European Rose player Luffy won the Super vs Battle 20-X Super Street Fighter IV tournament on Sunday, beating Ryan Hart in the title match, 2-0.
Luffy (3-0) now has Dreamhack Summer and Super vs Battle on his 2010 championship resume.
The top eight was a field of well known individuals, but the Europeans held serve at home in what was a single-elimination Top 8.
Hart (2-1) defeated Daigo Umehara, 2-0. Daigo went with Cammy in the first game -- he had been playing Cammy in friendlies -- but Hart put that down. Daigo switched to Ryu, making it a mirror match; that still didn't matter to Hart.
Daigo defeated Yota in the third place contest.
Newest DMG member Eduardo Perez was eliminated in the quarterfinals by Daigo.
Following the tournament, the Guinness Book of World Records honored Daigo with a new world record, most international wins in a video game.
Taiwan defeated Hong Kong, 8-5 to win Cross Straits Cup 3, its first win in the series between regions.
This was a nearly even Super Street Fighter IV team match, despite the score. The teams traded victories five times. The last trade came in the end, where Taiwan's RB defeated SLHiro111.
Gamerbee, one of the stars at Evolution 2010, went 2-1 in the matchup. He went second for Taiwan, and that's where the back-and-forth battling started.
God of Guile, the Asia Cup finalist, went 1-1 for Hong Kong. However, his win was the penultimate for Hong Kong, who lost four of its final five to Taiwan.
The biggest winning streak for either team was three, by Taiwan. Hong Kong didn't have a winning streak; four of its five wins came after a loss.
Madden 11 creative director Ian Cummings announced Friday that EA Sports began punishing those who quit or disconnected an online ranked or Ultimate Team game in Madden 11 before it was over. More information was posted on the EA Sports blog this morning.
There were also notifications about stats being altered in the shorttime because of these fixes. But if a hit in stats means fixing what seems to be a glaring issue, I'd take that everytime.
This is one of two major fixes they'll be putting into the game. The other one will be the option of using the regular audible system, which will be put in via a patch sometime in the next couple of weeks.
1. Any quitter / disconnecter in a ranked game will automatically be given a loss. The victim will automatically be given a win.
2. We are currently monitoring the leaderboards and planning on zero’ing out the stats of any accounts found to be using quitting tactics (via high DNF / win percentages and game logs). This monitoring will be standard practice moving forward as well, as we have built in notifications to our server team that will automatically zero out any folks caught “boosting”, or using one account to quit immediately and award a win.
3. In a Madden Ultimate Team game, a person quitting will have a game burned off of his contracts for the players in the game to discourage this practice. The victim will always receive coins, prorated based on the percentage complete of the game (i.e. if it’s the 1st quarter, he’ll only get ¼ of the coins he would have gotten if he were to finish, if it’s at the end of the game, he’ll get ~90%, etc). The same note applies as above on anyone caught “boosting” after this fix is rolled out – they will be punished with bans, contract removals, or any other tactics we see fit.
4. We also found an issue where PDLC OTP boosts were being subtracted incorrectly. Anyone that had this happen has had their boost coin purchase refunded.
Players who quit in the first half of a Madden 11 online game will now get punished, according to the game's creative director, Ian Cummings.
Friday afternoon, Cummings posted a couple messages back-to-back talking about the changes. Those that quit in ranked and Ultimate Team games will be punished.
Quick summary part II: victims of quitters still get their wins in ranked games / prorated coins in MUT. Blog coming soon (I hope).
So be prepared, starting today, to take a loss if you rage quit. Most people who have messaged Cummings over Twitter this afternoon have praised the move, with some saying they sandbag in the first half in hopes that their opponent doesn't quit.
Over the weekend, Eric "Juicebox" Albino signed with Connecticut-based Borderland Gaming. The signing was made official during the Summer Jam tournament in Philadelphia. The deal is for one year.
Juicebox is widely recognized in the Super Street Fighter 4 community as the best Abel player in North America (Abel is one of the many selectable characters in CAPCOM's Super Street Fighter 4 title) and he will once again be showcasing his talents at this weekend's event. It is the hope of BLGaming that this sponsorship will be a positive influence on competitive gamers everywhere, showing that you can travel around the world and earn money doing what you love - if you work hard enough.
According to the organization, Juicebox is the first console player it has signed. Team Spooky posted video of the signing.
In one of his first blog entries on the site, Juicebox talks about getting into competitive gaming and how players can have an epiphany when they realize games can be competitive.
Players who do not think of the game as a competitive outlet will stumble upon an experience that changes their perspective on the game at some point or another. In the past, this could simply have been someone at their local arcade beating them over and over again. Maybe one of their friends figured out how to charge a Sonic Boom and a Flash Kick at the same time and suddenly Guile became unbeatable. Sometimes, after these experiences, those players will write it off as unimportant to their enjoyment of the game and forget the experience. Other times, those players will allow themselves to admit the truth of the incident; “There is more to this game than I am currently aware.” This is the crucial first step towards being competitive. If you are like me, logical and curious, the next step practically takes itself; “I will explore the depths of this game and try to implement my findings in my gameplay.” After that declaration, multiple things should occur. First, you should set yourself up for success by overcoming the barriers to entry in Street Fighter.
In some Madden seasons, nano blitzes were seen as plays that only the best of the best could pull off consistently. This year, nano blitzes are so powerful, a sack is nearly a sure thing when done correctly. Gamestop is making sure none of that happens in their tournament series, which starts Saturday.
According to its ruling, manual nano blitzes through any of the gaps are illegal. The official words:
NO MANUAL rushes up the A/B/C gap (over the center, between guards and tackles). If this is set up correctly the QB will be tackled 90% of the time before he can even hand off or pass the ball.
There's plenty of other tweaks that Gamestop has for its tournament series, including no direct snap to the running back (that was a big deal in Madden 10; hello, Brian Westbrook).
The Cross Straits Cup features a battle between Taiwan and Hong Kong. The third tournament in the series is Saturday, and it will be done online.
Hong Kong has won both matchups in the series so far. However, Taiwan should have some momentum, with Gamerbee and RB still riding the Evolution 2010 wave. Hong Kong comes in with Asia Cup qualifying tournament winner Guile God, as well as KiT, another Evolution 2010 participant.
The tournament has been a heated tradition with HK dominating the first two encounters. Can GamerBee (evo), RB (evo), and GiPie lead the resistance and prevent a three-peat? Or will God of Guile and KiT (evo) take their team to the promised land once again? Enjoy the high quality feed at http://zh-tw.justin.tv/twfighter
The guys at iPlayWinner have updated their tier list, and there's a four-way tie for first place in points. Guile, Akuma, Dictator, Chun Li all have 184 ranking points based on the character matchup.
The sweet part about the graphic is that you can automatically see what matchups favor certain characters. The top three characters with the most favored matchups:
1. Guile: 22
2. Abel: 20
T-3. Honda: 19
T-3. Rufus: 19
Here's more from the guys:
We revised how we compile and present the data compared to the May 2010 tier list, with a color coded chart so players can easily see where the good and bad match ups lie within the game. Match ups in green are in favor of that character and match ups in red are not in their favor -- match ups in white are even. Beyond that, we implemented a formula to automatically check the data so there are no errors with the numbers between characters.
Out of the thousands expected to compete, 16 players by way of the online and live competitions will compete in the Finals Tournament in an NFL city to be determined. The winner will receive $3,000, second place $1,500 and third $500, according to Gamestop.
Players can participate in the Live-online portion or the strictly-online tournament, run by the GGL.
In this event, every store will run a single-elimination tournament, with only the winner advancing to Round 2 - in past years, as many as four players would get out to Round 2, so keep in mind that each store is going all the way this time. The winners of the live tournament will compete in Round 2, which is an exclusive online single-elimination tournament that starts Sept. 12. It will be a ladder competition that lasts until Oct. 16. The top eight players based on ladder points will advance to the Finals Tournament.
The strictly-online competition
This tournament begins Sept. 12 on the GGL site. Players that competed in the live tournament have until Aug. 24, everyone else has until Sept. 11. Those that already have a GGL account can use that.
This is also a ladder competition, with the top eight players after Oct. 16 advancing to the Finals Tournament.
Starbase Arcade, Aug. 4, all videos from the broadcast by iPlayWinner
Guard Crush 5, all videos from Team Spooky
Afro Dojo, Aug. 5, Top 8 only
The Box Arena Team Ranbats 1.5 tournament, Top 8 only
The remainder of the Afro Dojo tourney as well as The Box Arena tournament will be added in the coming days. With those additions, there will be more than 300 players on this list.
I want to thank those that have pointed me out to some tournaments that went under the radar, but which have videos. I'll get those up as soon as possible.
Also, aesthetically, I eliminated the different charts, as well as percentages. All of the statistics are on one page.
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Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics. 
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. We're specifically looking for blogs in the sports, entertainment, and video games field, but are open to adding any type of quality site. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account! 