When the dust settled at the EVO 2015 Killer Instinct tournament, only one hardcore player was standing — Rico Suave and his Fulgore! The professional fighting game player is now the world Killer Instinct champion and arguably the best KI player currently, having taken the crown from EVO 2014 winner CD Jr.
Probably just as impressive as his triumphant win is the fact that while most of top 8 players stuck with just one character, he tore through the tournament with a diverse selection of characters, including Fulgore, Spinal, Thunder, Glacius and even Omen.
Rico never lost a match until winners’ final, sweeping aside such powerhouses and crowd favorites as C88 MyGod with Glacius before going head to head with GutterMagic’s head-stomping, triple-axing Thunder.
His match against MyGod in the winners semi-finals was considered by many as a déjà vu moment. In EVO 2014, he counter-picked Glacius against another powerful Sabrewulf player — Justin Wong — and won the set using the same gameplay style he took MyGod down with (watch it here).
In the Killer Instinct winners’ finals, Rico surprised everyone when he counterpicked Spinal against GutterMagic and surprised them even more when he convincingly won two games. But, alas, Gutter’s Thunder proved too deadly and knocked him into a losers’’ bracket loaded with killers…
His bloody climb out of the bottom saw him lay waste to SleepNS’ irritating Kan-Ra in the losers’ finals, and the crowd couldn’t be happier…
And then there was the Grand Finals — GutterMagic versus Rico Suave in one of the most epic runbacks in EVO history. Sticking with Fulgore against Gutter’s tried and test Thunder, Rico won the first set to reset the bracket, using every tool the robot had to offer.
In the final set, he employed the same strategies to great effect, even tossing in Hype Beam to get the crowd going. When all was said and done, he was the last man standing, winning a championship he had been chasing since Killer Instinct’s EVO 2014 tournament, in which he placed second.
Rico Suave is one of only a handful of professional fighting game players who have made Killer Instinct their main game, so it’s fitting that he’s the one to win EVO 2015.
What did you think about the Killer Instinct tournament? Was it hype or what? For those that didn’t get a chance to watch it, here is your chance…
