Earlier this month, a massive Dragon Ball FighterZ Invitational event took place at the Tokyo International Film Festival in Tokyo, Japan. Dubbed the Dragon Ball FighterZ Super Match, this event pitted eight of the world’s strongest players against each other in a battle for supremacy. Though not part of the ongoing Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour, there was still a lot of pride and bragging rights on the line, especially since the event was conducted in the customary, yet extremely volatile, single-elimination format that defines Japanese tournament play. Participants included:
Echo Fox|SonicFox (Two-Star Dragon Ball Holder, Evo 2018, VSFighting 2018, CEOTaku 2018, East Coast Throwdown, and Canada Cup 2018 Champion)
CO|GO1 (Three-Star Dragon Ball Holder, Final Round 2018, NCR 2018, Brussels Challenge Major 2018, KVO x TSB 2018, Canada Cup Masters Series 2018, Stunfest 2018, Sonic Boom 2018, Ultimate Fighting Arena 2018 Champion)
GGP|Kazunoko (One and Five-Star Dragon Ball Holder, CEO 2018, TWFighter Major 2018, SCR 2018, SEAM 2018 Champion)
NRG|HookGangGod (Four-Star Dragon Ball Holder, Summit of Power, Defend The North 2018, Thunderstruck 2018 Champion)
Kaimart (Tokyo Game Show 2018 Champion)
R-Cade|Alioune (25th at Combo Breaker 2018, 13th at CEO and Evo 2018, 7th at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2018)
Zer0q (Vienallity 2018 and Fight Club NRW 2018 Champion)
KoreanWrestlingMan (49th at Evo 2018, 5th at TWFighter Major 2018, 9th at SEAM 2018)
Street Fighter II: The World Warrior is well-known as the game that defined the fighting game genre. The vast majority of all mechanics used in modern fighting games began within Capcom’s amazing fighting game.
When the developers from the team sat down to discuss the development process for a new book — currently available only in Japan — they provided insight into many things about how the game was formed. From this, we learn that some of the character designs were given based on the results of Rock-Paper-Scissors, as well as opening up as to why the Four Kings — M. Bison, Sagat, Vega, and Balrog — were originally unplayable.
The interview has been posted on the Capcom Fighters Network, and has a lot of great information!
G has widely been considered the strongest character in the Season 3 roster of Street Fighter V DLC, but when you see his usage at high-level tournament play, very few have attempted it. The most successful attempt has been NuckleDu, who recently used the character to take two wins off of Justin Wong in the North American Regional Finals.
Nemo himself has been dabbling with the character, and explained his stance on G to BornFree at Red Bull Conquest. He talks about how he uses the character against stable players that he feels like he can’t beat with Urien, and even goes so far as to say he uses the character when he wants to “random people out.”
Earlier this week, the Online Dragon Radar Event for Southern Latin America wrapped up, as the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour continues to fly towards the Finals in January. A whopping 98 mighty warriors appeared to battle for the chance to represent their region at one of the three remaining Saga events for a chance at either the Six or Seven Star Dragon Balls, at their choice of the Japan Round event later this month in Tokyo, CouchWarriors Crossup in Australia this December, or the Last Chance Qualifier in America at the end of January. Sami “Samifish” Nash and Rynge provided commentary for all of the hype matches. Eligible Countries included Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Venezuela, Peru, and Uruguay.
Results
Dragon Ball FighterZ
1. NFMS|Moise (Adult Gohan/Vegeta/Yamcha) – Will be flown to the Saga Event of his choice
2. DM|Vermillion (Teen Gohan/Kid Buu/Super Saiyan Vegeta)
3. Rymaru (Adult Gohan/Super Saiyan Goku/Goku Black)
4. UMBRELLA|Linj (Adult Gohan/Android 16/Super Saiyan Goku)
5. Jpdark20024 (Cooler/Android 16/SSGSS Vegito)
5. OmegaFighterZ|BruNex (SSGSS Vegito/Cell/Goku Black)
7. REI THANOS (Adult Gohan/Bardock/Super Saiyan Goku)
7. uB|ThiagoKain (Vegeta/Bardock/Tien, Adult Gohan/Bardock/Android 16)
The next stop on the DBFZ World Tour will be the 6th Saga Event: Japan Round, in Tokyo, VR Zone Shinjuku, Japan, taking place this weekend, with the 6-Star Dragon Ball and a spot in the World Tour Finals in January up for grabs. Then we’ll close out November with the Tour’s final offline Dragon Radar Event, taking place in the European region. DreamHack Winter will be coming to us from Jönköping, Sweden, from November 30th to December 3rd. Then it will be time for the 7th Saga Event, CouchWarriors Crossup, in Coburg North, VIC, Australia, the weekend of December 15th and 16th. As always, it will have the usually customary $5,000 Saga Event pot bonus. Registration is live at smash.gg.
The next Online Dragon Radar Event will be for East Asia, with pools being played out on Sunday, January 6th, 2019, with top 8 being streamed live at twitch.tv/dragonballfighterz, on Tuesday, January 8th. Registration is also live at smash.gg, with eligible countries including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea.
We are in the month of November, and the Capcom Pro Tour (CPT) for 2018 is coming to a close with the upcoming Capcom Cup 2018 in Las Vegas. However, there are multiple parts of the Capcom Pro Tour that have been criticized by players and spectators alike; personally, I feel that the following aspects need to be re-examined, and adjusted:
The number of Premier and Ranking tournaments;
The Ranking Point Matrix;
Online CPT;
Standardized tournament seeding rules;
“Dead air” breaks;
A better CPT 2018 Premier Pass.
Let’s look at these in more detail.
1. Number of Premier and Ranking Tournaments
In 2017, there were 19 Premier tournaments and 51 Ranking tournaments in the CPT; in 2018, there are 17 Premier tournaments and 48 Ranking tournaments in the CPT. That is an excessive amount of tournaments during the year. Starting from March 16, 2018 (Final Round 2018), there was a Ranking or Premier tournament almost every week leading up to Capcom Cup. Certain weekends had two or even three tournaments at the same time. This leads to burnout, especially for the pro Street Fighter players who do this for a living.
For example, in September of 2018, there were five Premier CPT tournaments. Any player who wishes to qualify for Capcom Cup would want to travel to all of those Premier tournaments because they award the most amount of CPT points. However, they took place all around the world: China, Canada, Los Angeles, England, and Tokyo. The jet lag and lack of time to prepare during the entire month of September can lead to weak performances from the players who are pushing to do all of that traveling. Also, multiple CPT tournaments on the same weekend makes little sense to me. It dilutes viewership and entrant numbers for each tournament. If anything, there should only be one CPT tournament per weekend (or at most one Ranking and one Premier tournament per weekend).
My Personal Suggestion for the Future CPT
10 Premier tournaments 4 Regional Premier/Finals 24 Ranking tournaments (6 Ranking tournaments per Region) = 38 tournaments in one CPT season.
This leads to ~1 CPT tournament per weekend (some weekends would have 2 CPT tournaments), starting from mid-March (Final Round) and ending mid-November (NA Regional Finals). This would lead to less picking and choosing for players and organizations, and lead to more consistent viewership for the tournaments.
2. The Ranking Point Matrix Has to Change
If they do change the number of Premier and Ranking tournaments, then they have to change the Ranking Point Matrix as well. Currently, the Ranking Point Matrix looks like this:
First, the ranking point distribution for Ranking tournaments has to be adjusted. 1 point for 7th place at a ranking tournament is… nominal. It dissuades pro and semi-pro players from traveling to more Ranking tournaments, if all they get is 1 point for 7th place at a stacked tournament. Most CPT Ranking tournaments have 100+ (and some even reach 150+) entrants, and getting 7th place at these tournaments is no easy feat. If Capcom wants to encourage more players to travel to Ranking tournaments, then they have to change the point distribution to make players feel like it’s worth it to fly to all these tournaments.
In addition, some CPT premier tournaments this year have only gotten ~100 entrants. For example, DreamHack Montreal 2018 was a Premier tournament for the 2018 CPT season, and it only had 127 entrants. Final Fighters China 2018 was also a Premier tournament and it only had ~128 entrants. These Premier tournaments attracted less entrants than most CPT Ranking tournaments, and yet they awarded many more points. Also, there is a disparity between points for 1st place and 2nd place at a Premier tournament; 1st place is awarded 700 points compared to 2nd place, which is awarded just 270 points.
My Personal Suggestion for the Future CPT
For Ranking tournaments:
1st – 150 points
2nd – 100 points
3rd – 70 points
4th – 50 points
5th – 40 points
7th – 20 points
For Premier tournaments:
1st – 500 points
2nd – 300 points
3rd – 250 points
4th – 200 points
5th – 150 points
7th – 100 points
3. Online CPT Rewards
Currently, there are 16 online CPT tournaments in the 2018 CPT season. Not only that, the online CPT tournaments award the same amount of points as regular CPT Ranking tournaments. This is still the case despite the fact that online CPTs are highly susceptible to lag, especially considering the inconsistency of SFV’s netcode. The online CPT is easily the most criticized part of the CPT, because there are some online CPT events that get less than 60 entrants, and yet they award just as many points as Ranking tournaments that have 150+ entrants. For example, Capcom Pro Tour Online 2018 EU East had 47 entrants for the first tournament and 55 entrants for the second tournament.
My Personal Suggestion for the Future CPT
If Capcom wants to keep the current number of online CPT tournaments, then they should not be awarded the same amount of points as regular CPT Ranking tournaments. If anything, they should be awarded half the amount of points, or they should award 1st place of an online CPT with a trip to any Premier of their choosing with paid flight and hotel (similar to DBFZ’s Dragon Radar tournaments).
4. There Have to be Standardized Tournament Seeding Rules
There are no standardized tournament rules for seeding at CPT Ranking or Premier tournaments. The TOs are free to set their own rules regarding seeding, late registration, etc. This can lead to biased seeding from TOs and last minute changes to seeded pools the day before or the day of a CPT tournament. There have been several instances where late registrants are placed in pools that have already been seeded according to skill level, region, etc. These late registrants can be top players that forgot to register and as a result, they are placed in stacked pools. This is a problem for players who prepare for all their upcoming match-ups in their pool after their pools are publicly released by the TOs. Late registrants can change the entire outcome of a CPT tournament if they are randomly placed in seeded pools, and that should not be happening.
My Personal Suggestion for the Future CPT
Capcom should establish standardized tournament seeding rules for all of their Ranking and Premier tournaments. For example, priority for seeding at every Ranking and Premier CPT tournament should be: (1) # of CPT points on the global leaderboard; (2) Overall skill level if there are no CPT points to look to; (3) Regional conflicts; (4) Teams. I personally suggest that Capcom should establish an objective seeding committee that overlooks seeding for all of their Ranking and Premier tournaments. Also, Capcom should not allow pools to be changed after they are released to the public. Players who register late should always be put in a “death” bracket in order to avoid last minute changes to earlier seeded pools.
5. “Dead Air” Breaks Should be Avoided
Often throughout a CPT tournament, the stream will take 10-15 minute breaks where the stream shows a dynamic screen showcasing ads for the sponsors of the CPT. Sometimes we get archived match footage from prior years’ events. However, a recent CPT tournament tried something different: EGX 2018 showed off-stream matches and player interviews during some of the breaks to pass the time until the next pool started.
My Personal Suggestion for the Future CPT
Instead of showcasing old match footage from SFIV/older SFV CPTs, Capcom should try to do what the production team did for EGX 2018 — that is, whenever they run an ad break in between pools, they should showcase high profile off-stream pool matches and/or interviews with top or upcoming players. There are so many times during a CPT tournament where a high profile match is being played off-stream because of time constraints, and we only ever hear about the results after the match is over. And instead, the CPT stream plays old match footage from previous CPTs that players and spectators alike don’t care for. Also, it would be great for spectators at home to watch interviews during these breaks where they can listen to players talk about a tough match they went through during the tournament, or talk about the general atmosphere and feel of the CPT tournament.
6. The CPT Premier Pass is Underwhelming
Finally, the CPT Premier Pass has been underwhelming for the past three years. They have been following the same formula: “CPT exclusive” costumes for two characters, a CPT exclusive stage, a special costume designed by the previous Capcom Cup champion, CPT-themed colors on the default costumes, and CPT-exclusive titles. They also have some smaller perks, like access to exclusive special targets that provide extra fight money and fighter profile themes. However, the issue is the price point of all of these Premier Passes.
The first two Premier Passes sold for $24.99 and the 2018 Premier Pass sold for $19.99. If you wanted to buy the individual CPT exclusive costumes, they sold for $5.99 ($2 more than regular SFV costumes) and if you wanted to buy the CPT exclusive stages, they sold for $9.99. These Premier Passes sell for too high for the amount of content they provide.
My Personal Suggestion for the Future CPT
If Capcom wants to encourage players to pay for these Premier Passes in order to boost the Capcom Cup prize pool, then they should provide a lot more content in these Premier Passes. For example, Dota 2 has a very successful crowdfund model with The International Battle Pass. Dota 2 players can pay $10 for a level 1 Battle Pass or they can pay $36 for a level 75 Battle Pass. Regardless if players pay $10 or $36, they are given a huge amount of content: they get access to a new game mode, new cosmetics, a music pack, a cursor pack, a new courier, a new ward, etc. Not only that, they can gain additional levels to get even more exclusive content, either by playing or by paying to instantly gain more levels. This is always very successful for crowdfunding the prize pool for The International: in 2018, players contributed $23,932,177 to the base prize pool of $1,600,000.
Capcom should follow Valve’s example and model their Premier Pass after Dota’s Battle Pass. Imagine a Premier Pass where you are given a base amount of content if you pay $10. For example, you can get two CPT exclusive costumes, CPT-themed colors, and some CPT-exclusive titles. Then, you can level up your Premier Pass by playing SFV. As you level up your Premier Pass, you are given even more content like a CPT-exclusive stage, even more CPT exclusive costumes, even more colors for your characters, new music, new dojo items, etc. This would incentivize players at home to constantly play SFV so that they could earn new CPT-exclusive content. And if someone wants to spend money to level up their Premier Pass without playing, then they can choose to do so. That way, you rapidly increase the prize pool for Capcom Cup while satisfying the players at home with a Premier Pass that is worth the purchase because of the amount of content that comes with it.
Tekken 7 pro, Anakin — and “Tekken God Prime”, as he is quick to mention — is one of the scene’s most well-known players for obvious reasons. Consistent tournament placements, constant streaming, and aggressive labbing makes him a well-rounded powerhouse ready for anything.
But there’s another aspect that makes him stand out — his time in the community. He’s been doing this for a long time, and has seen the way the FGC has morphed over time. In a fascinating hour-long interview with BornFree, he talks about the difference of tournament nerves in today’s esports environment versus the past, America’s place in the current Tekken meta, and more.
Fujimura has been tough to stop this year. The artist formerly known as Yukadon picked up where he looked to be leaving off last year, slaying killer after killer to get one of the top seeds in the Capcom Cup bracket. He has been the odds-on favorite for many people at every event he’s been to in 2018. With December fast approaching, is he still that way?
Consistency
It should be no secret that Fujimura is one of the best in the game right now. One only has to look at his not-so-paltry record of reaching top 8 of two out of three Evos for Street Fighter V and top 8 of the only two SFV Capcom Cups to know that he has easily been one of the most consistent players over the entirety of its lifespan. This is also factoring in that he has made the decision to change characters twice over the course of his public career in fighting games. While starting with Nash at the beginning of its lifespan, he switch to Ibuki last year and has become one of the pioneers of how to use the character, showing exactly how absurd her setups could actually be.
Even with such an explosive mix-up heavy character who can live and die by whether people fall for her tricks, he has managed to rack up quite an onslaught of tournament accolades. Having accrued ten top 8s this season — with only a fifth of those being at a ranking event — he managed to take home three titles.
One of the most notable of those wins came at CEO, which was really the first time people saw Fujimura fully tested at the hands of Xiaohai. Having lost in Winners Finals, Fujimura managed to bring it back convincingly, with a 6-1 record across the two sets; the one win from Xiaohai coming before the reset.
It was clear at this point that Fujimura was able to fight with his back to the wall, and not only figure out what he lacked in his defeat, but execute his adjustments so perfectly that it would serve to frustrate people to the point where there was no contest against him. Over a tournament season, these are the types of points you want to make about your play. If this were not over the course of a circuit, a statement like this would almost be benign to make, but when you have to use every tool at your disposal to make players concerned about you, it is a great one to make.
The Edge
Going into Evo 2018, Fujimura was already virtually a lock on making it into Capcom Cup off his early successes. By Evo 2018, he was already a favorite of many to win, and it came of no surprise that he made it into top 8. But that was the beginning of the doubts on how far he could take his success, as he finished fifth. While that alone is respectable, it is far less than people — even possibly Fujimura — anticipated.
It wasn’t the end of the season though, and given the propensity to call Evo the halfway mark of the CPT season, we saw far less stellar results from Fujimura than we were used to. His three tournament wins happened before the halfway mark, and only four of his top 8s occurred after Evo. Out of his top 8s, his highest finish was second in an online ranking event.
It’s always possible he’s been taking it easy since Evo solidified his slot at Capcom Cup. But given his continued grind throughout the season, I feel like that’s less the case. Which makes for another problem. At this point, the people he was confounding are starting to catch on. He managed to defeat Xiaohai at both CEO and Evo, but come Canada Cup, Xiaohai was more than prepared to deal with Fujimura. The same with Fuudo, who struggled to find answers in Xi’an China earlier in the year, but had them in spades at Canada Cup to eliminate him.
Final Thoughts
That’s not to mention players that he has also struggled against, including Problem X who has been consistent against him, whom he may have to face in the much later stages of the bracket. Fujimura will likely have little trouble finding his way to top 8 once more, but the complexion of that top 8 will ultimately determine his fate.
He has all the tricks in the book to dispatch anyone at the lower echelons of play in Capcom Cup. But the problem is the people who have been reading that book cover to cover for the entire system. They’re more likely to decipher the problems he’s put on the table, and unless there’s a major revision coming up to said book, he’s likely to have to wait another year to clinch the title.
One of the most notable things about the upcoming Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is just how large its roster of characters is. Despite this however, there’s still bound to be some players who are disappointed that certain characters from the Nintendo canon did not make it in.
In a recent interview with GameInformer, Smash creator Masahiro Sakurai talks about this, discussing how they wanted to not disappoint fans, and yet how they can’t really avoid doing so anyway.
“There will be people who might feel disappointed if fighters that appeared in a previous title are not included,” Sakurai states. “I didn’t want any players to feel that way, so we worked really hard to make this happen.”
Despite this however, he admits that, as much as they try, there will always be fans who will be disappointed. “But what I learned is that regardless of doing our utmost, no matter how hard we try, and no matter how many fighters we include, there will always be people who feel that way.”
Of course, that’s just a small part of the interview, read the rest over at GameInformer.
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate arrives on Switch on December 7, 2018.
Fighting EX Layer has shared their latest release schedule for the rest of 2018. This schedule shows off the dates for the Arcade release (v. 1.1.1) in Japan (11/29), the Steam and PlayStation 4 update to 1.1.1 (11/30), and the release of the physical copy of Fighting EX Layer in Japanese stores (12/6).
Bubbling up at the end of the video was an exciting tease — on 12/14, ARIKA will reveal more information on their 2019 release schedule. Superimposed on a brief tease of pending DLC character Sharon, it’s safe to say that at least one new character is on the horizon.
Welcome to the Rollback: a frame-by-frame look back at our past week’s most notable news — and our favorite SRK articles — from November 16 to November 22, 2018!
It should be no secret that Fujimura is one of the best in the game right now. One only has to look at his not-so-paltry record of reaching top 8 of two out of three Evos for Street Fighter V and top 8 of the only two SFV Capcom Cups to know that he has easily been one of the most consistent players over the entirety of its lifespan. This is also factoring in that he has made the decision to change characters twice over the course of his public career in fighting games. While starting with Nash at the beginning of its lifespan, he switch to Ibuki last year and has become one of the pioneers of how to use the character, showing exactly how absurd her setups could actually be.
