Hey, Who Are You?

I'm Jeff! My handle's Shaded Fox, and I play fighting games. I got my start playing Street Fighter 2: World Warriors on the Super Nintendo with my dad as a kid and I've loved the genre ever since. I went to my first local for Street Fighter IV when I was in grad school and despite learning very quickly that I wasn't actually as good as I thought I was, I caught the competitive bug and never stopped. These days I'm mostly an anime game player (Xrd, Melty Blood, things of that nature) but I've really found my calling in the weird stuff people run side tournaments for at major events (Things like Sailor Moon S, Asuka 120%, Fatal Fury Special, Cyberbots, etc.). The passion these communities have about the games they love is honestly inspiring and I love to learn something new to see if I can share that with them.

Getting into this kind of game is why I started running events. I looked around and realized if there was going to be a space for games outside the mainstream in Oklahoma, we'd have to make it ourselves. This was the genesis of W2 Esports. We went from running popup brackets off a steam deck on the side of other locals to creating our own ecosystem of events. It's been challenging but really rewarding. The thing I love most about these games is the community, bringing people together to share in something we're passionate about. It's so cool to look around the room at big events and see all the friends I've made that I wouldn't know if we didn't sit down and mash buttons together. I want to give people a place to find that kind of community and a place to belong.

Where'd the tag come from?

• I've been a fan of mecha anime for a long time and my original handle for like laser tag as a kid was Shadowfox after the cool secondary mech from, of all series, Zoids. When it came time to get on Xbox Live later in life I tried to keep the same tag but someone had beaten me to it. Shaded Fox sounded cool and kept the spirit of it and I've been stuck with that ever since. There have been times I've toyed with a rebrand but when you've been one thing for like half your life it's hard to let go. Most people just call me Shaded or my real name at this point as I am: old in FGC terms.

W2 Esports?

• W2 Esports started out as a bit in a Discord server where a few of us were joking about how we couldn't grind like we used to because we had to go to work. This led to the idea for a bracket where you had to produce proof of employment/tax payer status for entrance and the name W2 Esports was born. When I started TOing I decided to run under the banner of W2 for two reasons: The first was that the W2 moniker was my version of Rick TheHadou's "Hard Work Pays Off." We were going to go to work and make a cool scene for people to come together and play games. The second is that it turns out I really like making up business puns for event names.
  • Clock Out was our first event and one I still keep around for The Big Ones
  • Tax Deductible is our end of the year charity event
  • Teambuilding Exercise is our 2v2 focused event
  • Work From Home is our casuals meetups either hosted at my house or at Corporate Headquarters (a church gym)
  • We also have a (hopefully) recurring retro series called Gorillas in the MiSTer which is really fun