Posts Tagged ‘mrsnk’

Devastation / RickDawg Tournament

admin Posted in Blog, Ibuki，Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
28 June 2010
0

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!

Detached

admin Posted in Site，Tags:
18 June 2010
0

I’ve been feeling a little detached from my game lately.  I lose focus midmatch, forget my options, and fall into patterns and habits.  I can’t help but think that I peaked too soon, now that Devastation is right around the corner.

Honestly, I don’t think I’m ready for it.  Lots of different things happened this evening and I got to meet some of the best players in the country, the ones you see playing on the live streams with commentary on how they play.  It’s a little intimidating, especially with the skill gap being as great as it is.

A pep talk from Nik about the mindset I should have for my first major also opened my eyes a bit too.  I thought playing to see how far you can get and playing to win were similar in nature, but I’m told that the difference between those two is the difference between pot sweeteners and actual players.

It’s likely I won’t have any more training room time before the tournament, as I’ll be playing casuals all day tomorrow.  This may or may not be my last hurrah for Street Fighter as well, despite starting up this blog again.  Regardless, I don’t think I’m ready for it.

Another Dorion Level-Up Session

admin Posted in Blog, C. Viper, Matchups, Techniques，Tags: , , , , , , , ,
28 January 2010
1

Been addicted to this song lately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZWArSOmCc

Man, what a night.  I think I may have grown a bit more as a player, my playstyle has changed so drastically in the past month.  This evening I got some games in with Reece, Stefan (Dictator player who I haven’t seen in awhile), Zaine, and Louie.  Reece kicked my shit in with Gen, and I received a ton of advice from a bunch of different people.

I tried my “Bring a notebook!” thing tonight to hopefully make my blog posting a little easier to type, but to be honest it didn’t help very much.  All I did, after looking at it, was write down random tips that flew at me.  So I’m just gonna write most of this down from memory.

***

Mr. SNK

I didn’t get any specific information from SNK like the other folks I talked to, but moreso advice on how to play fighting games in general.  There’s a sense of fundamentals, such as fireball zoning and normals and the correct spacing for all of that, that I’m lacking.  This is simply because I’ve never played a fighting game at this level before.  Ultimately, SNK recommended that I drop Viper for a couple weeks and work with a Shoto (Ryu) to learn the game.  It’s kinda funny because this is pretty much what I did but on a lower level.  Whereas I learned the basics of SFIV like how to do FA’s and SRKs and correctly inputting Ultra Combos from using Ryu and then moving on to Viper, I should have stuck with Ryu and learned more about the 2D fighting genre in general.  At the moment it pains me to even think about dropping Viper (My blog is called Crimson Temptress, for crying out loud), and so I’m undecided on how exactly to move forward from here.  Perhaps I’ll end up playing Ryu more often.  Bah.

Another major tip that SNK had for me was in regards to my notetaking.  “Don’t take notes on specific people, take notes on specific matchups,” he said.  By knowing the characters and their matchups inside out, I’ll be able to know what I can and can’t do in the match.  And only then should I be able to implement mindgames effectively.  He punctuated his advice with words of encouragement and implored me to keep asking questions.  I find that to be a huge motivator.

Zaine

Zaine was a bit under the weather this evening, but he still was pretty sharp.  I chilled out with him for a bit and talked a lot about specifics for the character.  A couple of quick notes:

  • After conditioning the opponent to block with TKs, only then can you jump in with little risk.  Otherwise, you’re limited to crossups after untechable knockdowns.
  • j.HK is good for crossups, but it isn’t the be-all end-all air to ground attack.  j.HP is really good too, to the point where a well timed one will stuff an uppercut.
  • j.MP xx h.BK is possible.
  • After landing a TK, another option in the flowchart is to dash up and throw.

Those fast tips aside, I was able to pick Zaine’s brain about more of the finer intricacies of Viper play.  For one thing, after playing Reece and getting burned over and over, I noticed that I was having a hard time getting in to attack with the TK mixups.  This made me wonder about how a burning kick would work in a mixup, since it would knock them away and I’d have to get in again.  Another thing is that I can’t just go balls-to-the-wall (Zaine’s phrase) all the time, especially with TK strings because I’ll get SRK’d out of them.  Zaine plays very carefully and tries to frustrate his opponent with TKs and his ground game.  I tried to mimic this, in that rather than pressing an advantage over and over and over again until I get reversaled out of it, I poke holes in my strings and momentum deliberately to bait things.  Zaine played Akuma and Sagat against me to prove this, where he SRK’d me when I got too feint happy (I did a lot of c.MP xx TK Feints) but in return I did my fair bit of baiting Tiger Uppercuts and SRK’s.  In doing so I heightened my alertness while playing the game and did my best to look for patterns.  Another big point that Zaine made was for the Sagat matchup, where once I get a large enough lead I should make Sagat come to me.  The most he can do is Tiger Shot me from full screen and my seismos will trade/beat them repeatedly if needed.  “Sagat has no offense,” he said.  Furthermore, at full screen, DON’T FUCKING JUMP AT HIM.  Zaine’s voice saying “Don’t do it,” will forever resonate in my mind while I play that match.

Louie

Whereas Zaine’s been the technical coach for me lately, Louie’s been the mental coach.  I mentioned to him my problem with going into trance-mode while playing, where I don’t really pay attention and zone in too much.  Louie gave me some pointers to heighten my alertness further, such as making a remark (“Good shit”) every time I get hit by something to make a mental note to watch out for it.  I played with him shortly after my session with Zaine and he really did try to keep me talking, listening, and from getting too zoned in to pay attention to the match as a whole.  This was basic stuff like manipulating me in some ways and openly putting me in scenarios to get me thinking and how to keep on my toes.  As such, he definitely didn’t play his all and the matches went much slower than his usual RTSD style, but after playing with both him and Zaine I really felt a heightened sense of awareness while playing.   Afterwards we played around a little bit with some Blanka-Viper matches, here’s some fast tips:

  • Punishing a blocked Ultra – TIMING, TIMING, TIMING.  I’ve got several options to punish it, all with varying degrees of specific timing.  The first  way to punish is a plain Ultra.  However, this must be timed so Blanka is about at her torso’s height, otherwise it’ll whiff.  Another option is to light Seismo, which can then go into burning kick or SJC FADC sweep.  Timing is less strict on there but still needs to be done.  Then there’s the b.HK, or the “Sit the fuck down” kick.  Probably the easiest to time, and since it’s more than likely that they won’t tech, I get a free mixup.  Finally, the hardest way is to FFF, where I need to time the Fierce to hit EXACTLY as he’s landing on the ground.  Furthermore, I need to walk up prior to the Fierce so the second Fierce won’t whiff.
  • Viper Elbow is still awesome, but try using it as a crossup/repositioner after a knockdown.  It won’t combo, it might not even hit, but it’ll screw with their mind.
  • I can jab out of hop shenanigans.  Here’s hoping ConQueso doesn’t pull that shit on me again.
  • Rainbow ball can be FA’d, but it’s not necessarily the best option if Blanka purposefully whiffs it, lands in front of me, and throws me out of my dash.  I’ll reserve this trick for beginner Blankas who go for the confusing ass crossups, but I really do need to just learn how to block that stuff.
  • Watch that fucking meter.  If he’s got Ultra, either bait it or don’t stick out limbs while he’s waking up.  Same with EX Upball, but that’s a lot less risky.

***

Getting this much advice from people is really quite awesome.  I’ve learned a lot, and as I mentioned earlier I’m beginning to feel a heightened sense of awareness while I play.  However, the more people I get advice from, the more conflicting advice I get.  I’d like to close out this entry with a listing of these.  Hopefully as time goes on I’ll be able to make my own, informed decision about who to listen to, but for now I’m neutral.

Points of contention

  • Switching from Viper to Ryu to learn fundamentals.  SNK says do it, Louie (and maybe Zaine?) says no.
  • Neutral jumping.  Zaine says to do it to bait a throw tech, Louie says don’t do it (Might just be for Blanka matchup)

Oh, and my stick’s 360 support is busted.  So I left it at Dorion’s house for Mike to fix for me.  So no SF tomorrow morning, but boot camp tomorrow night!  Whoo!