| 20 June 2011
So we're all searching for our own moment, that time where we tell people "Man, remember when (insert epic moment)." And you'll tell your friends you were watching it on the Internet broadcast or you were actually there, in person, probably a few feet away when in reality it was Row 30, Seat 10. Or maybe you were the one actually involved in the moment.
It seems as thought NorCal Regionals has always provided viewers and event-goers with those memorable moments. The one NorCal Regionals where Daigo didn't make the finals. The other one where Justin Wong 6-0'd AndyOCR and silenced the crowd.
There were a few this time around that were tough to find, but let me help out here, because they will be notable as Evolution 2011 creeps closer.
There's no denying that Joshua "Wolfkrone" Philpot has held his own, even though the game has switched to Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition. In his first opportunity to do something in the Evolution 2011 tournament season post-change, he finished in fourth place. Yeah, the game changed but so did Wolfkrone. He adjusted his game and has made it work despite the nerfs and buffs given to C.Viper.
It's the sixth time in the Evolution 2011 tournament series that Wolfkrone has finished in the top four. Ask someone to go to eight major tournaments and finish in the top four. We all have our bad days. But Wolfkrone has yet to have a really bad day. And that's perhaps the most amazing part of the tournament series. He knows he's been doing well. He knows he's a big target and expectations are going to be high (and he explains this in a podcast I'll be posting this week). Throughout all of it, he welcomes the challenge.
Right up there with Wolfkrone's achievement is Daigo Umehara, who erased the bad memory of NorCal Regionals 8 and won this time around in the Ninth Session. In the finals against Infiltration, he only got the first hit four times (one being a trade). He won all four times.
But what I'll remember is that he had a clean EX sheet. In the semifinals against Infiltration, he was a perfect 9 for 9 when using EX meter. All nine times he used meter, he got a clean hit on Infiltration. Since I started tracking EX meter -- ironically it started at NorCal Regionals 7 -- no player had ever had a clean sheet. Not only is he insanely good. Not only does he have the ability to overpower opponents. Not only does he know how to get two combos to 50 percent (I kept telling myself "Dude, how in the world? Oh yeah, it's Daigo), but he knows how best to use EX meter. We will never see this type of precision ever again, maybe not in five weeks in Las Vegas.
Those are two moments I don't think people will cling onto as their moment. The one that everyone will indeed probably remember is Justin Wong winning the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 tournament, bringing all of us wannabe sports-talk callers more fodder for "the Monday show." Relax, everyone. We're all going to be OK. It's not like the top players were going to stay home and just give the championships to the international players.
Justin's 6-0 beatdown was a perfect message to send.
He's not playing around anymore. He's the second player to get a 6-0 finish in a finals, the other being "NerdJosh" Jodin two months ago. A 6-0 finish is history. Four in a row, and the eyes start to get big. Five in a row and all you're hoping is that you didn't say anything that could jinx things. I remember typing on Twitter after the fifth win that I hope I didn't jinx it by saying "6-0," like the announcer that won't tell you a no-hitter is going because he's afraid he'll blow it.
Perhaps a loss like what happened in Orlando is what was needed to get the wheels going. A win gives us fans hope that something good will happen in "our game."
I'm sure there will be plenty other events that viewers and event goers will point to and say that it was their "I saw it" moment. NorCal Regionals seems to do that.
