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PAX East 2016 Recap

UltraTech Timestamp:

Now that Mira has rolled out to the masses, we have a little bit of time to talk about PAX East this past weekend in Boston, and just what went down.

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First off, we got the chance to finally unveil Mira’s gameplay to you all, and we were more than thrilled to do so. On Friday morning, bright and early, Alex and Isaac to the main Twitch stage to sit and chat about Mira and give a brief walkthrough of her abilities, and of course to play a couple of matches.

As they progressed pitting Mira against herself in …ahem… Mira Matches, as well as Arbiter and other KI cast members, the crowd started to grow around the couch and giant screen showing the stream. I sat there listening to the muffled sounds of the folks watching in, and was thrilled to hear exclamations of how cool it was to see Arbiter, that Mira looked awesome, and of course the inevitable “oh crap, it’s Killer Instinct!”

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Not 2 minutes after the Twitch segment was over, Alex, Isaac and myself darted across the expo hall to get to the Iron Galaxy booth – which proved troublesome now that the show floor was crowded – to start the scheduled developer walkthrough. After wading our way through the masses, your two hosts sat down and delivered Mira’s proper look to the couple thousand of folks who were chomping at the bit for information.

The Iron Galaxy booth was quite a spectacle, sporting stations for people to play the array of IG games, but also featuring a couch – something highly coveted during PAX – and a giant screen showing off IG’s live stream. We’re guessing that if you’re reading this, you more than likely caught the stream, so we won’t embed it here, but if you still want to watch, you can find it at the 1:18:00 mark here.

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While everything at the Iron Galaxy booth was going on, we also had Mira set up back across the BCEC over with Astro Gaming. As has been the tradition over the past couple of years, we’ve partnered with Astro to bring you the latest and greatest from KI. So it was no shocker to see our two stations ready to go.

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Fans were able to come check out Mira as well as the rest of Update 3.1. It’s PAX. We don’t need to tell you that the rest of the weekend saw people enjoying company and battling it out, but that’s exactly what happened. Always a pleasure to see new folks pick up and play KI, as well as meet some familiar forum faces.

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Not only did we bring Mira with us, but Astro gave us the chance to create some unique, and ridiculously awesome, A40 Speaker Tags to give away at the show. I’m not saying we have one left or anything, but keep an eye out for a future Free Stuff Friday for a chance to win the last set of KI-themed Speaker Tags.

The tags were definitely a hit on the show floor, and it was a ton of fun to see Arbiter’s hero art on the side of each of the tags at the show.

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Last, but most certainly not least, Killer Instinct was featured in one more spot. Each day over the weekend Corsair was kind enough to run a Killer Instinct King of the Hill tournament, which pitted players in a race to win 10 matches in a row to claim top honors.

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The booth, like Iron Galaxy’s, featured a lovely couch on which people could relax, and also boasted an 80″ 4K TV. You do not know luxury until you’ve played KI on a screen of that detail and size. Corsair was showing off their new Bulldog Gaming System, and thought KI would be a great representation for their machine. We can’t thank them enough for thinking of us in that regard.

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As each day wound down, the corsair booth became increasingly more crowded as people lined up to take their crack at winning a prize package. There were tiers to the prizes, with things like Ultimate Source’s KI Wristband, t-shirts, & more up for grabs. The top prize, however, included a nice package from Corsair featuring the K70 RGB Rapidfire Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, the Scimitar RGB Optical MOBA/MMO Gaming Mouse, & more.

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Throughout the weekend only one person was able to take those top honors and earn every single prize available, and we will have more on him in a second. Before we get there, though, I have to give a warm thank you to all the folks who stopped by to play – old and new. We at PAX missed out on the Texas Showdown, but our own little mini-tournament proved to be plenty, plenty hype.

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So, back to the actual tournament. Friday saw one man take down 10 different opponents in best of 3 sets. That’s at least 20 matches won, and I think he may have only lost one time. It was quite a feat to behold, really. So without further delay allow me to introduce you to someone.

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This is Mike, or better known as l LSx l. Mike came down for his first PAX ever and ended up taking home the entire enchilada! Not a bad haul considering things almost didn’t pan out for his trip to Boston. I had a lot of time to talk throughout the weekend, as when he was not busy checking out other booths, you could find him delivering beatdowns at both the Astro and Corsair booths. It was a pleasure to meet you sir. Congrats again, and if you want a Shadow Jago runback after I gave you these hands, you know where to find me.

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Mike won Friday’s tournament, but the rest of the weekend saw more and more KI faithful swing by the booth. It was definitely a sight to see. Each person with a different style of play. Each person using a different character. This was definitely the best way to have shown off KI, and ended PAX East.

That’s the gist of it. We came. We played. And we absolutely had a blast. Thanks again to everyone that came out to see us, and if you ever get the chance, come by an event. We’d love to talk with you. Hope you’re all enjoying Mira. We’ll catch you next time! FIGHT ON!

Discuss: http://forums.www.ultra-combo.com/t/ki-at-pax-east-2016/9386