Hiya!

A couple of weeks back, I wrote about how surprised I was with how good the Sajam Slam Street Fighter 6 Tournament was shaping up. Hosted by Sajam, one of the more notable fighting game commentators and content creators, his idea for the Sajam Slam was rather different from what we’re used to. Rather than have a team of a bunch of pros have at it like with what we saw in like in Ultimate Fighting Arena, Sajam gathers several content creators of varying skill levels, including ones who haven’t really touched a fighting game in forever, breaks them up into teams with a pro coach and set them against each other.

On paper, this wouldn’t seem like a good idea as seeing some really bad players face off against each other would be boring. However, as I wrote about before, the Sajam Slam was surprisingly fun and there were some really surprising moments throughout the qualifying matches. So, when Twitch Con 2024 rolled around, which is when the Sajam Slam finals was going to be held, I was eagerly awaiting it with bated breath. I wasn’t disappointed.

I will say I was genuinely surprised with the setup Twitch Con 2024 has for this event. Strictly speaking, this is a fighting game tournament so I didn’t expect it to be given a whole lot of respect, especially with more popular games like Minecraft and Fortnite going to take the primary focus when it came to competitive gaming. So, it was delightful to see the stage not shuttered into some unseen corner of Twitch Con. No, they had a ton of bells and whistles and really good equipment. Unfortunately, the “really good equipment” wasn’t exactly set up properly. More on that later.

I was somewhat disappointed regarding how some team members couldn’t participate on the Twitch Con event itself because they’re primarily VTubers. For those unfamiliar with VTubers, it’s short for “Virtual YouTubers.” They’re essentially like regular streamers but, instead of appearing on stream themselves, they use some kind of anime avatar in their place. Some VTubers don’t want to show off their faces as they prefer their privacy and I can respect that. If I were going to be a YouTube star, I would probably go the VTuber route myself. Sadly, as some of them didn’t want to show their in real life personas, they couldn’t go to Twitch Con. This did lead to Dokibird, probably the biggest reason why I got into the Sajam Slam in the first place, wasn’t able to attend the Sajam Slam at Twitch Con.

Another thing which marred the start of the event was the aforementioned equipment problems. I do believe it affected the first couple of matches but you wouldn’t really know it while watching. That’s because Sykkuno, who took Dokibird’s place in the tournament, and vGumiho as well as the UltimaShadow and eskay bout, were really good but there were some surprising combo drops. In actuality, the match was a laggy mess as the television they were playing on wasn’t set to Game Mode. There’s some technical gobbledygook here but, in the simplest terms, as it wasn’t set to Game Mode, there was a lot of input lag during those matches. Thankfully, Esfand figured it out and turned on the setting. Sadly, they couldn’t do a runback to the matches they already ran.

After that, the Sajam Slam was indeed a banger of a tournament. This wasn’t anything like the first AT&T Annihilator Cup with Street Fighter V where the simple strategy of mashing light punch with E. Honda would get you pretty far! As this was a team tournament with pros leading the teams, all the players were given some form of coaching to actually get better at Street Fighter 6 and it definitely showed throughout the tournament.

The match between UltimaShadow’s Luke and KatLink‘s Ken was kind of a nailbiter with some of the rounds going down to the wire as there were moments each of them could’ve closed it out but forgo to cancel to their Level 3 Supers. I may have counted out Esfand early on as he didn’t really improve much throughout the entire Sajam Slam. However, he did make some really smart plays when going against Fumi‘s JP as he had the presence of mind to Drive Rush through JP’s pseudo projectiles! I gotta thank him for reminding me JP’s projectiles don’t have a hitbox unless you’re close to them, meaning you can actually dash through them with the correct timing!

The finals between Nephew‘s team and Shine‘s team was also pretty tight. Once again, there were some really close nail biters. The one RedRiotRoss‘ Dee Jay and Fumi’s JP was particularly tight. There were marvelous sequences like how RedRiotRoss adapted to the pace of facing off against a JP. That one really insane scrambly sequence where Dee Jay eked the win by doing his Level 2 and Fumi, as her JP was in the burnout state, desperately used his Level 1 to try to counter was awe inspiring! Hearing the crowd reacting at that moment was fabulous!

I also do have to give special mention to Huntress‘ masterful use of Chun-Li during her only match against Infernasu‘s Akuma. She absolutely dominated with some really big pro level skill here! She was calm enough to anti-air Akuma with Chun-Li’s standing medium kick and always hit the perfect button to make sure her Serenity Stream combos always connected. She even used her Hazansu special to go over an air fireball and hit Akuma as he was landing! Very, very optimal play!

Honestly, after all of this, I was slightly disappointed the last match was against the pro players, Nephew and Shine. That’s because Nephew was just too strong and pretty much crushed Shine in their match. Not that I’m complaining but I was just more hyped up from all the close matches previously shown. Seeing a clear winner was kind of anticlimactic.

I do think the Sajam Slam is a testament and proof on how the common misconception on how fighting games are difficult. We got to see some total newbies rank up to, at the very least, Gold rank, in just a couple of weeks. That’s a very respectable level, especially if you’ve never played a Street Fighter game because you thought it would be too hard. Sure, the entire Modern control scheme helped players like Dokibird and vGumiho get pretty good. However, it’s also a testament to the coaches to teach them some tips and techniques so they can also get better.

If you’ve ever thought about trying out Street Fighter 6, go watch the Sajam Slam. If you’ve been playing Street Fighter 6 ever since it came out, go watch it still because the matches were pretty hype anyway. Basically, the Sajam Slam at Twitch Con was for everyone gamer out in the sun.

Byee!

Did you watch the Sajam Slam Street Fighter 6 tournament at Twitch Con? What was your favorite match? Let me know in the comments section below!