Street Fighter players likely won’t need a guide to Pokkén Tournament DX‘s Duel Phase: its 2D footsie-centered action harkens back to Street Fighter IV (It even has Focus Attacks, in the shape of Pokkén’s Counter Attacks and “Counter Attack Dash Cancels”). But the 3D “Field Phase” will likely be completely unfamiliar, its fundamentals rooted in the arena fighter sub-genre.
Tournament pro BadIntent has been making some of the very best tech discoveries in Pokkén Tournament, so there’s few people more qualified to break down the meta of one of Pokkén’s most defining system mechanics. Covered here are Ranged Attacks, projectile priority, Homing Attacks, and some of the drawbacks of movelists within Field Phase.
The “shockingly” technical Pikachu in Super Smash Brothers Wii U has low representation in tournament play. But that doesn’t have to be the case: one of the very best Pikachus on the circuit is PG|ESAM, and he’s giving a master class on how the popular Pokémon plays.
This video covers Pikachu’s main combo tools, and is part 5 of a larger, year-long project of ESAM’s to define this electric type’s playstyle and meta. Not sure if Pikachu is right for you? ESAM also has an excellent match-up series breaking down how Pikachu fairs against the rest of the cast; check it out and see if this character covers some of your current main’s bad match-ups!
The loss of a limb or two is no reason to stop a good fight.
Flux Game Studio’s gory indie fighter GUTS (a.k.a.: Gory Ultimate Tournament Show) will be arriving on Steam soon; dismemberment is central to the basic gameplay mechanics of this blood-spraying comedy fighting game.
Check out the pre-launch trailer for GUTS below; it provides some story context for this ridiculous gorefest, as well as some details on the playable cast. (Contains some NSFW narration!)
GUTS has been pushed forward from its previously reported October 31 release date to November 15, 2017, still for $19.99 USD. In the meantime, you can still try the demo on its Steam page.
The battle for the stones intensifies — with the arrival of the King of Wakanda.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite‘s DLC character additions have certainly made an impact on the game; while Monster Hunter and Sigma grabbed most of the community’s attention first, we’re now seeing more of the trickier third newcomer, Black Panther. Here’s what has crossed our path so far.
Combo virtuoso desk — in between spending some time with SFV’s new addition Zeku — has completed this combo video featuring what the technical Black Panther brings into the fight; are these truly the toughest combos in the entire game?
Here’s Brian Kasugano’s take on Black Panther’s combo potential:
rooflemonger has prepared a Black Panther combo guide…
… And a closer look at his wall cling cancels!
rooflemonger also isn’t finished working with the “ungawaifu” Monster Hunter; check out these tips and tricks:
And here’s some for the nefarious Sigma:
Apolo Loussalier shows what Sigma can do in their own combo video:
HapkidoRed tries their hand at Sigma as well.
How about the base roster? Here are some Strider Hiryu combos:
cjbqulix sent in this collection of combos and mixups for Doctor Strange and Thanos, featuring the Time and Power stones:
Sigma joins forces with Thanos for some heavy combo damage:
Useless? Maybe, but looking cool is what Dante is all about:
The octagon-shaped stages of Tekken 7 are very kind to those seeking tech traps. By allowing juggles off a wall-splat to travel from wall to wall, these stages make it very easy to sidewalk to your opponent’s back. This exact situation is where the majority of the tech traps in the game can be found, and JinMasta has quite a few to show off.
JinMasta‘s latest video shows off this truth with (predictably) Jin Kazama. These tech traps do brutal amounts of damage, potentially killing off of a single guess. There’s a few tech traps that work with any wall stage, as well: check out the corpse jumps off of Jin’s unseeable sweep!
The Super Smash Bros. Melee scene has seen a drop in number of entrants at Super Major events over the course of the year. This is enough to make players concerned that Melee is on the way out; this is a point where Melee pro Alliance|Armada disagrees.
Citing the fact that smaller events are seeing growth, and solid netplay has emerged with various people streaming consistently, he views these as signs that the drop in numbers at Super Majors are not indicative of a dying scene. He remains optimistic that Melee will continue to be around, with quite possibly another surge in numbers soon.
Check out Armada’s recent thoughts on tech-chasing here.
Last year, I listed Victor “Punk” Woodley as a pick to make it to Capcom Cup 2017. While he hadn’t been on my radar until his amazing performance at Red Bull Battlegrounds, it was convincing enough to know that he was going to be a major threat this year.
Just as predicted, Woodley came out of the gate on the CPT strong — with a brief intermission to destroy the field at ELEAGUE for a six-figure payday. From the moment he started winning, no one has come close to taking over the #1 seed on the CPT leaderboard.
All of which begs the question: does the #1 seed spot guarantee Punk’s road to victory? Obviously not — Razer’s Infiltration held the #1 seed convincingly all of 2016, then lost two straight matches to start — and finish — his Capcom Cup run. But this is a different scenario with a completely different player.
The Alpha
Panda Global’s Punk will most definitely be sitting as the #1 seed in the bracket this year. This has almost been a foregone a conclusion for the entire year — even after Tokido’s win at Evolution 2017, he only has two-thirds the amount of points that Punk has. This is just indicative of how solidly his self-stated alpha status has been established.
If you’re looking for a tutorial of how to play Karin optimally, a look at literally any match Punk has played this year is a prime example. His spacing is incredible. He was one of the first players to truly debunk the myth that whiff punishing wasn’t possible within Street Fighter V. He uses this to establish a superior footsie game over his opponents, then sets up an incredibly well-spaced pressure game to keep them from having a chance to establish their own.
There is hardly anybody on the circuit right now who can do this better — with any character, not just Karin. And with it, the victories have come thick and fast. He has won six CPT events, three of them Premier events. There’s no one that comes even remotely close to that level of success, bar none.
To top that off, he won the inaugural ELEAGUE invitational, netting himself a cool $150,000 and plenty of notoriety on top of that. He looked poised to absolutely decimate the field at Evo and beyond. But then…
The Beta
Evo 2017 was one of the worst — yet best — results Woodley could’ve ever anticipated. In his first foray into the event, he made it to Grand Finals convincingly. Then he found himself finishing in second place to two enemies he never anticipated having to watch out for.
The first was the very obvious adaptive prowess of veteran Echo Fox|Tokido. After playing a series of casuals with him, as well as falling to him just outside of top 8 in winners side, Tokido found every single exploitable hole, proving there were still bugs in the program that is Punk. This was not only a testament to Tokido’s experience — as mushin_Z discussed in his editorial on the Grand Finals — but Punk’s inexperience.
In his own words, he felt like the prize money attached to his ELEAGUE win was far less important than the prestige of being declared Evo champion. While so much of Tokido’s win can be attributed to Tokido himself, you must also factor in the pressure that rode on Woodley’s young shoulders.
He was considered the biggest opportunity America had to win an Evo Street Fighter title since Evo was still known as Battle by the Bay. While the weight of a nation’s pressure to perform can ride on you, certainly the most pressure was put there by himself. Despite the fact that he had won so much over the year, it was a pittance compared to Evo in his mind. He felt unproven until he had an Evo title. The moment it was within his grasp, a taunt combo started to give him glimpses of it slipping from his fingers. You could see it from his reactions immediately following the event; the usually confident Punk had been reduced to an inconsolable mess.
The Rebound
The real test began after Evo. How would Punk deal with the agony of the biggest defeat of his career? The test results are currently inconclusive, to be frank.
He started out winning DreamHack Atlanta to an admittedly weaker field, but then fell to Idom at Defend the North. He decimated a field at East Coast Throwdown that featured Alienware’s Nemo, but then fell shy of a title of Brooklyn Beatdown thanks to losses to Momochi and JB. To top it off, at SCR — an even weaker field than Brooklyn Beatdown — he failed to make top 8, losing to MenaRD and Alex Myers. Only one of these guys currently have their ticket punched to Capcom Cup. For someone who wants to shake off the loss at Evo by winning Capcom Cup, this is a bad time to be shaky.
Head of the Pack
One of the biggest things that Punk has to deal with, outside of his own mental state, is how dominant he has been all year. This is the same thing Infiltration had to worry about over last year. When you’re on top, it’s hard to stay there. When you have players like Nemo calling you the best player in the world at Next Level, you know that — Evo title or no — you have a massive target on your head.
As such, the whole world of top players are dissecting exactly how Punk plays. And there’s a large swath of them that has started to figure it out. Punk surely knows this, but it hasn’t stopped some of the bleeding that are causing the sharks to circle.
Adjustment Phase
Punk, however, is clearly flexible in his approach to the game. He already showed glimpses of this in the summer. At CEO, he cost himself a title by playing Karin all the way against Snake Eyez, who completely countered everything Punk tried to do. By Evo, he had retrained his Nash, which gave him a major zoning advantage against Itabashi Zangief in the top 8.
He has further shown this by starting to train up another character. We have now started to see Punk bust out Cammy in various circumstances in tournaments. Moreover, his Karin is still a problem that many people have yet to solve. Surely if his loss to Snake Eyez prompted him to make changes, his loss to Tokido did much more prompting. We’ve started to see glimpses of more tech coming out of him.
Final Thoughts
These last handful of tournaments prior to Capcom Cup are crucial for Punk’s confidence going into the event. Circuits like these typically reward those who are streaking. He isn’t.
There also is still the looming question of whether he can handle pressure at the highest level. He’s young, and clearly has a lot to learn about to handle the swings that can come with competition. It’ll certainly be a miracle if he was able to learn it within the four and a half months between Evo and Capcom Cup.
This will be another test of his mental durability. Has he worked on the emotional components that caused him to falter at Evo? That’s the ultimate question that needs to be answered.
He still is easily one of my favorites to win, and I definitely don’t see a timeline where he doesn’t make top 8. He has the characters, the skills, and the mind games to make it happen. But then, we said that about Infiltration last year. What will decide his placement will be whether he has worked on the emotional aspects of his game, as much as the technical.
Online will never be a perfect substitute for offline play, but it’s also foolish to ignore the long history of “online warriors” that have transitioned their grind to offline results. Since online has been proven to be an effective learning tool across many games, FrameWhisperer Tekken has developed a lesson plan for you to try out — if offline is your only option for regular Tekken play.
This video goes through the ranking system of Tekken 7 and breaks down the general habits and weaknesses of players at each rank grouping. If you’ve found yourself stuck at a rank and wondered what you needed to work on to move forward, FrameWhisperer‘s guide will give you the help you need.
Even for longtime fans of the Tekken games, trying to understand the origins of the series’ infamous Devil Gene can be a difficult task. Once thought to be the result of a deal with the devil, and later edited to be an inherited burden spanning generations, the demonic trait has been a centerpiece of the Tekken story — but is still one of its most mysterious topics.
Hopefully, History Behind the Warrior’s video on the Devil Gene can help clear the air on what it is, what it’s been, and what we still don’t know. You can check it out below — and if you’re feeling festive, you can check out their video on Tekken and Darkstalkers’ most spooky combatants.
Evo 2017 was one of the worst — yet best — results Woodley could’ve ever anticipated. In his first foray into the event, he made it to Grand Finals convincingly. Then he found himself finishing in second place to two enemies he never anticipated having to watch out for.