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KOFXI Sawakoro Festival 2025

Version vom 13. Mai 2026, 10:27 Uhr von AtTheGates (Diskussion | Beiträge)

Tournament Report by ATG

Preface

In October 2025, it was once again time for Sawakoro Festival! This year proved to be a difficult one for all German players, for a variety of reasons, and ultimately I (ATG) was the only one who could make it. Considering that legendary player and friend U-rasia had passed away this year, I felt determined to come, no matter what!
My trip started in Tokyo, as usual, landing early in the morning on Friday and went to Shinjuku Sportsland in the evening to meet and play Ryumi, Tacchi and Otokusan.
Right - ATG & Otokusan
  


On Saturday, I made my way to good day 21, and the place was as busy as I had never seen it before - a total of 13 players were playing on 4 sets, more than I had seen ever before in Tokyo, even during Shinjuku Carnival days! Yanjirou, Shingo, Zakuroman, Akio, Kentucky, Zorbon, Shisho, Tacchi, Maru, Uguu, C-color and a couple of more were all there! It was nice to finally play against Shisho, whose Ralf is very strong. During dinner, we formed two tables: the alcohol and no alcohol table, you can take a guess at which one i sat. I had a funny conversion with Akio, who insists that Vanessa's LDM is the strongest in the game, and that Gato is only a top 7 character. Our back and forth and obvious disagreement caused a lot of laughter at both tables.
 


On Sunday, I woke up really early and made my way to Chiba: Rock had invited me to a sightseeing tour to Tateyama, close to where he was born. Tobidogu-San also joined the trip, and we leisurely made our way the coast by car, exploring a temple, an aquarium/museum and a scenic (and well-hidden) photo spot at the sea. It was a wonderfully relaxing, sunny day, just what I needed after the stress of work at home and the long flight.
   
On the way back I was so tired that i slept in the car, but Tobidogu-San and me didn't falter and took a train from Chiba straight to good day 21. I had a spontaneous ft10 with Maru, who plays Kula/Oswald/Vanessa(L), the Tori/TORU team. He won 10-8, I felt very tired and his Vanessa neutral was really good, dodging all my approaches and perfectly punishing bad jumps with 5C(c). You can find the ft10 here.
 


Monday I spent doing gift shopping in Tokyo and checking out JoJo World, a popup store in Shibuya which was lovingly set up, and even had an "Iggy Cafe", and then the SNK popup store in Akihabara. In the evening I met Tax Thief in Shinjuku Sportsland: Sawakoro connected us via Line. Tax Thief played Maxima/Oswald/Gato, and particularly his Gato proved to be very hard for me to beat. Our skill level was a perfect match - we played a ft10 and it was absolutely crazy, it ended 10-9 for me with 1 second on the clock and both players 0 pixels of life left. Tax Thief swore revenge, so we will have another ft10 when we meet again!
   


On Tuesday, I met Ryoji, Black and later Ryumi for a few matches at SpoLan. It was nice to play against Ryoji again, Gai, Silber and Ash are rare characters to encounter. I faired particularly well against Ryumi's patient style this time around and managed to get a few good wins in. I also did well against him later when we faced each other during the Sawakoro Festival - still not enough for a win however. What came as a big surprise that evening was that Black had crafted a wonderful gift for me - two tiny Astro City Cabs with KOFXI branding and a switch to light them up! One shows the character select, the other Oswald hitting Ash mid-match.
 


Wednesday was the last day of Tokyo, and I once again went to good day 21 in the evening - for a revenge ft10 against Maru. This time I wasn't tired and the help of green tea, ending the ft10 10-1 in my favor. You can find it here.
 

2025/10/09 - Sawakoro Festival Day minus 1

Arrival & Lunch

Thursday morning came, it was finally time to head to Nagoya! I met Sawakoro in Imaike, where he lives, and dropped off my luggage (he let me stay at his place for this year's Sawakoro Festival, thanks!). We then headed to a specialty Tofu restaurant called Ume no Hana in downtown Nagoya. The place and food was amazing, and I would like to come back some day. It was a set course menu with all kinds of tofu dishes, most of which I had never heard before, there was even a milk/tofu mix dessert. After a while, both Sawakoro and me realized almost at the exact same moment that we were the only men in the restaurant, the rest were all old ladies, which was funny.
  

Port24

Afterwards we strolled around a bit and eventually made our way to port24. It was my very first time at the new location, which is a newly rented room out in the back yard that has all the video games, and really feels like a true arcade! We met Senchou and played for 2 hours. Senchou plays an unusual team of Yuri/Kula/Jazu (recently he switched out Yuri for Maxima). He also plays koihime and is one of the strongest Aquapazza players. It was great to play with Sawakoro again, his defense is a real test of your abilities, and will make you second-guess your offense and mixups all the time. I also felt once again how strong K' is against Silber, and how effective a runaway style can be with him, particularly if you have gauge for Heat Drive.
  


Evening

We then went to have lunch at a super spicy Mazesoba restaurant back in Imaike, where Sawakoro lives. Afterwards we bought a load of snacks and drinks and retired to his place, playing around on ps2, watching match videos and chatting until bedtime. We also heard from Nori and GRID, who were still preparing for SawaFes in Osaka.
  


Stream archive:

2025/10/10 Sawakoro Festival Day 0

Morning

We woke up really early, at 6.30, because we had a special trip ahead of us. Whenever Sawakoro visits me, I either make him breakfast or we go to a bakery and pick up random things, and he isn't shy to try out German food at all. Now that I was at his place, it was my turn to try out a real Japanese breakfast. I am very picky when it comes to breakfast, and the idea of eating fish in the morning really didn't appeal to me - but I tried it anyway, and it was absolutely amazing. Now, if only we had Konbinis in Germany that would sell fish of this quality...
 

Day - Ise Jingu

Sawakoro and Rukkora, who volunteered to drive, took me on a wonderful daytrip all the way down to Ise, to visit Ise Jingu. On the way, we picked up GRID from a train station, who had come from Osaka to join us, and would later ride back with us for SawaFes. Ise Jingu was great, and I was particularly impressed by the gargantuan trees around it. We also explored the super long edo-style road Okage Yokocho in front of it that had many stores and restaurants, eating a special version of Kakigouri with matcha and Anko paste, a combination of ingredients typical for this region. Left - GRID, Sawakoro, Rukkora
    

Once we had our snack, we left, driving to Matsusaka on the way back, home of the famous restauraunt Gyugin, specialized on grilled beef dishes.
  


On our way back, we passed by Game Chao, an arcade i had coincidentally bookmarked, so we made a brief stop to check out the place. There was an Akatsui En Eins cab, and GRID went into practice mode and gave me a rundown of some of the game's mechanics (from what I understand, he either is or was the strongest Akatsuki Blitzkampf player in Japan).
  


Evening - port24 & Kintaro

When we arrived, Shingo and Zakuroman were already there, playing each other. Since there wasn't much going on yet and there was no fear of taking pictures of bystanders, I took a few photos, trying to capture the atmosphere of the new port24. There was not stream that evening!
  
Left - Zakuroman. Right - GRID, Sawakoro, Zakuroman.


We didn't play too much and left rather early, because we had a reservation at Kintaro, a traditional Izakaya hidden away in Aratamabashi, Nagoya. A lot of XI players came and it was a merry round of Izakaya food and drinking, and many funny stories were shared. I learned a lot of new things, particularly about Yanjirou. He has only been playing XI for 7 years, much less than most of the other players, who have been playing since it released. Also, after 6 months already, he was able to win against Shingo in a ft10. To quote Sawakoro, literally: "he has mutant strength". There were also tales about the console-only (pad) players in Japan, some of which I had heard before. Since Shoryuken inputs can be somewhat faster on pad if done right, a player called Yassan was able to do really well on console when he played U-rasia. Apparently, a long time ago, they had 8 ft10s on one day, and Yassan managed to win 7 of them. He is considered the inventor of the Yagoto team (Kula/Ryo/Gato(L)). We also had a really passionate discussion about which characters are easy, and which are not. Rukkora considers K' to be easy, Shingo on the other hand picked Ryo. Shingo told many stories as the evening passed on and everybody was listening intently, bursting into laughter every few minutes. There was a story where Toru played U-rasia and was under so much pressure that right as the match started, he whiffed a 623C with Kula, leading to him losing his whole team, perfect. U-rasia chuckled and just said "time attack".
   
Middle - Shingo, Senchou, GRID.

Back home & Shingo's advice

As the evening progressed and everyone became increasingly tired / intoxicated, we decided to make our way back home. But instead of catching some sleep, we fired up the PS2! It was the perfect time for pro advice, so I once again asked Shingo on what I can improve, particularly against Kula, my nemesis.
He pointed out that on max range, using Oswald's card is strong, particularly the A- and B versions. It can force Kula to block, or at least try and move around the card. Depending on her reaction, Oswald can use dash 2D or smalljump E, smalljump up E, far C or even 3A to counter most of her answers. Shingo said he considers it the strongest play style against Kula, and that Korean player PI has mastered this.
If you ever get trapped in the corner with Oswald against Kula, it's your fault (ouch). Your options are limited and require guessing: 2A,5A, smalljump up D, smalljump E, far C.
He also gave me some advice for K' against Kula, since this should be my least bad matchup of my characters against her, but I still struggle. He told me to not panic and overcommit if Kula blocks a smalljump E - sometimes it is better to back off with a backdash to allow her to make a mistake. Backdash > Ein Trigger can beat Ray Spin in this situation, for example. He also gave me some more general advice - "play less around Vanessa LDM, use more stun combos instead, and make sure your characters don't die by shifting them out, and your win rate will increase 30%".
He also talked a bit about a frequently discussed topic in XI - when to use or not use your skill gauge. He thinks that if you have one skill gauge, you should go for 1-shift combos and not runaway. This is to force your opponent into using saving shift.
He also said that me and Sawakoro have a skill that we both lack - to fake offense, but actually run away, thereby making the opponent wary, giving you more time to build skill gauge.
About the topic of baiting saving shift, Shingo thinks it is better to finish the combo, and not drop it in hopes of baiting a saving shift. The psychological damage will be higher. Also, using saving shift early is not necessarily a bad decision - depending on your team and the matchup, the extra health you preserve might be worth it more than the risk of your opponent reaching 2 skill gauges before you, eg. if you play K'.
 

2025/10/11 Sawakoro Festival Day 1 - Big Team Battle

Morning & Lunch

The first day of Sawakoro Festival had arrived! Right after we woke up though, Shingo and me immediately hit practice mode. We looked at Ryo's 214P (the "dandy step") and how to beat it with my team - Oswald can use 421B/D, then j.D>2D; Vanessa can use 214P and K', as always, has a million options: Heat Drive, Heaven's Drive, 623A and so on. Shingo pointed out that K' can use 2C in the corner as Okizeme against Kula, it beats both Ray Spin and Crow Bites and if she rolls forward, you can cancel into 623C in the other direction on reaction.
Soon, Rock arrived from Chiba, storing his luggage at Sawakoro's place. After Shingo and me had went out to get some coffee, we had an early lunch at Unagiya Issei. It was rather far away, but the trip was totally worth it - we ate Hitsumabushi, a variant of Unagi that is thin and crispy. Each quarter of the dish is eaten in a different way - with sancho, nori, wasabi, spring onions and with ochazuke (either green tea or dashi). This is my new favourite way to eat unagi.
  



port24 - Big Team Battle

Arrival & Matchup Talk
When we arrived at port24, only a few people were there already: Nori, GRID and Roger. Nori was practicing Kodsuka's team, using Terry. We had a chat about various characters and matchups. Nori considers Terry a strong character, but quite difficult concerning his inputs. Due to his good neutral, he wins against Oswald and other characters. He also considers Benimaru to be a good character, but he loses hard against Ryo and K'. He can fight OK against Kula by using close and far D and j.C. We also talked about Ralf vs Oswald again, a matchup we discussed in previous years, and Nori reinforced that he considers it even. There was also a system peculiarity that Nori pointed out to me: using Duck's Break Spiral (the command grab super) doesn't always work against low guard when it would against high guard (I have yet to test this properly). On the topic of Oswald vs Maxima, expert GRID confirmed what I had felt since a long time: that Oswald wins this matchup. He also said Maxima against Terry is difficult.
More and more players started to arrive, first a big group of Tokyo players: Tacchi, Kentucky, Kodsuka, Ryuumi, Maru and Operaza, followed by Kurocha, who entered the hall simply saying "XI Time". GRID and me took turns challenging Kodsuka, but he was just too strong for us. Meanwhile, Kenoh arrived, joining the line. He managed to win, which prompted Tacchi to challenge Kenoh. BZR arrived around 15:00 and had fun playing against Kenoh, using Kyo/Duck/Os and even Ryo.
Datei:Kofxi atg vs bzr 2025.png

Big Team Battle
The theme of the team battle: baseball teams
TORU played like a god, beat Gian & Kentucky, link here
bilder

Teams (click to collapse)
# East West
1 x y
2 x y

summary of team battle, highlights with video links

after tourney stuff

Evening practice mode session with BZR

Videos:

2024/10/12 - Sawakoro Festival Day 2 - Main Event

Arrival

early morning stuff match archive: [x]

tshirts etc bilder

Teams & Team Drawing

stuff & bilder

summary of block composition bilder

The Tournament begins

Warning: Spoilers from here!
links to block videos

First Rounds

summary vs hiroshi
some highlights with video links: [x]. J

A-Block winner: x/y/z
B-Block winner: x/y/z

The Loser Bracket aka Loser's Resurrection

loser bracket time. highlights.

other block block winners bilder

A-block loser's winner: x/y/z
B-block loser's winner: /y/z

Semi Finals

summary of semi finals

Grand Finals

Video: [x]
grand final summary

winners bilder Sawakoro Festival 2025 winners: Zakuroman/Yanjirou/Hiroshi

Videos

The after-party

After-Tournament casuals video here: [x]
after party summary & bilder

The after-after party

back to port24 for casuals

2024/10/13 - Sawakoro Festival Bonus Day

bonus day with ft10s and casuals, leaving in the evening


Videos


Thanks for reading etc - ATG

3on3 Character usage

Overall Character usage

 

Leader usage

 

3on3 List of all Teams & Characters

14 teams, 41 players

Team Vane/Oz

ATG

  • Oswald
  • Vanessa(L)
  • K'

TORU

  • Kula
  • Gato
  • Vanessa(L)
  • Oswald

BZR

  • Vanessa
  • Oswald
  • K'(L)

Rising Dragons

Zakuroman

  • Ryo
  • Kula
  • K'
  • Gato(L)

Tobidogu-San Team / Hiroshi

  • King
  • Jazu(L)
  • Kensou

Yanjirou

  • Kula
  • K'
  • Gato(L)

Elf

Operaza

  • Whip
  • Adelheid
  • Elisabeth(L)

Roger

  • Maxima
  • Kyo
  • Ryo(L)

Tacchi

  • Jenet
  • Malin
  • King(L)

Katagi Desuyone?

Daisuke

  • Kula
  • Kim
  • K'(L)

Senchou

  • Kula
  • Yuri
  • Jazu(L)

Kurocha

  • Duck
  • Kula
  • Adelheid(L)

Yassan ?

Spooky

  • Kensou
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Ryotsu

  • Kula
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Shingo

  • Kula
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Ken GRIfi Gian=

Kenoh

  • Kyo
  • Oswald
  • Ryo(L)

GRID

  • Maxima
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Gian

  • Kula
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Random Team 2

Sana

  • Kula
  • Oswald
  • Gato(L)

eGao Gian

  • Shen
  • Ryo
  • K'(L)

Otoko

Maru

  • Kula
  • Vanessa(L)
  • Oswald

Kentucky

  • Whip
  • Athena(L)
  • Kensou

Kodzuka

  • Oswald
  • K'(L)
  • Terry

初心者Team

Rukkora

  • Kula
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Aoi

  • Kula
  • K'
  • Gato(L)

Arata

  • King
  • Kula
  • Ryo(L)

Anchi N Arts Team

Nori

  • Ralf
  • Kula
  • Gato(L)

Nuu

  • Kula
  • Gato
  • Malin(L)

TSR

  • Maxima
  • Gato(L)
  • Kula

Random Team 1

Hokuto

  • Eiji
  • Ryo
  • Kim
  • Gato(L)

Ayuri

  • Kula
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Sengoku

  • Silber
  • K'(L)
  • Ryo
  • Mary

Random Team 3

Tenkawa

  • Shen
  • Oswald
  • Ash(L)

Noutenki

  • Kula
  • Ryo
  • K'(L)

Yuito

  • Duolon
  • Benimaru
  • Kula
  • Elisabeth
  • Benimaru(L)
  • Elisabeth(L)

Yasuda Tokudai Circus

Miekazu

  • Oswald
  • Kim
  • Duck
  • Kula
  • K'
  • K'(L)
  • Oswald(L)

Tayo

  • Kula
  • K'
  • Gato(L)

Rock

  • Ralf
  • Ryo
  • Gato(L)

Rival Team

Sawakoro

  • Griffon
  • Silber(L)
  • Mary

Ryumi

  • Terry
  • Yuri
  • Ryo(L)

Ozma

  • Oswald
  • K'(L)
  • Gai
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