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Anyone who hasn’t looked into Granblue Fantasy: Versus is missing out on one of the best fighting games to come out in recent memory. Blending complexity and simplicity, Granblue Fantasy: Versus is the perfect fighting game to pick up if you’re new to the genre and looking to learn, and it hosts frequent team tournaments that are a blast to watch.
Granblue Fantasy: Versus, EUnite and Fight!
EUnite and Fight is a European team based tournament series for Granblue Fantasy: Versus that pits five players from one country against five players from another. Most recently, the Germany vs. Finland tournament was held and was one of the most exciting tournaments in recent memory. I encourage everybody to watch the whole Granblue tournament, but I would like to point out the set between Dai (Percival for Team Germany) and Slimmy (Zooey for Team Finland) as one worth analyzing and watching to see how top players can adapt in the middle of a tough set.
Dai vs. Slimmy
This set begins at 01:18:49 in the video. At this point in the Granblue tournament Finland has won two sets and Germany has won one. In order for Germany to have a chance in the tournament at all, Dai needs to win his set against Slimmy, and if Finland wants to lock up the tournament all they need is for Slimmy to win here. The stakes are high and the players are ready to begin.
Dai and Slimmy each take a game, but then Dai seems to figure out exactly what Slimmy wants to do. Every time momentum shifts in favor of Slimmy, Dai resets the situation by using an invincible reversal to knock her away and reclaim momentum. At a certain point, even the commentary shifts to talk about how crazy it is that Dai’s risky gameplay is paying off. In Granblue, these kinds of actions are very high risk, but because Dai is confident about what his opponent wants to do the risks are paying off. This is called having a "read" on your opponent.
Just when it seems like the set is going to be a wash, however, Slimmy adapts his gameplay to account for Dai’s risks. With a perfect round, Slimmy has seemingly flipped the momentum and tied it back up to 3/3. The rest of the set shows how each player attempts to adapt and overcome the other.
This set is perfect for players looking to analyze a match where you can witness adaptation happen as quickly as the two players can manage.
Improvise. Adapt. Overcome.
Those three words are a mantra to live by when playing anything competitive. Nobody gets better at something by refusing to learn from their mistakes, and no gaming community encapsulates this mentality more than the fighting game community. When you start a game, it’s just you and your opponent in a ring together. No variables, no randomness, nothing gets tested except your skill against another’s skill. If you win, you earned it, but if you lose, you earned that too.
Granblue Fantasy: Versus encourages players to remember every action taken by their opponent. If you have the time, go ahead watch the whole tournament and check out how it ends.
