Author: John "Zidiane" Silvia

Our series of Red Bull Proving Grounds regional organizer interviews has gained insight into the inner workings of the process of these events, history, rivalries, and the some of the human aspects. Today we set our sights on Florida’s regional event, being held at Citrus Clash.

---

John “Zidiane” Silvia: Alright, well. Would you mind introducing yourself for the folks that don’t already know you?

Andres Velasco y Coll: Hi! I’m Andres Velasco y Coll, but most people online know me as nothingxs. I’m the head TO at CEO Gaming, Evolution, and a TO with Combo Breaker. For the most part I was an old Capcom vs SNK 2, 3rd Strike, and KOF player before I decided to volunteer at bigger tournaments, and I cut my teeth with TOing by just running stuff at Evo. I’ve long been thinking about a way to make a higher impact and higher reach event that would attract people around Florida to play regularly, and I think Red Bull’s given us the perfect opportunity to do exactly that.

Zidiane: Which specific event(s) are you running now? I see Citrus Clash appears to be the Red Bull qualifier, yes?

Andres: Yes! Our monthly event is Citrus Clash, and yes, it is a Red Bull Proving Grounds qualifier.

Zidiane: Where is that held, venue-wise?

Andres: The venue is The Geek Easy, a sort of bar that’s hidden behind a comic book shop cleverly named “A Comic Shop,” located in Winter Park, Florida–basically a sub city of Orlando.

Zidiane: Sounds nice. What kind of pull does it get, as far as the player base goes?

Andres: Well, it’s amazing–you get a lot of local Orlando heads that come through, and a lot of people from the neighboring areas… Kissimmee, Winter Park, Lakeland a bit to the west, and Orlando proper. But because Orlando is such a central point in Florida, you really do see people from just about everywhere in Florida. Players are driving in from Tampa, Miami, West Palm Beach, Ft. Myers, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Port St. Lucie… We’ve had a bit of everything so far. Right now we’re hoping more people local to Orlando get a wake-up call so that Miami doesn’t take spots 2-5 again like last time. (You know, even if I’m from Miami.)

Zidiane: Seems like a nice even spread of players from across the state. Is Miami the top dog as far as players go?

Andres: Well, it’s hard to say. Tampa seems like the strongest region at the moment, and they’re just an hour drive away. NuckleDu is, of course, from that area. But there are killers there that didn’t show up yet last time who I am expecting to see this time around. José “Mexican Seth” Campos just recently beat NuckleDu at a local tournament 3-0 while Du was playing Guile, and he’s an old Florida head with a lot of experience, so I’m really looking forward to that. I also hear that Dexter “TampaBison” James is keeping himself ready and might be showing up, so there’s that.

That’s not to say Miami is weak– we still have Peter “Flash” Susini, who is looking forward to his Vega buffs. And Orlando Rodriguez always does well at every event; he came in 3rd last time. There really are a large number of strong players in the entire region. I want to see how the top 3 shakes up for the Proving Grounds themselves.

Zidiane: Sounds like a fair bit of anticipation regarding potential killers. You just said it’s uncertain right now, but do you have any predictions about what the top 3 players will be for proving grounds?

Andres: Frankly? I have no idea. And that’s what’s exciting. I think Flash might have enough CPT points to where he won’t be eligible, and Du is obviously out since he’s already a shoe-in for the CPT in the first place.

I think the talent in Florida just needs to learn to be consistent. Whoever gets to consistency first will be representing Citrus Clash.

Zidiane: So, no one who’s eligible for the spot is consistent enough to win right now?

Andres: I don’t think so. I hope they use this to try and prove me wrong, though.

Zidiane: Some of the other regions I talked to were confident in their players and already had consistently placing players. If it continues to be this uncertain who’ll win until the end, do you think your players will struggle by the time the actual East Coast vs. West Coast portion starts?

Andres: Maybe, maybe not. To be fair, those other regions have people who feel like they’ve already separated themselves from the pack, and it’s not many of them.

When I say we lack consistency, I’m more talking about the fact that there’s a lot of people who can take each other out. I think the group that’s separated itself from “the pack” is simply larger in Florida. We’ll see if I’m right come June, though, won’t we?

Zidiane: Fair enough. As far as Proving Grounds go, what’s the player reaction like? I’m sure it was largely expected that Florida would participate this year, but what kind of reactions did you get with the 2017 announcement?

Andres: The reaction was positive, but I think a lot of people sort of knew what we were up to when we announced a monthly around the time a lot of other regions suddenly announced their own, too. It was a sort of “about time” reaction, and I can see a lot of hunger coming from participants. People have shown a lot of interest, really, and the official announcement feels like it really cemented that they NEED to be here to take advantage and to level up.

Zidiane: You mentioned that Orlando players need a wake-up call, and you mentioned that now there’s a sense that they need to level up. Combined with the comments about no one coming ahead as a clear winner, it just seems like there are many potential killers that were perhaps not giving it their all before now.

Andres: Well, the players in Orlando proper certainly need a better strategy than to let Tampa and Miami come in and walk away with all their money. I’m not sure whether that’s because they are sandbagging or because there’s catching up to do. I know there’s plenty of talent in Orlando, and there’s certainly a lot of talent in Florida–they just have to show it.

I think as a region, we’re as strong as anywhere else. Du won Capcom Cup, for crying out loud, and is probably currently the most dominant SFV player in the US (with all due respect to Smug, you can catch anyone on a bad day, fam). I want to see people in our same region try to come and challenge him again. This is a good stepping stone for that.

Zidiane: I see. Moving away from the players themselves for a bit, we’ve had some mixed responses throughout these interviews with regions considering themselves true East or West Coast as far as the overall event goes. Does that East Coast branding mean something to you and your players, or does your identity as Team Florida supersede that?

Andres: Man, everyone outside of Florida keeps saying Florida isn’t part of the East Coast. Maybe they’re right. We’re on the East Coast, but Florida is honestly its own thing. The East Coast branding honestly doesn’t mean anything outside of being the division that we’ll be playing in once we make it to the final Proving Grounds event itself. We’re just as happy to try and bop the NLBC crowd than we are to bop Vanguard or Rivals.

Zidiane: Other than who you’re matched up against, it makes no difference which team you’re on?

Andres: Not particularly. We welcome all comers.

Zidiane: I normally would have asked what you think of your East Coast competition, but that question feels premature before having a good idea of what your top players might look like. Do you have any opinion on your fellow East Coasters, or if you make it to the final round what team you think you’ll see meet there?

Andres: I’m primarily worried about the players we’re going to see out of Philadelphia’s Broad Street Battles–there’s a lot of good players there. If Punk doesn’t make it to the CPT, there’s a good chance we’ll see him in June.

I’m otherwise, unfortunately, not much for trash talk. I’d rather leave that to the players.

Zidiane: That’s about it for my questions so far, though. Did you have any last comments before you leave?

Andres: I’m looking forward to the communities at each of these events to rise up to the challenge of trying to be the region that wins the Red Bull Proving Grounds!

And I really want to emphasize one thing to players: support your new local event series. These organizers are working hard to put this together, to try and give you a tournament experience of this caliber on a regular basis. If something’s nearby you, go and play! Many of these events are supporting games other than SFV. Citrus Clash added UMvC3 and KOFXIV for April.

Other events are running a gamut of events, and many are open to running your favorite game so long as you show that you want to come out to play it. Take this opportunity to meet other players, network and improve your play. Let’s make this an exciting season of play in the FGC. We hope to see you there!

---

If you enjoyed hearing about this TO, be sure to check out the other interviews we have with other regional organizers: Chicago, Texas, NorCal, Vancouver, and Montréal.

[Feature image courtesy of Robert Paul]

Continuing our Red Bull Proving Grounds organizer introductions, we met up with Pavel, the organizer for the Montréal region. After talking with Vancouver on the West Coast, it was interesting to get some insight into the East Coast Canadian area, and how they feel about the upcoming event.

---

Pavel Szczypior: I have been organizing events for the local community for the past 3 years. When I came in the scene it was at the ending era of USFIV, where the scene slowed down, so I started doing these events on a regular basis to keep the hype alive.

John “Zidiane” Silvia: What events are those?

Pavel: It is a series called “Underground Hype,” a monthly event that we kept the name of for the Red Bull Proving Grounds series.

Zidiane: How long have those events been running? Just before Street Fighter V?

Pavel: The first one was in November 2014, so a little over a year before SFV came out. It didn’t attract much people, but we still kept on running them, and eventually had more and more attention. We eventually had surrounding cities gathering for the monthly events; we’ve seen on a regular basis Ottawa show up for the challenge, Quebec City and Toronto.

Zidiane: Nice. How did you get started doing that? Was there already structure, or did you just decide to start up?

Pavel: To advertise, we mainly used the Facebook group page “MTLSF” that Pierre had built up over the years, which made it a lot easier to spread the word. After a couple of events, I acquired some material, monitors, cables, banners, and Pierre hooked me up with his streaming equipment. Since then we worked on bigger events like MAT, LanETS, and DreamHack together.

Zidiane: Where is Underground Hype held, exactly?

Pavel: Underground Hype was always held at the same location. I searched a lot before to find a nice cheap venue, one that had everything we needed. It usually is used for war veteran meetings, but after talking to the owner he let us have a chance to host there.

The place was really nice, you could bring your food and all. As a big plus, you could go along the hall and there was a bar where the owner could serve us alcohol. A lot of the players in Montreal like to have a good drink. For the Red Bull event though, we had to search for another venue, something bigger and nicer that would represent Red Bull more adequately.

Zidiane: Ah, I see. Where’s the new place you transitioned to?

Pavel: It is called “Centre St-Pierre,” located at the edge of Montréal’s downtown, much bigger, and offers us 2 projectors to play on.

Zidiane: So, you mentioned people coming from nearby cities to play. Just how far away have people traveled to participate?

Pavel: Well, other than the surrounding cities less than an hour drive away, we had Québec City which is a 3-hour drive, Ottawa which is 2 hours away, and Toronto which is about 6 hours away. Toronto is a big drive, but there has always been a big friendly rivalry between the 2 cities. Before Underground Hype during the Street Fighter IV era, there were also people coming from NY and Boston, where even Spooky came up to stream one of the events.

Zidiane: How many players would you say you normally get, and what kind of games do they mainly play?

Pavel: For the Underground Hype events, it was mostly all about Street Fighter, but we do once in a while have side tournaments for 3rd Strike, UMvC3 and Guilty Gear. As for size, an average event would hit about 60 attendees. Some people just come down to spectate and grab a beer and chill, but we did hit around 100 attendees a few times.

People were always welcome to bring their own console too, for other fighting games that we did not have.

Zidiane: Sounds like it regularly brought in quite the crowd. Was that the reason Red Bull noticed you guys? How did the whole Proving Grounds deal come about?

Pavel: We were referred to the Red Bull Proving Grounds from a local Toronto organizer, Justin Baisden. He was always in the scene, he came to our last MAT event held in September, which was really a great event that I think Justin enjoyed. When the Proving Grounds project came around, he was the one that referred us to Ken, representative at Red Bull.

Zidiane: He’s the TO for the Red Bull qualifiers going down in Toronto, correct?

Pavel: Yes, correct.

Zidiane: You mentioned having players come in from Toronto to support your scene as well. You guys must have a very good relationship as scenes. How does it feel knowing both of you guys are getting the chance to compete?

Pavel: It is great! Even though there is a rivalry between the 2 cities, after the events all the rivalry is put behind and everyone just comes together for a meal or a drink. It is really one big family between the 2 cities.

We really appreciate Justin putting in the word for us for the Red Bull series, Montréal always had a great competitive scene with strong players, and now those players get a chance to shine on a higher level right from their hometown which is really great. Montréal is getting a chance to be recognized as an FGC scene.

Zidiane: I heard some similar things from the other Canadian team over in Vancouver. They mentioned a rivalry among Canadian regions, in addition to this East vs. West drama. Do you play against those guys often?

Pavel: I’m not sure if the local players get a chance to battle it out against the Vancouver scene online, because locally the two cities are each on the opposite side of the continent. There are times where they get to face each other in tournaments like Canada Cup Gaming, and I recall also last year  an event held in Toronto called EGLX, but honestly I am not really familiar with the Vancouver scene…

Zidiane: Well, they expressed that Canada tends to consider itself apart from the whole East Coast vs. West Coast mentality that sparked this whole event. Do you guys feel the same way, or do you feel some kind of loyalty to the Eastern Legion?

Pavel: Well to put a bit of fuel here, I think that the East owns the West in Canada as far as the competitive scene goes in the fighting games. But yeah there might be a bit of rivalry when it comes to it, but once outside Canada, when the players go to big events in the US or elsewhere, there are there to represent their country–Canada–so it is one goal no matter where you come from in Canada. But the rivalry inside the country between East and West is really not as strong as it may be in the US…

Zidiane: Alright. So, moving away from other regions for a bit, only 3 of your players are going to be making it as Team Montreal. If you were forced to choose, which 3 players do you say are making it to represent you guys?

Pavel: First off, I think Chi-Rithy will definitely be placed in top 3 as strong player overall, competitive since the 3rd strike era, and winner of last year’s Canadian Cineplex championships.

Second choice would be Snafoo, a famous Dhalsim player who stuck with his character since the beginning of SFIV, really defensive type of player, a wall in other words.

My third pick for this one would be FluxWaveZ, a brand new player in the scene that came along with SFV that no one has ever heard before, but managed to put the strong local players on their toes with his R. Mika, a young generation of a player that shows a lot of promise in the scene and upcoming events.

I might be wrong in the predictions but those would be my picks, there are a lot of local players to look out for, Rami, freddyl0c0, LordJimmyBones, DraeYomiGames, Coton, TJ… This competition will bring out the best of these players, they will be faced against a lot of hungry players looking to prove themselves and to get a chance to represent their city for the team battle at the end, so even though they are close friends locally, it will really be interesting to see them face other.

Zidiane: Interesting, we’re seeing a lot of new young players coming out of the woodwork for these events. What do you think of the competition? Any opinions on the other regions of Team East Coast?

Pavel: The US has a strong competitive scene with a lot of exposure, Montréal on the other hand has that competitive scene but with no exposure. I think this may work in our favor, as they won’t expect Montréal to be so strong. The local players here keep on training, attending regular weekly events and sharing their techs with the community, and they know a lot of the players that they will be facing. I have strong faith in our local players and I cannot wait for them to explode and surprise everyone on that team battle event.

Zidiane: You’re going with the unknown underdog angle. Should your lack of exposure turn out to be a blessing in disguise and you win the round robin, you’ll be up against one West Coast team. It might be Vancouver, or it might be a more traditional West Coast team. Any thoughts on who you’d want to fight, or if you’d like to avoid or be matched up against specific regions?

Pavel: For sure the west coast will be packed with big names, but some of the local players, Chi-Rithy, Snafoo, Rami, have already faced big names before and managed to come on top. If a kid like FluxWaveZ comes out for our top 3 he may be fazed by the big names, but his teammates will be there to relax him. These old-school players have traveled a lot and are not easily intimidated, they have seen a lot in their career so I’m positive in their skill and mindset whoever will come across. Those players are looking forward for that challenge, the bigger the name the bigger the thrill. If at the end it turned out that we’d be facing Vancouver in the final round, let’s just say we have no doubt that we’re the best in Canada.

Zidiane: Okay. That’s about all the questions I had. Was there anything else you wanted to let people know before you go?

Pavel: For sure the players will be out there for the challenge, to represent their city and make a name for themselves, so it will definitely be a show not to miss.

---

If you enjoyed hearing about this TO, be sure to check out the other interviews we have with other regional organizers: Chicago, Texas, NorCal, & Vancouver. You can also read more about some of Montréal’s Street Fighter V players mentioned above in our two-part interview with the MTLSF scene from last year.

[Feature image courtesy of Ray Arzaga]