Five things that make Frosty Faustings XVII great [Tournament results added]

Eugene Bozhenko

Eugene Bozhenko

The fighting games esports year traditionally starts with the tournaments of Frosty Faustings XVII, a big event in Chicago, Illinois.

It may be cold outside, but the hot matches definitely can warm your spirit — because “that is b***t, blazing”, you know. The main focus of Frosty Faustings XVII is Guilty Gear Strive, but the event goes far beyond this anime title.

With all the excitement that happened in Chicago from Jan. 23 to Jan. 26, it is possible to highlight five aspects that make Frosty Faustings XVII such a great gathering of the fighting games community (FGC). Also, you’ll find here the detailed schedule, streams, and the final results.

Where to watch the tournaments of Frosty Faustings XVII?

The Frosty Faustings XVII tournaments were streamed via a variety of partnering Twitch channels. Now, the VODs are available on YouTube. Here is a list of channels to watch the final top 8 brackets for different games.

You'll find streams of the main tournaments in our Frosty Faustings XVII results section.

The results of Frosty Faustings XVII 2025

Check out the results of the main Frosty Faustings XVII tournaments in this section.

Guilty Gear Strive

Verix from Senegal attended this event, and it was initially clear that this guy is a threat. What else could you expect from the winner of Arc World Tour 2023? Verix played Nagoriyuki at the Frosty Faustings XVII Guilty Gear tournament, and he won the event.

In the winners final and grand final, Verix had tough matches against the US player Jack. The opponent was on a generally super strong Happy Chaos.

Placement
Player
GGST characters
AWT 2024 points
1SOLO Esport | VerixNagoriyukiDirect invite to the Finals
2JackHappy Chaos100
3KshuewhatdamooJohnny45
4Paragon | ZandoChipp20
5-6Phantom Team | Rang13Goldlewis12
5-6Paragon | EddventureAnji, Jack-O’12
7-8Team Factor | OoeyGooeyChewySnickerAnji8
7-8KazamJohnny8

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising

Kojicoco has already qualified for the AWT 2024 Global Finals thanks to his victory at Ultimate Fighting Arena 2024. Still, a true competitor should give their all at any tournament — good practice is never excessive. 

Kojicoco fell to the losers brackets after the semi vs Monarch. Then, the guy defeated three opponents to reach the grand final and won two matches against Monarch. For the final opponents, it’s still a win, as Monarch qualified for the Finals event.

Placement
Player
GBVSR characters
AWT 2024 points
1Paragon | KojicocoBeatrix, Belial[already qualified]
2MonarchMeteraDirect invite to the Finals
3ZaneGrimnir45
4Kanme Esports | XeromCharlotta20
5-6Defend the North | WavieAnre, Cagliostro12
5-6Railfire Legion | ZippyLucilius12
7-8Team DEUS | IncendiateLowain8
7-8Kanme Esports | ElsaKatalina8

Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes]

Oushuu-Hittou traveled to Frosty Faustings from Japan — a UNI2 Premium qualifier is such a unique event. The player was in the top 6 of UNI2 Evo 2024, and now Oushuu-Hittou finally won their qualification spot.

While playing Seth, Oushuu-Hittou defeated three opponents in the top 8 brackets. It is quite notable that Defiant switched between four characters throughout the tournament.

Placement
Player
UNI2 characters
1 [AWT 2024 Finals invite]Oushuu-HittouSeth
2PapaPestoCarmine
3Boston Blue Beat | DefiantKuon, Londrekia, Mika, Carmine
4ShalyKuon
5-6Paragon | BigBlackByakuya
5-6MarioWagner
7-82GB ComboCarmine
7-8CowDefenestratorYuzuriha

The King of Fighters XV

Wero Asamiya is a very strong KOF XV player from Mexico. At the Combo Breaker 2024 tournament, he lost in the grand final to ViolentKain. This time, no one could stop him! Wero Asamiya qualified for the SNK World Championship 2025 after three confident victories in the top 8 brackets of KOF XV Frosty Faustings XVII.

Placement
Player
KOF XV teams
1 [SNK World Championship 2025 invite]Arcade Rumble | Wero AsamiyaYuri, Iori, Rock
2Tampa Never Sleeps | YurikovMeitenkun, Blue Mary, Isla
3Comite Games | PiterErnIsla, Dolores, Geese
4UREZSChizuru, Benimaru, Isla
5-6Comite Games | FKangBenimaru, Sylvie, Chizuru / Najd 
5-6Team Liquid | ViolentKainKyo, K’, Iori
7-8SonichackedyouNinako, K’, Ramon
7-8Chino FunkeyHeidern, Ralf, Clark

Five reasons not to miss the event (in-person and on streams)

Like all the other fighting games esports events, Frosty Faustings XVII 2025 is a chance to dive into the community of enthusiastic players and learn a lot of helpful tricks from top professionals. In addition to that, the wow effect of lighting reactions and well-elaborated combos is always wonderful.

As for specific things that make Frosty Faustings XVII great, five of them are listed in this section.

The last Platinum qualifiers of the Arc World Tour 2024

After a few months of competition, the Arc World Tour 2024 comes to an end. Frosty Faustings XVII is a powerful culmination! All three games of this official league have Platinum qualifiers: with direct invitations to the AWT 2024 Finals for the winners.

  • Guilty Gear Strive is the main game of the Arc World Tour 2024, and it’s the front title of Frosty Faustings XVII. It’s the last Platinum qualifier for GGST.
  • Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising became part of this league thanks to releasing the enhanced version of the original game. It’s a pretty unique title, visually and gameplay-wise.
  • Under Night In-Birth II [Sys:Celes] has only Platinum qualifiers, and this event is the last one.

After Frosty Faustings XVII, only Kayane Cup 2025 in Paris, France, remains for the competitors to try and earn standing points. It’s a smaller event: a Gold qualifier for GGST and Platinum for GBVSR. Then, there will be the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) and the AWT 2024 Finals event — to crown the ultimate champions.

One more exciting thing to add to our set of Arc System Works games is that the newest GBVS Rising character, Sandalphon, is playable at Frosty Faustings XVII. It’s quite a treat!

To feel the hype, check out the official trailer of Sandalphon in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.

The latest build of Hunter x Hunter Nen Impact

It’s one of the main fighting games releases of 2025 (alongside Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves). In fact, it could be in our hands already, but the developers decided to postpone the release of Hunter x Hunter Nen Impact — for good, to make the game absolutely perfect.

It was officially confirmed that Hunter x Hunter Nen Impact is playable at Frosty Faustings XVII. Moreover, it’s the latest build of the game, with a bigger variety of available characters than at Evo 2024.

Sure, you need to be there to play Hunter x Hunter Nen Impact. Still, the feedback from content creators should be all over the Internet.

The KOF XV and SAMSHO SNK World Championship 2025 qualifier

The King of Fighters XV tournament at Frosty Faustings XVII is another big qualifier for the SNK World Championship 2025. 

The game traditionally has super-powerful players in specific regions, and Mexico is one of them — they should visit the event, and it’s a show to witness. In fact, only two qualifiers remain after Frosty Faustings XVII 2025.

Also, SNK treats its community to an extra surprise. The Samurai Shodown tournament from the Vortex Gallery is also a World Championship qualifier. It was officially confirmed that both SAMSHO and Fatal Fury COTW join KOF XV at the Finals event.

A big Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. tournament

The title from 2006 is suddenly alive: Virtua Fighter 5 got an enhanced remaster on Steam, and the fuss around this game and the whole VF series is real now.

Frosty Faustings XVII hosts a tournament for Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. The organizers had to increase the participants cap and the prize pool due to somewhat unexpected demand among the players.

Could some info about Virtua Fighter 6 be revealed at the event?

Clive Rosfield at a big TEKKEN 8 tournament

Most players should be happy about the most recent TEKKEN 8 update as it has nerfed Clive Rosfield. His broken era is over, but the guest character is still a power to reckon with.

Frosty Faustings XVII is a chance to see what Clive is capable of in the offline environment of a top-level tournament. Can he even reach the top 8 now? For the esports community, it’s a nice preparation for TWT 2025.

There will be a pretty big break before the next huge multi-title event hits the scene. Meanwhile, we can enjoy some dedicated tournaments, such as the start of MK1 Pro Kompetition 2025 from Feb. 22 to Feb. 23 in Mexico.

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