If you’re new to Injustice 2 and looking to learn how to be competitive, Body Count Fighting has been pumping out character tips and combo videos throughout the year, with notable players coming in to break down select characters. They also show how to do some basic combos and setups for beginners.
In the first video below, BCF co-host Kyle Shire sits down with Evan “EGP|WonderChef” Hashimoto to over what Gorilla Grodd is capable of. WonderChef goes over what his Trait does, as well as showing some basic combos and mix-ups to utilize in matches.
For the second video, Shire and Dustin “Godspeed” Kane go over the basics of the pyro master, Firestorm. Godspeed breaks down Firestorm’s special movies in both Trait and non-Trait forms, his zoning basics, some high-damaging combos, and high/low mix-ups and setups.
Known for his oddball team of Thor, Modok, and Viewtiful Joe in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Edward “Royal Flush” Valdez has been taking names with supposedly low tier characters for quite a few years now. He now brings his sharpened expertise to Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite with his new team of Thor and Hulk.
In these videos by Body Count Fighting, co-hosts Kyle Shire and ShyGuy sit down with Royal Flush to discuss tips and combos for both Thor and Hulk, for players that wish to pick up and play this team. In the first video, Royal Flush goes over Thor’s high-damaging combos, resets, Soul Stone usage, and how to be mobile with him during a match. The second video goes over Thor and Hulk’s team dynamic with tag combos, resets, and how to properly use Soul and Space Stones setups to mix up your opponent.
For more fighting game-related content by Body Count Fighting, you can subscribe to their YouTube channel in the source below the videos!
The fifth and sixth rounds of NorCal Rivals in the fall season of Red Bull Proving Grounds took place at the beginning of August and September. Players from all over northern California gathered to compete in Street Fighter V to earn points to qualify for the region’s 3v3 team to compete at the Red Bull Proving Grounds Championship match. Whichever team wins the 3v3 tournament at the event means they and the rest of the region’s top eight players on the leaderboard will be flown out to Red Bull Battle Grounds in Boston, Massachusetts in November, to compete for the last spot to qualify for Capcom Cup 2017 in December.
The usual notable suspects such as Rommel “ROM” Macatangay, Pavo “Pavocado” Miskic, German “Ultima” Marroquin, Clean Kill’s Ted “No Respect” Sarmiento, and pH|James “Jame” Szeto were in attendance along with bigger names such as Circa’s Long “LPN” Nguyen, Miky “XSK_Samurai” Chea, and Cygames Beast’s Eduardo “PR Balrog” Perez. Needless to say, the competition was fiercer than ever in the land of northern California this time, as everyone was hungry for those precious Red Bull points.
Below are the results and replays from the two most recent NorCal Rivals events, filled with exciting matches between some of the Bay Area’s best players and some surprising upsets. With one more event left in the fall season, you can bet it’ll only get more intense come October.
With Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite being released to the general gaming public next week, it was only a matter of time for an Honest Game Trailer to be uploaded on YouTube. Lo and behold, the folks at Smosh Games did just that, with their latest video poking fun at this revered series.
This video briefly touches on the history of the series, starting with X-Men vs. Street Fighter all the way up to the latest yet-unreleased game — satirically criticizing the trademark fast-paced gameplay, the odd Capcom character choices, and even so far as to address the recent controversies with MvC:I; suggesting we start playing another fighting game series instead. Check out the video if you want a good laugh!
This past weekend was chock full of high-level Street Fighter V action with three Capcom Pro Tour Ranking events taking place in various parts of the globe. Between DreamHack Montréal in Canada, Geek Weekend in Dubai, and Manila Cup in the Philippines, the competition for those precious CPT points became fiercer than ever.
Of course, the big story from this past weekend’s competitions was Team Razer’s Seon-woo “Infiltration” Lee winning Manila Cup 2017 with Juri; a character most players have written off as low-tier and not competitively viable. With his first big CPT win of the season, Infiltration not only garners some much needed points to boost his standing, but also shows that Juri is much more capable than was initially thought — if you put in enough work!
You can watch the former Evo champ’s amazing top eight run with Juri, as well as the performances from other top SFV players such as Echo Fox|Momochi, ZOWIE|Oil King, Mago, Gachikun, GFuel|Verloren, and others in the replay below.
YouTube channel Body Count Fighting has been steadily pumping out tip videos with notable players for Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Injustice 2 since the channel’s debut about four months ago. Some of the pros that have been featured on the SFV side of things include the likes of TempolAlex Myers, CircalLPN, Commander Jesse, and Bushinstyle.
Among the recent batch of uploads, BCF has put out a couple of SFV tip videos with Team GRAPHT’s Leah “Gllty” Hayes going over beginner tips and combos with recent DLC newcomers Ed and Menat. She goes over how to utilize each character’s V-Skill and V-Trigger, as well showing off some basic setups and combos. Check them out below.
Abigail, Street Fighter V‘s most recent DLC character, has been out in the wild for a month now with a lot of character combo and setup tech on YouTube and other social media sites. However, there doesn’t seem to be many videos covering how to punish Abigail’s unsafe normals and specials with frame disadvantage on many of them ranging between high single to high double-digit numbers. There aren’t many solid Abigail players out there yet, so anyone who’s unfamiliar with the character’s unsafe moves and strings will be thrown for a loop.
Thankfully, YouTube channel ECThrowdown uploaded a video made by ListonThePrince exposing how heavily punishable Abigail’s move set is with Vega. The video shows the masked matador punishing Abigail’s regular and EX Abigail Punch, Avalanche Press, Dynamite Punch,Giant Flip, Critical Art, and his most unsafe normals. He also shows how to punish untrue strings as well as gaps in his EX Giant Flip follow-ups. If you have four minutes to spare, check it out below and gain some knowledge.
Adel Anouche, a.k.a. NASR Esport’s Big Bird, is a 19-year-old up-and-comer from Abu Dhabi, UAE, who first made his name towards the end of the Street Fighter IV series with his dynamic Guy play. He made an even bigger splash last year in Street Fighter V at Red Bull Kumite 2016 — defeating the likes of Alioune, GamerBee, and Xian with his aggressive Ken.
So far in the 2017 season for the Capcom Pro Tour, Big Bird has had strong results in CPT Europe events, such as Sonic Boom (2nd), The Colosseum (2nd), FFM Rumble 10 (4th), and DreamHack Summer 2017 (5th) with his lowest placings being at Ultimate Fighting Game Arena (25th) and Evo 2017 (33rd). He is currently 5th in the Europe rankings, and 25th globally overall in the CPT standings.
Shoryuken caught up with Big Bird to discuss his first Evo, the Abu Dhabi competitive scene, Street Fighter V, and more.
Marcos “El Cubano Loco” Blanco: How was your first Evo experience?
Adel “Big Bird” Anouche: Ah, what can I say… Evo was a magical experience for me. I never thought Evo could be this good, but I was wrong. I enjoyed every minute of it. The off-stream matches were hype, since there were a lot of big names fighting off stream. I just couldn’t get to watch all of them. I had to run around from station to station to be able to catch up with everything that’s happening.
I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I would be, since it’s my first time. I was just excited to finally be there! I loved meeting most of the Americans that I’ve been interacting with on social media for the first time since at least four years ago — that was probably my favorite part of Evo! It was a long trip, but I’d definitely do it all over because the experience is amazing. You just have to be there at least once in your fighting game career.
El Cubano Loco: You got 33rd in SFV. Who did you lose to? How do you feel about your performance at Evo and what do you need to improve and do better?
Big Bird: I lost to Moke in winners top 64 [Moke went onward to later menace the top 8 with his deadly Rashid. – Editor], and then I lost to Bonchan straight after in losers. I feel like I did well against them since I lost 2-1 to both of them, but I know I could’ve taken them out. I was just unlucky in some of the games. They played better than me for sure. I just felt like both of those sets could’ve gone either way.
To be honest, I don’t know what I need to improve on. Maybe match-ups? I honestly have no idea. I won’t blame my losses on me not knowing the match-ups, because I know Rashid very well and I have a good idea about Nash. I just wasn’t the better player that day. What I need to do is to focus on what’s in front of me rather than start making plans on what’s next. At every tournament I basically keep checking on what my path to top eight could potentially be, when I just need to take it one match at a time. I think that’s the most important thing that has been sticking out to me recently!
El Cubano Loco: How is the scene in Abu Dhabi? A lot of people don’t know about it.
Big Bird: There are quite a number of players who play the game, but if I had to count the number of players who actually take this game seriously, I’d say two to three including me. The rest either casually play the game or just play it on the side. We have strong King of Fighters players here, as well as decent Tekken players.
El Cubano Loco: How come you picked Ken as your main in SFV? What drew you to him?
Big Bird: Ken is the closest thing to Guy, I felt — he’s an in-your-face type of character, he has average normals compared to the top tiers, but once he gets in, he can potentially finish the round as he corner carries in one combo. He has a run which is similar to Guy as well. I feel like I can be different from other Ken players with hit confirms, anti-airs, etc. It’s like I have a little room to express myself (aside from throw loops, of course).
NASR|Big Bird (Ken) vs. LUP|Calipower (Kolin, Rashid) at the 31:25 mark.
El Cubano Loco: You made your name towards the end of the Street Fighter IV series. How was the transition to SFV been for you? Do you enjoy the game?
Big Bird: I honestly thought I was gonna be irrelevant coming from SFIV to SFV, but I guess I’m more relevant than I’ve ever been in SFIV. I won’t lie — I was scared for a bit in the beginning, though. I do enjoy the game when I play against high level players — I won’t deny that. But when I play against mid to low level players, I don’t really enjoy the game much, so I usually switch to other characters so I can learn them.
El Cubano Loco: What do you consider the positives and negatives of SFV? What would you add or change to improve the game?
Big Bird: The positives are the lack of crouch tech, it’s a fast-paced game, and it punishes you heavily for your mistakes, so you better be careful. I wouldn’t say it’s a footsie-oriented game, though. As for the negatives, oh, where can I start. First of all, the Crush Counter system needs to be adjusted. The risk/reward of throwing a crush counter normal is heavily skewed, it’s low risk/super high reward most of the time, and characters shouldn’t be able to get a full dash-in combo after a normal randomly crush countering in the neutral. There’s absolutely no need for that. Also, V-Trigger-canceled normals on block should always be minus no matter what. Heavy normals should be -4 or -5, mediums should be -2 and lights should be zero. I don’t care about the reward on hit. Just increase the risk. Let people be forced to hit confirm into V-Trigger.
Also remove anti-air jabs, or whatever needs to be adjusted in order for them to stop working. They’re so scrubby in my opinion, and sometimes it’s more rewarding than an anti-air DP. Also add more defensive options. I don’t like the removal of jump back OS. It honestly added layers of depth to both the offensive and the defensive gameplay, and made the game more fun, but that’s just me. There’s more, but this is all I can think of.
El Cubano Loco: Do you miss Guy? Would you want him in SFV? How would you want him to play in this game?
Big Bird: I do miss playing Guy honestly, he was really fun and my first serious main in a fighting game as well, so I’m kinda attached to him [laughs]. I’d want him to play the same as he did in SFIV. He’d honestly be strong that way.
El Cubano Loco: There’s a rumor that Guy’s master, Zeku, will be in Season 2. Would you drop Ken to play him, if he plays similar to Guy?
Big Bird: I wouldn’t say I’ll drop Ken for him, but I’ll definitely make an effort to learn him. I can’t drop Ken since I’ve invested a lot of time in him. It’ll honestly be a waste of effort if I did, but I’ll definitely give Zeku a fair shot.
El Cubano Loco: What are your initial impressions of Abigail?
Big Bird: I haven’t seen much of him besides the trailer. He looks like Hugo, as he’s big enough. I played Hugo in SFIV on the side, so I don’t know. I might end up trying him later. I’m honestly interested in seeing StormKubo, Infexious, and Alucard try him actually.
El Cubano Loco: What’s next for you in the CPT season? Any upcoming tournaments you’ll be competing in?
Big Bird: I’m going to Fight Club NRW in Germany in August. Maybe VS Fighting as well, depending on my visa. Esports Festival Hong Kong, EGX, SGB, and other European ranking events. I’ll go to as many events I need to go in order to make it. I have 450 points now, so I’m really close to making it to Capcom Cup!
El Cubano Loco: What drives and inspires you to compete in SFV? What are some specific goals you’re looking to accomplish both in and out of competition?
Big Bird: I’m just playing for fun — it’s still a hobby for me at the end of the day. I’m currently studying environmental health and safety at Abu Dhabi University, so that’s the priority. Since I got sponsored recently, I have a duty to fulfill to my team, so yeah, I guess that motivated me a lot to compete this year, since I barely showed up last year. I just hope I can do my team proud. If they’re happy, then I’ll be happy!
For Evolution 2016, Street Fighter V broke a record for having over 5,000 registered competitors. This year, the entrant numbers are down by almost half the amount with a total of 2,622 players; this is a huge drop — especially considering that the participant numbers for the Street Fighter IV series increased year after year during its six-year-lifespan at Evo from 2009-2015.
Looking at these numbers, one could assume that Street Fighter V has divided the community for this series; it still suffers from numerous issues that need to be fully addressed by Capcom, in order to restore some faith in the franchise for its consumer base. Players presently seem to be in one of two camps: either they enjoy the game despite its flaws, hoping for fixes from Capcom later down the line; or they completely dislike it, and don’t bother with the franchise any more because of the direction it seems to be headed.
With all this negativity surrounding SFV at the moment, has this game has brought anything positive to the community this season, and will it be worth watching this weekend among the growing interest in other fighters? Of course it has, and it certainly will.
Other than the Marvel vs. Capcom series, the Street Fighter franchise has always been a huge part of what makes the Evolution tournament series so special with many “Evo moments“ that have occurred throughout its life cycle at the event. Street Fighter remains the flagship series that will draw a the most amount of attention with its iconic characters, easy-to-pick-up-but-hard-to-master accessibility, and high-level competitive play between the best players in the world. It just has a certain appeal and intrigue that few fighting games can match.
2017 is the year Street Fighter was shown in more homes in the United States than probably any other, thanks to the ELEAGUE Street Fighter V Invitational broadcast by both Twitch and TBS from March through May. Viewers got to tune in and watch 32 of the best SFV players from all over the world battle it out with a prize pool of $250,000 on the line. It had some of the some best high-level SFV play so far, and the general public gained a deeper insight into the fighting game community and its players. This was also a good platform for already amazing players to improve and sharpen their skills against one another, to form even more storylines and healthy rivalries.
Speaking of players — while there are significantly less entrants than last year’s Evo, SFV still has the highest amount out of all the games featured this weekend in Las Vegas. What this also means is that we’ll all get to see even more matches between top and up-and-coming players sooner than later, right after pools. There are on average at least two to three mid to high-level players in each pool, and you can keep track of your favorite players in the brackets on smash.gg. There is even an option to see which players are projected to make it out of pools and beyond. But who are our picks to keep an eye on?
The Capcom Cup 2016 Champ: Liquid|NuckleDu
Country: USA (Florida) Characters: Guile, R. Mika Current CPT standing: 2nd place
The defending Capcom Cup 2016 champion, Du Dang has had a huge target on his back throughout 2017 after winning the Capcom Cup last December. Despite the pressure to defend his crown, Du has still been consistently placing top three with at both CPT and non-CPT events, with his lowest placings being 9th at ELEAGUE and 17th at DreamHack Austin. He was lacking a big win at a stacked major until Combo Breaker in Illinois this past May, where he defeated Cygames Beast’s Snake Eyez in a down-to-the-wire grand finals for the ages. This should be a huge confidence booster for Du going into Evo 2017 this weekend. If his Flash Kicks, Mika V-Trigger mix-ups, and teabags are on point, Du will be a favorite to win the whole thing.
The Red Cyclone Master: RB.CYG BST|Snake Eyez
Country: USA (California)
Characters: Zangief, Akuma
Current CPT standing: 4th place
2016 was not kind to Darryl Lewis in his transition to SFV. He was barely placing top 32, and most of his higher placings stopped at ninth. He just didn’t have the same dominance he had in the last three years of his SFIV run, and it didn’t help that SFV Zangief was just not the same as he was in the previous iteration. Come Final Round 20 at the beginning of this year, where he placed 33rd, it was already looking like another struggle for Darryl. After that though, all the hard work started paying off when he advanced in the ELEAGUE SFV Invitational by beating the likes of his teammate CYG BST|PR Balrog, Echo Fox’s Justin Wong, Hiroyuki “Eita” Nagata from Japan, Leah “Gllty” Hayes, and Zowie’s Bruce “GamerBee” Hsiang with a deadly combinatioon of his Season Two Zangief and his new alternate, Akuma.
Ever since ELEAGUE, Darryl has been consistently placing within the top 8. He got two second place finishes at Texas Showdown 2017 and Combo Breaker 2017 — that first big major win just always out of his reach. He finally got his first SFV Premier major win at CEO 2017 last month against Panda Global’s Punk while on the winners side. Just like Du, Darryl can use this momentum to the fullest to make another Evo top 8 appearance like he did in 2014 for USFIV. If he can avoid or get past his other teammate Hx.CYG BST|Daigo Umehara (who has long been his demon since the last game in the series), Darryl can SPD and Raging Demon just about everyone in the tournament. If he’s a bit off though, he might make top 16, or barely crack top 8.
The Lab Monster: RZR|Xian
Country: Singapore
Characters: Ibuki, F.A.N.G
Current CPT standing: 5th place
Kun Xian Ho’s technical prowess, spacing, footsies, and setups have been nothing short of immaculate since the SFIV series and it’s no different in SFV. In season one, the Evo 2013 champion was one of the first F.A.N.G pioneers to showcase what the character was capable of; usually having top 8 placings with a couple of ninth and 13th finishes here and there — despite F.A.N.G’s low place on the tier list.
In 2017, he made the switch to Ibuki as his new main, and won his first Premier at Final Round 20 against his former teammate, GRPT|Fuudo. He would go on to place third at DreamHack Austin, fifth at Battle Arena Melbourne 9, and first place at the recent Ranking event Thaiger Uppercut 2017 against Zowie’s Li-Wei Lin a.k.a. Oil King in probably one of the most nail-biting SFV grand finals yet.
Xian is a mentally strong player who doesn’t have many holes or weaknesses in his gameplay. He is definitely on track to make himself a two-time Evo champion, if he keeps up the pace.
The Disrespectful Nut: AW|Nemo
Country: Japan
Characters: Urien
Current CPT standing: 284
Don’t let his current CPT rank fool you. Alienware’s Naoki Nemoto hasn’t traveled to any offline CPT events this year so far, and has only participated in the second CPT Online Asia/Oceania Ranking event where he finished in ninth place. However, in the non-CPT events he has competed in, Nemo took first place in the 6th Topanga League, fourth at FightClub Cup 2017, second at RAGE Vol. 4, and his biggest win yet at Red Bull Kumite 2017 against fellow countryman, Gachikun.
Nemo has placed top 8 at Evo for the last two years, and he’s looking on-track to do the same thing this year — and it is highly likely he can pull the rug from underneath these players and steal a first place Evo victory for the first time in his career. His new main, Urien, perfectly compliments his reckless-but-calculated play style, along with his smooth execution to tilt even the most hardened players to make elementary mistakes. He needs to keep his aggressive streak in control though, if he wants to win — since his biggest strength can sometimes be his undoing.
The Unbreakable Moving Wall: GRPT|Fuudo
Country: Japan
Characters: R. Mika
Current CPT standing: 9th place
The Evo 2011 champion has been the epitome of ultimate defense, spacing, and hard reads since his Fei Long days SSFIV:AE 2011. Now Keita Ai has transferred his refined play into SFV through R. Mika, who puts you in constant mix-ups and 50/50 setups on top of everything Keita is already good at doing to his opponents. Like Xian, it’s hard to spot Keita’s weaknesses — as he is probably one of the cleanest, most fundamentally-sound players, with some of the most insane reactions in the business.
What’s even more amazing are Keita’s 2017 results in SFV — top 3 in everything he has competed in so far, in with the exception of the recent Cacpom Online Asia/Oceania 2 event, where he finished in ninth. That’s just a small blemish on an otherwise mostly spotless run. Keita seems poised to win his second Evo, if he can slightly outplay his opponent a little more and make the proper adjustments to download opponents a little quicker than usual.
The Lord of Nash: RB|Bonchan
Country: Japan
Characters: Nash
Current CPT standing: 3rd place
Red Bull’s Masato “Bonchan” Takahashi had a rough start in season one of SFV. The god of Sagat couldn’t quite translate his skills through his first main — Ryu — and his results were showing it. He made the switch to Nash in the middle of the year, but it wasn’t successful at first. After Southeast Majors 2016, something finally clicked with Nash, and he started having top 3 and top 5 placements for the rest of 2016 and early 2017. So far his lowest placings were 17th at Ultimate Fighting Arena and 25th at DreamHack Austin. He then went on to win two CPT Ranking tournaments and his first CPT Premier at Battle Arena Melbourne 9. His most recent results were three 5th place finishes in a row at Red Bull Kumite 2017, Capcom Online Asia/Oceania 2, and Thaiger Uppercut 2017.
What’s awesome about this is that Masato is getting these results with a character most players wrote off as not viable at tournament level, after the season two update weakened some of Nash’s most useful tools. Now he’s the highest-ranking Japanese player on the CPT global leaderboard. Considered the best Nash in the world right now, Masato continues to push the limits of what a character is capable of, no matter how weak or strong they are — just like what he did with Sagat in the previous game. Maybe he can prove the quote, “You can nerf the character, but you can’t nerf the player,” by winning Evo 2017.
The Golden Kid from Philly: PG|Punk
Country: Pennsylvania, USA
Characters: Karin, Nash, Urien
Current CPT standing: 1st place
Who would’ve imagined that a young player from Philadelphia would be ranked number one in the world for the latest game in the Street Fighter franchise? Well, that has now become a reality in the form of Panda Global’s Victor “Punk” Woodley, who has been a dominant force in this game both online and offline with his dangerous Karin play that can end sets before you realize he’s already won. Ever since his breakout third place performance at the CPT Regionals Finals North America qualifier, Punk has quickly become a household name throughout the fighting game community and beyond. Other than getting 25th at Final Round 20 and seventh at Fighters Underground 2017, Punk has placed either first or second at every big major and invitational since he won his first major at Northeast Championships last year.
The funny thing is, even though he’s supposedly new to the fighting game community, he embodies a lot of the old school FGC attitude from days gone by — he has the confidence, swagger, trash talk, and skills to back it all up. Punk has beaten everybody that is a somebody in Street Fighter V both in the States and from overseas. If Punk can control his emotions and play his game, he can be the first American player to win Street Fighter at Evo since 2008, when John Choi beat Nuki in Super Street Fighter II Turbo and in Capcom vs. SNK 2.
We’ll find out this weekend in Las Vegas if at least some of these predictions come through!
The third and final round of the first season of NorCal Rivals featuring Street Fighter V took place this past weekend in Campbell, CA. There were quite a few upsets and shakeups in the bracket, which affected placings in the overall standings to determine which three players would advance to the Proving Grounds 3v3 finals in Santa Monica, CA. Placings in the overall top eight standings were also important, since if the region’s team wins the finals, the rest of the players who placed in the top eight will get flown out to Evolution 2017 as well.
With those details out of the way, lets get to what transpired this past Saturday. The first upset was Andrew “Lamerboi” Nguyen besting German “Ultima” Marroquin (who won last month’s event) 2-1 with a surprise Guile counterpick, sending him to losers in the third round of the bracket (with Miky “XSK_Samurai” Chea later eliminating him), finishing in 9th place. A couple of matches later, Kevin “Panoptic” Yates sent Pavo “Pavocado” Miskic to losers with his solid Nash play. Pavo would work his way through losers before finishing in 5th, losing to Rommel “ROM” Macatangay’s Vega in an extremely close 2-1 set that happened off-stream.
Despite these losses, both Ultima and Pavocado managed to secure enough points with their consistent placings from the last two Proving Grounds events to qualify for the 3v3 finals in Santa Monica. Just one more player needed to be found in the rest of the top eight for that evening.
Winners semi-finals was a classic brother-versus-brother match once again with Brian “BJ Unchained” Jeon facing off against Republic of Gamer’s Kelvin Jeon. Interestingly enough, both siblings decided to challenge each other by using their alternate characters in the first match, with BJ’s work-in-progress Karin defeating Kelvin’s strong, but rough around the edges Rashid. Kelvin would them go back to his main, Urien, to put down BJ’s Karin and tying the set 1-1. BJ would follow suit by picking Necalli and taking two quick rounds against his brother to seal the set 2-1 to advance to winners finals against Circa Esports Long “LPN” Nguyen.
LPN breezed through all of the bracket with nobody giving him a real challenge, up until winners finals where he would decisively lose 3-0 against BJ Unchained. After the first two games, not even a surprise pick of LPN’s original main, Alex, in the third game fazed BJ in the slightest and he made his way into the grand finals for the second time in a row, but this time with the safety net of being on the winners side.
With LPN now in losers finals, he would get his runback set from the first NorCal Rivals event against BJ’s brother, Kelvin, who made it into top three after defeating ROM’s 2-1 in a nail-biting set. Both players started the set with their respective mains with LPN taking the first game convincingly with M. Bison. Kelvin would then start a counter-pick war in the second game finally bringing out his Ibuki and taking the second game against LPN in similar fashion. Long would then retort with a counter-pick of his own by picking Birdie to have the advantage in the neutral game with superior normals and higher damage output. Long would out damage Bull Horn his way to a second game victory against Kelvin’s Ibuki who couldn’t really get his offense started with her.
In the third game, Kelvin would return to his original season one main, R. Mika, to hopefully exploit Birdie’s weak defense when he’s knocked down. Unfortunately for Kelvin, almost every attempt to get his offense going was thwarted by LPN’s strong mid-range game and he was able to secure a 3-1 win to advance into grand finals to get his next runback against BJ Unchained.
Every match in the grand finals between BJ’s Necalli and LPN’s Bison was back and forth, but in the end, LPN’s stubborn and overwhelming aggression–as well as some critical mistakes from BJ in the first set–was too much for him to shake off in the long haul. Long would go on to take both sets 3-1 each to win the third and final NorCal Rivals event of the first season.
However, since BJ didn’t place high enough in the first event (25th) and LPN didn’t attend the second event, both players didn’t have enough points to qualify to be on the team for the Santa Monica finals. The third and final player to qualify for the team was Kelvin Jeon, since not only did he attend all three events, but he got first, ninth, and third for each one–which earned him a lot of points in the overall standings. Also, lets not forget that the rest of the players who placed top eight overall still have a chance to go to Evolution 2017 if the NorCal team wins the finals in Santa Monica!
Congratulations to the three players who qualified to be on the team, as well as all the players who participated and placed in the overall standings! You can catch all the matches I talked about–and more–in the footage below.
