We're in serious territory now!

Final Round 18 Preview - March 20-22 - Live from Atlanta!

http://www.finalround.org/

Final Round 18 is the continuation of the 2nd longest fighting game community tournament event in existence, it is the 1st premier event in the 2015 Capcom Pro Tour for Ultra Street Fighter IV and it will be the 1st American appearance of the incoming Tekken 7. Needless to say this is going to be a must see event.

Capcom Pro Tour prize bonus to Final Round's USFIV tournament

In addition to the UMvC3 tournament Curleh Mustache also returns to Final Round! So far the teams featuring are:

• Team ATL
• Team Control Team BROKENTIER
• Team Florida
• Team Texas
• Team Norcal
• Team Socal
• Team AlternateTime East Coast
• Team Midwest
• Team Carolina Pride
• Team Florida 2
• Team Louisiana
• Team World
• Team San Diego

plus 2 more teams for a total of 16!

Streams and schedule

UPDATE: Full schedule is now below

http://www.twitch.tv/capcomfighters

http://www.twitch.tv/teamsp00ky

http://www.twitch.tv/funkyp

http://www.twitch.tv/sixfortyfive

http://www.twitch.tv/kombatnetwork

http://www.twitch.tv/smashstudios

All times in EST

Other events for March

Two events either side of Final Round 18 are worth your attention!

South by Southwest (SXSW) Expo - Fighters Invitational for USFIV - (March 13-15)

Research tells me that SXSW is a set of festivals during March, one for music, one for film and one for tech. At this event (March 13-15) is a round robin tournament between 16 of the best in which the top 8 for compete in a traditional double elimination bracket tournament on the Sunday.

The archive is at http://www.twitch.tv/sxswgamingesports/profile/past_broadcasts

Thanks to user @hassun for pointing this event out to me!

Group A

Group B

Results

1. EG|Momochi (Ken)

2. Kazunoko (Yun)

3. AVM|GamerBee (Adon, Elena)

4. MCZ|Tokido (Akuma)

5. EG|Justin Wong (Rose, Rufus)

5. MCZ|Daigo (Evil Ryu)

7. EG|PR Balrog (Balrog, Evil Ryu)

7. RZR|Xian (Poison, Gen, Elena, Dhalsim)

Red Bull Kumite - Paris, France - March 28th

• MCZ|Daigo
• MD|Luffy
• BE|Nemo
• Bonchan
• MCZ|Tokido
• CNB|ChuChu
• Dieminion
• RZR|Xian
• MCZ|Mago
• RZR|Fuudo
• Ryan Hart
• GL|Valmaster
• Snake Eyez
• Infiltration

plus 2 more fighters! More info when available!

News!

EVO 2015 is the biggest Smash Bros. Melee and Smash Wii U tournament(s) of all time

EVO and APEX have been leap-frogging each other in hosting the biggest Smash Melee tournament of all time. It's already been announced that the following games already have over 1000 entrants. USFIV (1979 entrants in 2014), Smash Melee (970 in 2014) and Smash Wii U (debut year) have surpassed EVO 2014's 2 games that had over 1000 entrants (USFIV & UMvC3).

New Killer Instinct character Hisako is revealed and she's scary :(

Killer Instinct Season 2 continues! Iron Galaxy are continuing to nail their new characters, I love Hisako's design, the fact that she has the slowest walk speed in the game as she creepily moves towards you, she's just cool. I hope that she makes top 8 at EVO so everyone can see her.

Mortal Kombat X reveals for Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade, the story mode and Jason Voorhees

Since my last fighting game blog NetherRealm have released quite a few MKX videos, some story, some character reveals. Jason Voorhees was revealed on Friday the 13th (ha!), whether his horror film rival Freddie Kruger will return from MK9 is unknown. Jason is one of the DLC season pass characters.

I like the gameplay and design of all three members of the Cage family!

Might want to not click this story preview video if you don't want to see 7 minutes of MKX's story mode.

Thanks for reading!

Final Round 18 is going to be a good one, have fun watching!

I don't play Killer Instinct but Hisako seems like a pretty cool character with very interesting setups with her counters and grapples.

Final Round is going to be a blood bath. I'm so excited.

Curleh Mustache is actually something I'm excited about with MarlinPie and the BT Gang. Such a fun player to watch.

LPN going 0-7 though. Looking pretty fraudulent.

Seeing K-Brad and Ricky do so badly is kinda rough too. Momochi is gonna start having back problems carrying EG like this. K-Brad had some negative things to say about himself afterwards as well. Starting to think that his win on Infiltration was due to Cammy's strength in AE more than his play itself. Combo dropping and poor neutral is killing his chances of winning anything.

Man I wish characters like Aganos and Hisako were in not KI. Love the designs, hate the combo system.

I dunno, at an invitational someone is always going to do poorly (numbers-wise). Infiltration went like 1-6 at Topanga and he's still a fucking monster. Cammy nerfs have definitely hurt K-Brad and Ricky is facing a bit of a character identity-crisis, but they still put up strong fights in most of their matches.

I think K-Brad is a very strong player that has problems clutching out important W's. If you look at the moment-to-moment gameplay in K-Brad's matches it's pretty clear that his set-ups are on point and his combos and spacing are more than adequate. I think his real problem is mental fortitude, he almost always has the most trouble in clutch moments to finish the round or when someone has gotten an early lead on him and he can't take back the pace. That's when he panics and starts dropping stuff.

I imagine his victories in AE 2012 were legit. Cammy's stupid damage and vortex probably helped him mentally, as he could fall back on set-play and ex-divekick shenanigans instead of panicking. Or maybe he's a fraud, I don't know, just throwing stuff out there.

Kazunoko's wake up Ultra to beat Daigo was hilarious, definitely need a Mike Ross gif after that one.

Nine States Tournament's weekend long Twitter shenanigans with Zhi's commentary had me dying. Certainly got a bit weird with how the team exhibitions forgetting to patch the game to 1.04 and grand finals changing the rules to first to five due to a misunderstanding.

As for SXSW, I feel bad for K-Brad. As someone said in another post, K-Brad tends to choke during crucial moments and I feel that since the release of Ultra delayed wakeup has been screwing with him. Gamerbee vs Daigo was great though.

Thanks to @flstyle for another great fighting game thread.

Heads up everyone, the SXSW tournament is about to start! Really curious to see if Daigo has managed to clean up his game. He's been dropping so many combos at this event it's kind of sad. His match vs Justin Wong was kind of s shitshow from both sides.

Rooting for Tokido today.

P.S.

The Nine States Tournament concluded and beastpac has started to upload some of the matches. https://www.youtube.com/user/toughcookietv/videos

Make sure to check out the Hagejin (one of the world's best Zangiefs) in the 5v5 team tournament. Anton's Gouken really impressed me as well.

So does the winner of Final Round make more than the EVO winner last year?

@fredchuckdave: Do they even reveal how much the evo champ wins?

@fredchuckdave: Capcom donated $10,000 to the EVO 2014 USFIV prize pool, so you are correct!

Looks like Momochi woke up as YOLOchi today.

Edit: Well he quickly went back to clean play.

Edit 2: Prep time Daigo!

Picking up Rose will serve Justin well in the long run once he masters that character, good match.

Unlimited HP vs Lowest HP in the game LET'S GO!

Edit: Just as I post that Gamerbee goes for Ultra 1...

i'll be there, wachaaa. does anyone who's going in here play tag 2?

@itwastuesday: Best username ever hahaha

Kazunoko is probably hoping Daigo beats Momochi next because Momochi absolutely annihilated Kazunoko in Australia.

Poison is ridiculous. Once you're in the corner your pretty much stuck blocking forever.

Edit: WONG FACTOR

Poison falling out of that ultra...

Cambofiend plsss

Gouki vs Evil Ryu is so damn tense to watch. All that damage, all that stun, terrible HP.

Justin and PR Fred Durst are proving their worth today!

That was a really good match. The fundamentals on display in that match were ridiculous. Momochi is so strong.

Gamerbee looking super impressive all tournament.

Wow that Kazunoko combo.

Oh lord my heart. Gouki vs E. Ryu again.

Edit: Really disliking Daigo's play all weekend. So many dropped combos. Compared to the Canada Cup Master series he's playing downright awfully.

Sandbagging for FR?? Maybe my tinfoil hat conspiracies are too crazy but i dunno

I wonder if any floating bracket action is gonna be happening this year. This was the tournament that cause a whole stink with Capcom last year lf I am not mistaken.

I hate both Rufus and Yun so this match is tough on my eyes. Solid play, still.

@viciousbearmauling: Dropping combos is not sandbagging though. He's just not on point.

Congrats to EG Momochi for picking up the win and $10,000! Loved that event, well worth watching.

Hisako makes me want and Xbox One...

Oh and MKX hype is REAL

@hassun said:

I HAD TO DO IT

OP updated with the full weekend's schedule!

Poor KoF. Not sure how to balance the NCAA tournament with Final Round but we'll see.

@fredchuckdave: Is that the thing that Brock Lesnar won in his younger days?

@flstyle: You can now put the the final results of SXSW in the OP instead of the round robin results if you want to.

1. EG|Momochi (Ken)

2. Kazunoko (Yun)

3. AVM|GamerBee (Adon, Elena)

4. MCZ|Tokido (Akuma)

5. EG|Justin Wong (Rose, Rufus)

5. MCZ|Daigo (Evil Ryu)

7. EG|PR Balrog (Balrog, Evil Ryu)

7. RZR|Xian (Poison, Gen, Elena, Dhalsim)

And maybe the results of the Nine States Tournament in Fukuoka as well (up to you):

1. Infiltration (Decapre, Akuma)

2. Poongko (Seth)

3. YBK|Shiro (Abel)

4. Inco (Rufus)

@hassun: Done, didn't add the other tournament, don't want to go overboard.

J U R I B O Y S!

I'm pretty hype for this tournament.

Final Round is so close, I can taste the salt

Curleh on Team Sp00ky

If you want to blow up your bandwidth, here is the multitwitch of all the streams for final round.

http://multitwitch.tv/capcomfighters/teamsp00ky/funkyp/sixfortyfive/smashstudios/kombatnetwork

So is the USF4 tournament of FR the most stacked non-EVO tourney in the US ever for street fighter? Practically every big name player from Asia and the US is there, and I think at least some of the Europeans. I can't get over the sheer insanity levels.

@westernwizard: The thirst is real son.

@hmoney001: True that. Everyone wants those Capcom points towards the final 32 man bracket and 120k first prize. Going to laugh if Momochi wins the first premier event when he already gets a free spot (mind you the points still matter for seeding).

Now lets see if Daigo cleans up his execution from all the drops he had during the SXSW tourney now that the long term $$ is involved.

@westernwizard: I think the spot might transfer to the runner-up if the person who wins is already in.

@hassun: Yeah that's what they did last year so I'm assuming same for this year. Would still be hysterical if the ONLY auto-qualifier so far is the guy to win the first tourney that gives a guaranteed spot forcing it to be passed to second place. Though Momochi may do that to a lot of Premier events he shows up at, based on how he is playing right now. Dude reminds me of 2012-early 2013 Infiltration where he won every event he showed up at free.