With LI Joe currently in Japan for Tokyo Games Show, it was only natural he was going to hit the stick sooner or later to get some training ahead of the competition at the trade show. Using a select Japanese CFN profile, LI Joe took on challenges from all comers, hoping to train against some of Japan’s best online players before the main event.
Seeing as these matches were all online, everyone’s favorite online match-gatherer XusesGB has collected most of the matches from this online series and put them together in a single video. Watch Joe go up against some of Japan’s top ranked online warriors, with a variety of different characters.
Announcing their first ever Smash event, Hitbox TV have revealed the Hitbox Olympus, a three-day tournament held at the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City. This tournament boasts events for Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Project M, with each singles event having a guaranteed pot bonus of $1,000. Doubles will also have $500 added to their pots, so there is an extra $4,500 for the taking on top of the money generated from entrants.
Sign ups are now available over on Matcherino, with each game costing $10 to enter. Entrants to Olympus also get free entry to Gameacon, a general gaming convention being held at the Tropicana on the same weekend. If you’ve bustered out of the tournament and have spent all your extra cash on the roulette wheel or money matches, you can head over the convention to play some new indie games and join in on the Halloween party.
With Hitbox acting as the home for those wanting to stream Project M, expect all the best PM players coming to compete. Looking at the sign up list already, players like Junebug, Professor Pro and Lunchables have already signed up for Project M and with more to come in the future, this is a PM tournament you’ll not want to miss.
As with many other fighting games, Southern California is one of the most dominant Smash regions in the whole of the US, fielding many of the world’s top players and creating one of the best places to compete and train in the world. However, SoCal can not be seen as just one area: it’s a hodge-podge of different counties, area codes and towns which make up one part of the massive state of California. In their quest to cover Smash scenes from all around the world, no matter how big or small, GosuJasu has chosen the 805 region of SoCal for its latest episode of its on-going Smash Scenes documentary.
Santa Barbara is now starting to gain ground in the badlands of SoCal, with the community becoming incredibly tight-knit and supportive, as seen in the video. With Melee in the area only growing in popularity, the 805 guys have a tough road ahead of them but from the passion and drive shown in the short interviews with their players, I’m sure they can make it big. Make sure to check out the previous episodes on Houston, Hawaii and South Korea Smash scenes too.
In a pick up that was prophesied by many over social media, CEO 2016 champion, counterpick master and showman Jason “ANTi” Bates has been picked up by Immortals as their first Super Smash Bros. for Wii U player. This signing comes after ANTi’s short stint with Dream Team, which saw him leave the team after issues with his player salary not being paid on time.
Announcing ANTi as part of the Immortals team, Immortals CEO Noah Whinston stated that “ANTi comes to us as both a top-tier Smash player, and a genuine showman who has nothing but love and respect for his fans. We rarely see a player with such talent across the board, and we’re thrilled to welcome this natural fit into the fold.” Known for his hot takes on Twitter and his amazing CEO entrance, ANTi brings the hype both in and outside of Smash 4. Although he hasn’t been able to hit the heights of his CEO performance as of late, the combination of a shiny new sponsor and their support structure should hopefully have ANTi tearing up top 8s in no time. ANTi’s next tournament will be 2GGaming’s Abadango Saga on September 24th so watch out for him and his brand new jersey on the stage at the Esports Arena.
After rocketing to stardom with his landmark win at the largest Project M tournament of all time, Paragon Los Angeles 2015 at only 13 years of age, Mr Lz has cemented himself as the world’s best Mr. Game and Watch. With top 8 finishes and victories at other tournaments like Smash ‘n Splash 2, Tipped Off 11 and Low Tier City 4, Mr Lz has the plethora of clips to draw upon in order to make a combo video showing off his mastery of the oldest member of the Smash Bros. cast.
Multiple combos into the Judgement Hammer, killing people off the very top of the stage with the Parachute, and devastating resets using Mr. Game and Watch’s frying pan; Mr Lz is in tune with the wackiness of Mr. Game and Watch’s kit and uses all of his many gimmicks to ensure victory. People get ready to hold a big L when they see this white Mr. Game and Watch brandishing the hammer.
In Super Smash Bros. for Wii U’s largest ever online tournament with 1669 entrants overall, Anther’s Ladder monster and Georgia native Wrath spin-dashed his way through the competition to win the North American qualifier for The Big House 6. For his 1st place placing, Wrath gets an all-expenses-paid trip to Michigan for the tournament, the ability to train with fellow Panda Global members during The Big House 6 and gets to be an honorary Panda Global member for the course of the event. After losing to the New England ROB main Raffi-X 3-1 in Winners’ Semis, Wrath had to fight through fellow Ladder player and Texas Peach Twi, member of the PG Stats team Zan, SoCal Link Scizor before facing Raffi-X in the Grand Finals runback, where he eventually triumphed with a 3-1 win in the second set, after Raffi took Wrath to game 5 in the first set.
By all accounts, this online qualifier was a massive success and served as the first “proper” tournament that many players had ever entered. With online still being an untapped frontier for running large-scale Smash events, I imagine we could see many more online qualifiers for big tournaments in the near future. For those in Europe, the EU qualifier for The Big House 6 begins this Thursday at 5pm BST, with the final top 128 bracket happening on Sunday the 18th.
The full VOD for the top 128 of this qualifier can be found over on Unrivaled Tournaments’ Twitch channel.
Zero-to-death combos in Super Smash Bros. Melee are things of beauty: one player so in tune with their character that they can decimate an opponent’s stock in a matter of seconds. When he is on fire, G2 Esports’ Weston “Westballz” Dennis is the master of the zero-to-death, and performs combos which look like they were created by a TAS, not a human.
In this compilation from Smasha G, 20 of Westballz’ best zero-to-deaths are all in one place. These range from ridiculous Falcon Punch combos, to the infamous matches against Leffen at BEAST 6, where Westballz had about three of these insane combos over two sets. You can see truly see how crazy Melee can be, when someone like Westballz is in true control of their character.
This one is bound to be controversial. In his series which attempts to balance the entire cast of Super Smash. Bros Melee to the same level of viability as Captain Falcon, MagicScrumpy has taken the nerf bat to the bringer of 20XX, Fox McCloud. The video outlines how in his current state in Melee, Fox has so many powerful tools which make him far and away the best character. He has the best move in the game with Shine, one of the best recoveries, moves like up air and up smash that kill super early, incredibly mobility and a projectile which allows him to reset his list of stale moves – to name but a few of his strengths.
Fox can do what he wants, when he wants and for Scrumpy who wishes to radically balance the game so that every character is roughly at the same level, Fox cannot stay as he is. Some of the major changes made by Scrumpy are that Fox can only short hop single laser, up air is now a combo move instead of a kill move and Shine is no longer invincible and it comes out on frame 3, rather than frame 1. The resulting character is one radically different from standard Melee Fox and one which requires a fair amount of relearning in order to be used effectively.
In a scene familiar to anyone who watches European Smash 4, Mr. R has claimed yet another victory on the continent at Syndicate 2016. The Dutch Sheik main saw off competition from France, the US, Germany and from his homeland of the Netherlands to gain first place, finally taking the whole tournament with a convincing 3-0 win over SoCal’s Rich Brown. Rich Brown had quite the Losers’ run after being put into the lower bracket by the Netherlands’ top Greninja iStudying, fighting through US ex-pat Jbandrew in a super tense 3-2 set, the UK’s IxisNaugus with a 3-1 win before finally triumphing in the runback versus iStudying with a 3-0 victory.
The entire top 8 was a mass of momentum shifts and knife-edge final stocks, with players coming back from the brink of defeat many times over. Ixis’ incredible final stock versus Purple~H at the very start of top 8 set the tone, with several matches causing clips to rebound Twitter over the course of the final bracket. iStudying was the king of the clutch play as usual, riding on the momentum of the crowd to often times come back and win a match. Unfortunately, he was unable to beat his demon Mr. R and Rich Brown’s Mewtwo had got the download by the time they rematched in Losers’ Finals, sending iStudying out at third place.
The speed of some matches continued to make the case for three stock to become the standard Smash 4 format, as that extra stock gives players that drive to play aggressively. There were no painfully long matches like at BEAST 6 earlier in the year; quick, ferocious play was king during the Syndicate top 8. Diversity is thriving in Europe, with every top 8 player using a unique character, comprised of familiar faces like Sheik and Sonic, as well as some rarely seen picks like Wario. While the rest of Europe is starting to catch up to him, Mr. R is still the king of European Smash 4. He did not lose a single game over the course of the whole tournament, so major work needs to be done if Europe hopes to fell his fearsome Sheik.
RESULTS:
1. Mr. R (Sheik)
2. Rich Brown (Mewtwo)
3. iStudying (Greninja)
4. IxisNaugus (Sonic)
5. Mutiny|Jbandrew (Meta Knight)
5. Glutonny (Wario, Captain Falcon)
7. unK|Griffith (Bayonetta, Lucario, Mario, Zero Suit Samus)
7. SFTO|Purple~H (Cloud Lucina)
VODs are now available over on the Geeky Goon Squad YouTube channel and you can find links to Winners’, Losers’ and Grand Finals below.
After seven months of dedicated uploads, UA|Bass’ Rough Sets series for Season 3 of Killer Instinct has finally reached its 200th episode. This series has seen KI pros from all over the world, fighting off against each other in first to 10 sets, to help Bass practice certain match ups or to see if the challenger can go toe to toe with the Spinal master.
With Bass taking a break from KI for the foreseeable future, it makes sense that this 200th episode is a special one. This set sees Bass go up against ARIA specialist and Killer Instinct prodigy SeaDragon in a nail-biting set. Bass does not stick to Spinal, switching to Cinder for the second half of the set while SeaDragon briefly swaps to Hisako before returning to play his favorite robot overlord. As an extra bonus, this Rough Set is commentated by renowned FGC commentator Sajam, opening up the action going on in this tense set and allowing newer players to understand some of the intricacies of this high level series of games.
