People within the Tekken community were caught a bit off guard by the emergence of Tanukana last year. The Xiaoyu player soon became well-known for her play, and began to be recognized not for her gender, but for simply being a solid player.
However, she is not the official first lady of Tekken in Japan yet — as there was one woman who blazed the trails before her. Yuyu has long been considered the best female player in Japan, and was sidelined for a couple years due to marriage and pregnancy. Once she returned, she played Tanukana in her hometown of Kobe, and claims to have never lost to Tanukana in tournament or casuals.
Now, the two will square off for the world to see at Kemonomichi 2, the second of Daigo Umehara’s showmatch events, on March 10th!
Meanwhile, it’s also been revealed that Ito will be at Kemonomichi 2 to take on Kotaka Shoten in Super Street Fighter II Turbo!
Shoryuken is pleased to present our new video series: 5-Minute Focus!
Frabisaur here — you may already know me from my YouTube series The Fighter’s Dojo. In each episode of this new series on SRK, I’m providing a detailed 5-minute look at specific aspects of fighting games, to help you level up your game in some capacity.
In this first episode, I cover tools and exercises you can use to polish your skills in three areas: anti-airs, hit confirms, and punishes. In each exercise I’ll walk you through how to set up the training dummy to replicate in-game or reaction-based scenarios so that you can train more effectively, rather than just rinse-and-repeat scenarios. The main reason people aren’t getting their times’ worth in the training room is because the scenarios they’re practicing are known or predictable, preventing you from developing in-game reactions to oncoming scenarios. Utilizing these training mode options and exercises you will make your time in the lab more effective!
Subscribe to ShoryukenTube for more videos from Frabisaur in our 5-Minute Focus series! For more Street Fighter V tech, have a look at Rising Up from Bafael. And make sure to check out Frabisaur’s original fighting game instructional series — providing helpful advice for beginners, to advanced players — The Fighter’s Dojo!
It’s that time of year again, world warriors. Following the reveal of the first two Premier events on this year’s Capcom Pro Tour, Capcom have published the full details on this year’s circuit, complete with information on its revised point structure and Regional Final setup.
As with last year, the reigning Capcom Cup champion will gain an automatic place in the circuit finals — meaning MenaRD has already secured his spot in the final 32. He’ll still need to compete in the Pro Tour though, in order to get decent seeding for the main event. There will also be a Last Chance Qualifier at Capcom Cup 2018, due to its overwhelming popularity at last year’s event. This means that no matter your region or your Ranking points, you’ve still got a shot to make it into Capcom Cup by winning this qualifier.
The overall points structure remains the same, with players rising up the CPT leaderboard by placing at Ranking or Premier events. The majority of the Capcom Cup 2018 bracket will be based on points total, with four players autoqualifying via their area’s Regional Finals. The main change has been to point values, with Premier events giving out the most points while Ranking events awarding significantly less — so get ready to rack up those frequent flyer miles.
Regional Finals are now split into two sections: the Regional Open Premier tournament and the Regional Top 8. The Open Premier is open to anyone, with players from any region being able to earn points for the Global leaderboard. The Regional Top 8 however is restricted to players from that region, with the seeding for that event being based on the area’s Regional leaderboard. The winner of the Regional Top 8 will earn the auto-qualifier spot for Capcom Cup, meaning that out-of-region players cannot snipe spots from local competitors.
Now here’s the bit you’ve all been waiting for: the Capcom Pro Tour schedule. This year’s circuit will have 14 Global Premier events alongside Evo, as well as various offline and online Ranking events.
GLOBAL PREMIER EVENTS
FINAL ROUND 20 – Atlanta, GA, March 16-18
NORCAL REGIONALS 2018 – Sacramento, CA, March 30 – April 1
STUNFEST 2018 – Rennes, France, May 18-20
COMBO BREAKER 2018 – Chicago, IL, May 25-27
TW FIGHTER MAJOR – Taipei, Taiwan, June 16-17
COMMUNITY EFFORT ORLANDO 2018 – Orlando, FL, June 29 – July 1
VSFIGHTING 2018 – Birmingham, UK, July 20-22
ESPORTS FESTIVAL HONG KONG – Hong Kong, August 25-26
CHINA PREMIER EVENT – China, September 1-2
DREAMHACK MONTREAL – Montreal, Canada, September 7-9
SOCAL REGIONALS 2018 – Los Angeles, CA, September
JAPAN PREMIER at TOKYO GAME SHOW – Tokyo, Japan, September
EGX – EU REGIONAL FINAL – Birmingham, UK, September 20-23
SEAM 2018 – ASIA REGIONAL FINAL – Singapore, October 13-14
CANADA CUP 2018 – Toronto, Canada, October 26-28
RED BULL NA REGIONAL FINAL – November
LATAM REGIONAL FINAL – Brazil, November 2-4
CAPCOM CUP 2018 – TBD
NORTH AMERICA RANKING EVENTS
TEXAS SHOWDOWN – Houston, TX, May 4-6
TORYUKEN – Toronto, Canada, May 19-20
DREAMHACK AUSTIN – Austin, TX, June 1-3
NORTH WEST MAJORS – Des Moines, WA, June 22-24
DEFEND THE NORTH – White Plains, NY, July 20-22
SUMMER JAM – Philadelphia, PA, August 31 – September 2
EAST COAST THROWDOWN – New Jersey, October 20-21
ASIA RANKING EVENTS
THAIGER UPPERCUT – Bangkok, Thailand, March 24-25
FIGHTER’S SPIRIT – Seoul, Korea, April 14-15
SAIGON CUP – Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, April 21-22
BATTLE ARENA MELBOURNE – Melbourne, Australia, May 16-18
ABUGET CUP – Jakarta, Indonesia, July 7-8
FV CUP 2018 – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, July 14-15
EUROPE RANKING EVENTS
BRUSSELS CHALLENGE – Brussels, Belgium, April 7-8
SONIC BOOM – Madrid, Spain, July 7-8
HEADSTOMPER – Denmark, July 28-29
FIGHT NIGHT NRW – Cologne, Germany, August 11-12
CELTIC THROWDOWN – Dublin, Ireland, August 25-26
ULTIMATE FIGHTING ARENA – Lyon, France, August 31 – September 2
STREET GRAND BATTLE – France, September 7-9
LATIN AMERICA RANKING EVENTS
GAME OVER – Dominican Republic, April 28-29
THE FIGHT – Columbia, June 8-10
FIGHT IN RIO – Rio, Brazil, July 21-22
FURIA TICA 2018 – Costa Rica, August 11
LIMA SALTY – Peru, August 26-27
FIRST ATTACK – Puerto Rico, September 1-2
TRETA – Curitiba, Brazil, September
NEVER GIVE UP – Chile, September 22-23
FIGHTING FEST – Dominican Republic, September 29-30
THUNDERSTRUCK – Mexico, October 6-7
BUENOS AIRES TRUE SALT – Argentina, October 13-14
JAM NERD FESTIVAL – Chile, October 19-21
This is only a preliminary schedule, so expect more Ranking and Online Ranking Events to join this list in the future, along each region’s respective Regional Finals. For all the details about this year’s Capcom Pro Tour, head on over to the official CPT site.
Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition brought with it plenty of new additions for us to analyze and play around with. Some of them have been very useful for everyone, but some have major flaws which has immediately and universally found them discarded on the competitive scene.
With the new V-Triggers — much like the Ultra IIs introduced in Super Street Fighter IV — some have found uses, while others have been found to be significantly weaker. In this video, VesperArcade chronicles three of the worst, being Zeku, Ken and Juri’s V-Triggers IIs, and suggests what Capcom could do to make them useful.
It’s been quite the newsworthy week for the upcoming BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle. We’ve recently learned the game’s pricing for both Japan and America, we saw our first gameplay demonstration of Team RWBY’s Blake Belladonna and BlazBlue’s Platinum The Trinity, Under Night In-Birth’s Orie Bellardiae and Persona 4 Arena’s Kanji Tatsumi were revealed as the first three paid DLC characters in Cross Character Pack 1. Now we have a newly-released six minutes and 20 seconds of gameplay, courtesy of GameSpot gameplay.
In the first match, we see the fates of a pair of physically-transformed grapplers and scythe-wielders intersect, as Iron Tager and Waldstein battle Gordeau and Ruby Rose. We also get to see Weiss Schnee and Nu-13 unite to take on Ragna The Bloodedge and Linne, and finally Yukiko Amagi and Jin Kisaragi go to war with Hyde Kido and Chie Satonaka.
Two important takeaways from this footage concerning the Persona 4 Arena characters are that hitting a Persona now inflicts damage to the owner, in addition to clearing them from the screen — an interesting way to balance these attacks considering the Persona Card and Break systems form their original games have been removed in BBTAG. Lastly, Yukiko fans will be happy to know that she has now regained heir signature Fire Counter, which improves the potency of all her fire-based skills as it’s increased from Levels 0 to 8 through the usage of her Fire Boost special, and its EX variant, Fire Amp. Given that Yu, Yosuke and Chie also posses some of their new attacks from Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Yukiko will likely still unlock her Phoenix Flame Swirl Skill once she hits Level 6 or higher.
BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle will be released for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC in Japan and Asia on Thursday, May 31st, with a North American release for the same platforms following on Tuesday, June 5th. BBTAG will also be one of the eight main stage games at Evo 2018 this August.
“Street Fighter Carnival X” is Mikado Arcade’s currently-ongoing multi-game tournament series for a wide variety of classic (and sometimes, obscure) arcade titles. To see the beginning of these high level Japanese tournaments, go here!
Arguably one of the most beloved fighters in the SNK catalog, Samurai Shodown 2 is a highly competitive and consistently run game at Mikado Arcade. Light on combos and heavy on smart poking, SS2 is a treat for anyone craving some simple and solid footsies. Virtually every tier is represented in this tournament, showing the full range of high level play for this game.
If you’d like to know more about the game, be sure to check out the SRK wiki entry for character info, discord links and more!
You can follow the action of SFCX by subscribing to Mikado’s official YouTube channel. For the night owls in the US, you can even try to catch them when they livestream.
First it was Balrog, then it was Laura and now it’s Abigail. Ever since Street Fighter V‘s second season, there has been a character that has quickly become public enemy number one among the competitive scene. With his Arcade Edition buffs increasing his already high damage and expanding his combo potential, the Canadian motor-head is causing no end of strife both in-game and on social media.
Seeing as Abigail complaints have become so ubiquitous, VesperArcade has decided to delve into the changes he received in Arcade Edition to explain why he is as powerful as he is. It mainly comes down to his plethora of tools, which allow him to deal with almost any situation. Whereas other grappler/big body characters struggle with range or projectiles, Abigail’s huge attack range, armored attacks and oki potential means that once he gets in, the opponent is already dead.
While Super Smash Bros. for Wii U still pulls in respectable numbers in the competitive scene, there are signs that the scene for the game is starting to stagnate. Spectator numbers are starting to dwindle, with Frostbite this year garnering half the viewers on Twitch for the game as they did last year.
This leads ZeRo to ask whether the game is dying. When coupled with the above factors, the lack of sales for the Wii U, and the lack of patches in recent history, these are ingredients for a game that ZeRo postulates to be in a dire situation. While esports organizations are still investing in the scene and attendance numbers are still high, the Smash 4 community needs to examine how they can keep the attention of those who are still actively competing.
David Spence’s tapes are back, and we are about to see something from the annals of Evo history. Before the tournament series known as Evo came to fruition, its founders were running the Battle by the Bay series in California.
Footage from these tournaments have rarely materialized, but this time we get to see top level play of Super Street Fighter II Turbo at B5 in 2001. Featured in this tape is play from the likes of AfroCole, John Choi, and Alex Valle, who made top three respectively.
How do you grow a local scene? What do you do when there’s no one in your city to play? How do you run a tournament when you’ve never run one before?
These are all questions that with Jay ‘MrUSuk’ Gary had to find answers for on the fly. Now that he’s the tournament organizer of the rapidly growing Michigan Masters major and of the already successful — and chaotic — Youmacon, he’s here on the ‘FGC Philosophy’ podcast to share what it takes to stay sane while starting a scene.
