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Kenshinoyo wins Step Yo Game Up Bi-weeklies (5/29)

Fromundaman

I write too much.
While we have not had much of an online presence, Cincinnati (Ohio) has had an active Injustice scene since the game first launched. Since I have just taken over our bi-weekly tournament events, I'm going to try to join the cool kids and do a write up for our events as well and hopefully get some exposure for a scene going completely under the radar right now.


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Now on to the meat of the matter:


Despite an unusually low turnout, this week's Step Yo Game Up was filled with hype matches and quite a bit of character variety, as well as a bit of trolling from the stream commentators. Thankfully, the low turnout (And the fact that Tekken and Marvel have consistently gotten all the stream time at our arcade for quite a while), we managed to get every match of the tournament on stream. Here is the stream link:

Stream link: http://www.twitch.tv/arcadelegacy/b/533489148


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It is worth noting that this week marked the return of several players, as well as the absence of a few regulars.

-Red Cyclone, a Tekken player who won a fair number of our early Injustice tournaments, returned with his Wonder Woman this week after being absent for several months.
- @Sonic Lionheart , an excellent Hawkgirl/Nightwing player, returned with a new character in tow after taking a few months away due to health problems.
-Lord Chozo, a Deathstroke player who showed up to a Brutality event some months back, decided to come in and get back into the game, starting at this event.
-Arkayne, A Capcom player who was active in the Injustice scene early on also returned to join in our event, bringing his Batgirl with him.
- @AL Eevee unfortunately found himself having to work this week and was not able to show off his post-UFGT Harley/Batgirl combo.
-Ryuseken was also absent, being in West Virginia (Poor guy...) for a month or two due to a new job. Sadly this combined with the fact I'mAriesBaby didn't enter means we did not see Shazam in the bracket this week.


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RESULTS:
1st place: Kenshinoyo (Martian Manhunter/Bane/Deathstroke)
2nd place: Fromundamn (Joker/Lex Luthor)
3rd place: VGMtheVagabond (Raven)
4th place: Mod (Superman/Zod)
5th place: Sonic Lionheart (Hawkgirl/Zatanna/Nightwing)
5th place: Red Cyclone (Wonder Woman)
7th place: Lord Chozo (Deathstroke)
7th place: Arkayne (Batgirl)

Bracket link: http://challonge.com/SYGU_5_29
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We had an upset right off the bat as the tournament was kicked off by an intense set between our resident Raven player, @VGMtheVagabond and our Superman/Zod player, @Mod (00:09:00).
The first match went back and forth with VGM doing an excellent job counterzoning Mod's Superman with empty voids. After a lot of patient play, we came down to the last few seconds, where Mod started being super aggressive and just barely managed to make up his life deficit before the timer ran out.
VGM came back strong though, and proceeded to effectively keep Superman out with a mixture of birds, soul crush, trait, and abusing interactibles (Like the left corner of Striker's Island) to take the set.

Next up Fromundaman (Hey, that's me!) pulled his Joker out against Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman (00:25:30). Red Cyclone took the first match convincingly, punishing Fromundaman for wanting to constantly press buttons. After a stage switch and a change of strategies though, Fromundaman managed to crowbar his way to a win, in no small part due to background bounce shenanigans.

We immediately followed this up with a set between Kenshinoyo ( @rurounikenshin ) and Lord Chozo (00:40:30). Unfortunately Chozo did not seem to know the Martian matchup and Kenshinoyo took the set convincingly.

In our last 1st round match, we saw Sonic Lionheart go up against Arkayne (00:52:40). Sonic Lionheart debuted his new character, Zatanna to mixed results. As Arkayne remembered the game though, he managed to bring Sonic Lionheart to the limit and forced him to switch back to Nightwing and causing a whole lot of bad jokes. The switch seemed to work though and Sonic Lionheart managed to clutch it out.

In winner's we saw VGMtheVagabond's Raven overcome a 10-0 matchup against his tournament master Kenshinoyo, who was using Bane (01:11:30). In a tough back and forth match, VGM's offensive Raven showed no fear and with smart jumps and MB B3s, VGM managed to get the upper hand, taking the set 3-1.

Next up we had Mod and LordChozo playing in losers (01:30:30). Despite LordChozo's zoning, the man of steel showed that kryptonian powers trumped steel and lead.

Arkayne and Red Cyclone were up next with an intensely close game 1 (01:44:00). Unfortunately for Arkayne though, Red Cyclone made adjustments and handily took the next two games for a 3-0 sweep.

Fromundaman and Sonic Lionheart were up next in a set full of counterpicks (01:53:40). Sonic Lionheart decided to try his Zatanna against Fromundaman's Joker for a round, but after taking background bounce shenanigans and a pie, he decided to switch to Hawkgirl.
This is a matchup that these two have played multiple times, and that Fromundaman rarely wins. After a lot of smart zoning from Hawkgirl and some lucky hits from Joker, the match came down to a wire, with a mace charge closing it out with seconds left on the clock. Fromundaman foolishly decided to rematch and got bodied game 3 before making a switch to one of his old mains, Sex Luthor. This proved to be a smart choice as Sex Luthor did not fail, taking out Hawkgirl and forcing Sonic Lionheart to switch back to Zatanna. Unfortunately this was not enough, and Lex Luthor ended up taking off the suit.

Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman got her back broken by Kenshinoyo's Bane in the next set (02:19:00). While the first healthbars were really close the first 2 matches, Bane seemed to get a second wind and barely take any damage on the second healthbar.
Come the 3rd match we had a reversal however, where Bane barely got hit in the first healthbar, but Wonder Woman made a huge comeback. Red Cyclone again took a huge health lead game 4, but like in the first two games, Kenshinoyo's Bane made a comeback and took the set.

This was followed up by possibly the most hype set of the tournament, Sonic Lionheart vs Mod (02:33:30). Mod decided not to go Superman this time, as Sonic Lionheart has defeated his Superman consistently the last few times they played, choosing instead to go Zod.
This proved to be a good choice, and armed with all of the new Zod knowledge he picked up at UFGT, Mod took the first game against Sonic Lionheart's Zatanna very convincingly.
Sonic Lionheart wisely switched to Hawkgirl and took a strong health lead in the beginning of the match. Mod's Zod brought it back though, just barely edging out Hawkgirl and going up 2-0.
Sonic Lionheart was not going to give up that easily though, and through a tough struggle he managed to barely take the next game. Riding that momentum, he takes the next match convincingly as well.
Mod opted to change the stage at this point though. This brought them to Ferris, and despite how hard fought the game was, Mod's interactible usage and smart zoning ended up taking the set. This marked the first time in a very long time that Mod defeated Sonic Lionheart.

This was followed up by a roommate rivalry: VGMtheVagabong and Fromundaman (2:50:00). This match included one of the weirdest bugs we've seen in which Raven's MB Event Horizon just straight up failed and put Joker in neutral behind Raven. Fromundaman did not react in time to punish this strange event, but he still took the round in a fairly convincing manner.
VGM showed some smart adjustments in the next match, but thanks to some drops Fromundaman still managed to barely take the next two close games as well.

Up next we had another old rivalry. Kenshinoyo and Mod (03:06:10) are training partners and have played many times in Grand Finals of our events, but surprisingly both found themselves fighting for tournament life in an intense set. Nerves showed as we saw drops from both players, including one which would ultimately cost Mod the set.

As we got closer to the end of the tournament, we saw a runback from earlier in the tournament as VGMtheVagabond and Kenshinoyo (03:24:00) duked it out in losers' finals.
Unfortunately Raven's lack of wakeups combined with some crucial drops and a terrible matchup was just too much for VGM and Kenshinoyo took the set 3-0.

Finally we arrived at Grand Finals (03:34:00), where we saw Fromundaman's Joker face off against Kenshinoyo's Deathstroke and Martian combo (He knew better than to go Bane :joker:). These two have been meeting in tournament fairly often recently, with sets going back and forth.
To Fromundaman's eternal shame, he dropped the first game to Kenshinoyo's online Deathstroke. Fromundaman, fairly upset at this despite his matchup inexperience, took the next two matches and forced Kenshinoyo to get off of Deathstroke and give him the Martian, despite the stream's cries for the crappy non-character, Cyborg.
This proved to be a good move, as Kenshinoyo punished Fromundaman's jump-happiness to take the next match convincingly on Arkham Asylum.
Despite a stage switch though, Kenshinoyo managed to force the reset with a combination of good reads, zoning and punishes.

Nerves started showing at this point, and drops were abound in this battle between the tiers.
Fromundaman managed to outzone Martian and finally pie Martian for the 1st game of the reset.
Unfortunately the stage random was unkind, and the next match was on Ferris, and while the stage does benefit both characters, Kenshinoyo made vastly better use of interactibles than Fromundaman and took game 2.
Fromundaman ran it right back though and managed to pull out a victory with pies, guns, crowbars and canisters for game 3.
Unfortunately Fromundaman made a few bad choices (Oh god why did I super before sending another missile?! That was it! GAAAAH!) and Kenshinoyo tied it up 2-2.
Fromundaman decided to try his luck and go back to stage select, praying to all the Injustice gods to not get either version of the Arkham Asylum or Stryker's Yard. The gods were apparently all martian though, as we ended up on Stryker's Yard. There was no salt cam for this sadly, but the look on Fromundaman's face when the 50-50 stage select ended there foreshadowed the outcome of the match. Kenshinoyo took the next match very convincingly, taking the entire tournament.



The salt was incredibly strong (as you can hear very clearly on the stream), and a Money Match/salty rematch between Fromundaman and Kenshinoyo (04:10:00) happened immediately afterwards (Spoiler Alert: I left even saltier, although the MM was also close).
 
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IMakeItL00kC00L

Do not provoke a god
Nice write up! I was only able to catch the very end of the stream but I saw some good matches. I'm hoping that I'll be able to go down there after I move to Dayton to finally experience an offline scene :)
 

Fromundaman

I write too much.
I live in lexington ky and i'd be down to drive up to Cincinnati to play you all! I could probably get some other Kentucky guys to come up to so we can have a big local going.
Nice write up! I was only able to catch the very end of the stream but I saw some good matches. I'm hoping that I'll be able to go down there after I move to Dayton to finally experience an offline scene :)
This is awesome! We're doing these every two weeks, then I plan on doing a Brutality event with a larger prize every couple of months (I'll probably schedule one for July/early August, but not quite sure yet.).
 

LordChozo

Mainless Wanderer
A bit late here, but I'd like to point out that I do know the MMH matchup, at least more than it appeared on Stream. The problem is that I was playing on a broken PS2 controller, and for the first match and a half of the set, I couldn't actually do anything. After that I just gave up in frustration. The Mod matchup saw me using a slightly less broken PS2 controller.

I think I would have lost both those fights anyway, because I took a lot of time off and Kenshinoyo and Mod are both very good players, so hats off to them. But they certainly would have been competitive if I had actually had responsive buttons (and Mod was using a semi-broken PS2 controller during our fight as well - I think he just adapted to it better). Anyway, otherwise good write up my friend!
 

Fromundaman

I write too much.
Ah okay.

Man, I tell Mod this all the time, and will now say it to you as well: Make sure you guys bring working equipment! Hell, even if you don't, Jesse sells PS2 pads up front for like $5.