CEOtaku is only a week away, and fans from a wide range of games are gearing up for a weekend overloaded with Anime games. One such game is Skullgirls, whose community just a year ago started finding its rhythm, tournament-wise. We briefly discussed it a few months ago, but the long and the short of it is that events like Combo Breaker 2015, NEC 2015, Winterbrawl X, and Northwest Majors VIII were Major events with a noticeable showing from Skullgirls players, and signs of a changing tide for the game’s competitive scene. One event that stood out among the most enjoyable of the year was actually CEOtaku 2015, which the entirety of the community has been gushing over since it happened. It’s no surprise that this year’s CEOtaku is bigger for the title than the last, and it of course goes without saying that the community’s excitement for the event is at a fever pitch with the tournament merely days away. The community’s dedication to CEOtaku can most easily be seen in the community wide movement to attend specific events over the course of the year, a list that CEOtaku appears on.
Here, we have a brief glance back at what transpired last year for CEOtaku by youtuber SkullgirlsTV:
This is all before getting into the $1000 pot bonus Skullgirls is getting, which just piles on the hype. The winner from last year, cR|dekillsage, is returning of course, but this time his team member cR|SonicFox is also making a showing. Earlier this year, these two had met at Combo Breaker in Winner’s and Grand Finals, with SonicFox edging out the win over his biggest Skullgirls rival. These two aren’t the only big names attending, with the runner up of last year, Keninblack, making a return appearance. Other strong players, such as LZ|Mr.Peck, a European SG player, KPB|McPeanuts, a consistently well-placing East Coast player, and Swiftfox-Dash, a long time player who has consistently made Top 3 at events he attends, should make for a highly competitive showing. That’s without mentioning all of the players who placed Top 8 or Top 16 at Combo Breaker 2016, such as RK|PME, Hirokuni, and Adevis, could easily make an upset in any bracket they end up in.
Skullgirls 2nd Encore will be played on the retail PS4 version, meaning that all the changes that have been going on in the Skullgirls Beta for the past two months are still not in the main game yet. There are still experiments and changes happening in that beta, so it should actually be a few months before that is ready for tournament play.
As far as the event itself goes, outside of just Skullgirls, it looks to be pretty exciting, with more entrants in more games than last year:
The event organizer, Jebailey, even recently announced that he would add a whopping $1000 pot bonus to Guilty Gear if they reached 200 entrants. Well, they did! They also reached 150 entrants in BlazBlue, netting that game a savory $500 pot bonus for their efforts. The total amount of money up for grabs in these tournaments is a little over $15,000 with over 400 competitors already participating. There is also a wonderful Artist Alley, and a vibrant Cosplay scene with a Cosplay Contest, meaning there’s something here for just about everyone.
Sources: SkullgirlsTV; CEO Gaming; smash.gg, Dacidbro