Image credit: Zero Drift Photography
The FGC weekend of August 19th and 20th saw over 1,600 competitors flock to Birmingham for two of the biggest events in the UK’s fighting game calendar.
Players took part in VSFighting XI and Regen 2023 to compete in 11 different titles. Regen hosted both Super Smash Bros Ultimate and Melee alongside a modded version of Ultimate called HDR, whilst VSFighting hosted brackets for Street Fighter 6, Tekken 7, Guilty Gear Strive, King of Fighters XV and Dragon Ball FighterZ, with community events for Super Street Fighter II Turbo and 3rd Strike from Virtua Chip Shop and a Soul Calibur VI event from Fight Lab.
VSFighting XI – Street Fighter 6
The premier event of VSFighting this year featured the recently released Street Fighter 6, with 496 entrants and a prize pool of £4,960. This was the first major event for Street Fighter 6 in the UK, with competitors travelling from all over Europe and the world to compete.
Swedish player Rikemansbarnet ended up taking the entire event with Juri, over Hurricane, a Cammy player from Cameroon (and based in the UK) with another Swedish player, Juicyjoe, finishing in third with JP. The highest placing UK player was EndingWalker, who finished in fourth place with a mix of Ryu and Ken.
A huge upset occurred very early in pools with seed 126 Manon UK player Kennedy defeating Evo 2018 winner Problem X, who then went on to have a seven-game winning streak, getting the runback on Kennedy before losing to EndingWalker for ninth place.
Other UK placements include SoundBoi in fifth, with LinkNova and Shakz finishing in seventh.
VSFighting XI – Tekken 7
The second largest event of VSFighting during the big UK FGC weekend was Tekken 7, which was part of the Tekken World Tour 2023 circuit, with an entrant count of 290 people and a total prize pool of £6,880.
The event was won by South Korean player JeonDDing, with French player Super Akouma in second and Saudi Arabian player Raef finishing in third.
The UK still had presence in the top eight of this bracket, with Gosain and Asim both securing fifth place.
Regen 2023 – Ultimate Singles
Team Regen’s premier event Regen returned for it’s third event, with the decision to ban a controversial character: Minecraft’s Steve. There were 453 total entrants for the Singles bracket with a total prize pool of £5,436.
The self-proclaimed Watford Warrior Luugi ended up taking the event, beating Chicago-based Ryu main Ikan in both the Winner’s Side Final and Grand Finals. Luugi also won last year’s Regen 2022 event over German Greninja player Tarik, who finished third at this year’s event.
Other top UK performances include Sonic main Peli who finished in fourth place and a breakout performance from London Shulk Main RobbieAK47, who finished in ninth place after being seeded for 91st.
Bloom4eva was surprisingly absent from the top eight, losing to Ikan and Finnish player Lancelot. This is only the third time Bloom has missed out on the top eight at a European event since events returned to offline in 2021.
Regen 2023 – Ultimate Doubles
Doubles returned to Regen once again with 84 different teams competing with a prize pool of £840. The event was won the UK Duo of MazeBeans and Solid Gamer, who beat the team of the Dutch player Space and Germany’s Longo, with the Scottish team of NathanBoneCrush and Kirbo coming in third.
Regen 2023 – Squad Strike
Another staple event for Regen is Squad Strike, with this year’s iteration featuring 164 entrants and a prize pool of £820. The event was won by German Greninja player Tarik, over Sweden’s THE SCHMIXTAPE, with Dutch player Space finishing in third.
Two UK players also made top eight for this event, with MazeBeans coming in fifth and London player Zone finishing in seventh.
Regen 2023 – Other Events
Other events at Regen included a crew battle between different countries and regions of the UK with each team consisting of five players. The event was won by the East of England team, with Scotland coming in second and the Netherlands coming in third.
There was also a smaller Melee bracket with 34 entrants that was won by UK player Stranger, and a Pokemon VGC Ruleset with 16 entrants that was won by Yorkshire’s Cathybara.
All results from Regen’s main events can be found See more Regen 2023 results here, and all Regen 2023 side event brackets here.
VSFighting XI – Other Events
VSFighting also had a number of smaller side events, ran by both the VSFighting team and community teams.
The Guilty Gear Strive event had 180 entrants with a prize pool of £1,800 and was won by Beastcoast’s Jonathan Tene over UK player Setchi with ONi Global’s UK player Tiger_Pop finishing in third. Other UK players in the top eight for the event included Dejojo in fourth and Rycroft in seventh. This event was part of the ARC World Tour, a circuit by Arc System Works, the developers of the Guilty Gear series.
A Dragon Ball FighterZ tournament was also ran as part of the DBFZ World Tour 2023-2024 with 51 entrants and a prize pool of £1,297. It was won by Team Solary’s French player Yasha over UK’s OBAssassin. Other UK players in top eight included plug at fifth and Willow at seventh.
One of the community events was Soulcalibur VI which was ran by the Fight Lab Team which had 69 entrants and a prize pool of £345. The event was won by Italian player MercyMainBTW over UK player’s Ssylus-SC and Neon who achieved second and third place respectively.
Another community event was a Street Fighter III: Third Strike tournament ran by Virtua Chip Shop with 102 entrants and a prize pool of £718. The event was won by French player NiaBanH over UK players 3J and Tamraz who achieved second and third place.
All results for VSFighting XI can be found here
Wade ‘AggresiveDuck’ White is a tournament and event organiser for Super Smash Brothers Ultimate in London and Essex, with events reaching as many as 250+ attendees.
Wade originally started in esports by entering in amateur Dota 2 leagues before moving into the FGC scene with Smash Ultimate in 2018, competing in offline events in the UK and Europe.
