Author: Sam "Trilby" Foxall

Whereas Daigo may be known for his cautious, footsies based Ryu play, Tokido’s Ryu is all about that fearless rushdown and oppressive pressure which leads into huge damage. This offensive playstyle seems to be so effective in Street Fighter V that alongside his qualification to the Capcom Cup finals, Tokido is ranked as the best Ryu online.

As the compiler of replays and online matches, it was only a matter of time until XusesGB took Tokido’s clips into the editing suite and created a montage of his best moments from various matches online. Xuses has really leveled up his editing on this video, adding some cool effects and transitions whenever Tokido makes a hard read or lands a particularly devastating combo.

Source: XusesGB

On this episode of The Jump-In Podcast, top European commentator Logan Sama sat down with Evil Geniuses’ K-Brad to discuss a variety of topics pertaining to Street Fighter and the wider FGC, such as the pro player lifestyle, up and coming players in both Europe and the USA as well as the hot button issues of VIP rooms and player floating at large tournaments.

K-Brad has choice words to say about the amount of options in Street Fighter V compared to Ultra Street Fighter 4, lamenting the sheer lack of options players have to defend against certain situations in SFV when looking back at USF4. He and Logan also discuss the character variety between the US and Europe, with Europe having specialists for characters that are less prevalent in the US, like Laura, Alex and Bison. It’s a great 50 minutes of fighting game chat and definitely worth a listen if you want to hear more about the differences between the US and European meta, from two men with experience from both sides of the Atlantic.

Source: The Jump-In

This Saturday saw Japan’s finest, along with some guests from America, come together in together in Tokyo for the 25th edition of the regular Umebura tournament series for Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. The result was a day of top level Smash with Kamemushi’s Megaman eventually coming out on top, defeating Abadango’s Mewtwo with a decisive 3-1 victory. For his victory, rather than a cash prize, Kamemushi received a pair of headphones and 30kg bag of rice as his grand prize. At least he won’t go hungry for the next week.

Abadango did come second, defeating players like Kirihara, Rain, Umeki and CLG|VoiD to gain that silver medal. Kirihara, one of Japan’s hidden bosses and widely regarded as their best Rosalina player came in third, racking up wins against KEN, Nietono and Umeki before falling to Abadango in a 3-0 loss.

CLG|VoiD is yet to break the fourth place curse, just missing out on that podium finish after a tough set with Kirihara, but the training in Japan will put him in a prime position to do well at The Big House 6 next month. You can check out the Winners, Losers and Grand Finals matches below, with commentary in English as D1 and Keitaro were also attendees of this event.

Results:

1. Kamemushi (Megaman)
2. Abadango (Mewtwo, Meta Knight)
3. Kirihara (Rosalina)
4. CLG|VoiD (Sheik, Mewtwo)
5. Umeki (Peach)
5. taranito (Ness)
7. Shogun (Fox)
7. Nietono (Diddy Kong, Sheik)

Sources: smash.gg; SHI-G (Twitter)

With the addition of new Art Director Josh Singh to the Wavedash Games team, it was only natural that the art style of their unnamed platform fighter was bound to change. After the reveal of first character Ashani, one of the main criticisms of the character was that her design was a little too generic — it lacked that personality and pop that is needed to make fighters stand out in a fighting game. Under the guidance of Josh and thanks to his years of experience as a character artist for companies like Riot Games, the new design for Ashani is starting to show some real character and flair.

The current look for Ashani does match the Speedy Brawler archetype that she is designed around, with her heavy gauntlets and shoulder armor to convey her power, while her legs and boots are less armored so she can move quickly around the battlefield to deal damage. Her hair is in a tidier ponytail now, similar to a track runner and she has actuators which pop out of her armor as she charges up power. This hints at a possible mechanic for Ashani where over the course of a fight, those actuators slowly extend out of her armor as she collects electricity which will eventually lead her to discharging all of that energy in one massive strike.

The new design is already better than the original and Josh’s character design philosophy is great in assuring each character’s design displays both personality and combat usage. Next week’s dev vlog promises another look at designs coming out of the art pipeline so we’ll hopefully see a new character or some stage designs in the next video.

Source: Wavedash Games

Taking a break from Killer Instinct to give his Spinal some time to rest its weary bones, Ultra Arcade’s Kenneth “Bass” Armas has started on the path to Street Fighter mastery with the Spanish assassin Vega. As such, he is bringing his successful and enlightening ‘Rough Sets’ series to the Capcom fighter, where he faces off against other players in first to 10 sets.

As Bass is trying to learn Street Fighter V, these sets act as a learning experience for both him and the spectator, as over the course of these series of Rough Sets, we’ll no doubt see Bass’ Vega blossom into a deadly force. Expect to see a plethora of different characters and players squaring off in this series so if you are looking to learn Vega alongside Bass, this new series may be the best place to start. Let’s see if Bass can become as big of a threat in Street Fighter V as he is in Killer Instinct.

Source: XiBassiX

Known for his excellent series of videos about balancing and tweaking Melee’s roster so that they are all viable characters, MagicScrumpy has simulated the darkest timeline to see what Melee would have been like if it had Brawl’s maligned tripping mechanic. Using Dan Salvato’s Project B code, MagicScrumpy’s results are not pretty: with characters dropping techchases and combos left and right, thanks to this fun system quirk.

While this video is mainly a jokey one, it does present questions as to how different Melee’s meta would be if tripping was a mechanic. Characters like Jigglypuff and Peach who spend the majority of their time in the air would become instant top tiers while the Ice Climbers would get even easier wobble setups off someone tripping mid-combo.

Sources: Dan Salvato; MagicScrumpy

Ahead of the actual tournament which would see Umehara fall against the American vanguard, East Coast Throwdown held a special first-to-10 exhibition where the Beast had to defend himself against a specially selected team of American players. Picked by ECT TO and all American hero LI Joe, Team ECT was composed of F3|Alucard, OG Shine, IFC Yipes, RN|Alex Meyers and Echo Fox|Julio, providing quite the challenge for Umehara to face off against.

What results is a 48 minute exhibition, full of high and lows, with players rotating in and taking a fair few games from the physical manifestation of Ryu. While Umehara was able to win the day in this exhibition, I can imagine this first-to-10 was a great way for the US to gain some cheeky notes on his play ahead of the tournament.

Source: Team Spooky