A disclaimer: By 'win a KOF tournament', I don't mean strategy videos to watch or whatnot to Git Gud.
I mean how to literally win an actual KOF tournament if you were sucked into the game world via some weird movie magic or something.
(Note: There are no 'actual KOF tournaments.' Unfortunately.)
Basically, KOF over the years(talking about from the King of Fighters games, not the KOF tournaments that appeared in the other timelines like Fatal Fury, since they're 1v1), have had a variety of winners. A couple of the games are a little nebulous, which I'll go over. But this is just a fun blog born from the fact that I don't have my second jab yet and am as such still unable to go out and have REAL fun, so here we are.
Long story short, the best way to win a KOF tournament is to install yourself on a team with a big trophy winner(I'll get to this), but there ARE other options. Let me get a couple of 'caveats' out of the way:
Some tournaments run on the 'Tournament Winner differs from Boss Fighter' rule. '97 is an example here. Japan Team technically won the tournament-but the Sacred Treasures team fought the *actual* bosses. Not all tournaments are like this, though, which makes it a little more complicated-in NESTS, K's team basically won the entire time, and they won the tournaments AND fought the bosses. What makes it worse is a few of them don't specify, so best guesses just have to be taken.
XIV's I am for now not counting in this; XV should let us know for sure who won(I hope), though it *seems* to be Japan Team; Antonov also named himself the victor apparently, and we don't know *for sure* if Shun'eis team lost to Japan Team or not yet. So I'm holding out here.
XIII is also a bit nebulous BUT, IMHO, the evidence points strongly toward the wiki listing of the Rival team. There are some who say that XIII *could have* run like 2003 in that there were two paths: Tournament, and Evil Ash(who Elisabeth's team defeated), but while this holds SOME water, IMO there is not enough hard evidence of this for me to call anyone else but Rival team as the winner. As far as everything points, I feel like the wiki is correct here(and I try to be accurate, using the books I do have), and if there were two paths we'd have known more by now, so as far as I know atm, Rival Team won XIII.
2003 was an interesting case; there were two clear cut paths; the Ikari team won the tournament itself; Adelheid was the actual tournament boss. K's team fought Mukai, who was the 'Other Boss.' But this happened concurrently rather than how it did in '97. So 2003's winner WAS the Ikaris; it's just a little more cut and dry when the paths are actually split. (Also it's unknown when the Hero Team actually split apart here, but in any case, Ash went off to go steal the mirror so they didn't win it whether they got to fight at the end or not.)
XI apparently had a team miss the final, moving the Rival Team on, but well thems the breaks.
So yeah, running from '94 to XIII for this one, until we get hard evidence of XIV's winner-hopefully soon.
FINALLY god keep in mind this is a goofy, silly blog even though I do try to be somewhat lore-accurate, I know correlation does not equal causation, etc, etc, it's not meant to be 'science.' I do use a little math, but that's about it. It's a video game tournament.
So, Azzy, I'm dying to know(not really.) What team do I pick?
Well, looking at trophy winners? The current champion-with six CONFIRMED trophies from '94 to XIII, is none other than Benimaru Nikaido.
Beni's got trophies from '94-'97 under his belt, as well as picking one up from each '99 and XI on their hero and rival teams, respectively. Now, let's say that Kyo IS the main carrier of Japan Team-this is more of a case where Benimaru *knows how to pick the winning team* fairly well, so you'd definitely do worse than to piggyback onto a team with this guy. 6 out of 10 tournaments on the winning team and that's just the confirmed ones. Elisabeth knew who the fuck to invite in XI when she had to make her team, I'll say that much(Be like Elisabeth, pick your team wisely and net yourself a 100% win rate in the two times you do show up.)
Benimaru himself is *no* slouch-while he's not Sacred Treasures level or anything he's definitely one of the tougher and more experienced types, so he doesn't exactly get carried either; arguably he helps do a little of the carrying, I'd say.
So if you're looking to collect some accolades, find out where Benimaru is going and try to bribe your way onto his team for the best chance.
Anyone else?
So you missed your chance to team with Benimaru, since he's babysitting this time or something.
But! Your chances aren't done yet. Besides the fact that again, Benimaru's team doesn't always win anyway...there's another setup you may want to look at, and it's not immediately obvious.
Enter the Hizoku.
So for a quick rundown: the Hizoku are a clan of badass assassins out of Hebei Province in Northern China, and they mess with poisons to the point of being immune and/or necromantic stuff to the point of seemingly becoming partially undead(some more than others, Lin-the yellow dude-is more of the poison guy, Duo Lon-the dude with the long claws in the purple, as well as his dad Ron-are more of the undead-y guys though there is cross over), can beat you silly with their hair, can teleport back and forth(sometimes landing on your head in a dive kick in Duo Lon's case) and some of them have claw-nails they can stab through your face. They can also stab their limbs through the ground and hit you from across the room(Lin punches the ground, Duo Lon kicks.) They take assassination jobs to try to figure out where Ron is, who betrayed the clan which I can only parse as 'They take assassination jobs to pay their travel bills.'
So essentially every bar that Shen Woo trashed during Ash Saga was Duo Lon probably having to whack a few more guys to pay off the damages. I guess.
(They also apparently take assassination jobs to 'find clues' to Ron's whereabouts, which...I guess means they kill the shit out of people and interrogate their ghosts? Which is badass if that's the case.)
Oh yeah Ron has nine sons and at least one bastard daughter, so they are also an extremely virile clan on top of it.
The Hizoku have made their presence known at five tournaments-and the teams that they've been on? Have essentially won three of these. 2001, XI and XIII. Benimaru happened to be part of Rival Team XI(consisting of Duo Lon, Benimaru and Elisabeth), and Lin was a part of K's team in 2001(K', Maxima, Whip and Lin.) Now you can make an argument for Lin getting a bit of a carry by K' who IS one of the scarier people in the KOF cast, but I'd say that in general K' team 2001 was all in all pretty solid and I don't think Lin really got much of a carry at all.
Elisabeth is an interesting case-skilled, but she really doesn't have too much in the special powers department. Standard fighter training, and some Light based projectiles(as well as the special ability to sense Ash, which, depending on your POV, may be a blessing OR a curse. Don't worry Ash, I still love you.) But damn she picked her teams very well in XI and XIII, ending up with Duo Lon and you guessed it, Benimaru in XI, and Duo Lon and Shanghai's God of War, AKA Shen Woo, in XIII. She walked out of Ash Saga having won both the tournaments she entered.
So with the Hizoku sitting there at a 60% win rate in terms of tournaments they entered? If Benimaru isn't around you may consider hitching onto one of these guys so long as you don't ask too many questions. (Duo Lon has a higher win rate than Lin, having been in 3 tournaments and winning 2 of them, as opposed to Lin's 1-1, if that matters.)
Wait! didn't K's team win half the tournaments they've been in?
They did! They won '99, 2000, and 2001. Benimaru was a part of one of these, and Lin another. But they lost in 03(They DID fight Mukai with the Treasures though!), XI and XIII, putting their win rate at around 50%, compared to the Hizoku's 60%, which actually equals Benimaru's win rate!
THAT said, K' is a beast and IF they have a free spot(fat chance), you'll sport a 50/50 chance, maybe, of taking home a trophy. A little less actually when 14 is in, since they definitely didn't win that one-but I'm not counting it yet in there, and you could do worse.
Correlation/Causation? Did the teams in '99 and XI win because of Benimaru? Or...
Like I said none of that here. it's a stupid blog that just goes through some BS about winning teams. I'm just keeping track of win rates, lol. You'd have to ask the devs that.
What about bosses?
Bosses are a weird case. The only known boss team was Geese, Mr. Big and Krauser, and these guys were bosses of their respective 1v1 games, and not KOF; the Boss Team really didn't do all that much in '96. Most KOF bosses-the ones who have been playable legally in a canon installment-which to this point has only been Adelheid-tend to enter solo. BUT...
IF you were to get a chance to TEAM with a KOF Boss? I would highly suggest it, given that bosses in KOF are worth whole teams. In 2003, the story says the Ikaris only 'Narrowly' beat Adelheid, and he took an entire team to take him down in XI when he entered solo *for fun.* So yeah, by all means if you can get onto a team with a KOF boss, do it, since you probably up your chances considerably when you factor in someone else coming along there, so other teams are forced to fight two characters AND a boss, when a boss is usually enough to either beat a full team or push them to the brink.
(If you can grab Benimaru and Adelheid for a team you've PROBABLY got it in the bag.)
Alas, we have no actual proof of fully grouped up bosses in KOF-only sub bosses-so I can't really put any chances here for you. Just that I think you'd probably do pretty well.
In Conclusion:
Again, this is a silly blog as if you couldn't tell already. But going by the bits we know and can guess-essentially, get yourself on a team with a boss, the electric prettyboy or the creepy badass assassins and you'll probably up your chances of maybe taking a trophy to a bit over half, which is a *hell* of a lot better than most other teams have.
I hope my allergy meds doesn't hit me as badly next week...
