Official Site: http://evo.shoryuken.com/
I generally don't keep up with gaming tournaments or professional game players, but once in a while I'll run across some videos of those tournaments and enjoy watching some of the techniques that the top of the elites do and have my mind blown. In the past, I have watched tournament plays for Street Fighter 3 & 4, Super Smash Bros. Melee, World of Warcraft, Halo, and League of Legends. I've even had the chance to watch an actual tournament live at BlizzCon 2008 for Warcraft 3 Frozen Throne and Starcraft 1. You might notice that there are tournaments across an assortment of genres such as Fighting games, Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPG), First-Person Shooters (FPS), Real-Time Strategy games (RTS), and Massive Online Battle Arenas (MOBA). There were even dance game tournaments before there was "Just Dance" and "Dance Central" around (Dance Dance Revolution by Konami). Videogame tournaments are so fun to watch sometimes because pro players perform techniques that you may normally never see in regular matches. Be it a consecutive tech block chain, moving lightning fast with a heavy character, overwhelming an opponent within 5 minutes of a match, or beating impossible odds in a 1 v 3 fight, tournaments between the most elite players of the world shows a side of a game that is rarely ever seen.
Anyways, I came across some Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (UMVC3) tournament videos of those qualifying for this year's EVO event. EVO is an annual convention where professional fighting game players around the world get together and test their mettle against each other in some of the most competitive environments the gaming community has to offer. Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Street Fighter X Tekken, Soul Calibur V, Mortal Kombat (9), King of Fighters XIII, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo are among the games with tournaments. I'm sure there will be other fighting games that are non-tournment orientated there such as BlazBlue, Melty Blood, and who knows, maybe we'll get to see some of Tekken Tag 2. I came across two videos of the qualifying matches for UMVC3 with a player I've never heard of before: (remember, I don't keep up with pro players) ChrisG in both videos.
Source: Youtube Channel teamspooky
For this match, the "must-watch" round is the last one at 6:39. Tourney player Mihe had found a way to exploit Zero's ground dash and lightning dash and cycle through it against a side to stun-lock ChrisG into a combo he couldn't get out of. ChrisG had only 2 chances to get out of it: 7:04 and 7:26. Mihe left little to no room for him to get out of it and left the match untouched with a perfect. Watching the other rounds, ChrisG performs moves and techniques I never would have imagined doing with Morrigan and Doctor Doom. He's able to utilize his tag partner to create openings, use Morrigan's image to cause unblockable damage, and keep his opponent from a distance while still doing damage (which I find very difficult to do in UMVC3).
Source: Youtube Channel teamspooky
This video is between famed Street Fighter Pro player Justin Wong against ChrisG. Again, ChrisG performs some phenomenal attacks, combos and stun-locks against his opponent and was even able to solo it out with Doctor Doom. That infinite stun-lock Mihe performed was questionable shenanigans, but what Justin Wong does at the round on 9:47 is frightening. As long as he was able to lead in with one attack, his opponent was stun-locked. Another round worth watching is at 11:17 where Justin Wong just so happens gets caught in an Air-combo with his support out and loses two characters within that combo. With only Storm left, he...well, just watch it (don't want to spoil anything). I've never seen Storm move so quickly in the game before. I am absolutely terrible with her doing no damage, moving incredibly slow and losing health faster than a broken faucet spouting water. This was a very entertaining match to watch.
It is matches like those that blow my mind away. I love fighting games, but I play very casually. I play so casually that I don't even play online. When you play online, you'll sometimes go against pro players and be completely shut down. Maybe I'll play online one of these days, but I'll practice against my very easy to medium level computers before then.
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