Battle Royale 2: RE-Ignition (25 June 2011)

ICMY is holding Battle Royale 2: RE-ignition, this 25th of June 2011. Its going to be 2-on-2, SSF4:AE with the best Malaysia has to offer. Registration is closed at this point but if you're a Street Fighter 4 fan and you live in KL, you do not want to miss out on this. Get hype!

Details can be found on the website; click on the link below for more info.

BATTLE ROYALE 2: RE-IGNITION

Venue: Suncomic, eCurve
Format: Team Battle (2v2)
Tourney Format: Double Elimination
Entry Fee: RM40 per team (RM20 per pax)
Character Selection: Free
Prizes:
#1: Console of your choice (PS3 or XBOX360)
#2: Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon Merchandise

Sony Penang SSF4 Tournament (30 Jan 2011)

Sony is hosting a SSF4 tournament next weekend at 1st Avenue Mall, Georgetown at the Sony Centre (2nd floor). Few details have been released but the first prize has been confirmed to be a Sony PSP. Won't be going for this one unfortunately cause of CNY hols. Good luck to those who are!

Link to 1st Ave. Tournament details (not much)

Results are out:

#1: Ah Chuan (GUI)
#2: Mikeee (IBU)
#3: Max (GUI?)

Congrats to all the winners!

Malaysia Alienware Arena (16 & 17 October 2010)

Quick update on a small SF4 (yes, I think its vanilla) tournament happening this weekend at Bukit Bintang, Fahrenheit 88 concourse area. Hosted by DotaSG and sponsored by Intel and Alienware, only 16 players can participate in the tournament and registration supposedly ends today so get in fast if you're interested. Of course, SF4 is really the side event here with Dota being the main event so if you are more proficient in Dota you can join that as well.

Tournament details:
- Single elimination format
- 16 players cap
- Likely vanilla SF4 tournament
- FREE entry
- No details on platform and controller usage
- No itinerary has been released

EDIT: Wasn't able to make it to the tournament last weekend but from what I heard, a lot of KL's top players were there to compete for some sweet cash prizes. There were plenty of epic matches despite the small number of players. Videos were taken so I'll link them here as soon as they are uploaded.

EDIT 2: Have gotten a few vids of this tournament, check them out here:

Weekly Ranbats Penang

A bit late but just to mention, if anyone is interested in participating in a ranbat the ICMY folks up in Penang are holding one every week or so. Check out the thread on the ICMY site with the link below:

Link to Penang Ranbats

Battle Medley, Singapore (9-11 July 2010)

Just got back from BMS Singapore yesterday. Was a great tournament with loads of high level play and great upsets, you just had to be there. Wasn't able to play well this time around but never-the-less I could tell that I'd have a tough time winning even if I were at top form, the Singapore level is just that high.

I didn't manage to stay for the finals on day 2 and 3 as I wanted to get some time touring Singapore but I heard the results and man, what an upset. I'll link the videos here on this website once they are up. For now, here's the post-tourney review of the event:

Day 1:
Highlight of the event was the "SG vs. Japan" session featuring Momochi/Choco against everyone else. I managed to get 2 games in against Choco and I have to say she's pretty good. I don't think there's a Blanka in Malaysia that can defeat her consistently and she can pretty much go toe-to-toe with the best Malaysian and Singaporean players. Momochi on the other hand was a beast. I only got one game in with him but I could tell from watching the other matches as well that he really is a top player in this game. His final record was an astounding 39-2, with a loss against a capable Abel (yeah! not mine unfortunately) and a Dudley (this will come back to haunt him in later rounds).

Afterwards, the party adjourned to an arcade along Orchard Road (Scape?) while I took the opportunity to check out the night scene along the Esplanade/Promenade.

Day 2:
The main event on day 2 was a 64-man Double elimination tournament with SG's and Japan's best competing for SG$1,750 in cash. For myself, I beat a Dhalsim in the first round, lost to SG's best Abel (Leslie) in the second and lost again to a good Ken (yo Joseph).

The fights continued with many upsets; Choco's early drop into the loser's bracket, Leslie's early elimination from the tournament, Choco's surprise loss to a Juri, Xian's early elimination in the top 8... the biggest surprise of all came in the form of Momochi's drop to the loser's bracket to a Dudley player! Looks like Momochi doesn't know how to handle that match-up. Following that, Momochi took a drop from the tournament with another loss to Boxer.

The same boxer took the title of BMS 2010 champion in a showdown between 2 boxers (Dudley vs. Balrog) in the finals. The top 3 standings and prizes were:

#1: Dixon (BOX)- SG$1,000
#2: Travers (DUD) - SG$500
#3: Momochi (AKU) - SG$250

More Momochi/Choco vs. SG continued after, while I took off early to do some shopping around Bugis and an early night-cap.

Day 3:
Two casual tournaments were held; the Captain's tournament led by the top 8 players from Day 2 and the 5v5 tournament. I managed to get into Choco's team by random draw and our team (without much help from me) got to the finals vs. Momochi's team. Unfortunately, a Momochi vs. Choco match was not to be with a Cammy (Tetra) taking out almost all of our best players (Gackt, Choco) before letting Abel (Leslie) finish the job with the rest of us.

The 5v5 tournament was next and I managed to get into a 'rojak' team together to have some fun. Somehow we got paired against the best team there and got pretty much wiped out. However, our last team member, Raven, playing Balrog gave a legendary performance, taking out the first 4 members of the opposing team before finally falling in a very close fight against Dixon's Balrog.

I didn't stay on after that fight to tour Singapore again but needless to say BMS 2010 was great, thanks to all the organisers and Singaporeans who put up with me while I was down there. BMS 2010 lived up to its hype with many memorable moments, here's to hoping I'll be able to head across the Causeway again soon for more SSF4 action!

MAGE SSF4 Tournament (26 June 2010)

Went to MAGE fest for a cosplay convention and joined up for their SSF4 mini tournament. 16 players competed including some regulars to the tournament scene like Loren, GigatonPress, Looney, Don and Seadramon. The atmosphere was very casual and most of us pulled out characters we never would have played normally. No videos unfortunately as there were some LMAO moments for sure.

First round was against a brother of a friend playing a quite decent Chun Li vs. my Dudley. Memorable highlights were loads of missed EX kicks to Kikosho (to the chagrin of the crowd) and a Cross Counter on that back kick thing.

Second round was a 'WTF' moment indeed with me against Loren. After some discussion, we went ahead with double random for the lols... I got Cammy and he got Dan. This brought on more lols as we were just mentioning how he might get Dan while I might get Cammy. Well, Dan's no pushover either and the fight came pretty close with a climax moment in the final part of the first round with no hp to spare and whiffed moves flying everywhere.

A surprise 'upset' was in the Seadramon vs. Gigatonpress match... lots of really close psycho punishers were avoided by a dextrous Vega doing back flips. Seadramon dominated Gigaton's Bison in the 2nd round too leading to his win. A match well-played by Seadramon and one he deserved.

Third round was me against Donmuri and his Hakan... after playing him early in the morning with my Adon and eating his ultra 2 like 100x in a row, I refused to jump at him all day. In the end, managed to win out and I actually learned something substantial from this match about footsies and spacing, especially against Hakan.

Last round and I'm in the finals with Seadramon. He goes with Viper while I pick Ryu with Metsu. Lots of jumping flame kicks to keep me grounded and in the end I managed to pull off a random Metsu SRK on a meaty light punch for the win.

The prize was a Animax goodie pack complete with a Master Q comic, Gundam figurine, T-shirt and a cap among other stuff. After that we went on to have the Tekken 6 tournament where Gigaton won, some SSF4 and SC4 casuals and then some singing/cosplaying stuff. A good fun day for SSF4.

Penang Juru Autocity Brawl (12 & 13 June 2010)

Penang ICMY held a major SSF4 tournament at Juru Autocity last weekend. Over 50 participants from Malaysia and Singapore, including many KL players took part to compete for the first prize. Most notably the tournament saw representation by players that many regard as the best in Malaysia and Singapore.

The format for day one was a single elimination bracket with the contestants split into 8 groups of 8 players each. Participants fought it out in best-of-3 rounds, best-of-3 for a spot on Day 2.

My first match vs. Ken was straightforward, no videos recorded unfortunately. Second match was a bye when my opponent didn't turn up. The third match was in the top 16 to qualify for a top 8 spot. The link below is my match vs. Shufflerz (Dudley).

Top16: Vern (ABE) vs. Shufflerz (DUD)

The top 8 players who made it to Day 2 from their respective brackets were:

1. Andy Tan (RYU/CAM)
2. Chooi Yew Vern (ABE/ADO)
3. Law Choon Keat (RYU/SIM)
4. Chucky Looi (VIP)
5. Mikeee Koo (AKU/GUI)
6. Tan Choon How (KEN)
7. Chew Peng Chun (BLA)
8. Ho Kun Xian (SIM)

At night I had the pleasure to represent KL in a series of casual 2v2 exhibition matches with the top players and some of the organizers.

Day 2 saw the top 8 players competing for the top spots in double elimination matches. Here are the videos of my matches:

R1: Pt 1. Vern (ABE) vs. Andy Tan (RYU)
R1: Pt 2. Vern (ABE) vs. Andy Tan (RYU)
R2: Vern (ABE) vs. Xian (SIM)
R3: Vern (ABE) vs. Tan Choon How (KEN)
R4: Vern (ABE) vs. Andy Tan (RYU)
R5: Pt 1. Vern (ABE) vs. Chucky (VIP)
R5: Pt 2. Vern (ABE) vs. Chucky (VIP)

I lost to both Xian and Chucky, ending the tournament at 3rd place. Chucky and Xian, the #1 in KL and Singapore, proceeded to have a grand finale with Xian grabbing the win with a confident score of 5-2.

Finals: Chucky (VIP) vs. Xian (SIM)

The final top 3 placings and prizes were:

#1. Xian (SIM) - PS3 console, Xanba wireless stick, Guile trophy
#2. Chucky (VIP) - PSP Go, Guile trophy
#3. Vern (ABE) - PSP, Guile trophy

Autocity Brawl turned out to be the largest and best tournament to date, featuring the KL, PG and SG's finest. I know a chance to play the best like this may never come again.

ICMY Battle De Royale @ SunComic (10th April 2010)

ICMY held its "farewell-to-SF4" tag-team tournament last Saturday before ushering in SSF4 at the end of this month. The tournament saw 14 teams fighting it out to qualify for the top-8 KO rounds. I teamed up with ICMY's resident Zangief, GigatonPress, under the team name Bear Press Nightmare as Abel and Gief. Many old faces and newcomers joined the mix as well making this a tournament to remember.

The tournament kicked off with a brief explanation of the bracket placing process and proceeded to the drawing of the teams to place them in their respective brackets. The final list of teams according to brackets were:

League A:
1. Bear Press Nightmare - Furbolg69 (ABE) & GigatonPress (ZAN)
2. LMFAO - Grabbie (HON/ZAN) & Breakthru7 (KEN)
3. The Low Tiers - TZX (SAK) & Loren (CLA/HON)
4. Sap Sap Soi - Eilrach (BOX) & Elfuerjoe (KEN)
5. RealMen - Kege (AKU) & Kalvier (KEN)
6. Powerpuff MAN - Mofomaycry (RYU) & TerryForever (ZAN)
7. One Night Stand - Hasukyo (RYU) & LSD (ABE)

League B:
1. Sonic Sonic Metsu Metsu - MaliciousM (GUI) & Kien (RYU)
2. The Scrubs - AnimaSolo (RYU/BLA) & Kitty_Ken (KEN)
3. L2P - Donmuri (RYU/SAK) & Sam (CLA)
4. Random Psycho Crusher - Fremont (DIC) & VictorLaw (DIC)
5. Wakeup Shenanigans - KANDANG (KEN) & ckhon82 (SAG)
6. DeParkingGrappler - Mikeeeee (AKU) & Jaylike7 (BOX)
7. Wong Stop Brothers - J.Wong (ROS/RUF) & NiC (RUF/BOX)

ICMY's president Rawfish then took the stage to officially open the tournament and explain the rules and regulations briefly to the participants:

Briefing by ICMY President

After a 30 minute set-up and warm up period, the tournament was under way starting with the league brackets to find the top 8 teams. 4 set-ups (3 PS3s and 1 PC) and several marshalls were present to ensure the tournament was run professionally and smoothly. The top 8 teams who qualified to the KO rounds were:

From League A
1. Bear Press Nightmare
2. LMFAO
3. The Low Tiers
4. Powerpuff MAN

From League B:
1. Wong Stop Brothers
2. DeParkingGrappler
3. Random Psycho Crusher
4. Wakeup Shenanigans

The finals saw our team (Bear Press Nightmare) and DeParkingGrappler's vying for the top spot. After 6 grueling sets, the finals ended with our team (Bear Press Nightmare) winning the tournament 5-1. The final 4 placings went to:

#1 Bear Press Nightmare
#2 DeParking Grappler
#3 Random Psycho Crusher

Each of the teams cashed in on some great prizes, including a copy of SSF4, sponsored by SmartChoice Entertainment and SunComics:

#1 Limited Edition SSF4, Sinanju Zeon Gundam Model and 2x SmartChoice shirts
#2 Regular SSF4, Optimus Prime Model, 2x SmartChoice shirts
#3 Ryu vs Viper model, 2x Smart Choice shirts

Video of the Prize Giving Ceremony

The prize giving marked the end of our final vanilla SF4 tournament by ICMY. Special thanks goes to the marshalls and people at ICMY that ran and organised this great event.

GameFest 2010 @ MMU Putrajaya (28th March 2010)

About 29 people participated in this single elimination format tournament coutesy of MMU Putrajaya in conjunction with their Gamefest 2010 event. There was a good mix of characters though a majority were still Ryu and Kens. I didn't make it very far, getting through the 1st round VS Gouken but getting KO'ed in the 2nd vs Kevin's Fei Long.

The top 4 were Abel (Myke), Zangief (Gigaton), Ryu (Dinie) and Fei Long (Kevin). Zangief bested Ryu in the semi-1 while Abel beat Fei Long to enter the finals.

Semi-Final 1: Zangief vs Ryu
Semi-Final 2: Abel vs Fei Long

Showdown between the best Abel and Zangief in KL. You can watch the vids of the finals with the links below:

Finals Pt1: Abel vs Zangief
Finals Pt2: Abel vs Zangief
Finals Pt3: Abel vs Zangief

Abel narrowly beat Zangief in a heart-pounding finals. Watch for the EX-COD on Zangief's jp.MK into ultra on parts 2 and 3. These vids are also choice examples of how to match up vs Zangief.

The final placings were:
#1. Abel (yeah!)
#2. Zangief
#3. Ryu

Prizes were figurines of Mario (normal and fireball) and the Ryu / Viper set. All placings received 1-year free Kaspersky anti-virus, mobile mice and some other electronic merchandise. Congrats to the winners and glad to see Abel again winning the top spot.

GACC 2010 @ MMU Malacca (20th March 2010)

There's a slew of tournaments happening this weekend at MMU Malacca on both Saturday and Sunday. The Saturday line-up includes SF4 so if you're free and want to play some SF4 head down to Malacca. You can find details for the tournament, registration forms and rulings at their main page here:

GACC 2010 Tournament Details

The tournament ended quickly, lasting for only 2 hours plus due to the single elimination format. There were 19 contestants and a good mix of characters - Akuma, Gouken, Ryu, Ken, Abel (finally another Abel), Honda, Zangief, Sagat, Vega etc.

I matched up against 2 Ryus in the first 2 rounds, E.Honda in the 3rd and Gouken in the 4th. The Gouken player surprised me a bit with his timely parries, mental note to remember he can do that. Not many Gouken players around here.

This put me in the finals against fellow ICMY player Penangite Jason Sim's Zangief. You can watch the finals match here:

Finals: Abel (Vern) vs Zangief (Jason)

I won out in the finals to my relief. With that the tournament closed and I won myself RM100 in cash and a lot of fun.

Tag Team Tournament at Outpost Cafe, Cineleisure

What the title says. Bring a friend and come play. Its a small tournament for now with a chance for it to become something bigger if there's support for it.

EDIT: The tournament was great, we had something like 9-10 teams participating with some new faces. The league round lasted for 4 hours which was pretty quick considering this is the first time we've done this.

Me and LLW entered as an Abel-Ryu pair (he refuses to use Sagat now due to imba-claims issues). As far as I remember, this was the line-up:

Abel-Ryu (us)
Abel-Akuma
Zangief-Honda
Zangief-Blanka
Vega-Ryu
Rufus-Akuma
Ken-Ryu (not sure)

And I can't remember the rest. I think almost every other team had Zangief in it. Luckily my vs Gief game is top notch atm. After some gruelling matches, the final 4 were:

Zangief-Honda vs Abel-Ryu (us)
Zangief-Blanka vs Abel-Akuma

In the league rounds we lost to both the Zangief teams. Somehow, I managed to beat Zangief and LLW beat Honda so we went on to the finals. These guys are good so even though we beat them in the league rounds, we got beaten in the finals in some really good games.

Prize was 2 nerf guns + dinner worth RM70 for the finalists and just dinner for the runner-ups courtesy of Outpost/Alan. Had a delicious mushroom sauce Australian sirloin steak washed down with a vanilla milkshake. Had loads of fun here and looking forward to the next tag-team tournament.

Sony Centre Subang Parade Tournament (29 August 09)

The Sony Centre SBP tournament on the 29th of August. 4 screens, 8 groups, 30+ SFIV players, one of the most balanced or arguably imbalanced line up of characters I have seen in a Malaysian tournament. You had to be there to really imagine what it was like.

After registration, some casuals and some coffee (I was dead tired, had tons of work + practicing until the wee hours) the League bracket of the tournament was underway. My friend (LLW) had it easy with Zangief, M.Bison and a walk-over in his bracket. No surprise that he managed to win out.

For me, things weren't so simple:

1. Abel (me)
2. Zangief
3. Zangief
4. Zangief

At least 2 of these guys were A-class Zangiefs (one made it to the finals eventually). As luck would have it, I managed to win out too. This qualified both of us into the KO rounds.

LLW had a good 1st match against a Blanka. The next match was against Zangief which he personally doesn't have much experience against. Sadly, though the match-up was in his favor, he didn't win and was knocked out of the tournament.

1st-Round Finals: LLW (SAG) VS Eugene (BLA)

I did pretty well too fighting agains Dhalsim and Ryu and making it to the semis before losing to Zangief. I then played for 3rd place against Elf which I managed to win in a very close match.

1st-Round Finals: Onikari (ABE) vs Colin Chew (DHA)
Quarter-Finals: Onikari (ABE) VS Lim Kah Hong (RYU)
Semi-Finals: Onikari (Abel) VS K2K (Gief)
3rd-Placing: Onikari (ABE) VS Yap Chun Yik (ELF)

The finals was between Abel and Zangief in a big match. Note: looking back, I think Abel and Zangief's consistently make the top 4 here in KL...

Finals: Abel (BigMac) vs Zangief (K2K)

The final placing for the tournament:

#1 BigMac (Abel)
#2 K2K (Zangief)
#3 Onikari (Abel)
#4 Yap Chun Yik (El Fuerte)

That 2 Abel's made it to the top 4 this time round, I think is impressive enough. I'm happy with my overall improvement, I think despite some mistakes made I've learned a lot and I've got an idea on how to improve myself for the next tournament.

BigMac netted himself a PSP for his efforts, K2K got himself a PS3 Dualshock 3 pad while I managed to get myself an InitalD PSP game (with no PSP to play it). All contestants got themselves a shirt as well.

Sony Street Fighter 4 Tournament at 1Utama: Post-briefing

Here's the post-brief lowdown of the tournament last Sunday:

The tournament was segregated into groups of pads and sticks. We had a total of 48 players (22 sticks, 26 pads) by registration end and I think all of us were very geared up for the matches to come. I ended up in Group C-Pads (as Abel) while my partner-in-crime (as Sagat) ended up in Group D-Pads.

Both of us did very well in our group stages, I won all my games against some tough opponents (some error in the reporting, it showed one loss for me for some reason :/) but lots of anti-Zangief traning pulled me through. My friend did equally well, only losing 1 game due to a technical diffculty. If there was one gripe, it was with the pads but we could have brought our own so the blame's on us :(

Click here for the results of the qualifier stages.

We qualified quite early in the tournament so there was like a 2 hour downtime for both of us. On retrospect, we should have continued playing casuals to warm up before the K.O stages but then again we were both tired and shaking from nervousness.

On to the K.O stages; well, both of us got knocked out in the first round but again, like the previous tournament, we put up a damn good fight! I lost 3-0 but the first 2 losses were really close and I had the upper hand in both of them. Just goes to show how good my opponent was, one of the best Balrogs in the KL-area surely. My friend fared much better, losing 3-2 in a really close match. You can watch the videos of the matches below:

My partner and his Sagat: (Abel vs Sagat)
My video in the K.O rounds:(Balrog vs Abel)

The videos also have links to some of the other matches so feel free to watch those as well! Overall, I think the MVP of the match today was a guy named Chucky playing a godly C.Viper so be sure to check out those vids.

Click here for the results of the K.O Stages.

Another successful tournament can only mean good things for the SFIV community here in Malaysia. We aren't as good as some of our Asian and Western counterparts but its slowly but surely growing into something big. One can only hope. Next up will be the Tag Team 2v2 Tournament on the 29th of August hopefully, will be training fervently till then.

Feel free to comment on the vids on you tube or even here if you want to share some of your insight about how my friend and I play our characters!

Street Fighter IV Mini Tourney at Cineleisure!

The 2nd of August 2009 saw another Street Fighter 4 mini-tournament courtesy of Outpost Cafe and the friendly members of the (ex?)Shadaloo gang. These guys organized Malaysia's first and largest SFIV competition in February/March this year and kudos goes to these guys for organizing more of these events without sponsors and on a pro-bono basis. To find out more, check out the Lowyat Forum's "Are You Still a Street Fighter?".

The tournament had a very casual atmosphere and a supportive crowd, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at all the right moments. It was a particularly good experience, especially if you're new to the tournament scene in KL. Plus you get to practice against some of the finest that KL has to offer. If that puts you off, if shouldn't as there was an equal amount of new-to-decent players, many of them new to Street Fighter, like myself.

Registration opened at 13:30 hrs with the participants paying for the "entry fee" by eating lunch at Outpost Cafe. After quickly organizing players into groups, the rules and format were quickly explained:

Rules:
1. Only one character allowed throughout the tournament
2. Players can choose to use a stick or a pad
3. Button config allowed before each game
4. A bye is awarded to players whose opponents are N/A or missing

Format
1. League stage with 2 brackets: top 4 from each bracket goes to the 2nd stage
2. A top-8 knockout stage

I entered the tournament as Abel while my sparring partner & friend joined up as Sagat. We both did quite well considering how long we've laid off SFIV; both of us made it to the top 4 (me just barely). Although both of us lost in the semifinals, it was really really close and I certainly had a lot of fun! All the matches were extremely close and exciting, especially the matches against Zangief; we managed to Double KO each other to the excitement of the spectators behind us!

I certainly hope the SFIV tournament scene picks up the pace, I know there are tons of good and interested players in KL. Make the effort to go; you won't be disappointed!