In some exciting news, Joseph “Mang0” Marquez will be joining the Cloud 9 team. Cloud 9 is well known for its very successful League of Legends team that has been dominating the North America scene, winning both the Spring 2014 […]

Update: SolidJake has confirmed that Republic of Fighters has been changed to a 5000 pt qualifier. The predictions have been changed to reflect the news.
Current Standings
We are officially over half way through the MLG Qualifiers. To recap, the qualifiers will determine 12 out of 16 slots for the final bracket at MLG Anaheim. Winning a qualifier will automatically place you in the Top 16. Also, earning qualifier points can also place a player in the final bracket. The remaining 4 slots will be reserved to the players who make it out of the dreaded open bracket at MLG Anaheim. Over the last weekend, MIOM|Mang0 claimed a victory at Whobo in Texas and Remen surprised many, winning Sumabato, the Japanese qualifier.

So far, our guaranteed finalists include:

MIOM | Mang0 (Whobo)
CT EMP|Mew2king (Shuffle V, Fighters’ Edge)
Remen (Sumabato DX Melee 11)
Curse.Hungrybox (CEO Prologue)
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My days as a tournament organizer were amazing when I was running the “Campbell” series tournaments in NorCal. Over the course of the two years, I saw the series go from 14 entrants to 70 entrants at Campbell X (this was large in 2011/12, I swear!). With other obligations and goals taking higher precedence, I haven’t organized a tournament in a while, but I still contribute in whatever ways I can. It’s easy to take all the credit, but these tournaments wouldn’t have been as successful had it not been for my peers who were more than willing to lend hand to ensure that the whole process goes smoothly. Many players used to approach me asking how they could help, so I figure writing in this blog would be a good idea.

Here are some great ways you can help:

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Today, we have Jamil “Jam Stunna” Ragland writing an article about sharing the joys of being in the community with his young son.
Jamil and son watching the Charizard/Greninja reveal for Super Smash Bros. 4

Introduction
My son wants to go to a Smash Bros. tournament. He’s been playing videogames his entire life, just like his father. I remember being five years old, helping my mother to get over those impossible jumps in Super Mario Bros., playing the Nintendo Entertainment System we rented from Blockbuster and never returned on time. My blood boils when I remember how my uncle humiliated me at the age of seven in Street Fighter II, double-perfecting me with nothing more than Chun-Li’s grab.
But tournaments? I used to line up in the arcades when Street Fighter II Championship Edition was released, waiting for the opportunity to play as Sagat and Bison, but it never occurred to me that people held tournaments for videogames. I organized a round-robin style competition in my dorm during my freshman year of college, but that was just for bragging rights, not a cash pot. I didn’t attend my first tournament until I was almost nineteen years old, where I was promptly bodied by players who’d perfected wavedashing and l-canceling before I even knew what those terms meant. Here’s my son, on the other hand, immersed in the competitive side of gaming from birth, ready to put his dad’s money on the line for a chance at being the best, all before his seventh birthday.
I was decent at Melee, at one point even managing to come in 9th in my state’s power rankings. I lost more matches than I won. While that was frustrating, I would tell myself that I just needed to work a little bit harder, go to a few more tournaments, and then I would have that breakthrough moment where I began performing well at a local, and maybe even regional level.

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