Yo that Mago chip strat!

Xian or Gamerbee has to face Daigo next. Ouch.

Gamerbee Yun?

@fredchuckdave: He does have him but you don't see his Yun all that often.

Damn, Snake_Eyez is the better footsier but Itazan definitely has a better grapple game.

I think it might be time to crown Infiltration the King of Timer Scamming.

Looking at the brackets I guess we are probably getting a guaranteed spot for Xiaohai, Kazunoko or Tokido.

Yun Vs Cammy going to 90 second rounds apparently.

Xiaohai's sideways sweeping fist pumps are incredible.

2015 YEAR OF HUGO

Tokido using 0 command grabs.

Tohugo waking me up.

Tokido's Elena is not ready.

Drunken Master Infiltration.

Drunktration is the real Valmaster

"The Genius" Momochi adapting though.

The Timescammer has been timescammed.

Kazunoko has to Double Jeopardy Momochi apparently. Bracket drama!

@fredchuckdave: Kazunoko took it really convincingly in winners but The Genius gets another chance to adapt.

If Mago wins we can still have the dream of 3rd place qualifying.

When Mago is on point he is a joy to watch. Xiaohai and Mago are kind of similar really. Both can perform at the top level but they are too inconsistent to be considered the best. If Mago can take this tournament he will have won 2 majors this year though, that's crazy. He's really turned it up.

Lots of drops and mistakes in this Momochi vs Kazunoko rematch.

Best possible result: The 3 hungriest players will have to fight for that CPT Finals spot.

Daigo and Momochi sitting there side by side. Eliminated at the same time.

Sorry Xiaohai but I want that Mago vs Tokido rematch now. Comiserations to Kazunoko but at least he can take solace in the fact that he no longer needs to fear Momochi as much.

Bonchan rooting so much for Tokido makes me happy.

Congratulations Daigo!

@fredchuckdave: They've made that mistake a few times but I do think he said "Congratulations from Daigo" that time.

Either way great stuff from Mago, he now moves up to the second place in the CPT standings. Tokido has a real problem on his hands too, the demon is real.

Caught some of the matches, congrats to Mago!

Very much enjoyed some of the Daigo, Momochi, Xian & Inebriation matches

Looks like I woke up just in time. Hugokido was an interesting surprise but that GF was just a blowup. SFV can't come soon enough.

Also interesting that Zhi was speculating that there won't be any CPT events next year until after SFV comes out and that SFV will be the only CPT game.

@flstyle: That is a very good name.

Shame we won't be seeing the team competition. On the bright side, it seems like the MCZ boys are confirmed for CEO as well. That world warrior lifestyle.

Congratulations again to Mago for taking his second major of the CPT 2015. The 2D God is back and better than ever.

Wow. God I have no idea who to think will take the final tournament this year, this mess is insane.

@hassun: The chances Daigo colluded are quite high so I think Congratulations Daigo is appropriate.

@starvinggamer: It's worth watching the rebroadcast, believe the only 3-0s that happened were Mago in Winner's Finals and Grand Finals. Also I'd be shocked if USFIV wasn't at EVO next year at least.

Kazunoko, Slayer of Demons, so the world might be mended, so the world might be mended.

Counterpicking is a huge thing in MKX now as well so CEO/EVO should be interesting in that regard, expecting at least 2 Tanyas and the counterpicks of Tanya/against Tanya (a character that has almost exclusively 7-3 or 3-7 matchups). Sonic Fox has now lost to MIT and DJT respectively in consecutive tournaments.

@fredchuckdave: @starvinggamer:

I'm not sure colluding is the right word and I haven't seen the MCZ boys do it before either. Although it could be they just agreed they would only use their mains for the fight. I definitely don't think Daigo threw the match or anything. He hadn't been looking that good in the other matches either (same for Bonchan and -to a lesser extent- Momochi). He seemed to be mostly playing on autopilot without really making many reads or ingenious decisions. You have to remember these guys are on a pretty heavy touring schedule and you can't expect them to be at their best every single week.

Good choices for the highlight reel are Mago's chip strategy vs. Fuudo, RB vs Misse (although mostly because of the Taiwan/Razer cheerleading squad) and Momochi's crispy Ultra usage. Tokido's side characters are a highlight too but mostly for the fact that he had them and not their success rate. His Hugo (2015, year of Hugo!) looked very limited and his Elena was downright not ready.

I wouldn't expect SFIV to be more than a glorified side tourney once SFV comes out (unless it's ass/broken). Simply because Capcom/Sony will stop supporting it for promotional/monetary reasons and not because of a lack of player interest.

@hassun: Daigo blew up everyone except Xiao Hai (a very close/weird match), then promptly loses to Tokido 3-0. I mean how many times has Daigo lost to Tokido 3-0 ever? It's not like Tokido was playing amazing today or anything, just reasonably solid; Daigo was probably in better form. The only person in better form was Mago.

Tokido will probably win CEO. (give the man some points!)

@hmoney001: Points are meaningless for Tokido at this point, also he'll be in 5th in the standings.

The chances CEO has the 4 players already qualified in the top 4 rule enacted is pretty high.

The way the crowd cheered against Xiaohai was interesting, maybe Asia feels the same way about China that the rest of the world feels about the US? He's such a nice guy, too.

It is worth watching just for the craziness if nothing else. Like Momochi vs drinking Infiltration was great.

SEAM 2015 match videos are starting to appear on https://www.youtube.com/user/CapcomFightersTV/videos

With all the SFIV hype it's important not to forget the other fighting games.

Episode 3 of Persia's Marvel Minds is up!

We got venue maps!

@flstyle: Smash is going to be absolutely ridiculous at CEO. Good stuff to Jebailey for giving it as much room as possible.

I'll be disappointed if "Jebailey land arcade" doesn't have huge pictures of the man himself or his inflated head though.

EDIT:

I guess this will do.

@hassun: I might be reading too much into things but the english VO for I-No says "You wanna go, right?" when you do Chemical Love.

Come to think of it, if you look at the CPT rankings and premier results right now you have:

Rankings:

1. MCZ Daigo (Q)
2. MCZ Mago (Q)
3. Infiltration (Q)
4. MCZ Tokido (Q)
5. MD Luffy

Results:

• Razer Xian
• MCZ Mago
• MCZ Daigo
• MCZ Daigo
• MCZ Mago

First half of the year is looking mighty good for Mad Catz so far.

MAGO-SAN!

With how the rankings are, CEO should be interesting to see who gets the auto qualifier.

@hmoney001: With Tokido finally qualifying I think the one most deserving of a spot is Kazunoko. So far down the rankings (15th) despite being insanely good at nearly every tournament now.

@hassun: Makes me wonder if a USA or Euro player can squeak by for an auto qualification.

@hmoney001: I could see Luffy win a major if he travels more. We still have premier events in Kuwait, Italy and Brazil. Those might be the best choices for people from outside of East Asia to win.

PR_Balrog giving some SFV impressions and confirming that he is, in fact, not retired:

Yooo some awesome Kitana buffs plus a bnb damage nerf but hey whatever her combo damage was kinda dumb anyways. Maybe I'll have to make a new vid for her. I actually made one last time she got buffed but never got around to editing it. Kinda sad all that work for nothing.

Also lol big patch right before CEO it's like they're actively trying to fuck MKX majors over at NRS.

EDIT: No, seriously, hard KD after Square Wave is fantastinastic.

I assume CEO won't use this patch, EVO probably will.

PS. We're confirmed for the GB chat for CEO this weekend

@flstyle: @starvinggamer: @l1ghtn1n:

Sounds like there is a decent chance it will actually be implemented at CEO.

Can't say I'm surprised by that Speed Bag nerf. This probably kills that variation for Johnny though.

-

In other news they are most likely going to announce the finalised pools on Thursday. You can look at the preliminary pools here.

Some notable threats:

• Pool 1: Momochi, Hsien Chang
• Pool 2: Smug, Chris G, White Gun
• Pool 3: Tokido, iPeru
• Pool 4: PR_Balrog, Gamerbee
• Pool 5: CJ_Truth, Kazunoko
• Pool 6: Sabin, Ricki Ortiz
• Pool 7: Hamad, Xiaohai
• Pool 8: Pugera, Snake Eyez
• Pool 9: Daigo, K-Brad
• Pool 10: 801 Strider, NuckleDu
• Pool 11: Fuudo, Velociraptor
• Pool 12: Dieminion, Air
• Pool 13: Julio, Infiltration
• Pool 14: Sanford Kelly, Bonchan
• Pool 15: Mago, DaFeetLee, FourWude
• Pool 16: Dakou, Justin Wong, alucarD

@hassun: Yomi "Better than Daigo" Dieminion is obviously going to win the one in Kuwait.

@starvinggamer: Pretty silly, but hey someone might actually use rising blades now! Astonishing. Tanya nerf is likely not that significant, in fact it's largely unnecessary as good players were adapting well to the teleport wakeup anyway. (aside from Kung Lao) D'Vorah nerfs might be the biggest deal, though that only affects PPJ (who can't play in tournaments) and Honeybee.

I guess Jax's corner damage is totally acceptable.

@l1ghtn1n: No problem! Happy to help.

This is a cool beginners intro to high-level Street Fighter:

@l1ghtn1n: Based on comments I'm seeing elsewhere at least D'Vorah and Scorpion got nerfed (CDJr is saying a lot of Scorpion's old 1 meter BnBs no longer work, and apparently a lot of D'Vorah's combos require 1 frame links now).

NRS continues to show why I consider them a bad FG dev and I refuse to buy their stuff after MK9. They don't understand patching a competitive game at ALL.

I do agree that they are going extremely hard and fast with these patches. They really need to be careful not to patch MKX to death.

@flstyle: That PS4 invisible Sonic Boom clip. Ouch.

@fredchuckdave: D'Vorah nerfs seem... fair? Like, I dunno, 34%+ meterless combos off of a fast OH/Low that are easily hitconfirmable/safe on block is a bit much. On the other hand, this kinda blows up the one thing that really set SQ D'Vorah apart. She was really good before and now she's average or worse. Don't know how else you tweak her though without fucking up the other variations.

EDIT: Yeah, fuck that, definitely shouldn't have nerfed her this way.

The only thing that got changed for Scorp was 214. It only prevents Hellfire Scorp from getting like guaranteed 15% chip after a BnB, otherwise I don't see how this blows up his combos. Use 114 instead of 214 and get like 2% less damage boohoo.