What's new

Tweedy Wins Injustice: A Combo Breaker Retrospective

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
So although we still have the traditional results post, I'd like to write this up to 1) Give Tweedy credit for his win, which I think every major winner deserves (congrats, Tweedy), and 2) Talk about this weekend's event in a retrospective fasion. Feel free to share your thoughts in the replies as well!

Let's face it -- Combo Breaker 2018 has been one of the most wildly unpredictable events in the NRS' community's recent tenure. Even as someone who's been following this scene since 2011, I could not and wouldn't have predicted the results for this weekend's games.

We've often heard that the same people win everything, and some have gone as far as to call the meta 'stale'; but what we've saw in Chicago is anything but. This was a game that is very much still alive, with a meta that is shifting organically as people individually champion various characters.

For an entire group of guys, this was the first time that they've all found themselves watching together from the sidelines, collectively, in years. We've seen events where an expected name fails to place, but in one fell swoop Semij, King, Theo, Whiteboi, Honeybee, Tekken Master, Hayatei, Iluusions were all simultaneously rendered spectators to a major Top 8. That's unusual -- and in my opinion, despite the disappointment some of them must feel, this is great for both the community and for the game.

What exactly happened between late 2017 and May 2018? Did a resurgent crop of players become better than those who ran the Pro Circuit during the first year of the game's release? Possibly not yet.. But it seemed apparent that those who were really hungry for this tournament, likely worked harder than some of the people who are resting on last year's accomplishments. This means that players haven't been completely replaced, but they've been put on notice that they can be eliminated at any time by a fresh and motivated group of challengers. And that uncertainty is very, very good for the game.

Meta-wise, things are at their most fluid in years. Not only are the matches closely-contested and exciting to watch (how many 5-game nailbiter sets have we seen?), but the flow of characters is never-ending. I can count important contributions this weekend from: Green Lantern, Dr. Fate, Red Hood, Firestorm, Captain Cold, Starfire, Black Adam, Bane, Blue Beetle, Atom, Supergirl, Hellboy, Braniac and more.. These are characters that all felt viable, if only situationally.

We're also watching some players definitively step into their own. Rewind has put everyone on notice that he's not at all afraid of any player on any level. We often hear about a young player who'd cut out to be the next major Top 8threat after giving people problems online (Murk, Xarakamaka, Revet, Balding, etc), but the talk is bigger than the resulting tournament resume. Watching the fundamentals and execution on display in the match between Rewind and Sonic however, it's apparent that Rewind has tools that position him to be to be a dangerous threat to the establishment, and that's great.

Tweedy has likewise been fashioning himself into someone who can threaten anyone he's up against. We saw shades of this in MKX, but a win in Injustice 2 provides both continuity and proof of resilience and practice. A confident player who's also willing to put in the hard work, and isn't afraid to shake things up, is ultimately good for the scene -- and I'll be interesting to see where his road leads from here.

My takewaway from watching this tournament is that our scene is in a good place -- and that those who were sidelined at this event will now have to shake the rust off, sharpen their tools and come back and contend with the guys who've put them on notice. This is exciting, and we should embrace this. Curbolicous showing up to win MK9 after years, with Revet placing and Tweedy winning Injustice was a symbolic passing of the 'young lion' torch. Expectations were shaken this weekend and it's exciting.

In any case -- drop a reply here and let me know what you think. And also congratulations to Scar, SylverRye, and Gunshow, whose grinding over many months has recently paid dividends. The Pro Series is just beginning.. Let's go.
 
Last edited:
Dr gross sweated blood to defeat Sonic Fox... just to get robbed to Tweedy. As a fellow Dominican. This left a hole in my heart. Dr Gross... You are the true Injustice 2 champion in my heart.:(

Anyway!. Congratulations to the champion Tweedy. Very well deserved.
 
Last edited:

NothingPersonal

Are you not entertained!?
Personally I would prefer if they would avoid putting the winner in the title but you have to blame yourself for coming to this site the day after the tournament. Should have known to watch the VOD or it on youtube before checking here.
I'm not blaming anyone. I wasn't going to watch this tournament at all actually, only got interested after seeing Tweedy won in the results thread. It so happened that the spoilers got me interested this time. I would've HATED if results were spoiled fir MK9 and MKX, because I'm interested in those games. But my question is to Crimson specifically, why he thinks he has the right to spoil results on the main page.
 

ChatterBox

Searching for an alt.
I agree wit you Crimson, it was a fun watch and I think it sparked a lot of life into the top 8 having so many fresh player and character match ups. Also proved there is a lot more defensive lab work to this game than many in our scene are doing at the moment and it will be awesome to see once everyone's done their homework. Exploit those gaps people.

I missed pools and everything before top 8, someone point me to this blue beetle who did work on stream pls
 

Swindle

Philanthropist & Asshole
I'm not blaming anyone. I wasn't going to watch this tournament at all actually, only got interested after seeing Tweedy won in the results thread. It so happened that the spoilers got me interested this time. I would've HATED if results were spoiled fir MK9 and MKX, because I'm interested in those games. But my question is to Crimson specifically, why he thinks he has the right to spoil results on the main page.
I kind of agree with you here. At least wait until the weekend is done so everyone has a chance to catch up on the matches.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
E

Eldriken

Guest
Let's totally disregard that Crimson pointed out that there was a traditional results thread which also happened to not contain spoilers and complain about this thread having spoilers.

Sorry you caught the thread with spoilers, but this horse has been beaten to death. It's up to the thread creator to include or omit them. Since there is NO rule against spoilers, you KNOW you run the risk and yet still complain about it.

Charybdis and Hawkman have both been making a valiant effort to not put spoilers in the thread titles lately. Yet here we are, it's still getting questioned.

No one has to explain why they have "the right" to post spoilers. Their site, their rules. You know this and agree to it every single time you come to the site.

Let's move on from it already.
 
I feel less bad about the one time I faced Tweedy online and got mercilessly thrashed lol.

Seriously though awesome work on his part. And the guy he faced off against made Green Lantern seem like far more of a threat than I ever would have anticipated!
 

Juggs

Lose without excuses
Lead Moderator
So the player “not worth your time” wins the tournament. Tekken Master specifically declined the challenge Tweedy offered so that he could “focus on the tournament”... you know, the one that Tweedy just won. That type of karma is too delicious for words.

Congrats to the Tweedster. Hard work pays off it seems, well done. @Tweedy