FILIPINO CHAMP (USA) VS NEMO (JAPAN) UMVC3 MONEY MATCH OF THE YEAR!

FCHAMP's CHARACTERS

NEMO's CHARACTERS

WHO WILL WIN?

Filipino Champ (or just FChamp for short) is the EVO 2012 champion of UMVC3. He has numerous major wins under his belt and is a favorite to make top 8 in any tournament he is in. He is easily within the top 5 best players in the world and is deemed a "god" in the game.Nemo is currently considered to be Japan's best UMVC3 player by a considerable margin. UMVC3 is not Japan's main game and has a very niche following even among their fighting game community. Even with a very small play group, Nemo's skill in the game is phenomenal and he has won a few tournaments outside of the US but no tournament in US as he travels very infrequently. When he does travel he is more interested in high stakes Marvel money matches.Why are these two players facing off each other at Northwest Majors? Nemo and FChamp played each other in a long set at EVO 2013. Nemo absolutely demolished FChamp and went home with a large sum of American currency. Nemo came back to America at Capcom Cup where he actually lost in tournament to FChamp (resulting in an immediate pop off by FChamp right afterwards) but he still came out with a large sum of currency by completely embarrassing another American player Fanatiq. FChamp has been saying that he wants to money match Nemo again ever since his defeat at EVO but he strategically dodged him at Capcom Cup. After that plans were made for the money match runback to happen at ECT but Nemo couldn't make it due to work related issue but now with the help of the folks at Northwest Majors... this money match runback will FINALLY happen!Now if you are a betting man then you are probably wondering... how is this match going to play out? Who do I bet on? Well my friend.... I have all the information that you will need to make a well informed decision!Magneto is a top 5 character in the game. While FChamp prides himself in his Dormammu and Phoenix play... it's Magneto who is doing the work almost all the time. He's the MVP of FChamp's team and as such he is the one on point. FChamp's Magneto excels in fast mobility and excellent usage of Magnetic Blasts and Disruptor to zone out other players. He is also able to switch to offense and high pressure at the drop of a hat. Magneto also has the top 2 best throws in the game as every throw will lead into a full combo.. air or ground. He is a complete character with very few weaknesses and is only held back by player skill.That said Magneto is not unbeatable not by a margin in fact. I said that Magneto has a top 2 best throw in the game... well it's top 2 because there is another character who has at least as good of a throw game as Magneto's which is Nova... the point character on Nemo's team. Nova by most accounts has a slight advantage over Magneto in the match up due to his various tools to beat out zoning and his higher range on his throw to beat out Magneto's. FChamp has to be extra careful about using any one of his projectiles as it can be punished on reaction with Nemo's anti projectile super. Magneto also has to be careful of Nova's own zoning options which includes Gravimetric Shield + Javelin which greatly diminishes Magneto's options. Finally, Nova is also one of the few characters who can catch Magneto both in the air or on the ground. In the air, Nova can catch with box dash j.H throw option select, Rocket Punch or just with his Javelin if need be and on the ground he can catch with his own extremely fast ground mobility and slide attacks. Magneto does have a slight advantage when it comes to close proximity situations due to better cr.L but at any range further he has to contend with Nova's very powerful j.H which has huge hit stun and priority.Magneto has an advantage over Nemo's Dr Strange because Magneto has impeccable offense which Dr Strange struggles against. However, if Dr Strange is set up with Eye of Agomotto then it's actually not that easy for Magneto to get in on him especially if he's stocked with meter for Spell of Vishanti, an instant full screen tracking hyper. Expect to see a lot of situations where Nemo punishes an air dash or a Magnetic Blast with SoV into XF for a fast kill. FChamp can counter with an X factor of his own but he's likely to be using Phoenix on his team which makes burning X factor early a huge risk.Finally, Magneto against Spencer is a slight advantage for Magneto but again just like with Dr Strange... if Magneto over commits to an action he can eat a Bionic Lancer (aka the Bionic Arm) which could lead into a dead Magneto. Magneto has better up close normals and more importantly very good anti air normals to catch stray zip line approaches. Spencer is still hard to keep out especially when he's backed up by Bolts assist (Dr Strange's assist).While it will not come up in the match up, Magneto's own assist EMD (Disruptor) is actually very good against Dr Strange's Bolt assist. FChamp almost never plays Magneto as a support character which means we are not going to see him punish Bolts with EMD especially with TK EMD which is a new trick he picked up after his first set with Nemo. Expect to see a lot of TK EMD + Plasma Beam into another EMD on the ground for a full screen 3 part beam combo.Dr Doom is yet another top 5 character but unlike the other 4 characters in this group... Dr Doom specializes in support value over point/anchor value. He provides the team with 2 top tier assists (Hidden Missiles and Plasma Beam), TAC infinites, safe DHC in and out and even raw tag combos for some characters (with Magneto FChamp can do a throw in the corner and raw tag into Doom). Doom's point value is decent and well above average as he is hard to rushdown due to the threat of his feared Foot Dive and j.M along with his very annoying zoning with Photon Shots while camping at the upper corner of the screen. He also supports very high damage off of very easy combos that build a ton of meter making him ideal as a support on a Phoenix team. His main problem as a point character is that he loses many match ups against top characters and this is especially true when he has to face against those characters unassisted.Dr Doom on FChamp's team is mostly the support character and as such FChamp will be relying on his Plasma Beam for the most part. FChamp does have the option of using Hidden Missiles or Molecular Shield assist (aka Rocks) but there are reasons why he most likely will NOT be using these other assists. Plasma Beam is better for controlling Nova on the ground to make him not slide or do Rocket Punch to get in with Bolts. Furthermore, Plasma Beam is faster than Bolts (when accounting for active frames and recovery) which means it can be called to punish Bolts from full screen away. In addition, Plasma Beam comes out behind the point character which means it has additional utility as a defensive assist. This means that Nova or Spencer have to think twice about approaching Magneto as they could run right into a Plasma Beam.Rocks are not a bad option as they control both Nova's and Spencer's mid range offense but Rocks cannot punish Bolts from full screen away. Hidden Missiles while a legitimate top tier assist is pretty mediocre in the match up. Nova has a mid range Rocket Punch which leaves opponents in crumple stun. This works on assists too which means that if Nemo scouts out a Hidden Missiles call he can Rocket Punch it which leaves Doom in a crumple state. During crumple state as the assist character is still on screen, the time after which the point character can call an assist again is greatly increased meaning Magneto is left without help for a very long time. Hidden Missiles also get countered by Bolts and Doom has to take the entire stagger animation of the Bolts which gives Nova an easy in and in some cases an easy happy birthday (two for one combo). Nemo's team also has numerous full screen punishes against Hidden Missiles as well as some ways to complete negate it.In terms of match ups, Dr Doom loses to all of Nemo's characters. He does best against Spencer but even then it's not highly advantageous for him. Nova can easily control Dr Doom with Gravimetric Shield and Javelin. Any attempt at zoning by Dr Doom can get punished by Human Rocket super. Against Dr Strange it's just as bad if not worse. Dr Doom has very little options against an Eye of Agomotto and any action that is committed by him can get hit by SoV. Since Dr Doom has awkward movement and no ground plink dash... he has a hard time keeping up with with these characters who are very fast on the ground (yes even Dr Strange has a very fast ground plink dash). Against Spencer he can at least use his normals to keep him honest but even then those normals can be Bionic Armed on reaction. Spencer can yank Dr Doom out of the sky with his Zip Line grapples or use his air to air wall bounce Zip line to catch him or get under him and use the 80K wire grapple to get him. That said, FChamp is a phenomenal player and despite the disparity in match ups... he will find a way to get the hit and put the match back in his favor. FChamp will be using a lot of Laser Gun (j.H) to prevent Nemo from setting up Gravimetric Shields, Eye of Agomotto or any box dash j.H/zip line pressure.The girl that everyone loves to hate. Ever since UMVC3, many Phoenix players have abandoned the character for cheaper options (aka Vergil or Strider). The 5 bar prerequisite to accessing Dark Phoenix is too steep for some players. That said FChamp, unlike other Phoenix players, utilizes Phoenix as a legitimate character... not just as a comeback gimmick. He can defeat whole teams with just regular Phoenix without ever needing to transform.The reason why FChamp is going to be using Phoenix in the match up is not because he is at a certain advantage for using Phoenix .. hell you could argue he isn't at an advantage at all. He will be using Phoenix because he has a very limited pool of characters to deal with Nemo's team and almost all of them get beaten badly by team Nemo. FChamp has the best Dormammu in the world but Dormammu on paper loses to all of the characters on Nemo's team which means that if he uses his EVO winning team of Magneto/Dormammu/Doom he would have two characters who on paper lose to every character on team Nemo!Another reason why he is using Phoenix in the match up is because the signature Flames of the Faltine loops of Dr Strange build a ton of meter not only for the Strange player but for the other player as well. If Nemo gets a hit on Magneto... he has to choose between doing the full FotF loop to kill Magneto or snap in Phoenix immediately. If he goes for the FotF loop.. then he builds a ton of bar for FChamp's Phoenix. If he snaps in Phoenix then he is foregoing the kill on Magneto. This creates a weird situation for Nemo where he has to make a hard decision and that could work in FChamp's favor if he doesn't make the right choice.As a character Phoenix beats all of Nemo's characters. She has exceptional normals, mobility, an excellent teleport, zoning options, an invincible hyper that beats out the Bionic Arm and on top of that she has the dreaded Dark Phoenix transformation if she has 5 bars which means that she is the only character in the game to have two lives and in a high damage/TOD game that is a massive advantage. Moves like TK Overdrive go through projectiles which means she is able to by pass moves like Gravimetric Shield and Eye of Agomotto. Teleport means that Dr Strange has hardly any chance to set up anything. Low profile crouching hit box means she is harder to zip line against and her ground dash + slide attack evades Bolts completely. However, Phoenix is not the point character on FChamp's team and normally if she is coming in it means that FChamp's other characters are dead. This means she is a more vulnerable target and with her low health she is also susceptible to chip set ups (Nova's Nova Force hyper does a lot of chip damage). In addition, if she doesn't have meter while in Dark Phoenix mode she is susceptible to hail mary attacks like Human Rocket super, Bionic Arm and Spell of Vishanti which means that FChamp has to play very careful even when using Dark Phoenix.Finally, expect FChamp to X factor to kill Spencer if he gets the touch on him while using Phoenix. That is because Spencer is one of the characters in the game to have access to the anti-Dark Phoenix tech.. that is to say he can guarantee a set up kill on Dark Phoenix as she transforms. This tech still requires at least one bar and X factor plus a properly confirmed combo.FChamp won EVO with Magneto/Dormammu/Doom and by many accounts it's his signature team. However, I do not expect FChamp to be using Dormammu in this money match because Dormammu has bad match ups against all of Nemo's characters. Nova can on reaction Human Rocket punch any action of Dormammu and he has the uncanny ability to completely DESTROY Stalking Flare with his hyper. Dr Strange can react to any ground action of Dormammu with a teleport or counter his projectiles with his 7 Rings super or counter any air action of Dormammu with Spell of Vishanti... all on reaction. Spencer can easily zip line against Dormammu due to his very tall hit box which means he can by pass Dorm's zoning easily by making him block the zip line and get in. He can also Bionic Arm against any one of Dorm's moves at mid screen distance on reaction. Dorm's only real option in all these match ups is to find a way to stalk up on defensive spells and then just rushdown with an assist. This is well outside FChamp's comfort zone though and I do not expect him to even pick this character unless he is in a dire situation.Conclusion: FChamp will most likely be using Magneto (Disruptor) / Doom (Plasma Beam) / Phoenix (TK Overdrive) team against Nemo's team. Expect to see many punishes on Bolts with Plasma Beam combined with TK EMD to shut down Nova's j.H box dash offense. Also expect to see FChamp being more aggressive against Nemo as he feels that even though Nemo excels at rushdown... he is weak against rushdown himself. If Dr Doom is on point expect to see many j.H Laser gun to prevent Nemo from setting up any type of zoning, assist call or box dash/zip line pressure. Expect to see FChamp playing very reserved with Phoenix to avoid getting hit by stray Human Rockets, Spell of Vishanti and Bionic Arm. Expect to see FChamp guarantee kill on Spencer to take out the anti Phoenix tech option.Do not expect to see Hidden Missiles, Rocks assist, Dormammu or Morrigan.Nova is a top 10 character in the game. While he is not quite as strong as the top 5, he is the very definition of a "solid" character. Along with Magneto he features the top 2 best throw game in UMVC3. He has excellent ground mobility, a basic but effective box dash j.H throw OS offense, decent zoning tools, excellent anti-zoning tools, a slide and solid mix ups. With Bolts assist, Nova is a terror as it amplifies his box dash j.H offense. On paper, Nova + Bolts beats Magneto + Missiles but against Magneto + Plasma Beam it's far more even.Nova excels at shutting down many forms of zoning which makes him a direct counter to the way FChamp plays. This means that Nemo's Nova will be forcing FChamp to play out of his comfort zone and force him to be more aggressive. Nova does have some issues of his own... his block strings are weak and if he uses his slide in a block string it can be punished with a well timed advance guard which FChamp has most likely figured out during his prep time.Expect to see a lot of j.Hs with Bolts, a lot of plink dash into double overheads, lots of slides, lots of hail mary Human Rocket hypers. Nemo plays very aggressive and sometimes even YOLO with Nova and the rest of his characters... which is something FChamp is most terrified of. Also expect to see a lot of Crumple stun set ups with Spencer's Wire Grapple that lead into a raw tag into Strange for a full FotF loop combo that kills anything in the game.Dr Strange is a pure support character on Nemo's team and that's also how he is mostly played in the competitive scene. He is around a top 15 character in the game, he has strengths but weaknesses too especially as a point character. He provides the very powerful Bolts assist which is a high hitting projectile attack that hits twice that comes with it's own set of advantages and disadvantages. There's a gap in between both projectiles which makes it the perfect time to go for a cross up or throw.. a cornerstone of Nova and Spencer offense with Bolts. Strange also has a very powerful DHC in option in Spell of Vishanti as well as solid TAC combos but more importantly he provides Nova with high damage options via Wire Grapple Crumple stun into FotF loops. This is what makes the team so strong, every hit or grab leads into a dead character due to the damage output of Strange.Due to the make up of Dr Strange's tool... he makes for an excellent counter to many of FChamp's characters. He has high durability projectiles (Mystic Sword), he has 7 Rings hyper which counters projectiles, he has Spell of Vishanti which can beat out zoning options on start up, he has a teleport and he has a reasonably fast ground plink dash. Furthermore he is also some what of a counter to air dash characters thanks to Eye of Agomotto, Daggers/Discs of Denak and of course Spell of Vishanti. But because he is an expert at anti zoning... he also happens to be a character who is susceptible to heavy rushdown. Against rushdown his only real options are back plink dash combined with Impact Palm or teleport out of corner. He is like Dormammu in that he has a tall hit box which makes him even more susceptible to offense. In the air he is usually a sitting suck because so many of his options lead into a prone state. Nemo gets around this by setting up the Glyphs and immediately going into a teleport mix up.While Strange is a set up based anti zoning character... Nemo goes ham even with Strange. Expect a lot of teleport set ups and gimmicks to land a hit on FChamp. Nemo knows that he can't play a proper zoning game with Dr Strange because he is unassisted (Wire Grapple assist for Strange is nothing more than a mix up tool on incoming).Spencer like Nova is another top 10, not quite top 5 type character. He is good at offense and getting in. He also supports big damage and has the feared Bionic Arm which forces other players to play honest. Spencer is also a sort of grappler character in that he has a solid throw game combined with a ground command throw and an anti air command throw. His main weakness is that his normals aren't all that great close up and his zip line has to be used properly or it can be punished via air throw or anti air jabs.Spencer with Bolts assist is also a terror like Nova. It allows free get in with Zip line along with command throw mix ups during the Bolt projectile gap. Nemo prefers to play Spencer on anchor as out of all of Nemo's character he makes for the best anchor with the best chance of making a 3 v 1 comeback. However, if Nemo finds himself in a neutral situation then he prefers to DHC in Spencer safely by doing Spell of Vishanti into Bionic Maneuvers so that he gets to play Spencer plus Bolts. Spencer provides the anti air Wire Grapple assist which is mainly used to set up crumple stun into FotF loops for Nova/Strange. It is also used for many of Nemo's signature incoming mix ups even for Dr Strange.Spencer does alright against all of FChamp's characters. Bionic Arm keeps Magneto honest on offensive but Magneto can still easily anti air Spencer or grab him in tight situations. Spencer beats Dr Doom on both offense and on defense. Spencer overall is a very read based character. He has to make reads with Bionic Arm, reads with sniping with Wire Grapple (expect to see Nemo do this to catch FChamp unaware) and reads with his command throw (anti air or ground). Nemo has both the reactions and the reads to push this character to his limit.While this situation will not happen a lot... if Spencer ends up on point backed up with Nova and Strange then he has access to another combo extender in Nova's assist for big damage thanks to unscaled 80K hits. The assist also doubles as a pseudo unblockable set up as Nova's Centurion Rush assist hits high.Expect to see many zip lines, command throws, overheads, Bionic Arms and even some XF3 comebacks.Conclusion: Expect Nemo to be using his name sake team: Nova (Centurion Rush M) / Strange (Bolts) / Spencer (Wire Grapple tilted up). Expect a ton of aggressive play that many people will call YOLO which means many raw Human Rockets, Spell of Vishanti and Bionic Arms. Expect to see a lot of crazy never before seen mix ups as Nemo is always pushing the team in terms of creativity. Also expect to see long FotF loops and snapbacks against Phoenix along with the anti-Phoenix tech of Spencer. Oh and DEFINITELY expect to see a lot of buttons pressed and no respect given.It will be CLOSE! While the last time the two faced in a money match it was a blow up... but it was a blow up because it took FChamp many matches to figure out that both Dormammu and Hidden Missiles were not that effective against team Nemo. It also took him a while to figure out that he can't always default to a zoning playstyle... he had to be more aggressive against Nemo. Furthermore, since that time FChamp has developed many strats against team Nemo. Stuff like TK EMD to counter box dash j.H pressure and Bolts, optimum punishes against Nova slide blockstrings, punishes against Zip line offense as well as picking up on Nemo's tendencies to press buttons in scramble situations.FChamp will be coming in with a plan and firm strategy. I still feel that on paper Nemo has the edge in terms of team vs team and characters vs characters but team/character strength doesn't matter as much as player strength. In that regard, I feel that FChamp has leveled up more than Nemo did in the same time span. He has also been in the HYPERBOLIC TIME CHAMBER with Yipes (another team Nemo player) to dissect team Nemo in preparation for the money match.I give the edge to FChamp in this match up. It will be a close set but I feel like FChamp will squeak it out especially if Nemo gives up many early games like he always tends to do.