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Over 200 competitors travelled to Glasgow on the weekend of November 30th to compete in Scotland’s biggest FGC (fighting game community) event of the year: Neutralmania 2, organised by the Burn to Fight team.
The prize pool of over £3,000 was split between five different fighting game titles: Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6, Guilty Gear: Strive, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Grandblue Fantasy Versus.
At the time of writing, organisers say their Tekken Cup bracket tournament was the biggest community event in Europe and the only 96+ tier Dojo event. It also had a higher attendance than all ETC Majors, with exception to Tekken at EGX London (though that was free to enter) and Ender Zone Evolution 4 in Madrid.
It highlights the potential for offline FGC esports managed by independent local scenes to compete with larger events backed by publishers and sponsors.
The biggest tournament of the event, Tekken 8, saw 108 entrants with Team Falcon’s JoKa winning against fellow UK/Pakistan player Gosain in both Winners Final and Grand Finals, only dropping three rounds out of a total 19 for the whole event.
Following this, JoKa went on to compete in the Tekken World Tour Last Chance Qualifier at the World Tour Finals in Japan. Whilst he didn’t qualify, he did mange to get 65th out of a total of 560 entrants.
Street Fighter 6 also had a tournament with 73 UK entrants, with Liverpool-based top 10 UK Street Fighter player LinkNova causing multiple upsets throughout the bracket, winning the whole event from winners side.
LinkNova beat fourth seed Pingutaro twice in the Winner’s Final and Grand Finals, as well as second seed Suleymon (of Guild Esports and Burn to Fight) in the Winner’s Quarter Final round of the bracket.
The third biggest bracket of Neutralmania 2 was the Guilty Gear: Strive bracket, with 48 entrants. This tournament was won by first seed GideonTG, only dropping one round out of a total of 19 rounds across six sets.
The 41-entrant Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 (UMVC3) bracket was won by Spartan Throne from the losers side of bracket, beating Inclaa in the Loser’s Final, who firstly knocked him down to the losers bracket, and then defeating Demonphoenix237 twice in the Grand Finals Reset.
Spartan Throne also had a good showing at Evo 2023 last year, and here in Scotland, winning what was the largest UMVC3 EU tournament in over a decade.
The final bracket, Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising, saw Scotland’s own releasebogus come out on top after beating TooNington in the Grand Finals reset.
Full VODs of the top eight for each bracket are available on the Burn to Fight Glasgow Youtube channel, plus more on the BurnToFight Glasgow and ResetAberdeen Twitch channels, and full brackets can be found on the StartGG Event Page.
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.
