Mortal Kombat 9 has been confirmed as one of the titles in Major League Gaming's 2012 circuit. The game will be a part of the Winter Season.

The official announcement was made via Twitter:

Fighter confirmed. @MLG is bringing @MK_MortalKombat to the MLG Winter Championship! More details and titles to be announced soon.

There could be more fighting games on the way and the widespread belief is that one more game will be announced.

I like the move. Hopefully it's not the only fighting game.  no comments

  

You can sign up now for the King of GGPO II. The second season begins in one week and will last throughout all of February.

Head to the Kuroppi database for more information.

If you missed out on the action from the first tournament series, they're available on Bob Painter's YouTube portal.  no comments

 

Wednesday Night Fights is now part of the Road to Evolution! This is great news for the Southern California players that had just one of the 17 circuit events scheduled to take place in their area until today's announcement.

According to the guys at Level|Up and Shoryuken, the season champions (or Top 8, it's stated in different places, but at the very least the champions) for Super Street Fighter IV and Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 will all receive seeding points toward the Evolution World Finals.

There's been some whining about how this benefits the West Coast players — specifically, players from Los Angeles and Orange counties — because they'll have a lot of events to attend, thus more chances to earn a seeding point. I look at it differently. You have to do more work to get a seeding point from a Wednesday Night Fights than at one of the 17 (now 16 remaining) major tournaments. 

If an Evolution circuit event is capped at 256 players, as it seems to be the case lately, a player has to get between nine and 14 victories to win the title and the 50 seeding points at that major. 

If a Wednesday Night Fights ranbat is capped at 64 players (that's stated in their thread on Shoryuken.com), then a player must win between 7 and 12 times to win the tournament. However, that's just one ranbat. Each season is eight circuit events. Let's say a player had to win all eight tournaments to get the 50 seeding points (seven is more likely but let's do the extreme). That's 56 wins at the very least to get the 50 seeding points for ONE season. 

So, 9 wins or 56 wins? Please stop with the talk of West Coast bias.

Because this is a seeding event, I'll be tracking the stats of those that participate in this series.

UPDATE: Tom Cannon posted this in light of the discussion. After reading this, my opinions still stand about the decision.

Quick note to those who think this is somehow unfair or favoring LA.  Even with these changes, the Road to Evo schedule HEAVILY favors the EC over the WC.  Here is the breakdown of tournaments by region of the US.

Northeast: 4 in the US, plus 2 nearby tournaments in Canada
Southeast: 3
California: 2
Southwest: 1
Midwest: 3
Northwest: 1

Remember, CA covers almost the entire west coast.  Someone living in NY or NJ has *9* Road to Evo events within the same distance as the as the two CA events in San Jose and San Diego.

The reason for adding WNF to the season was to address this disparity.

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Here's your lineup for Evolution 2012:

King of Fighters XIII
Mortal Kombat 9
Soul Calibur 5
Street Fighter X Tekken
Super Street Fighter IV
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

In addition, there are 17 majors that will be used as circuit events on the Road to Evo 2012. All of the tournaments will have seeding points as opposed to just UMvC3 and SSF4. The first circuit event is scheduled to be APEX 2012, which is this weekend.

In addition, tournament organizer Joey Cuellar said there are plans to do online qualifying tournaments.

Much like last year, I'll be stat tracking SSF4 and (this time) UMvC3 for those that make the Top 8, and it'll be posted here, so stay tuned.

Here's a question for you all: What game should be the main event at Evolution 2012?

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 The World Game Cup is taking a vote for one final game to be included in its 2012 event. That game will join seven others on the roster.

At the moment, Mortal Kombat 9 is leading the vote. There are several others, mostly fighting games. HD Remix is included as well, but it is way behind in the vote.

You can go here to make your vote.  no comments

There is no podcast today because my microphone apparently isn't synching with my computer. Because of that, I'll write down what I was going to mention on the podcast.

The stats of the Canada Cup team finals are now available on the Fighting Game Stats database. You'll notice that the ratio for both teams is opposite of the actual result. The USA won 1 more round than Team Japan, and that is correct. It is a rare occurence that happens in extended series. The last time I remember that happening was The Salty Runback, where Arturo Sanchez won 1 more round than Daigo Umehara, but Daigo ended up with the victory. 

Mike Ross' stats were also unique. He was 3 for 6 in rounds played, and he won all 3 rounds with more than 50 percent health.  no comments

I've posted the stats from the Guard Crush 25 first championship, and it is now available on the Fighting Game Stats database. There is one round unavailable but other than that, it's all good. You can see all of the matches on the metatag here.

With that match posted, all Guard Crush finals from 19 to 26 are available on the database. Most of the tournament averages nearly resemble those of my whole database.

• First-hit win percentage: .584 (4 points higher)
• First-combo win percentage: .524 (111 points lower)
• Combo rate: 1.858 per round (.128 lower)
• EX connection percentage: .436 (8 points higher)
• Closeout rate: .832 (6 points higher)

The combo rate is by far the most glaring because it's much lower than the tournament average. However, that can be attributed to Dieminion making the finals so many times. Here's how the first-combo win rate is split:

• Dieminion: 16/26 (.615)
• Players against Dieminion: 22/44 (.500)
• All other matches: 16/33 (.484)

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Get Your Tournament is now on Google Plus. If you have an account, add the page to your circles!

I'm not sure at the moment what else I'll be doing on that page (we can't do any contests yet, per Google terms of service), but we'll do some exclusive stuff soon. no comments

A big happy anniversary shoutout goes to Test Your Might, the Mortal Kombat community. It is celebrating its second anniversary today.

If you're looking to get into the Mortal Kombat series, hit up their forums. You can also say your congrats on their dedicated page.

Check out the anniversary video after the jump ...

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I Got Next, the documentary about the resurgence of the fighting game community through Street Fighter IV, is now available for viewing on Hulu. If you haven't seen any of the versions of this documentary, it is a must-watch.

I was fortunate to check out the short-cut version a couple years ago, and I thought that was done very well. This version adds a lot more to the story.

Click here to go to the Hulu page.  no comments