Tekken savant Arslan Ash has been stirring the pot along with his feedback concerning the present state of the sport’s character stability, placing a nerve with fellow professional Knee in an surprising rivalry.
The talk flared up a few weeks earlier than Evo 2025. Korean Tekken participant Knee has been on a tear defending Bryan, a personality largely thought-about by many in the neighborhood to be among the best within the recreation proper now, and with whom he gained Evo Japan earlier this yr.
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Others within the scene — together with five-time Evo champion Arslan Ash, specifically — aren’t proud of how blatantly top-tier Bryan is at current. Whereas the dialog has been simmering for a scorching minute, issues escalated when Arslan uploaded a video of different professional gamers agreeing with him that Bryan is high three within the present meta.
Knee was fast to hit again, suggesting a first-to-ten set in opposition to Ash, whereby Ash would play Bryan, whereas he would use Nina. “The reality is, you simply can’t play Bryan. You may’t deal with him. That’s why you’re busy taking part in politics, asking for nerfs,” Knee boasted.
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Ash agreed, setting a date for someday in 2026 for a doable “Korea vs Pakistan” occasion. Knee, nevertheless, accused Ash of ducking him by planning a date to this point sooner or later moderately than working the set at Evo. That’s when Justin Wong stepped in, asking: “How a lot do you suppose it might take to make Knee vs Arslan occur?”
Arslan set the value at $20K — however when Justin requested to verify the “winner takes all” cash match, Arslan challenged him to fund it, prompting one other spherical of confusion and criticism from the group.
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With that setup out of the way in which, right here’s what Arslan needed to say concerning the ongoing beef.
Arslan addresses his viral ‘Bryan high 3’ debate with Knee
To date, no official FT10 has been arrange between the 2 gamers, and their feud continues to simmer simply beneath the floor as Evo will get underway. We bought the prospect to ask Arslan concerning the dialogue and the way he feels concerning the preventing recreation group’s response to it.
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“ For me, I don’t downplay my character,” he instructed us. “If I’m taking part in Anna proper now, I’ll all the time say that she’s top-tier, and that’s why I’m taking part in her. However the Bryan mains, they’re like… loopy.
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“So you might have me, and I’ve a great variety of followers. After which you might have Knee, and he additionally has a great quantity of followers. So if I say one thing in opposition to his character or in opposition to him, all of his viewers will begin saying unhealthy issues about me. If I say Bryan’s top-tier, I feel [Knee] likes to downplay. I don’t know what the reason being.
“We’re allowed to say something we wish, proper? When you suppose I don’t like apples, as an illustration — yeah, that’s tremendous. If I say Bryan is top-tier, that needs to be tremendous. You can not say, ‘No, it’s important to play this character to say in the event that they’re top-tier or not.’ It’s the identical factor that I stated on Twitter: You don’t should be a chef to say the meals is unhealthy. You may see that the character is damaged. That character gained Evo Japan. [Knee] thinks I’m doing politics, that I’m getting his character nerfed by posting loads, however that character ought to get nerfed increasingly more.”
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Arslan Ash competed in opposition to Knee at Combo Breaker earlier this yr – now, the 2 are going through off on-line over Tekken 8’s character stability.
Regardless of the meat, Arslan has no real-life feud along with his fellow preventing recreation participant. He merely feels that they every have totally different opinions of the sport, saying it isn’t one thing that impacts their relationship in the true world.
“I like him as an individual,” he stated. “However in the case of the sport, in the case of Tekken, now we have totally different opinions. However he’s very nice. Each time I meet him, we discuss loads concerning the recreation and different issues, however our mentality has all the time been totally different concerning the character selections or no matter in Tekken.”
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Arslan Ash desires Tekken 8 devs to hurry up stability patches
It’s protected to say that Arslan has beef with the pace of Tekken’s stability patches, although. The sport’s improvement group has been clear about delaying these patches to keep away from impacting main tournaments like Evo — and whereas he’s understanding of this, Arslan thinks Bandai may nonetheless meet rivals midway.
“ I’m not a developer, however I really feel like when you have a really huge franchise like Tekken, you must have a much bigger group balancing the entire thing,” he argued. “I feel it shouldn’t take an excessive amount of time so that you can stability.
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“The sport goes in the appropriate course. Each patch is getting higher and higher, however they will make it sooner. As a competitor, it’s our responsibility to be taught and adapt. However in addition they can not introduce a much bigger patch simply two weeks earlier than a giant match, so it kinda is smart, however they will do it sooner, proper?”
For now, the FGC is ready with bated breath for the last word end result of Arslan and Knee’s feud — but it surely’s anybody’s guess as as to if or not they’ll truly run the set to find out whether or not or not Bryan is really as top-tier as he’s made out to be.
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