I didn't get a chance to see FFM-R due to the time difference. Thanks to people (@starvinggamer, @hassun and @flstyle) posting the times and links, I did get to watch the rebroadcast Spooky did of Guilty Gear and Skullgirls from Combo Breaker.

That was the first time that I have actually seen Skullgirls being played. I assume that it was purposefully designed this way, but it really reminded me of how Marvel v Capcom plays quite a bit. The character designs were distinctive from one another and I liked music/sound. Peacock looks like she came right out of an old black and white American cartoon.

There was a link put up earlier by hassun to the Capcom Pro Tour site which listed the premier tournaments and stated that there would be no points for either Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals, or Dreamhack Winter. I wondered whether anyone knew why those particular tournaments would still be listed as premier events in that case? Do the winners of those automatically qualify for the Capcom Cup? I couldn't see a reason on the actual site for the distinction.

@mycroft_ampersand: Skullgirls is basically MikeZ's love-letter to MvC2.

As far as Dreamhack and CPT Asia finals not awarding points, I think that's just because of its proximity to the actual event? With only the two guaranteed spots available, Capcom basically knows exactly who 30/32 of the players are going to be, allowing them to plan accordingly. Having premier event-level points on the line as well could throw all of that out the window.

@starvinggamer: I think Dreamhack is too close. CPTA is sort of an invite only tournament (though obviously you earn the invite) so giving points doesn't make that much sense there. There might be more slots than just the qualifiers though, can't remember.

@hassun Isn't Xrd also on PS4 for Evo? If not then yeah only MKX but I'd be surprised if they didn't play it on that over the PS3.

@westernwizard:It's played on PS3 at Evo. FGC is poverty after all.

@mycroft_ampersand: Afaik it's all about the timing. The ranking points cutoff date is 31 October/Halloween. As to what the reason behind that date is, I can only speculate.

@hassun: Well Xrd does look identical so not sure that it matters/increases stick friendliness.

This will come as no surprise to anyone but my next blog will be CEO 2015 (June 22-24), I plan on putting it up on the 8th so I can include East Coast Throwdown and South East Asia Major.

Wouldn't surprise me, I don't recall Killer Instinct having any problems running on Xbone this past year and at last year's Evo, depends on how many consoles would be needed, how many they need to buy to make up that number.

@flstyle: Well KI doesn't run on anything else so they're definitely using Xones.

I'm actually curious how the console procurement works for big events like CEO and EVO. I would have expected them to have already bought/ordered a shitton of PS4s. Or is there some kind of renting system?

Speaking of Xrd, http://www.twitch.tv/hardedgeofficial has a FAB exhibition/bodying session on at the moment.

@starvinggamer, @hassun: I wasn't thinking about how close those tournaments were to the event. I suppose the purpose in the cutoff in points is for logistical/planning purposes (like starvinggamer said) and to prevent any of the last minute shuffling that sometimes occurs in physical sports. That makes enough sense to me that I won't worry about it.

Good question, not sure how it works. The only tournament that I know the procedure of is Melee because they asks fans to bring CRTs to help out. If they get less KI entrants they could allocate some Xbones to MKX if they use it.

SFIV teams are up next on http://www.twitch.tv/fight_club_nrw

http://challonge.com/FFM_Rumble8_USFIV_2on2

EBI vs Infexious SOON.

FAB still bodying fools on http://www.twitch.tv/hardedgeofficial

Hakan grabs clipping through Rufus is pretty exciting.

Shame Valmaster left early. Oh well, another tournament over and done.

Next CPT event is Dreamhack Summer.

@hmoney001: LOL

To tide us over until the next CPT event there is another interesting SFIV event going on in Europe:

What:

________________Kakutop League 2________________

For those unfamiliar with the concept. It's an invitational tournament for some of the top European SFIV players to duke it out in long sets.

If it's anything like the previous Kakutop League, the tournament will consist of 2 pools. In each pool players fight each other in FT5 matches in a round robin format.

The best 2 players of each pool are then put in a finals pool and play each other the next day in a FT10 format with a 2 game difference requirement.

There is no character lock. The top 4 players are also automatically invited to the next Kakutop League.

Competitors:

Easyman (Switzerland)

Gagapa (France)

Gameinn (Belgium) [H: Did this dude really choose the same online handle as Daigo?]

Luffy (France)

Pro Fluke (UK)

Problem X (UK)

Prodigal Son/Ryan Hart (UK)

Valmaster (France)

Commentary:

French: Ken Bogard

English: Shoryusengan and RMZ

When:

6 - 7 June 2015

Where:

France

(unsure of the precise location)

Streams:

http://www.twitch.tv/gaminglive_tv1 (French)

http://www.twitch.tv/unequalledmedia (English)

Schedule:

Saturday 6 June, 17:00 - 23:00

Sunday 7 June , 17:00 , 23:00

Time converter: http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?qm=1&lid=2988507,2643743,5128581,5368361&h=2643743&date=2015-6-6&sln=16-16.5

Ruling update for CPT premier events. If the top 4 players in a premier event are already qualified for Capcup, the qualification spot for that event is replaced by a leaderboard spot.

http://capcomprotour.com/rule-addition-for-capcom-pro-tour-2015-season/

@starvinggamer said:

Shoutouts to top players...

@starvinggamer: Well guess there won't be any non asian qualifiers outside of EVO. I still say a real life fight to the death was the best option.

Some really good Kung Lao and Raiden play going on on twitch.tv/netherrealm atm, the four man popularity poll invitational thingamajig.

Mmm, kinda makes me wonder about Dreamhack and CPT Asia though. If no one is getting points and no one ends up getting qualified either, that's gonna be extra shitty.

@starvinggamer: For CPT Asia Finals there's no tie for 5th place so the rule doesn't hold up there (mentioned at the bottom of the post). For Dreamhack it is a pretty serious issue though, I'm guessing they'll have 5th and 6th play each other if it comes to that. I imagine everyone will still be there for the moneys.

Hmm, not sure why my post disappeared but my earlier post was:

MKX now joins USFIV and KI in getting a $50000 pot bonus at EVO2K15.

@fredchuckdave: F0xy's Buzzsaw Kung Lao is really good. Any Kung Lao hat that isn't the tempest hat still sucks though.

First USFIV and now MKX? USA losing yet another fighting game to Europe? :V

Meanwhile, in Dubai:

@hassun: We still have Furry NRS Daigo on our side. Also GGA people and Canada counts as America so we probably have like 7 or so of the top 10 players at present. PL is still good but perhaps not up to his old standard. Digit seemed better than Dizzy, though hard to tell so close to release.

I still think Kung Lao is peripheral top 10 due to extraordinary execution demands (witness all those dropped combos) and the lack of low mixups, but definitely an explosive character.

As far as USFIV goes we actually have had Americans in the top 8's of our loaded Premier Events. BJ Unchained is top tier.

MK should be insane at EVO now with the pot bonus. WB actually doing something nice for the gaming community.

@fredchuckdave: Oops, forgot that CPT Asia is round robin. Still Dreamhack though, it's gonna be weird to have a premier event that either counts for a lot or none at all. Maybe that will be when Luffy squeaks his way back in.

@starvinggamer: Luffy has a shot for sure, though if that happens it'll just be another player who is already in by points and essentially deferring the spot to another person on the leaderboard. If Nemo stays at 128 it's possible that he'll be on the bubble so that's probably the most meaningful player I could see getting top 4 there.

Apparently the MKX ESL thing being 100K is also a new thing. Forgot to mention that.

I was sitting at work and it dawned on me, what is next years tournaments gonna be like. Will the pot bonuses get bigger or will be fall back into the age of poverty.

@hmoney001: SFV will be bigger, I imagine MKX's bonuses will stay roughly the same but hard to say for sure. USFIV will be back to the poverty roots soon enough; though perhaps not next year. For KI it just depends how much people want to donate to the CDJr Charity.

I'm actually kind of surprised other companies are not straight up outspending Sony on the FGC front. I mean we know companies like Microsoft or Warner Bros. sure could if they wanted to. They seem to be staying below or matching the USFIV pot bonuses and prize pools at best. Maybe they want to avoid one-upmanship?

@hassun: Well it's a pretty cheap price to pay for a large company so they might as well keep it low; big compared to FGC poverty but relatively miniscule in the grand scheme of things. It could easily trend upward to true "E-Sports" range in the future however.

This Dubai tournament is actually pretty fun. Teams just finished. Singles tomorrow and exhibitions on Saturday.

Dieminion, Xian, Infiltration, Damascus and local boy Latif are there. And also local heroes like Big Bird, Hamood, The Prince, Gannon and others.

http://www.twitch.tv/frametraptv

http://frametrap.com/?q=articles/2015/05/17/street-fridays-season-1-finale-infiltration-dieminion-xian-latif

http://frametrap.challonge.com/

Their trophy game is on point as well:

Capcom Fighters retweeting transphobic tweets now hooray...

@starvinggamer: I guess it could be interpreted as being terrified at how strange her history is, then again it's not something worth retweeting regardless.

"Dubaigo" is a pretty darn good handle to use at this tournament. Now we just need Dubaigo to win the "Better than Daigo" trophy.

What will it be Dubaigo, Umehalal or Umeharam?

Infiltration picking Hugo against Xian's Elena. This tournament is great! The commentary courtesy of Damascus, Infiltration and friends has been nothing short of godlike.

@hassun: Dubai is free to America, but not East Asia apparently. Better than Daigominion. Sonic Bombs, Freedom, Anti Air traffic control and so on.

@fredchuckdave:

Both Infiltration and Xian losing to local players is pretty darn impressive. Fruit, GTR/Dubaigo, Big Bird, BBoy, Ramadan, Hamood, Gannon, etc. Quality players for sure.

@hassun: Oh man those are the best names for this event.

This stream is still going and I have learnt so much about Xian and Infiltration, it's kind of scary.

Rog going full anime.

@hassun: Time to learn even more unnecessary information!

FT5 Infil vs Xian Random Select, fantastic. Damascus asks the chat "is Infil's Cammy better than K-Brad's?" and the response is a unanimous yes.

I tried to play Tanyas online this week and out of like 18 matches I only found 1 (compared to 20 or so Jasons out of 40 matches on his first week).

@fredchuckdave: Just got off of work, between the exhibitions and Kakutop II it looks like I have a lot of stuff to catch up on.

Meanwhile in Japan:

SCR Prelude is going on, JWong/Neo commentating Marvel at present. Xrd Grand Finals were pretty good.

Apparently some Yomi MK as well. Pretty funny bracket.

@fredchuckdave: Probably because Tanya is real fucking weird to play in all her variations and doesn't have braindead low>overhead loops for massive damage.

And she's probably one of the worst-looking characters in the game.

@hassun said:

To tide us over until the next CPT event there is another interesting SFIV event going on in Europe:

What:

________________Kakutop League 2________________

For those unfamiliar with the concept. It's an invitational tournament for some of the top European SFIV players to duke it out in long sets.

If it's anything like the previous Kakutop League, the tournament will consist of 2 pools. In each pool players fight each other in FT5 matches in a round robin format.

The best 2 players of each pool are then put in a finals pool and play each other the next day in a FT10 format with a 2 game difference requirement.

There is no character lock. The top 4 players are also automatically invited to the next Kakutop League.

Competitors:

Easyman (Switzerland)

Gagapa (France)

Gameinn (Belgium) [H: Did this dude really choose the same online handle as Daigo?]

Luffy (France)

Pro Fluke (UK)

Problem X (UK)

Prodigal Son/Ryan Hart (UK)

Valmaster (France)

Commentary:

French: Ken Bogard

English: Shoryusengan and RMZ

Loading Video...

When:

6 - 7 June 2015

Where:

France

(unsure of the precise location)

Streams:

http://www.twitch.tv/gaminglive_tv1 (French)

http://www.twitch.tv/unequalledmedia (English)

Schedule:

Saturday 6 June, 17:00 - 23:00

Sunday 7 June , 17:00 , 23:00

Time converter: http://www.worldtimebuddy.com/?qm=1&lid=2988507,2643743,5128581,5368361&h=2643743&date=2015-6-6&sln=16-16.5

The second -and final- day of Kakutop II is about to start!