EDGE MASTER SERIES - EPISODE IV

With a teary eye, here goes the last EMS write-up, at least for season 1:

Things weren't looking good when only Talon and Hyrul showed up at sign-up time, but fortunately we were able to put together a tournament of 12 players, thanks in no small part to Le Biscuit (apologies to him, I can't read the writing of whoever wrote his name) who emerged from Gamerbase itself, as if a Pheonix from the ashes of Soul Calibur V, or Jesus from a Jerusalem tomb, or Keanu Reeves from an alternate computer-generated reality etc etc. to complete the magic number of 12. It is magic, honestly. Ask Dan Brown.

[Mathematically speaking, 12 is not actually a magic number, but it is a composite number, a sublime number, and a superfactorial - cheers, Wikipedia!]

Moving on, Group A was swiftly moved to the stream so that Talon could once again be filmed live during the group stages. And lucky for him (or was it?) that this was the case, as he was promptly swept out of the tournament with three straight defeats to Hyrul, Sotiris and Grunt Dude. Grunt Dude proceeded to block and Brave Edge his way to three successive victories to come top of the group, while Sotiris and Hyrul fought it out for second place, Hyrul emerging the victor.

Elsewhere, HD Hollow comfortably topped Group B with only a single defeat in 10 sets; Silent Joel and Nicotine claimed second and third respectively, leaving Curtis to fall in the group stages in his first appearance since the inaugural tournament some months back.

Group C was the tightest affair of all. With Le Buscuit impressing but failing to grasp any overall victories, the other three formed a triangle (a magic triangle) with each of them claiming two wins. ShinJin came top thanks to a better overall set win/loss record, but his defeat to Testiskulls allowed the latter to progress in second place, and left Bushindu in third, despite having beaten Testi earlier.

This left Nicotine and Sotiris in precisely the same position they had been in four weeks earlier, that is, fighting to claim a top 8 spot in a playoff between two third placers, and Nicotine once again prevailed, leaving Sotiris pointless yet again (sorry Sot).

The top 8 can be found here, in glorious visual format, thanks to the wonders of modern technology and the industrious efforts of Silent Joel. Nonetheless a thousand words paint a picture, or some such, so here I go...

Many players' favourite for this event, Grunt Dude continued his fine form in the Winners Bracket, taking out Bushindu and then main rival ShinJin to reach the final. HD Hollow met him there, having dispatched Hyrul and Silent Joel with the impunity of a hero king. Here, Grunt Dude became the first player this far to really test Hollow, and emerged the winner, overcoming the mighty Algol's mighty Guard Burst and mighty Taunt Spam by effectively employing dodge attacks and Just Guard to deal heavy damage on counter-attack.

Bushindu and Testiskulls were unable to recover from the disappointment of their first round defeats, and suffered subsequent losses in the Losers Bracket courtesy of Hyrul and Nicotine respectively. Silent Joel dropped down to end Nicotine's run after a very close match, while ShinJin suffered controller issues against Hyrul, causing lower damage output via dropped combos from which left old man Cervantes clutching a broken stick, and sadly there was no friendly young community guide in sight to help him across the street with his shopping bags and gammy leg.

The secret mason handshake initiating Silent Joel and Hyrul's match was completely missed by commentators and onlookers alike, and Hyrul moved past this second Cervantes to rematch Hollow. This time Hyrul was able to exert his own pressure to set up another rematch, now in the Grand Final against Grunt Dude. Frustrated with his pesky Xiba blocking everything, Hyrul directed Tira to repeatedly run up and grab, before rinsing two of Tira's broken moves from then on to take the final, despite some tense sets and a number of clutch comebacks from Grunt Dude.