Pre-Fight Press-Con: An Interview with the Organizers of Manila Cup 2015
With Manila Cup coming in full force this Friday, we sat down with the event organizers to get the low-down on what our local warriors can expect from the upcoming tournament. In today’s feature, we have the three individuals responsible for presenting this event to the Philippines and the International fighting game community (FGC) at large.
From Left to Right: Franz “D3v” Co, Raphael “Prime” Gancayco and Angelo “Macarthur” Baldonado
First, we have Franz “D3v” Co, writer and moderator for the largest Street Fighter community on the internet: Shoryuken.com. D3v’s love for the scene began way back in the arcade days and has the most exposure to fighting game competitive play among the organizers. The website, Shoryuken.com, is also an official partner of the largest fighting game tournament in the world, the Evolution Championship Series (EVO).
Coming in second, we have Angelo “Macarthur” Baldonado of Imperium Pro Team (IPT). IPT. Macarthur is a seasoned player in anime fighters, most notably BlazBlue. Macarthur has gone to compete in international majors, with his first one back in 2013 over at Singapore. Currently, he’s a member of the Imperium Pro Team’s Fighting game division and organizer of the weekly tournaments held at the bar.
Last, but most definitely not the least, we have Raphael “Prime” Gancayco, owner of Imperium. IPT.Prime is a former professional Call of Duty player back in America. Realizing how big the eSports scene is getting, he returned to the Philippines in hopes of bringing competitive gaming to his home country and possibly make it as big as the ones found overseas.
Below is a full script of what went down during our discussions.
What motivated you guys to pull together and come up with this event?
IPT.Prime: For me, ever since Imperium started, We shied away from your standard eSports models. Though we do have professional divisions for games like League of Legends and Dota 2, we’ve been pretty much focused on the fighting game scene when it comes to organizing tournaments.
D3v: Also, I think for the longest time the local fighting game community has always wanted a big international style major. When our friends from Singapore approached us about it, we immediately jumped on it. This was a chance for us.
IPT. Macarthur: Similar to D3v, ever since I started organizing tournaments from about four or five years ago, I’ve been wanting the Philippines to have their own big major. That desire has only increased ever since I flew to Singapore for Southeast Asia Majors (SEAM) back in 2013.
IPT.Prime: Basically, all the support we give to the fighting game community is all about passion. We just really like these games.
How did the Manila Cup actually come to be?
IPT. Prime: Like what D3v said earlier, we were approached by the people from the Beast of The East. They gave us the opportunity to hold the event.
D3v: Beast of the East is a tournament circuit organized by a lot of the big community people in the Asia Pacific. They used to be associated with Tough Cookie in Singapore, which was the central fighting game hub of the country. Technically, Tough Cookie was the organizer for SEAM up until this last year before they basically shut down. Beast of the East saw the opportunity to grow the scene in Asia and since we already had links with them, they approached us. They trust us to run our tournaments smoothly and professionally.
GBstep: So that’s just basically it?
IPT. Prime: That’s pretty much it. It’s not really a complicated story.
So we know that the Ultra Street Fighter 4 portion of Manila cup is part of the Capcom Pro Tour. How were you able to get in touch with Capcom?
IPT. Prime: Everything was through Beast of the East. Capcom and the partners we have for Manila Cup all sponsor the Beast of the East Circuit, which Manila Cup as a whole is part of.
GBstep: So were there any particular challenges encountered?
IPT. Prime: Obviously, they just needed to have a little ocular here to make sure that the venue was suitable. The biggest problem we had was making sure to have a stable connection for the streams. That was the only hurdle, which has already been fixed. Other than that, everything in general ran smoothly.
One of the biggest things announced in Manila Cup is that it’ll be hosting international talent. Could you give us a brief teaser of what our local players can expect?
IPT. Prime: So far, we have around 20 international players signed up as of right now.
IPT. Macarthur: So first on the list is a player who actually made it to last year’s Capcom Cup Finals. It’s Hiroshi “NISHIKIN” Nishikido from Japan, who is arguably the best Blanka Player in the world.
NISHIKIN
IPT. Prime: If you look at the Shoryuken rankings, he’s currently ranked as the 37th best Street Fighter player in the world based on the website’s leaderboard.
IPT. Macarthur: There’s also Quan Ban “Chuan” Chuan, a top player from Malaysia. Then it’s Xijie “Dark Jiewa” Zheng, an up and coming Ken Player from China.
Chuan (left) and Dark Jiewa (right)
D3v: Then we have Canada Cup Gaming’s (CCG) John “Humanbomb” Lai Cheng from Hong Kong, one of the top Sakura players today. He’s also the highest ranking on the Capcom Pro Tour among the players coming for Manila Cup, currently placing at 23.
Humanbomb
IPT Prime: There’s also the M. Bison player Juan Han “Kim1234” Kim and the Abel player Sanshiro “Shiro” Nagai, both in team Team YUBIKEN (YBK) and hailing from Japan.
Kim1234 (left) and Shiro (right)
IPT. Prime: That’s just some of the Street Fighter Players. Two other spotlight players coming in. One of them is coming for Guilty Gear, BlazBlue and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and that’s team Black Eye’s (BE) Abe “Abegen” Genki. He’s known for his unique team in Marvel and recently placed in 2nd at SEAM 2015. The other one is top Slayer player Takaaki “TAKA” Tsutsui who’s coming for Guilty Gear.
Abegen (left) and TAKA (right)
D3v: So for the local scene, prepare for the match ups. Watch videos. You have about a week left to make your preparations. We’ve already hinted on some of these players on Facebook.
Apart from the main tournaments, are the any other side events in the works during Manila Cup?
IPT. Prime: I’ll just put it this way, nothing is impossible at this point when it comes to side events. Who knows what’s going to happen at the tournament? I’m guessing there will probably some exhibition matches and things like that.
D3v: It’s all a matter of timing and what actually goes down during Manila Cup.
Where would you guys say Philippine FGC is compared to scenes abroad and what direction do you think it’s headed?
IPT. Prime: For me, I think it’s growing. It’s probably one of the fastest growing in South East Asia right now.
D3v: Compared to the rest of Asia, the Philippine FGC probably has the most number of scenes for games other than Street Fighter. If you look at other tournaments around the Asian region, they’re only focused on SF. Manila Cup is the only major in the region other than SEAM that hosts other games.
IPT. Prime: Another thing to note, during SEAM Philippines had two Guilty Gear players in top 8 , one BlazBlue player in top 5 and two Marvel players in top 8.
D3v: There’s also Timothy “Tim” Cruz who actually won Mortal Kombat at SEAM and went to EVO at Las Vegas this year.
IPT. Prime: Also if you go back to last year, IPT’s Garrett “Garrett” Baluyot won 2nd place in SEAM for Marvel, and placed top 64 when we sent him to EVO 2014.
D3v: Having won BlazBlue at SEAM that year, we also sent IPT’s Robert “Blickwinkel” Andrada to Arc Revo 2014, a tournament in Japan hosted by anime-fighting game developer Arc System Works.
IPT. Prime: Just looking at those results, it points that we’re definitely one of the fastest growing communities in all of Southeast Asia.
D3v: As long as we can keep this momentum, I don’t think there’s anywhere else to go but up.
What are your goals and objectives with Manila Cup?
IPT. Prime: Well personally, I just want efficiency and everything to run as smooth as possible with no hitches.
D3v: I just really want to put on a good tournament and put a good foot forward to show everyone that we can set up this kind of event in the country.
IPT. Prime: And HYPE!!!! in all caps and a billion exclamation points. Hopefully, the community can come and show how we do it here in the Philippines.
D3v: Depending on how well things go this year, we might hold it again next year.
Arguably Tekken is the most popular game of the genre here in the Philippines, so why wasn’t it part of Manila Cup’s line up?
IPT. Prime: Basically, it was because Tekken Tag Tournament 2 wasn’t at SEAM. That’s it.
D3v: If we would have gotten Tekken 7 machines, we would have run it. But unfortunately we couldn’t get our hands on one.
Any parting words and final thoughts?
D3v: Like I said earlier, to the players: just practice. Come and practice. Don’t be afraid of these international big names. Just come, get the experience and try your best.
IPT. Macarthur: Coming from an organizer, please come on time and make sure to read the details and info we’ve posted up on the events page. This is a really good chance to meet and greet international players.
IPT. Prime: Like what D3v said, if you see a player and you look at his ranking on the Capcom Pro Tour, please don’t get scared. Nobody knows what can happen. Nobody knew who Garrett was last year, and he was beating everybody.
D3v: These are chances you should take. If you beat somebody good, then you can make a name for yourself. Next thing you know, sponsors might be making you offers.
IPT. Prime: I’d like to thank all the players that have signed up and all the players that are planning to sign up. Thank you everybody for supporting the event. Thank you to the sponsors of the event. All Hail!
Images of players are taken from Capcom Pro tour, Capcom Cup and various social media channels
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