Link to Cafe ID channel.. They stream all the time.. Subscribe!!

That channel isn't the best the east has to offer. Cafe ID are good kof players and Madkof is extremely good but the best in the world are still from Japan.

So many ignorants. Japan is the best in this game. And this was a fact BEFORE CafeID decided to go to Japan and lost in the ft20 against players that aren't even the best in Japan.

Madkof also lost his ft3 to Kaoru and actually said he wished Kaoru made it to the finals of Evo because it would have made for a better finals match than against Bala.

If you want to say something about who is the best, you need to educate yourself. Most of the players from only one of Japan's arcades, Nishinippori, has players better than Korea's best players.

The problem with a lot of people is that they don't research. The international players that decide to come to Evo, only make up about 1% of the top international talent. Most international players either do not have the money to go to Evo, or simply don't care about Evo because they get better competition in their own country.

Only one top player went to Evo from Japan and that was Kaoru. Kyabetsu is a good Japanese kof player who went too but he isn't a master player and he mainly went there for SF4, not kof.

There's literally over 50-100 players in Japan that are better than Madkof (and definitely Bala).

And I say all this while acknowledging that madkof is really strong, especially mentally. But his level of play is actually pretty common in Japan.

Damn I wish they could just let me edit my posts...

Don't count players like Tokido and Mago as Japanese kof players. They do not represent the kof scene, they are new kof13 players that were receiving like one month training from the top Japanese KCE players. But of course you wouldn't know that, you guys probably just watch only American tournaments and think everything revolves around them.

Xiaohai and Dakou were sponsored by Qanba and eLive.

It's very rare to see a kof player sponsored for kof, because kof just doesn't have that kind of exposure in the US, compared to SF4. That's just how it is...

I don't know what cafeID's story is regarding sponsorships. Since they sent out like 5 players to Evo, that would have cost a fortune.

It's very hard to find a sponsor in Japan...most of these players just can't come without one. See what happened when eLive stopped sponsoring players? RF, Kindevu and MOV stopped coming to US tournaments (MOV came to 25th anniversary from a free ticket so that doesn't count).

Anyway here are some matches of what I'm talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNKMkcpS858
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toaZaui8XLk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF1TlI6Z920
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxkGIknXKqw

These players are all above the cafe ID/Bala level, but you won't see them in a stream and you won't see them flying to the US for a tournament. Have to know where to look to find these matches.

While there are a number of countries that are playing kof13, it's a much lower priority compared to other fighters like SF4 and Marvel. Until the players in the US start caring more about it and the prize amounts increase for winning tournaments, no one is going to sponsor an international player for Kof. This is why we see international top players from other games(like Tokido, Mago, Haitani, etc), joining Kof on the side and while they may do decent/well, they are not the main representatives for those countries by any stretch.

Cafe ID went to Japan yesterday for a 2 on 2 tournament. Verna, Madkof, Kenzouzhang and one of the other ones (Gutts?) teamed up, and Lacid was with 777 from Japan.

They did pretty well actually, lots of good matches. But in the end, the highest they got was top 8 and madkof got beat bad by a Japanese Athena player named Nagihe.

Now, I'll say that Korea's level is about the same as many good players in Japan but there are a number of them that are on a higher level. They just don't get the exposure.

Matches will be uploaded sometime soon.

There is also a 5on5 Korea vs. Japan coming up today, that should be good. I don't know who is on Japan's team though but if I were to create a team based on the players that were there, I'd say Haregoro, Koukou, Nagihe, Tenkawa and maybe Naoki.

There were also a good amount of characters represented at this tournament. Robert, Ryo, Athena, Kensou, Mature, Vice, Clark, Ralf, Daimon, Mai, Leona getting some good exposure.

So CafeID is back from their big trip to Japan...the matches were crazy good and I'll eventually upload everything to my youtube for now the results are...

KCE Cup - this was a 2on2 tournament that was held on Jan13th...Lacid teamed up with 777 and got top 16(I think), Gutts/Verna and Kensouzhang/Madkof were the other two teams but they couldn't get past top 8. Madkof got blown up by a Japanese athena player and I can't find the match atm but it was pretty brilliant.

V-1 Final - this was another 2on2 tournament led on Jan14th. It was Gutts/Lacid and Verna/Madkof teaming up, with Kensouzhang teamed up with a japanese player. The two korean teams both got to top 4 but they couldn't get past that - one of the korean teams got blown up by Sange, a Leona player who was at Evo last time but didn't do so great.

Korea kind of redeemed themselves in the 5on5, winning 5-4 with Madkof running it back for 4 straight wins...but overall, Japan was just too dominant and it's very apparent - Japan not only has more top players, but has a number of players that are on a higher level than madkof/cafe ID.

They also did some casuals that didn't go so well for Korea...

Here is Lacid/Madkof/Gutts vs. someone and Tenkawa (the japanese Shen/Duolon/Ash player I linked earlier in this thread)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2l8GgNUOT4