eSports Report for April 30, 2012

COOL STUFF LAST WEEK:

Southtown Arcade’s Real Honest Sundays

Ranbats (ranking battles, I had to look it up) at Southtown Arcade continue, but the Capcom vs SNK 2 bracket caught my eye simply because it wasn’t full of A Groove mirror matches. Someone’s even playing S Groove in there. They lose, but still.

King of Fighters XIII is first in this VOD and CvS2 starts around 3:40 in.

EGS Tribes: Ascend Invitational Tournament

I saw this at the last second this week, and the VODs are up now on YouTube if you’re curious what ace Tribes: Ascend looks like (spoiler: it kicks ass). There’s a lot of amazing plays in this game, bouncing off of map geometry, half-map flag passes… there’s a lot of potential for Tribes to be a really exciting spectator game. HiRez did a great job supporting their community with Global Warfare, so I have high hopes.

The tournament is broken up by map, so if you want to see more matches, check EGStv’s video list.

COMING UP THIS WEEK:

Iron Squid Tournament Finals - May 5

MMA and Nestea haven’t locked down a tournament win in a while, and grabbing the trophy at Iron Squid might signal a new hot streak for the players. Symbol and Alive are also in the semifinals, and my gut says that Alive is due for a big tournament win. Regardless, Iron Squid’s production values have been amazing and the finals should beat it all. Casting will be done by TotalBiscuit and Apollo on the English stream and Pomf and Thud on the French stream. Catch it this Saturday on IronSquid’s Twitch page.

Season’s Beatings Summer Slam - May 5

This is yet another in the Road to EVO 2012 tournaments, featuring all the mainstay fighters plus a Super Street Fighter II Turbo bracket for people that can’t let go of the past. Not sure where this one will be streamed, because for some reason nobody ever knows until the day before. The SRK thread should be updated with that info soon enough (it’ll probably be Team Spooky).

Shadowloo Showdown – May 4 – 6

Australia’s annual throwdown is coming up this weekend, and you can watch the whole thing on Shadowloo’s Twitch page. This tourney will feature the usual suspects along with Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown and Skullgirls. I’ve been waiting to see some pros throw down in Skullgirls since the game game out, so I’ll try to loop around for that action.