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The Melee Games’ Intercollegiate Crew Battles Return This Spring

Although they only just completed their Fall 2015 at Genesis 3, The Melee Games’ are ready to pick back up in the spring for another season of Super Smash Bros. Melee competition.

The Melee Games, an series of intercollegiate crew battles, first began back in 2014. “I wanted to keep the new players coming, I wanted to introduce them to each other, and I wanted to bring some camaraderie and school pride into it,” organizer Matthew “MattDotZeb” Zaborowski explained to SSBM Tutorials. “I figured crew battles were the best way to do that. From there, we just kept adding things on.”

Like anything Smash related, the community immediately latched on, and Fall 2015 saw 179 schools from 25 states participate. After deciding the best teams of each region, division, and then conference, the Genesis 3 finals crowned their champion: the University of California Irvine, who defeated Georgia Tech in a nailbiter.

For their fifth outing, The Melee Games will be returning to state-level play, forgoing a national championship ahead of the dual Fall 2016-Spring 2017 season. But that doesn’t mean the competition will be any less intense!

If you’re interested in participating, be sure to visit Smash.gg to look up your college’s team or, if there isn’t one already, establish a squad of your own. Registration ends on February 14.

Sources: SSBM Tutorials, ShowdownGG, Smash.gg

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ZeRo Shares Five Steps to Improve Your Smash Game

Team SoloMid’s Gonzalo “ZeRo” Barrios recently released a video offering insights into how players of any Smash title–and any fighting game in general, really–can step up their game and maybe start their own massive string of tournament victories.

His advice comes in five parts. First, he suggests that picking a main character as the most important step to improving, which makes sense; it’s hard to get better at any game if the tools you’re given to approach a match change every time you hit the character select screen. He then drives home the gravity of arming yourself with information and having the proper mindset when going into a match.

Of course, practice–and, specifically, knowing what to practice–makes a major appearance in this video, as does encouragement to get out there and participate in tournaments. Overall, if you’re new to the Smash series, you’ll want to check out this footage.

Source: ZeRo via Moom

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Winter Clash to Highlight High-Level Competition in Puerto Rico This Weekend

With the 2016 tournament season well underway, we’re seeing multiple events all over the world nearly every week. Adding themselves to the growing list of events, the folks at First Attack Puerto Rico have dropped a promo trailer for their upcoming Winter Clash tournament to hype up the event for viewers and attendees alike.

The tournament will include brackets for Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- and plenty more titles. Additionally, this will be the last Puerto Rico-based Ultra Street Fighter IV tournament prior to the release of Street Fighter V, so everyone will likely be looking to go down as the last regional victor in the title before it steps aside for Street Fighter V.

Apart from regional players, you can also expect some great play from visiting competitors like Evil Geniuses’ Justin Wong and D-Link’s Steve “LordKnight” Barthelemy.

Winter Clash is set to take place this weekend, February 6-7, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. For more information, head over to the official site. All the action will be broadcast live through Twitch.

Source: EsportsPR, tip via MonoPR

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Gigantic: Motiga Lifts the NDA on the Closed Beta

Beginning today, Gigantic closed beta testers can begin to write, speak about and stream their experiences with the game during the ongoing 24/7 closed beta test. Gigantic Beta 2.0 has just been introduced that brings the Crew (party) system on board, cross platform play between Win10 and XBox One players and the new progression system with its in-game currencies and account-wide benefits are also included.

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Viscant Examines Character Strengths, Weaknesses in Street Fighter V

BROKENTIER’s Jay “Viscant” Snyder recently started a brand new article series to help both aspiring and veteran players “Hit the Ground Running” when Street Fighter V launches later this month.

While the first installment touched on the general experience of adapting to the new game, the second is focused entirely on the characters, specifically the first eight to be announced: Ryu, Chun-Li, Nash, M. Bison, Cammy, Birdie, Ken, and Necalli. He covers both the changes that each character received over the many beta builds and their game plans based on these adjustments.

Take Ryu, for example. Viscant discusses how the iconic wandering warrior has received several nerfs with each successive beta build, mostly to his combo paths, due to how hard he could hit early on. He also makes the point that it seems as if Capcom doesn’t want him to have reliable setups that lead into an unblockable Denjin Hadouken critical art, something he was capable of in previous builds.

On the opposite end, Viscant highlights how Chun-Li hasn’t really changed much, indicating that Capcom is likely satisfied with how she plays. She’s one of the few characters in the game who can convert to big damage off a light, making her a rather strong character overall.

For more of Viscant’s thoughts on Street Fighter V, be sure to head on over to BROKENTIER by following the link below.

Source: BROKENTIER