UNIST Year End Review

Coming into 2017, the North American Under Night in-Birth community was starting to believe that they had been forgotten by the developers. The STEAM release and the amazing showing from Squish at Anime Ascension earlier in the year helped invigorate the community to some extent, but by the time April rolled around, even the most steadfast UNI enthusiast was fearing that they truly had been left behind.

However, the midpoint of the month brought with it rumbling of news on the horizon... and on the 20th, a Famitsu article surfaced with a newcomer, Enkidu, meant for the upcoming console release. Later came a solid date for the updated release: July 20th. In addition, the much anticipated Licht Kreis member, Erika Wagner, would be joining the cast. With no North American date pinned down at the time, many plans were made to import or download the latest version. Players began eyeing the dates for upcoming majors to showcase new abilities and strategies for new and old characters alike.

With the release coming post-Evolution, there was a dearth of major tournaments until the East Coast's Summer Jam 2017. Many of the East Coast's best came out to showcase their talent, such as the multi-game maestro Sonicfox, NEC 2016's winner and runner up FrozenCore and Infinity, as well as the legendary P4U player naotolololol, aka Doonpa. Ultimately, it would be Doonpa who took the tournament with his stellar Hilda keep-away over SonicFox's newest character choice, Phonon.

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From there, most of the community's sights were set on Jebailey's CEOtaku, a tournament with a exclusive focus on anime fighters. One hundred and fifty-four hopefuls from all over North America took the trek down to Orlando in order to win what had to be the largest Under Night tournament in the last few years. In pools, New Jersey's Infinity took down his East Coast demon and rival SonicFox to advance out of the pool in Winner's Side while Trill, making his tournament debut, easily handled the seasoned Lolimaiko to win his pool using the rarely seen puppet character, Chaos.

Top-24 was absolutely loaded with familiar names all around. West Coast had mainstays Squish (Akatsuki), Lolimaiko (Vatista) and Tensei (Eltnum) along with their Canadian counterparts Clim (Phonon/Merkava), DrunkSuikaIbuki (Vatista) and Subrosian (Vatista). East Coast brought many of their best, such as SJ 2017 winner Doonpa, jasepi (Gordeau), BlaiseGod (Gordeau), Redblade (Wagner) and Argenrost (Waldstein). Even the Midwest offered strong representation in Pearlyfey (Byakuya), Miller2B (Linne), and Silverhydra (Eltnum), but ultimately the Top 8 would complete in a classic showdown of East vs West.

That being said, the tournament was not without it's fair share of suprise. The aforementioned Trill, the UNI community's iconic netplay Chaos truly made his presence known after being sent to loser's by Infinity's Hyde in Top 16 Winners. The Arkansas native ran through another tournament surprise in Surf, ending the newer Wagner's run at 9th place, before subsequently making short work of Clim in Loser's Eighths and taking a contested Loser's Semi-Final over Tensei's Eltnum. His run was ultimately ended by Doonpa's Hilda, but the much beloved moderator had earned a more than respectable 4th place showing for the weekend.

On the other hand, two rivals met in a wild Winner's Finals set where Squish's Akatsuki took a 3-1 victory over Infinity's Hyde, sending the Jersey native to losers to face his training partner, Doonpa. Familiarity and clean defense against Hilda's strong okizeme brought him through his own 3-1 victory and a rematch with Squish in the Finals. Infinity appeared rejuvenated by his previous set, as he promptly trounced Squish in the first Grand Finals set in three straight games, punctuating his with a Infinite Worth EXS, a super available only when a character has under 30% life.

Squish's loss of composure brought him back to character select after the grand finals reset and in an unprecedented turn of events, the cursor shifted from Akatsuki to Hyde. Unfortunately, this change in tactics did not work to his benefit in the first game of Set 2 and he switched back to his mainstay, Akatsuki for the rest of the set. Squish brought it back to 1-1 in a hotly contested game two, but Infinity was not to be denied as he finished out the last two games and took the entire tournament for the East Coast.

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While it was overshadowed by CEOtaku, SoCal Regionals ran on the same weekend and much of the local West Coast talent showed up to compete. Brkrdave, the previous year's CEOtaku winner was sporting a new character--- the resident grappler, Waldstein, having made the switch from Merkava in the previous version. Meeting him in Grand Finals was LPT, who made a strong run through Loser's, defeating Pikocat (Merkava), KFL (Eltnum), BurgerMcNasty (Seth) and the person who ended up defeating him initially, Chris L and his Phonon. His run would end at 2nd place to brkrdave's Waldstein, 3-0.

A month later, the Midwest transplant jasepi would take on homeland defenders at Canada Cup 2017. This tournament featured a relative who's-who of talent north of the border, such as jct437 aka sushi's Hilda, Psykotik's Orie, Gono's Carmine and Rikir's Chaos. jasepi took a early loss in his pool to Icekin's Nanase, who later tore through the rest of Winner's Bracket while he had to defeat Rikir, Psykotik and sushi back to back with the weakened version of Gordeau. Eventually he took two 3-2 sets over Icekin as well, to take the entire tournament.

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Most recently, NEC 18 passed this last weekend and the 50-man tournament was intriquing in many ways. The household names of Infinity, Doonpa and SonicFox were not going to be competing in UNI for the weekend, however Psykotik made the trip over to Philadelphia to partake, as did FrozenCore and Redblade, two notable forces from the Upper East Coast. A bit of curious seeding pit FrozenCore and Redblade (who met in Summer Jam's Top 8) in the same pool, but an upset from Michigan's Miller2B sent FrozenCore and his Orie into losers in the first round of the tournament.

From there, FrozenCore tore his way through loser's as well as through Miller2B's Linne in revenge, ending his Top-8 hopes at 9th place. Along the way, he trotted over new Hilda hopeful Angel of Sol, seasoned Carmine Spinach and up-and-coming Carmine/Wagner playing Schoolbus. On the other hand, Redblade rode a hot hand through his part of the pool in Winner's Bracket, coasting through burgertime and Psykotik without droping a game on his way to Grand Finals.

Fresh off his loss to Redblade, Psykotik would meet the streaking FrozenCore in Loser's Finals. New Jersey's resident Orie was now forced to fight his senpai and despite starting off with a quick 2-0 lead, Psykotik's strong adaptive ability allowed him weather the storm of Frozen's steady offensive pressure. Ironically, it was his own inability to defend against Orie's hopping jump 2C, which netted Psykotik the come from behind 3-2 victory. The Canadian's seasoned approach still could not best Redblade's Wagner, falling 1-3 in his rematch in Grand Finals.

NEC brings a harrowing 2017 to a close for the Under Night in Birth community, originally expecting to be left high and dry. 2018 brings with it both expectation and fear, as the European and North American releases of Exe: Late[st] drops in early Febuary... a week after the much anticipated Dragonball FightersZ. Nevertheless, the community is looking forward to Frosty Faustings in January, Anime Ascension in late March, Combo Breaker in late May as well as the next year's CEOtaku.

I hope that you, the reader of this review, will also join us for the ride!