Northern California has always been one of the hotbeds of competitive fighting game activity. The region boasts a significant number of top fighting game talent, and hosts a number of fighting game events, such as NorCal Regionals.
In their latest episode of Conversations and Fireballs, Yahoo! Esports Michael Martin talks to Carolyn “MamaDao” Dao. A longtime community leader, MamaDao is most known for the weekly Churning the Butter tournament series before she stepped down. After this hiatus, which sadly saw the demise of Churning the Butter, MamaDao is now involved with Red Bull Proving Grounds for the region. It’s these topics–and more–that MamaDao talks about in the video below.
At last month’s Killer Instinct World Cup, Iron Galaxy announced the Ultimates Ultra Pack. Featuring Ultimates for Fulgore, Sadira, Riptor, ARIA and Kilgore, it will release on May 2nd, free for all players.
After showing off Fulgore’s Ultimate at the panel, they’ve now revealed Sadira’s. Sending her opponent in the air with Recluse, she traps them in a large amount of webbing, before seemingly slitting her prey’s throat. You can see the video below.
Iron Galaxy will be revealing one Ultimate from the pack per week every Monday at Noon PDT, until its release date.
Are you impressed with this Ultimate? Are their any others you’re looking forward to? Let us know down in the comments.
Suit up Gundam fans, as Bandai Namco have confirmed that Gundam Versus will be releasing in Japan on July 6th. Alongside the release of a special cinematic trailer, Bandai Namco have also unveiled details on the special “Premium G Sound” edition which will be available alongside the standard edition.
The Premium G Sound edition contains 35 extra songs than the standard versions, adding both original songs and background tracks from select Gundam anime, like Iron Blooded Orphans and Gundam Wing. It also contains a special 30th anniversary Gundam called “Hot Scramble Gundam,” piloted by Meijin Kawaguchi III. The Premium G Sound edition is available physically for ¥11,200 (approx. $100) or digitally for ¥10,080 (approx. $90). Meanwhile, a physical copy of the standard edition goes for ¥8,200 (approx. $74) while the digital version costs only ¥7,380 (approx. $66). The digital discounts only last until August 2nd so if you are dying to beat up some robots, get ordering now.
There is an Asian English version planned to release in the near future–so maybe hold off for that version, if you cannot read Japanese.
We have been informed that due to its release date, this year’s AnimEVO will now be running Gundam Versus in the place of Gundam Extreme Versus Full Boost. If you’re looking to gain the gold for your Gundam piloting skills, better start saving for that import version — Editor.
Acting as one of the East Coast’s premier fighting game events, East Coast Throwdown is returning for another round this September. Moving proceedings to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Fairfield, New Jersey, this year’s event acts as both a Capcom Pro Tour Ranking Event, as well as a stop on the Curleh Circuit.
Alongside both Street Fighter V and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, ECT 2017 will played host to tournaments for Tekken 7, Injustice 2, Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, The King of Fighters XIV, and Killer Instinct. While it is locked in as just a Ranking Event in this year’s CPT, ECT 2017 has the potential to become an S-Tier event on the Curleh Circuit if over 100 Marvel players sign up, so get registered now.
Currently in the early bird pricing phase, attendees can now sign up to East Coast Throwdown for the low price of $40. It also comes with a free T-shirt, showing Urien and Nash fighting it out. This budget pricing only lasts until April 25th, so sign up now if you are definitely planning to attend this year’s event. For more information on registration–along with a special discount hotel code for the Crowne Plaza Fairfield–check out the ECT 2017 website.
After the short exclusivity period to help raise money for the KI Ultra Tour, the prototype Ultratech robot Kilgore has returned to the Killer Instinct Store. Now costing only $4.99–down from the original $9.99 asking price–it is the best time to get to grips with this heavily-armed automaton.
As for the actual Kilgore Community Fund, Iron Galaxy have run the numbers and calculated that over $56,000 has been raised for 2017’s Ultra Tour. This will go to help increase production values and pot bonuses at various Killer Instinct tournament throughout 2017, starting with Combo Breaker in May. This will eventually lead into the Killer Instinct World Cup in 2018, which should be even bigger and better than this year’s event.
If you’re interested in giving this overheating robot a whirl, head on over to the Microsoft Store to download him right now. For a full character breakdown of Kilgore, check out the Iron Galaxy developer walkthrough below.
One of Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2’s new characters is Baiken, who’s actually the latest “classic” fighter from the X and XX installments. After a dominating streak in Accent Core +R, many fans have been eager to see how Arc System Works will implement a character with guard cancel moves in Xrd.
Let’s break down how she works with some footage. There’s already a plethora of matches, as well as a couple of general guides on how to perform combos.
The first video above is a good basic primer on what Baiken combos look like. From shorter midscreen routes to corner paths and then expansions with meter, this is a good visual guide to grasp the general idea. Her air finisher can be as simple as jump Slash followed up jump Dust, which results in a knockdown if the opponent wasn’t too high. A nice throwback to her older combos, Baiken’s Dust has a corner bounce on it. She can air dash in the corner after Dust to follow up with an extension or go straight into her Overdrive move.
Machaboo’s Baiken is great to watch–not just because he’s an extremely skilled Guilty Gear player, but also because he picked up Baiken’s combos very quickly. It’s easy to see a lot of the combos from the video could be performed in practical situations in matches. As usual, Silva’s channel is a great source for even more REV 2 footage.
ShinKensou offers a video analysis of Sharon’s Baiken. He goes through the matches in detail and pauses at certain moments to point out nuances in various situations.
This is only the beginning of what’s there to uncover with Baiken. The longer she’s out and the more people have access to her–soon, console users around the world–the more videos of surprising techniques we’ll see.
This past weekend, the northern California fighting game community experienced its first Red Bull Proving Grounds event at Dave & Buster’s in Milpitas. With over 90 entrants in attendance, some of NorCal’s finest Street Fighter V talent such as ROG|Kelvin Jeon, Circa|LPN, BJ Unchained, Pavocado, Mattypie, WFX|Samurai and many others, the competition was intense, loud and fierce throughout the night as all the participants aimed to score as many points as possible in this first event of the Proving Grounds circuit.
The early goings of the tournament saw a couple of surprising upsets: Eric “Brass” Beck, the NorCal Guile specialist, sent Miky “WFX|Samurai” Chea and his Akuma to the losers bracket in round three of the winners side in an extremely close 2-1 set. German “Ultima” Marroquin and his patented Rashid sent Brian “BJ Unchained” Jeon and his Necalli into the losers bracket in the third round, as well in another intense 2-1 set where the latter eventually eliminated another Rashid in the form of Andrew “Lamerboi” Nguyen; placing only 32nd overall in the tournament.
Ultima would then be sent to losers by Circa|LPN’s M. Bison in winners quarters in, you guessed it, another close 2-1 set. The former would go on to eliminate WFX|Samurai from the tournament off-stream (2-1 as well) before succumbing to Kelvin Jeon’s Urien 2-1 in losers semis.
Kelvin would then battle it out with Pavo “Pavocado” Miskic to determine who would face Circa|LPN in grand finals. Once again, it was another intense set with Kelvin’s oppressive Urien eliminating Pavocado’s precision-based R. Mika 2-1. Then it was down to two.
Kelvin would start off with his new secondary, Ibuki, against LPN’s M. Bison. Right out of the gate, LPN scored a quick 25-second perfect in the first round against Kelvin! This didn’t phase him though, as he would fight back with two quick rounds of his own taking advantage of Bison’s weak defensive options by getting in with EX Kunai and V-Trigger conversions to start Ibuki’s deadly 50/50 mixups to win the first match. Kelvin would go on to win the second match in similar fashion to reset the bracket against LPN.
The first match of the second set was more of the same from Kelvin, as he did not let LPN get started on offense by making him waste his V-meter so he couldn’t start a comeback with Bison’s game-changing V-Trigger. Kelvin took the first match easily which prompted LPN to counter-pick with his pocket Kolin, which he only used a couple of times earlier in the tournament. Kelvin continued his dominance by taking the first round putting him on tournament point, but LPN would adjust by slowing the pace down and whittled away at Kelvin’s life bar to take the second match and forcing a third and final game. Kelvin answers back by going back to Urien, where he wins the first round putting him on tournament point yet again. When it looked like Kelvin was going to the second round and the tournament, LPN slows it Kelvin down yet again–and pulling out some clutch Kolin mixups he hadn’t shown at all yet to steal the second round! However, Kelvin stayed calm and got an early life lead which he maintained to defeat LPN and win the first round of NorCal Rivals.
You can watch all five parts of the tournament below, which was streamed and uploaded by Team Spooky.
With all of these tournament circuits popping up lately, anime fighters often end up being left out in the cold. While the KOF World Cup and ArcRevo gave players a taste of Capcom Cup-esque qualifications for The King of Fighters XIV and Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- respectively, the Japanese-style events focused on tournament standards Westerners dread–single-elimination format.
Tournament organizer Bear has decided to change that. In his announcement of Burst League–a tournament circuit centered solely around Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR-, BlazBlue: Central Fiction, and The King of Fighters XIV–it looks like the games involved will receive similar treatment to Street Fighter V or Tekken 7. With tournaments like Frosty Faustings, Anime Ascension, and Final Round retroactively added, the first place finishers from each event will be flown in with accommodations paid to CEOtaku 2017 in Orlando. The top spots on each leaderboard will also be brought in for a final championship event, to be announced later.
Three dates still remain in this Street Fighter V qualifying series at Xtreme Gaming in Colchester!
Presented by ZOWIE and held at Xtreme Gaming in Colchester, England–it’s the Street Fighter V Extreme Series! Intended as a means to build the community and help discover some new talented fighters, these events are are open to all skill levels and are completely free to enter; the first qualifier on March 25 has already completed, leaving four all-expenses-paid spots remaining to fight for in the upcoming Paris finals.
Each event offers a prize pool of: £500 and a ZOWIE RL2460 esports monitor for first place, £250 for second, and £100 for third.
March 25, 2017 [top 2 advance to finals] – completed
The first event on March 25th saw Mousesports|Problem X take the top spot. The venue remains open for casual matches throughout the day for players to practice. The tournament sets are streamed at www.twitch.tv/banksesports. A word from organizer James Banks, of BanKs Esports:
The ZOWIE Fighter Extreme Series in the UK is about the players, all you have to do is ask the people that attended the first event, and we want to reach as many Street Fighter players as possible, not just due to the prize money and the opportunity to attend a European final event but to learn and grow. It was refreshing to see so many players speaking to the top players about their losses and learning, we want that balance of community, FGC event and top level play that we love to see and get hyped about!
Alongside the new stages, music tracks, and DLC characters, The King of Fighters XIV’s version 2.0 patch (available to download now!) brings with it a host of updates to the game and its balance.
The version 2.0 update features some changes to training and story modes, as well as a number of bug fixes all around. The bulk of the changes, however, are to the game’s characters, altering the overall balance. A big part of the balance update involves giving the characters individual health values–characters now have different health levels, instead of everyone having 1000 health like before. On the flipside, each character’s run speed after a Quick MAX activation is now the same. Each character also sees a number of significant changes to their move properties, in an effort to compress the game’s tier list; while the game isn’t badly balanced (and nowhere near as problematic as the previous KOF game), some characters have become conspicuous either by their prevalence at–or absence from–tournaments.
The whole change list itself is pretty extensive, clocking in a 25 pages long. Those interested in checking it out can do so here!
