Not even a week in and I’ve already had my first tournament of the year. Yesterday, I fought in three separate tournaments at Mayamada’s winter GamePad event, Gaming for Grenfell. This event took place in London, and I entered the Street Fighter V, BlazBlue: Centralfiction, and Smash Bros. for Wii U tournaments. I’ve had an interesting time since my last tournament entry for Revolution 2017, including changing mains in both Street Fighter V (to Ed, from Balrog) and BlazBlue: Centralfiction (dropping Celica to a pocket in favour of Jubei), but I entered tournaments anyway despite not feeling 100% ready for them.

Here’s how I did:

Street Fighter V (10 entrants)
Main: Ed
Winners Bracket – 1 | WIN, 2-0 (vs. Ryu)
Winners Bracket – 2 | LOSS, 2-0 (vs. Rashid)
Losers Bracket -1 | LOSS, 2-1 (vs. Guile)

BlazBlue: Centralfiction (8 entrants)
Main: Jubei
Winners Bracket – 1 | LOSS, 2-1 (vs. Hakumen)
Losers Bracket – 1 | LOSS, 2-0 (vs. Izayoi)

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U (15 entrants)
Main: Cloud/Duck Hunt Duo
Round 1 | WIN, 2-1 (vs. Pikachu/R.O.B.)
Round 2 | WIN, 2-0 (vs. Bayonetta/Bowser)
Semi-Finals | LOSS, 2-0 (vs. Ness)

In summary, I’m really pleased with my performances here. Coming joint third in Smash was easily my highlight, surprising given that I haven’t played the game in roughly a year, and I did far better than I expected in both Street Fighter V and BlazBlue as I have recently acquired mains in both games and expected to do far worse. The most important thing, and as usually happens at the GamePad events, is that I had so much fun competing and the people I met there were (mostly) friendly and make me want to get better. I see a lot of potential in both my Ed and my Jubei, so let’s see what I can do with that. The next big event is the Sakura Fight Festa 2018 and I gave my word to the fantastic Izayoi player who knocked me out of the BlazBlue tournament (Hearthem) that I would challenge him again there and show him a good Jubei, so that’s my goal.

Thank you to both Mayamada, for organising the event, and the amazing team over at NGI Events for running the BBCF and SFV tournaments. You guys are the best and see you all, if not before, at Sakura Fight Festa 2018.

See you at the next tournament. RTG.