Blood Stained Maple Leaves: A Spoiler Free Review of Toryuken 5

[mikadolurker]

Toryuken 5 5/20 - 5/22/2016

"Canada is the best country in the world." - Justin Beiber (I'm so sorry Canada, I had to.) 

    The great white north certainly has some serious fucking talent. I mean those boys have been hardened to become some serious threats from their constant battle with moose and the cold. Now that the obligatory Canadian jokes are out of the way, let’s move from bad comedy to the action filled tournament play of Toryuken 5. Canada Cup was kind of okay, I’m jaded and spoiled in terms of watching top notch play so what I saw was impressive but not note worthy enough to really talk about. This was a different story however.

    Biscuits said it once, and thanks to the whiskey I don’t remember the exact words he used, so excuse me for paraphrasing; “If you make it to Top 8 and the people who you beat weren’t really shit, then who the fuck are you exactly?” Brutal but honest. I’ll even break that down so no one gets me wrong, I’m not talking down about any tournament or anyone in particular, just that a victory in my eyes is only worth as much as the players you conquered to earn it. That being said, the winner of this tournament can feel very pleased with himself because GOD DAMN, people were going at it hard from the moment pools started. Mother fuckers didn’t drown in pools, their eviscerated bodies sunk down only after leaving their opponents so bloody that they had to worry about facing whatever shark that may have smelled the fresh meat in the next match. Marlin Pie, Lord Knight, Flux, all coming up to attempt to rob Canada of their W but people like Joep, Psykotik, and RyanKen weren’t going to just let that shit stand. Over forty entrants into the tournament and damn did they all put on a show. 

    Now when you boil all of these players down to a Top 8, all you’ve got left are some disgustingly powerful people. It really makes me put a lot of other international scenes in perspective because the Canadians may have this game down a lot better than quite a few other geographical areas I could name. I don’t think you can doubt it either after seeing them perform in a manner like this. Canada, unlike it’s health-care system, isn’t free. Watch the videos and you’ll see, it’s actually stunning that some of their players are honestly on a level where while the US players will be watching their backs for the JP fighters at EVO, they might find themselves put out on the Vegas strip from a few of their northerly neighbors before they know what happened. It really wouldn’t even surprise me to find a Canadian in Top 16 or even Top 8 on the big day. I know, I know, it’s a long shot for anyone to even make it there with the ever growing list of almost forty undertakers coming to visit us this summer, but fuck. I see the same level of talent in some of these people that I’ve found at Mikado night after night. These boys can scrap.

    Speaking of the list of JP players though, let me draw a quick tangent ass parallel to wrap things up because aside from “Watch that shit!” there isn’t much else I can say about Toryuken 5. Once upon a time, there was a game that was shunned and outcast in the US arcades. No one played it because there were more popular games at the time and the cast was filled with strange fucking characters that no one really knew. Then one year at EVO, a  JP player who was deep into said game came over and something magical happened. A single moment exposed the world to the game and it’s potential thus all of gaming was forever changed from that day forward. That game was Third Strike. That player was Daigo. However his opponent was Justin Wong, an American. So who feels like making history is my question?

Links to everything:

Pools: https://www.twitch.tv/torontotoptiers2/v/67758301 (Starts around 01:58:30)

Top 8: https://www.twitch.tv/torontotoptiers/v/67962873 (Starts at around 02:28:07)

Great White North: