Actually, second thought, your question here helps to prove my point. I (again seriously not trying to prop fish or brag) won a major and placed top 8 at another one, but I still have only one chance to place really well at the hardest tournament in the world for people to not question whether I'm good or not.
YOMI players could go out in pools at EVO and still be considered Here are three big problems to me:
1. Because the YOMI guys are considered the elite of the elite and they get to travel to so many tournaments, any tournament without them at it is going to be immediately considered not high level. We've seen this before, "But VSM isn't there! Does it really count?". Obviously this is BS, but people see it that way when they come to expect these top players to be at every tournament. This might be overall how YOMI hurts the scene more than anything else.
I mean hell, let's just say the YOMI bus breaks down very last minute and none of them can make it to EVO. Imagine that situation in your head. Now how viable of a tournament would EVO be to you? Would you still value it over Combo Breaker? CEO? Whether you admit it or not, I'm sure that you all would at least question it, and that's EVO... now imagine any tournament smaller than EVO... they would mean nothing.
2. Because the YOMI guys can travel to EVERY major, even if players step up to the plate and do better than YOMI players, they aren't going to get nearly as much recognition as them, unless they can do it at a good amount of majors.
I mean for example, look at Red Raptor. He placed really high at Combo Breaker, higher than almost all of the YOMI guys, but when people talk about top players, his name is almost never brought up. I swear I am 100% NOT fishing for props here, but I'm a great example too. Last time we saw me at a big major, I beat 2 people who are YOMI now (Slayer and REO), but if you were to ask people for a top 10 players list, I bet a ton of YOMI would both be on over 90% of lists and Red Raptor or I would be on less than 10%. I'm not saying that me or Red Raptor or whoever are better or worse than the YOMI guys right now, but the point is that players getting recognition is near impossible with the amount of exposure that these guys automatically get.
3. YOMI is creating an unrealistic standard for sponsorships in the NRS community. For anywhere even close to what they're offering these players, any other sponsor would ask the players to stream regularly, spread the brand somehow, or at least have a standard for placements which are all very normal things for sponsors. When those sponsors look at the scene and realize that it's impossible to compare to such an overly generous sponsor, they might decide that they can't come close to competing, and sponsor players from other games. Also the fact that literally nobody but Sonicfox can travel and consistently place next to YOMI at a good amount of majors means that no players that can only go to a few majors can get the exposure that might get them a sponsor.
Definitely willing to discuss any of these points.
