This past weekend, the third installment in Red Bull’s Vanguard series in Santa Ana, CA, featuring Street Fighter V, took place at the Esports Arena. Some of SoCal’s most notable players were in attendance such as Anton “Filipinoman” Herrera, Arlieth, NYChrisG, Mike L. Na, Brenttiscool as well as Rommel “ROM” Macatangay from NorCal for his second Vanguard event.
The competition was as fierce as ever with a lot of SoCal’s best players going up against each other very quickly in pools to crack into the top 16, and eventually top eight, to earn points for a chance to go to the Red Bull Proving Grounds Regional Championship finals. You can check out the videos for pools and top eight matches below.
FGC commentator, James Chen, also did some short interviews with Richard “SD|Pnoy” Clink and Filipinoman during and after the tournament.
Vanguard Street Fighter V Top 16 Results
1st: Filipinoman (Chun-Li)
2nd: ROM (Vega)
3rd: NYChrisG (Guile, Nash)
4th: SD|Pnoy (M. Bison)
5th: Wrathmatics (Karin)
5th: Iansanity (Chun-Li)
7th: Mike L. Na (Vega)
7th: Commander Jesse (Dhalsim)
ESL Street Fighter’s Twitter page has confirmed that Evo 2013’s champion RZR|Xian will be attending The Brooklyn Beatdown Street Fighter V tournament at ESL One, inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, taking place on the first weekend of October.
Xian is now the second international player to be announced after MJS YDlHaitani was confirmed to compete earlier this month. Along with EG|Ricki Ortiz, F3|Alucard, and NVT|Flash confirmed to be in attendance, with possibly more notable players to be revealed (the player cap is set at 1,024), the Brooklyn Beatdown is shaping up to be quite the stacked tournament with some high-level competition hungry for that $75,000 prize pool.
Vanguard, the second qualifying stop for Red Bull Proving Grounds: Street Fighter V, took place at California’s Orange County Esports Arena on the last weekend of July; it featured top SoCal talent EVB|Chris Tatarian, DS|Stupendous, Brenttiscool, Romance, and many others. Notable players who traveled to compete were ROM, Circa|LPN and PH|Jame from NorCal, and Velociraptor and Driftwood from Arizona.
Even though the second Vanguard monthly had less entrants than the first event, the competition was fiercer than ever with some of the returning Street Fighter veterans ROM and Romfinite, as well as new blood like TatsuShoryu–with his tricky Dhalsim–and Daily Tayne’s unorthodox Birdie, sending to losers (or outright eliminating) some of the currently established players such as Filipinoman, LPN and even Tatarian. You can check out some of these upsets in the videos below.
After the tournament ended, James Chen and Jeremy “Vicious” Lopez interviewed Tatarian and ROM about their grand finals set, their thoughts on where their main characters reside on the tier list so far, and the comparative player skill level between NorCal and SoCal.
CEOtaku, Florida’s premier anime fighting game tournament run by CEO Gaming and the anime fighting game community, will be taking place in Orlando for the second year in a row from October 1st-2nd, 2016. What better way to hype it up than with an official trailer–anime-style?
The trailer is titled “Haven’t You Heard? It’s CEOtaku”$$ it pays homage to one of this year’s hit anime series, “Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto,” with a similar colorful, energetic animation-style intro and the series’ catchy opening song. Various moments are shown from last year’s event of the notable players and community members in attendance. The tournament game lineup is also announced in this trailer which includes Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator, BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, The King of Fighters XIV, Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late and many more.
CEOtaku, Florida’s premier anime fighting game tournament run by CEO Gaming and the anime fighting game community, will be taking place in Orlando for the second year in a row from October 1st-2nd, 2016. What better way to hype it up than with an official trailer–anime-style?
The trailer is titled “Haven’t You Heard? It’s CEOtaku”$$ it pays homage to one of this year’s hit anime series, “Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto,” with a similar colorful, energetic animation-style intro and the series’ catchy opening song. Various moments are shown from last year’s event of the notable players and community members in attendance. The tournament game lineup is also announced in this trailer which includes Guilty Gear Xrd: Revelator, BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma Extend, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, The King of Fighters XIV, Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late and many more.
YouTube user VesperArcade recently gave use some videos showing off Juri’s bread ‘n’ butter combos. This time, he brings us combos that she can do perform when her V-Trigger, Feng Shui Engine Type Alpha, is activated–giving Juri access to Fuharenkyaku specials without having to store them, and gaining the ability to cancel normals you wouldn’t normally be able to. VesperArcade breaks down which normals and specials can be cancelled into the V-Trigger, as well as various links to extend combos for further damage.
One interesting aspect about this combo video: VesperArcade shows which V-Trigger combos to use effectively–ones that consume precious V-Gauge meter, as well as ones that don’t consume too much and can be ended with EX or non-EX specials instead. This will give Juri users ideas of how to balance her damage-dealing resources and her mix-up game to open up their opponents.
It’s been less than a week since Juri was officially released for Street Fighter V, and there’s already been plenty of combo tech uploaded by various YouTube users showcasing the conversions and damage the “Purple Smoke of Deception” can deal out. Juri is proving to be quite the combo monster in this game.
VesperArcade recently uploaded a couple of Juri BnB videos to his channel, going over basic and Fuharenkyaku hit confirms, counter-hit, crush counter, punish and even anti-air combos with her normal and special attacks. He also includes annotations in the videos to show the required button sequences, as well as different combo finishers.
Each video below is about five and a half minutes long. Check them out if you want to study up on some essential Juri technique.
Evolution 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada ended last weekend, but it’s still the talk of the town in the FGC all over social media. In the latest entry of their “Best Of III” series of videos, Mike “Danke” Schiller, Efren Salinas, Steve Jurek and John “Velociraptor” Guerrero recap some of the major hioghlights and results from Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat X, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. They also touch on various topics that surrounded the event such as tournament organization, the low prize money payouts for Melee and Smash Bros. for Wii U and what they thought of the ESPN2 broadcast of SFV.
The rest of the video is an in-dpeth interview with Joe “L.I. Joe” Ciaramelli who had an incredible run in SFV last weekend placing fifth out of over 5,000 competitors, eliminating the likes of top-level such as Kazunoko and Eita from Japan along the way. In the interview, Joe talks about his performance, where he places Nash on the tier list, his dad showing up to watch him play in the top eight finals and future sponsorship opportunities. Interestingly enough, he even tells the touching story behind the pink backpack he wears at tournaments.
You can watch the entire recap and interview in the video below.
Editor’s note: Some responses have been altered slightly for clarity.
This past Thursday, Showdown eSports hosted the 81st installment of its Churning the Butter series featuring Street Fighter V in San Francisco, CA. NorCal’s premier local draws some of the highest level of SFV talent from all over the region with the likes of FOX|Julio, Circa|LPN, ROG|Kelvin Jeon and BJ Unchained making regular appearances and placing top three or taking first place most of the time.
With Evo 2016 being almost a week away from the most recent CTB gathering, one would expect a huge turnout of entrants with these now familiar notable players among others to get in some heavy last-minute practice and try to win some extra pocket cash for the trip to Las Vegas. This was usually the case right before the biggest fighting game tournament of the year back in the Street Fighter IV days, with big out-of-state and international players showing up to play against NorCal’s best.
However, much to my surprise, none of the names I mentioned showed up and instead stayed at home or went to other players’ houses to grind it out. And while the SFV entrant numbers were solid (55 players), it didn’t have quite the same level of hype and intensity without the bigger names like the CTBs before Evo and Capcom Cup last year.
Nonetheless, last week’s Pre-Evo 2016 CTB had a great turnout and I was able to get in some much needed practice; I ended up placing fourth overall, which while I thought wasn’t bad, I wasn’t satisfied with the results either. The sets I had with the two players I lost to who got first and second place were very close and while I was salty, it was a humbling experience to learn and improve my style with my main character, Vega, so I could be ready for Evo this coming weekend.
Even though there wasn’t enough of the cream of the crop that is commonly on display at CTB, that’s not to say there was a shortage of seasoned and up-and-coming players.
Waiting in between matches for SFV at the Foundry was a perfect chance to interview a few of NorCal’s “sleeper” players who are under the radar and rarely get to travel outside of California to show off their skills. These players were Philip “Casual Phil” Pham, Eric “Brass” Beck and Pavo “Pavocado” Miskic. I was able to chat with these rarely known individuals to get their thoughts on what they like about the Foundry and CTB, how NorCal stacks up to other regions and their thoughts and goals for Evo 2016.
Marcos Blanco: What do you like about the Foundry and the Churning the Butter tournaments that are held here in San Francisco?
Philip Pham: It’s consolidating all the top talent in NorCal as one of the biggest locals in the region. It’s almost a corollary to what SoCal has with Wednesday Night Fights for here.
Phillip “Casual Phil” Pham (right)
Eric Beck: It legitimizes everything we do for everyone who is not crazy like we are. For people who are here to just have some fun and then look at some video games, it totally legitimizes that. There’s such a diversity of people that we have here now. At old-school fighting game tournaments, you would just see fighting game people there and that’s it. We have so many people here who are starting to enjoy what we do and bringing it to the mainstream.
Pavo Miskic: My favorite part about the Foundry is it’s impossible not to run into a ton of friendly faces from Street Fighter, Smash or homies who drop in just to hangout. Being able to step away from the tournament for a second and talk to people keeps the events fun and helps me stay relaxed throughout the night.
MB: What do you think about the SFV competition in NorCal? How does it compare to other regions in U.S. as well as the rest of the world?
PP: It’s hard for me to judge. I haven’t traveled all over the country. I have played a few friends in SoCal online who usually take top 10 at WNF. I think NorCal has the edge for the sponsored players, but SoCal actually has a lot of top talent that I have yet to experience myself. In terms of the world, Europe is at the bottom in my opinion. Besides Will2Pac, I haven’t seen a lot of great success from the European scene. Japan is stellar right now. Everyone is looking to their footage and their replays to understand how to maximize their characters, which is unfortunate because I want to see more American players innovate and make characters their own.
EB: The easiest comparison I can make would be between NorCal and SoCal. I feel like our best are just as good as their best, but they just have a larger mid-range community. The sleepers–they have a ton of those, but we only know about a handful of the famous ones. And then you look at NorCal and you can list five or six guys who are really well known and then you think NorCal is not that strong. But our guys who have put in the work are just as good as those guys. We saw at NCR 2016 LPN blow up Kazunoko. So we know we can take on the international players. I think NorCal is one of the strongest communities in the world right now and we are blessed to have the Foundry for that.
Eric “Brass” Beck (right)
PM: Due to our deep arcade roots, NorCal has always been a strong region. While I don’t think we were able to keep up towards the end of Street Fighter IV, seeing the amount of work and passion that our players have been putting in every week since launch makes me feel really confident for everyone heading into Evo.
Early on when we were all figuring out the game, I’d always want to session with Julio, Kelvin, BJ Unchained and G-Dragon. Not only are they some of the best practice I could ask for, but they’re all really fun to be around. Seeing all of them always hungry to get better and pushing past whatever issues gave them problems inside and outside the game has been amazing. Watching Julio put in the work to become a sponsored player and be considered a major threat in any tournament he enters goes to show that players from NorCal can reach that level.
MB: What are your thoughts and goals heading into Evo 2016 next weekend? Do you think the U.S. has a chance of winning Evo and what needs to be done to accomplish that?
PP: I’m really excited for Evo next week. Personally I’ve prepared a lot. I feel I’m at a level where I’m confident enough to get out of pools. But if I face an international like HM|Go1, who is actually in my pool, I’ll have to watch every single video. That’s what I’m going to do. NorCal is willing to put in that work. In terms of top eight, I would say it would be predominantly internationals as we have seen in all the other Capcom Pro Tour majors we have seen thus far.
EB: My goal for Evo is to always get out of pools because I haven’t done it yet. I’ve gotten to winners finals a bunch of times. I think it was three Evos I got to winners finals and I didn’t get out. I’m only going to be hungrier and go further after that. In terms of the competition, I have Gamerbee and I have NerdJosh. Those are the big names. My Guile is not complete. I have trouble with Dhalsim, Karin, Necalli and Ibuki is so fresh, I’m assuming I’m going to have trouble with her. There’s so much mystery surrounding Evo, I feel like so many sleepers will come out with certain characters you didn’t expect.
PM: Street Fighter V is the best chance the U.S. has had at winning Evo in years. Everyone has had the same amount of time to pick up and learn as much as they can beforehand. The only major thing that we need to do in the U.S. to win is to view each other less as opponents and more as competitors. For instance, Japan tends to be strong in every game not only because they’re localized, but because they’re all very open to sharing and discussing strategies and tech with each other. Only focusing on beating the community around you leads to everyone learning less overall.
Going into the tournament, my main goal is to make sure I keep my stamina up and play my absolute best in each tournament match I have. It’s easy to lose focus over time during a long event while emotions are running high and with downtime between matches. I want to make sure I’m pushing everyone to their limit when they sit down to play me.
I’m really looking forward to playing against as many people as I can from around the U.S. and the world!
Even though CEO 2016 has come and gone, the Daily Dot Esports’ YouTube channel is still releasing plenty of content from the event.
Steven Jurek from Daily Dot catches up with New Japan Pro Wrestling star, Tyson “Kenny Omega” Smith, who graced CEO 2016 with his presence competing in the SFV tournament and putting on an entertaining show with outlandish wrestling promos and in-ring antics. Omega and WWE’s own Xavier Woods even competed in a SFV first-to-five exhibition for fans to watch and enjoy.
Omega talks about how he tries to fit in SFV practice when he’s not busy with wrestling shows in Japan, what he thinks of SFV and his reaction to Woods showing up to play at CEO as well. He also gives his two cents on how FGC personality/competitor, Mike Ross would fare in the wrestling business.
