Late last month, over 4,000 competitors flew out to snowy Lombard, Illinois, to compete in one of the biggest majors of the year, Frosty Faustings! With many stakes on the line, including spots at the Arc World Tour for GGST, GBVSR, and UNI2, alongside $50K on the line for 2XKO, players brought their a-game to show their valor, including a strong amount of collegiate players who, despite having to balance an academic life with labbing and practicing constantly in the FGC, showed out to make some terrifying runs against other pros.
Today, College Esports News will go over the collegiate players who went the distance this weekend.
Bloo takes the dub in Street Fighter 6!
Bloo, a Street Fighter 6 (SF6) player from Florida International University, managed to have an outrageous run during Frosty’s Weekend, ending with an electrifying set against Caba, ending off 3-2 to take the tournament. 656 players came out to try to make a wild run for SF6, but Bloo was the one to do it with Dee Jay! His weekend was full of huge upsets too, beating out huge longtime players in the scene like KOG and Enzo in Top 48, and then taking out Dual Kevin in Top 8 Semis, which had to have felt so good for Bloo after losing out to Dual Kevin at last year’s Frosty Faustings in the Loser’s Finals.
However, this year, his Grand Finals against Caba to secure 1st place was the real highlight! After losing out to Bloo 3-1 in the Winner’s Finals, Caba grew a fire in them to make quick work of Stealth in a 3-0 sweep in Loser’s Finals to get the runback against Bloo in Grands. Their set was filled with a decent amount of zoning at full screen, given that both play zoners, with Caba being a Guile player. But, they both showed such incredible patience against each other during the match, waiting for one to overextend either by whiffing a move or trying to drive rush in without any setup, and both would catch each other on that with so many perfect parries and EX DPs to brake check the Drive Rushes. They were both so even in this that it went to a final game final round!
Both players, 2-2 in the set, up a round in the final game. If Bloo wins, he wins Frosty’s, but if Caba wins, the bracket would be reset, and they’d have to do another Grand Finals, and Bloo knew this. This man proceeded to get 2 Drive rushes into throws in a row to walk Caba into the corner, and while eventually, after a few punish checks, Caba did Flash Kick their way back to the middle ground, Bloo found one more Drive Rush in to confirm into a level 3, and take the entire tournament!
After getting 3rd last year, this felt amazing for Bloo, and between all the admiration and congratulations, both in-person and online, especially with his amazing build, Bloo truly made a run that felt amazing. He had a lot of support from the SF community going in, with a TO even letting him crash on the floor for Frosty’s, which is what the FGC is really about at the end of the day, so shoutouts to ConvictedofFun for housing him so he could perform! But while Bloo had an intense run in SF6, another collegiate player was close to making the distance as…
Garlic Bread and KJPixel have a Heated Runback in DBFZ
Garlic Bread, a student at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis, entered a lot of games to see if he could make some deep runs in the brackets. While making some solid runs in 2XKO, GGST, and SF6, he made an unbelievable run over in Dragon Ball FighterZ (DBFZ), which I even got to commentate live at Frosty Faustings, and let me tell you firsthand, this guy came to take names! His Top 8 run had 2 main opponents, KJPixel and Zane. Lately, Zane has been focusing more on Granblue, especially with the Arc World Tour Finals fast approaching, but KJ was the main opponent, as he is one of the only people who still grinds DFBZ hard to this day, constantly competing online and making top placements wherever he goes. Going into this weekend, I knew this bracket was KJPixel’s tournament to lose.
Garlic Bread started strong in the top 8, making it out against Zane 2-1 to move up to KJPixel in the Winner’s Finals. Now, these two have faced off against each other many times online, mainly in the older era of the Dual Academy brackets back in 2023, with Garlic Bread always taking the win. But something changed starting with Bum’s Birthday Bash in 2024. KJPixel started to become the dominator when it came to their sets, winning at Bum’s Birthday Bash and at last year’s Frostys against Garlic Bread, knocking him to 3rd there. Going into their first set in the Winner’s Finals, the question was, could KJPixel keep his streak going, or would Garlic Bread shut him back down? The thing was, though, that Frieza and Janemba were just too strong a shell for Garlic to take on with the zoning and mix they hold.
Following a loss to KJPixel, it was time for a rematch against Zane in the Loser’s Finals. These three had already been the Top 3 at last year’s Frosty Faustings, with Zane being crowned champion. So, Garlic Bread taking out the previous year’s winner felt amazing going into Grands. Especially with one of Garlic’s characters, Captain Ginyu, swapping bodies with Zane’s Beerus at one point and doing intense technical orb combos with Zane’s own character. Which adds a whole other layer since Zane was only doing basic Beerus combos, leading up to Top 8, so that was a wild statement – rocking more technical combos after stealing the Beerus. But after taking out last year’s champ, it was time to run it back in Grands!
Sadly, though, while there were some almost clutch final games in Grands – where Garlic Bread would be left with just Krillin against KJ’s full team of Jiren, Frieza, and Janemba, taking out two of them cleanly, there’d always be one character left to take out Krillin, and KJPixel protected his reputation to take Grands. Garlic Bread still had an amazing run to get second, mainly with the Ginyu Force constantly enabling him to get shocking setups and juggles, and Krillin always clutching with his rock throw assist. Still, KJPixel really has been in that hyperbolic time chamber for this game, and is going to continue the dominance he has on the modern life of DBFZ as he moves to the DBFZ Masters Showdown LCQ at the Dragon Ball Battle Hour event in April. With that, we can move on to…
Lasagna Slayer Shows off in Guilty Gear Strive
While we’ve covered some strong brackets for SF6 and DBFZ, Frosty Faustings has always been the one-stop shop for the best-of-the-best for Guilty Gear, and the same goes for this year, as a spot in the Arc World Tour finals was on the line. One such player who tried their luck over the weekend was Lasagna Slayer, hailing from Vincennes University. They’re a very strong Goldlewis player that’s garnered much fame over online GGST brackets and regionals like SQXL: Burst la Burst. During Frostys, they aimed to secure a qualifier placement to compete in the Arc World Tour Finals held in Goyang, South Korea. With 663 competitors in attendance, it was gonna be a long weekend.
Lasagna started strong, making it to the top 192 on the winners’ side. Even while Leo was able to knock him to losers in a clean 3-0 with their Faust, that didn’t stop Lasagne Slayer from mowing through Love and EnzogXY to make it to Top 48. With one life left on the line, Lasagna’s Goldlewis had to be on its A-game to make sure they made the distance to Top 8. It wasn’t easy, as it started with a match against Kazam, a prolific Johnny player who’s made wild Top 8 runs over many majors like CEO and Combo Breaker. While it was rough, especially considering this was their first time meeting in a major bracket, Lasagna was able to make it out alive, but not without the battle scars, going 3-2.
The pressure wouldn’t stop, as the next opponent was Kriby, playing the antichrist of the GGST, Happy Chaos. Happy Chaos needs no introduction, being a fighter known for amazing zoning potential and up-close pressure with his hitscan gun, and the wildest goomba stomps you ever seen. Lasagna needed no introduction either, as both he and Kriby had met many times in online brackets, with more of a back and forth recently, which reflected their match also going to game 5. This time around, Lasagna Slayer is still coming out on top.
Now on the 3rd round of losers in Top 48, Verix with his Nagoriyuki was next, another new opponent when it comes to Lasagna Slayer’s results. Verix really showed how they’d been studying the sword, slicing through Lasagna 3-1, and sending Lasagna Slayer out at 17th. Now this is still an amazing run, because this was for a guaranteed spot on the Arc World Tour, putting Frostys for this game on the same level as events like the EVO series and Combo Breaker, meaning players from all around the world would be pulling up.
What’s Next for these Collegiate Fighters?
With the excitement for Frostys dying down, the CFGC has recently started their Spring season, offering SF6, Tekken 8, GGST, and now 2XKO in their main lineup. So many collegiate players will be competing to see if they can win the grand title in Division 1 for their games, and I can’t wait to see how the 2XKO players perform. While sadly I was not able to compete, as if you do, you’re barred from commentating on the game you compete in, I can’t wait to cast what I can and see what you all can do!
And that’s not all! 2XKO is starting up its competitive series, with Frostys being the first major stop. Many more events like Genesis and Texas Showdown are right around the corner, and I hope collegiate players from their respective regions show out to compete in those brackets. With that, I hope you all work hard over these next few weeks for the CFGC, and take it easy!
[Featured image by Rell McCready @RellFGC]
