Go For Pro – SMITE Fighter V
Capcom Pro Tour – Roundup
The CPT has officially kicked off and is in full swing! We’ve seen three tournaments now, all with big names attending and we’re finally seeing just where people sit in the scheme of things with Street Fighter V.
Many familiar names are showing up in top 16 but there are definitely some surprises and standouts. Justin Wong looks sharp and his footsies are on point, sporting Karin, Justin’s timing and execution looks seriously scary, almost as good as he looked in his SF3 Third Strike days. Don’t take my word for it, though, check out his match against Snakeeyez at Final Round:
The Mad Catz crew, Mago and Tokido are both looking as sharp as they did in Ultra SF4 with Tokido looking slightly more in tune with the new game using Ryu. So good in fact he’s managed to score two, second place results in both Final Round and NorCal. Tokido is showing some nice tech with his light confirms and CA finishes, rarely dropping combo’s, but I think I can count on one hand just how many times he’s used Ryu’s parry. I definitely understand why this is the case but I firmly believe that the first player to master this V-Skill is going to be a force to be reckoned with in SFV.
The person to beat Tokido though, and quite convincingly so, is the person who has taken first place at two of the bigger CPT events is Infiltration. Now this guy has always been in the top 8 in the world, but he and SFV just seem to click! Infiltration is using a mixture of utility and Yomi to dispatch his opponents, one commentator noticed early on that he would very rarely move back and forward, instead, always adopting the dash movement. This makes sense with Nash who has one of the better dashes in the game, but hey, don’t take my word for it, check out his finals here:
Final Round:
NorCal:
To cap this off, a big special mention to the player Marn who finished in the top 5 at NorCal. Now Marn shouldn’t have even been there, it was from raising money from donators that allowed him to make his way there. Not only that but he was put in the ‘Death Pool’ where about twelve of the very best players in the world were bashing it out … and Marn won it! Did I also mention he’s using what many consider a low tier character (Mika)? This opted many people to rename NorCal 2016 to The Marn Show. Check out one of his greatest wins of the day against Mago right here:
Lawl, I SMITE Thee!
And lastly, we can cap off this Go for Pro with some mentions of two of the greatest Finals I’ve ever seen in Aussie eSports.
Firstly we have the OCE LoL Split 1 finals. Chiefs vs Legacy with Chiefs coming in as the underdogs. As the season has progressed, I got my wish of seeing a close battle between the top 3 teams, with some trading games throughout the season thus far and Legacy definitely looked like the team to beat. That was until we got to the finals and Chiefs showed exactly what they were made of!
Taking the finals to a fifth game, each team looked strong in almost every aspect and it was a coin flip for who was going to take it. In the end, it was Chiefs who yet again took the Split 1 finals in the OCE bracket. Chiefs just had that little extra in the end where gaming fatigue is a real thing and stress can break the strongest of players, it was this that brought them across the line and they simply looked like the team that wanted it more. If you’re interested in watching it, I highly recommend it, check it out here:
And this past weekend we saw the Split 1 finals for OCE Smite with Pandamonium vs Tainted Minds. Not to be outdone by the marvel that was the LoL Finals, this too went to a fifth game decider. Trainted Minds looked like they had the edge in many aspects but Pandamonium was holding on and keeping a decent Gold income. Slowly the game became a 50/50 result with either side looking like they could take it at any minute, in the end, it was Pandamonium who stole the game and the finals and it was utterly breathtaking.
Don’t take my word for it, watch the whole thing here:
That’s all from me this time, I’ll see you all next time!
