Part of the problem is that people are not able to take comments at face value. This leads to people confusing honesty with downplaying/upplaying and vice/versa and it prevents any kind of logical discussion. Let me go through a series of statements and look at them in staight-up-logical way, no emotions no BS:
1) Player X won EVO
This is factual. You can't dispute it. It's an objective accomplishment. Taken by itself, you can't argue with this statement
2) Winning EVO Doesn't Make You the "Best player of X game" or "Best player of X game for a year"
This SHOULD also be factual. The problem is that making this statement causes people to think that you're downplaying EVO or minimizing the victory. But you aren't.
The truth is that while EVO is a big tournament (and often, the biggest tournament of the year for a given game), it is one tournament -- it happens on one given weekend. Whoever plays better and/or has a friendlier path through the bracket on that weekend, and wins, is crowned the champion of that tournament, that weekend.
However the thing that people never want to admit is that it's possible to have a really bad day, a really good day, a f'ed up bracket path, or a cushy path that plays to your character's strengths, on that one particular weekend -- and this is why statistically you cannot use one tournament out of the entire year, to prove who the best player in a game is, period.
It's simple math, and if you take statistics, they'll introduce you to the concept of "sample size" and explain why it's necessary.
3) X player had a favorable/unfavorable path through the bracket at X tournament for their character, playstyle, and win/loss history
This can be debatable, and subjective -- but that doesn't make it wrong. The fact is that you can show up to a tournament and be faced with two of your absolute worst nightmares (characters or players) straight away in pools and be eliminated. It doesn't mean you're not a good player, or that you sucked.
Truly amazing players have a way of beating the odds even when it seems things aren't in their favor.. But it doesn't *always* happen and we've all seen fantastic players take L's earlier than you'd think they would due to matchups.
It doesn't "take away" a win. If you won, you won. It's just another reason why a single tournament per year cannot absolutely prove how good or bad you are.
4) I think X player is the best [Insert Game Here] player, even though he didn't win EVO
All the factors listed above should tell you why this is a legitimate opinion. You may not agree with it, but you can't dispute the validity of the logic. If someone else is cleaning up the majority of major tournaments, and a player that won EVO is getting mopped up by various players after EVO at other majors, then maybe there are reasons why.
I think Chris G was the best overall Marvel player of the last EVO season even though he didn't win EVO. I shouldn't get shot for saying that.
Again it has 0 to do with downplaying EVO -- if you won the biggest tournament of the year, that's a fantastic accomplishment in itself. If you did it multiple times, that's even more banannas. But if you're truly the abosulte best player, the magic is not only going to happen once a year. Wherever you go, when the playing field is stacked, there should be evidence of the fact that you're better than the rest.
So.. Tricky problem.. Hard to discuss without people getting caught up and swept away.
