Tournament Coverage - Caribbean Best of the Best - First Vids Up

THE BREAKDOWN:

Tournament Name: Caribbean Best of the Best
Venue: JAVA Gaming Cafe
Organisation: Few Good Men
Date: Sunday 31st August, 2008.
Games: Tekken 5, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK 2, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
Damage: FREE


RESULTS

MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 2

1st - New Era Outlaw
2nd - Whiplash
3rd - Geese

TEKKEN 5

1st - Sebastian
2nd - Keishon

CAPCOM VS. SNK 2

1st - RedEyes
2nd - Ninja644
3rd - Geese



WHAT WENT DOWN?


First of all, I'm sorry that we couldn't have gotten the word about this event out in time. This tournament was planned out by Carl of FGM (Few Good Men), who wanted to promote a tournament where gamers went out there and proved that they were, as the name of the tournament implied, "The Best of the Best". The main attractions of this event was the ability to play on either controller or arcade stick, (whichever the players felt more comfortable with), as well as medals handed out to the winners of each competition. Due to the rush to make the event come out in time for Independence Day, a few things that were supposed to have been organised for the event didn't go through as planned (such as distribution of flyers and the engraving of the medals for each event), but the tournament still went on.


Now, this tournament coverage is going to be done from my perspective, both as a competitor and as a spectator. Unfortunately, I didn't stay for the whole event, but, needless to say, I had a blast, despite a few hitches and controversies along the way.


First, let's have a look at the crowd, shall we?


FROM LEFT TO RIGHT: Unknown, Sebastian, Paul, rb and New Era Outlaw.


As you can see, quite a few familiar faces and 'who's who' in the games that they play have shown up for this event. You can see Sebastian and this other guy facing off in a game of Tekken here while a few spectators look on. What I really wanted to call to your attention to was this:





This was custom built for this tournament. The stand has two connectors, which allows it to be hooked up to a PS2. So, want to play arcade style? Here are the sticks. Want to play on a pad? Unplug one side and jam it in.


...okay. Maybe that was a poor choice of words. I do apologise for the cheap innuendo.

Anyway...more crowd shots!








The guy in orange is Carl, and the man in black is our very own Whiplash. At least I managed to contact him in time, thank God (I think he knew about the event already, though.)






WHO THE HELL IS THAT HANDSOME GUY?! GOD DAMN IT, THOSE LADIES....THEY MUST HAVE BEEN CHASING HIM ALL OVER ON THE WAY THERE.

...oh wait. That's me. Ha, ha, ha.....yeah.


So, you've seen who's who at the tournament. On to the games!


MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 2

For this report, I'm going to go into detail about how I did, seeing as how I was a competitor in this event. This means that you'll see, more or less, my match summaries here, more than anything. Also, be warned that I do NOT have the world's greatest memory, so what I write here might be different to what's actually shown in the footage, which will be coming soon.


So, the very first event was Marvel vs. Capcom 2. It was decided that the tournament would be a best out of three format, so one win wasn't enough to cap it. Among the crowd there was....well, myself, of course, but also well known competitors such as Whiplash and even Carl himself was there. Paul represented from San Juan, and Anton (known as Priceless) was an old 'Consort Mall Graduate'. Rb and Imperial X also joined in the fray, and Rb, I must say, did well enough to go into the quarter-finals. It was awesome.


So, the roster was more or less up, and when I saw who my opponent was-my jaw just DROPPED to the floor and stayed there.
My first opponent was....CARL.

Now, let me tell you a little something about Carl.
Carl has been my rival, through and through, in Marvel vs. Capcom.
Sure, we didn't always used to get along, but one things was certain. We were fellas who liked to BEAST GAME. Plain and simple. And Carl would kick my ass with his Cable/Sentinel/Storm team.
I would catch royal HELL just to catch him, so...me fight him right off the starting gate? DAMN.

ROUND 1- NEW ERA OUTLAW VS. CARL
FIRST BATTLE
Teams: Mega Man (Anti-Air)/Tron Bonne (Projectile)/Roll (Projectile) - NEO
Cable (Anti-Air)/Storm(Projectile)/Sentinel(Ground)

Well, Carl and I may have been rivals, but I was determined to win. I knew first hand, how Carl plays with Cable. He can pin you down and keep away from you while Sentinel uses that big ass body to block your attacks. I had to play carefully, because a careless assist eats Viper Beam for breakfast. I decided to stand my ground with Mega Man, and use air FPs (once again, CAREFULLY as Cable backs off) combined with Rock Balls to knock out any potential HVB or Sentinel assists. To my surprise it actually worked out well, and Cable began to come in closer. I know that FK coming in can be a bizatch to handle, so I called in Tron and pinned him in the corner, confusing him with LKs both low and high, combined with Rock Balls. Eventually, Cable fell, and it was Storm's turn.


Oh, STORM. That DAMN witch.
Now I'd have to bring a damn umbrella to the fight, on account of unexpected hail. Like Cable, I had to play gingerly, so, I tried to keep fairly close to her without eating ice. Rock Ball did okay here, and even knocked Storm out of a couple of Hail Storm supers. Eventually, her life was drained to a pinch, and I used a Triple Team to kill her before the tag was made. I think. The footage might be different to what I said.

Sentinel was up next. Usually, he's a pain in the ass, but, without Storm to back him up, he can be easy to navigate.
I pinned him down with air FP/Rock Balls, and although I nearly got clobbered by a few careless mistakes on my part, I maanaged to beat Sentinel.

And so ended Battle 1. Single handedly won with Mega Man, who had about 33% life remaining, and Tron/Roll still on full life.

Winner: NEO


BATTLE 2
TEAMS: Omega Red (Throw)/Iron Man(Anti-Air)/Sentinel(Ground) - NEO
Cable/Storm/Sentinel- Carl

Now, I wasn't about to become predictable here. Oooooh, no. I changed my team to what I called the 'Men of Metal'.
And so, the match began and-

HOLY HORSE S**T OMEGA RED AND IRON MAN ATE VIPER BEAMS FOR BREAKFAST GOD DAMN!!!!


I lost over 50% life in the first ten seconds of the match with all of my characters, and with Cable closing in, my team fell apart rather quickly. I attempted to cheese Carl with Sentinel's Fly and Iron Man's Assist, but it was no use, as Storm made them eat ICE.

D'oh!

Winner: Carl



BATTLE 3
Teams: Mega Man (Anti-Air)/Iron Man (anti-Air)/Sentinel (Anti-Air) -NEO
Cable/Storm/Sentinel -Carl


This was it.
The final battle.
I swapped Red for Mega Man, figuring that I can get the same edge I had before.
The match was going good UNTIL Cable died. Then, disaster struck as Carl's arcade board malfunctioned and switched LK with FP. We stopped that match to set things straight, and then everyone (including myself) insisted on a restart. Carl, however wanted to go through with it, so we continued the match, despite half of his team's life gone due to that mix-up.

He fought well towards the end, but I chipped him good with a Triple Team from MM/IM/Sent once Storm fell to the floor with barely enough life to stand with. I think it's a good strategy to use chip to bend the tide to your favour, so I unleashed it full force.
Sentinel came out afterwards, but i used Mega Man's AA Assist to keep clipping him out of the air.


I won the match, but I felt like it was on a fluke, so I wasn't too happy.

WINNER: NEW ERA OUTLAW.


Meanwhile, Whiplash and RB also advanced in the tournament. Imperial put on a good show, but flew too low with Sentinel, which cost him a match or two. A couple made it on byes as well.

ROUND 2- NEW ERA OUTLAW VS. PRICELESS

My next opponent was Anton (Priceless). He played with Strider/Doom, and I stuck with the teams I had used in the match against Carl. The first match went all right with me winning, but then, things took a turn for the worst as the board malfunctioned near the start of the second round. Apparently, the FP and the A1 buttons got crossed, causing some severe headache on my part (but causing a big window of opportunity on my opponent's part). I'll admit. I got annoyed that people were applauding him for 'real skills' when the real reason that I got caught in the first place was due to a malfunctioning board, but I said nothing, and tried to come back. Alas, I did not.

In the third round, we determined that the 1P side was busted, so I got to use my controller. Using the Omega Red team, I totally 180'd my situation, and won the match.

THANK GOD.



SEMI-FINALS- NEW ERA OUTLAW VS. GEESE

Rb was determined to take no prisoners in this round. He totally obliterated Mega Man with semi-ROM infinites and timed Psylocke Assists. I had no choice but to play chicken with Tron, and hope I got a few hits in. Geese could probably tell you more about this fight (I'm so fuzzy on the details that I forgot I had this match, see a couple of posts below). In the end, I did manage to punish Mags when he attempted to fly, not keeping my feet pinned to the ground once. RB attempted to run/build meter with Storm afterwards, but, from my experiences with Carl, I wasn't about to let that happen, so I consistently tried to stay on top of Storm, blocking what Hail Storms he did manage to send out.


WINNER - NEW ERA OUTLAW


So, I made it into the Finals. RB wowed people with those semi-ROM infinites, but I still managed to pull through. Whiplash won his match afterwards, and secured his place in the finals.

And so, it was me, versus Whiplash.


FINALS- NEW ERA OUTLAW VS. WHIPLASH
Teams: Mega Man (AA)/Tron Bonne(Proj)/Roll (Variety) [Round 1] Omega Red(Throw)/Iron Man (AA)/Sent(Proj) [Round 2] -NEO
Cable/Sentinel/Commando - Whiplash


Whiplash and I, were also rivals. As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for him, my interest in this game wouldn't have been rejuvenated.
Anyway, we fought, and swore that we'd make this a fight to remember.

Commando's Assist is a pain in the ass, and when you combine that with Cable's firepower, it makes for one hard to approach team. At this point, I'm fuzzy on the details, but I think I managed to avoid Commando's Captain Corridor and just keep punishing him at a distance with Tron or Mega Man. I attempted to use Tron's feint dash to fool Cable into blocking the wrong way, and sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Eventually, Cable got caught at a bad time, and he ate Lunch Rush like it was nobody's business. Surprisingly, his Commando nailed my Tron badly after that, despite her being higher up on the food chain at that point. It was Rock and Roll after that, so I played chicken and plastered Commando with Air FP attacks to keep him from getting close. He took too much damage and tagged Sentinel in. I then used Roll. Why her, you may ask? Well, despite Sentinel outclassing her in so many ways, Roll has a couple of tricks that you can use against it. I used Rock Ball and timed Double jumps to air throw Sentinel, and used MM's Anti-Air to knock him out of the sky. I then tagged back in Mega Man when Roll took a few too many hits, and used FPs to keep Sentinel grounded. Just as Sentinel lost enough life to die with chip, I used the double team and killed him. Then, I used FP and killed Commando.

In the second match, I switched my team, and Whiplash fought even harder.
I used Sentinel/Iron Man to keep an edge over him, but soon, Iron Man got knocked out, and soon, so did Sentinel. So, it was my Omega Red versus a Sentinel with more life. Now I HAD to play careful. I used a few Omega Strikes to poke him, but god DAMN, that FP from Sentinel SMARTS. I got in a couple of Coil attacks in as well. Soon, I gained a small lead, but one hit from Sentinel could have killed me. Whiplash used Sentinel Force, and I used Carbonadium Smash to dash OVER it. He then leapt forward to hit me with a FP, but I dashed under it. I then leapt across as he landed and used FP, knocking him out and winning the tournament.

Go me.

WINNER: NEW ERA OUTLAW.


So, I won the Marvel vs. Capcom 2 tournament. The first I could truly say I've ever won. (True, there was that one time at Balki's tournament, but that doesn't count because there was only one opponent.) Though I was bitter at my match against Carl, I still accepted it, and walked away the champ.



With that said, I'd like to thank my agent, my manager, and, most of all......



BEEF JERKY! There's nothing quite like the taste of preserved beef after a hard tournament.

Even though that picture was taken BEFORE the tournament.



....forget I said that.



Anyway, I still have more to post concerning Tekken 5, but, it's late and I've got to go to bed. See you folks later.


EDIT #1: Results posted, 2nd Match against Geese corrected (see post below).
EDIT #2:Keishon added to Tekken winners list.

 

rofl, ryan u are by far he coolest white guy i know. ROFL ROFL ROFL!!!

 

Ah, crud. NOW I remember. You totalled Mega Man with Magneto right from the get-go. I faced RedEyes in Tekken, that's why I got confused.

Anyway, I'll edit the article now.
Feel free to add in anything I might've missed out.

 

congrats to neo for winning mvc2. But hear and remember these words my good friend........NEXT TIME I WILL RAPE YOUR SQUAD. I promise.
justin wong out.....

 

NIce coverage of the event though GJ.

 

Thanks, but to be honest, what'd really make this coverage shine is some of the footage that was taken. Geese said that he'd have to wait until his DSL is up and running again before he gets his vids up, and Carl said he'd look into getting his own up and running soon.

LOLWUT

Yah, I know.

 

AWESOME. When can we roll some of that beautiful bean footage?

 

That match is precisely why I wasn't happy at all with my victory over Karl. It felt cheap and unfair.

In my defense, though, we did encourage everyone to check their buttons before they started the match, and I even joined everybody else in saying that we should have started that match over because of the circumstances. Karl wouldn't have any of it, so we had to continue.

 

Karl, more or less, only does LK, LK, FK xx Hyper Viper Beam if Sentinel's already out and the Ground Assist manages to hit. Other than that, he'll just jump and either:

1) Fire to keep you at bay;
2) Use FK's ridiculous priority to knock you out of the air, or;
3) Use air mines to ground you.

He tends to be careless at times with those mines, and sometimes fires off those LP Viper Beams when I'm already airborne. He usually does this doing our bouts at the arcade, so I would know. Either way, I don't fear his Cable, because if I play carefully enough with Mega Man, he can easily match up to him. Storm, on the other hand, is a nightmare and I hate her.

 

any tekken vidz from the tourny if so can u post them up

 

muss love the opening for the rb vs ross match...

 

yeah redeyes is one mc eh...

 

You have to admit, though....that commentary was nothing short of hilarious.


RedEyes: It's like sex on a summer day!
Everyone: WHAT?! O__o
RedEyes: SWEATY! YES!!!!