As a way to beta test their new Bits and Cheer system which they are planning to fully implement in the near future, Twitch is enabling viewers to Cheer for their favorite players during the Evo 2016 finals on Saturday and Sunday. For those who aren’t fully up to date on what Bits are, they are a special currency you can buy on Twitch which, when used, donates a certain amount of money to the streamer in question, as well as showing a cool chat emote called a Cheer based on the amount of Bits used.
The way this Cheer system will work at Evo is as follows: say Daigo is playing Infiltration’s Chun-Li and he manages to full parry Chun-Li’s Critical Art, you can then Cheer to celebrate this hype moment. To do so, you’d type Cheer1000 (if you wanted to donate 1000 Bits) and then use #daigo to register your support. You should be able to Cheer on all the finals on Saturday and Sunday on the main Evo stream so have your Bits in your account should you wish to Cheer your favorites. The cash generated from Cheers has 70% attributed to the streamer/player while the remaining 30% is given to Evo itself, with a Bit being equal to 1 cent per Bits used in a Cheer. So, if Daigo does said parry and you did an 1000 Bit Cheer, he would receive around $7.
At the moment, the money donated via Cheers will only go to players with a Twitch partnership but as this featured grows and evolves into something greater, any player who is Cheered for should receive that money. Again, this system is still in beta and you can consider Evo as its first test run, ahead of it rolling out for other big streamed events. For more information on the general Cheer and Bits system, check out Twitch’s big FAQ for all the gritty details.
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!
The Beefy Smash Doods have long explored Super Smash Bros. for Wii U’s intricacies where breakfalls are concerned, and they thought they knew all about what could and could not be teched at this point. But in their latest video they relate the discovery of a new untechable situation: if your fighter is above 100% damage (or reaches 100% before being knocked away), they may be thrown into this spinning animation that you cannot breakfall from. It only happens in certain exchanges, and even then the spinning property that prevents teching appears to be randomized.
Study up on more Smash 4 with the Beefy Smash Doods with their footstool and grab release tutorials.
Anyone who has played Super Smash Bros. for Wii U for a decent amount of time has had the displeasure of playing against Rosalina and Luma. The duo can set up a defensive wall against approaching opponents, with Rosalina commanding from the back while Luma does damage out front. The key to defeating this pair is to kill the tiny star as fast as possible, with Rosalina becoming much easier to fight when she doesn’t have her little bodyguard with her. To help everyone in the fight against the cosmic pair, My Smash Corner has compiled a list of every character’s best moves for killing Luma.
The general criteria for these moves is that have to have enough range and speed to knock Luma out of position, while also allowing the attacking player to stay out of range of a counterattack. If Luma is put in a freefall state offstage, it cannot be called back by Rosalina, so My Smash Corner has also listed certain combos which are great for carrying the little space demon to an early demise.
We recently reported on the fact that Team NINJA will be adding the King of Fighters’ Mai Shiranui to Dead or Alive 5 Last Round. This isn’t exactly anything new for fighting games in general–other games such as Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct have also been piling on crossover characters. Meanwhile, Dead or Alive has arguably had them from the start.
In light of all of this, PVPLive’s Chris Bahn sat down with Team NINJA’s Creative Director Tom Lee to talk about the subject of crossovers, why they’re so compelling, and why we shouldn’t expect them to go away any time soon.
Regarding Dead or Alive’s history of crossovers and guest characters, he relates how when making the first game, Team NINJA realized that Ninja Gaiden’s Ryu Hayabusa would be a natural fit due to the former’s emphasis on ninjas.
As for why there has been an increase in the number of crossovers and guest characters as of late, Lee points out how they’re a good way to maintain fans’ attention on a game. “There are so many options for fans to get into or be distracted away from what they enjoy,” Lee states, “so, the recent spike in crossovers and collaborations between established franchises and licensed IPs is a move from publishers to keep their aging franchises relevant without ‘reinventing the wheel’. Collaborating with another company for a crossover,” he continues “can breathe new life into that game.”
Lee also points out that this is something that isn’t just limited to video games, and that you see the same thing happening in traditional media such as TV and films. As such, he doesn’t expect this trend to slow down anytime soon.
Of course, this is just part of what they talk about, head on over to PVP Live to read the full interview, including Lee’s list of other characters he’d like to add to DOA5 Last Round.
The San Diego Comic-Con is a great place for many creators to interact with their fans. As such, it’s no surprise that, even those outside of comics, tend to hold panels at the event.
One such company is Bandai Namco, who will be holding a panel on Friday, July 22. The panel will include Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada, Senior Producer Michael Murray, and will be moderated by none other than Mark “MarkMan” Julio.
While the panel itself will be primarily about their upcoming fighter, Tekken 7, they will also be holding a special discussion about Bandai Namco’s other 3D fighting franchise, Soulcalibur. Specifically, they will be talking about the series’ 20th anniversary (while Soul Edge launched in arcades in December 1995, 1996 saw the release of arcade Ver. II before hitting PlayStation in December).
For those who’re going to SDCC and are interested in checking the panel out, it will be taking place at Room 25ABC of the San Diego Convention Center from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM on Friday, July 22.
Many members of the NRS Community have voiced their opinions about where the warriors of Mortal Kombat XL have ranked over the course of the game’s various balance patches. But, for the most part, those lists have been ranking fighters as individual characters, like a traditional tier list for any other fighting title. However, with MKXL’s Variation System providing players with three unique takes on each character–four in the case of Triborg–these tier lists simply did not convey the entire picture, even if most characters don’t necessarily have every Variation properly represented in competitive play.
YOMI Gaming’s REO, a top player in both MKX and MK9, has taken it upon himself to construct a tier list that includes every single Variation in MKXL, as of patch 1.13.
He takes a moment to explain what each Letter Grade–S through C–is meant to represent on his personal scale, but only goes into great detail about the specific placements of the four S tier characters and one C tier character, for the sake of video length. He also notes that he will be updating this list every three to six months as the competitive meta evolves, or as patches and hotfixes are released.
It seems like just yesterday Ibuki made her triumphant return in 2010’s Super Street Fighter IV. Being a ninja in training demands awareness and control in any situation, so her trusty air throw made for an essential tool in her arsenal.
Well, “trusty” may be a bit of a stretch. As luck would have it, this particular move has a history of not working exactly as intended. In addition to a bug that grants her a period of invincibility in Street Fighter V (which, fortunately, is being taken care of very soon), desk’s latest video shows us a couple of bugs from the Street Fighter IV series that put her in some unexpected and less-than-favorable situations.
Fans of Guilty Gear and BlazBlue have a lot to look forward to this weekend thanks to the latest announcements from Aksys Games. The North American publisher is raising the competitive stakes at Evo with impressive pot bonuses and more.
The Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- tournament, which has just over 900 entrants, is receiving a $10,000 pot bonus from the company and the developer, Arc System Works. Furthermore, the Toushinsai qualifier, which will be held at the Aksys Games booth, is also receiving an additional $5,000 prize.
If that’s not enough to get you excited, Aksys also announced that Daisuke Ishiwatari and Toshimichi Mori, developers behind the two games, will be in attendance. There will also be a playable build of the upcoming BlazBlue: Central Fiction.
Not going to be there yourself? Don’t worry, Jyosua will be streaming footage from the Aksys Games booth all weekend.
Tune in this coming Sunday to watch the Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- finals at 1 pm PDT.
Joining the ranks of eSports organizations dipping their toes in the waters of the FGC, the European based G2 eSports has signaled their entry into the fighting game arena by signing Weston “Westballz” Dennis as their first player for Super Smash Bros. Melee. This signing comes as quite the shock, as Westballz was previously signed to Tempo Storm and seemed fairly content to stick with the team through Evo 2016. However, I imagine the aligning planets of Westballz’ contract expiration and G2 wanting to make a big entrance to the FGC on the world’s biggest stage made for quite the convincing counter offer.
Tempo Storm have made a statement regarding Westballz’ departure, wishing him all the best at his new team and thanking him for his service and growth under their banner. G2 eSports have said that Westballz “[has] our mentality, he is a born winner and a competitive beast but still has a really likeable personality.”Known for his explosive Falco play and solid placements over the past year or so, both parties are looking to make their mark at Evo with a possible top 8 finish. With G2 having arguably the best League of Legends team and one of the best Counter Strike: Global Offensive teams in Europe, having a top 10 ranked Melee player as their first signing is a great place to start. Also, with Westballz having some vicious sets against players like TSM|Leffen at BEAST 6, he is happy to play the bad guy, lining up perfectly with G2’s current reputation as the villains of the EU LCS. Watch out for the Falco rocking a brand new grey jersey during the Evo weekend.
