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:

X

2025/10/10

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.

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.

We didn't play too much and left rather early, because we had a reservation at Kintaro, a traditional Izakaya somewhat hidden off the beaten path in 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 was a great storyteller as the evening passed on, 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".

Shingo's advice
After the funny stories, it was time for some advice, and 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 don't 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'.

As the evening progressed, many players became increasingly tired / intoxicated, and the first casualties started appearing. Sooner or later we made our way back home, trying to get a few hours of sleep before the first official day of Sawakoro Festival!
Datei:Kofxi port24 1010 kintaro 043 2025.png

2025/10/11

Big Team Battle

Stuff 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

Videos:

here

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

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

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

Kodsuka

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

KOFXI Sawakoro Festival 2025