14-Year-Old Prodigy Dominates Never Give Up 2024

There have been a swathe of very young players who have been emerging on the scene in recent years that tells of something of a revolution coming for the FGC. 

The latest was from the Never Give Up (NGU) Tournament 2024, which is Chile's most important fighting game tournament which attracted over 500 players from that community to partake in a fighting game festival. With over $5000 in prize money for participants, the event was another piece of evidence that the FGC is moving towards a more viable and stable future. 

The young prodigies that stormed the event ended up being the talk of the town with 14-year-old Blaz from team BLK taking the crown in Street Fighter 6 where he defeated Red Rooster's MonoPR who won CEO 2021 and has been a stalwart in Street Fighter League. Blaz, using Luke (he has to be top 1 in the game) overcame everyone including his team mate, Craime, and even reseting the bracket in Grand Final to get the victory.

Speaking of Craime, this is another prodigy who is just 12-years-old and took 4th place in such a stacked tournament. Most impressively, Craime took down Younghou who is a veteran and a Capcom Cup participant (he defeated Kawano last year) and sent him out of the bracket.

Meanwhile, in Mortal Kombat 1, the Martinez Twins, Nicolás and Matías (SCORPIONPROCS), continued to  destroy everyone and took the first and second place, establishing themselves as undisputed figures in MK for Chile.

This showing has sparked conversation among many asking if this can be termed a 'golden generation'for Chilean gaming and what this could mean for future events and the positioning of Chile as a region in fighting games. 

Tournaments like NGU have been instrumental in bringing out such talent and despite a 3-year absence due to Covid, their return has been a welcome one and has been an injection of positivity for the scene over there.

The FGC is no stranger to young prodigies making the step up. The likes of NuckleDu, SonicFox and CJ Truth made the step up by age 14 and Noah Solis (Noah the Prodigy) was bumping heads by the time he was 8. Young players like Hikaru in Japan, and many others have done some amazing things at tender ages. But, it is still a rare feat to see players become so good at such a young age, and so, stories like these are always incredible.