Combining high-stakes competition with standard convention fare, major tournaments (henceforth referred to as “majors”) are true celebrations of the fighting game genre and a permanent icon of esports. Ever since the first Evolution Championship Series (Evo) back in 1996, majors have been a cornerstone of the fighting game community and have helped the genre prosper well beyond the death of the arcade. Evo Moment 37 is the esports equivalent of the “Hand of God,” the “Miracle on Ice,” the “Blood in the Water” match or something from an American sport that I don’t know about. And, of course, it’s not just Evo. There are tons of majors each year, each unique and worth experiencing.

When I was a little boy, I was too slow and chubby to play futbol. I practiced every day for years but could never overcome that hurdle — as far as matches went, I was only ever subbed in for a few minutes so that my mom wouldn’t complain. Like every other Latin American boy my age, I wanted to be a futbolero, but unlike most of them, I couldn’t kick a ball for shit. Instead, I turned to fighting games to scratch my competitive itch. Here, the physical barriers were ones I could overcome; I had no teammates to blame or drag down but still had a community to support me. I found a great variety in the genre, from the brightly-lit stages of majors to online competitions to grassroots local tournaments consisting of 20 nerds standing outside in the Florida heat and arguing about game balance (objectively the best type of event). I experienced some of the most cathartic moments of my life: being on stream for the first time, winning on stream for the first time, winning a local tournament, making it out of pools and seeing the Michigan scene grow. Even more importantly, I met some of my closest friends through fighting games, and it’s the fighting game community that has helped me grow from a shy, teenage recluse to a confident, adult … recluse. I’m working on it.

The first major I ever attended was Community Effort Orlando in 2017. As a 12-year-old, I was too young to compete. My most recent is Frosty Faustings XVI (sometimes abbreviated as “Frosty’s,” but not run by a person named Frosty), held in Lombard, a suburban dystopia in Illinois, this January. Frosty Faustings is one of two Chicago-based majors alongside Combo Breaker, one I have attended for the last three years. Each time, I went into The Westin Lombard Chicago as an entirely different person, and every time, I came out a changed woman.

***

It’s January 2022, and I’m still a high schooler in Miami. Accompanied by my dad and his partner, I fly to Lombard. It’s my first time in the region, and I’m still too young to do it alone. It’s my first time seeing and touching snow, and I’m surprised by just how dirty it gets near the roads. This is the coldest weather I have ever experienced, well under 10 degrees, and four layers don’t feel like enough. I’m grateful for the mask mandate; I don’t have a scarf, and it lets me hide my face. The Westin Lombard, where the tournament is held, is huge, and although I have been playing fighting games for five years, I don’t have many friends here.

I sign up to play Strive and Skullgirls and don’t place too well in either game. I spend most of the weekend in the lobby chatting with my dad and his partner, trying in vain to breathe. I have a lot on my mind — IB exams, college (so far, I haven’t gotten any decisions from my top choices), the push and pull of my emerging social life during the pandemic’s peak, my transition — and it feels like everything has come to a halt for the weekend, until the moment that it all begins again.

Midway through my bracket run in Strive, the University of Michigan decisions are released. My phone is bombarded with notifications (which distracted me and, I’ll tell myself, made me lose), but the venue’s WiFi is slow and nothing loads — all I know is that I have received an email from the University. Between my matches, I run around the Grand Ballroom through dozens of little crowds to get to the water fountains and, more importantly, to try to get good enough reception to properly check my phone. Finally, I access the PDF attachment and, while the text fails to load, the yellow and blue confetti tells me I got in. I lose my next match rather quickly and am eliminated, but my mind is somewhere else. I go to the lobby to tell my dad the news but get interrupted by FaceTime requests from my friends and classmates. I’m shaking, and between the adrenaline and all the walking around, I can’t tell why.

Saturday night, barely 24 hours after being accepted by the University of Michigan, I’m all alone again, watching Strive Top 8 in the very same ballroom. I get a Discord message and open it to find the only thing scarier than that unread email — someone from my local scene asking about hormone replacement therapy. To put it mildly, I freak the fuck out. How’d they even find out? “I thought I’d ask you, since B found your Twitter and told me you were trans.” Well, shit. I had left my account public for too long. I answer their HRT questions and assuage their fears about the process while trying my best to ignore my own. At this moment, I realize that they probably weren’t the only one in the scene to figure it out and that, sooner or later, I’d have to come out. I do it the following Tuesday and, although I expected it, the support that I get is still relieving. I can finally exist.

***

By February 2023, I’m a bonafide Chicago veteran. Last year, I tried Chicago-style pizza (decent) and Chicago dogs (fantastic), so Frosty Faustings is familiar territory. Since it’s the beginning of the winter semester, I can take the train from Ann Arbor to Lombard and stay at the Westin with a double room all to myself. I hang out with some long-time online friends for the first time and reconnect with friends from Florida who I haven’t seen since starting college. I’m unsure if one of my friends (coincidentally, the very same one that found my Twitter a year ago) is coming; he had travel plans and a room, but both had fallen through by Thursday and he decided to unregister from the tournament. At the last minute, he asks me if he can stay in my room for the weekend. Of course, I say yes.

Once again, I sign up for both Strive and Skullgirls and somehow do even worse than last year (I didn’t remember much of the performance, so I found my tweets from the weekend and yeah, I seem to have done pretty badly). I cry in my room the moment I’m eliminated but get interrupted by my new roommate. I try to enjoy the rest of the weekend. I check out God of Rock (and, a year later, write about it in a piece about the Game Awards), buy prints, posters, stickers and shirts and play casuals against friends and strangers. At least I get to end the weekend on a good note — rather than watching Strive Top 8 alone, I watch it at a friend’s hotel room with her, her boyfriend and a bunch of strangers. I lie in bed and occasionally get up to scream at the TV like my dad watching a football game. Latif, you dumb motherfucker. I would have blocked that! This game sucks. This game is so good. I argue, I shout, I get hyped. My favorite player wins and my throat is sore for the following week.

***

It’s January 2024, and ever since the character Zato was nerfed, I have been in a rut. I’m sure anyone with a strong attachment to their chosen character can relate. I decide to give the game one last shot and practice as much as possible for Frosty Faustings: Even if I decide to stop playing Strive, I’ll go out with a bang. I don’t sign up for Skullgirls so that I can focus all my energy on Strive and spend weeks practicing matchups and researching my opponents.

This year, I’m rooming with one of my closest friends from the Florida scene and my girlfriend, who lives in the city. It’s the same hotel I stayed at in 2022, so I know my way to the venue and back by heart. My expectations are high, and the trepidation mounts as the day approaches. Unfortunately, since my pool is on Friday at noon, I don’t get to sleep a lot and barely get to practice before I need to play my bracket matches.

As expected, I win my first match with little difficulty, although I do drop a game due to an input error. My second round is a lot harder and goes to the last game. I’m nervous and my play is subpar, but I manage to win, putting myself in winners’ finals. Whether I win or lose my next set, I’ll make it out of pools for only the second time ever. My third match, the last of the day, is against CEO winner Eddventure. I had prepared to play against him, but I don’t expect to do well, especially not with the increased pressure of being on stage in front of hundreds of people. As the game loads for our button checks, I look at my own face on the stream, which is being projected right behind us. I shake my head, then nod, and my reflection does the same. Eddventure and I chat a little, and before I know it, the first game has begun. Just as promptly, it ends with me losing quite hard — but it feels doable. The second game is much closer and, although it comes down to the wire, I manage to win. The third is more of the same and I find myself up 2-1. One win from beating a top player. He switches characters. I didn’t think I’d get that far, so I hadn’t practiced for his Jack-O’. The last two games are, like the first, difficult, and although I do get close to taking one, I ultimately lose. The final score is 3-2. After we fist bump, I exit the stage. I am greeted by my friends, who congratulate me for such a close set. I nod — I’m pretty happy about it, too. For the rest of the day, I cheer my friends on, practice for tomorrow’s matches and get some rest. I celebrate my almost-victory as much as I celebrate getting out of pools.

After having dinner with my roommates and a new friend, I don’t sleep well. My next matches are early on Saturday, so I have to hope that the caffeine will be enough to fuel me. My first set goes much better than expected; I win with a clean 3-0, out-placing my seed. In the next set, I’m up 2–0 and feeling quite comfortable, but the nerves start eating away at me as the noise behind me grows louder and more personal. I have never been good with crowds, so I try to turn up the noise canceling on my headphones. I don’t want to delay things by tinkering with them too much, though, so I just sigh and press “on.” 2–1. 2–2. 2–3. I get reverse swept and, with my head in my hands, I think about my run. Ninety-seventh of 719. Not my highest placing at a major, but definitely my hardest fought. I’m also the highest-placing Zato, and I have my friends to console me. Now eliminated, I spend Saturday and Sunday enjoying everything else Frosty Faustings offers. I play casual matches in the Harry Caray Ballroom, walk through artists’ booths with my girlfriend, spend way too much on charms and prints and try out two brand-new fighting games (Tekken 8 and Undernight In-Birth II).

Ninety-seventh of 719. Not too bad. The friend I’m rooming with gets 49th. After months of sulking, I am reminded how much I love competing, regardless of my character’s glaring weaknesses and my own recurring flaws. I remember how much I love fighting games. I feel every moment of frustration and every moment of joy from the last seven years simultaneously, an emotional release like the exhalation after a long, exhausted breath.

Being in a venue with thousands of strangers, all of whom shared a common interest with me, was and remains equal parts intimidating and exhilarating. Some of them are hardly strangers: I recognize the top players whose streams I have watched, I recognize my Twitter mutuals, I see the number of trans and gender-nonconforming people increase year by year and I see all the friends I have made through fighting games. This is the only place where I’m truly comfortable, where I can use the women’s bathroom without any reservations, where I can talk my mouth off about my stupid interests and have people listen and where I can find old friends and make new ones. And over the years, the shitty parts of majors have become something I cherish, too.

***

In most places, and especially in Lombard, there’s nothing to do outside the venue. The food is either terrible or has insanely long lines (looking at you, Popcorn Baron). There is never any quality coffee which, for a caffeine addict like me, is quite problematic since I want to compete at my best. But the food being shitty doesn’t matter because you’re eating with friends and sharing this moment with them. Inside the venue, the atmosphere is heavy and, yes, sweaty (especially in the Super Smash Bros. room). Sometimes you have to go to the bathroom just to breathe. It’s loud and overwhelming and it’s fucking awesome. It’s kind of like a mosh-pit (but what would I know, I’ve never been to one).

You’ll crowd around a tiny monitor alongside 10 other people to watch some high-stakes set, hoping someone will record it on their phone. You’ll run from room to room to catch friends while they play, scream as loud as you can when they’re on stage and cheer for them with vigor previously thought impossible. And it won’t even matter if you play badly because if your friend did well, that means you did well.

On Sunday night or Monday morning, you trek back home by plane, car or train. After a weekend of completely ignoring responsibilities, a return to routine seems impossible. The first days back feel like a punishment, and by the time the next weekend comes, you ache to be in Lombard again. You boot up whichever fighting game you are playing, hop on training mode and run a few sets, but it’s not the same. You’re alone in your room, with only an arcade stick to keep you company, organizing matches through Discord, shit-talking to nobody in particular, playing for no reason at all other than inertia. All of a sudden, the shortcomings of online tournaments are clear as day. It’s the postmajor slump, baby, and it sucks. Normalcy is a taunt, an insult. Work is even more of a chore than it usually is and your own bedroom becomes less comfortable than a cheap hotel. Maybe you’ll take that break from fighting games after all and, hell, maybe you should. It can’t hurt, can it?

A few more weeks pass, and Combo Breaker registration opens. You sigh, find some friends with whom to split a room, book you flight and sign up, ready to do it all over again. And again. And again.

Daily Arts Writer Ariel Litwak can be reached at arilit@umich.edu.

The post On belonging and fighting game tournaments appeared first on The Michigan Daily.