my first full season covering it on Get Your Tournament, and I don't even think I was ready for the surprise.

Actually, it probably wasn't a surprise to see everyone use one of two teams. The game at the time was built to where imbalances were noticeable. It's not like what it was in Madden 11 or what it's going to be in Madden 12.

I tried to block out all of the negativity surrounding the lopsidedness. So what if everyone was using only two of 32 teams? It was about the players and how THEY played. And then I started doing research of tournaments back in the day just before I got into the scene. It was all Atlanta Falcons. Sure, you'd get the occasional Jacksonville Jaguars user, but he'd get blown out by the second quarter.

One team dominating every Madden tournament season is nothing to shrug shoulders about. But in the 2007-08 season, it was two teams. You had to use either the New England Patriots or San Diego Chargers to even give yourself a chance to win. And the strangest part was, neither was a counter to the other.

So when Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out a year later, I didn't understand why people were so up in arms about Meta Knight being the best. OK, so what if he was the best and so what if everyone used him? I was used to this in another tournament scene. Apparently, I was in the minority, and for the next couple of years, there were talks of banning him from tournaments (he's still not, if you're wondering).

Now we're getting it again. The twins in Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition are good. They're not just good, they're really good. Like they-took-their-talents-to-Arcade-Edition-and-only-self-stupidity-can-stop-them-from-dominating good. This is the fear of most tournament players, that all we will see is Yun or Yang win every major championship. That could be true.

Maybe this is just a tendency we have as competitors. It can happen in any competitive realm where we see something initially and say "Holy shit, we have no chance" (examples are the 2010 Philadelphia Phillies, Alexander Karelin and Chong Li).

Then we realize that we can either join the army and be the best user of the over-used character, or play some "A tier that seems F tier" character and try to beat the army of top-tier users. This is where a motivational speaker would come in and challenge you to find your inner beast and pick that below-average character. That person would give you a glass of two raw eggs, yell in your ear, make you punch a slab of tri-tip, and give you that extra drive to rise above all.

Let's just say, if that message was sent in Madden or Brawl, barely anyone listened. So I don't expect it to be either with Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. The twins will dominate and will win every major tournament because nobody wants to motivate themselves to break through the army, and then we will all bitch that there's no variety. Oh well.

Funny thing is, I have met a couple Madden players over the years that have intentionally not picked the best team. At Mega Bowl 5 in 2007, JRhodes went with the Dallas Cowboys, which were good but not great like they would eventually be in the next 2 years. He said his gameplan was to not pick the Atlanta Falcons and instead, find a team that can hold them down. 

At the initial tournament in the 2008 Madden Challenge, Young Nephew won using the Minnesota Vikings. Not only that, he dominated. That was a weird pick, but I understood it seeing as though they had Adrian Peterson, so you basically could just run up the middle and control the clock (a harbinger of things to come that season).

When we talked about why he used the Vikings, he assured me that they weren't the best team in the game, but that he used it because he knew how to beat the best team in the game, the Cowboys. So why not pick the best?

"I want to challenge myself." no comments

Tekken 6 will be the third tournament in the Evolution 2011 series to have seeding points, according to several Tekken players and CEO 2011 tournament organizer Alex Jebailey.

Players that make the top eight at any Tekken 6 tournament starting with this weekend's CEO 2011 will earn seeding points, preventing them from facing off against other high-profile competitors early in the World Finals this July.

Already, Super Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 have seeding points.  no comments

  

Looks like the guys at EA Sports believe Michael Vick is not clutch. Perhaps it's because of his interception in the final moments of last season's playoff game against the eventual champion Green Bay Packers. Or maybe it's because of all the years he was in Atlanta and couldn't get the team to the Super Bowl.

Credit Pastapadre for this screenshot of Vick's dynamic player performance rating. The terms leave Vick as a player we should use with caution.

Pastapadre has been posting a lot of pictures of players' dynamic player performance ratings, so be sure to check it out on his site.

Picture by Pastapadre by way of Twitpic.

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EA Sports put out a new video of Madden 12, saying this is raw, unedited footage of gameplay from the Electronic Entertainment Expo. It's a game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns.

The game looks smooth, but the commentary is very questionable. There's a lot of lengthy moments of silence, and while Gus Johnson is great in his parts, it's only for very little. Cris Collinsworth, on the other hand, will go for a while. There's still a couple months of this to be sorted out and hopefully it does.

If you don't notice the blocks of silence, post this video next to someone commentating on a Starcraft II match and you'll notice it (I pick Starcraft II because I haven't heard a match yet where there was a single second of commentary silence).

On another note, I like the running game. There's a lot of potential there.

Video follows the jump ...

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There will be a side Super Turbo tournament at NorCal Regionals 9. It's set to take place June 18, which is the first day of the whole event. Entry fee is $20. Also, unless you are registered for NorCal Regionals, you must buy a raffle ticket to compete in the ST tournament; those range from $3 to $5.

There's already 20 players that have signed up; go to the tournament page to get info on how to enter.

I will be there recording matches so be sure to say hi and let me know who you are.

For more info on all of NorCal Regionals, head to the official tournament site.
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It really looks like EA Sports is trying to hammer home the idea that dynamic player performance is the key element to gameplay and that the typical "99" rating will soon be a thing of the past. Whether that will be the case come Aug. 30 remains to be seen. It's definitely a change from past years, where the emphasis was on adding a feather or eliminating one element of the game that seemed to be overpowering. 

In this video, there's more discussion on how the 18 different categories will affect all players, from quarterbacks to running backs.  

Video follows the jump ...

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EA Sports has put out its "Victory is Waiting" trailer for Madden 12. Even I got chills watching this.

Video follows the jump ...

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