By: Eduardo Preciado
Sunday is usually set aside for football. With the
football season over and very little to replace it, I find myself roaming
through my RSS feed searching for deals or anything that could catch my
interest. I ended up seeing a video that caught my eye and set the tone for my
Sunday in a very interesting way.
On shoryuken.com, I saw a story titled, “Kusoru’s
Anti-Phoenix Strategies From Final Round XV,” which had a video that I thought
would be interesting. Though I know few people play with Phoenix online, it’s
always good to be well rounded. It was the Final Round with Complexity
CrossCounter Filipino Champ (Magneto/Doctor Doom/Phoenix) against Final
RoundBats AgeoJoe (Viewtiful Joe/Frank West/Rocket Raccoon).
To sum up, here are a few things that make this video
special.
AgeoJoe – considered the best Japanese Ultimate Marvel vs
Capcom 3 player with an extremely awkward team. Viewtiful Joe: a good tier
character. Frank West – only after being “leveled up” to level 4 is he
considered an S tier character, if not he is sub-par. And the wild card, Rocket
Raccoon: not many players use him on their team, especially at the most
important position {the anchor}. Col. cc Filipino Champ on the other hand
played with a great battery/lead position using Magneto. Doctor Doom is among
the best and most dangerous thanks to his foot dive loops. And though Phoenix
was nerfed from her ‘Vanilla’ version, she still is a threat with level 3
X-Factor and 5 Bars. (This gives her the ability to transform into Dark
Phoenix)
Right off the bat it looks as if this match favors Champ
after he quickly took out Viewtiful Joe, however AgeoJoe impressively
manhandles the Master of Magnetism with level 1 Frank West. This is no simple
feat. Doom would have almost had a game changing combo had it not been for the
fact that Champ missed his combo because of Raccoons’ minuscule size. Champ
lost to DD for his dropped combo and then Frank West was brought in to take on
Phoenix. The turning point of the match occurred after Champ did a down High
into a trap left by Raccoon. Frank West finished Phoenix with a Blue Light
Special and right when Dark Phoenix rose, AgeoJoe X-Factors with Frank West,
then barrel rolled under Phoenix to avoid the explosion since the roll has
invincibility into Funny Face Crusher. “Simply amazing” is all that can be
said. It was so shocking. Fast Forward to the end of the second match, Raccoon
vs. Phoenix, both still having X-Factor. Raccoon called it first and when he
activated Dark Phoenix he droped the Mad Hopper hyper. Champ trieed to avoid it
but eventually teleported with Phoenix behind Raccoon and is hit crouching Low.
He hit the trap which launched Phoenix. AgeoJoe then went into the Rock ‘n’
Roll hyper to win the match.
I immediately signed into twitch.tv and looked for the
Road to EVO stream. I grabed the HDMI cabl from behind my monitor and plugged
it into my TV. I grabbed some Chinese Food, Dr. Pepper, and my cell phone. For
the next couple of hours I listened to the likes of Ultra David, Justin Wong,
James Chen, and Skisonic. I watched as guys like OMG itz Andre, FC Jago, UVG
Noel Brown, Knives got eliminated in the Top 16. Just as surprising were some
of the guys that ended in the Losers Bracket in this Round Robin style
tournament such as Neo, Filipino Champ, PR Balrog and FC NYChrisG. The very
impressive matches were definitely in the winners and losers finals.
In the Winners Finals it was BT|IFC Yipes
(Spencer/Dante/Hawkeye) vs FRB AgeoJoe (Viewtiful Joe/Frank West/Rocket
Raccoon). AgeoJoe won the match set 3-1, but it was how much he confused Yipes
and did his homework that most impressed me. AgeoJoe knew who his opponent’s
best character was and made sure to finish him [Spencer]. AgeoJoe showed a lot
of skill in being able to defeat some really top tier characters while showing
that he didn’t need to play with top tier himself. He showed great team
chemistry especially with Viewtiful Joe’s dive kick mixed with Rocket Raccoons’
Pendulum assist. His notion of “if it works why stop it?” worked the entire
tournament. It was what made me root for him even more since he was sort
of the underdog. Most would have bet that Col. CC Combofiend would have
won the tournament.
In the Losers Final PR Balrog (Spencer/Wolverine/Wesker)
vs BT|IFC Yipes (Spencer/Vergil/Hawkeye). Balrog took the first match
convincingly and was able to show that he is the best Spencer for a reason.
Yipes impressed by running the table with his Vergil and level 3 X-Factor to
comeback and win the second match. The third match went to PR Balrog in a match
that came down to his Wesker vs Yipes Hawkeye. Yipes made it interesting by
winning the fourth match by hitting Bionic Arm then X-Factor and Bionic Arm
such is known to be a Balrog specialty. PR Balrog moved onto Grand Finals by
getting a “Happy Birthday” (catching two characters at one time) and then mixing
up Vergil with Logan.
Grand Finals were the most interesting of all the matches
since it seemed that everyone was giving PR Balrog as much advice as possible
on how he could defeat AgeoJoe. In this match PR Balrog went with the team of
Wolverine/Spencer/Felicia. It looked like a runaway with AgeoJoe taking the
first two matches with the same strategy that got him to the Grand Finals. It
was obvious in the third match that some of AgeoJor’s tactics were catching up
to him as PR Balrog was able to take the third match, especially since he ended
up taking out Rocket Raccoon on a “Happy Birthday.” The fourth match was taken
thanks to Felicia getting her X-Factor Level 3 Infinite in on both Viewtiful
Joe and Frank West. The fifth match had the most implication since if PR Balrog
won he’d reset the brackets, but if he lost he’d lose the entire tournament.
Balrog did well until one very puzzling move in which Balrog missed an
overhead. AgeoJoe countered with Mach Speed (which has some invincibility
start-up) than Balrog went into Bionic Arm (invincible start-up), but then
switched to Wolverines Fatal Claw which got Wolverine killed. AgeoJoe ended up
winning the match after he was mobbed by his own companions.
I know a lot of people probably didn’t tune in since there were
some great basketball games on, but I’m glad to say that I tuned into the
entire tournament. It was a blast to watch. I rooted for the Japanese player
that had the very awkward team, and felt rewarded to see him come out
victorious. FC Jago once said in one of his videos that “if you want to get
good you have to start by learning to play Wesker.” It was great to see that
passing up on the overpowered characters and learning the in’s and out’s of
other unknown characters would sometimes get you unexpected results. After
watching the tournament, I was so excited I ran to my PS3 and started
practicing some of my team unity and combos to improve. I may not be a Pro, but
it sure feels good to win in some of the smaller tournaments we have among
friends.
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