This article is part of our Dragon Ball FighterZ series.
The Summit of Power is almost at an end, as Saturday saw the conclusion of the 3v3 Team Tournament and the group stage of the singles bracket. As expected, the laughs and hotly contested matches ran from start to finish. Saturday also saw its fair share of surprises, as the favorites of the 3v3 tournament fell by the wayside, while the single bracket was no stranger to surprises, either.
Nihongo OK comes out of nowhere to take the 3v3 crown
Just like on Friday, the 3v3 bracket brought of the most ridiculous antics of the entire day. The main strategy to victory was "snap in the commentator." Any team that had a commentator on their team was at a heavy disadvantage, since the pros used the Dragon Rush + tag to force the commentators in and absolutely body them. The way that Michael "IFC Yipes" Mendoza, Christian "Matrix" Ellis, and Christopher "Hellpockets" Fields were disrespected during this bracket was hard to watch. These guys almost didn't even get a chance to play the game, y'all. They would get tagged in, immediately opened up, and then blown to bits.
With that in mind, it's not too surprising that the teams in the grand finals were the only teams that didn't feature a commentator. You had Double Diccolo (Vineeth "ApologyMan" Meka, Eduardo "HookGangGod" Hook, and Derek "Nakkiel" Bruscas) from winners' side and Nihongo OK (Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue, Steve "Lord Knight" Barthelemy, and Sho "Fenritti" Shoji) from losers'. Their set went the distance and provided perhaps one of the weirdest moments of the entire bracket.
Your eyes aren't deceiving you. That is three Piccolos on the same team. It went about as well as you expected given the fact that Nakkiel doesn't play Piccolo and had no idea what he was doing. Even once they switched back to the normal Double Diccolo lineup of two Piccolos and a Super Saiyan Goku, though, they were no match for Nihongo OK.
Led by Kazunoko, who is on one hell of a tear this weekend, Nihongo OK won back-to-back sets to take the entire tournament. Kazunoko was certainly the MVP of this team, as he had a couple 1-vs-2 comebacks throughout their losers' bracket run. Once they got into the grand finals, it was a complete wrap.
Tight matches and dropped combos rule Day 2 of the singles bracket
While the first day saw plenty of lopsided matchups, Day 2 was a complete different story. In comparison to the single 3-2 we saw on Day 1, there were five of them on Saturday as the competition was really starting to heat up. I'd be lying if I said that these matches were only close because the competition was on it, though. There were a TON of dropped combos all over the place. Everyone from Goichi "Go1" Kishida to Osaka Ryo "Dogura" Nozaki dropped 'em at one point or another.
Unfortunately for Dogura, those dropped combos were a huge problem for him. While I had him ranked as the third best player at The Summit, he stunk up the joint this weekend. After losing his first match on Friday, he picked up losses to both William "Leffen" Hjelte and Lord Knight on Saturday. His match against Lord Knight was a close 3-2, but he got picked apart by Leffen in his first match of the day. With an 0-3 record, he finds himself in the losers' bracket where he will have to face Nakkiel on Sunday.
Another fairly surprising showing on Sunday came from none other the man himself, Big Leff. I asked the question of whether Leffen would be able to bounce back from a rough Day 1 amid his team composition issues and he answered that with an emphatic yes. Not only did he 3-0 Dogura, but he also won a tight 3-2 against Jonathan "Cloud805" Morales. When those two met at Combo Breaker a couple weeks back, Cloud805 came out on top 2-1. Leffen looks to be hitting his stride at the perfect time.
Leffen will face a tough task on Sunday, though, as he's got a date with Goichi in the winners' quarterfinals. While Goichi certainly looked a bit more human than we've seen in awhile, dropping combos and such, he's still Goichi. Not to mention the fact that he's even out here "hittin' them folks."
Leffen certainly better watch out.
Looking at the rest of the winners' side of the bracket, the east coast duo of HookGangGod and Domique "SonicFox" McLean found their way forward to the surprise of no one. HookGangGod picked up a tight win over Nakkiel before making Jon "Dekillsage" Coello look silly towards the end of the day. SonicFox, on the other hand, looks ready to take yet another title, picking up a 3-0 over Fenritti to secure his spot as the No. 1 seed. He's definitely the favorite going into Sunday where we'll most likely see a third grand finals featuring himself and Goichi, barring a huge upset of course.
Besides Dogura, my darkhorse favorite for the losers' bracket has to be Christopher "ChrisG" Gonzalez. While he didn't have the greatest time during the group stage, he's one that can't be counted out. Even in his loss to Naoki "moke" Nakayama, he almost managed to make a crazy 1-vs-3 comeback at one point. Look for him to make some noise on Sunday. Or look for him to bomb out since I gave him a vote of confidence.
All that's left now is for the final bracket to play out Sunday afternoon. The action gets started at 12 p.m. PT and you can check the first round matchups below.
Winners' bracket:
- SonicFox vs. moke
- Kazunoko vs. Fenritti
- Goichi vs. Leffen
- ApologyMan vs. HookGangGod
Losers' bracket:
- Yohosie vs. Lord Knight
- Reynald vs. ChrisG
- Dogura vs. Nakkiel
- dekillsage vs. Cloud805
