With less than a sliver of health remaining, Karin jumps off the ground against Rashid and lands a medium punch cancelling into V-Trigger, following with a crouching medium kick into guren senha. With Rashid up and conscious, Karin lands a light kick and fakes Rashid out with a crouching light kick into crouching medium kick and guren chochu ending the round with her critical art.
While Youssef Attwan wasn’t able to grab the win despite his miraculous Karin play, his pressure was felt throughout the crowd and could be heard in the cheers permeating throughout the Student Commons building on March 26.
Attwan finished fourth at Super Gonq Battles Street Fighter EGLX Qualifier, losing to Rami Rammal’s Rashid and was the only player from Ottawa in the top five.
However, being crowned the best Street Fighter player in Ottawa by the community isn’t enough to cure the stinging from his losses.
“To be honest, the competition in Ottawa is not that good. Nobody plays seriously, everybody’s just casual,” said Attwan, a psychology student at Carleton. “It’s a nice title to have, but then again when people from Montreal come I get fourth.”
Montreal players Henri Oung and Rami Rammal took first and second place respectively.
“I’ve been doing this for a while,” said Oung. “It’s like… normal for me.”
As an EGLX Qualifier tournament, Oung would have won an EGLX Qualifier spot, ticket to the event, bus ticket to Toronto and paid-for hotel stay. However, due to his availability the prize was allotted to Rammal.
“[Henri’s] a really good friend of mine and we train all the time,” said Rammal. “He’s just slightly better than me. He has more experience.”
Rammal echoed Attwan’s sentiments about Ottawa’s competitive Street Fighter scene.
“I would say the competition is a little weaker here,” said Rammal. “But, there’s definitely some great players to look for.”
While Algonquin’s tournament organisers pointed the reasoning for a weaker scene out to being because of its smaller size, 40 people registered for the tournament.
That’s as much as an everyday tournament in Toronto, according to Michael Ahn, the college’s EGLX liaison.