If you know anything about Marvel lore, you know that one of the most entertaining players to watch has always been Clockw0rk. Having cut his teeth on a team of Strider/Sentinel/Doctor Doom in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, he transitioned himself into a similar team with Vergil/Doctor Doom/Strider in Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 with the same exciting results.
In this compilation, you get to see Clockw0rk in his element. Watch as he sets up some miraculously amazing mixups and comebacks with his staple team, including some amazing setups with Strider assists.
Cloud is unarguably one of the highest-tiered characters in Super Smash Bros for Wii U: he has a great neutral game, strong combos, and amazing kill potential. You can hardly go to a tournament without seeing one in the top 8.
However, you rarely see him actually emerge the victor at an event, and never at a major. TSM|ZeRo–who has a strong pocket Cloud–explains why this is. He discusses Cloud’s one glaring flaw–his recovery. Because he has weaker recovery than the rest of the top tiers, he is able to be gimped easily. An increasing amount of players are learning how to kill Cloud early, which makes his late tournament viability lower.
ZeRo does also extrapolate on why Cloud is not only strong in doubles, but almost necessary for any chance at winning an event.
Every once in a while in the Street Fighter series, you will see a well-timed air throw be the determining factor in a match. A smart player knows how to use this move properly: by utilizing it sparingly, they give their opponents an illusion of security in the air, often making them even forget that the air throw is even an option.
Despite instances of connecting an air throw being rare, it is worth it to know your options off of one with Chun-Li–as it can lead into a serious amount of damage. Thus, this NurseLee tutorial on how to properly meaty after her air throw is beneficial: it not only covers when your opponent quick rises, but also when they delay their recovery. This makes Chun a proverbial Great Wall, keeping your opponents on the ground at all times.
Kenneth “K-Brad” Bradley of Evil Geniuses just had a breakout year: making Capcom Cup 2016, he was able to send fan-favorite Daigo Umehara of HyperX into losers bracket in a stunning upset, and continues to show his prowess in Street Fighter V. He also notably stayed put in the major shuffling of players between Evil Geniuses and Echo Fox.
When I caught up with him at Frosty Faustings IX, he had a lot to say about his feelings regarding Cammy in SFV Season 2, among other topics–including the changing of the guard in EG.
Corey “Missing Person” Lanier: K-Brad, you did well at Frosty Faustings. You had a good performance in Street Fighter V this time around.
Kenneth “K-Brad” Bradley: Yeah, but I didn’t do great in Marvel. I made to Winners Semis in my pool, then lost to RyanLV, who eventually won the tournament. But I did pretty good in Street Fighter.
Missing Person: How are you feeling with Season 2 so far?
K-Brad: I’m honestly not sure. It’s one of those things where I’m not exactly sure what direction Capcom was trying to go. I think they’re trying to make it a crazy rushdown game where defense isn’t really rewarded. I don’t know. I’m not really an offensive player anymore. When I look at the changes, I think, “They have to do something to make defense a little bit better.” And with Cammy, you have to be able to play at least some defense.
Overall, they made Cammy weaker in Season 2 because her divekick was a big deal; she could do it whenever she wanted. But on the ground, she has gotten better. Her frame traps are really good and her buttons are better. They made standing medium kick and back medium punch better. They did a lot of stuff on the ground that’s good, but a lot of her game play revolved around divekick. Her whole plan was to bully you on the ground, then after she has done that, then she can take to the air. She is just one of those characters where divekick really does matter.
You could still be risky and do EX divekick into EX dragon punch, but I don’t play like that. I would say that if she was S-tier in Season 1, she’s probably A+-tier in Season 2. She’s still amazing, but there was a minor drop.
Missing Person: You not only made it to Capcom Cup last year, but you had a great start, putting Daigo Umehara into losers bracket to start things off. Go through that with me.
K-Brad: I love playing players like Daigo because there is so much thought involved. There’s a lot of mind games involved when we play. I knew his fireball game is amazing. I knew he was going to be able to read a lot of things that I was going to do. I started off losing the first two games off of bad mistakes on my part. He was able to DP through a couple of my block strings. In the third game, I decided to play a little safer. In the latter half, I was able to block a lot of those DPs and just punished accordingly.
But the whole time, I was thinking, “I’m down 0-2. There’s no way I’m going to win three straight on Daigo. Nobody wins three straight on Daigo.” It was a pretty great experience being able to put him into losers bracket.
Missing Person: After that, do you feel like your confidence has improved going into Season 2, having pulled an upset on someone that people were betting on, against you?
K-Brad: That’s the thing. It doesn’t matter who I’m playing, people are betting against me. Even when I played Infiltration at Canada Cup, nobody expected me to beat him there, and I did. When I beat NuckleDu at SoCal Regionals, nobody expected that either, because he was beating me the entire season. I’m used to being the underdog. As long as I believe in myself, that’s all that matters.
Missing Person: What are your feelings on the big free agency season that saw PR Balrog, Momochi, ChocoBlanka, and Justin Wong all leave Evil Geniuses?
K-Brad: I knew something was coming up. But when PR Balrog left, then Justin and Momochi, I had no clue what was going on. I knew that PR Balrog wanted to leave and do his own thing. But when Justin, Momochi, and Choco all got signed to Echo Fox, I was pretty happy. However, I was more upset at Echo Fox buying out all the talent. I’m happy for my friends getting a nice deal. Who knows how long gaming is going to be relevant or how big it can actually get, so these guys should get rewarded for their success. It’s just that Echo Fox didn’t need to buy out so many players. But I got over it. I know that to be the best, you have to get the best players, so it was a smart move on their part.
Missing Person: But now you guys have NYChrisG. How does that fit with you and Ricki on the team, and do you feel positive about it going forward?
K-Brad: It’s going pretty well. Chris just got second in Street Fighter V at Frosty, and honestly it was one of the best picks on the free agent market. He’s a dominant player in Marvel, he’s good at Street Fighter V and was good at Street Fighter IV. I’m very happy that Chris got signed. It was the smartest choice that Evil Geniuses could’ve made out of all the free agents available.
Missing Person: You’re known as one of the biggest foodies on the tournament scene. What tournaments do you look forward to going to just based on food alone?
K-Brad: Australian tournaments are the best, because you can get literally anything in Australia, and it’s good. They have a bit of everything that I love. When I go to Japan, the things that are usually out of this world are the typical sushi and ramen. But you can get Italian, burgers, sushi, and it’s all amazing. But domestically, I love to go to Texas for events. I love barbecue, and they have amazing briskets there. They definitely have the best barbecue there.
Missing Person: In 2016, we saw you hit the four corners of the Earth for tournaments. Are we going to see that much travel out of you this year?
K-Brad: For sure. At the end of 2016, I started to think, “I did so much travel this year. I’m not sure if I want to subject myself to that again.” I went to a lot of these events alone, and it made me feel a certain way. When I was at all these international events, I was usually the lone American.
But all in all, I think I’m going to do it all over again this season.
Missing Person: Do you feel like jet lag affects you when you play?
K-Brad: If I fly in the day before the event, absolutely. But typically when I fly in for an international event, I do it a couple of days in advance. That way the first day I’m there, I can do whatever I want. Then on the second day, I can sleep as much as I want. By the time the tournament starts, I’m ready.
Missing Person: Do you have any advice for Cammy players that are struggling in Season 2, after doing well in Season 1?
K-Brad: If you were a Cammy player in Season 1, you have to let go of going to the air. I would focus more on the ground. If you can do that, then you can start to pressure. If you’re only focused on the ground, sooner or later, your opponent will forget about the air game. Then you can sneak in a few EX divekicks. But for the most part, you should be more focused on establishing a strong ground game this season.
Have you not started learning Street Fighter V yet, but are tempted to try to topple your local scene? Are you a newer player that continually loses and need a quick primer to get better? How would you like for all of this to be taught by one of the world’s premier players?
Then you are in luck today. Razer|Infiltration–the reigning Evo champion for Street Fighter V–recently sat down with Core-A Gaming to film a tutorial series on how to play Street Fighter V. Starting off with a guide for beginners, Infiltration discusses basic movements, inputs, combos, links, cancels, as well as anti-fireball and anti-air strategies. While the tutorial is geared toward players coming from a King of Fighters or Tekken background, it’s still useful for everyone, and also offers a little bit of insight into what Infiltration thinks about while he’s playing.
The sudden changes in the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U ruleset came as quite a shock to a lot of players in the community. While the ruleset typically stays in flux throughout the life span of a Smash title, this was one of the more dramatic changes to date.
Tafokints sat down with D1 recently to discuss these changes. They talk about the ruling to ban Duck Hunt stage–a stage that, on average, added a minute and a half to every set it was used in. They also talked about the decision to reverse the ruling on the ban of Lylat Cruise, stating that there needed to be more research done on it. They also discuss the coaching rule–which allows players a one-time coaching per set, for 30 seconds–stating that the loss of time was mitigated due to the ban of Duck Hunt.
After talking about the rule changes, they look forward to Civil War. There has been a decent amount of internet beef stewing over the event, which they cover in detail.
Alex Jebailey is a trendsetter within the Fighting Game Community. Having a history of running successful events with his CEO brand of tournaments–as well as working for Dreamhack–he has made quite the name for himself.
Earlier in the month, Jebailey was invited to speak at the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s 2017 Business of Sports event. He has since talked to theScore about the experience. He talked about the importance of sponsorship within the FGC, as well as the low risk factor in companies getting involved. “The FGC is a pretty cheap space compared to other esports,” he stated. “They could give me 100 grand and I could run a successful event. To them, 100 grand is just another day of their budgeting.”
He further discussed sports companies’ decisions to get involved, stating, “Obviously it is about the money to any business, that’s how they work… A lot of them were just inspired by how fast it’s growing, and wondering where do they come in.”
Capcom has notably stated recently that they will be striving to improve their relations with fans of Street Fighter V, regarding updates. However, we can’t help but harken back to last year when they said the same thing, as well as Ono’s recent hesitance to say anything at all. This makes it difficult to establish trust with the community.
However, VesperArcade sees a silver lining to this announcement. In this video, he discusses how their lack of information, when combined with all the promises of updates and being in the midst of Street Fighter’s 30th Anniversary, means that Capcom is in a good position to bring a bevy of new announcements and changes into Street Fighter V and patch up the ill will felt by the community. There’s no guarantee of improvement, but it is possible–check out the video below to see if you agree with VesperArcade’s assessment.
Since the early days of competitive fighting games, there has been a buzz and clamor for two of the largest names in fighting games to clash–or should I say klash? With Street Fighter having crossed over with various other intellectual properties, people have always wondered when–and if–Mortal Kombat would join the list of crossover titles with Capcom’s flagship title.
According to NetherRealm Studios head Ed Boon–in an interview with IGN–it’s something he would consider if approached by Capcom, but doesn’t view as likely. He cites the differences in mechanics between the two titles as a reason, stating: “There’s different pacing, there’s different fundamentals with both of them.” He also said, “There’s part of me that’s like, ‘That would be such a cool dream,’ and then there’s another part of me that goes, ‘There’s no way that would satisfy everybody.’”
Chin’s drunken boxing style is one of the more unique fighting styles in The King of Fighters XIV–only Virtua Fighter and Tekken have featured this style at all before. The more he drinks, the bigger the punch he packs.
In this combo video, we see how Chin can handle his liquor–or not. All of these combos are performed without any drinks, which shows exactly how much damage he can pull off “sober.” There is actually even a touch-of-death combo, which serves as a reminder to drink responsibly–in and out of game.
