Author: Luke "Woocash" Siuty

TSM|ZeRo started off his 2017 with a deep look at the entire cast of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. The first video in the series dissects the four characters that land in the bottom tier, and he explains his reasoning for the choices.

ZeRo goes into detail about Jigglypuff and the many factors holding her back from being a competitive character. She has major weakness in terms of speed and range. With many good upper attacks in SSB4, the up-smashes can decimate the Pokémon with ease. Next, in spot 55 is the Mii Brawler. With the size restrictions in tournaments, the customizable character is held back in competitive environments. His stand-alone combos aren’t as good without those options. Mii Swordfighter has an edge over his swordless version thanks to a few good attacks. The range makes a significant difference. Mii Gunner has some good matchups against heavy and slow characters.

Listen to ZeRo work through each mentioned character in detail in his video below for some valuable insight into the current meta. The next one will tackle low-tier characters.

Source: ZeRo

While the Japan E-Sports League is a great source for a variety of competitive games, from time to time the organization features top-level Japanese BlazBlue: Central Fiction players. This clip compilation focuses on CYCLOPS OSAKA|Dogura’s Azrael, who did several first-to-five sets with some big names in Japan.

The Maneater faces Souji’s Arakune in the first clip above. Souji is on the defensive at first, as he has trouble completing the Curse without Overdrive. Dogura’s confidence easily shows in Azrael’s rushdown. Souji almost loses the battle in the next match, but then turns things around with a perfect win. They do a longer FT10, but it looks like Dogura started with one point by mistake.

In this shorter FT5 set, Dogura faces none other than Fenrich’s Jin Kisaragi. Fenrich seems a little nervous or caught off-guard, as he doesn’t do that well in the first match. Jin catches up to Azrael’s tactics and brings the score to an even 2-2, and continues to find his element as he starts pulling off some unburstable Overdrive finishes.

Lastly, Dogura fights Gackt’s Hakumen in a FT5. Despite using Overdrive a lot to easily gain resources, Gackt falls to Dogura’s baits and relentless strikes in the first match. It’s tough for Gackt to surprise Dogura, but when he confirms an Overdrive combo, he pulls off over 6000 damage. It’s a very head-to-head battle as the players both reach four wins before the deciding match.

All the clips are a great way to study those matchups! Note that in similar sets from Japan E-Sports League–featured yesterday–Fenrich also fought Souji and Gackt.

You can also watch the action live at the Japan E-Sports League’s Twitch channel.

Source: Japan E-Sports League

A newcomer to Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, Kum Haehyun feels very different from the rest of the cast. Most readily compare him to a Street Fighter character, as he has difficult links and generally shorter combos. Good Haehyuns distinguish themselves by aptly “tuning” their projectiles to set up dangerous situations for the opponent. While he’s far from popular in competitive Guilty Gear, that doesn’t mean his combo potential is sub-par.

There are creative uses of Kum’s Dust attack, impractical-but-hilarious combo starters that can result from trades or from a high RISK bar, and intense 22-hit sequences that can deliver the minimum damage to finish off Potemkin. Even if that’s hard to come by in a real match, maybe at least some of those Instant Kill confirms can work their way in for some memorable matches. Still, there’s plenty of damaging ones, and some showing off with double Overdrives.

Check out the full video below to get inspired to play the Korean character–and don’t forget about this must-see Jam combo video, covered previously.

Source: Six Newell

One of the most entertaining players to watch is Fenrich, and his Jin Kisaragi. It never gets old to see nearly flawless combos, incredible Burst reads, and his infamous Overdrive combo finishes that make you think, “Is he really going to kill them now?!” The Japan E-Sports League is a great place to catch some top-tier players duke it out in BlazBlue: Central Fiction.

In the first clip above, Fenrich faces Gackt’s Hakumen in a first-to-five. Gackt pulls off a ton of impressive counterplays to get Fenrich in a quick 2-0 lead. But as one could predict, Jin starts to adjust and starts netting some victories, pulling ahead to a 3-2. It’s definitely worth it to watch how Fenrich gets around Hakumen’s Drive ability, and Gackt’s frequent usage of the Yukikaze super.

The next clip has Fenrich facing Souji’s Arakune. As competitive players realize, Arakune can’t be taken lightly in this edition of BlazBlue. Jin’s excellent toolset of anti-airs, pressure resets, and even his projectile help in this match up, but he still has to chase Arakune and play around the Curse meter, which is easier than ever to fill, particularly thanks to Overdrive and Active Flow. Souji takes a dominant match early on, but Fenrich starts to turn things around by catching onto his movement, and doing highly-damaging confirms.

Source: Japan E-Sports League

The European family is going to be on board with Guilty Gear players in North America, as publisher PQube has announced that the upcoming Xrd REV 2 expansion will be available in that region soon.

While PQube didn’t really offer additional details to the content of the game, or officially announce a release date, it linked an Amazon UK listing for Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2. This store listing is the first one visible for the game, available to pre-order. The retailer lists the release date as May 26, 2017. This is possibly just a placeholder date, as it is not yet confirmed by the publisher.

It lists the price at a hefty £44.99 (approximately $56 USD), however, keep in mind two things: for one, this may not be the same price in other regions, and secondly, already owning a PS3 or PS4 version of -REVELATOR- will allow a digital upgrade to REV 2 that will cost less. PS4 will be the only version available in stores as a physical copy.

There are no details about the Steam version of REV 2 yet. To read up on more details on what’s coming to REV 2, check out the American version announcement with the launch of the English site and move lists for Baiken and Answer.

Source: PQube