FightClub Cup 2017 brought some the world’s best King of Fighters XIV competition to China, including the top four finishers from this year’s KOFXIV World Cup. Japanese Champion Sanwa|M’ attempted to defend his title against the likes of Xiaohai, GXBridget and Panda|Dakou.
The tournament was one of the first major showings for the game’s new balance patch, which arrived alongside four new DLC characters earlier this month. A total of 17 characters were used over the course of the finals, but Rock, Vanessa, Yamazaki, and Whip were not among them. Despite nerfs K’, Benimaru, and Mai continue to be popular at the highest level of play, and Iori continues to be a powerful anchor character for both Xiaohai and M’.
ET’s unconventional team of Billy/Clark/Benimaru is pushed to the brink in an intense grand finals set that goes to the last possible round. More footage from the earlier rounds of the tournament is also available on GatoRay’s Youtube Channel.
Source: GatoRay