The Ranbat season officially ended awhile back, but yesterday (technically 2 days ago) the tournament organizer, Dorion, ran another tournament creatively titled “Barfights.”  It was *surprise* at a bar/restaurant, at My Big Fat Greek Restaurant Express.  I kinda put this entry off all day today, but I might as well get it out of the way before the memory slips from my mind.

Leading up to the event, I had successfully roped Francis, Eric, and Andrew into competing that evening.  They all came over about 3 hours prior to the tournament, and while we had a brief Rock Band distraction with my little sister, we started running some games to practice.  I’ll take a moment to address the person with the best record for that session, Eric.

Eric’s been improving a lot lately, and while I would love to take credit for it and be happy that I taught him how to cancel and do basic combos, those techniques were completely thrown out the window.  To be honest, the same applies to Andrew as well.  I worked towards having them master the art of quarter-circle cancelling, but then they both went and switched to charge characters.  Cancelling into special moves is still indeed possible with charge characters, but I have yet to see a lp xx Blanka Ball or a mp xx Kikouken.  It’s a little bit depressing, but I’m starting to think that it’s better to let them learn on their own rather than force something into their styles.  One thing I’ve found is that their mixups are actually pretty solid against me.  Specifically me, however.  And since at the moment they seem to do pretty well fighting me, that’s sufficient and not enough to drive them any deeper into the game.

That’s where competitions come in, I suppose.  As this was Andrew’s second time, I imagine he knew what to expect, but what I wanted for Francis and Eric was that sense of inspiration that I got after playing living, breathing people who really know what the hell they’re doing.  And, with that inspiration comes the notion that their mixup games tailored for my fighting style simply become easily-broken shenanigans when facing other, more refined  styles.  Then comes the drive to change one’s style to more of a one-size-fits-all kind of thing, which ultimately comes full circle to learning the necessary combos to optimize damage output.  And all of this comes from simply exposing them to other players, and what better way to do that than during a competition?

Francis is a little bit different of a case, as I’ve noticed that he’s quite simply the polar opposite of Andrew and Eric.  His execution is pristine, to say the least.  Nailing jab-sweep links several times in a row during his first tournament match, getting shoutouts for such great looking combos by some of the best players in AZ/the nation.  When it comes to playing in the rest of the match, however, he’s pretty Pringles.  I attribute this to the fact that he just doesn’t play other people enough.  While training mode is definitely a great way to get your combos down to perfection, like he has, you can’t set the training dummy to “Unpredictable, momentum-capitalizing human.”  In particular, I find that his crossup blocking game is weak, as is mine.  I think that this will come with just playing more and learning more of the character matchups and the hitboxes of each move.  However, at the moment, his low defense makes it possible for him to be tricked and outplayed, which hurts him in matches with the other two.

Now that I got all of the dickish comments out of the way, I’ll go back to my original idea of talking about Eric.  Besides the combo problem, his game has improved so much more than I could have ever expected.  I would definitely say that he’s achieved an awareness in the game that I nor any of the others have, where he’s able to read us and make correct, educated decisions while still keeping a heavy defense.  I feel that the moment he decides to start optimizing his offense and really working in combos, he’ll be a very large threat.  It’s incredibly amusing too, after all of this praise, to reveal that he is incredibly apathetic to this whole situation, though.  I’ve learned that his main motivation, unlike mine, is not to get better for himself and to accomplish a win in a competitive environment, but to just stay one step ahead of Andrew.  I believe Andrew considered me his “nemesis” for awhile, but I honestly think that Eric is definitely a much better rival than I am, and if they can keep pushing each other, they’ll probably improve exponentially faster than I will.  Still, the problem with that is that Eric really only desires to stay ONE step ahead, and so he’ll never chase anything on his own unless Andrew raises the bar for him.  It’s almost a symbiotic relationship, really.

Anyway, Barfights.  We arrived a little bit early, got food, and then started to witness some neat casuals.  I met up with another new player named Shane who looked to be in middle school.  He had questions about the tournament format, asked me which one was Sabre, basically all the newbie stuff while holding his 360 pad.

Then I saw him play.

Tick throws, FADCs into Ultra, Super cancels.  He knew what he was doing!  I was so caught off guard that I realized how arrogant I could really be.  Using a stick doesn’t make someone superior automatically.  There are pad players out there who can beat me.  And age!  Age doesn’t really make a difference, at least on that end of the spectrum.

Got to talk to Dorion again and renewed my endless invitation to go over and practice.  While school has kept me and will likely continue to keep me from going over regularly, it’s nice to know that I’m still welcome there after all this time.  Anyway, tournament.

First fight of the night was, sadly, two of my friends against each other.  So, you know what I said earlier about getting them motivated by taking them to tournaments and letting them play different styles?  Nuh-uh.  I went and talked to Dorion about the bracket setup, and while he was happy to oblige, there was a miscommunication and Eric and Andrew started playing against each other anyway.

Then came their match and the button configuration problem that left all four of us (Francis included) with bad tastes in our mouths.  I really wish I had been more thorough in describing them how exactly the button checking process worked, but boy was it a problem for poor Eric.  I got to see the ruthless competitive side of Andrew as he initially denied the idea of stopping the match so Eric could get things sorted, and I got to see a frustrated Eric fighting a match I believe he would have won via wakeup Ultra.  I think the blame can be placed on both parties here, Andrew for misunderstanding what exactly our competitions are like, and Eric for not being able to perform a button check correctly.  I feel responsible for it as well for not explaining either of these points to them as diligently as I should have, relying on whoever their opponent was to do the job for me.  Then, whoops, they get paired up.  And Francis felt responsible too because it was his stick that had the “mystery configuration.”

So Eric got knocked into Losers, Andrew advanced.  I received a bye for the first round.  Francis went up next and fought Eat Paste, who I actually had played in a Gameworks tournament when the game had just come out.  I think it’s safe to say that both Mike (Paste) and I have improved a shit ton since then, but I didn’t get a chance to play him.  Francis did, however, and while he got burned by his crossup problem, he was able to talk to Mike afterwards and get some pointers.  Which he wrote down on a napkin!  That’s what you get when you drop an engineer into a fighting game tournament, how awesome.

While Francis was playing I got called up for my match against ARod-T, who I later learned (again) is named Alan.  He’s a Guile player who I’ve played twice before at Ranbats.  The first time I played him I eliminated him, the second time he eliminated me.  So we had a bit of a friendly rivalry going into our match, haha.  The details of the match kind of escape me, but I know I did some pretty unsafe shit due to me not being accustomed to the matchup.  Crossup burning kicks ate EX Flash Kicks, c.HPs, and worse, Ultras.  I was able to catch him off guard with a wakeup EX Seismo into Ultra, getting a big OOOH from the crowd.  I have to say, our match really received a lot of hype that I was really happy to have a part in.  The first match came down to the wire and I ended up losing it due to a wakeup Ultra and me being an idiot going for a jumping attack.  The next match I don’t remember too well, but I do remember lots of shouting and me winning it.  Then came the last match, where I dominated the first round and got a dizzy, but his stick died right at the end of that round.  So we had to redo some of the match, and he came back and got me for the second round.  Things were looking bad for me in the third round too, until I said “Fuck it” and did a wakeup Ultra.  Which connected.  And then I went for a deep crossup and evaded his own wakeup Ultra, which I was able to punish and win the set and the match.  While that last round was clearly sloppy for both of us, the sheer amount of yelling and hype that the match got really made the night for me, and I was happy with that for the rest of the night.

I’m not really sure which of the four of us played next, but I know my next match was with none other than Dorion himself.  This matchup was not unfamiliar to me, I had played him before and gotten raped.  So I went in with a lot of fear, but in my exasperation at my disadvantage in the character matchup and as a player, I found that I was able to relax easier and just go for broke without worrying about the consequences.  So with that, I played the first set and surprisingly won it with an incredibly lucky EX TK crumple into Ultra, and then a well-placed Seismo for the third round.  This really inspired me, maybe I had gotten better!  …And then I got raped 4-0.  All of my normal Gief tactics went down the drain, such as baiting the Lariat with a neutral jump HK into my SJC FADC combo (He just delayed the lariat to beat my kick) and my Seismo SJC Seismo strings, which were easily dodged.  I talked to Louie and Zaine about the match afterwards, and they flat out told me that I was doing majorly unsafe stuff.  Louie suggested that I do a better job zoning with the Seismos, and Zaine offered the opposite advice saying Dorion’s Gief in particular is too jumpy and to go for anti-airs instead.  So I think I’ve picked up a lot about that matchup, and stealing one set from Dorion really upped my confidence.

Francis and Eric had to play against each other next, to my chagrin.  The match was actually incredible to watch, but it was a shame that not too many were paying attention.  Eric, with a correct button configuration this time, mauled Francis for a good majority of the match, but Francis had a pretty badass comeback culminating in a near perfect round, with jab-sweep combos (Mr. SNK shouted out “NICE LINKS!”) and a Super combo punish.  Eric ended up taking it in the end, however, so Francis was eliminated.  Simultaneously, Andrew was fighting the other Viper player, Zaine, and while I didn’t catch all of the match, I was able to notice Andrew having some difficulties adjusting to a different Viper.  It’s quite an uphill battle when his only experience with the matchup is me and my unsafe tactics, and Viper’s already a tricky character to fight to begin with.

Then came my next fight, against Mr. SNK.  I pretty much got owned at the character select screen.  The only thing that consoled me for my beating on this was a compliment for sticking to my guns and not defaulting to Ryu.  My name’s Jon, my tag’s Tsumuji, and I’m a fucking Viper player.  …Who also gets raped by Hondas, Giefs, and Dictators.

So I was eliminated.  I don’t know who eliminated Andrew, exactly, but I know that Eric lost to a really good Guile player later on.  So our tournament ended, and I feel pretty happy with the results despite netting only one, really hyped win.  I played my best, and the odds were just not stacked in my favor for the last two matches.  I’ll rationalize my losses with the following facts:

• Viper’s worst matchups are, in this order: Honda, Gief, and Dictator.
• Dorion is the best Gief in at least Tempe (Probably in AZ, but I haven’t seen Chickenboo lately)
• Mr. SNK is the best Honda in AZ.
• Mr. SNK went on to win 2nd place in the tournament, Dorion won 3rd

That said, I’m actually proud that I was able to take away some experience fighting those two, and if I was to get my shit kicked in, I’m glad it’s to such great players.  And the hyped match with Alan had me satisfied, too.

Anyway.  Long post.  Holy shit, it’s nearly 2500 words.  I’ll call it a night here.