Not one Capcom Pro Tour qualifying event this weekend, but two!

PREVIEWS: NorCal Regionals 2015, live from Norcal, USA and Hypespotting 4, live from Glasgow, Scotland!

http://norcalregionals.com/

http://www.hypespotting.co.uk/

The Capcom Pro Tour truly is global, so it's no surprise that 2 premier events would inevitably clash like so many other sports events/entertainment shows/video game conventions tend to do.

Both NorCal Regionals 2015 (running annually since 2002) and Hypespotting 4 (which I'm sure you've guessed is in its 4th year) have the same USFIV prizes on the line, with both awarding $15,000 split between top 8 and a spot in December's Capcom Cup to the winner(s). This weekend's two victors will join last year's winner EG|Momochi (Primarily known for playing Ken Masters) and this past month's Final Round winner RZR|Xian (EVO 2013 world champion, primarily known for playing Gen).

• NCR is traditionally known for being the 1st big clash of the year between NorCal and their SoCal rivals
• Hypespotting is Scotland's national fighting game tournament event! It also has a pub quiz, a pub quiz! Watch the Hypespotting community test their gaming knowledge against each other.

Our own moderator @rmanthorp will be in attendance at Hypespotting, have fun!

Trailer Fight!

I like the NorCal Regionals trailer, I also like the Hypespotting trailer... but which one is better? There's only one way to found out... FIGHT!

Here we have the NorCal Regionals trailer, which plays on our nostalgia. Some nice transitions from each subsequent Street Fighter trailer, mellow music, scores extra points for advertising another tournament (you'll have to watch the trailer to find out which) and for using Tekken 2's Kazuya Mishima's ending cinematic music, which I'll still instantly recognise 50 years from now.

100% pure unadulterated community focused hype. This trailer lives up to its event's namesake. Entertainment value and production values sells you on the event, but if the music doesn't get you hype then you are incapable of doing so.

Attendees

plus your resident NorCal and Glasgow community members! And whoever else decides to show up!

Streams and schedules

The two events' USFIV proceedings won't clash at all, Hypespotting's USFIV action will finish way before NCR starts.

NCR - All times in PDT (GMT - 8)

Full Schedule available here

Other games TBD

Hypespotting full schedule - All times in GMT

Saturday 4th April

09:00 – 11:00: Registration

11:00 – 15:00: Ultra Street Fighter IV Pools

14:30 – 17:00: Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Pools

16:00 – 17:30: SSB4 pools

17:30 – 19:00: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Pools

18:00 – 19:30: King of Fighters XIII Pools

19:30 – 23:00: Hypespotting Pub Quiz

Sunday 5th April

10:00 – 12:00: Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Finals

12:00 – 14:00: SSB4 Finals

14:00 – 15:30: King of Fighters XIII Finals

15:30 – 18:00: Ultra Street Fighter IV Finals

18:00 – 19:30: Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 Finals

News

APRIL FOOLS, YES I KNOW IT'S IN THAT OTHER THREAD BUT I DON'T CARE, IT ISN'T EVEN APRIL 1ST ANYMORE HERE IN THE UK BUT AGAIN I DON'T CARE, AN APRIL FOOL IS YOU!

MKX Round Up

Watch the first 30 minutes of MKX's story mode

There was a video some weeks ago there showed the opening of MKX, specifically Johnny Cage, this new video is an extended version which goes waaaaaaaay into spoiler territory, watch at your own risk! MKX is looking amazing!

Liu Kang, Kung Lao and Kung Jin showcased

Liu Kang is indeed back! And we get a glimpse of Liu Kang and Kung Lao's fate immediately after MK9.

MKX is eSports

ESL (Electronic Sports League) have announced a pro league and a finals not unlike the Capcom Pro Tour and Capcom Cup, the finals will have "at least" $50,000 in prize money. The Blue Steel Sub-Zero skin you see above you is an old school pallet-swap of the pre-order Scorpion DLC. The Sub-Zero version is paid DLC and some/all of the money made from this costume will go towards the ESL MKX pro league.

I like the idea and I like that some of the money that from the game is going towards it, wouldn't have picked a palette swap DLC costume to do it with though.

3 new confirmed Tekken 7 characters: Jin Kazama, Devil Jin and Josie Rizal

Josie, named after the Filipino national hero José Rizal has caused no small amount of controversy (seems to be a trend for new Tekken 7 characters) for apparently being Filipino yet having no physical or vocal Filipino attributes, nor are her clothes. Her rage art, as well as Jin and Devil Jin's seem to be recycled from Soulcalibur V and Tekken Tag 2.

SoCal Regionals delayed to June

SoCal Regionals was originally slated for May 1-3 but due to venue problems it seems it's being delayed to June 5-7. This would put it weeks before CEO 2015 and a month before EVO 2015. I would expect SoCal Regionals to have a significantly less people attending now, luckily SoCal has no shortage of local community members and will hopefully still have a good event.

Thank you for reading and enjoy watching!

Apologies for not getting this up on Monday as I said I would in the comments of the Final Round preview. The whole "only going to sleep at 5:30AM after getting home from a WrestleMania 31 viewing party" thing on Sunday night/Monday morning screwed my sleep patterns and rocked my ability to write HARD! Better before the event than during or after though!

Incidentally my local pub quiz this Monday broke records with 300 people turning up making 68 teams, there was people everywhere!

It's going to be a busy weekend on the Capcom Fighters channel. Both events brimming with top players. RIP sleep.

I think it's about time for Tokido to qualify for the Capcom Cup. He's my pick for Hypespotting.

NCR it's a much more difficult question. Kazunoko and Bonchan are probably the ones most deserving of a qualifier spot right now.

As for MK, ESL being on the PC/Xone will probably put a strain on fighting game player's wallets. So far the PS4 has been the console for pretty much all new and future fighting games outside of Killer Instinct.

PDT is UTC-7

Also man, that Hypespotting trailer had me until it showed Marvel with a no-health Vergil getting slowly chipped out by Doom and eventually just running into a Photon Shot. Not exactly hype.

EDIT: Maybe in the context of whatever match at whatever time it was hype as fuck, but man...

Good thing we're back to top 16 on Sunday.

I gotta admit the Daigo April Fools' retirement/ad is great.

@gaspower: The entire site is pretty great and it's downright wonderful that the company related to it is called Freee. (Also click on the little Daigo at the bottom right of the website.)

HYPESPOTTING HYPE

Will I be seeing any GB duders there?

Oh UMvC3, shine on you crazy diamond.

Hahahaha! That is a pretty dope way to turn the "back to top" button into something else.

@rmanthorp: Sadly I cannot afford the trip.

Hmmm. I live in Sacramento. Is it possible just to show up and spectate a bit?

@chilibean_3: Sure, why not. Probably an entrance fee to get in the building but other than that there's no reason you can't hang out and watch some matches.

@flstyle: Are we going to get GB chat access for this weekend? Would be nice to have the Capcom Fighters one at least since it's basically broadcasting all the time.

Also I wonder if we'll already see Daigo's Yun back in action. He's been using him again in practice and he has registered E. Ryu and Yun for the Topanga World League as well.

@hassun: I can ask, no guarantees though.

Would be cool for some GB secret illuminati chat for NCR.

+1 for chat.

Aren't Infiltration and Kazunoko both still with R/Kappa as well?

@flstyle: Schedule

Here's the links to all the streams.

http://multitwitch.tv/capcomfighters/teamsp00ky/iplaywinner/showdownsmash

Marq Teddy just beat Kazunoko 2 straight rounds in 3v3 TWICE.

MARQ TEDDY!

Chat is go for the weekend, make sure to thank engineer @edgework if he pops in the chat over the weekend.

@hassun: Marq Teddy is pretty good, also Yolo, I think Yolo negates Yolo.

Yay it happened again! Capcom PLS.

@flstyle: Yay!

Also Pugera mopping up everyone.

EDIT:

Thanks to @edgework we have http://www.giantbomb.com/chat/ this weekend. Join us!

Hypespotting Ultra Street Fighter 4 — Top 8

Winners bracket

MCZ|Mago (Yang) vs. FA|Ryan Hart (Decapre)

MCZ|Tokido (Akuma) vs. RZR|Xian (Gen)

Losers bracket

Rize|Pro Fluke (El Fuerte) vs. UM|Shoryusengan (Ken)

MD|Luffy (Rose) vs. UM|ImStillDaDaddy (Guile, Decapre)

NorCal Regionals Ultra Street Fighter 4 - Top 16

Congratulations to Mago for becoming the third confirmed entrant in the 2015 Capcom Cup!

https://www.youtube.com/user/ShoryukenTube/videos & https://www.youtube.com/user/CapcomFightersTV/videos are in the process of uploading a ton of offstream matches from NCR & Hypespotting, check them out!

What a blow up NCR has turned into.

Congratulations to some dude called Umehara (Umahara? Umehaha?) for being the 4th confirmed entrant in the 2015 Capcom Cup!

I bet we're going to see a lot more of these surprise killers showing up out of nowhere!

@hassun: Pretty sure it's Diego Umejuarez. He came out of nowhere.

I'd like to thank the Top Men for the stream chat. Twas nice to hang out with my fellow GB Stream Monsters. :henry

Some words from the Social Media Lounge™

Kelvin Jeon, Hugo player and Avermedia person:

And a random factoid:

I fell asleep, any matches I must see after top 6ish?

@fredchuckdave: Du vs Justin for how much of a shutdown it was, Bee vs Smug for the same reason, Bee vs Bonchan had some really hype moments. Also there's a cute moment in Du vs Daigo but I can just tell you:

3/4 people in top 8 winners were American and all four Asian players in losers were put there by American players. I think we did alright.

@hassun: I see your factoid and raise you -

@fredchuckdave: Rewatch FR Smug vs Daigo and then watch NCR Smug vs Daigo and be in awe of the learning machine that is Daigo.

Watching Daigo vs Infiltration at the Red Bull Kumite and then Daigo vs Nuckledu at NCR might also have a similar effect.

Other than that watch Bonchan vs Infiltration and Bonchan vs Gamerbee.

@starvinggamer: I think Du is actually 18 though. :V

Also Daigo won a national tournament at 17. 18 was his first international tournament win.

Caught up with the USFIV stuff, pretty dominant from Daigo!

It was a great weekend in general between Hypespotting and NCR, fun times!

That is far and away the best I've seen Daigo play in ages. It feels like he's hungry again, where as most of last year it sort of felt like he was going through the motions. If he keeps up that intensity all year will be interesting to see how he does.

Meanwhile people seem to be figuring Momochi out which I didn't expect to happen with how much of his game is based on amazing footsies. Wonder if we'll see him start using his full cast of usable characters or if he'll continue to use ken 90+% of the time.

Yeah, Daigo seems to have been playing in sleep mode for the last few years. I guess the money woke him up. Then again this year seems like it could be anyone's year. Final Round and NCR were murderfests.

So are the matches from the alternate timeline archived too?

C H R O N O C R O S S B O Y S

I want to watch the rematch of Daigo and 801 Strider again to look at that absurd reset tech he had with his FADCs once he started to feel threatened. I feel bad for Gustavo because he was the only one to push Daigo yesterday.

After hearing about Daigo's skill but not really seeing it over the past 3 years, it's been great seeing why he's called "The Beast".

@thunderslash: Daigo won Topanga as well as Canada Cup Master Series recently, how can anyone say he's been playing in sleep mode? People will slip up now and then but let's not forget his high arcade ranking and his wins over at Topanga and Master Series which were incredibly stacked.

He was in top form this weekend for sure, I don't think he conceded more than a single game in top 32. Completely dismantled Smug (who really is overrated, all the chinks in his armour got exposed) and Gamerbee!

Thing is Topanga was hard to impossible to watch outside Japan even if you wanted to pay money, and very VERY few people paid for the PPV Masters series (some got by abusing a hole in the Twitch mobile app, but I know I at least didn't) so without getting to actually SEE the matches it keeps it to only words. Meanwhile 50k+ (large number of which were english speaking) got to watch Daigo blow everyone up yesterday.

There's such a huge difference between hearing he won, and seeing. Also a lot of people have been saying in FT7 Daigo remains the king (what both of mentions above were) but he'd fallen off in FT2-3, which is what he showed he still knows how to win yesterday.

@westernwizard: Oh shit that wasn't supposed to be available? Whoops, guess I owe Lap Chi some $.

So I fell asleep. Who won street fighter?

@demoskinos: Some emotionless robot man named Daigo just wrecked everyone

Full Hypespotting USFIV Top 8 is online!

@westernwizard: Yeah 801 Strider was probably the one who managed to push Daigo the hardest. For their rematch because of the version issue Strider really turned it on but Daigo responded in kind by showing off some ridiculous E Ryu strats. After I saw that I was convinced he was going to be the player to beat at NCR.

Great stuff to Gustavo, I hope he will be able to make it out to more events.

You know at this rate I think we're headed for a tourney where the top 3 or 4 have already auto-qualified so it'll be a battle for 5th place or something.

Wouldn't surprise me, the Asian players want to get paid!

@fredchuckdave: We haven't had a tournament with a repeat winner so far and I hope there will be as few as possible. It probably doesn't feel as cool to automatically qualify for the CapCup if you're not the victor of a tournament.