October 25, 2010 marked not only marked the philippine barangay elections but it also became the date for the first ever Ranking Battle (Ranbat) for the local community of 2D fighting game, Blazblue. The event was attended by almost 40 people where 32 of which are participating in the ranbat that was to take place.
4 ps3 units were set up to help stem the large amount of participants so that battles would go faster. With their set up it was really hard to concentrate on all the matches since there are a lot of games to cover. All eyes however were mostly set at station one since majority of the epic battles were set there.
The Beginning of Something Epic
During the pre-ranbat moments, I saw a lot of players milling about. Some were playing Guilty Gear over their laptops, while others were busy playing cards and some were deep in discussion. It seemed one big happy reunion specially for Guilty Gear veterans who have not experienced a gathering like this for a while.
Behind, the casual discussions and rowdy exchanges however lies the real reason why they were at the venue. This was not just any casual, but something more.
Starting Legs
The whole setup was simple. The ranbat followed a double elimination format, with a winners and a losers bracket. The matches are best out of three where players need to win twice to advance. Players were also limited to one sub character in case they want to switch characters during battles, however the loser the right to change characters is given to the loser of the previous round.
It was really hard to pay close attention to all the battles that were happening at the same time. However majority of the great battles during the early stages of the ranbat occured at station one. The most notable events during this leg was of the two double downs on two different matches by the would be top eight.
However, it was during the final eight that things were starting to pick up.
The Final Eight
The first match of the final eight kicked off the electric atmosphere on the event. It was a μ-12 (matt|) and Tager (ayan) matchup where Tager took the decisive win. The next battle was off another Tager (jaime) user but this time he was matched up with Hazama (ted). Hazama sadly had to bow down even after a wonderful display of skills.
It was however the Noel Vermillion (kei) and Hazama (ry) battle that took the attention of the crowd.
The battle was fierce and Hazama took real advantage of the range of his attacks compared to Noel’s mid-short range attacks. Ry’s Hazama was able to dominate Kei’s noel in the early stages of the match, however Kei was still able to stand his ground and nearly won a round.
It was the second half of the match where things got pretty interesting due to Kei being able to adjust his Noel’s strategy and had Ry’s Hazama trying to get back into rhythm. Things were getting to a climactic end however a sudden technical problem had abruptly stopped the battle. This forced the marshals to restart the match, which ended with Kei winning the battle.
After the Noel and Hazama match up, crowd favorite, Bang Shishigami user Nicole Escutin had to face Dix another crowd favorite (of sorts). Nicole’s Bang finished off Dix’ Tsubaki in the early rounds which prompted Dix to swtich to Litchi Faye-Ling which had Bang in the ropes for a few moments in the match. However, Bang dominated and was able to advance to the finals.
Two more succeeding matches occurred before the semis. There was one match that really got the crowd going because Iron Tager, controlled by Ayan (lolokoa) was able to finish of Dix Tsubaki with an Astral Fiinish, during the second round of the first match.
Semis
The first match of the semis was of the teacher-student face off of Bang (Nicole) and Noel (Kei). Nicole was able to win over the match against his student kei, who had to face the loser of the next battle to determine the third place spot.
The last battle in the semis was the face off of the two Iron Tagers. A black Tager controlled by Ayan and a pink Tager controlled by Jaime. The match between the two reminded a lot of us off WWE matches and there was even a few allusons to Undertaker (black) and Kane (pink). It was Jaime however who won over Ayan to battle against Bang for the first place spot.
Battle for Third Place
The third place battle was of Jaime and Kei with each starting off as their main. Jaime got the upper hand during the first match but it was a close battle between the two. Kei then switched to his sub-char, Hakumen, however Kei’s Hakumen was still unable to defeat Jaime’s Pink Tager of Doom (which I fondly called). In the end Kei was defeated, however he still got third place, while Jaime moves on to the finals to face off with Nicole and Bang.
Finals
All eyes were on the first station where Jaime Tropezado’s signature Pink Tager went up against the “Dragon Warrior” Nicole Escutin and his feared Bang Shishigami. Bang Shishigami dominated Tager during most of the match, however Jaime’s Tager was still able to fend off a lot of Bangs attacks. However, bang’s Fuu-Rin-Kaa-Zan seemed to really punish the slower moving Tager which in the end spelled trouble for Jaime for the rest of the rounds.
In the end Nicole Escutin, aka “Dragon Warrior” took home the first place spot in the BBPH first ever Ranbat with Jaime Tropezado taking the second place spot and Kei Beneza taking the third spot.
Casuals
After the dust of the ranbat has settled, the remaining players were given the opportunity to play casually on all the units. Some continued on playing Blazblue: Conitnuum Shift, while others switched to Melty Blood. Yours truly was even able to play some Guilty Gear on the side as well.
The final rankings of the ranbat will be given in the near future including all the match videos in the final eight. I was also told that there will be another ranbat in the near future but details are still sketchy as to when and where. All that I know of is that the next ranbat would be a charity event.
Writers Notes: due to some technical problems on my part I’m still unable to upload my images, but you can see them later at the gallery. These images I were given by Calendula aka Mark-Hakase
Here are the results:
1-Nicole Escutin / Bakra / 32pts
2-Jaime Tropezado / Lardbucket / 31pts
3-Kei Beneza / Gambit / 30pts
4-Allan Santos / lolokoa / 29pts
5-Ry Dael / Twilight Child / 28pts
5-Dix Padilla / D I X / 28pts
7-Matthew Gaw / Matthew_Gaw/ 26pts
7-Ted Biñas / Shounen Manga Hero / 26pts
9-Mark Santos / Calendula / 24pts
9-James Santos / Strongest in the south / 24pts
9-Pete Sison / Celcius / 24pts
9-Joshua San Gabriel / Zerokyske / 24pts
13-Matthew Mathay / Dragonthorn / 20pts
13-Elmer John Soria / Mer / 20pts
13-Hans Young / Banish630 / 20pts
13-Jason San Gabriel / Mhuu / 20pts
17-Raf Pineda / Rapeface / 16pts
17-Jecht Brual / Sougo13 / 16pts
17-Ariel Cruz / Fed277 / 16pts
17-Gabriel Zialcita / Deadbolz / 16pts
17-Val Alegro / Shinn / 16pts
17-JP San Gabriel / Gepree / 16pts
17-Anton Eduque / Bastos / 16pts
17-Gelo Baldonado / Slayer / 16pts
25-Arvee Kintanar / deadite / 8pts
25-Patrick Cruz / ghostwail / 8pts
25-Argel Aniceto / Bert / 8pts
25-Michiko Mizuka / Michi / 8pts
25-Enrique Malonso / Dark_Zero / 8pts
25-Rolando Villanueva / Chase / 8pts
25-Benj Hernandez / Blank /8pts
25-Q Sanchio / Bano / 8pts
4 Comments
Hey there sir!
Thanks for the awesome write up!
Here’s the Results and the bracketing. (I think i wasn’t able to give it to you after the event)
http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?10167-BlazBlue-Philippines-(BBPH)/page159
It’s at post #1583 😀
thanks for the update ry! 😀 yeah di ko na nakuha yung list sayo kasi sumabay nako kela kei after ng event eh
Thank you for covering the event Hanson 🙂 LOOOL
thank you payerlord oh-KEI lol