LowHigh? Fenritti? The entire Fighting Game Community?
Deafening cheers and shouts produced by the best fighting game plays from the best fighting game players filled the entire The Tent at Solaire Resorts & Casino last weekend in the REV Major Philippines 2019, the third iteration of the Philippines’ premier multi-title Fighting Game tournament.
The two-day gathering of the country’s growing fighting game community crowned multiple champions, but there was one clear winner who stood out above the others. Meet the winners, and the real winner, of the REV Major Philippines 2019:
AMTRS | Score and CAG | Fenritti
If there’s something age-old idioms would teach us about life, it’s that you should never put all your eggs in the same basket. Akihito “Score” Sawada and Shoji ”Fenritti” Sho did just that, as both ended their REV Major Philippines 2019 run as champions of two fighting game titles.
Score hoisted the King of Fighter XIV and Samurai Shodown championship titles.
On the other hand, CYCLOPS athlete gaming’s Fenritti claimed the BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle and Dragon Ball FighterZ trophies.
PBE | AK and PBE | Doujin
A bit of background: the Philippine Pro Gaming League 2019 is a nationwide multi-title esports league that hosted Tekken 7 tournaments. Five seasons have gone by since its inauguration last year, but there were only two people who have ever claimed the Tekken 7 grand championship title—Playbook Esports’ one-two punch, Andreij ”Doujin” Albar and Alexandre ”AK” Laverez. Both players have fought each other four out of five times in the grand finals, creating an intense rivalry.
On the second day of the event, the PPGL 2019 hosted a PHP 100,000 prize pool, 2v2 Tekken 7 side tournament open for all attendees of the REV Major 2019. It was a highly-anticipated event because (1) the prize pool was immensely huge for a side tournament, and (2) the league’s only champions, AK and Doujin, registered as teammates.
It seemed like a too-good-to-be-true anime arc made by fans, except it was totally canon. Not even Genuine Gaming’s Dee-on Grey and EVO 2016 champion Saint were able to stop the power of Doujin and AK’s combined forces. As a result, the PPGL 2v2 Tekken 7 tournament ended with the Playbook boys still being the only champions of the league.
UYU | LowHigh
There’s no better time for Sun-woong ”LowHigh” Yoon to defend his REV Major championship title if not this year when the event’s tagline literally says “Do It Again”.
LowHigh’s journey to the top, though, was definitely not easy. He crawled the lower bracket from the losers quarterfinals after Team Liquid’s Genki ”Gen” Kumisaka kicked him down from the winners’ semis. After being forced to eliminate Jeong ”Rangchu” Hyeon-ho in the losers semis, LowHigh was left as the lone South Korean representative against two Japanese stars, one of whom is the reason why he’s in the lower bracket.
None of this, however, failed to even matter for the momentum-backed LowHigh. His Shaheen allowed him to exact revenge against Gen and eventually topple Daichi ”Nobi” Nakayama, who was waiting for him in the grand finals. With his momentous win, LowHigh went home with 300 Tekken World Tour points.
The Fighting Game Community
Okay, for this to make more sense, let’s first take a quick recap of what happened last weekend:
✔️A Master event of the Tekken World Tour ✔️A Tenkaichi event of the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour ✔️A qualifier for Redbull Kumite’s Last Chance Qualifier for Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition ✔️A surprise show match between Daigo “The Beast” Umehara and the winner of the Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition tournament, Toru ”Tachikawa” Tachikawa ✔️The Melty Blood Grand Finals
✔️The international airing of REV Major’s Josiebee
✔️The man who made Tekken himself, Katsuhiro Harada, saying that the Filipino crowd is the loudest crowd he’s ever head of. ✔️ Harada-san saying that he’s considering to make another Tekken character, and actually appealing to fast food chain behemoth Jollibee for collaboration; and of course ✔️Some good-ass Tekken
The items in this checklist are more than enough to justify that more than the players who lifted a REV Major Philippines 2019 trophy with pride, it’s the entire fighting game community is still the bigger winner. In any other event, I would have agreed with this arguement, but this year’s REV Major was definitely unlike any other. More than the fighting game community the real winner of the REV Major Philippines 2019 is the hopeful who found his father amidst the intensity of the competition.
Honorable Mentions: Tachikawa, JJ Rockets, Seo, MattGaw, JRBata, BladedSnake, Shun, Playbook, and Gariath Concepts
Before I ultimately discuss the real winner of the REV Major Philippines 2019, here’s an entire subhead for those who also the tournament:
- Toru ”Tachikawa” Tachikawa, Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition Champion
- Benjamin ”JJRockets” Rowe, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Champion
- Shun, Guilty Gear XRD Rev 2 Champion
- Kyle ”c(x) BladedSnake” Bartolome, Soulcalibur VI Champion
- Nicholas ”RSG.Seo” Choo, Under Night In-Birth EXE:Late[st] Champion
- MattGaw, Mortal Kombat 11 Champion
- JR ”JRBata” Zafra, Marvel vs Capcom 2 Champion
- Playbook and Gariath Concepts, the guys beind the two-day spectacle.
Son Of Nobi
Yes. If there’s anyone who we can really call as the winner of the Philippines’ premier fighting game event, its none other than Jhon Dave, or more popularly known as the Son Of Nobi.
It was as if all the stars in the universe aligned and orchestrated the entire sequence of events. There were 386 players who registered for the Tekken 7 tournament of the REV Major Philippines 2019, how likely would it be for Team YAMASA’s Nobi to meet and fight a player who goes by the name Son of Nobi? That’s not coincidence, or ever pure luck. Call me cheesy, but I’ll call it destiny.
As expected Son Of Nobi still has a lot to learn from his father, and Nobi, being the best surprise father that he became, did his best to school anyone who stands in his way. The only one who refused to accept his teachings, despite some words of encouragement from his son, was the eventual champion, LowHigh.
But even then, rather especially then, did Nobi showed how great of a father he is, even just for the weekend:
Thank you Philippine FGC.
— Team YAMASA ノビ NOBI (@daichinobi) September 29, 2019
I finished RevMajor with 2nd place.
I wanted to give my son a champion trophy, but it didn’t come true,
so I’ll come back here next year!
Thank you for your cheering!!
And congratulations @TekkenLowHigh pic.twitter.com/H9EMiyshjj
What’s dangling on Son Of Nobi’s neck may not be a gold medal, but knowing how Nobi actually desired to give him the best is all the reasons why Son Of Nobi is the real winner of the REV Major Philippines 2019.
