As the Tekken Online Challenge nears its end with only four events left, Korea’s competitive Tekken scene continues to thrive with its best fighters battling it out in local competitions.
Tekken is usually an individual sport, but the most recent event in Korea highlighted its team aspect in the best way. During The Esports Night x Dynamic Busan 10v10 event, two teams played one-game matches — instead of a best-of-three format — and did their best to eliminate all of the opposing team’s members to win.
Featuring the the hand-picked teams of Yoon “LowHigh” Sun-woong and Bae “Knee” Jae-min, the event was an absolute delight for Tekken fans and can be considered a solid showcase of Korea’s living legends and upcoming kings.
Here are the best highlights from the stacked 18-set match.
Jeondding is a comeback king
While he’s been in the competitive scene since 2017, Sang-hyun “Jeondding” Jeon has fallen back a bit in terms of competitive dominance. But in 2020, the Eddy main made a smart move to switch to another character. Now with Julia, he’s been reclaiming his spot as one of Korea’s best fighters.
In the 10v10, Jeondding was a bonafide anchor for Team LowHigh, taking down five members of Team Knee, including Knee himself. With Julia’s moves chaining for some massive damage, Jeondding had no problem in issuing a comeback in every match he played.
The UYU player took down both Scourge and Junior with impeccable interruption strings (primarily the Bow and Arrow) and the Rage Drive to wall combo for the finish.
Chanel utilizes Zafina’s backdash
With Zafina’s reputation of being a slippery character, Kang “Chanel” Seong-ho made use of her elusive backdash to catch Destiny in a launch.
Going against Destiny’s Leroy, Chanel anticipated his use of the pimp sweep and managed to be millimeters out of range due to the micro-backdash. With the second hit being minus frames, the Zafina player went all-in with a juggling combo and a combo-ending Cursed Claw.
With only a sliver of health left, Chanel interrupted Destiny’s overhead kick and finished the round off with a pouncing uf 1+2.
Meo-il baits the Rage Art
Core-A Cup and TOC Korea champion Meo-il made another strong appearance on Team LowHigh with his main of Geese Howard.
While the local champ was already down 0-2 against Chanel, he managed to start his reverse-sweep using his patented mind games. After getting a counter-hit d4 launcher, the Geese player somewhat fuddled his combo and wasn’t able to finish the round. With Chanel now in Rage, Meo-il ran in and baited his Rage Art with a standing block, easily punishing him afterwards.
MulGold slams Joker at the wall
As one of the young prospects of Korea, MulGold showed up as Team Knee’s impenetrable wall in the final sets. Facing off against local favorites like Joker, he easily finessed his opponents with cheeky moves and led his team to an equal score-line.
During his match with Joker’s Lei, MulGold managed to tie the rounds with a lightning-quick Rage Art, soaking up the incoming damage and unleashing a round-ending cinematic.
Now down to the final round, the Claudio player started strong with a whiff-punish and juggled Joker all the way to the wall. Now rocking Claudio’s Starburst, MulGold interrupted the Lei player’s combo with the Starburst string and got a few more hits at the wall. Even though Joker was hanging on, MulGold took the equalizing game with a running 2.
LowHigh ends it all with a classic Rage Art
In the 18th and final set, Team Knee’s last representative ImYourFather had to face team captain LowHigh’s Steve. LowHigh was looking to close it out as soon as possible. Sending out flurries of punches with the Aussie boxer, he easily brought the set to 2-0.
In the final final round of the show match, Father was staging a comeback with two back-to-back slides and a few free punches, closing in on the health deficit and bringing the UYU player into Rage. Once Father did Lee’s standing infinite kick combo, LowHigh managed to initiate the most clutch Rage Art ever.
From the clip, you can see how Lee’s third kick in the combo should interrupt the Rage Art input, but since LowHigh inputted the Rage Art after the block of the second kick, the match-ending cinematic went through right as the kick landed, winning the show match in LowHigh fashion.
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