So I actually did pretty well at Devastation. I think I got lucky and got put into an easy pool, but I made it to Top 32 in the Winner’s Bracket out of a 130-ish man tournament. The energy that I had from so many good friends screaming their heads off while watching me perfect one of the best players in the nation was surreal; I was one match away from getting broadcasted on the stream. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and I didn’t get my time to shine, but hopefully someday I will. It felt good knowing that all the work that I’ve put into a brand new character paid off, and I feel like I got my 50 dollars worth by entering.
Pool play
Match 1: Honda player from California. Kinda hard to deal with at first. Tournament nerves, matchup issues, etc. He didn’t play anything like SNK (who later remarked that American Hondas play way different than Japanese ones, and Japanese is the only style Honda I’m familiar with). I got creamed the first set, then after some pep talk from Zaine and Luey I regained my composure and pulled through on the next two sets, the last one being a landslide if I remember correctly. I honestly don’t remember too much about this match, he just butt slammed me a ton and I lost momentum.
Match 2: Will, a Rose player from New Jersey. This was my hardest match in the pool. Will was staying at Dorion’s house, and I had gotten my shit kicked him by him over and over two nights prior. He had played with my character and thus knew the match, whereas I knew absolutely nothing about Rose. He beat the shit out of me in the first set, but I came back and took the last two. I believe at first I was going all offensive and he was running away, pelting me with fireballs. After awhile I figured that his offense wasn’t so strong since he was hanging back and ready to counter any moves that I threw at him, so I did my damage then ran away. One way I did this was by discovering he would not tech a throw when I ticked with a jumping heavy attack. I abused the shit out of that and then ran. His frustration was evident during the last round, where he rushed me carelessly right from the get go and I beat him.
Match 3: Ibuki player. This match wasn’t important at all. He beat me in one round because I was confused by his wild antics in the mirror match. Otherwise, I got the vortex going on him each time and then beat him in 2 sets, including a perfect.
After those three matches I had made it into top 32 (They took 2 winners and 2 losers from the pools, me being the 2nd winner to Floe, a well-known East Coast player). After about 4 hours of waiting I got called up for my next matches.
Match 1: Buktooth, a well known Fuerte player from NorCal who is now the best (or at least the best-known) Ibuki player in the country. The mirror match went pretty well at first, I perfected him on the first round and got the crowd going, then took the set. Then he beat me down with my own tricks for 2 sets and I got knocked into losers. My friends say it was very close, but I’m not so sure. We went back and forth with the vortex and whoever didn’t block it lost the match.
Match 2: Nick, an Abel player from Vegas. I’m particularly bitter about this match. I should have won it, I played it very well but then he hit me with that stupid ass Ultra II and I lost. That’s really it, I did everything else right but he would shenanigan me with the Ultra II. That thing’s overpowered.
I also played in a tournament yesteday, run by Rick aka Rickdawg (Creative name, btw). It was a different format than our usual tournaments, where we did a swiss-style tournament as a qualifier for two brackets. Basically, we played three matches, and anybody with a record better than 2-1 was put into Bracket A and anybody below that was put into Bracket B. Then the two brackets were run like standard double elimination tournaments, which means we were guaranteed at least 5 matches: 3 in the swiss qualifiers and 2 losses in the brackets.
I played a grand total of 6 matches.
Match 1: Sabre, playing his new character, Cody. I had played him in casuals before, as well as during the week at Rick’s, and I went even with him. This match I won in 2 sets, and he only took 1 round on me. The match will probably be uploaded to Youtube at some time, as it was recorded, so I won’t commentate on it too much. But I will say that I don’t really feel like that match showcased the best of either of our play. Scott made too many mistakes and I punished him for them, I don’t feel like I outplayed him at all.
Match 2: Diante, playing Adon. This match is also on Youtube, and I got raped pretty bad by him. I think it might be because I didn’t know how he played (yet he knew the Ibuki match pretty well due to one of his training partners), and me just panicking.
Match 3: Brainpipe, playing Dudley. Holy shit was this a close match. Dana is a new player in the scene that started with Bootcamp, and since he picked up a new character he had the same growing pains I did. But, I’m more experienced than him, so I think I slept on him a little bit. I picked Ultra I, which is the Ultra I’m not comfortable with but technically best for the match, and got rushed down right out of the gates. I lost the first set convincingly, so I hurried back to my Ultra II. From there I messed him up in the second set, and the third set went down to the wire. I’m really proud of how much Dana has improved. Me and my friends have talked at lengths about who is serious about getting better in this community, and it’s great to see our opinions of Dana holding true.
So at this point I was 2-1, so I made it into Bracket A, or the good people bracket.
Match 4: Rickdawg, playing Bison. This match was by far the worst in the tournament for me. I don’t know what changed from casuals on the Wednesday before, but he just beat the shit out of me. What’s worse is that I have no idea why. I’ll need to play him more.
Match 5: Diante again, playing Adon. I had to play this right after getting creamed by Rick, and so my spirits were low. I lost the first set convincingly, but then I picked myself up and beat him in two more sets. I wish both matches had been recorded so I could see what he did differently, but I know that I played this more cautiously since Adon’s pokes are really good and Diante loves abusing counterhits. He ate a couple of Raidas because of that, haha.
Match 6: Reece, playing Blanka. This went pretty much like every other time I’ve played Reece, minus some tips from Dan. Dan recommended delaying the kunai in the vortex, which stuffs Upballs or causes them to whiff and give me a free neckbreaker. I also traded with his Ultra II with a kunai in the vortex, that’s worth noting.
With that I was eliminated and played casuals for the rest of the night, then Denny’s and more casuals at Dorion’s, where I played a wacky Blanka against Luey’s Viper and kicked his ass. It was hilarious.
Also worth noting is that Andrew made his “return” to the tournament scene this week. Congrats, Andrew! At the next tournament, I hope you grab yourself a win!