Super Street Fighter IV & Marvel Vs Capcom 3: The Tournament Results and Reflections
By Siri Karri
Two big tournaments for Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 just concluded. I think anyone who was following the streams online can agree that some of the matches were real nail-biters. Japan’s Tokido won SSF4 AE singles and MVC3 singles at CEO. Daigo Umehara and his teammate Mago were the finalists at ReveLAtions SSF4 AE singles while Viscant walked away with the MVC 3 singles prize.
Now that the tournaments are over, it’s time for some reflection. Understand I’m not a professional gamer or even REMOTELY that skilled. I am simply adequately skilled and knowledgeable at both these games to make the claims I list below. If you have anything to add/debate, please comment below.
1) Street Fighter is still balanced
The tier list compiled by Japanese players (who’ve had access to the Arcade Edition for months before American players) combined with gameplay footage caused a fear among the gaming community that Yun and Yang (the DLC characters) would be utterly overpowered and ruin the variety in street fighter.
For now, it would seem they are wrong.
Only 3 of the top 8 in either tournament were won by people using the twins. Only one of the finalists in either tournament used the twins, and that was world #1 Daigo Umehara. Part of the reason is that while the twins both have overwhelming offense, they have very poor defense and require uncanny execution and timing to use. Unlike other high execution characters such as Akuma, the twins do not have a projectile or high HP to spare and get in. This means that players who aren’t talented enough find the twins to be more of a burden than a blessing.
This explains why Mike Ross utilized his “nerfed” E. Honda to beat talented players Floe and Marn who were using Yang and Yun respectively. He simply waded back and utilized powerful attacks to punish their mistakes while using Honda’s superb defense to halt their advances.
It also explains why only Daigo, the god of Street Fighter, is the only man whose Yun looked truly successful. Even THEN there were times at which his Yun looked for less stable than his Ryu.
2) Japan is catching up in Marvel vs. Capcom 3
A couple of month ago, world # 1 Street Fighter player Daigo “The Beast” Umehara announced through an ominous YouTube video that he was entering Marvel vs. Capcom 3 at EVO 2011. Critics quickly laughed for two reasons.
One, the American Marvel vs. Capcom players had a 10 year head start in the series.
Second, observers pointed out that in the videos of Daigo practicing, his Phoenix character was always dead. To those who don’t know, Phoenix is a hard hitting but unbelievably fragile character with the lowest life in the game (literally about half of the next lowest). However, if she dies with 5 super meters on the player’s gauge, she will reanimate as Dark Phoenix who is widely considered the best character in the game. Without Dark Phoenix, Phoenix is widely considered useless, and essentially proved that Daigo had no knowledge of the game.
Mago getting projectile spammed out of the MVC3 bracket at ReveLAtions seemed only to bolster the claims that Daigo and all other Japanese players would get annihilated at EVO 2011.
Then Japan’s Tokido, Daigo’s occasional teammate, beat Justin Wong to win the MVC 3 singles. Understand that Justin Wong is top 3, if not THE top , MVC 3 player in the United States. Tokido beat him handily TWICE in the tournament.
There’s a good chance Tokido will now show Daigo and Mago how this game is truly played, explaining how to utilize the Phoenix strategy properly. In the hands of Daigo and Mago, two of gaming’s most dangerous tacticians, it may not be long before the US must relinquish its hold on MVC 3 as well.
Mago may not win EVO 2011
Before ReveLAtions, I made the claim that Mago’s Fei Long would end up winning SSFIV AE at EVO 2011. He was already the world’s best Fei Long before the AE patched buffed the character even more. Furthermore, there was video footage of Mago KO’ing Daigo Umehara’s Yun several times at an arcade which only cemented my belief that EVO 2011 was his for the taking. However, recent events have convinced me otherwise.
The first thing to note is that Daigo beat Mago 3-1 in the finals. It might not seem much, but the difference between a 3-2 and a 3-1 is monumental. It’s the basketball equivalent of losing in overtime or losing in regulation. While we shouldn’t read too deep into this, it means that Daigo has already solved his biggest threat at EVO 2011. Unless “The Beast” gets upset early, he will most likely eliminate Mago wherever they meet.
The most troubling however is exactly how much trouble Mago had with Crimson Viper players. The characters used in the Street Fighter IV series vary vastly in between the US and Japan. In the US, the most common characters you found were Balrog, Abel and Rufus. In Japan, it was Ryu, Sagat and Akuma. While matches between Japanese and American players always had a learning curve, it seems that the Crimson Viper trend in the US has Mago befuddled.
He actually got knocked into the loser’s bracket by Shinji, who isn’t really the best Viper player. While he cruised past talented fighters such as EVO 2010 finalist Ricky Ortiz, he had the most trouble with Viper players. In fact, he was on the brink of elimination against Wolfkrone, widely considered the best C. Viper player in the States right now.
Perhaps it’s because Viper has attacks that can punish Fei Long’s rush down such as her medium thunder knuckle and ground seismos. Mago showed his nerves of steel and persevered at ReveLAtions this time but he may not be so lucky at EVO.