The eleventh installment of Happenstance FGC’s King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match league featured two epic comebacks on the stream. Shout out to both Teus and Noemless, as each overcame 4-0 deficits to win five games in a row!
The following is a quick roundup of the action and results of the August 23 broadcast. That broadcast (and all future broadcasts and past recordings) can be seen on the Happenstances FGC Facebook page here.
Two Epic Comebacks on the Night
Alaztor appeared to be cruising to victory in fourth match of the night as he took a 4-0 lead. But it went down to the wire in the ninth and final game as Teus (using Yamazaki) and Alaztor (using Blue Mary) were each down to their last of three characters. Teus started with a slight advantage as Alaztor’s Blue Mary entered the final round with about one segment of her health bar diminished. After getting out to a small lead, Teus played smart defense as he attempted to use Yamazaki’s length to attack from distance. An incredible 23-hit attack earned him the knockout with just 2 seconds remaining in the match! Congrats to Teus on an exciting match and for capping the epic comeback!
In the sixth and final match of the stream, Noemless repeated Teus’ feat as he was also down 4-0 before winning five straight. El Profe was in great position to close out the match in the eighth game while up 4-3. Noemless was down to his last of three characters in the game, Bao, whereas El Profe was only on his second character K’ with about 3/4 of his health meter. El Profe had his third team member (Mai) waiting in the wings. Noemless was able to use Bao to great effect as he first took out K’. As the final round of game 8 started, Bao was down to 1/2 life meter. Soon thereafter, El Profe nearly won the match as Bao was almost out of life, but Noemless refused to concede and went on an offensive barrage and took 3/4 of Mai’s life in the process to win the game and force a final and deciding ninth game. Noemless played a solid final game as he was able to finish off El Profe’s three team member’s while still on his second character of Freddy Kreuger knock-off Choi. Congrats to Noemless for an incredible comeback!
Watch the Next Broadcast Friday, August 28 at 9 pm Central Time
Watch the next broadcast on Friday, August 28 at 9 pm central time on the Happenstance FGC Facebook page. The league is scheduled for three broadcasts a week: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The start time is 9 pm central time for all broadcasts.
The league is currently in its round-robin phase. All players play one another during the round-robin portion of the league. Match winners are determined by the first player to win five games in a best of nine games format. After round-robin play is complete, the top 8 players will compete in a double-elimination tournament to determine the league champion.
Gameplay Description
The King of Fighters franchise is famous for an innovation in the fighting game genre by replacing the traditional round-based format with a 3-on-3 team-based match. Instead of choosing just one character, each player selects a team of three characters. Once the characters are selected, the player then determines the order in which the team members enter the battle. At the start of the match, the characters chosen to go first on their respective teams fight first. When a character is defeated, the next member on the same team then takes the defeated character’s place and enters the fight as a new round starts. The winning character of a round has a small portion of their health gauge restored prior to the start of the next round if the winning character lost health during the previous round. The game ends when one side’s team of three characters are all defeated.
Because there are a total of six characters (three per side), for each game there is a minimum of three rounds (assuming the winning side only uses one character to take out the opponent’s three characters) and a maximum of five rounds to determine the game winner. The Happenstance FGC league employs a format of first to 5 games to determine the match winner. Thus, a total of nine games are possible if the match is tied at 4-4 and requires a ninth game to determine the match winner.
Match Results
The August 23 broadcast featured # total matches.
Here is a recap of the official results of all the matches on the broadcast.
Match 1
Noemless (Takuma/Bao/Choi/Yuri) defeats Body 10 (Yuri/Kula/Yamazaki/Billy) 5 games to 1.
Match 2
Chaps (Kyo-1/Kusanagi/Kyo/Nameless/K’) defeats Noemless (Takuma/Leona/Choi/Yuri) 5 games to 4.
Match 3
Alaztor (Blue Mary/Leona/Iori) defeats Moya (Xiangfei/Takuma/Kasumi/Bao) 5 games to 2.
Match 4
Teus (May Lee/Vanessa/Yamazaki) defeats Alaztor (Iori/Blue Mary/Leona) 5 games to 4.
Match 5
Kim (Chin/Kim/Blue Mary) defeats Teus (Vanessa/May Lee/Yamazaki) 5 games to 3.
Match 6
Noemless (Nameless/Bao/Choi/Yuri/Leona) defeats TS|El Profe (K’/Jhun/Kasumi/Ryo/Lin/Mai) 5 games to 4.