There have been a few heavily hyped tournaments over the past couple of weeks. I put this one among the most anticipated because of the game.

Bob Painter over at Kuroppi and Arturo Sanchez are teaming up to run The King of GGPO Tournament, scheduled to begin friday at 10 p.m. PT. It is a Super Turbo tournament, which makes it instantly awesome.

There will be three qualifying tournaments of 32 players each. It is double elimination and character lock. 

More info about the tournament can be found on the Kuroppi website. 

It’s time GGPO had a “MAJOR” tournament and a “KING”.

Three qualifying tournaments.  Three finalists.  A RACE TO TEN.  One “KING”.

Matches will be streamed by the one and only Sabin/nycfurby!

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Just announced, Evolution 2012 will take place July 6-8, and it returns to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nev.

Save your money and start practicing! 

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The Smashboards committee that has created the Unity Ruleset has voted unanimously to ban Meta Knight from all tournaments that use the ruleset.

In an unprecedented move (yeah, I mean it is, we're taking away a character here), Meta Knight will not be allowed in any tournaments that use the Unity Ruleset beginning early next year. The Unity Ruleset has been one of the most-used rulesets in the Brawl community this year, but I don't know if that will be the case once this move is put in.

Wow.

And I thought Friday was going to be a ho-hum day.

Anyway, here's info from AlphaZealot on Smashboards:

Meta Knight will be officially banned on January 9th, 2012. Until that date, Meta Knight will be optionally banned in Unity Ruleset 2.0.

The Unity Ruleset Committee has come to a majority agreement to ban Meta Knight by a vote of 14-0 with 1 abstaining. In order too ease into this decision and respect the largest Smash tournament on the horizon, the ban will be optional until after Apex 2012. Therefore, on January 9th, it will no longer be optional and all Unity Ruleset events will be Meta Knight banned. Until that time, users may use the Unity Ruleset 2.0 in either form: Meta Knight Banned or Meta Knight Allowed.

This was not a decision made lightly. This is a topic that has dominated the community for many years and far to long. The URC has taken into account many things, among them: community polls on Smashboards and AllisBrawl over the last 2 years, discussions with some of the top players and minds in the community, and most of all, user created data/charts that have kept tabs on the prevalence of Meta Knight at the over 500 tournaments held yearly. It is important to note that each member of the URC who voted had their own reasons, so any number of factors may have influenced their decision. We hope this will begin a new era in the Brawl community, and while we are sure this decision will cause controversy and discussion, we also feel it will ultimately be for the best for the community in the coming years.

Please note: This ban effects tournaments in the US and Canada - as that is the scope of the Unity Ruleset Committee. In addition, this ban is for both Singles and Doubles play.

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Adam Apicella, a representative of Major League Gaming, posted a message on Twitter hoping to get some response:

"If you could choose 2 fighting games to be on the 2012 circuit (only 2!), what would they be #mlg?"

There was plenty of response, well more than 50 at-replies. I looked at all of the replies and calculated the totals. There were some people that posted only one game, then there were people that posted 3 games. I included those responses. There was one person that posted about eight games, and that was the only one I didn't include (come on man). I also added responses that were obviously jokes because I also wanted to see how serious people took the request.

At least one person admitted that he wanted an obscure game (Soul Calibur II) just so he could win everytime. 

The top two games in this poll are fairly obvious, but perhaps the spread isn't? To me, I was wondering who would get third. My choices are Super Street Fighter IV and Mortal Kombat, in part because there is a good collection of Mortal Kombat-exclusive players. I'm not sure if that is the case with the Versus series.

And the winner is ...

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The day has finally come! The Madden 12 demo is available. The game in the demo is Chicago vs. Green Bay, a rematch of the NFC Championship game from last season, played at Soldier Field.

The demo is 1.53 GB.

Check it out and post your thoughts here. no comments

During last night's Madden 12 Pro-Am event (watch it here), producers with EA Sports announced the Madden 12 demo will be available Aug. 9 for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The two teams in the demo will be the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers, the matchup from last season's NFC championship game. The setting is Soldier Field and there will be no commentary. The rosters will be pre-free agency.  no comments

I wanted to take a quick moment to thank the Evolution tournament organizers for allowing me to cover their tournament this year and for them choosing me to be the main scoreboard updater for the tournament.

This is the third year I'll be running around doing updates from the tournament. This time, the plan is to do the updates for both Shoryuken and Get Your Tournament. Yes, I'll be running around so you get a constant update of who is in and out of the tournament. And hopefully the servers, Internet and hamster wheels don't go down.

Stay tuned for where I'll be doing updates because it'll be on a few places. no comments

 

Imagine how all of the dedicated sports networks feel like when schedules are released. Yes, that's how it feels today, as the Evolution 2011 pools are being figured out. If you haven't check out where you are, click here.

The check-in feature allows you to see where you are, but doesn't give much else. No worries. People are compiling the data that's being revealed by competitors. You can check out that info on Google Docs.

Finally, there's fantasy brackets going around. This is probably the most awesome thing I've seen yet. The Evolution tournament organizers have figured out, based off of seeding points, who would be the final 32 players in Super Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3 provided that there are zero upsets. They want your thoughts as to who will win the title based off of these brackets.

I'll share my thoughts tomorrow on who's making Top 8 in two ways: by stats and by (my very large) gut.  no comments

Genesis 2's Brawl champion Jason "Mew2King" Zimmerman will have to sit out a month from almost all Brawl tournaments after the Smashboards' Brawl Back Room penalized him a second time.

The BBR decided to penalize him for underperforming, a yellow-card violation. He already had a yellow card for splitting prize money. 

(CLARIFICATION: The incident happened during divisional play, where it was determined he sandbagged to allow another player to get a win and earn a spot in the playoffs)

The ruling means that Mew2King cannot participate in any tournaments that use the Unity Ruleset for four weeks, meaning his suspension will be lifted Aug. 19. More regional and national tournaments have begun to adopt the Unity Ruleset. At one point earlier this month, a full slate of weekend tournaments all used it.

Here's more from the BBR:

Under-performance has been a problem in our community for a while now, especially in pool play. In every tournament (especially large ones), matches in pool play are still regular matches and the deviation of these matches can effect results, even for players not involved in a questionable set. The BBR-RC is aware of recent events at tournaments, including Ally at Clash of the Titans 5, and Mew2King at Genesis 2. We want to make it clear that character choice alone can not have someone infracted. We understand there are times players wish to practice secondaries in preparation for bracket, or conserve energy for long and tiring events. The difference between the situation with Ally andMew2King however is moving into Intentional Under-performance, which is specifically stated as not being allowed in the Unity Infraction System. All factors have been considered under both events, and with Mew2King's current Yellow Card still active, this is the conclusion we have reached. We found the isolated incident (involving a single person) with Mew2King to have crossed the lines of intentional under-performance, while Ally had not. The Red Card for Mew2King will be active for 4 weeks.

Two other players were given yellow cards for splitting prize money at a regional tournament.  no comments

  

Carolina rookie Cam Newton will be the top-rated rookie in Madden 12. However, let's not get too excited about his overall rating, which is barely a 77.

It's kind of surprising that no rookie has been rated at least an 80, and the 10th best rookie by rating, Greg McElroy of the New York Jets, is barely a 65. 

Here's more from EA Sports, which released the top 10 earlier today:

Rookie quarterbacks in Madden NFL 12 almost have it as tough as their real life counterparts. If a player isn’t a Hall of Fame caliber player after his first snap, he’s immediately subject to more verbal abuse from fans than he’s ever heard in his life. Whether you’re yelling at them --or for them-- with a remote control, gamepad or $10 pretzel in your hand, quarterbacks get far too much credit and far too much blame for their team’s success or failure.

 

In Madden NFL 12 the rookie QBs will likely be subject to even more scrutiny with the addition of player traits and tendencies as those are just more metrics on which you can base your hastily formed opinions after each snap.

Here are the top five:

• Cam Newton: 77
• Blain Gabbert: 75
• Jake Locker: 74
• Christian Ponder: 73
• Andy Dalton: 71 

Picture by EA Sports. no comments