Player of the year: Sonic Fox. Theo is a strong runner up....but as dominate as he once was he left the game and Sonic Fox has at this point well surpassed him in my view.
Tournament of the year: Final Round. I understand the frustration some may have felt as competitors...but from a spectator standpoint that tournament was so goddamn stacked and packed to the brink with blowups, drama, salt, and insane amounts of competition that it was freaking unbelievable. From a stream monsters perspective I cannot think of a bigger tournament all year.
Character of the year: Aquaman. Despite Batgirl running roughshot more recently, there has only been one that's dominated the tournament scene.
On the flipside, and this is sincerely not meant as a blowup to Theo, 2014 was to some extent the year of the pocket Aquamen. I can list nearly half a dozen examples in tournament where a top player has been counterpicked and overcome by a pocket Aquaman because of how insane and flatout braindead this scummiest of scumbags is.
I find it very telling that after months and months of not hearing anything from Socal due to stream issues we finally got to tune in thanks to the communities effort....only to discover that the scene had been completely flooded by the fish with mirror matches of this galore:
Salt of the year: So many to choose from. Its tempting to go with the controller malfunction of PL at final round....but I think the most entertaining salt all year is probably the 16bit versus bane antics. Hearing him threaten to "punch that stupid grin off your face" on the mic was one of the funniest things I've heard all year.
Pop off of the year: Pig versus Sonic Fox in winners finals at Evo. The emotion was real.
Biggest upset: LOTF/KDZ at final round.
Biggest blowup: What stream problems?
Most improved: Gross. Going off popular perception (since I didn't follow MK9) it sounds like Gross' Career was largely a joke with the occasional random upset. I think you'd be hard pressed at this point to argue the same is true of his Injustice career though with his growing collection of scalps.
Best comeback: Dab/Jupiter at Evo. I'm honestly tempted to put this as biggest blowup....and not because Jupiter lost, but because this was one of many godlike incredible matches we had to get long after the tournament was already over because the people running evo couldn't be bothered to give a damn about our game. Seriously, it has to be seen to be believed.
Runner up: KDZ/Sonic Fox at Winterbrawl. This is a
super hard choice because this one in some ways is a much more
important comeback even if its not quite as ballz to the wall insane as the aforementioned one. In fact I think this has aged like fine wine actually, because its extremely plausible that KDZ might very well go down in the history of injustice as the
last player to reset the bracket against fox and
win. In spite of the events of NEC...in my book this set has forever cemented KDZ as the number 1 superman player.
Worst choke: 16bit at Frosty Faustings against Perfect Legend.
Most washed up: Tom Brady.
Best quote or meme: The Complete Meta.
Worst quote or meme: The whole entire concept and everything surrounding the new leaf. Fuck that noise.
Best TYM poster: Me. ...Comeon.....I may be an online fraud and my gif game might not be as frequent or on point, but I make quality original content for this community damnit!
Worst TYM poster: JamesMK
