This going to be all updated for later viewing correct?

I hate starting in the middle of something...

Wow that guy just burped.

So disgusting and unprofessional. Am I making a big deal out of nothing?He's beyond obnoxious and annoying now. I have to mute him.



I understand. It just makes the match boring.

Same goes for some other matches I've seen where they are constantly trying to "keep distance" and you see projectile after projectile. I personally find it boring and not that much fun.

I've seen this a lot with Kitana players and Cyrax (net, bombs, net, bombs). Its just not fun when thats half of the match. Just my opinion. I understand it works for them though.



Well, that's silly. The whole round automatically points in his favor, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does point in his favor. It is a bit unfair, I agree but it still is how the game is played. I won't be surprised if Detroit takes this whole thing. That new tech is insane.

Also, am I the only one that actually misses seeing KL at top 8's? They need to buff him a bit.. Even though they probably won't patch this game anymore, but still.

Kitty is out! She put up a good fight though! I'm crying.


I bet it's going to be REO's Kabal vs CD Jr.'s Jax in the grand finals again. :(

I think Detroit is gonna take it though.. But your prediction will probably come true.

REO'S skills with the pad are just sick! Those Nomad Dash cancels, insane...

EDIT: Wow, great stuff by Detroit! Can he keep it up all the way?

Wow that was riveting.

I had a feeling he would switch to Jax, well it was pretty obvious.

I have no idea what his name is but this douchebag in the fucking pink shirt needs punched in the fucking face.

As for the pool play matches, I'm not sure if they got recorded "properly". I saw one match recorded off-screen using a phone, it wasn't bad actually. If they do come out on YouTube or anywhere else in good quality, I'll post links here. The top8 matches will be archived at TeamSp00ky's channel and I'm pretty sure they'll end up on YouTube as well.




That was a local Atlanta tourney, not a major like this one. But yes, Sonya has been doing really well in the tourney scene for the last couple of months. She placed 4th at Devastation, that was a major, and now she placed 4th again at NEC, another major (both times it was Morty Seinfeld's Sonya).




Sure. There are a few NEC related threads over at TYM. Unfortunately, as there was no stream for the pool play (and everyone expected it) most of the comments are rage comments about MK getting no stream love on day 1. Other than that, it's mostly people predicting the winner. These are some of the comments after day 1, they're yet to open a post-tournament thread.




At the beginning of a tourney players get divided into pools and every pool is organized as a bracket. At first, everyone is in the same bracket (winners bracket) and you stay in it as long as you're winning. Once you lose a match in the winners bracket you go to the losers bracket (so, you're still in the tourney). Once in the losers bracket you can't afford to lose anymore.

So, everyone who loses a match in the winners bracket can still make it to the finals through the losers bracket, but they have to keep on winning. Once the winners bracket is down to last 2 people it's time for the winners bracket final. The winner of this match qualifies for the Grand Finals, while the loser goes to play the last survivor of the losers bracket (this match is the losers bracket final). The winner of the losers bracket final goes into the Grand Finals to challenge the winner of the winner's bracket final.

Now, because they're coming from the losers bracket (meaning they lost a match earlier on) they first have to win a match to reset the situation and then they have to win another match to take the title. On the other hand, the person who qualified for the Grand Finals from the winners bracket has to win only 1 match to take the title because they qualified for the Grand Finals without losing a match.

So that's how it goes in each pool. There were 4 pools at NEC, meaning there were 4 Grand Finals on day 1 - which means there were 8 finalists on day 1. All of these finalists qualified for Top8 (day 2), but the winners of each of the 4 Grand Finals qualified to the winners bracket on day 2, while the 4 runner-ups on day 1 qualified to the losers bracket on day 2. And that's how the Top8 started today, with 4 people in the winners bracket and 4 people in the losers bracket.

It's not as complicated as it sounds.


As for character selection, you can choose whoever you want before every 1st game against the current opponent. It doesn't matter who you played with against other opponents. However, if you win the first game against the current opponent you have to stick to your character and your opponent can switch their character. If your opponent now wins and equalizes to 1-1, now he/she has to stick to their current character and you can choose a different one for the final, deciding game. So, whoever wins the first game (when they're free to select whoever they want) is at advantage.




LOL! The thing is that guy was rooting for the Cyrax player because they're from the same city (NYC) and play together very often, while the Sonya player is from Arizona. I agree though, commentators should be more objective.




He meant Americans that are tourney players. Basically, MK is still haunted by its past on the tourney scene because of the previous MK games which weren't tournament-worthy.




Well, it's an unfortunate glitch that happens. Whoever plays Shang needs his soul steal move, it's a vital part of his game and they're free to use it whenever they want. It's up to NRS to fix the bug, but soul steal is naturally used near the end of a round because the move is unbreakable so it denies the opponent a chance to save themselves by using a breaker.




Sonya vs Cyrax was indeed awesome, it came down to the wire! Definitely one of the highlights of the Top8!

Kitana throws fans, especially instant air fans, very often as it is a vital part of her game. However, the amount of fans she threw in that match against Mileena is actually below average lol. The reason is that Mileena herself has a very good instant air projectile so Kitana (and Mileena) needs to be careful with the fans.

In the Kitana vs Kabal match, it was Kabal shooting billion of instant air projectiles while Kitana was trying to get in and pressure, because Kabal's air fireballs are superior to anyone's. So, how certain characters play simply depends on the match-up.




It was hype because these two Sonya players (Morty Seinfeld and Riu48) were considered by the majority of the community to be the best Sonya players out there, but they never played against each other before. So it was like "Whoever wins here is the best Sonya out there". People get hyped about mirror matches between good players that never played against each other before.

These two took on each other simply because that's the way the draw played out, no manipulations happened. These kind of things happen at almost every tourney. It happened at Evolution as well- 2 Kabal players had to play each other and the winner (OnlineTony) qualified for the Top8 while the loser (Michaelangelo) got eliminated from the tourney.




I'm sure the Top8 will be uploaded to YouTube these days and there's certainly going to be archived footage at TeamSp00ky's channel.

TO BE CONTINUED (lol)...

LOL!!! I didn't appreciate the burp either lol. It was Hitoshura, I think, the Noob Saibot player. Some of the commentating annoyed me as well, but different kind. I was a bit annoyed with both of them, Hitoshura and Tom Brady, because I felt they were over-criticizing players early on in the Top8 which is funny 'cause both of them failed to qualify for the Top8. All the sarcastic bitchin' about Jax was also a bit annoying. The commentary improved later on though.




You know what, I too feel sorry for Kung Lao. He was originally the best character, dominated the scene, and these days he's almost history. I think there is one more patch or hotfix coming, but I doubt they'll mess with Kung Lao. I don't think he needs any buffs though, he's still very good, but I do feel sorry for the character. I'm generally very fond of Kung Lao and I miss his fantastic gibberish.




Daaaaaamn! Nice prediction! I definitely didn't expect Detroit to take this! I'm impressed! Though, at the end of the day, it was Jax who won the last match of the tourney AGAIN lol.




Hehe! And I knew CD Jr. was gonna switch to Smoke once he fell 0-2 behind. I saw him play Smoke at VSM and was impressed! I even bragged a little about my correct Smoke prediction in the chat room :p No one gave a shiet though lol




Who? I think Arturo Sanchez (TS Sabin) was wearing a pink shirt. He was talking about his phone stream a little near the end. I like him though, he was streaming MK over his phone on day 1 and always tries to help MK get some stream love. Not sure what exactly pissed you off.

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I'm very happy we got to see the entire Top8 and it was awesome from the beginning 'til the end. Wonderful character variety! It was cool seeing Shang Tsung doing so well and seeing some Smoke in the Grand Finals too. So, someone finally stopped CD Jr., but it was Jax again who won the last match, boo :p

Even though he won with a glitch playing in his favor, I can't take anything away from Detroit. It was pretty obvious he leveled up, and I was very impressed with his skills with other characters as well. Everyone was cheering for the VSM guys, so that makes his win ever sweeter. I'm really happy for him, he seems like a really cool guy!

Special thanks to Crazy Dominican who kept me at the edge of the seat with his fierce Kitana. He did really well, despite dropping some combos :p He was very close to beating REO, so I'm happy overall. I just don't know why he didn't try to jump-kick cancel into iAF on cross-ups against REO's Kabal as that's something that Mr. Mileena did really well against REO at Devastation. Nice usage of the b1, 2 string though. Oh well, good games Crazy and keep it up!

Oh and, finally, thanks to MKO for the support and a special thanks to queve, your efforts are greatly appreciated!


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EDIT:Forgot to mention that while I was watching the Top8 stream today I saw a guy in the chat room with the username "crucify_ultradavid" and I lol'd outta my chair! Stream monsters -> gotta love 'em! XD

Tom Brady is my bro!

Everyone was trolling so bad in the comments, highly annoying and hating on Hito smh.

That Sonya miror match was very tricky, very pleased to see Morty take it though


CD jr being able to slay REO's Kabal was impressive, I didn't think it was possible to touch him with those machine gun air gas blasts, but it was done and in style too.


As for Kung Lao, he's not just viable he's still great . People still bring Jade and Sindel out to tournaments and Kung Lao's still easily in the top 10 of the game, if not slightly higher imo,

I loved this top 8. I am not surprised Morty and Detroit did this well, I knew they were talented from playing them at Devastation. It's great they were able to take on New York. Shake things up and bring the hype. Makes the tournament scene more interesting.

No, actually it's been CD Jr. with his Jax that was untouchable for some time. Ever since he won at the Season's Beatings (where he bested REO's Kabal twice) he's been winning everything - until now.

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So the final Top8 for the MK2011 looks like this:




The winner of the MKII tourney is...




The winner of the MKvsDC tourney is...




The winner of the Killer Instinct tourney is...





I'm not sure what's up with MKT, it's possible that it wasn't played at all.

Are the two of them coming to SCR? I'd love to see you or Mr. Mileena (if he goes) win it, but now I'm scared of Detroit. Not only has his Shang leveled up, but he seems to know pretty well what to do with other characters that often show up in Top8. He was even using standing 2 as anti-air with Kitana against Crazy Dominican lol!

Btw, I saw those Dev casuals between you and REO, you did very well. Best thing is, you also leveled up since Devastation, at least I got that impression when I was watching you play Slips the Salty at his place.

I'm curious to know who beat Tom at NEC. Maybe Crazy Dominican?

@ Neph Oh sorry, my bad. I missed their match up at Seasons Beatings unfortunately. I'll have to try and find that match up later on today

It sounds like the AZ guys are 50/50 on coming to SCR. I'm pretty confident I'd do fine against Detroit's Shang. I don't think him blowing up CD was him fighting Kitana better so much as him exploiting weakness in CD's play. CD begins his rushdown with jump ins way too much and somebody finally made him pay badly for it. He also was doing a poor job keeping up in the zoning battle. I don't know, I'm hoping he makes it out, I'd like to play him and Morty more.


Pig sent Tom to losers and Arturo sent him home.


Poor Reo was messing up his IAGB a lot in those matchups. Not my problem though.

LOL!


They were also saying that Crazy isn't familiar with the Tsung match-up, but then again, that's not Detroit's problem. I also noticed Crazy using her b1, 2 string quite a lot in the Top8. I think he was mostly using it as a follow-up to a blocked string (like 2, 1, cutter). It looks like she moves slightly back at the start of the b1, 2 so maybe he uses it to avoid pokes?

Hmm... Poor Tom... I definitely didn't see him going down to Arturo, I think he won most of their previous matches.

Awwww... NEC has just finished and I already can't wait for SCR! I too hope Detroit and Morty make it to SCR, both are great players and fun to watch. I also have a good feeling about your Kitty, she seems very polished and ready to challenge for the title!

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@Espio:

There are some clips on YT from Season's Beatings, but I'm afraid no CD Jr. vs REO matches are on YT. However, there is archived footage, you can see it here.

First time REO and CD Jr. meet is at 0:47:00 (winners finals).

They meet again in grand finals at 1:13:40.

Thanks so much, Nephrite, for all your answers and posts concerning this event! Much appreciated it.

I have to get ready for work, so, I'll get back to some of your posts as soon as I can.

Hopefully we'll get some decent/clear footage of the event to update later. I missed the final matches, but, its good to know that there was some awesome and intense variety. Tons of hype and excitement, indeed!

I have to say I'm very glad that Sonya is being exploited more and more (wish I could play that good!) and I was totally impressed with that Cyrax and Kabal. I'm glad to see new faces and I certainly don't miss good old Kung Lao. He was great before, but, so much of the same character really isn't that fun, so, I'm kind of glad he was nerfed. Now we finally have other characters in the spotlight, and at the same time, we still have some of the old powerful favorites like Kitana. Nice balance, imo.

Hope to see some impressive Sindels very soon.

You're welcome!




At the moment I could only find matches recorded with phones, so they're off-screen and sometimes people (attendees) get in the way or the guy recording moves a bit, but it's still pretty watchable.


Here are some of the day 1 (pool play matches) recorded with the phone. Judging by one of the comments I read on TYM, it's possible we'll get to see many more pool matches (recorded directly, not off-screen) a bit later. Until then:

NOTE: the guy recording is cheering for his faves, but please don't take it against him as it's thanks to him we have these videos and he's generally one of the nicest guys out there, it's everyone's fave STORMS :)

TS Sabin (Kenshi) vs Pig of the Hut (Mileena)

CD Jr. (Jax) vs Blackula (Kenshi)

Check (Kitana*, Rain) vs DetroitBalln313 (Shang Tsung) & Pig of the Hut (Kenshi) vs Riu48 (Sonya)** *Only the very end of the Kitana vs Tsung match can be seen II **2nd match begins at 5:35.

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Here are the Top8 matches (day 2), also recorded with a phone:


CD Jr. (Jax) vs REO (Kabal) winners bracket semi-finals

DetroitBalln313 (Shang Tsung) vs Riu48 (Sonya) winners bracket semi-finals

Morty Seinfeld (Sonya) vs Maxter (Sektor, Cyrax) losers bracket round 1

Pig of the Hut (Mileena) vs Crazy Dominican (Kitana) losers bracket round 1

Morty Seinfeld (Sonya) vs Riu48 (Sonya) losers bracket round 2

Crazy Dominican (Kitana) vs REO (Kabal) losers bracket round 2

Morty Seinfeld (Sonya) vs REO (Kabal) losers bracket round 3

DetroitBalln313 (Shang Tsung) vs REO (Kabal) winners bracket final

REO (Kabal) vs CD Jr. (Jax) losers bracket final

DetroitBalln313 (Shang Tsung) vs CD Jr. (Smoke) grand finals - part 2

Detroit Balln313 (Jax) vs CD Jr. (Smoke) grand finals - part 3 (clip starts mid-way through the 1st round of the 1st match)


*** It seems like part 1 of the grand finals is missing at the moment, everything else from Top8 is there.

Thank you Nephrite!!!!!

Detroit Ballin has an insane Shang Tsung, but in his earlier matches he was for sure having trouble against CDJr's Smoke, I don't understand why CD Jr changed to Jax (a character detroit also knows quite well) for the finals. Seemed like he was on a roll with Smoke.

I always like footage of Maxter but I was a bit underwhelmed by his Sektor. I'm still waiting on someone to win a tournament and just blow everybody outta the water with him.

We have a super update guys- all of the Top8 matches uploaded to YouTube in HIGH QUALITY!

Link to Top8 playlist. Enjoy fellas!

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You're welcome!

Actually, it was the other way. CD Jr. started with Jax and then switched to Smoke. As for Maxter's Sektor, he just had a bad game. I've seen him play Sektor before, he can do much better. I too would love to see Sektor do really well at a tourney, I love the character!

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EDIT: Here's a very funny post-tourney video I found on YT. LMAO @ the Living Guide oath!

Sorry about the stream, guys... dunno if any of you caught the 'makeshift' stream on twitch.tv/tymlive but we tried! If you want to watch the pools from NECXII go to www.youtube.com/testyourmightdotcom - it's all there!

^ Thank you for streaming over the phone and thanks for the link! I'm gonna go look for Brady vs Pig of the Hut in the pools, I've been dying to see that one :p