ComboVid

Who wants to watch my heart break in slow motion? This match took place just shy of top 8 at Evolution 2008, where John Choi eventually eliminated Tokido in losers’ semifinals.

players: Tokido (Vega) vs Mike “watts” Watson (O.Sagat)

observations:
Freeze at 1:00 to see Sagat’s j.HP miss Vega’s wall dive by mere pixels. That was the match right there. If your heart is still functioning, you can also pause at 1:01 to see Vega crouching just pixels outside Sagat’s throw range. It’s “Barlog Wins!” the rest of the way …

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And here is easily the biggest non-top-8 match played at Evo2k10. This was the final set that Gamerbee won to advance into the Super Street Fighter IV top 8 bracket.

players: Gamerbee (Adon-U2) vs Justin “Jwong” Wong (Rufus-U2/U1)

observations: Things start going wrong for Justin right off the bat. He gives away both rounds of the first match with massive gambles on random ultras. What’s worse is that he could’ve won both rounds if he’d started with U1 rather than U2. As the announcers note in the second match, he finally starts looking like the Justin Wong we know, but it really slips away from him in the third match. That DP FADC ultra at 5:12 swings the momentum heavily in Gamerbee’s favor, but it only happened because Adon was able to charge two bars of meter by that point. Gamerbee’s advantage throughout this set was his ability to control the tempo of the match and never allow Justin to get on a roll (except for that second match obviously). That’s why Adon always had meter exactly when he needed it.

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In 2006, Evo held several regional tournaments for direct qualifying spots into the Evo World top 32 bracket. This was the final 3rd Strike match of EvoWest2k6, held near LAX. Watching Yun vs Chun Li in 3S is always somewhat boring, but it can be fun when it’s well-played.

players: Pyrolee (Yun-SA3) vs Amir Amirsaleh (Chun Li-SA2)

observations:
How did Pyro win that first round? Basically, that whole match was decided in under three seconds, from 1:42-1:45. Anytime you let Yun fire off two customs in one round, you’re probably not winning that round. All it takes is one normal combo for Yun to regain all that meter. That’s what makes him so dominant. He has plenty of offensive tricks too (2:50-2:55) so he’s even more deadly when he has a life lead and can afford to take risks. The only way to beat him is to smother him when he has no meter and aggressively press the advantage until he dies (3:50-4:50). If he catches the slightest break (6:32), it can cost you the round.

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