Posts Tagged ‘guile’

Bootcamp – Feb 4th and Feb 11th

admin Posted in Blog, C. Viper, Matchups, Ryu, Techniques，Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
12 February 2010
0

I missed an entry regarding Feb 4th’s Bootcamp. To be honest, I played so badly that night that I didn’t feel like re-living it. I started out on Station 3 but at the very end of the night got demoted to Station 4 again, by Patrick. Between then, each game that I played I got my shit kicked in, barely avoiding demotion matches via coin flips. And then it finally got me at the end and I got fucked up.

The main issue with that was self-confidence, I think.  I got rushed down way too often and was too scared to push back.  Zaine and Luey attributed it to me absorbing so much from the past couple of weeks that I was getting distracted and hesitant.

Flash forward to today, where I started out on Station 4 (FUUUUU-) and easily overpowered everyone there with a 13(?) win streak.  I can’t say that there were any big threats in that first rotation (first for me, second for the group) with the exception of Gurlin (Now called Guru?), and so I rocked the house pretty easily and got set up in a promotion match with Sagat player Nick, or Drenstar for the sake of my tag library.  I feel like I’ve acquired a new rival in him.  I beat him down in the first Bootcamp, he beat me down in the second, and I inched out in this first promotion match to take his spot at Station 3.  The match was fairly passive for me, in that I focused more on Seismo pressure for fear of getting c.lk, c.lk Tiger Uppercutted.  As such, I couldn’t get any TK pressure going.  So, zoning with Seismos and a terrible fear of Kara-uppercuts allowed me to inch out of the game.

So then I played on Station 3 for awhile, and by played I mean got mauled by Balrog players.  I couldn’t help but feel discouraged, and then I got called up for a demotion match.  Bummer!  And it was Gurlin!  My style of play against him is to rush him down, that’s what I figured out while fighting him prior.  Going for the knockdowns, the TK pressure and the crossups against him, he didn’t know what to do and I took the first set easily.  The second set I got a little crazy and started doing really stupid and dangerous stuff, and he took that one from me.  Then the third set I decided to ease up and play more cautiously, but that didn’t work either because that’s the style he thrives on fighting.  It went down to the third round of the third set, but I got demoted.

So I wound up at Station 4 again.  All morale lost, I decided to goof off and play Ryu and ended up racking up a couple of wins.  Then I checked the scoresheet and I was actually in the running for a promotion match, so I went with Viper again and ran through some folks to tie with Drenstar.  Played against him (I remember him asking me “How do I beat you?”), won, and then moved on to play a promotion match again Gurlin.  Sweet, sweet revenge.  I don’t remember the matches too well, but I coached myself into playing more consistently with the rushdown and not to get discouraged or overly anxious.  All the while I had Alan and company cheering me on (Thanks for the wakeup Ultra tip, man), and then Zaine finally stopped playing WoW and sat his ass down next to me to watch my match.  Everyone’s encouragement really helped, I think, and I won.  So now I’m back at Station 3, I’m glad it ended on a high note.  Though, now I have both Gurlin and Drenstar gunning for me, and it’s a bit more aggressive than my friendly rivalry with people like Pren and Alan.  One particular note about Drenstar is that he picked up on my always-throw-after-burning-kick shenanigan, so I mixed it up in one instance with another burning kick, causing his throw to whiff and giving me a free knockdown.  If I can fool him into doing this again in the corner, I can make it really hurt next time with a combo into Ultra.

After Bootcamp ended for the night, I bounced around the casual stations as the crowds began to dissipate.  Played a shitload of Ryu vs. Viper matches with Zaine and Pren, then played a shitton of matches again Juicebox’s Ryu and Balrog (at my request).  Juicebox took the time to explain frame data to me and how to work out my setups, so before I forget, use close s.mp and link with c.mp.  If the s.mp hits, yay for a solid combo.  If it misses, it serves as a frame trap for jab happy Balrogs.  Also, punish a blocked EX overhead with c.mp xx m.TK or l.TK.  Try to use j.mk crossup (after 3 jabs, maybe?) more to get some TK pressure going.

After getting helped out by Juicebox, I got more schooling from the Zaine Academy.  j.HP is a great air attack, it stuffs fucking Shoryukens!  Use it when I know I’m not gonna cross up and then proceed with my normal combos.  I played against Zaine’s Akuma and then limited myself from jumping, working solely on my TK game.  Things like c.mp xx m.TK feint, Viper Elbow.  Spacing, fakeouts, everything.  I think it really helped me out.  Another setup that I like doing is s.MP xx EX Seismo in response to getting SRK’d out of my blocked s.MP, c.MP link.  Basically, I fooled Zaine into SRKing again with the MP and then EX Seismo’s invincible frames caused his Shoryu to whiff, leaving me an opening.  After that, I switched characters so Zaine could play Viper.  It’s actually very fun fighting Zaine, because I see him do shit that I don’t and wish to add to my repertoire.  Alot of his tricks involve using the i-frames of EX Seismo.  Not as many feints as I do, but solid elbow and c.mk play left me reeling as Ryu, especially because he consistently baited my stuff.  At the moment I’m too tired to remember much else about our fights besides two things I want to practice: j.MP xx m (or h?).BK, which crosses up and is dirty as hell, and the magic distance that you’re put at after landing a max ranged m.TK.

Running out of steam here, I played from 7:45 PM to 4:00 AM.  Shitload of games, and it took me a half hour to write up this entry.  Last bit of information is for Alan, since I know that he’ll probably read this: Go easy on the flash kicks if possible.  I was able to bait your flash kicks using a feint or a backdash multiple times, and that trend has existed for the past couple of weeks and won me a fair amount of matches.  I’ve seen the drastic change in results that your crowd-pleasing flashkicks and Ultras do, but my own personal style is to use that against you as a player rather than against Guile.  Also, don’t forget that you can air grab me out of my BKs!  That’s turned the matchup into a 5-5.

Anyway, it was a good night.  My TE stick’s 360 functionality blew out a couple weeks ago and it’s been kind of a pain to get Mike to work on it, but I think it’ll finally be done on Saturday.  Then I can finally start fixing my execution problems while continuing to grow as a player.

Execution Woes, Frantic Play

admin Posted in Blog，Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
01 February 2010
0

Went to Dorion’s again tonight.  I’ll keep this short (You know you play SF too much when you see/type the word short and an image of Ryu doing a c.lk pops in your head).

Started out playing against a Ken player who really wasn’t very good, but neither was I.  I don’t know if it was because I was using Reece’s stick and not my own (His is much looser, even for a TE), but none of my shit was working.  This wasn’t like I couldn’t do my normal SJC FADCs, it was more like I couldn’t even do my burning kicks, or I couldn’t get my Fierce Punch to come out after a jump in.  My fingers were overly frantic, I suppose.  Maybe it also has to do with the game being played on a non laggy TV, whereas mine is pretty bad.

So anyway, it took a couple hours and me running through training mode to get going for real.  I didn’t really spend a lot of time learning new shit tonight, more just playing for the sake of playing.  This doesn’t necessarily help me grow as a strategic player, but it does improve my reaction time.  I played Zaine (He was fooling around with Dan, though), then Shane’s Boxer (Got wrecked), then Reece’s Akuma (Did okay), then Juicebox’s Akuma (Got wrecked), then Juicebox’s Ken (Got wrecked), then Louie’s Guile (Wrecked him!), then Reece’s Blanka and Bison (Got wrecked), then Louie’s Blanka (Got wrecked).  A couple of major points resonated with me tonight, though.

  • I deal with rushdown very poorly.  When Juicebox was rushing me down, he could tell I was mashing throw tech.  To summarize his advice, I should make a conscious decision on whether or not to just block or to throw tech, not try to guess on the fly.  Also got a quick lesson in footsies from him.
  • I can punish Blanka balls better now.  It’s all about paying utmost attention.
  • Louie says I’m hesitant while I play.  I don’t know exactly what that means, maybe I’ve been playing too cautious like Zaine lately.  I’ll need to watch Zaine play more so I can understand how exactly I should be playing.

Dorion Level-Up Session

admin Posted in Blog, C. Viper, Techniques，Tags: , , , , ,
15 January 2010
0

Dorion had a level-up session at his house tonight, aimed towards preparing a “Team AZ” consisting  of him, Mr. SNK, and Juicebox for the House of Cicada tournament in California pretty soon.  It was kind of cool to overhear bits of their conversation, about Combofiend’s playstyle or Alex Valle’s or how Sabre played Justin Wong while he was just a Marvel player.  As I am currently, I’m simply an SRK member who watches streams, so these players are borderline celebrities to me, and to hear them talked about in such a casual fashion shows how distanced I am from the community.

The mentality of the AZ Scene, however, is exactly the opposite of what SRK is.  Everyone here is really welcoming as well as extremely supportive of my recent revelation and new desire to improve, and to quote Louie, “If someone’s going to show the initiative, it’s worth helping them out.”

Anyway, I spent a good deal of time playing with Reece (Dictator), Louie (Blanka), and Alan (Guile) tonight.  Mostly Louie, who was kind enough to really just walk through my game style and watch my games with Alan and pick apart the many imperfections.  Afterwards I played several other games, but I also had a talk with Zaine prior to leaving about more of the Viper-specific stuff that I can do.

Louie

  • Don’t jump so much, especially neutral jumping.  While it may work against online people whose reactions are delayed due to inexperience or lag, I’ll be punished fairly often for jumping straight up like a moron.
  • Don’t be afraid to backdash on wakeup.  It breaks a lot of Louie’s okizeme options.
  • Additionally, don’t be afraid to use a backdash as a BAIT.  This really helped me in a fight against Alan where I saw the flash kick coming.  It’s a much more efficient bait rather than just walking up and crouch-blocking, which puts me at risk of getting thrown.
  • Moving around a lot can be good for instilling a sense of random in your opponent, but in reality it’s in your control.  Doing random shit for no reason gets your opponent to do a double-take and gives me that split second to capitalize on it.
  • Momentum is key.  I shouldn’t get flustered when I miss a combo and flail around in hopes of compensating for it somehow.  Have a contingency plan for when my shit breaks and move forward from there.
  • Momentum, when against me, should not fluster me either.  Learn how to both defend properly and keep an eye out for punishing opportunities.  I missed punishing a Blanka ball with a reversal EX Seismo too many times because I was too busy getting mindfucked into defending.
  • More on momentum, a rushdown is always helpful if you vary your mixups.  I get in bad habits with playing sometimes where I follow a set string rather than varying it.  Take notice of how they defend and use it accordingly, a mixup isn’t limited to a single hit or combo.
  • Performing uppercuts and the like need to be reacted to or predicted, never guessed.  There is a large difference.
  • Louie loves to bait things with focus attacks.  This basically serves the same purpose as walking forward and baiting an attack.  Baiting an attempt to shift the momentum (i.e., reversal) can be applied to a rushdown.
  • Be wary of baiting things out too close to the opponent on wakeup, you might get thrown instead.
  • Corner pressure…ugh.  Stay calm, don’t be afraid to backdash, but don’t reversal blindly or hit buttons unnecessarily.
  • You can tell when an opponent is mashing with Blanka when their jab strings are imperfect.  As such, don’t be afraid to bait out the electricity and punish it with either a max ranged c.MK or a Viper elbow.
  • There is more to a mixup than just on wakeup.  Performing a mixup on a standing/crouching opponent causes them to have to react faster rather than having the leisure time of their wakeup animation to gather their thoughts.
  • Them feints…use them.  Quote from Louie: “Zaine once got me in a corner and did a fucking dance with Viper, I had no clue what he was doing.”
  • DON’T JUMP SO DAMN MUCH.
  • My meaty c.LK, s.LK, c.MP xx m.TK is not a good combo to do on an opponent who is waking up.  I ate several Ultras and up-balls because of this.  Try using it after a blocked jump in or during TK pressure.
  • “If someone’s going to show the initiative, it’s worth helping them out.”

Zaine

  • Supporting the jumping too much = bad theme, focus on the ground game using TKs.  They’re semi-safe and frustrating enough to train your opponent to counter them.
  • Using TKs enough in a match will cause the opponent to focus more on countering them and thus make them become purely reactionary after you do it enough.
  • In doing so, you increase your chances of a successful jump in.  So rather than going right for the mad jump-in combos that I love and adore, train my opponent to let me jump in.  You know when they have reached this point when they are simply crouch blocking and waiting for the TK.  Then you can jump in.
  • More on TKs, there are plenty of options after each of the two ground TKs.
  • For the light TK, while it’s slower, it basically keeps you safe on block.   Conversely, a medium TK will put you right in the opponent’s face and basically put you in a mixup.  Will they throw?  Will they jab?  Shoryu?  So many options for the opponent to counter anything that I can do.  Light TK also  puts you at a frame advantage on block, and so following it up with a c.HP will either cause a counter hit or a block.  It’s probably a good idea to continue on to Seismo SJC FADC, which will either be a beefy combo or a WTF DO I BLOCK moment for the opponent and allow a throw.  An additional follow up for a light TK is a crossup burning kick.  Zaine likes to also dash forward, which makes the opponent think OMG THROW and basically baits that whiffed throw tech with a burning kick.
  • For the medium TK, while it has the disadvantages stated above, if you’re feeling risky you can continue with some options from there.  Many Viper players, including Zaine, like to go c.MP xx m.TK and then follow it up with another c.MP xx m.TK.  Another gutsy option is a throw.  One of Zaine’s neat tricks is to follow up a c.MP xx m.TK with a simple normal jump over and then a burning kick when they try to grab what they perceive as a missed crossup.  Zaine even mimed out the animation of a whiffed throw eating a burning kick to the face for me, haha.
  • “You need to come over more often.”

I’m actually pretty confident that I left some stuff out, but my brain was so full of Street Fighter that I couldn’t hold anymore.  Add that to the fact that I did another all-nighter in a failed attempt to reset my sleep cycle, as well as the fact that it took me a half hour to write and remember this on said lack of sleep.

I ended each section from Louie and Zaine with a quote of theirs that I found particularly inspirational.  While it sounds overly mushy and gay, I really feel like it’s worth noting that they are going this far to help me, and therefore I should not waste their time.  Maybe I’ll bring a notebook with me next time I go and I’ll get more notes down.

My Friends and Barfights

admin Posted in Blog，Tags: , , , , , ,
13 December 2009
1

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.

Ranbat 2.6

admin Posted in Blog，Tags: , , , , , , ,
08 November 2009
18

Funny how I started my blog right when the Ranbat season ended.  For those who don’t know me in person, I live in Arizona and thus attend the Ranbats there.  I usually play under the name Tsumuji.

Results

Anyway, today was the last of the Ranbat season.  I think I had a pretty solid showing for a first timer.  My Viper definitely needs some improvement and I still need to get past several different factors outside of the game, which I’ll list later.  For now, let’s talk about this specific Ranbat.

I was fortunate enough to get Andrew to come with me today, I hope he got a good impression of the community.  We warmed up a little bit at my place beforehand, and while I had worked out all of my links and SJC FADCs, none of that really worked once we got to the venue.  This could be one of two reasons, or a combination of both: Jitters, or lag.  While it’s perfectly acceptable to believe that I was nervous and playing out of my element, I feel like I had my timing correctly while performing the SJC FADCs, or hell, even consecutive seismos.  My TV at home suffers from lag, however, and so I’m concerned that learning on my own TV is affecting my ability to execute my moves correctly, especially because of the character I use.

We started off with some casuals between me and Andrew, and eventually some other folks jumped in like Nef and Gurlin.  Josh showed up too, so Andrew got exposed to the three Chun Li players here in AZ: Ray, Nef, and Josh.  Each is pretty amazing with Chun, particularly Josh.  I’m hoping that Andrew will pick up some tips from them.  I also got to play against Reece’s new Dhalsim, which didn’t quite measure up to my Viper but he had the excuse of just picking up the dude last night.

On to the real matches.  My first one was with none other than Ray, a Chun Li player versus my Viper.  I wish I could remember the specifics of the match, but I know that I rocked the first match pretty easily.  For the second one I was able to carry some of that momentum, but it ultimately didn’t prove to be enough and he got me by a very thin margin.  The third one I got raped, because I think he had downloaded my Viper and I ran out of tricks.  Not gonna lie, it was pretty demoralizing and I can’t even think of what I could have done better besides kept my nerves under control.  I recall my hands still being really shaky while fiddling with my wallet to lend some money to Andrew.

Second match was against a Cammy player.  I absolutely suck ass at the Cammy-Viper matchup, I’ve got so little experience with that matchup that I didn’t even want to risk it.  I also hear that the matchup is greatly in Cammy’s favor anyway.  So I counterpicked right away with Ryu.  And I steamrolled him.  Focus-attacked the Spiral Arrows, Shoryuken’d the jump-ins, and Hadouken’d her to death.  Nothing fancy at all, I didn’t use my Ultra at all because he never got me past half life.  I feel bad for counterpicking since Viper’s supposed to be my perfect character, but I figured since it was the last one of the season I might as well go for broke.

Next match was against a Guile player, and the matchup is in Viper’s favor.  Nonetheless, I lost it due to what I felt were tourney nerves.  I wish I could remember the specifics of that match too, but I KNOW I got hit by another fucking wakeup Ultra.  Man, that’s annoying.  Shortly after I lost that I switched right to Ryu and beat him down with my standard shit.  I think I got an SRK FADC Ultra in there but launched it too soon, only tipping him.  He switched to El Fuerte right after, which freaked me out a bit, but I kept my cool and returned the pressure to keep him from running too much.

Last match was against yet another Guile player, who I’ve actually fought before.  A-Rodt’s a pretty cool guy, and I remember rolling through his Guile with Viper like it was nothing, but this time he actually beat me on the first go.  Didn’t help that this was right after my previous match, and A-Rodt had been watching my Guile-Viper fight.  I switched to Ryu yet again, but it didn’t work out for me this time and I lost.  Can’t remember specific details of this fight, either.  Maybe my memory’s going.

After tasting defeat, I went back to the casual station, hands still shaking and chest still hurting.  Even now, remembering the feeling I had makes my hands shake and screws up my typing.  After awhile I was able to cool down and play some matches with this new Bison player, Stefan, who I had actually met/fought at Gameworks a couple weeks ago!  I did pretty well against him, I think I only gave up one round.   I’ll probably be seeing more of him in the future.  I also played against the person who I view as the best Blanka player in AZ, Luey, and while it was my turn to get steamrolled, I feel like I learned a lot about the matchup and Luey was really cool about giving me some pointers.  Partway through our matches Zaine showed up (Zaine/Flook is pretty cool.  He’s a big guy who just got out of the service midseason.  He, I, and a guy from Tucson named Forward/Sean are the only Vipers in AZ.) and gave me some pointers on the Blanka matchup, mainly that Viper elbow (F+MP) beats electricity clean.  Then we played some more matches and it culminated into Viper vs. Viper.  I lost, but I picked up a lot of neat tricks.  Gotta see if I can work some seismo feints into my game.

So, I’ve got a bit of a laundry list to work on after another average performance today.  Outside of the game itself, I need to learn to deal with my tourney nerves.  I think I cut some years off of my life, and shaky hand syndrome really fucks with my game.  I also hate the idea of counterpicking with a high tier character, as natural as Ryu feels.  I should also play more live matches, probably at Dorion’s.

Inside of the game, I need to work on the following:

  • SJC FADC.  It’s infuriating that I couldn’t pull these off on command today.  I need to practice these with a real person, I think that working closely with Andrew before moving on to Reece, Luey, and Dan will help me really work them into my game.
  • Corner EX Seismo Tigerkneed TK.  I screwed up the timing way too many times today and gave away too many opportunities.
  • Feints. Being able to pull the feints off at home doesn’t mean anything.  I can attribute it to lag on my own TV, but that doesn’t help the situation at all besides giving me an excuse.  I need to play more at Dorion’s so I can work on my adjustment speed to new TV’s, or at the worst, connect some composite cables and run the game at home like that every once in awhile.
  • Fierce-Feint-Fierce. I think I’ve put this one off long enough.  The next tier of my game revolves around me learning to punish using this combo.  I’ll learn to combine that with SJC FADC and up my Viper game.
  • j.HK xx m.BK. Not hard to execute at all, it’s just learning when to use them.  Basically, j.HK hits the front and if they block it, m.BK hits the back.  Pretty useful, but if the j.HK hits I just threw away a combo opportunity.
  • Viper elbow works on Blanka! Thanks, Zaine!
  • Balrog still shuts me down. I’ve got no way of practicing this besides hitting up Shane or Reece.  May have to go to SRK for PSN buddy hunting.
  • Guile.  WTF? I have no idea why I lost this matchup.  I think I got arrogant and fell into tier-hype, thinking the matchup was free just because Viper has an advantage.  I lost two Viper-Guile matchups and had to…
  • Fall back on Ryu…why?! I should be DONE with Ryu by now.  I feel like a scrub.  It’s funny that I still racked up some wins (and a slaughter against that Cammy player) even though I absolutely never practice with him anymore.  Is it worth busting him out in training mode again and conforming?