Category: News

Avyd has announced their plans to host a massive fighting game event with $100,000 on the line. This tournament is scheduled for sometime later this year, and will feature competition in Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat X, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Killer Instinct.

Wait, you’ve never heard of Avyd? Well, neither did many members of the fighting game community until today. Looking through their official website nets little information apart from the announcement of the aforementioned tournament and another discussing a “significant round of seed funding” that led to their establishment. “Our focus will be on uniting and growing all elements of the eSports ecosystem,” the press release explains. “To push eSports into the mass market it needs a company that has the ability to unite all communities across multiple games and platforms.” Avyd believes they are that company, and is prepared to meet that lofty goal with a staff of full-time employees.

While our scene has witnessed many investors (and “investors”) come and go, Avyd has apparently reached out to a number of notable tournament organizers to offer support. Before their championship event goes down this winter, established competitions like NorCal Regionals, Combo Breaker, Community Effort Orlando, The Big House, and SoCal Regionals will act as qualifiers with direct support from Avyd themselves. The full schedule also includes online qualifiers, with more details to follow.

So, what exactly can we make of this? Very little, unfortunately. Due to its relative youth, the competitive gaming community at large is full of charlatans peddling investment opportunities and a bright future to anyone who will listen. The support Avyd is giving to and receiving from a number of trusted tournament organizers is definitely a good sign, but history and a natural pessimism keeps us from being too optimistic about this news. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.

Source: Avyd

Avyd has announced their plans to host a massive fighting game event with $100,000 on the line. This tournament is scheduled for sometime later this year, and will feature competition in Street Fighter V, Mortal Kombat X, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, and Killer Instinct.

Wait, you’ve never heard of Avyd? Well, neither did many members of the fighting game community until today. Looking through their official website nets little information apart from the announcement of the aforementioned tournament and another discussing a “significant round of seed funding” that led to their establishment. “Our focus will be on uniting and growing all elements of the eSports ecosystem,” the press release explains. “To push eSports into the mass market it needs a company that has the ability to unite all communities across multiple games and platforms.” Avyd believes they are that company, and is prepared to meet that lofty goal with a staff of full-time employees.

While our scene has witnessed many investors (and “investors”) come and go, Avyd has apparently reached out to a number of notable tournament organizers to offer support. Before their championship event goes down this winter, established competitions like NorCal Regionals, Combo Breaker, Community Effort Orlando, The Big House, and SoCal Regionals will act as qualifiers with direct support from Avyd themselves. The full schedule also includes online qualifiers, with more details to follow.

So, what exactly can we make of this? Very little, unfortunately. Due to its relative youth, the competitive gaming community at large is full of charlatans peddling investment opportunities and a bright future to anyone who will listen. The support Avyd is giving to and receiving from a number of trusted tournament organizers is definitely a good sign, but history and a natural pessimism keeps us from being too optimistic about this news. Feel free to let us know what you think in the comments.

Source: Avyd

After incredibly hype showings at Cannes Winter Clash and Final Round, the Capcom Pro Tour is ready to set up shop in Sacramento, California this weekend for NorCal Regionals 2016. As the second premier event in as many weeks, this community staple will provide Capcom Cup with another outright qualifier, joining Final Round champion Seon-woo “Infiltration” Lee of Razer in the prestigious year-end event.

With so much on the line, a number of notable faces will be in attendance. Apart from local heroes Pandora House, made up of players like Long “LPN” Nguyen, Nando Tovar, and Hooman “HooDaMan” Ghahremani, competitors from all over the world are set to descend on the United States’ west coast for this high-stakes Street Fighter V tournament. These include Mad Catz’ Hajime “Tokido” Taniguchi; Evil Geniuses’ Momochi, Chocoblanka, Justin Wong, Ricki Ortiz, and PR Balrog; QANBA’s Xiaohai and Dakou; Majestic’s Tatsuya Haitani; GODSGARDEN’s Kazunoko; and Infiltration’s Razer teammate Kun Xian Ho.

A full breakdown of each pool’s noteworthy players can be found below.

You may have noticed the absence of a sixteenth pool. That’s because NorCal Regionals has decided to buck tradition this year by placing every late registrant in their own pool, forcing those who choose to throw their hat into the ring at the door to face a group of their peers to qualify. Did this rule ensure early registration, or will this latecomers pool result in a massive group of killers vying for only two spots in the next round?

Lead organizer John Choi said the pool could reach more than 100 players during an interview with Best of III, and The Daily Dot reports that r/Kappa’s Chung-gon “Poongko” Lee and Panda Global’s Ryan “Filipino Champ” Ramirez will both be trying their luck in the dreaded sixteenth pool. Keep your eyes on this group for what could be the fiercest competition of the early rounds.

Due to its early spot on the Capcom Pro Tour, it’s unlikely any Capcom Cup hopes will be completely dashed at NorCal Regionals, but top performers do have the opportunity to cement their lead on the rankings board or even jump forward more than a few spots.

As of now, the standings are being led by Infiltration (who, you may remember, has already qualified) with 256 points, followed by Cannes Winter Clash champion Nathan “Mister Crimson” Massol and Tokido, both of whom have earned 128 for their efforts. While the next highest, Mad Catz’ Kenryo “Mago” Hayashi and BX3’s Arman “Phenom” Hanjani, won’t be in attendance, the players below them most certainly will be. Be on the look out for Haitani, Brentt “brenttiscool” Franks, Nando, and Ryan “gootecks” Gutierrez as they try to surge ahead.

Despite not having Final Round’s player count, NorCal Regionals makes up for that with a rather dense field of competitors. Cash, ranking points, and (most importantly) an automatic spot at Capcom Cup are up for grabs, and there’s no telling which way the wind will blow when the tournament gets under way. Don’t miss out!

NorCal Regionals 2016 is scheduled for March 25-27. More details can be found here.

For those who have been clamoring for more details on Street Fighter V’s next update, your wait is almost over. According to new details provided by Neidel “Haunts” Crisan on Capcom-Unity, the update will be coming in two parts next week.

Part one of the update will launch Monday, March 28, adding Challenge Mode, the online rematch option for 2/3 sets in Ranked and Casual Match, an increase in Battle Lounge maximum lobby size from two to eight, and the previously announced gameplay tuning and bug fixes.

Part two, set for release on Wednesday, March 30, will introduce the game’s first downloadable character, Alex, along with his story mode episode and an early version of the in-game shop. At launch, the shop will only support use of the in-game Fight Money currency. Zenny, which is purchased with real-world money, will be launched at a later date. Alex and all subsequent additions to the cast will be available via free trial for all players until that option becomes available.

Furthermore, season pass owners will get exclusive access to upcoming characters’ premium costumes until the launch of the Zenny shop, as well as a new stage that’s set to drop in the near future.

As a thank you, Capcom will also be making Ryu and Chun-Li’s story mode costumes available for free on March 30.

For more details on these updates, head on over to Capcom-Unity.

With Capcom Pro Tour 2016 well underway, the community will see a number of premier and ranking events go down in the coming months. One of these is none other than Texas Showdown, which returns next month with a fair share of ranking points in contention.

Aside from the Street Fighter V ranking tournament, this year’s installment of the premier Texas destination will also run tournaments for Mortal Kombat X, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-, Ultra Street Fighter IV, Killer Instinct, and more.

Texas Showdown 2016 is scheduled for April 22-23 in Houston, Texas. Online registration will be open until April 10. More details can be found by following the link below.

Source: Texas Showdown

Abare. Okizeme. The Shimmy. Beyond execution, matchups, and a number of other important bits of information, newcomers to the fighting genre are tasked with picking up these terms in order to effectively communicate within the community while assisting their own growth in their game of choice. One such entry from the admittedly large fighting game lexicon is “option select.” To give newcomers a (very close) look at what an option select is, as well as to dismantle some common misconceptions tied to the techniques, BROKENTIER’s Jay “Viscant” Snyder has dedicated this week’s entry in his “Hit the Ground Running” series to them.

Aside from offering insights into specific option selects, ranging from simple cancel window abuse to advanced mechanics like the fuzzy jump, Viscant makes two main points in this post. First–and this is aimed more at those less familiar with the mechanic–the game doesn’t always pick the best option for every situation. The most well-crafted option selects will be able to find ways around more situations than the poorly-crafted ones, but even the best ones have counter play.

Second, option selects as a whole probably won’t be going anywhere. Yes, Capcom could make more restrictive inputs, or implement other systems along the lines of what they’re doing with regard to the crouch-tech-like option select we’ve been seeing in some form or another since very early builds, but, as Viscant notes, “[t]his may seem fine, even preferable to the advanced player but for beginning level players this would make the game a lot more frustrating.”

As such, handling option selects becomes a weird battle for the folks at Capcom, perhaps one of picking a crowd to cater to. When looking to expand the influence of your everyday street fight, or to make street fights an everyday part of more lives in the first place, smart money is on keeping inputs that are a little more user-friendly, even if it does mean a proliferation of such unsavory tactics. And even if Capcom truly brandished their torches and pitchforks en masse and drove our current compendium of option selects to the hills, let’s face it: the fighting game community is full of lab monsters. Option selects would still find a way.

Viscant leaves us with a note that he plans his next post to be about the ever popular wakeup jab, so you can look forward to that next week. If you’d like to see this week’s post in full, you can do so at the link below.

Source: BROKENTIER

Much like they’ve done with previous character, Ultra-Combo recently released a breakdown of the Arbiter’s vast wardrobe in Killer Instinct. This time around, however, they’ve asked Jeff Easterling of 343 Industries to shine a light on their influences, making for some rather extensive lore mining in the process.

As you can see below, the rich history of the Arbiter’s culture makes for a varied assortment of looks for the guest character, from his default Kaidon (or “clan leader”) set to the retro armor he first donned (along with the Arbiter mantle itself) in Halo 2.

Click to view slideshow.
Click to view slideshow.

Killer Instinct Season 3 launches on March 29. For more background on the significance of these outfits and a preview of the various accessories that will be available, follow the link below.

Source: Ultra-Combo

Over the past few months, Microsoft has been working towards cultivating a catalog of Xbox 360 games that are compatible on Xbox One. Skullgirls and Soulcalibur were added earlier this year, and now Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has joined its genre siblings in the growing list.

As the first Tekken installment in four years when it launched in 2012, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 shouldered a ton of responsibility. Its whirldwind tour through the fighting game community featured stops at majors across the world, including two impressive showings at the Evolution Championship Series.

A full list of backwards compatible games can be found here, and Microsoft is still looking for feedback from fans on which titles should be added to the catalog on their official forums.

Source: Major Nelson via TekkenGamer.com

A couple months back, SPLITFRAME announced a limited edition Ryu themed version of the FS Transporter arcade stick bag. Now, they’re following that up with another limited edition bag, this time based on their larger FS Transporter XL.

Conceived as an “evil” counterpart to the “good” that is their previous item, SPLITFRAME’s Street Fighter Shadaloo Psycho FS Transporter XL arcade stick bag features custom embroidered Shadaloo markings both outside and inside. Similar to the original model, this new bag can hold larger premium arcade sticks, including HORI’s Real Arcade PRO VLX and larger, custom builds like those based on the Jasen’s Customs Panzer Fight Stick 2.0.

This limited edition Street Fighter Shadaloo Psycho FS Transporter XL will retail for $119.98, but those who pre-order can do so at a reduced price of $104.98. Shipping is expected to commence on June 1.

Click to view slideshow.

Source: SPLITFRAME

Cyber Jacqui Briggs and Undercover Cassie Cage recently made their way onto both the console and mobile versions of Mortal Kombat X. The good news is that these skins are free, but, just like Farmer Jax and Ninja Mime Johnny Cage before them, earning these new skins requires the use of the Mortal Kombat X mobile app.

The folks at NetherRealm Studios recently revealed the methods for unlocking the skins on each platform. To unlock the mobile versions of the skins, players must perform three of the game’s newest stage fatalities with Cassie Cage against Jacqui Briggs; to unlock the console version, players must fire up the mobile version of Mortal Kombat X and complete three MP ladders with any Cassie Cage or Jacqui Briggs on their team.

This may not be a popular means for costume acquisition, but it sure beats Street Fighter V’s survival mode. Maybe.

Source: NetherRealm Studios