| 30 May 2011
The room of about 200 or 300 was rocking. People were shouting, some exhaling after holding their breath for so long. They were cheering on what looked like a story only made for Hollywood, a kid out of Orange County was about to lay the final hammer on the nation's best fighting game player on Northern California's biggest stage.
And then all of a sudden, as slowly as someone turns a knob to turn down the volume on a stereo system, that's what happened to the crowd at the Domain Hotel. Like God just turning down the volume on all of the people's mouths. Instead of a mix of expletives, cheering and sound effects, all there was within a span of a couple minutes was sound effects from the game. And more sound effects, and more sound effects, and a lot of "Rufus. Wins." If you've ever watched a Peaceful Jay stream alone, that's what it sounded like. You could clearly hear the game and that's it.
One year ago, that's what happened.
Justin Wong pulled off a 6-0 to beat Andy OCR and win NorCal Regionals 7, then known as Super NorCal Regionals.
A 6-0 is when the losers bracket finalist wins the tournament without giving up a game. That doesn't begin to tell the tale of what Justin did to Andy in that title match. I mention one of the major numbers in today's Stats Series podcast, which you can check out at the end of this commentary.
There aren't too many 6-0 title match finishes in a game because it's so hard for anyone to win six consecutive games. Justin made it look fairly easy (sorry, Andy). In trying to figure out the anatomy of a 6-0, there's nothing that can be pulled except that a player wins and continues to win.
But I doubt anyone will match what happened in this title bout. Here are some of the stats:
- Justin was 9 for 10 when he got the first hit and 10 for 11 when he got the first combo.
- He only landed 13 EX hits out of 34 used (.382). Compare that to Andy, who landed just 3 EX hits out of 16 used (.188).
- Justin didn't get hit by an EX move until the eighth round of the matchup. By then, he had already reset the contest and was a moment away from being up 1-0.
- Justin nearly went 5 minutes of game time without getting hit by an EX move. The average player gets hit by an EX move once every 55.3 seconds.
- Even though they played 1 round over the minimum, it could have been a couple more. Justin had to make consecutive comebacks to keep the streak alive.
There have been 6-0s where a player barely wins. Sanford Kelly squeaked by so many times against Arturo Sanchez that it didn't feel like it was 6-0, and then holy shit, Arturo didn't win, how was that possible? In between, there are players that start off questionably and then get stronger as the match progresses.
But with Justin, it was fifth gear from beginning to end, and we will never see that happen ever again.
The Stats Series podcast for May 30, 2011
