This year’s Evolution 2011 Championship Series has ended, and Singapore’s Kun-Xian Ho and Leslie Cheong have managed a strong finish for Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3.
Update (3 Aug): I previously reported that Leslie finished at 32th place. This is incorrect, he actually finished at 25th place.
Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition
For SSFIV, Leslie (using Sagat) finished in 25th place. He was knocked down to the losers’ brackets in the earlier qualifying pools, but still managed to reach the top-32 semi-finals where he had to face Japan’s Kindevu (using Akuma).
Kindevu normally plays Yun, but specifically counter-picked Akuma in order to fight Leslie’s Sagat. Kindevu won 2-0.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i71TcPEbfaE
Xian (using Yun) did slightly better, finishing in 17th place. He entered the top-32 via the winners’ brackets, where he was defeated 1-2 by Japan’s Fuudo (using Fei Long), sending Xian to the losers’ brackets.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5pqpRNI1zY
In the losers’, Xian had to face another Japanese player, Shiro (using Makoto). Shiro won the match 2-0 in the most dramatic fashion, reading Yun’s defensive back jump and using Makoto’s Godanzuki Ultra as an anti-air to catch him on the way down.
Singapore’s other SSFIV particpants, Paul “VintageSoul” Ho, Zhenyuan “HZY” Han, and Kenneth “Spore” Lim all managed to progress from their initial qualifying pools, but were eliminated in the subsequent brackets before the top-32. Ghim-Kee “Gackt” Eng was the only SG player who failed to progress from the initial pools.
Fuudo eventually went on to become the overall tournament champion, defeating America’s Latif (using Viper) 3-0 in the grand finals.
Marvel Vs. Capcom 3
For MVC3, Xian (using Magneto/Wesker/Akuma), also managed to finish in 17th place, losing 0-2 to America’s Floe (using She-Hulk/Wolverine/Akuma) in the top-32 losers’ bracket.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R40p20P813w
Singapore’s other MvC3 participants, Leslie, VintageSoul, and Spore were eliminated earlier in the qualifying pools.
The MVC3 tournament was eventually won by America’s Viscant (using Wesker/Haggar/Phoenix), who defeated Puerto Rico’s PR Rog (using Dante/Wolverine/Tron). Viscant lost the initial set 2-3, before bouncing back in the grand final losers’ bracket to win 3-0.
Conclusions:
With his strong finishes in EVO 2011, Xian is now without a doubt, Singapore’s most accomplished fighting game player on the international scene.
Some of his accolades include: 2nd place in vanilla Street Fighter IV at Dreamhack 2009; Joint 3rd place in King of Fighters XIII at Tougeki Super Battle Opera 2010; Top-4 for MVC3 and Top-8 for SSFIV at this year’s Shadowloo Showdown.
Well done, Leslie, Xian, and the rest of Team Singapore. You’ve done us proud.
If you’ve been studying the SSFIV match reports above, you may have noticed that Leslie and Xian were knocked out by Japanese players.
Seeking redemption, they teamed-up with Gackt and HZY to take on a Japanese team consisting of Mago, Fuudo, Tokido, Neurosis in a post-EVO mini-tournament for SSFIV. Check out this report to see the results of the match.
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