Fromundaman
I write too much.
Not going to lie, I was tempted to end this thread right here. But...
We had a rather stacked tournament last Thursday (Well two Thursdays ago now... Man I procrastinated on this) in Cincinnati as all attendants seem to be adhering to the name of the event and stepping up their game considerably resulting in multiple upsets.
Sadly we once again have no video footage of the event
Also I am going to break my usual 3rd person narration quite a bit in this write-up.
Oh and yes, this is in fact really really late. I'm lazy.
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Notable Mentions:
-Ryuseken, our Shazam expert managed to escape West Virginia long enough to attend this event.
-Kenshinoyo was once again missing. Where mah Martian at boi?!
-A french Joker player won this event. Come on guys, what the fuck? First we win Street Fighter on the world stage and now this? Step Yo Game Up!
-Eevee was still busy being patriotic and doing army stuff.
-I'mAriesBaby refused to join yet again saying he didn't want to be pot fodder and instead winning a Marvel tournament with broken Taskmaster/Doom/Vergil stuff (I keep telling him he's one Zero away from an optimal team, but what do I know?).
-I only used him 2 matches! I swear! I just needed game 1 advantage for the reset... oh yee gods I'm so sorry... *sob*
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RESULTS:
1st place: @Fromundaman (The Joker/Lex Luthor/Aquaman...)
2nd place: @Sonic Lionheart (Nightwing/Hawkgirl/Zatanna)
3rd place: @Mod (Superman)
4th place: Red Cyclone (Wonder Woman)
5th place: Ryuseken (Shazam/Green Lantern)
5th place: MPII (Zod/Batgirl)
7th place: @VGMtheVagabond (Raven/Doomsday)
7th place: Jayy Hussle (Black Adam)
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We kicked off the tournament by pitting the people's champion (And by that I mean my personal hero for using Shazam, who is the most hype character ever IMO) Ryuseken against the poking master and scumbag counterpicker (
), Sonic Lionheart. Ryuseken had been talking the entire way to the event about how he hoped not to have to face Sonic Lionheart as he has no real answer to Hawkgirl, so you can imagine his frustration when he hit him round 1.They started the match with Sonic Lionheart's Hawkgirl going up against Ryuseken's Shazam. The first match was actually pretty close as Ryuseken made use of his movement options to get in on Hawkgirl and Shazam's ridiculous resets to keep his momentum going. Unfortunately for him though, Hawkgirl was free of the grinder thanks to the round reset and proceeded to keep Shazam out for the rest of the match.
This caused Ryuseken to make an early switch to Green Lantern. I don't know what that matchup actually is supposed to be, but Ryuseken made it look heavily in Green Lantern's favor and took the next match.
Sonic Lionheart immediately switched to Zatanna and proceeded to shut Green Lantern down for the next game.
Ryuseken was stuck in the counterpick trap. Since Sonic Lionheart had taken game 1, he could counterpick again if Ryuseken went Shazam to take the next game, but ultimately Ryuseken must have felt fighting Hawkgirl with Shazam was still better than fighting Zatanna with Green Lantern (I agree!) and went back to Shazam, taking game 4 in a convincing manner.
This played right into Sonic Lionheart's hands though, and for game 5 he went back to Hawkgirl. This proved a wise decision as he took the final game, knocking Ryuseken into losers.
Next up we had MPII vs Jayy Hussle. Jayy Hussle is a Marvel player who's been trying to get into Injustice somewhat recently and just finally made it out of a character crisis, dropping Catwoman and Ares for Black Adam. This must have been a good move as he placed relatively well at the event he attended in Indiana the week before, but we here in Cincinnati had seen very little of this new character.
Jayy pulled his newly minted Black Adam out against MPII's Zod in a match I saw very little of. While the little I saw of Jayy's Black Adam impressed me and both his combos and pressure were much better than before, they proved to be no match for Zod's superior zoning, nor did Jayy seem to know how to deal with Zod's trait. MPII took the set convincingly sending Jayy to losers.
Next up we had Mod's Superman going up against Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman. This matchup has happened several times in the past and while both players are excellent in all of the games that they play, Mod has taken most of these sets. Today would prove no different, and Superman punches Wonder Woman in the ovaries, laying all of Ares' fears to rest and sending Red Cyclone to losers in one fell swoop. (Yeah I missed a lot of this match too. Lots of abusing mobility I assume.)
Elsewhere, a matchup I was dreading was occuring... Yes, it was that time again, Fromundaman and VGMtheVagabond were playing that most boring of matchups once again: Joker vs Raven.
For anyone who missed my previous descriptions of this matchup, it's one of those matchups that makes Tekken look hype and makes me want to dive into an industrial fryer just to take my mind off of the mind-numbing boredom that this matchup presents.
That said, despite how stupid this matchup is, this was also the most BS set of all time. I'm going to stop writing in the 3rd person for a moment and say that I stole that set so hard that the only plausible explanation is voodoo magic.
Anyway, 4 of the 5 games we played went to the last 5-10 seconds, as is tradition in this stupidly boring matchup.
Two times Joker got timed out, and this is nothing new. One time Fromundaman reached the corner and took that game. The other two matches are where the BS/magic happen.
The set only really started to be mildly interesting at the ~10 second mark of game 4, with VGM being up 2-1 over Fromundaman. VGM has a slight life-lead, but Fromundaman is at 3/4 screen range and one touch could turn it around if he gets in. VGM throws a bird, allowing Fromundaman to super. 6 seconds left on the clock. VGM still has a 1-2% lead with about 12% left total. He backdashes furiously to not let Joker get close. BANG! BANG!
Joker somehow steals that game away with YOLO gunshots.
VGM is visibly rattled but hits rematch. Does an excellent job controlling his nerves and keeps Fromundaman out, taking almost no damage on the first healthbar. Fromundaman gets in and equalizes it (Raven is SOOOOOO free on knockdown). Unfortunately, the rounds system means Joker needs to get in again, and VGM refuses to let that happen. Fromundaman takes approximately 70% damage trying to approach. We hit the 10 seconds mark. Fromundaman throws caution to the win and starts rushing down relentlessly. Fromundaman gets close enough to land a few hits and bring the life deficit down to about 50%. VGM strikes back, not realizing he gave Fromundaman an opportunity to clash. VGM now has only a 15-20% life deficit with 4-5 seconds left on the clock.
Nobody knows why it worked, but back to back panic gunshots managed to stuff whatever VGM was trying to do 3 times in a row and gave Fromundaman the life lead right as the timer hit 0.
This narrator still can't believe this happened a week later, and if questioned about it I will probably say I must have cheated somehow, because those comebacks were straight up impossible. Anyway somehow Fromundaman managed to continue on winner's side, knocking VGM into losers.
Next up we had Sonic Lionheart playing against MPII. From the little I saw of this set, Sonic Lionheart was going Nightwing this game against MPII's Zod and Batgirl combo. Sonic Lionheart seemed to be zoning a lot more effectively than in the past and MPII didn't seem to have any substancial answer for it. Once more Sonic Lionheart took the set over MPII, sending him into losers.
Meanwhile Fromundaman's Joker was getting his runback against Mod's Superman from Rocket Punch. The set started with some intense death glares and threat of crowbar violence if he blocked mid-attack again as the button check was underway (No need to fear though, it was all friendly trashtalk).
The set went underway and Fromundaman showed how much he wanted this win, backdashing lasers and answering back with gunshots, forcing Mod to approach him. Making full use of his frame traps, OTG shenanigans and some really dirty new standing reset tech, Fromundaman barely took game 1.
Mod wasn't going to let that fly though and ran that shit back, taking Fromundaman's Joker to the corner and showing him that Superman has a corner game too.
Fromundaman refused to lose though and remembered what the hour or so of friendlies with Mod the previous week had taught him and proceeded to shut down Superman's movement options as well as countering Superman's zoning. This led to Fromundaman taking the next two games and knocking Mod into losers, eliciting the closest thing to a pop off we shall probably ever see from Fromundaman.
On Loser's side, we saw VGMtheVagabond go up against Red Cyclone, two people you would not expect to see in loser's this early.
In the past VGM has won all of these confrontations, and he felt ready to take on Red Cyclone. Unfortunately for him his previous set was still fresh in his mind and it was messing with him.
The first two matches were really close, but VGM failed to keep Red Cyclone out, and once Wonder Woman got in she does damage.
The last game saw VGM switching to Doomsday to try and fight on even ground in the close range game. Unfortunately for him this did not work out at all and Red Cyclone took the set, knocking out his tournament master.
On the other side of loser's, Ryuseken faced off against Jayy Hussle's Black Adam. I missed a large portion of this set, but in a surprising twist, Jayy's Black Adam was up 1-0 over Ryuseken's Shazam when I walked over.
Game 2 saw a repeat of this canonical matchup, and Jayy's smart zoning, punishing of the teleport, good pressure and lightning cage wakeup saw him take game 2 over Ryuseken.
Ryuseken took a moment to think things through. He did not come back from West Virginia to go 0-2. He returned to character select and picks Green Lantern.
The next 3 matches were the most disgusting series of frametraps and vortexes as Jayy showed a lack of matchup knowledge and got constantly reset by Ryuseken's Green Lantern. Ryuseken advances, knocking Jayy out of the tournament (But, if you are reading this James, don't despair! Holy shit did you get better all of a sudden. I apologize for not getting friendlies with you at this event, but we'll play next time I'm at AL).
Next up we had a matchup we haven't seen in tournament since May: Fromundaman vs Sonic Lionheart. Whenever these two play, it tends to be a series of counterpicks, making game 1 extremely important. That said, in recent times they have settled into a sort of routine: Fromundaman picks Joker game 1 and Sonic Lionheart picks Hawkgirl and they go from there.
This time around, Fromundaman instantly picked Lex, and Sonic Lionheart waited a moment before finally picking Nightwing, a matchup he has favored against Lex in the past. Fromundaman accused him of counterpicking and said he was going to hidden cursor like the scumbag he is. Sonic Lionheart shrugged and said he didn't care; he was going Nightwing regardless. Scumbagaman went Joker.
This would start a matchup that has been seen here in the past, but that always saw Fromundaman accusing Sonic Lionheart of "Not playing gay enough". This time Sonic Lionheart amended that and played extremely lame. Despite being told by @Qwark28 that Joker outzones Nightwing, Sonic Lionheart used ground sparks to duck gunshots, or staff pound to go under gunshot, or jump back wingdings to keep Joker out. The first game saw Fromundaman's Joker barely taking half a healthbar with isolated hits here and there as Sonic Lionheart defied matchup numbers and kept Fromundaman out.
Fromundaman took a breath, thought about just happened and rage rematched. He refused to lose in what @Qwark28 had claimed was his only winning matchup (Because even Joker players forget Cyborg is a character). Fromundaman went in hard, met only by wingdings and got perfected the first round of game 2. You could give Fromundaman a red ring at this point because all he felt was rage. Joker finally managed to get in, timing a jump between the first 3 wingdings and the MB one, and got a full combo. From there Fromundaman carried Sonic Lionheart to the corner and reset him over and over to even it up. Nightwing tried to activate the brain on Luthor's Lab to get out of the corner, but Fromundaman was having none of it and stopped him for yet another full corner combo. Fromundaman lands the reset and Sonic Lionheart clashes. Now Fromundaman has the life lead and shows his willingness to play lame as he avoids the zoning and forces Nightwing to approach him, then shuts it down. The score is now 1-1.
Sonic Lionheart hits a quick rematch at this point and decides to stick with what has worked: Zoning. Once more Fromundaman gets zoned out completely, despite the fact @Qwark28 told me based on 6 months old international online matches that Joker outzones Nightwing. Someone in the audience yells Qwark's name as I get outzoned.
The highlight of game 3 was the only Nightwing combo in the whole set, which was surprisingly dropped. Sonic Lionheart was playing SO lame that when he did hit me with something that wasn't a projectile, he messed up his only conversion opportunity, a rare sight from Sonic Lionheart (By the way, I'm proud of you for playing that lame. It's about time!).
By the time we reach game 4, Fromundaman was already thinking about his comeback from losers, which is truly selling the meat before you catch the pig, but whatever. The thought process was that he'd seen what he had to do to get in on game 2, but that he wasn't sure if he could get in again. If he went Joker again this match, he could see whether or not getting in would be a feasible option without going back into training mode, and if he lost he would have to play Grand Finals starting with another character and go from there. If Fromundaman won this one, he would have stuck with Joker until Hawkgirl came out.
Game 4 saw Sonic Lionheart zone the fuck out of Fromundaman yet again in a matchup that must have been as painful to watch as to play. While there are holes in Nightwing's zoning that Fromundaman has exploited in the past, Sonic Lionheart made sure to leave as few as possible and adopt new zoning patterns to shut down Fromundaman's previous tactics, as well as stopping counterzoning attempts. Game 4 made it clear that Fromundaman was going to have to go back in the lab to rework this matchup and that he wasn't going to be getting in on Nightwing today, let alone outzoning him (@Qwark28 ). Fromundaman lets down the Joker community and especially @Qwark28 by being knocked into losers by a Dick.
Back on loser's side, Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman was going up against MPII's Zod. MPII used trait, interactibles and zoning to keep Red Cyclone at bay but Wonder Woman was having none of it and using her instant air demi-goddess powers, she punched her way in and proceeded to show she would kneel to no man, not even the pope. Red Cyclone moves on, knocking MPII to losers (Yeah I missed most of this set too).
Meanwhile Mod's Superman was facing off against Ryuseken's Shazam. While Mod has won most of their past sets, Ryuseken's clutch factor is no joke and has allowed him to take sets off of Mod at prior events.
Mod was determined not to let it happen again though and abused the fact that Superman's zoning shuts down Shazam's mobility (Why does MB eye lasers track and punish a successful teleport?! That's so dumb...) and limited Ryuseken's options, punishing him whenever he got close.
That said game 2 Ryuseken managed to get in several times and with that momentum Shazam vortexed Superman to death.
This was short lived though, and Mod managed to keep Ryuseken out the next 2 games, knocking Ryuseken out of the tournament early. On the plus side, it meant Ryuseken could start driving back to West Virginia a bit earlier, so look at the bright side I guess?
This led to a rematch of Red Cyclone and Mod. Both of these players were unwilling to lose, and this led to a very intense match between Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman and Mod's Superman.
This was an incredibly fast paced set with both players utilizing their mobility to the fullest. The matches went back and forth, going down to the last game, but ultimately Red Cyclone's inability to parry straight lasers cost him the set, and Mod's Superman moved on.
This led us back to yet another runback: Mod's Superman vs Fromundaman's Joker.
While it was close, Fromundaman took the first game rather quickly as both players played very aggressively, but corner happened, and as any who have played a competent Joker player knows, corner is the end of the round/match.
In the next game, both players played much more patiently and we saw a lot more zoning going on, as well as a lot of backdashed gunshots, crowbars and lasers. We reached the 10 second mark in this match with Mod having a slight life-lead, and in a series of events that shows that Fromundaman just doesn't learn, Fromundaman repeated last week's fiasco and threw a pie at straight lasers thinking "Sure, this didn't work last week, but maybe I just mistimed it. I'm sure this time he won't be able to block mid-attack. OH COME THE FUCK ON!". Thankfully for Fromundaman, this time instead of falling apart he became ridiculously aggressive and managed to take the life lead right as the timer hit 0.
The last game was a close one, with both players being patient and being much more spacing oriented than the previous games. Fromundaman managed to win this spacing war, double eliminating Mod for the first time ever, meaning he was moving on to Grand Finals where Sonic Lionheart awaited him.
Grand Finals approached and while Fromundaman and Sonic Lionheart are good friends, you could feel the rivalry this match elicited. Both of them came to win. This was one of the rare matches that started before either player even sat down.
While I can't vouch for what was going through Sonic Lionheart's head at the time, Fromundaman was thinking about committing the scumbaggiest of scumbag moves (Okay, maybe not all of that, but let me go for dramatic effect!) and counter-picking Nightwing with "Shoes for Crews" Aquaman (Flashpoint costume), and not only that, doing it with hidden cursor so as to not run into Hawkgirl game 1.
The thought process was that Joker wasn't taking on Nightwing this event, and while Lex can beat Hawkgirl, Fromundaman was unsure as to whether or not his Lex could take Sonic Lionheart's Nightwing, and if they were going to counterpick back and forth like they usually do, Fromundaman would need game 1 advantage to secure the reset.
Scumbagaman hidden cursors and goes to Aquaman.
Sonic Lionheart goes Nightwing.
The following game found Sonic Lionheart hilariously outplaying Scumbagaman, but it didn't matter because Aquaman has trait, and as such punished Nightwing for doing things right and won the match.
Sonic Lionheart immediately went to character select and picked Hawkgirl.
This match was close for the first lifebar, where Scumbagaman made good use of Water Shield to navigate the mace tosses, but Sonic Lionheart played the second healthbar flawlessly and kept Scumbagaman's Aquaman out all match.
This led to another counterpick, and Fromundaman went Sex Luthor (Sex Luthor temporarily redeems him). Sex Luthor kind of demolishes Hawkgirl, and this was a matchup both players knew, so it came as little surprise when Fromundaman took this one.
Sonic Lionheart returned to character select and went Nightwing once more. At this point Fromundaman didn't expect to win this match and was planning on his own counterpick next game. To both of their surprise though, Fromundaman managed to navigate the zoning much more effectively as Lex, allowing him to barely take the match and reset the bracket.
The two went right back to character select, and this time both Scumic Lionheart and Scumbagaman decided to hidden cursor. After much deliberation on both sides, the match began with Scumic Lionheart going Hawkgirl (Probably assuming Scumbagaman would go Aquaman for game 1 advantage again) and Scumbagaman going Lex (To counter the potential Hawkgirl pick).
This match was won at the character select screen, and through the power of hidden cursor mindgames, Scumbagaman was up 1-0 in the reset.
Sonic Lionheart went back to character select and decided to give Nightwing a try again. While Sonic Lionheart was doing a great job zoning, Fromundaman was forcing respect with Doom's Hidden Missile assists (Which apparently Nightwing gets fucked by pretty hard in the "No Mobility" staff stance) and by putting up armor on any whiffed projectile. Fromundaman goes up 2-0.
Sonic Lionheart hits rematch, marking the first time in this Grand Finals that we DIDN'T return to character select. Unfortunately the result was the same, and Lex's armor, and the amount of times Fromundaman managed to get it, tipped the scales. Fromundaman wins the set 3-0 and takes his first ever offline tournament.
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That's the end of this write-up folks.
As awesome as finally winning an event was, I am kind of disappointed I switched to Aquaman at all. I am also mildly disappointed that I still have not, and probably never will, accomplish what only @Gilbagz has done: Win a tournament going solo Joker.
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I do take a small bit of pride for making sure Joker didn't take it though. Lmao <3 also I'm not a hard counterpicker my characters just compliment each other.