Dec 10
NEC: Upstate takes 9th, Fab Wins, Mass Impresses.
icon1 Zero the Shadow | icon2 Player Blogs | icon4 Thursday, December 10, 2009| icon31 Comment »

Upstate New York came a win away from placing at NEC but couldn’t pull it out. Both Ithaca’s Zzy and Buffalo’s ChaCha were one win away from taking 7th place. This is how things shook down.

Zzy
Going into NEC Zzy had never preformed that well, always finding himself underachieving. But with Joey Fury unable to attend this year’s NEC due to unforeseen circumstances, Zzy needed to step it up and play the best Tekken he’d played in a long time. And guess what he did. Zzy stormed through the early brackets with ease leading up to a showdown with his mentor and teacher Inkognito. Inkognito was the man who trained Zzy for his FT10 King $100 money match with ME_RED_ATL at Final Round XII last year. Now they would face on the big stage for the first time.

The consensus from the crowd was that Zzy was a free win for Inkognito and the start of the match would have made you think as such. Inkongnito dominated the first round with Zzy breaking almost no throws. However in the second round and third rounds Zzy came back with solid pokes and took the lead. Stomping his feet, the whole room’s attention was drawn to the TV as Zzy would take the first game. The 2nd game was hotly contested with each round coming down to the last few hits. Neither player wanting to make a mistake both playing extremely safe, forgoing damage for consistency. In the end Zzy was able to defeat Inkognito grabbing himself a signature win in possibly the best performance of his Tekken career.

Unfortunately soon after Zzy was sent to losers by the surprisingly good LittleJinBoy. Zzy couldn’t find a rhythm in hid matched with the sporadic Eddy player and eventually lost two close games. Later in losers Zzy would be unable to beat Massachusetts Marauder, GangstaOfLuv, his bid for placing stalling at 9th place. Out of all the people mentioned in the Pre-NEC article, Zzy had the best showing. A few more tweaks to his game and he may be able finally break out and place at a major tournament.


Akazukin Cha-Cha was not listed in the Contenders, The DarkHorses, or The Rest, and yet somehow defied expectation and snatched 9th place with Zzy. Cha-Cha is a former Soul Calibur champion who’s been for the most part a community manager for the Buffalo scene. Cha-Cha has been playing Tekken for a long time but never seemed to break out of the middle of the pack. His previous placings at Tundra III and E-Gamers’ had left no foreshadowing of his performance to come at NEC. Cha-Cha was even closer to landing a spot in Top 8 at NEC than Zzy as he was just one match away from beating his eventually eliminator “The Game”. Cha-Cha’s performance has shown that years of tournament experience of any kind is a valuable commodity during majors. It will be interesting to see if this is the start of a consistent streak for Cha-Cha or a one time thing. Only time will tell.

NYC FAB
Dispite Upstate’s efforts the crown for this year’s NEC landed with NYC Fab, the man who recently took NorCal Regionals in November. Fab was sent the to the losers bracket fairly early on by his long time training partner FightingGM but bounced all the way back through the tournament’s losers bracket in dominate fashion. His destruction of BloodHawk in Grand Finals was awe inspiring, for as good as Fab is, no one expected him to just handle BloodHawk as well as he did. Fab has now consecutively taken an East Coast Major and a large West Coast Tournament. Now drawing praise as maybe the best Tekken player in the U.S., he will have his sights set firmly on StrongStyle at the end of January.

Mass

“Massachusetts? They play Tekken?” You might have heard that in the past but not after NEC. Masscuisects stormed into NEC with it’s two Super Star players, GangstaOfLuv and Naclam and took the entire Tekken scene by storm. Some people may remember that GangstaOfLuv as just another Steve player from some no name place. A man who “got lucky” cause people “didn’t know the game” when he took second at Warwick’s heavily stacked Vanilla Tekken 6 tournament. Gangsta’s skills have improved drastically since then and the man may be on tab to grab the title of Steve of the EC. Gangsta eliminated many very good players from the tournament like Upstate’s very own Zzy and destroyed one of the favorite to win the tournament FightingGM. The man has an incredibly ability to be clutch as well as he pulled off some amazing come backs during the tournament. It’s rare you see players improve so quickly over such a short amount of time. Everyone will have to keep their eyes out for him as his 4th place at NEC is more than likely a sign of things to come.

Naclam was a player I had never even heard of till this tournament. A Roger Jr. player with great oki and pokes, boasting a solid overall game that lead him all the way to Winner’s Finals. He also defeated FightingGM along the way but couldn’t defeat NYC Fab or BloodHawk. However he was able to best Upstate’s very own Lingmassacre for the title of Jew of America in an epic FT5 for a nickle. Naclam showed everyone how dangerous the little Kangaroo can be at NEC and is no doubt at this very moment cackling as he hordes his Jew Money and the title of Jew of America. However beware Naclam, for the Bear Jew shall seek his revenge in more ways than one.

Dec 1

It’s been about a month now since Tekken 6 was released so let’s see how things have panned out. There have been a total of two Tekken tournaments in Upstate New York since the game’s release with interesting results.


The Contenders:

The first tournament was UpstateFighting’s E-Gamer’s Exchange Launch Tournament. This tournament was very reflective of past Upstate Tournaments during of the DR Era. Zzy and Joey Fury two of Upstate’s perennial Top players showed up big time like they usually do. They again met in Top 3 with Joey getting the best of Zzy again. For those that don’t know Zzy has lost to Joey in tournaments every time they’ve ever met. However Zzy has subsequently bested Joey in money matches after the fact twice.

However at Buffalo’s Rumble In The Tundra III Zzy took a surprising early tumble in the tundra against the players from Canada. He ended up in 17th place. Before the tournament Zzy said he wasn’t worried about the Canadian players and one has to wonder if he took them lightly entering the tournament. Zzy’s 17th place performance is curious. Was it a character match up he didn’t know, was he plane out played, or did nerves just get the best of him? Either way Zzy’s strive for consistency will follow him Philadelphia where he will try to place in the first EC major Tekken 6 tournament. Zzy has never been know to do too well at NEC tournaments but there is no doubt if he plays well he will be on of the favorites from Upstate to place.

Joey has been the most consistent placer in all the Upstate Tournaments so far. A 2nd and E-Gamers’ and 5th at Tundra have already cemented him as the #1 player in Upstate. Joey’s prodigy like skills have always garnered him much successes but this trip to NEC will put his skills to the test. Joey’s consistency will be his greatest strength but he seems to be flip flopping between characters at this time. Once a Bryan player, Joey now can enter a match playing either Bryan, Jack, Law, or Marduk. The questions lingers, is he limiting himself by not dedicating himself to one character? Regardless, Joey has placed at big tournaments before and he will most likely be the favorite to place heading in to NEC.

Right behind Joey is the second most consistent placer in the tournaments so far, PolishMafia, taking 5th at E-Gamers and 4th at Tundra. Polish is the Nina player with no fear. Throwing caution to the wind, it’s more than likely if you’re watching a PolishMafia match, you are going to be entertained. You may slap your head and say “WTF are you doing?!” or you may go “OMFG!” PolishMafia has always been one of Upstate’s best. Though somehow matches of him winning never seem to surface and he never posts on the internet period. He’s a bit of a phantom in that regard. Those who have played him however never forget. At one point EVO2007 runner up SperoGin said “He might be the best Nina I’ve ever seen”. His reckless style can lead him into trouble though and he still doesn’t have a feeling for the changes to most of the cast. He has a record of doing well at NEC in the past, we will see if his years of Tekken experience can lead him to a Top 8 finish this time.



The Dark Horses:

There are two kinds of risks. Calculated Risks, like the ones PolishMafia takes and then there is something we call the DustBowl. Damus Hayden is his own worst enemy and his own greatest ally. Never has a player been so crappy at punishing but never has one been so good at putting people into ridiculous 50/50 situations. Damus would forgo guaranteed damage that would win him a round in favor of a launch punishable tripping low. It’s madness, it is Egypt! The Sun God Ra’s magic flows in this man’s veins. Sometimes he can be so bad, sometimes so good. Damus looked like he was heading for mediocrity at Tundra when he, just like at E-Gamer’s; lost to Big Daddy Kane in the first round of the tournament. However Damus went on a unbelievable streak afterwards, defeating, Eddy Kusanagi, Devil Himself from NJ, and got the luckiest win of his entire career when he beat me(JK Damus good shit.). The magic carried him to Top 8 at Tundra. Damus has been working tirelessly to improve his skills and fix the holes in his game. If he does he could put on another magical run at NEC. Damus Hayden did take 9th at the last Final Round, just outside of Top 8. Damus is one of the Dark Horses for Team Upstate coming into NEC. I’ve got a feeling a lot of people will be dusting themselves off after NEC.

Jorioi95? J. Honda? We just call him Jason. Jason has been playing Tekken for a long time but has never been too serious about it. When Street Fighter IV came out he was one of our best and said he’d be back when Tekken 6 came out but Jason was unable to make it out to E-Gamer’s. However he showed up at Tundra and surprised everyone. Much like Damus, Jason lost in the very first match of the tournament against some scrubby Paul player. It looked bad, REAL BAD! However Jason rebounded storming through losers. taking out Barry, Shinjoker, but lost a nail bitter to Eddy Kusanagi. When Jason calms down and thinks about what he is doing he has the capabilities to do a lot. However he’ll be at a pretty big disadvantage because lots of players from NYC know how to beat Ganryu. Regardless he’s proven he can take out solid competition in a tournament and he’ll be able to carve up anyone who stands there and takes his mix up. He’s another Dark Horse entering NEC, Osoi!

But where you are probably asking is the most dominant player of the DR era in Upstate New York? Well here he is. Lingmassacre has yet to enter an Upstate Tournament due to personal reasons. He’s undeniable got the skills to place anywhere. He placed at NEC last year. However his transition to this game his been a bit rocky and we’ve yet to see how his new Ling will work in a tournament environment. Out of everyone, his transition from DR to BR has no doubt been the hardest. Everyone in Upstate is waiting to see what the mad scientist has been cooking up in his lab. Either way come NEC, it will be a massacre.

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The Rest:

Tournaments have not been kind recently to PhunnyKidd Mark Kiley. He’s been looking solid in casuals though lately. Can he finaly return to the form that lead him to place at Final Round last year? We shall see.

StridaJin is a bit of an enigma. Some say he wins because he uses new characters, some say he’s just solid period. Either way was a poke away from sending FightingGM to losers at Tundra. BUT later got randomed out by a Steve player? With a 4th and a 7th finish he’s the 3rd most consistently placer in Upstate tournaments. Who will he play at NEC and can he prove himself on this big stage?

Ofdp? has unrivaled execution but needs to invest more time into the game. He has been consistent in his placings but they haven’t broken into the Top 8 in any tournament. Unquestionably he’s got the talent to do well at NEC. I think of Zack plays up to his potential at NEC he’ll be like a sun burnt peter, Unbeatable.