Last weekend, nationally known Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 player Noel Brown traveled to Dallas for the D-Town Beatdown event. Being on of the top UMvC3 players in the country, Noel was widely expected to win the tournament. So it was a pretty big surprise that he didn't win. It was an even bigger shock that he didn't even make it to the finals, ending up 3rd. Well Noel ended up trekking south to Houston for Monsters Arcade's SSRA5 event for another shot at taking a Texas title.
SSRA5 also featured Super Street Fighter 4 AE 2012, bringing out some of Houston's best for the tournament. Former winners in the bracket included, Winchester, Nytemare Raven, Sean Wagner, Crow, and the winner from the last Monsters and Insomnia tournaments, Anas "Hunted Chimera" Khan. Also lurking were top contenders like BrolyLegs, Bagels, Reach, and Chief. With so much good competition in one bracket, the fireworks were bound to go off quickly.
That would come in the form of Wagner vs Raven in the first round. Both played with their signature characters, Cammy vs Blanka. Each player dominated one game each, leading to the final game and final round. Nytemare Raven was able to hold on and pull off the victory. However, he would lose another close set to Hunted Chimera in the next round. Crow defeated Ivan Pants, but then fell to Chief's Zangief who had advanced past Winchester. White Tower's Hamad defeated Ren, before losing to Assan Chop's El Fuerte which had gotten past Sylint in the first round. Sinx defeated 3nigmatic in the preliminary round, then lost to Bagels. Bagels would lose to Broly who had also beaten Reach. Broly defeated Assan Chop in the first semifinals, meeting Chimera in the finals after his win over Chief. In the winners final, Chimera was able to hold off Broly and advance to the grand finals.
In the losers bracket, Crow and Wagner made their runs through to the top 5. Crow defeated Assan Chop to make it to the 4th place match. Meanwhile, Wagner fell to Chief's Zangief, and he would go on to defeat Crow as well. In the fight for third, Chief tried his best to win for mother Russia, but it would end up being Broly winning and getting his second shot at Chimera. But it was not to be, Chimera took the 1st set 3-1 and ended any drama by winning his third straight AE tournament.
For the UMvC3 brackets, Noel's main competition would seem to be EVO veterans AB Jan Del Rio and Rubeks. All three would make it to the semifinals, Noel vs Jan and Rubeks vs Sinx. Noel was able to handle Jan to advance, but Rubeks would fall to Sinx in an upset. Sinx was unable to sustain that momentum as Noel advanced to the grand finals.
The losers bracket saw strong runs by Sylint and Jan's little brother Josh make it to the top 5. Jan would be forced to take out his brother, while Rubeks defeated Sylint. Jan was able to defeat Rubeks, and then Sinx to get another shot at Noel. Noel rushed to an early 2-0 lead before Jan was able to take game 3. But Noel wasn't going to allow Jan back into the set and closed out the finals.
Congratulations to Noel Brown and Anas Khan on their wins! If you enjoyed this article, then please subscribe to my Arcade Games column. Check out my Video Game Babes and Action Figures columns as well. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and my Blog for more news about anime, games and other events in Houston.
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