WoundCowboy (Left)
I know I haven't posted in a while and for that I apologize. To be completely honest, the Mortal Kombat Community has been somewhat of a ghost town since SCR. With all of the drama, bracket rigging, and what of it that has been taking place it has been depressing. I recently attended Winter Brawl and will have a blog post up about it ASAP, and I'm working on some interviews as well that may or may not actually be released. I've been attending local tournaments and have been trying to level myself up as a player. Before I turn this into a post about myself let me inform all of my readers about why I am posting this. This post is being made for the sole purpose of getting one of my favorite players to Final Round 2013.
I'm going to go into story mode here on you real quick to sort of set the stage for the rest of this post. It was the weekend of January 28th, and nothing much had been going on in the MKC since Frosty Faustings. With that said, SoCal Regionals was taking place during that weekend and I was willing to tune in. With players like Pig of the Hut, DetroitBalln, Tyrant and 16 Bit this was a tournament that I wasn't going to miss.
The tournament progressed nicely and unfortunately missed the first day of matches due to an obligation that I had. However I heard on Twitter that Pig of the Hut had been defeated by a Shang Tsung player. Naturally I thought it was DetroitBalln after hearing rumors of him returning to his roots. Little did I know that the actual player who sent Pig to losers bracket was WoundCowboy. WoundCowboy was the same player who was defeated on stream by Pig of the Hut just a few months prior at MLG Dallas. The news of WoundCowboy defeating Pig shocked me, and I made a conscious effort to rush home and make sure that I would not miss another second of action. I watched the second day of pools and wasn't as hype as I thought I would've been, but top 8 was right around the corner.
Top 8 started and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to watch WoundCowboy play due to the news of him defeating Pig so early in the competition. The first match WoundCowboy was against C88 DAB, who is a multi-character specialist and an incredible player. Considering Kabal is the best character in the game, he decided to use Kabal against WoundCowboy. Cowboy stuck with his usual Shang Tsung. WoundCowboy showed no signs of weakness as he went on to defeat DAB, who used Kabal and Johnny Cage in the matchup. So far so good for WoundCowboy, in my head I was thinking about how awesome it is that a Shang Tsung player has such good footsies and fundamentals that he can consistently defeat top players.
He went on to face EGP XBlades, who is widely considered as the best Liu Kang player in the MKC. Cowboy dominated in this particular matchup. What stood out to me was his patience and spacing. He was content with using the ground skulls to keep XBlades on his toes at a distance and knew exactly how to react when XBlades got in on him. He took his Loser Quarter Finals match in quite a convincing fashion.
WoundCowboy advanced to Losers Semi Finals and was matched up against KN DetroitBalln. DetroitBalln was previously known as the "Shang of America", as his previous main was Shang Tsung. He now has moved on and has become a full Kabal main and was going 100% Kabal for this entire tournament. This is where the heat started to turn up as this matchup had some history and I think everyone and their mother was behind WoundCowboy on this one. DetoitBalln was on match point twice, but there is no quit in WoundCowboy. To say his mind is strong is simply an understatement. He knows what his opponent is thinking and punishes them for even thinking it. What stuck out to me was how well he dealt with both Kabal's pressure and his zoning. Cowboy landed some excellent naked EX Groundskulls and was able to bait DetroitBalln into jumping at him when he was fully prepared to anti-air him. At this point I was so entranced by my laptop and the stream that nothing would pull me away from it. WoundCowboy was in it to win and wasn't even willing to let the best character in the game eliminate him.
Now it came time for Losers Finals, and with it we had DJT vs. WoundCowboy. DJT was the person who sent Cowboy to losers earlier in pools, and Wound was out for some redemption. DJT took the early lead but Cowboy came back in the second match and dominated him. He was able to punish DJT's bomb pressure by constantly throwing out groundskulls. DJT came back in the third match and got Cyrax's resets going and was able to shift the momentum back to himself. WoundCowboy got a crucial soul steal at the end of the second round in game 4 to keep himself alive after being on the brink of elimination. WoundCowboy was alive, however DJT quickly drained his life to below 50% and it wasn't looking too good for him. He stayed calm, made DJT spend his meter and was able to capitalize on a jump-in-punch combo and ultimately took game 4. Game 5 was the deciding factor here, DJT and WoundCowboy traded punishment. However WoundCowboy was able to come out on top after hitting DJT with an X-Ray and a jump kick to close out the match. WoundCowboy avenged his loss from earlier in pools and advanced to Grand Finals.
Grand Finals were set and we would see EGP Tyrant vs. WoundCowboy. This is a match that Cowboy is particularly a fan of, however he had made it this far and wasn't willing to give up. WoundCowboy hung in strong and took a game against Tyrant, unfortunately he wasn't able to do enough. Tyrant happened to be the better player in that moment and he took a well-deserved victory.
The reason I have written all of this is for no reason other than to get WoundCowboy to Final Round 2013. This is my case for him making it there. Watching his gameplay at SCR 2013 is what kept me excited to stay in the community and to continue playing this game. WoundCowboy was responsible for the most hype moments that I've ever had since I joined the community and since I started playing this game. His overall game is nothing short of incredible, and he does so with a character that not many players have been able to be successful with. Some of you may be asking, why should I vote for him? My question is..Why SHOULDN'T you vote for him? Tyrant may have won SCR, but WoundCowboy provided the most incredible comebacks at SCR 2013, and he is a living breathing case of what hard-work and dedication can bring you if you want something bad enough. Cowboy made me want to attend Winter Brawl and inspired me to level up my Mortal Kombat gameplay. He IS the Shang Tsung of the World, and I urge all who read this post to visit THIS LINK RIGHT HERE: http://testyourmight.com/threads/vote-here-to-send-someone-for-free-to-final-round-vote-ends-in-5-days.28367/. GO INTO THE LINK, MAKE AN ACCOUNT ON TYM IF YOU DON'T ALREADY HAVE ONE AND VOTE FOR HIM. There is no reason why you shouldn't vote for Cowboy, he is an amazing player and has shown that he can overcome some extremely bad matchups with his character. So don't even think twice about it, let's get this guy to Final Round 2013 in Atlanta so we can continue to be amazed and impressed by how well he plays the game of Mortal Kombat. DO IT NOW!
To end this post I would like to thank Reno Racks for giving a player the opportunity to further showcase their skill at one of the best tournaments of the year. People like Reno Racks are what this community needs. He surely does not have to, but the pure fact that he is willing to speaks volumes for what kind of person he is. Also I would like to thank Pig of the Hut for all of his contributions to the community and I hope that Final Round goes down smoothly with no issues.
Thank you all for reading if you decided to, and I hope that WoundCowboy gets this and wins Final Round 2013. More content will be coming soon so stay tuned ladies and gents.
Video credit to EpicGP on YouTube.