I really enjoyed this piece by Mark Edmundson:

Do Sports Build Characters or Damage It?

I was having a discussion with my colleague on Muhammad Ali’s 70th birthday.

Now I love boxing. The idea of restricting yourself, limiting yourself to what part of the body you can strike, and what part of your body you may use to strike your opponent makes everything so unnatural, forced and difficult. To succeed, you really have to every aspect of it into a science. Herego, the common name for it; the sweet science.

But boxing, my colleague said. You mean, the most ancient and brutal and inane sport we have ever devised?

Punching people in the face? It’s so unnecessary.

Well, he is right in a way.

And then I read Edmunson’ piece and it made me think some more.

Quoted from the article:

“Sports are many things, and one of those things is an imitation of heroic culture. They mimic the martial world; they fabricate the condition of war. (Boxing doesn’t fabricate war; it is war, and, to my mind, not a sport. As Joyce Carol Oates says, you play football, baseball, and basketball, but no one “plays” boxing.)”

I have been a sports fan all my life. I have tried very hard to be good at some of them. But I realise that while some people have trouble keeping thymos in check, or they might take out their frustrations on others, my personality is that I tend to internalise agitation and frustration. Sometimes it drives to me go home and practice by myself for six hours. But in the long term, it’s self-destructive.

I know part of the reason I turned to fighting games is my fear of disappointment. More specifically, disappointment of my team mates. A missed shot instantly makes me think about percentages. It makes me think about sublimating myself to the team ethic. But sometimes, you just need to shoot the damn ball.

I could never summon the ego, or lack of conscience to do that.

Maybe that is I hate Kobe Bryant so much. Perhaps he represents the ego extreme, the gunner extraordinaire, the extreme (and deluded) self-belief that I can be never have.

What have I gained from fighting games these last few years? Have I grown or matured in anyway? Or have I regressed in any way?

Because I realise that I’m not a talented player. I need to play nearly every day to maintain my level. And I probably need to up my daily playing time from 30-40 minutes a day to maybe something like four to six hours if I really want to see noticeable improvements in my game. When I stopping playing at Bluehouse, my Ryu execution went to shit immediately.

So I was thinking of finally playing online more to make up for the loss of arcade lunchtime.

But today when I went to Bluehouse, it was updated to AE 2012!! I was so happy. I was playing Aiden and I lost two rounds really quickly because I kept spamming fierce shoryu. I wanted to hit him with it to confirm that it was one hit only, like I couldn’t believe my eyes!

Yesss. Now I don’t to have to (horror!) actually play online. As I told Heavy, I finally get to press that medium kick every day with tears of joy flowing down my cheeks.

In the meantime I’ve been practicing a lot of Marvel.

Getting my Doom combos down, practicing hit confirming into full combos from all manner of heights and situations so I can get touch of death combos from any hit ala Clockwork. Actually learning advanced Spencer combos. Still have a long way to go…

I always find this part of Marvel really fun. The team building process, when you do a lot of theory fighter and start thinking of which assist would go with who, and what team order is best, optimal DHCs, things like that. Learning the characters and working on team synergy. When I’m starting out like that, it feels so fun, like there’s so much potential in my characters, so much stuff I can do! I have a blast in training mode just trying things out.

Then I play some matches against actual people and eat Wesker teleport + beam shenanigans repeatedly and get so salty and disgusted at the game all over again.

But in all honesty, I’m enjoying the game a lot more than I did Vanilla. I’m really enjoying playing Doom on point.

Maybe because I used to play She-Hulk, I always felt like Marvel was a lot of work. I have to block and bulldoze my way in whilst assholes like Magneto are pelting me with seven frame start up disrupters and air-dashing around, tap dancing on my head into full, thirty second long and obnoxious combos.

Like Mike Ross would say about Honda, I always felt like I had no tools. I was like the caveman hacking away with something with a stone, while other people already were making wheels. I was the lowly earthworm on the ground while Magneto was the eagle in the sky. That sort of feeling.

But playing Doom has the opposite kind of feeling. I can air dash up and down, tri jump around like a rabid bunny, spam beams and finger lasers and wall to wall carry from any touch.

I’m one of those assholes now!

But it’s kinda of funny. Almost everyone that asks me about my new team in UMVC3, when I tell them I’m playing Doom on point, they kind of screw their faces up and furrow a brow. Like hmmm…why would you play Doom on point? You’re wasting his awesome assists.

And they have a point. At least when I DHC out Doom, I still get to use his assist. But I’m having so much fun with Doom on point I don’t care what they say

So the rest of my point was Taskmaster, Spencer, from my X-copy Combofiend team from Vanilla.

It’s interesting to see my team development through Marvel.

Day 1 Team: Wolverine, Amaterasu, Sentinel

Finally can do She-Hulk BnB team so I can be the only person in the planet dumb enough to drop Wolverine: She-Hulk, Amaterasu, Sentinel

Yes, finally good enough to drop the Robot team: She-Hulk, Amaterasu, Tron

This was my main team for a while.

Realised that Ammy sucks coming in second after She-Hulk because of inefficient DHC and assist not being the best for She-Hulk and realizing Taskmaster has way better synergy with her team: She-Hulk, Taskmaster, Tron

Sick of not being able to come back with solo Tron and wasting X-factor level 3 team: She-Hulk, Taskmaster, Spencer.

This was my final main team for Vanilla.

So interesting enough, if you assume I’m an X-copy whore, I went from X-copying Justin Wong, to Team Nerdjosh, to Team Combofiend. But in reality, I came into my team quite organically.

Now in Ultimate, I’ve always wanted to play Doom in Vanilla and was already practicing him, and with She-Hulk getting the hell nerfed out of her, that kind of forced my hand. So I picked up Doom.

So my first Ultimate team was Doom, Taskmaster, Spencer.

But I wasn’t feeling Taskmaster assist with Doom so…

Finally this week I made the decision I didn’t want to make: I picked the dog up again.

I finally realised that the two best assists for Doom on point is Ammy and Sentinel.

Sentinel I only played early on because he was a placeholder on my team until I got good enough to play someone else that I liked.

Ammy I dropped, even though I really liked her, firstly because I never got any good with her and secondly she wasn’t that good for my team.

So I didn’t really want to put them on my team again. Picking up characters again that you dropped before for some strange reason seems really hard to me.

They’re like the girlfriends that you dumped before and then you suddenly get back together with them. It’s like admitting you made a mistake before, and now as you cuddle with them and every time you do that old ABC launch combo with them that you used to do, they’re sneering sinuously in your ear; Look what you left behind, buddy.

But I actually have rational reasons for not wanting to pick up the dog again.

The main reason is I was so reluctant was that I feel she got a lot of nerfs in UMVC3, plain and simple.

You can’t do multiple Supers off dfH anymore. No more instant overhead unless you burn X-factor or slow super. Not being able to block while airdashing really, really hurts her. All her main normals got slightly nerfed like stand M, fH.

And I think her damage is still not the best and she still dies in one combo to anybody.

I put her on second to experiment, and her DHC still sucks ass, especially in this age of mashed supers. When I do Doom wall to wall carry double footdive x3 combo DHC into Spencer, I get 900-950k. Which to me, really hits the mark because that means I can TOD that annoying motherfucker Wolverine. But with Ammie DHC that drops down to 800 plus, which feels really shit in comparison. That means I just miss TODing Vergil and a lot of other tournament relevant characters.

But if I put her last…sure she now gets X-factor speed boosts, and she is a lot better as an anchor in Ultimate…but am I that confident with Ammy last?

I’ll be honest. I love having Spencer last. I know that on the Spencer forums, and in general discussion, that people are coming to the conclusion that Spencer is best on point and on second, not as an anchor.

But I don’t care. Spencer was the first character that I could actually make an X-factor level 3 comeback with. It got to the point that in matches I would watch my She-Hulk and Taskmaster get happy birthday-ed and actually get excited. Because I knew Spencer was coming in and I could go crazy with Bionic Arms and TOD anything with one touch with X-factor. This mindset probably was not the best, and I got bodied at BAM because of it, but boy was it fun to have Spencer at the back. Do I really want to lose all that?

But I gave it a try. I put Ammy at anchor.

The moment I hit that assist button, all my doubts faded away. That assist makes Doom so, so much better. I have so much time to bounce around the screen and do whatever mix-ups I want with that assist. And with Spencer second, I can ignore Ammy’s shitty DHC because I can get a double super after DHCing from Doom with OTG grapple or when Spencer is on point.

That was when I kind of had that feeling for the first time; wow I’m playing Doom on point and it actually feels pretty effective!

Of course this team is still new. And I am so deliriously happy with the assist I spam it way too much and get happy birthday-ed constantly. And I am now shit with Ammy and can’t seem to get a hit the way I used to do with comeback Spencer.

But it’s okay. I’ll learn to protect the assist better, and practice up my Ammy again.

I played my team at SNLxOHR yesterday, and even though I went 0-2, I had a lot of fun in casuals. It feels a lot more like a good team, much less awkward than Doom, Task, Spencer.

And then Gab starts telling me over dinner that I should drop Ammy for Sentinel…

Having recently appeared on Cross Counter Live with Pyro we thought it would be a good time to catch up with him.

Hollywood X and Pyro!

We chat with him about the past year and the months and happenings in our scene since the last time we last talked to him. We also get the lowdown on Shadowloo Showdown 2012 and their international qualifiers. He also shares his thoughts on OHNX and OHNR, his recent Cross Counter appearance and how he feels towards UMVC3 and SFxTekken.

Follow Ali on Twitter and on Facebook.

And be sure to check Ali and Pyro’s show The X Report.

Lastly, check out the sites for the upcoming OHNX in Sydney and Shadowloo Showdown in Melbourne. Register early guys!

Thanks to Dave/Bosslogic for another boss banner!

Enjoy the interview guys!

Don’t be a Scrub Podcast Episode 18: EXC355UM- SS2k12 and OHNX preview

For Direct Download, right click this link and “save as”

Direct Download 96 kp/s version

Don’t be a Scrub Podcast Episode 18: EXC355UM- SS2k12 and OHNX preview

Spidercarnage: Hello everyone, this is the first CCH of the year. 2012. 2012 being the end of the world and all, so we thought we’d start up again!

Muttons: Good time to start up.

S: Yeah exactly.

EXC355UM: Yeah, you gotta make the most of it man. You don’t just quit because it’s the end of the world.

S: (Laughs.)

E: We don’t let the Mayans win.

S: Yeah. Those damn Mayans.

E: Shit. All our Mayan viewers just left.

M: All our Mayan viewers… (Laughs.)

S: Anyway today we have a special guest with us who is just hot off the presses off a U.S. popular show which we will not mention.

E: Yeah. Welcome, Muttons.

M: (Laughs.)

S: Mmm. Indeed. How have you been?

M: I’m good. How are you, Hollywood X?

E: I’m good, bruh.

S: Hollywood X. And of course we’re talking about Ali, EXC355UM. One of the founders of Shadowloo.

E: Hello, people inside the microphone.

1- S: So, what’s been happening lately?

E: Well, it’s been a busy year- last couple of months. Cos this is the most busiest period for running an event. You gotta… this is the time that you have to secure all the sponsors. If you wait too long, a lot of them will end up saying oh, it’s too close. To the event. We don’t have enough time to ask our higher-ups and this and that.

Some of them are legit, others I feel like they just said that because we didn’t give them much time. So this time I wanted to make sure that we provided enough time for all the sponsors. Um, we’re approaching a lot of sponsors that we feel will go well with Shadowloo Showdown.

Just… a little bit hard to get in contact with some of them. If you don’t know them, then it’s just another email to them, possibly. So I’m hoping that they read the email and read the sponsorship document and really want to become part of Shadowloo Showdown.

I hope the last two Shadowloo Showdowns have been decent enough for them to say, oh it’s from Shadowloo, let’s see what they have planned.

And if not, then there’s always next year.

S: It’s definitely grown every year.

And last year it was definitely the biggest tournament in Australia.

The Three Kings from SS2k10

E: Yeah I think it was the biggest fighting game tournament- possibly one of the biggest gaming tournaments in Australia. Which we’re proud of.

And also another milestone is our twitch.tv channel passed a million views this year I think it was?

I think that’s the highest views for any Australian twitch.tv channel. So that’s something we’re proud of. And we hope that we keep getting milestones like this. And that way we can use this sort of stuff to approach sponsors like I was talking about before.

Um, but yeah I’m hoping this year will be even bigger. I feel like EVO had a milestone of, what was it, 2 million unique viewers or something like that?

S: Yes.

E: That’s huge, that’s amazing.

S: I think at any one point I think there were about 80,000 people watching the live stream.

E: Yeah. We probably won’t get that, or nowhere near that.

But just to, just seeing how many fighting game viewers and people that enjoy watching games…that’s, you know, it makes you feel like you still have a lot to achieve.

And that’s what we’re aiming for.

S: Well I mean, look at it this way- recently I’ve been watching the Big Two. And most of the Spooky streams have been getting a solid five to six thousand viewers. And that’s just the weekly tournament. So I’m pretty sure this year, once when the EVO Road starts up again…

E: Yeah, Road to EVO.

S: Yeah, Road to EVO. I think we’re going to see a lot more- bigger numbers.

Last year the average was about 15,000 per stream. I think this year we can easily expect more than that.

E: The thing about Team Spooky though…is Spooky has got like a cult following.

S: Oh no, most definitely.

E: Anything Spooky’s on, he’s gonna get viewers.

Another big company doing well- Level Up Series.

They’re doing really well. They get huge numbers for the Wednesday Night Fights as well.

S: Oh yeah definitely.

The way it works actually is really interesting. You usually have Spooky who starts on the East Coast and then as you move through the day, at least for Australia, you switch to Level Up right around two o’clock. And then you just follow that till about seven or eight or nine.

E: Exactly, yeah. So it’s just a lot of the viewers from Spooky are already, y’know, ready for more action. So they just switch over to Wednesday Night Fights, which helps.

2- M: So who’s your favourite commentator?

E: Anywhere in the world? Any game?

M: Any game.

E: That’s a tough one. Um. Put me on the spot.

M: For Street Fighter.

E: You know what, even though I don’t understand what they’re saying? The Third Strike commentators from Japan.

They get so damn hype, man.

M: Nuki and…

E: They’re just…I have no idea. I have no idea what they’re saying. But it’s just…they’re so passionate about the game.

They could be saying the most stupidest crap ever. But to me it sounds amazing.

S: Well they are basically the pioneers, in a way, of video game commentary. SBO was basically some of the first tournaments where they actually had commentary over video games.

E: That’s pretty cool.

S: For fighting games, definitely.

E: There’s some really good commentators out there. I wouldn’t be able to pick…but for me…we’ll just say Heavy Weapons. We’ll butter him up.

(Laughs.)

S: With a shifty look.

E: Ah well, who’s your favourite Muttons?

M: My favourite?

E: I know you’re interviewing me, but who’s your favourite?

M: Aw man. My favourite…

Probably…

Rockefeller.

E: Rockefeller?

S: Ah, Dr. Sub-Zero.

M: But he’s no longer active so..at least as a commentator.

E: Sub-Zero, I’ve been talking to him on twitter. He seems like…

M: He’s a cool guy.

E:  …a really cool dude. I gotta send him some shirts.

M: Man… some of the girls that he has on his podcast…

S: (Laughs.)

Have you ever noticed? We have a growing trend of mentioning Dr. Sub-Zero on the last three of four podcasts…

E: I think Muttons has a man-crush on Dr. Sub-Zero…

M: I do, man.

E: I know you do. That’s why he’s never going to come to Australia!

M: Well I guess…

E: He thinks he’s gonna rape him.

S: (Laughs.)

M: And…would he be adverse to that?

E: Yes. Yes he would.

M: (Laughs.)

Hm.

E: Hm.

What about you Igor? You got a favourite commentator?

S: Who’s my favourite commentator? Ooh.

E: Your one’s probably an old-school commentator. You love the old days.

S: Sort of yes and sort of no.

M:  How about Bill Walton.

E: James, James Chen.

S: For Street Fighter I’d probably say James Chen. Mainly just because of the technical breakdown. And because he takes it so seriously.

For Marvel, it’s definitely Yipes.

E: Yeah, yeah.

S: Hands down.

E: Yipes, no doubt.

M: Yipes is the…

S: Yipes because he…

He does two things; he’s also technical when he needs to be. But he knows to hype it up when he needs to.

And that’s why I think it works.

E: And he’s the inventor of…random lingo.

So…

S: Well, random lingo to a certain aspect but it’s also because they do really similar…

It’s really interesting because the New York scene does something similar to what we do. They make up their own sort of lingo. And then that lingo tends to catch on. So.

E: I know I dig that. I dig that.

S: That’s why it works really well.

M: Well one thing I will say is that I actually don’t like…You know Steve, the new guy they got on [Wednesday Night Fights]?

S: Oh yeah, yeah. I’m not a big fan either.

M: I like him by himself. But he and Yipes are together I think that’s like too much…

E: It’s too much. It’s too much.

M: And just like UltraDavid and James Chen. I love them both individually as well. But put them together and it’s like too much of the same thing.

E: Yeah, you need to mix up.

S: Mmm….

M: You know what I mean? Like James Chen and Yipes. You know a hype guy and a [breakdown guy.]

S: Yeah, that’s basically following the NBA TNT model.

E: Well for me, the best type is having someone who is technical and someone who knows the players. Someone who…

Because you gotta get the fans to connect with the players. And being too technical, they’re not just going to be, ah who’s this random player?

But if you give out a bit of backstory before the match some people will…

S: Well that comes with the territory in general.

All the commentators need to know who’s playing, their play styles, and then how the match actually works.

M: So who’s gonna replace Kyle?

E: I dunno man. I have no idea what we’re gonna to do. We’re gonna have to import someone.

S: Kyle’s gone?

E: Kyle’s gone to Japan, yeah.

S: Oh.

M: For a year.

S: Shout outs to Kyle.

E: Probably going to import Honzo Gonzo from America.

S: He’s actually a really cool guy. I spoke to him at EVO.

E: Yeah he’s a cool dude. So we’re gonna probably get him. If he’s listening to this.

S: Yeah.

E: Pay him twenty bucks.

M: I’m sure he is!

E: Don’t worry; I’ll link him to it!

S: Well speaking of Honzo Gonzo… You lately from what I’ve seen, you’ve been playing Marvel more and more. More than Street Fighter.

E: Yeah. Well, Street Fighter, I like the game, I’m not gonna say it’s a crap game, but it’s so slow.

I like high paced games.

3- S: So what do you think of Ultimate Marvel compared to Vanilla then?

E: It’s…more or less the same thing. It’s still basically Marvel.

S: Oh yeah definitely, but do you like it more or do you like it less?

E: At first I liked it more but now you see all this other crazy stuff coming out from Ultimate and you start hating it but then you just stop and step back.

And you realize this is Marvel. This is what it’s all about. You do crazy shit, just go all out, figure out your own dirty stuff, dirty setups, so.

That’s basically what I do.

I just love the rushdown of the game. Just keep attacking, keep attacking, keep attacking.

S: So what’s your team at the moment?

E: X-23, Akuma, and Strider. I dropped Wesker…

M: Why’d you drop Wesker? That is like…

E: I know, I’m always tempted to go back, especially against like Haggar players or something. I feel like Wesker does so well against Haggar. Not just because of the gun shot but because of his normal counters, not the hyper counter, works really well against the pipe.

I feel like they’re better in this game. Slightly.

So…I dunno. I’m gonna try to not use Wesker at all. So I can better at Strider.

I feel like…I’m not gonna to say I earn my wins with Strider more because every time I use X-factor level 3 with ouroboros, it’s disgusting. It’s like a Phoenix of its own.

S: yeah but that’s always been Strider’s gimmick though.

He’s a glass cannon.

E: That’s true, that’s true.

M: You just like shoot- squirting things at people right?

E: Heheh. Thanks for making me feel better. Now I don’t feel bad at all. Just gonna keep blowing people up with Ouroboros.

S: I mean that was the thing. Even in Marvel 2, Strider was about lockdown. And a glass cannon.

If he gets touched, he’s dead.

E: That’s true.

S: That’s the way its always worked and I think that’s what they’ve recreated here.

I believe Vajira assist is broken as all fuck though.

E: Yeah, it’s such a good assist!

But no, it’s a great game. I’m glad to see it taking off in a lot of places. I don’t know if it’s still…got a lot of hype behind it?

I’m hoping that it does. But it seems like slowly, slowly, the hype’s going?

S: Mmm…I don’t know about that…

E: Maybe not in America?

S: I don’t think we feel that as much, especially in Victoria, not as much.

I think if you go to Queensland, that’s all they play up there. Because basically every single person I spoken to or who I’ve played online is either from Queensland or from New South Wales.

E: The thing is, a lot of people got into it here, but as soon as they run into anything that’s really…uh…

S: Broken?

E: I’m not going to say broken, but disgusting?

Something they can’t explain or don’t want to spend time on to try to beat. Then they just stop playing the game.

S: Let me just clarify. When we say broken we’re actually talking about broken in SFIV’s view of broken. Not in Marvel broken. So.

E: That’s what I mean. Instead of trying to figure out a way to beat that sort of tactic from the opponent, they decided that this game is too much, it’s too crazy. I’m going to stop playing. Which is probably not the best…

S: It’s not the mentality to have for fighting games.

E: Exactly. And that’s why it sucks that the scene could be bigger and maybe later on we could have tutorials or classes to help someone who’s having issues with certain characters or certain matchups. But until then… yeah.

4- S: Actually I wanted to ask you; why X-23? Because I think she’s one of the characters that’s being really slept on. I think she’s really, really good, has really high priority normals, has a decent way of getting in but not a lot of people use her, so.

E: I think the fact is there was Wolverine in the first game and a lot of people just skipped over X-23 and just went straight to Wolverine.

M: And she lost the DHC glitch as well.

E: Yeah. And he was a lot easier to use. So a lot of people went with Wolverine and just…didn’t even give X-23 the time of day. Not many people did. There were a handful of people…

But I liked her. I liked the way she played. I didn’t want to be another Wolverine player. Plus, she has X in her name.

S: Aha, right I see. Your former name.

E: Yeah exactly.

And…

She’s just so quick!

S: It’s like I said, she has good mobility.

E: I love characters who have…

There’s a few things that makes me pick characters.

Speed. Power. And…dive kicks.

They have to have a dive kick.

S: Heheh.

E: And mix ups. Look at my characters man. Strider, Akuma and X-23. All dive kicks. All have dive kicks. And all have some sort of teleport or mix-up ability. Those are my characters.

Even in King of Fighters I’m using Yuri. Because she plays like Akuma. And who else is there…Hwa? The guy that’s like Adon. He’s got his own dive kick.

Characters that don’t have dive kicks, I’m not going to pick them.

M: Capcom loves dive kicks.

S: So what do you think of the new characters in Ultimate?

E: Good. There’s a lot of new characters but the good thing about it was they’re not very similar.

S: They are very unique, actually.

E: Which is great because you didn’t want them just to add more characters in that was just a bunch of clones.

The only problem is; we’re not getting much people using them. If we run into say, a Rocket Raccoon somewhere, I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do.

Because I haven’t seen a Rocket Raccoon since the game came out. Also, not too many Nemesis players around. That’s the biggest downfall for us; we don’t have the matchup knowledge.

Like I just played a new guy today, Tom, he uses Viper. I haven’t played Vipers before.

S: Yeah, that character’s really good.

E: Yeah, in any game, not just Marvel, any game, if you don’t know the matchup, you’re…as Taskmaster says, you’re in for a world of hurt.

S: You fight like an amateur, chump.

E: We need so many people… That’s the good thing about the U.S. They have a huge population and a lot of them have the mentality that they wanna use characters that are low-tier or different. So it’s great for them because people get a lot of matchup knowledge and matchup practice. Here, nothing.

That’s why they’re above the rest. That’s what I think.

S: In Marvel, definitely.

Though I think the way they evolve technology, it just happens over there so much faster than it does anywhere else.

E: Yeah, well it has to. ‘Cos like I said, there’s so much different matchups going on, anytime something happens they’re like, oh wait, hold on. Let’s find out what just happened there.

And then in this day and age with the internet, everyone just puts it up straightaway on YouTube. They want to be the first people to have it up there.

S: Definitely. It’s the whole YouTube to fame deal.

E: Yeah, exactly.

5- S: Can you tell us a little bit more about Shadowloo Showdown 2012 qualifiers?

E: Alright. So it started off with basically asking some of our friends in Japan, and Korea and Singapore to help us run a few qualifiers.

It’s something that we’ve been meaning to do for a while. But we haven’t been able to do it. Like last year, the approach was let’s just get our players, the ones we want and the ones the people want.

This year we wanted to see the best of the best come down. And the best way to do that was hold qualifiers. And there’s people at the time would be at Shadowloo Showdown. And ever since then a lot of people have contacted us and said we want to run qualifiers for you guys, how can we help.

So Offcast is now doing a qualifier in the US for both AE and Marvel. Because we couldn’t pick which one we wanted to do. So we decided let’s just do both.

And in Singapore of course Kev wants to do more than just that. He wants to also do a SFxTekken one. But he wants to fund it himself.

M: Damn. Kevin wants to fund it himself?

E: Yeah, he’s trying to get sponsors to help him out and that, but he just wants to…he wants to have SFxTekken there.  He wants to have King of Fighters. Even though they might not send the players. Like we might not send the players- they might. Try to help them come here. Plus they’ll get seeding.

Kev is the man.

And then…Kuwait also wanted to be a part of it. So that was good. So now we got some representation from the Middle East. You got players like Maan, and NoX and Ganoon and all that. And not just from Kuwait but the surrounding areas, like Saudi Arabia’s got a good scene.

S: Oh really.

E: Yeah, they had a stream on tonight, which was…it showed some good level play. And who else we got…

World Game Cup is coming up and they’re interested in running qualifiers for us. We haven’t finalized that; hopefully by the time this interview comes out they’ll be confirmed. So probably the winner or the top two from that event will be flown down.

And just in case a European doesn’t win we were gonna…we were talking to WorstGiefEver about running one in the UK as well just so we can get Europe…

Cos you know World Game Cup’s got Fuudo, Tokido and Mago, so it’s gonna be pretty hard for an European to win…not saying it’s impossible, but it’s going to be tough.

6- S: So speaking of the qualifiers, how do you actually narrow down the countries which you want to run the qualifiers in?

E: Well it’s basically the biggest scenes or those we know will help us out and are willing to do the work.

Cos you don’t want to approach someone and say look we want you to help us out with the qualifiers and they get annoyed and say, oh we’re doing everything.

If the country is willing to help…like everyone that we’ve approached has been really helpful, like a lot of them have tried to get their own sponsors. A lot of them have been doing the venue searching themselves, which is great for us. Cos, all we really have to do is to advertise it, put it in the trailers; make the streams loud for them.

Stuff like that. Which is great for us, because now we get the players and great for them because they get exposure for them.

S: How did you go about creating contacts in those countries?

M: Yeah, why do you think all these people from all these countries are so willing to help you guys?

S: Because it seems like a fairly difficult task to do.

E: Yeah the thing is the first year Sol made a shit load of contacts like when he was trying to get players for [Shadowloo Showdown 1]. He’s the man to go to if you ever want to contact anyone.

Like Mooseking is trying to get this player down. So he’s asked Sol to go find him and contact him. And Sol found him today and talked to him today. And the guy’s interested in coming so he’s gonna come down.

II didn’t want to mention it just yet but it’s Mooseking.

M: It must be a Gen player. It’s Yeb right?

S: Ooh. That would be awesome.

E: I’m not going to say who it is but…

M: Because Xian is already…should be coming right?

S: I don’t think it’s gonna happen because recently the Box Arena had a Farewell Yeb event.

M: Ah so.

E: Yeah. Well I’ll give you that. It’s a Gen player. But which one?

M: Ahh.

E: It’s Mooseking! Of course it’s Gen. Shit.

M: Yeah exactly. I thought it would have to be Gen.

E: Yeah. But there’s also a few other players here in Melbourne that wanna see players come down. And if they’re willing to do the same thing and Sol can contact them. He’s like the…

Super Best Friends! From left; Burnout, EXC355UM, VITRIOL, Sol, Pyro, Zerokill and Bugsimus.

S: Who was your most requested player for Marvel and for Street Fighter?

E: Marvel? Probably Combofiend.

M: Everyone loves Combofiend.

E: Everyone wants to see Combofiend here. But um… for AE… Look.

Daigo needs to come to Melbourne. A lot of people have been asking to see Daigo come to Melbourne. But the dream matchup would be Kazunoko versus Poongko. I think if we can make that happen…

M: You mean a Seth mirror match? Oh my god…

E: If we can make that happen at Shadowloo Showdown, that’d be sick. Because a lot of people would want to see it. It’d be random as hell but it’d be sick to watch.

M: It’d be random as hell.

S: Did Poongko play Online Tony?

E: Not that I know of. I don’t think so.

M: He must have played him in casuals because he’s the Machine but I guess not in [tournament.]

S: Yeah.

E:  They must have played. But this is tournament though. Casuals are different.

S: And Poongko actually does tend to sandbag in casuals.

E: Yeah he does!

S: Quite a lot.

M: It’s just because he doesn’t have Red Bull during casuals.

E: Exactly, exactly.

S: Mm, mm. Hasn’t got that fuel happening.

M: So I guess you could say that the last two Shadowloo Showdowns have been about the contacts…

E: Making contacts, and making waves, basically.

Now when you approach someone and say, here look. We’re from Shadowloo. We want to try to have a qualifier in your country.

A lot of people jump on it and really want to help out.

M: Because you helped them out before. And you helped them come down here.

E: Yeah.

We’ve helped them before and they’ve helped us. Plus, anyone that helps us we always…we don’t forget. We might not be repay them straightaway but eventually everyone that’s helped us along the way will be…rewarded. Some way.

S: Also, it’s a free vacation to Australia.

E: Exactly.

S: Put it this way, a lot of people- countries know of Australia. But it’s such a mysterious place. We have killer animals…

E: Truckers. Everywhere.

M: We play on joysticks shaped like boomerangs…

E: Crocodiles coming out off the toilets…

S: Yeah. We’re all thieves and crooks…

E: Standard stuff.

M: Ex-convicts. Standard stuff.

S: But overall Australia has that sort of mystique that you know…

A lot of people travel from Australia out there but a lot of people want to see Australia.

So…It has that appeal to it.

M: I think they’re going to be disappointed. It’s just like a city right? You come to Melbourne, to the city like…

S: I don’t know about that. Most of the visitors of the last two years seem pretty excited.

E: Maybe it’s just us. Melbourne is just boring to us now. There’s not much to see right?

S: It’s the same for everyone though.

E: Yeah, I guess.

M: Oh my god. When you talk about this the only thing I can think about is the zoo!

S: (Simultaneously) The zoo!

E: Ohh dude. If we have to go to the zoo again I’m going to kill myself.

M: (Laughs.)

S: No more zoo trips.

E: You know what…

S: No no we did go last year.

E: Yeah we did. We always go.

The thing is for next year what I’m trying to do is…

S: Another zoo trip?

E: Nah!

For the qualifiers, I would like to be there. To help the organisers run their qualifiers. I’d like to…not necessarily a circuit…

M: The Ali circuit.

E: The Ali circuit?

S: Haha that would be awesome.

M: You go around…and just like…

Worship me.

S: You are the greatest.

E: Welcome to Shadowloo Showdown qualifier, bro!

S: Heh.

E: And uh…it’ll be good, it’ll be good. If I can travel to these qualifiers and help them out any way I can. And also talk to some of the players; get to know them a little better, that’ll be sick.

M: I think you’ll just get in the way. You’ll be like; can I help?

E: Hey Ali, can you go back to Australia?

M: Can you…sit, sit over there?

7- S: So besides the qualifiers, or should I say, the qualifying players, can we expect any extra players to be attending Shadowloo Showdown?

E: Yes.

M: Nos girls? Red bull girls?

Make it happen, Ali.

E: We’re hoping a lot of the sponsored players get sent down. We’re hoping that with all these qualified players the sponsors will be attracted by the cast that we have. Let’s call it cast. Or lineup.

And hopefully the players talk to their sponsors; this is gonna be huge. There’s gonna be this player, this player. Everyone’s gonna be watching. And if you don’t send us down, we’re gonna be missing out.

M: Can I ask one question?

How come there’s no Canadian qualifier?

E: To be honest, we wanted to run one, we possibly couldn’t. But in the last week I think Sol tried to contact Lap Chi.

But he hasn’t responded. And it’s getting to the point where it’s gonna be too hard to run one now. So I guess probably have to wait for next year for Canada Cup.

M: Because it’s the other…equivalent of Shadowloo Showdown other than EVO in terms of international guests is like Canada…Canada Cup right?

E: Yeah.

M: So I was kinda surprised that there was no qualifier…

E: Well that’s what I mean. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe because we couldn’t make it, maybe it upset them. I don’t want to say it did, but I’m just assuming here. You shouldn’t assume things but maybe that’s what it was.

It’s just…a lot of the players here in Australia just came off EVO and didn’t have the funding.

S: Yeah a lot of us actually wanted to go to Canada Cup. Yeah it was a pretty tough…

M: Tough, tight situation.

S: ‘Cause the thing is though, travelling from Australia to anywhere is bloody expensive.

M: Just admit it; you just don’t want to bring a Ryu player down here right?

E: No, no, no.

M: Heheh.

E: You know what. I don’t know who would’ve won the Canada Cup [qualifier]. Because you gotta realize that it’s open to anyone, these qualifiers. So a lot of US players would’ve tried to have a second chance.

M: Oh yeah, you’re right, you’re right.

S: I was gonna say, if you actually had a New York qualifier, I betcha you get a lot of Canadian players coming down.

E: Well that’s what I meant. Hopefully we get to the point where we have an East Coast and a West Coast qualifier. And even a third one somewhere.

S: Actually you know…Most likely I would say you could probably organize Chris Ghaleon to do it. For like the Midwest.

They still technically count themselves as East Coast, but I’m sure he’ll be more than happy to help out.

E: Nah there’s a lot of people will put their hand up and help us out for sure. It’s just a matter of funding.

S: Yes, that always…

I know you guys would like to have a thousand qualifiers… But then you have to pay for a thousand plane tickets. Which is…

E: Hopefully these qualifiers make enough from entry money to cover as much as the ticket as possible. We make up the rest basically.

S: Okay. That’s actually a really good way of doing it.

E: Yeah. That’s what we figured. Instead of just getting the players and paying for it ourselves, instead we’ll help with the qualifiers. If they get enough numbers, excellent. If they don’t, we’ll make up for it.

S: You’ll cover the rest.

M: Cool.

E: We just worry about also housing them, and hotels and that.

So hopefully we can contact the hotel and tell them we got 200 guests coming.

M: Zoo tickets…

E: Ha 200 zoo tickets!

You know what; I wanna go go-karting this year. I’m taking them go-karting.

M: Man, imagine if you fucking kill Daigo in a go-karting…

S: Go-kart accident! That’s gonna be great.

M: The world will hate Australia forever!

S: And Square Enix will sue you guys if you kill Daigo.

E: Nah, he’s be alright. With that new afro he’ll be fine if he hits anything.

S: Hahaha. He’s got an airbag.

M: It’s a helmet, a Gatsby helmet.

E: He’ll be fine.

8- S: Are you going to OHN this year?

E: Yes.

I dunno. There was a lot of bad blood last year. Because they felt that we skipped it on purpose. Which we didn’t.

And we’re not going this year just to show them that we…

S: Yeah we’re going this year to win EVO points!

E: It’s not just that, we’re going to OHN because we can go to OHN this year. That’s the whole point. Shadowloo Showdown is a lot more better organized. So that’s what’s helped us out this time. Because of the qualifiers and that we don’t have to put up all the money ourselves straightaway. We have some funding for ourselves to go compete at OHN.

As for OHN, I was gonna…I was talking to Gamogo about having the winner come to Shadowloo Showdown, if they’re not an Melbourne player we’ll fly them down rather than doing our own Australian qualifiers.

I’m not sure how that’s gonna work. I still gotta talk to them about it. But because they’re doing EVO points and stuff like that…that might interfere…

S: That’s seems really…

E: That’s what I’m thinking. I gotta talk to them. But I just don’t want EVO to get upset as well. Like we’re taking over their territory or something.

M: Well speaking about…to go on a tangent, do you wanna talk about why you guys didn’t go for EVO points this year? Are you happy to elaborate on it?

E: Like I said on Cross Counter, basically we didn’t want to take everything away from OHN. We wanted it to have some sort of draw card. Now, they got SFxTekken themselves which is great.

S: Yeah I can’t wait to find out about the Gem system.

E: Yeah, that’s one highlight. Now they have the EVO points. I don’t know if they’re gonna raise funds to send the winner to EVO. I’ve been hearing stuff that they possibly will do that which is cool.

M: Which is really cool.

E: If not, it’s still EVO points. It will attract some players. A few players from Singapore, I think Xian might be coming down.

S: Well that would be awesome.

E: So I’m glad that happened. Um…

S: OHN is the Australian national championship. It has always been that. So I’m hoping that they can send the person who wins it to EVO. Because that is technically representing the best of Australia at that tournament.

M: Because for Shadowloo Showdown there’s always so many international players so it’s hard for an Australian to break into…

E: That’s the thing. You’d have some internationals taking the EVO points and then there’s no point in running EVO points here. Because it’s not…

S: Exactly.

M: And that’s fair enough.

S: And at the tail end of the year we get the salty runback at BAM.

E: At BAM. Yep.

S: Seems like things are turning out a lot better this year, organisation wise.

E: Well you learn. After a mistakes as well. A lot of big mistakes.

M: So any predictions for the OHN Regionals this Sunday?

The fu???

E: I think AE can go any way. Right now it’s very close.

M: Right now results are really close.

E: Because Akuma’s been nerfed a little bit. Toxy will probably will have to step it up heaps with Akuma or he will need to switch to Ryu or Rufus or something like that.

If he doesn’t he’s gonna have a lot of trouble against Somniac’s Bison. Sol’s Rose. Hakan’s Cammy. Even Louie (Heavy Weapons) might give him some trouble.

That matchup’s gotten a bit easier for Sagat. Because Sagat’s so good.

M: So, do you like this? Do you like the fact that basically the top spot is more up for grabs, I guess.

E: Yeah, it’s good. It’s better than having one dominant player all the time, for every game. The thing about Toxy is; he’s good at everything. So the problem with him being so good at everything is; a lot of people get turned away from tournaments because they know he’s going to be there. Now, the thing about Sol is that he’s good at a lot of games, but he excels at AE.

It’s not like Sol’s going to go win Marvel. But the problem with Toxy is, he can win AE, he can win Marvel, he can win KOF if we ran it, he’d win Third Strike.

So that’s the thing about Toxy. So now that there’s some competition in AE, it’s better. It’s better for the crowd. It’s better for the players. That’s what I think.

9- S: Speaking of AE, what do you think about 2012?

E: A lot better. Way better. Especially the twins’ nerf alone made the game better.

Akuma, I wouldn’t agree with some of the changes made. I’m not sure why, like it’s Akuma. He should be fucking badass.

But he’s still really good. Don’t get me wrong. He’s still really, really good. But those little things hurt him, especially in some matchups.

M: Well in the big picture [of things], you know I was listening to the Iplaywinner Can’t Patch This podcast. And they were mentioning how…don’t you think AE in the big picture of the community was kinda like a wasted opportunity?

Like when Super came out, it could have been THE game. To push us into esports territory.

E: Yeah. Super was probably the best game out of the whole series. I really had the most fun in Super.

And…I don’t know.

M: And then AE came out.

E: They wanted to add some characters but adding those characters kinda stuffed up the whole game!

M: The whole game…

E: And we lost a lot of…

M: Momentum right?

E: Yeah, not just momentum but a lot of community players gave up because of the twins alone.

M: Yeah. I noticed that.

E: And the problem is…we got some players as well. Because of the twins. But the downfall of that was as soon as they patched it again, those guys…

M: Disappeared.

E: …left anyway.  Yeah.

M: So like for a strong scene like America I guess it doesn’t affect them that much. But for down here we really feel like…20% of people stop playing, that’s a lot of players.

E: We’re not a huge community. It’s a decent sized community but it’s not huge. So when you lose a few players, you feel it. Straightaway, you know.

S: I’d say my best estimated guess- I’d say Australia has about three hundred people? Who take the game fairly seriously.

And on a broader basis I’d say Shadowloo brought out the rest of the guys who know of Street Fighter but don’t play 100 percent seriously.

M: Johnny Donuts?

S: Yeah exactly. The Johnny Donuts.

E: We have that Melbourne group on Facebook that’s got like 150. So if Melbourne alone has 150, that’s pretty good. And I know other states can match it.

S: I think Melbourne has the biggest community right now.

M: Our facebook group has 150 people, but how many of those people actually show up to events?

E: But that’s the thing, the question is how do we get these guys?

M: Yeah, but AE didn’t help basically.

E: AE didn’t help.

S: Mm.

“Shut up, shut up! Shut up. I got this. I got this. Just calm down. Everyone just calm down.

Good times.”

E: Well helpfully Street Fighter x Tekken will help a little bit.

S: I think it will actually…well…meearghh.

10- Well actually that’s a really good segue way. What do you think of SFxTekken here?

E: Well, having not played it with the gems or anything like that I’m not sure. But from playing it in the early build, I enjoyed it. I think it’s got a lot of potential.

The only thing is, I heard they changed back the fact that you can go your chain into a move. You can only do chain into launch now?

And if that’s the case the game’s gonna get really boring ‘cause everyone’s just gonna go into launch all the time.

M: But I heard that the scaling…if you do like chain into launcher it affects the scaling of the combo so sometimes it makes more sense to do links or into specials.

S: Seth Killian was mentioning something like that.

E: See, I haven’t been following it too much.  How the combo system works. So I gotta find out about that. Hopefully the build at OHN or the build that we’re gonna be getting soon is a really recent one so we can test it out.

S: Speaking of the builds, how are you guys planning on handling the gem system.

E: Well the game doesn’t come out till March. So the first couple of weeks in March we’re gonna test it out with and without. And if it plays well enough without then we’re probably just go without. Because the things with the gems is you don’t want tournaments to drag out forever. Because people have to pick their gems and if they lose a game they have to go back and not just change character but change the gems as well like…

S: They’re also selecting two characters.

E: Exactly. It’s gonna take a shitload of time.

M: It’s gonna be really interesting. Because it comes out in March right? And then EVO is a few months away.

So it’s like you guys get to set the tournament standard for SFxTekken.

E: So hopefully we don’t mess it up.

M: Yeah!

E: Well you know, it’s more like a test run. So if we do something wrong then a lot of tournaments will follow up from it.

If we do crap then…

(Bosslogic cuts in): You can fuck me on twitter!

Get ya shirt at the Shadowloo Store.

E: Well alright, predictions for OHN. I think like I said, AE can go either way. Marvel, there’s a few top players that can take it out.

M: Such as…yourself?

E: For sure! I’m don’t even know you’re asking that. You know that I can do it.

M: (Laughs.)

E: Toxy, Carnage…has been leveling up. But I think that’s more from the KoF practice instead of the Marvel practice. I dunno how that works.

Even I felt it. When I was playing KoF I did better at Marvel for some reason.

M: So KoF makes you a sharper fighting game player?

E: Maybe it’s that thing where the more fighting games you play the better you just get.

M: Really? The more Marvel I play, the more salty I get at everything.

E: Yo, look at Tokido. He’s awesome at everything.

M: That’s true.

S: See, I’m actually the opposite. The more Marvel I play, the better I play ST.

M: Hm, interesting.

S: ‘Cause I just think a lot faster because Marvel’s just…

E: Well what I was gonna say… is the way we’re gonna run OHNR this year is similar to the U.S. qualifier for Shadowloo Showdown. Where say Toxy wins AE, that’s it. He can’t compete in Marvel.

Not he can’t win Marvel, he can’t compete in Marvel. Because he might mess up someone’s chances in the bracket along the way.

M: I see what you mean.

E: So he’s won? He just goes away for a while.

M: So just one winner? Only the AE winners are not allowed to participate in Marvel.

E: Exactly.

S: Well that makes sense. Because if he wins both, he takes both tickets. Hm.

E: Well the way we did it before when Toxy won two he would pick who goes. But we left the choice up to him. Which is not the best way to do things.

And also if he hadn’t been in the tournament someone else might’ve have won it.

M: I see.

E: He might’ve knocked someone out that could have beaten the other person that came second.

So that’s why I think it’s a much better format doing it this way.

M: That’s cool. I like it.

E: Because if he enters there’s no point. He’s not gonna win anything anyway. He’s just gonna stop people from winning.

11- M: That’s cool. So what about OHN in general. Any predictions?

E: Look, I’m hoping it’s an Melbourne clean sweep.

I don’t know how good the Tekken scene is in Melbourne, and I’m not sure how many Tekken Melbourne players are gonna go. I hope some of them make it up and defend the Tekken community in Melbourne.

But in AE, I’m pretty sure a Melbourne player’s gonna take it out.

M: What about Shang Tsung man? He’s been dominating Sydney…

E: Nahh..

M: He almost won BAM. And if not for Akira and for Sol’s you know, whiffed Ultra…

E: Personally I think Sol will beat…

M: Shang Tsung.

E: ..Shang Tsung. He’s learned a lot lately. Not just in the Bison matchup…but his Rose has improved in that matchup. His Rose in general has improved. Not to mention 2012 changes have helped Rose, but Sol’s also got so many characters to fall back on.

Shang Tsung vs. Heavy Weapons. SA Arena AE Farewell tourney.

S: Mmm. Most definitely.

M: You would think that Melbourne would do well against Shang Tsung because we got so many fucking Bisons here!

E: Problem is what people are forgetting is Robsux.

M: Robsux!

E: He’s the one to watch out for as well. Because we’ve had practice against Shang Tsung. We know what he’s capable of.

S: Yeah…no Ibukis. Ibuki/Viper.

M: Viper’s top tier man.

E: Exactly. We don’t really have Vipers here and not too many Ibukis. Like CypherionX doesn’t really come out much. So we don’t have the matchup knowledge and also the fact that we haven’t played him in a while. So we don’t know how much better he’s gotten. If he’s gotten worse.

S: Also from talking to some of the Sydney guys I heard they’ve got quite a lot of new blood.

E: Well that’s what I hope. The more better players from Sydney the better. Because then it’s going to make a much better competition. We don’t want to clean sweep everything.

Also, I’m not sure if anyone else from any other states are going to compete. Like I know Vinh qualified in Brisbane but he qualified with Yang. I’m not sure if he’s still using Yang, and if he is, how  good he’s still doing with Yang.

WA, I think Derrace is going.

M: Derrace will definitely…

S: Derrace is always coming.

E: He’s gonna do well. Especially now that Rufus got slightly buffed.

And who have we got in Adelaide to look out for…

M: Isn’t Mooseking from Adelaide?

E: Mooseking with Gen…

M: The Guy player…uhh…Zerolance!

E: Ah Zerolance! That’s what I thinking about.

M: Shiden Edge.

E: Shiden Edge is one to watch out for. And Guy’s slightly better as well. He’s gonna be hard to…

S: To be honest with you I think Guy’s a character that a lot of people have been sleeping on. I think Guy is really, really good.

E: Yeah man. He’s scary as to play as well.

S: He’s just very awkward to use. Because of the floaty jump. But he does a ton of damage. And he has a lot of good, safe option selects and safe jump set ups.

E: His combos seem easy as well.

M: Target combos.

Well to go on a side note, how much are you looking forward to going to a major where you don’t have do anything and just…

E: It’s always great man. Trust me, like it’s the best feeling when you don’t have anything.

But if they came up and said like; look, we need help with something. I’m more than happy to help out. Because I know what it’s like to run events. And if someone asks me then I’ll jump on straightaway and help out.

M: I dunno about you man but I’m looking so much forward to just going there, hanging out…

E: Having some drinks…

M: ..drinking, eating…yeah!

S: Gotta organize hotels first.

E: That’s true. We haven’t even organized flights!

As for Marvel though, I’m only worried about Brisbane. Everyone else in Australia is…

Maybe Joe and a few Adelaide people can do well. But I think it’s gonna be mainly Melbourne vs. Brisbane.

S: Marvel’s always been Queensland’s thing.

E: Yeah but I think we have some good player here man.

S: I know we do, but yeah. But Queensland…I dunno, there’s something in the water up there, man. They love Marvel.

E: They’re a Marvel state. But it doesn’t mean that they’re not going to get blown up.

M: Ohh. Fighting words.

S: Speaking of blown up what are some of the money matches going at OHN.

E: There’s a shit load of moneymatches. I think in the forum I said I’m going to take all your side bet money. And Hebretto took that literally and put me down for every…

M: (Laughs.)

E: …every side bet. I’m like, I barely have twenty bucks in my pocket man!

M: Then maybe you shouldn’t be…

S: Well, there’s going to be a lot of free flights to Shadowloo Showdown.

M: (Laughs.)

E: Sheeiit.

I’m hoping Melbourne does do well.

Marco (on his way out): See you.

E: See you Marco.

M: That guy is going to be a contender as well. I think he’s really good at Marvel. Marco from Couchwarriors.

E: Like I said, there’s a few good players. I think Brisbane are just thinking it’s just Shadowloofox, Toxy, Burnout and Antman, but I don’t think they realize the potential of some of the Melbourne players that they haven’t really seen.

M: Or we could flame out and look like idiots on…

E:  Not gonna happen.

S: Honestly I’m backing Queensland.

E: (sighs.)

S: That’s just me.

E: That’s fair enough… as what’s his name once said…

S: I’ve been playing online, they’ve been blowing me up.

E: That’s online man.

S: Hey I’m terrible at Marvel but Queensland’s got the goods.

E: Van Damme once said; wrong bet. Just hold that, bro.

S: (Laughs.) I’m sure he did.

M: Like Jago, hold that L in your chest?

S: Yeah, hold that L in your chest.

M: That shit was funny, man.

E: Jago’s been doing some great…Him and Fingercramp been making some great productions man.

M: Oh man…if you could get Jago to come down, that would be the funniest shit ever.

S: Yeah, shout outs to Jago. Actually I spoke to Jago at Season’s Beatings. He’s probably one of the nicest people I’ve met in the fighting game community. He basically…

I was stranded at the airport. And I saw Jago, and I was like, yo Jago can I use your phone to call Chris (Ghaleon.) And he was like, no problems.

M: Imagine if Mike Ross came down, and him and Jago had their rematch and Mike Ross beat Jago…

That’s be the hypest shit…

S: Yeah, you’re dreaming.

M: I’m dreaming? (Laughs.)

E: Look that’s what I want at Shadowloo. At Shadowloo Showdown I’m hoping some crazy moments happen. I have a feeling they will. And I’m hoping they do for years.

That’s what makes your events. Just moments.

S: The Machine beating Momochi in the finals was pretty good.

E: Yeah. Like look at Final Round. Final Round, that Combofiend moment. EVO had that Daigo moment.

M: You mean the Poongko moment…

S: Hey we had our moment. Mike Ross beating Mago.

E: Yeah, yeah we had some great moments, don’t get me wrong. But over the years you can build up and then you can have a montage of moments.

12- S: Oh definitely. Last question. Esports. Your thoughts.

E: I love European sports. It’s great.

M: (Laughs.)

S: I know, of course. European handball’s the best!

Hey I love European handball. It’s one of the dirtiest games out there.

E: I dunno why everyone is so fussed about the word esports. It’s just…

To me I just call it competitive gaming, first off.

And it’s all the same. If MLG wants to pick up a fighting game, good on them. Well done, pick it up.

As long as one organisation doesn’t stop players from playing in another organisation or another tournament or grassroots tournaments, then it’s fine. I don’t understand what the problem is.

S: I guess in Australia we’re not really affected much.

E: No. Not really.

M: We are the land of the Kangaroos.

E: Yeah heh.

S: Because our scene is so small, it’s basically insignificant.

E: No organizations wants to come to Australia. There’s nothing to do here and the internet sucks.

M: The internet sucks balls.

E: We don’t have to worry about MLG or anyone coming down, don’t worry about that.

S: Plus, we’re bloody expensive. $110 for a new game?

E: Exactly.

M: How can something so cheap…

S: Yeah be so bloody expensive.

E: Exactly. So that’s my thoughts on esports. It’s not gonna happen here so!

So who cares!

S: We’re impervious to the esports problem!

I can see the perspective from the States…because of the small grass roots tournaments.

I mean if you have say a Tekken tournament that has a pot of forty grand for first prize. And second prize is twenty grand. And then you have say a home-grown tournament that is like five grand, I know where the top players are going!

E: Yeah. That’s the problem. If they book it on the same day as another tournament, then that sucks. That’s huge.

S: In a way that could affect us as well. Because say they have an MLG tournament for SFIV or Marvel…at the same time as Shadowloo Showdown.

E: No doubt it will. No doubt it will.

S: It can affect it, it’s just not as big.

E: You gotta also take in the fact that for some players it’s not all about the money. Like I’ve noticed some players that I’ve talked to, it’s not all about the money it’s about how they’ve been treated at events.

Like if a big organisation put all this money out, but treats them like shit and orders them around and that. They’re still gonna pick somewhere they’re treated properly, they’re taken out for food and drinks, and everyone hangs out with them. People to talk to…

A lot of players will pick that over money. I’m not saying everyone will, but a lot will.

S: I think that’s why we had such great success with Shadowloo Showdown.

E: That’s the thing. It feels more…when people come here it feels more personalized. I dunno how it’s gonna be when huge numbers come down. I’m hoping that a lot of the Australian players will still take care of a lot of the internationals and take them out and stuff.

S: I think they will. I think the only problem last year was a little bit the language barrier was a little hard.

M: Thank god for Burnout. Korean speaker.

E: Ah that’s alright. Poongko had his Korean/English book so he could have just read that. Poongko, give me this for a second.

M: Man every time I look at Poongko I feel like the most useless Asian guy ever. I can’t speak anything to these guys.

E: You can’t speak any?

M: I can speak Chinese but like…

E: Well we might have some Chinese players come down…

M: Oh yeah that’s right! But my Chinese is ass.

E: That young Chinese kid, the one, he might come down if eLive sends him. That’d be sick. Like King of Fighters player.

M: Oh okay.

I mean, not to be racist, but can you speak anything to the Kuwaitis?

E: Ah yeah.

M: Can you speak the language?

E: I dunno if they can understand the Arabic I speak, I’m hoping they can. They’ll understand some of it.

M: That’ll be cool.

E: Yeah. But they should be fine. If Latif gets sent down by Razor. He can translate.

It’d be good.

S: (Laughs.) Welcome! Our international translator.

E: Welcome! Hi Latif, welcome bro, can you just translate this for us?

S: Australian hospitality at its best.

M: (Laughs.) Man we should all go for language classes.

E: I reckon.

S: Fuck that, I already speak three languages. I don’t need to know anymore.

M: Yeah, but there are no Croatians coming down right!

E: You know what we should do?

Approach a translating company and get them to sponsor Shadowloo Showdown.

M: That’d be sick.

E: We’ll have all these people in suits and holding sings up. Oh like German, ehhh.

Come here for a second Igor. I need you, bro.

M: Translate this shit for me.

S: I did seven years of German in high school.

M: You can speak German?

S: I know none of it! I did seven years of German in high school!

E: That’s like me man. I did four or five years of Spanish. And all I know is no hablo espanol and how to count to ten and how to swear in Spanish. That’s it.

13- M: Cross Counter.

S: Let’s do the Hollywood experience of Cross Counter.

M: Yeah how did it happen?

E: It was really good. It was slightly different then what I thought it was gonna be. Because you can’t see them when you’re talking to them? And sometimes the sound is not there. So when I was talking I had to stop a few times because I wasn’t sure if the connection was still there.

M: (Laughs.)

S: Well that’s our Fisher-Price internet.

M: Fisher-Price…

E: And also you saw what happened when our connection cut out.

And I said…

S: Apparently all we have is kangaroos.

E: That’s what happened man. I watched the replay today. And basically Mike Ross asked; how’s everything going down there.

And my reply was; eck blek eck blek eck kangaroos…

S & M: (Laughs.)

E: I’m like; that’s horrible. But to me, I felt when you’re there, you don’t hear yourself. So you think everything’s going well. When they start laughing, you’re not sure why they’re laughing. But that’s what they’re hearing. So at the end when I like…

M: So you’re like, why the hell are they laughing?

E: Yeah! At the end they were like; where can we find you? And I was like; follow me on twitter. And it cut out as soon as I said Fol- and it turned out to say Fuck. And I was like; Fuck me on Twitter.

M: (Laughs.)

E: And then they started laughing but I didn’t know why. And then we ended the show and I got a call from Dave, and he said; bro, you just said Fuck me on Twitter on Cross Counter.

M: (Laughs.)

E: I’m like, what? And then I thought maybe that it just sounded like Fuck me on Twitter. But then I watched the replay this morning and it’s basically saying Fuck me on Twitter.

It’s horrible.

It’s horrible.

S: What a plug for Twitter.

E: Yeah!

But it was a good experience. Always good to talk to those guys. Those guys are awesome. They’re doing great stuff for the fighting game community and the gaming community in general.

M: Tell me about the moment- Pyro told me that you guys were waiting and Gootecks was like; oh you guys, we’ll do a test. Wait for a second, I gotta go into Makeup. Shit.

E: Yeah. I know they wear makeup. You can tell.

But yeah…

M: Are you trying to say something?

E: They have to man. They’re Hollywood now. They have to.

M: That’s true.

Did you put on any make up?

E: Yeah! Heaps.

Heaps.

M: Blusher…Mascara?

E: I photoshopped it. Nah, it’s good.

Nah it was a great experience.

M: So speaking of Cross Counter, when’s your Cross Counter coming back on? The X report.

E: Look I wanna bring it back soon. But Dave and Sol reckon just wait till we open the new office. And build it from scratch like a proper set. With green screen and desk and everything. And do it properly.

So I don’t know if I’m going to get it back on soon. I might do small videos here and there updating about Shadowloo Showdown, but the official X Report might come back in May. Because that’s when we get the new office.

M: That’s cool. When all the guests come down, you could shoot like ten episodes of the X Report and then release them post-event.

S: We definitely need to focus a lot on media coverage.

E: Dude that’s what we missed out the last two years. That’s a huge factor there.

S: And not just beforehand, but during the event.

E: And after.

S: And after.

E: Well look, here’s what we want to do this year. Basically get a camera and have like…

M: I got a camera now.

E: Like a wireless HDMI type camera where we can have it roaming around. And say like…

S: Ahh! Arturo Sanchez Rape Cam.

E: Yeah. So say Momochi’s playing on stage we can go up to Choco sitting in the crowd, and ask her. You know while they’re doing a button check, instead of people watching button checks…

M: Watch Choco.

E: Yeah! Watch Choco. Watch Choco, what does she think is going to happen in this match. You know how does he do in this matchup. Stuff like that. And have more crowd interaction and stuff.

S: But also…the way it was last year, basically people started arriving a week before the event. I think that, recording that and putting it up?

I think would also be good for the event.

E: I agree.

One of the highest viewed videos for us was basically Mago and Tokido doing bench presses.

So it’s good to see them out of their natural habitat.

M: Yeah, imagine if you film like the zoo trip or like the stripper’s trip…oh sorry. But…

E: We never film that. You know that Muttons.

M: That’s true. But people would like to see that right?

E: Yeah, of course.

14- M: Shoutouts? Last thoughts?

E: Look I made a mistake on Cross Counter when I went to give a shoutouts to all the communities all there and I missed a few. So first off, Kuwait. Shoutouts to those guys. Saudi Arabia.

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan. France. Germany, Sweden, U.K.

S: How about the world.

E: Singapore…everyone…

M: New Caledonia.

E: Yeah New Caledonia, don’t forget them!

All the South Americans. New Zealand. Any Antarcticans if there is any playing there.

I’m sure there is. I reckon there is.

Make a documentary. Go to Antarctica and see if anyone’s playing Street Fighter.

M: 3 Green Bars: Antarctica.

S: (Laughs.)

M: Speaking of which, is he coming down?

S: Cpt Munta, yeah.

E: I hope so. His wife just had a kid recently in the last week so. Congratulations to him.

S: Didn’t he say the reason that 3 Green Bars isn’t on anymore is because he’s moving to Europe?

M: Oh yeah! And his wife is moving to Germany or something, for work or for family reasons?

E: That’s alright. Now we have like a European correspondent.

S: Ah yeah. That’s a good idea.

E: Yeah.

Well yeah, like you said. Shoutouts to the world. We love you guys. Thanks for supporting Shadowloo throughout the years and hopefully we can support you guys back.

M: Cool.

S: Thank you very much.

E: Thanks guys.

M: Cheers man.

Edit: If that’s wasn’t enough EXC355UM for you, you can also check out my very first interview that I did with him back in late 2010.

Melbourne Player Profile: EXC355UM

I haven’t been back for years now, so I figure that while I’m back for two weeks visiting family it would be a good opportunity to check the place out.

I get to Bugis around 4PM and try to find my way around. It’s the 21^st of December, just a few days before Christmas and a Wednesday, so I wonder what the crowd will be like in the arcade.

Now I actually grew up in Malaysia, so I have no idea how to navigate Singapore’s geography. I can’t differentiate Wisma Atria from Takashimaya or from any other shopping mall on Orchard Road. But as my friend tells me, the Bugis train station feeds directly into the basement of Bugis Junction. And the arcade itself is in the basement or B1 floor of the mall. So how can I go wrong?

Apparently I still can.

I wander around the basement for nearly half an hour trying to find the damn arcade. I keep circling back to the store directory and checking the map out. The only thing that looks like an arcade on the list is something called Virtualand, and it’s in the corner of the map right there. How the hell do I get to it! Urrgh.

Apparently one of the few things that I am actually worse at than playing fighting games is simple navigation.

After walking past Cold Storage for the umpteenth time, I finally realize that I have to go outside the basement food court to find the arcade. I go out the door, and find myself in an outdoors corridor- a shopping arcade, much like a little street in between the feet of the buildings. I walk down the corridor and, finally! I spot an escalator leading downstairs with a large sign saying “Virtualand” on it.

I make my way down the escalator, and the first thought that comes to mind is; waitaminute, this place looks familiar…

I’ve been in this arcade before! Back when I was in the army, my buddy Daniel brought me to this very arcade to play some LAN games. (That must’ve been the first I ever played Left4Dead.) This must’ve been in late 2007 or 2008, so it was definitely before arcade SFIV came out and thus must be why this place never clicked in my memory.

So this is the SFIV hub that everyone has been talking about. I take a quick look around; the place looks the same as I remember, a large basement floor with multiple wings.

The major difference from the place that I remember is that one of those wings now features multiple SFIV: AE machines against the wall beneath a giant big screen with a direct feed from the cabs, and even more cabinets on the side.

I notice another wing with a similar Tekken setup, but I don’t look around too much further- I want to get some games in!

I make a beeline to the counter and ask about tokens. They tell me they use a card system, so I quickly whip out twenty bucks and get one made.

I quickly walk back over to the cabinets, feeling the dry thirst festering in my mouth from having not played in a while, pick a middle cab and sit down. I swipe my card and hammer at the start button. I don’t bother to check my credits- I figure I’ll just play until my card is depleted.

I feel a bit out of sync immediately. A Blanka jumps in on me and I do my dragon punch motion and hit the button- too late. I eat the jump in. This happens quite a few times, and it immediately feels like there’s a difference in timing between the Bugis cabs and the cabs I’m used to back home. Maybe it’s something mental, or just a byproduct of not having touched a stick in nearly two weeks. In any case, I quickly adjust after two or three games, and start hitting my links and anti-airs with no further problems.

I’m having a blast. There are so many cabinets that I get a lot more character variety to play against, as compared to the Ryu fest I normally encounter in Bluehouse and its measly four cabinets.

About the only character that I seemed to play a lot that day was Blanka. Another common occurrence I saw that day was the “buddy system”; people sharing a credit and swapping out what I assume to be the lesser player for the better one when they lost a round. I don’t really see this a lot in Melbourne, but it seems to be quite common here. To be honest, personally I don’t quite like it. What’s the point of calling on your better buddy to take over when you lose? Sure you get the win, but you don’t get to improve. You can’t actually improve without losing. And that is the whole point to me of going to an arcade.

And at one time there were three or four Blanka players there, two of which were using the buddy system! So it was Blanka galore for a while there. But it’s okay; I suck at the Blanka matchup so I was quite happy to get the practice in against a variety of different levels of Blanka players and playstyles.

I even learned something new. You know how when Blanka does his slide he’s really low to the ground but you can still punish with cmk tatsu, which would normally whiff on crouching opponents? So the slide even though it looks really low, must still have a hurtbox that counts as standing.

So I assumed the same would happen with his Ultra 2. One time a Blanka player attempted to chip me out with Ultra 2, and I jumped with roundhouse and did cmk tatsu. The jump in and cmk hit, but the tatsu whiffed clean over him, and I lost the game and round because of that. I was pretty surprised when that happened, but the next game he tried to do the same thing, and I made sure not to whiff this time by doing cmk EX fireball FADC Ultra instead to take the game.  I guess it might be that Blanka’s Ultra 2 counts as crouching or has a weird hurtbox. Or it could even be the range. But at least I learned something new that day.

Another thing that I noticed right away was that every game was best of three rounds, not like Melbourne where it is usually best of five rounds for each credit. When I started playing I didn’t think too much about it.

About two hours into playing, I started wondering about it. Usually twenty bucks in the Melbourne arcade only lasts about an hour for me if I get to play continuously, which I usually don’t.

Here at Bugis I was playing non-stop and after two hours my credits still hadn’t run out. And it’s not like I was going on long win streaks or anything, I was losing at my usual rate; which is to say, a lot. I would sometimes have mini win streaks of three or four, but I would more commonly have streaks where I would lose nine straight games to a certain Zangief player and things like that.

So I finally turned my head to the player next to me and asked, “Excuse me, out of curiosity, how much is one credit here?”

He looked at me and raised all five fingers on his right palm to me. “Fifty cents,” he replied.

Fifty frickin’ cents!!!

I’m so used to paying a dollar per game in Melbourne, and even two dollars for a few months when AE first came out that fifty cents per play just seems almost too good to be true.  So that explains why I was able to play for two hours non-stop and not run out of credits!

Most excellent.

(I would later go on to play from 430 PM to about 730 PM. Three hours on twenty dollars!!!! Okay maybe that might seem expensive to local Singaporeans, but to a mediocre SF player from Australia like me, that seems really freaking cheap.)

After I recovered from the major butter that was the price per game in Singapore, I started looking around me a bit more.

One thing that felt kind of different were the amount of people simply standing and watching.

In Melbourne, sometimes you have people standing and watching too. But when there’s an empty cab opening up, best beware that people are going to jump on as quick as possible and get their games on.

I was able to play non-stop because, simply put, there were a lot of empty cabs. I was more or less able to play on the same middle cab for three hours, and rarely would the cab to my right and left be occupied.

This felt strange to me, because every time I looked back over my shoulder I would see at least seven or eight people just standing there and watching. There were a lot of cabs at Bugis, way more than ten and I think maybe twelve or sixteen in total? So to me the proportion of players playing, empty cabs, and spectators always felt a little weird. I think the number of spectators were almost always about two thirds of the number of people actually sitting down and playing.

To me, that feels really weird. When there’s so many empty cabs around, why not just sit down and play? (Especially at a mere fifty cents a pop.)

I suppose it might also have to do with the Bugis setup.  As I’ve mentioned before, with multiple cabinets against the far wall, a big screen above them, a few more cabs on the sides, and a big standing area in the centre for people to watch, it definitely feels like it is setup for easy and large spectatorship.  Which again, is a little different from Melbourne’s smaller and more cramped arcades.

Later on I had dinner with my buddy Dan, and I queried him about this weird phenomenon I had seen at the arcade. He bluntly told me; “Singaporeans don’t like to lose in front of other people. A lot of eyepower only.”

Huh. Being from around here, I kind of know what he is talking about, but I’m not sure how much of that is true. But it is pretty interesting to see how the different cultures of countries can perhaps affect how people approach playing in the arcade.

For instance you can say that Australians are more laidback, and willing to give things a shot and therefore have no fear about jumping on a cab and getting bodied…okay Sweeping Generalisations Police please come blow my brains away right about now.

But that also made me remember a conversation I had with Gootecks at Shadowloo Showdown 2011. Being completely ignorant about the Singapore scene I had asked him about the size of the Singaporean scene compared to the American scene, kind of implying that I thought it was a lot smaller by comparison. Gootecks was quite quick to cut down my assumption down to size, saying that from what he heard, Singapore had a huge scene, with tons of arcades and cabinets and players, and it was only their tournament scene that was relatively small in comparison to all of that.

I remember being both surprised and quite interested about why that was. If they have possibly the biggest arcade scene in Asia, second to only Japan, I wonder why they would have a smaller base of tournament players by comparison?

Huh. I guess culture must/might have a lot to do with it. (Feel free to correct me about all this, I’m sure more informed people will be able to  discuss this more accurately.) But after experiencing Battle Medley Singapore in 2010, I already knew firsthand that their scene is loud and pretty damn hype, so at least finally I get to try out the arcades here too.

I wonder if there’s a hierarchy to the setups. Perhaps the cabs next to me are empty because the middle setups are linked to the big screen, and people who desire ignominy would therefore only play on the side setups? I really don’t know.

But I had a lot of fun. I noticed Singapore Ryu players love to focus. I hit quite a few Ryu players with one of my favourite tricks; a full screen hadoken to bait focus absorb backdash and buffer Super until I see the flash of focus.  And in general, (this seems to be a common things with arcade players around the world as compared to training room/console monsters), their players seem to have a more aggressive, predictive style. They were good at recognizing patterns, and willing to do unsafe stuff predicting something you would do.

For example I ate at least one or two full screen tatsus to the face through my fireball from every Ryu player I faced. Predictive tatsu is not something I do often; it doesn’t really fit my safe, (robotic) style. But the Ryus did not seem to have any qualms about doing it. Maybe my fireball game is just that easy to suss out.

And guys, let me tell you; all around the world things are exactly the same.  People around the world all mash uppercut.

Some things are just universal.

While I was there I kept an eye out for any familiar faces. Unfortunately the number of Singaporean players I know by face I probably can count on one hand. I know Farpenoodle (Yu Sheng) from JB, and Xian and Kevin from Shadowloo Showdown, but I figured they would still be in SoCal. (It was the week after SoCal Regionals.) I also know a few people from Battle Medley Singapore like Yagami and Tetra, but I didn’t see anybody I recognized. Oh well, I was just grateful to have an abundance of opponents to play. Too bad it was still vanilla AE. (Zhen Wei, aka Jpage let me know that Bugis got AE 2012 just a few days after I went there. Damn.)

That Zangief player I mentioned earlier eventually had a thirty game win streak, and I had the pleasure of breaking his streak. Of course, I personally must’ve contributed at least ten wins to that count, so maybe I shouldn’t be bragging.

I noticed how smart the Gief player was. He would do really far jump fierces early in the round, too far to combo from, but it would just catch me if I threw a fireball. Sometimes when I blocked it he would walk forward just a tick and jab SPD me from there, so far away. So disgusting.

I finally started dragon punching him out of it, anticipating him doing it early in the round. I started wondering why he kept doing it when I was starting to consistently DP it.

In the third round, I found out why. He jumped from the exact same range…I anticipated the fierce and DPed…he didn’t press a button and my DP whiffed up into the air…I fell right into his warm, hairy arms and ate Ultra.

He was feeding me this free, relatively insignificant damage early in the game to condition me, so that he could bait me with something big when it came down to clutch time. So smart.

I noticed another thing he would catch onto was me doing jump back fierces on his wakeup. One of my favourite things to do to Zangief is to walk into Gief after I knock him down…get my nose right up in that ass to make him think I am gonna throw/meaty, and suddenly do jump back fierce, which beats both lariat and SPD, and keeps me safe from any backdash SPD bullshit.

I did that one or two times, and he caught on so fast. Once when my life was down to almost nothing, I went for the safe option and went for jump back fierce and he read me like a book and went for green hand, which made him whiff right under me, and SPDed when I landed. So smart. Or perhaps more that I was being too obvious and dumb.

Finally it was time to go, and I left to go for dinner. A good solid three hours of leveling up for less than twenty bucks! (I finally noticed the number that flashed whenever I swiped my card had dropped from forty something to the low teens.) Good shit.

As I was about to head back up the escalator, the Seth player I had been versing earlier ran out after me. I had left my arcade card behind on the machine, and he ran out to give it to me before I left.

Thank you for your kindness sir.

Post article edit:

Later on I visited two more Virtualands at Ang Mo Kio and Bishan and got a ton of games in. Even these smaller arcades had like four setups in excellent condition that puts GC and Bluehouse cabs to shame! As I walked around Nex in Serangoon I saw yet another Virtualand but didn’t get the chance to go in.

Singapore has this train system that goes around the island, and generally you have a big shopping mall smack right on top or near the train station. And that is where you find your arcades. In Melbourne we kind of have malls near the big train stations too, imagine if most of them had an arcade in them! I’m really envious now.

I guess I must have taken the abundance of arcades in Singapore for granted when living there, only years later when I started playing SFIV in Melbourne do I feel the big difference.

At Bishan I was playing a couple of kids before the adults started showing up. Eventually they all got sick of playing me. Finally, I extended a credit to a little boy and asked him if he wanted to play. He looked and me and said; “Don’t want. I already got. ON PSP!”

And then he gave me a raspberry.

I remember the day Chris came over to my house to talk about passing the responsibility over to me. I came down in my red marshmallow t-shirt and we had a serious talk about it. He chose me because a. I lived close to the Collingwood Library, b. I had Fridays off, and c. he felt that I had the passion to keep it going, and that he could trust me.

I remember thinking at that time that I had the utmost respect for Chris, that I was really sad to see him retire (he has since come back), that mostly I didn’t want to let Chris down, and that I can’t let this great community event that he founded fall by the wayside.

2011 was a year of growth for the community, and also for me personally. I learned a lot about being an organiser and participated way more in the organisational part of things than I did last year. Part of the reason why I volunteered to run Marvel at BAM was because every time at CCH when Ali would be running the tournament and have to put the brackets down because he had to go play a match, I would look at the thing and really want to pick it up and keep the ball going, but I couldn’t because I had no idea how to run brackets!

It’s not rocket science I know, but I’m the type of guy that won’t want to pick up something unless I know exactly what the hell I’m doing first. That’s why I’m also reluctant to play new games without first putting my training room time in too. Call me fussy or whatever.

But in any case now I feel that I can pick up the brackets whenever there is a lull, and I feel way more competent/actually useful now. I am bracket noob.

Now I don’t know why, but I’ve always tried to keep my CCH organisational stuff away from my blog. Not sure why. Maybe a business and pleasure don’t mix kind of thing?

So this is a first for me, talking about it here. So first I’ll try to recap my first year in charge, and then go into a new segment I’m trying out which is also borne from my tournament organisation experiences; What Grinds My Gears.

CCH 2011 Recap

So a year later, I would grade my overall performance a C+. For a variety of reasons.

One thing that I wanted to do right was to keep the scheduling as consistent as possible.

Come hell or high water, I always tried to keep CCH on the second and fourth Friday of the month. I always felt that having a consistent schedule is really necessary to build up a regular attendance. Especially this year with Melbourne’s crazy tournament schedule being all over the place, I wanted to keep CCH’s scheduling rock solid.

I always base it off Couchwarriors also being very consistently on the first weekend of the month (though this year they’ve have venue scheduling problems as well), and work off that. The other thing I try to do is post up the Ozhadou/Shadowloo thread on the same day- the Monday before CCH Friday, and have two months of advance dates posted on the threads, so people know the confirmed dates way in advance.

I’ve got my little calendar going and stuff, and trying to book next year’s dates…if only the library would be a little quicker in their response time.

So I think I’m kind of satisfied with my performance in that part of the job. But people still come up and ask me all the time if CCH is running! So if people would like things done differently, please let me know!

But I think I’ve done poorly in other areas. Especially in situations as Cartman would say; when I should really try to exert more of my authoritah.

But I believe CCH is and should be a community event. And it should be less of what one person or group wants, and more of what everybody wants. And when it comes to policy changes I will make it a point to talk to every CCH regular to get a general opinion before I make any changes.

This year thankfully opening up has not been a problem so far. The big problem for me was I started working full-time on Friday. Since I get off at 5:30, I really have to haul ass to get to the library before six to get the keys.

Even though generally if I make it to the train on time I get there 5:40ish, I know full well that any train delay or mishap (and they happen too damn often in Melbourne) can mean that I’m well and truly fucked.

Luckily, I’m blessed with two stalwart fail-safes: Burnout and Vitriol. Lord Vitriol (Andrew) doesn’t work on Fridays, so I can summon his reliable presence early to CCH if I sense any problems on my end early.

And Burnout, the Korean shampoo star, is always there like half an hour early. So many times I have run from the train station, my bag jumping all over my bag and panting like the out of shape asshole I am, all the way to the library- only to discover Burnout already calmly sitting under the tree doing something on his laptop and looking over serenely like an owl. Doh.

Should have just called Kevin.

But lockup has been a big problem. To the point where the library has complained several times about the condition the room has been left in.

I take full responsibility for that, because I have left early at times, and given the key to the other people that stayed late to lock up. Which was bad decision making on my part.

I am not blaming anybody, the key is my responsibility, and the name is booked under my name so I will make sure that from now on only members of the trusted Fellowship of the Key (Ali, Andrew, Syntax, Burnout) may be trusted to lock up CCH, and if the last remaining Key Holder may choose to leave at 1130 PM to catch the last train, then that’s when CCH will close shop.

To lose this venue over something so stupid would be a criminal waste, and would eternally dishonor the name of the Founder, Chris M.F. Dang.

The second thing is a little drama that happened recently.

I’m not going to talk about it too much, save to say that Andrew, myself, and ALI (you’re not going anywhere buddy) are going to sit down and discuss CCH policy for next year when I get back from Singapore. I’ve started talking to people and getting a general idea of people’s opinions and getting a lot of good ideas/suggestions to boot.

We’re going to work things through democratically and give the community the community event that they want.

One thing I will say; I personally have had problems before with how Ali does things. But that’s okay. I talk to him about it, and he talks to me about it if he has a problem with how I do things. Nobody’s perfect. God knows I’ve made so many mistakes myself. And communication is key to any collaboration.

But I always know that his and the Shadowloo guys’ hearts have always been in the right place. And you can question the way they do things. That’s all right. Have a rational discussion with them about it. But don’t question that their heart is in the wrong place, that they’re not doing it for the community.

That’s all I gotta say about it.

So about next year, come and talk to me if you have something to share or talk about.

It’s interesting how different people have different perspectives. For example I always talk to guys like Andrew and Spoony about CCH. And they know exactly who contributes what, bringing gear and setups and whatnot.

And I recently talked to Somniac, a top player. He generally comes late, and when I talked to him, he didn’t have a clear idea of who was bringing what. And that’s okay. He comes from a “top player” state of mind, and had other great ideas to contribute. It just made me realise I generally talk more about this kind of stuff with people with a more “community centred” state of mind. Again, sweeping, sweeping generalisations. But it’s interesting to see the different perspectives, and realize that I need to get more feedback from different kind of people.

What Grinds My Gears

This is a new segment I’m trying out. I have actually had this ready to go for quite some time now. But I was hesitant to post it because, well, my personal policy is to stay out of any drama, much less create it.

But as I’ve said before, part of the whole organizational experience I’ve had this year was to experience the bad side of things. The crappy side of things. The things Ali and Loki have to deal with long after all of us- the players, leave to go eat and have fun and talk shit.

This is not aimed at anyone specifically, but I just want to have a go at this and see if I make sense.

About what grinds my gears.

1.      Not many sticks today hey mate?

 Fighting game player rocks up to event in his car. Brings no gear of his own.

Looks around and says “Not many sticks/setups today hey mate?”

To which I have to say; bring your own fucking stick.

I understand that people come from work, come from social things or whatever, and don’t bring anything. That’s completely fine.

Just don’t have the big rusted brass balls to complain about it if you do.

2.      The trash can is so far…so far….

 How many times after CCH do I have to watch guys like Ali stoop over and throw away other people’s stinking trash? Like he was their mother or something?

Do you think Ali takes so much steroids and does so much gym time just so that he has the muscles to throw away your garbage??? That’s a pretty roided up Mom if you ask me.

Every time without fail after CCH I look outside to see pizza boxes, food wrappers and bottles on the bench outside underneath the tree. On the tables inside. Even in the fucking toilet.

Do you think the dingy Collingwood library has the dough to afford magical cleaning fairies that descend from the heavens to throw away your trash for you?

Dude, the trash can is literally two metres away. Clean up after yourself.

I sit there all the time and I’ve seen many, many people finish their food, and then go play. Leaving their trash there. Why can’t you take four steps to the right and simply dump your trash before you go on playing? Is the dude you’re FT5ing gonna pick up for you if he loses?

3.      Dude, your stick is fimble.

 I’ve had this complaint directed to me plenty over the recent months.

To which I should reply; why the fuck do you think it’s fimble??

Because I’ve brought my stick to every event and major I’ve attended for years. People banged on my stick at BAM and SS for hours on end.

Do you think it might get a little worn down?

I know people don’t bring their sticks to events because of this very reason. They are afraid mashers will damage their stick.

That’s completely fine; no one can force you to bring your stick. That’s your own prerogative.

Just stop yourself and think before you complain about the community sticks being shit if you don’t bring yours.

Another point to consider before complaining; I’ve, recently due to all the complaints, bought a new JLF and replaced the one in my stick.

You know who has to pay for it?

Me.

Am I still going to bring it to events to get worn down?

Yes.

Not trying to toot my own horn here. But complainers really grind my gears.

But in the future, perhaps some of the funds from CCH venue fees can go into a “community gear fund” which might not get big enough to afford actual sticks, but could be a funds pool for anyone who brings gear to this event to draw from to buy JLFs, buttons, and what not to repair their damaged stuff. (Somniac’s suggestion.)

4.      My car is too small for my Xbox.

 Okay, I’m not trying to point fingers here.

But don’t you think it’s funny that most of the regular setups at CCH are brought by people who don’t drive? (By regular I mean people who bring their setups every time they show up, not once in two months.)

Me, Burnout/Spoony, Andrew. The other regular setups are brought by Ali and crew who drive. (Carbuncle has also become a regular recently. Chris Ho brings an entire setup with two sticks all by himself on foot. What a boss.) That’s 3 out of the 4 regular setups.

Again, I don’t want to toot my own horn, but if I can lug my setup on my back on foot to work and to CCH, and if three other guys can lug setups to CCH via foot, tram and train, why can’t people who drive throw an Xbox into their backseat?

It’s a pity we can’t store gear at Collingwood. But I have to be completely honest and say that I’ve never much felt like buying a car until I started lugging shit around for Street Fighter events!

5.      Man, CCH ends so early. I only played for two hours.

 CCH starts at six PM. I know that it may be tough to get there right away after work, through rush hour traffic or what not. But if you get there at seven, and CCH generally closes at midnight or later, you get at least five, six hours of play.

Don’t rock up at nine or ten and complain about lack of playing time. That’s on you to show up earlier, not on the organizers to stay late to accommodate your sleeping schedule.

Alright, that’s enough vitriol for now. I’ve said my piece, and that’s enough of being an asshole for me.

Let me reiterate yet again, I’m not pointing fingers at anybody. Just remember that this is a community. Nobody is paying anybody for this shit; we all do this out of our spare time and love for the community.

So a little consideration for others and common sense will go a long way.

Have a happy holidays everybody, I’ll see you guys when I get back.

So I played around a bit in training mode and here is what I found before I had to go to dinner.

Midscreen counter hit EX fireball with no FADC into Ultra 1 makes all the hits from the Ultra hit. Not sure if this was there before, but that does 408 damage.

Counter hit EX fireball into Ultra 2 does 516 damage.

With the +10 damage to HP DP and Solar Plexus Strike, the old classic f+HP, cHP, DP now does 318 damage, 460 stun.

Yes! I am so happy about this following thing.

My favourite combo in Super SFIV can now be done on Chun Li again. f+HP, cMP, cMP, cMK, tatsu. I used to love doing this to Chun Li in Super, and I’m really glad to see it back!

It does 322 damage, 470 stun.

Here comes a part I don’t understand. In AE I thought the cmk had less range, and so did a variety of top players. But when the hitbox data came out, a lot of people told me the range was exactly the same, but only the hurtbox changed. A lot of people on the SRK Ryu forums voiced as much.

So if the range didn’t change, and only the active frames got reduced, why did the f+HP, cMP, cMP, cMK tatsu combo not work in AE? Does it have something to do with the active frames? Hmm….

I played around with the air tatsu. Offensive air tatsu is back, and seems to be the same range with Super. Combos into Super midscreen, Ultra in the corner as per normal. The obvious downside is the short window you have to time it correctly. Do it too early or late and you get the hovercopter and eat big punish to face.

But that’s a great change. The offensive air tatsu and the +10 damage to fireballs meaning I don’t lose the fireball/Dhalsim stand fierce trade anymore really helps a lot in the Sim vs. Ryu matchup.

I screwed around with counterhit close stand roundhouse. I tried it on Chun and Ryu, and for the life of me I couldn’t connect sweep after the CH csHK. CH csHK cMP sweep worked on Chun though.

Interestingly enough, when I made the dummy crouch, CH csHK comboed into sweep really easily! Which might be useful since your counterhits generally catch people crouch teching anyway.

Anyway I gather that CH csHK followups will be highly character specific, and crouch/stand specific and will require much more testing from me.

HP DP. Feels good, can’t FADC or Super cancel or juggle in the corner after lk tatsu though.

clk clp MP/LP DP FADC works but clk clp clp LP DP FADC is a no go. cMP cHP MDP FADC seems to work on everybody but I don’t think cMP cHP LDP FADC is universal.

Again this means more character specific combos to really optimise your damage,and I definitely need some training room time to rework my muscle memory so I can do cLK cLP HP/MP DP depending on the situation automatically and naturally.

There was a rumour that the fireball speeds have changed. I cannot confirm this just with the naked eye, hopefully someone will have concrete evidence soon. If it’s true then I am very pleased with this change! (Assuming it’s a slower LP fireball and a faster HP fireball.)

To be totally honest; I know almost nothing about esports. I only play fighting games, and have little to no interest in other competitive games.

In short, I am ignorant.

So I find the whole esports discussion to be a bit mystifying but so, so interesting at the same time.

I watched Wednesday Nights Fights this week and saw AJ sit up there with Kelly. They were having a discussion about esports, and AJ was having the typical “the word esports is wack” discussion. She obviously was coming from some sort of role in esports, and I found it very interesting that she simply couldn’t understand why AJ would hate the word esports so much.

I was having this conversation with Spoony and Igor.

It’s like how the majority of my friends come up to me and say; “Why don’t you like… Iphones!“

It is a deep mystery to them that I do not feel the soul-consuming urge to purchase this phone. It’s an Iphone!

It’s esports!

Just because something is overwhelmingly popular doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for the individual. Or in this case, the community.

I find it interesting that people can’t wrap their heads around that fact. I guess they’re so used to it being the establishment or the norm that it seems ridiculous to them that people would choose otherwise.

So I found Kelly’s reaction to be quite fascinating. Because it’s the reaction from the other side that I seldom see- the reaction from the esports side, being the dumb, ignorant fighting game centric player that I am.

So while I’m too ignorant to be able to pick a side yet or have an useful opinion, when I find clear headed discussion about this issue, I read it immediately because I simply want to find out more.

And you probably can’t get a better primer about the whole situation than UltraDavid’s article:

Momentum Matters: A Historical Perspective on the FGC and Esports Communities

Read it, now.

P.S. I had a slow weekend, but I did enjoy a particular scoreline on the weekend that proved my rampant pessimism over the last two weeks to be completely unwarranted.

Hee.

In the article, he discusses very interesting concepts to learning such as chunking and scaffolding and how you can apply that to your self-development in fighting games.

Here’s a healthy excerpt below, and I highly recommend to everyone to go to SRK, check the full article out, and perhaps leave a comment or thought.

“What Is Chunking?

Believe it or not, the human brain actually has a RAM limit. It can think about approximately seven things at once (give or take depending on the person.) However, what a “thing” is, is pretty amorphous, so the human brain saves mental RAM by clustering several objects together as one “thing.” This is called Chunking, and here is an example. Highlight and read the string of random numbers below. Then un-highlight and try to recall it.

13568453674

How did you do? Was it difficult?

Now do the same with this phone number.

1-(356)-845-3674

Easier? Here’s why. The random string of numbers gives your brain twelve things to remember, which is more than its RAM can hold. The phone number, on the other hand, only has four things to remember, in this case four groups of numbers, making it much easier to remember.

What does this all have to do with fighting games? Combos my friend. Combos. Even the most basic Marvel 3 air-combo (L, M, H, S, jump, M, M, H, S) breaks the brain’s RAM limit. However, to compensate we use chunking to group series of inputs together as individual items to remember. In psychology, Chunks in motor learning are defined as everything that takes place between pauses in successive action. The super jump cancel in this case is the pause, and so we think of LMHSjump and MMHS as two separate chunks. So how can we use this to our advantage?

Well first of all, never try to learn a combo that breaks the brain’s RAM limit all at once. This is failing proposition from the get go. Instead, identify where the pauses are in a combo string. Jump cancels, slow and easy links, wall and ground bounces, and supers or other cinematic actions like command hits/throws are all areas where you experience a pause in your inputs, and these are the areas the brain is most likely to develop chunks. Practice these areas individually, and your brain will develop muscle memory far quicker than if you were trying to learn them all at once.

Secondly, identify areas that aren’t chunks and treat them as such. When the brain attempts to recall an input that it doesn’t actually have in working memory, the result is panicked mashing because the brain doesn’t actually have a muscle memory queued up to recall. So no matter how perfect your DP execution is normally, you’ll still screw it up a few times when you integrate it into a combo.

You probably had an experience like this when you were first learning how to FADC. You would perform a move, input the FADC command, and then mash the next move out like crazy hoping that it hit, and this probably didn’t work too well. This is because an FADC isn’t a chunk, and you are treating it as if it were, i.e. you were treating the FADC itself and the move that came after it as two separate mental objects. There is no pause in inputs from the move that started the FADC, the FADC itself, and the move that follows the FADC, and so the whole command must be treated as one smooth movement in muscle memory. Similarly, canceling a special into a super is also one fluid movement, and should be treated as its own chunk. By trying to think of each move individually, you will simply reduce your chances of hitting both.”

Great stuff sir, looking forward to the next part.

Oh my fucking god. COMEBACKFIEND strikes again.

My favourite part was when both Clockwork and Alex Valle go crazy and jump up to pose in the picture with Combofiend like a bunch of giddy schoolkids!

The expression says it all...

Filed under: Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Tagged: Alex Valle, Combofiend, Comebackfiend, DiosX, HE PICKED HIM UP, Now that is a Spencer ]]> http://beingascrub.com/2011/11/22/he-picked-him-up-he-picked-him-up/feed/ 0 turdpolish Clockovercombo http://beingascrub.com/2011/11/22/couchwarriors-2011-final-round-recap-discovering-new-she-hulk-tech-_/ http://beingascrub.com/2011/11/22/couchwarriors-2011-final-round-recap-discovering-new-she-hulk-tech-_/#comments Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:05:06 +0000 muttonhead http://beingascrub.com/?p=2446 Continue reading →]]> Edit: Added Burnout’s behind the scenes footage

I wanted to get there early to test out some UMVC3, but I got held up by something. I can’t remember. It was either laundry or Dark Souls. Anyway…

I get my ass over to Box Hill and walk into the Hive for the last time. I say hi to everyone, and watch people play a few games. Funnily enough, I originally thought I would be extremely excited to sit down and have a few games of UMVC3.

But when I actually got there, all I wanted to do was to get my hands on the game and have some long hours alone with it in training mode. The thought of sitting down and just playing without the training room time just didn’t appeal to me very much. Huh.

I did have a couple of conversations with some of the guys who have had extensive time with the game, like Loki who told me all about Nemesis and a few other characters.

Eventually I sat down to have a few games to warm up for the UMVC3 tournament, and boy was I salty.

Because you know, when you sit down with a new game, you expect to discover new shiny things your character can do, or some kind of new technology to apply.

You don’t expect to discover additional freaking nerfs.

See, when I heard about the TAC whiff glitch being taken out, I was like, fine. I’ll just do runners stance cancel relaunch with She-Hulk instead. When I heard the increased pushback of torpedo would make midscreen runners stance relaunch impossible I was pretty disappointed. But at least I can still use Spencer assist to get a relaunch, I told myself.

So I tested it out, and as you know, you can’t call assists in Marvel 3 when doing a special move.

So to use Spencer’s assist to bring him down again after OTG torpedo, you do runners stance, run (call Spencer assist), and do torpedo.

See, the runner’s stance and torpedo were considered special moves, so if you input the assist then, nothing would come out. You need to do it during the run itself.

So I tried it out, pressing Spencer assist during the run. And nothing came out.

At first I thought I was just fucking it up, but I realised that it just wasn’t coming out.

They must’ve changed the property of the run so that you can no longer call assist during it. WTF???

So now not only did I lose my two regular relaunch methods with She-Hulk, I can’t even use my assist to get a relaunch?

…

And I discovered even more joyous changes to She-Hulk during tournament. For example, doing the super in the corner makes you reverse direction and come at the opponent the other way during the second hit. You have to reverse your qcf S command to hit the opponent for the second hit, and that threw me off a few times in tournament. It felt like a totally unnecessary change to me.

I then realised that also means when you do the super with the opponent in the corner, you basically knock him OUT of the corner. WTF????????

So now I lose my post-super corner oki with She-Hulk too? (The majority of her resets and mix-ups work best with the opponent in the corner, post-Super/OTG torpedo.) Wowee….huzzah…. yay, Capcom.

I managed to test that the command grab raw tag trick still worked though. But bleah. I had a bad taste in my mouth from all the discovered nerfs and I knew then and there that this would be the last time I would ever play She-Hulk in tournament.

But Jenny still did pretty good for me. I got 4^th or 5^th in the UMVC3 tournament, I think. (I won 2 games in top 8, not sure what my actual final placing is.)

With the craptastic UMVC3 She-Hulk, and me being limited to my day 1 no relaunch BnB. Woo!

To be honest, there were a few factors contributing to my fraudulent placing. A lot of the players were trying the new characters in tournament, whereas I stuck to my old team.  A few top players like Toxy, Shadowfox and SGMike didn’t show up. And I had a lot of luck on my side.

Another important small detail to my placing was that there was a setup left on the side during top 8, and I quickly used the time to tinker with my Taskmaster BnB to make it work. To keep it really simple, I would try to do cM H f+H jM jM f+H jM jM jS b+H S sjM sjM sjf+H sjM sjM sjS otg H arrows diagonal super.

But I noticed that Task’s normals float the opponent quite a bit higher. Ironically this makes connecting the Shield skills after the ground double spidey swing way, way easier (This was the most troublesome part of the combo for me in vanilla Marvel 3). But I kept dropping the final sj M M S in UMVC3 partly because the opponent’s body gets knocked too high. But I tinkered around and found out that replacing the second sjM after the launcher with a sj H fixed the problem, knocking the opponent down so that the rest of the combo would consistently hit.

And knowing that I had a combo that actually worked now was really good, not only for my match execution, but also for my overall confidence.

I eventually lost to Marco, an actual Marvel player, but I had a fighting chance in the end.  At the very end he did Wesker counter super and I tried to command grab him with Spencer. I guess I must be too used to She-Hulk’s grab instead because I did the H one which is the anti-air grab with Spencer. So it whiffed and then he killed me. Doh.

I wasn’t salty to lose to Marco at all despite my big fimble because I know he’s really good at Marvel, and that I really suck at Marvel. To be frank, getting as far as I did is kind of miraculous.

I even beat Kyle in tournament. As I’ve mentioned before, Kyle’s team rapes the shit out of mine.

And I could sense in his beady little eyes, as he swept me over with a dismissive gaze while sitting down, that he was really confident in beating me (as he should be.) And I could also hear Ali trolling me on the mic during our match as well.

But somehow I won.

I got really lucky with a happy birthday, and in quite a few other instances.

Marvel. You random-ass, scrubtastic, anything can happen, disgusting game. Where frauds and sinners are born every damn day.

I have this weird theory that all the trolling I get on the mic, all the margarine and sarcastic Muttonfiend comments…all this reverse karma built up over time. And gifted me this fraudulent victory.

To which I say, up yours Ali!

I did okay in AE as well. We did Swiss, and I found out that I made top 8 again when playing Carnage in casuals. I beat Alex C for the first time in my life during swiss too.

I felt so terrified when playing him- Alex plays Cammy like its MVC3 Wolverine or something. Non-stop dive kicks to the face, just relentless, overpowering pressure.

I just blocked and prayed and tried to weather the storm and concentrate on punishing when I got the opportunity.  It was so close- but I punished one of his errors hard to take it. I think I’ve never held down back into the corner of the gate as hard as I did before until I played Alex.

I also lost to Burnout and Sol in swiss…Sol used Fei Long against me and made quick work of me. And I keep losing to Kevin and his Oni recently. Rargh.

In top 8 I beat Tai’s Cody and lost to Dave’s (Bosslogic’s) Bison.

I played pretty well against Tai, and I felt pretty good about my loss to Dave.

The last time I played Dave in tournament, he crushed me on stream. I didn’t touch him at all.

But when I played him this time, I lost the first game but I surprised myself by coming back strong to win the second game. And it was anybody’s round until I decided I would try to punish his Devil’s reverse with Super.

See I know that Dave knows that I can punish his Devil’s reverse with low forward xx special. So he would try to bait it by flying in and pulling back just out of low forward range. So I knew he was going to pull back and not actually try to hit me with it. I figured I would call his bluff and just super him.

But I must’ve did it too late, or mistimed it somehow, but he landed and blocked it in time. It was always going to be pretty hard for me after that with no meter, and I lost the round and set.

But I least I gave him a game and had a chance to win at the end. Which is a big improvement over the last time we played. So I’m pretty happy with that.

So Couchwarriors is done for another year. It’s been a few years now, and who knows what 2012 will bring. At least I ended the season on a personal high note with a good double top 8 placing. I hope the good result will carry onto next year and I finally stop going 0-2!

My immediate response is a look of disgust- why would anyone want to see that? A) Heavy doesn’t even play Marvel, and B) even though I play it, I’m horrible at the game. So at the time I thought it was just a joke.

But when Heavy showed up, it became apparent to me that it was actually gonna happen. So I figured what the hell, it might be fun.

I didn’t realize the crowd it would gather, and Heavy even had a mini-session of Marvel whispering with Toxy beforehand.

So it was time and I went to go sit down at the setup. Everyone was crowding around and watching. I tried not to be nervous and I did my best to block out the sound of the crowd.

(Also, be sure to check Kevin’s (Burnout) guest article on Shadowloo: It’s Melbourne Baby! I really enjoyed the piece, good shit Kev. I still remember the first time I saw you outside CCH, and it already feels like you’ve been in the scene for a long-ass time already. Kev’s a great example of how integrating new blood to the community can produce people who become really integral and super helpful/important parts of the community.)

I think I did a good job of blocking out the audience noise initially, but I quickly fell behind to 4-2.

When I got it to 4-3 after Heavy was on set point, I kind of keeled over in relief and I started hearing the crowd again.

Everyone was so hype and yelling and screaming. What the hell?

I didn’t really understand it- we were so fimble…dropping combos and doing stupid shit galore. I kept sliding into Sentinel low M like an idiot and I did not hit a single Taskmaster combo. At least I got one thing from the crowd- they kept yelling to just do combo into super when I kept dropping my combos- I eventually gave up trying to do the BnB and just went right into Super which helped a lot.

I felt that I played really badly and fimbled a lot but at least it seemed that everyone was entertained and had a good time. I eventually came back and won 5-4…you can in see my face in the video that I’m so disgusted with my play and at the same time you can clearly see this huge look of relief!

So it was pretty exciting and I had a good time. Even if the two of us are mega fimblers.

We even had a rematch the next week at SNL.

I felt more solid in my play- and I think the matches showed that. Of course, there was still a lot of hilarious fimbality- like my double screw up tiger knee grapple and just do Bionic Arm anyway and still hit hilarity. I remember looking away from the screen in disgust when I saw I fimbled the tiger knee grapple and I looked back and was so shocked to see that the Bionic arm actually hit! Oh god…

One interesting thing that I noted about the two sets was how my warmup affected my play in the sets.

With HW vs Muttons I, my only practice beforehand was to lose 26 straight games in a set to Kyle. Now playing against Kyle’s team (Trish, Dorm, Akuma) is not fun at all with my team.

He puts the trap on the floor, jumps up and places trap, calls Akuma assist, dashes back and throws fireballs. I just have to block, block, block, block with She-Hulk and try to get in without losing too much life, which is so hard.

He just keeps running to the corner, but what Kyle is really good at is recognizing the crucial range and timing when I would try to make my move, and he would suddenly interrupt his zoning to dive kick with Trish or Shield Skills with Taskmaster. And I invariably ate it every time.

So since this set with Kyle was primarily an extremely frustrating exercise in blocking Trish fireball, I never got to flex my offensive Marvel muscle memory, or you know- actually do a combo. So when I played HeavyWeapons, I basically fimbled everything.

But when HW vs Muttons II happened, I played a set with Fish’s friend (I think his name is Phil?). He used Wolverine, Dante, Haggar I think? Anyway he was bodying me at the start, but I adapted better and we were even trading games near the end. I was able to get into a rhythm and apply my hit confirms, resets, and offense. I felt that I learned something from the set and actually improved my game.

So when I played Heavy later, I felt a lot more confident and in command of my characters.

That’s when I noticed the different effects my warmup with different people and playstyles had on me.

I guess I can apply that in tournament. Before I play AE for example, it might not be the best idea to hunt down Toxy for some casuals. It’s important to realize that when warming up just before you play in tournament, you need to warm up your muscle memory and confidence and find a suitable opponent that will allow you to do so. Somebody who is way above your level or perhaps somebody with an overly defensive playstyle might not be the best choice.

Casuals is for leveling up and getting beat down or learning to deal with a frustrating matchup. Warmups is a totally different thing.

I haven’t been very smart about this before, and I should definitely bring this lesson with me to my future tournaments.

come hither...

I think most people that know me also know that I am a fanatic devourer of fighting game podcasts. And I listen regularly to Wakeup SRK.

But this episode has to be one of my favourite ones in a long time.

Mainly because I could listen to Viscant talk about fighting games all day, every day.

I love how he approaches fighting games and intelligently breaks them down. He’s a thinking man’s player, and that’s how I want to develop my game and brain as well.

So I highly recommend anyone that is interested in UMVC3 to have a listen to this one. In this episode they go through all the changes for the old characters and the new characters, and their thoughts on the new game mechanics, tiers, new trends etc.

A lot of what Viscant talked about really hit home for me. Especially when he talked about She-Hulk and her changes (spoiler: overrated and overnerfed.)

I found the conversation mirroring a lot of discussions I’ve had with other people about UMVC3. Air X-factor and Dark Phoenix. Wolverine. And I discovered more delightful nuggets of information from the podcast such as Phoenix Wright’s dog assist alternate colours being Amaterasu’s colours and markings. So you can air-dash high with Ammie and call Phoenix’s assist low. Double Dog attack!

http://shoryuken.com/2011/11/02/wakeup-shoryuken-e077-ultimate-mvc3-preview-special-with-viscant/

Edit: Also check out Goodpart’s excellent Fei Long option select video. It’s really good to see such great content being produced in Australia.

BAM 2011 Results

Berserk’s writeup on Kotaku

Stream archive can be found here:

Friday

Andrew (VITRIOL) and I head down from our room in the CQ around 7pm. A whole bunch of guys are already there. Bugs is setting up the stream, and Loki and his crew are moving stuff around.

We actually had quite a large number of people show up for setup this BAM, with even guys like Burnout and Somniac showing up later. We finish around 11, and Andrew does the responsible thing as he has to run AE tomorrow and hits the sack right away. Since I only have to run Marvel on Sunday, I figured I could get some practice games in Ricecooker’s room.

I do okay against Rice, Zero and Beefspecial- but when Beef whips out his Blanka, I immediately lose six straight games.

Kon (Ricecooker) says I tend to freeze up under rushdown/pressure and I would agree.  I feel way more comfortable walking back and forth against Beef’s Dee Jay, just chilling and throwing fireballs.

I tried to do the stand block and reversal Ultra trick against Blanka’s wakeup EX up ball, but I only succeeded one out of three times. The timing is so strict. Since you have to stand block it, if you hold back just a little bit earlier you walk slightly back and the Ultra won’t catch the up ball.

I hate this matchup, and I’m happy about the Blanka EX up ball changes. I don’t mind getting knocked down on hit if I can also get to punish it consistently on block.

I sneak back to the room, and unlike most nights before a big tournament where I lie in bed thinking about the day ahead, this time I conk out almost immediately. Blackness.

Saturday

I head down for setup, and the whole CW staff is already there. I meet up with Spoony and talk a bit about tomorrow. I feel pretty relaxed and well-rested. My energy levels are high, and I’m feeling good about things.

Bugs and his stream crew

Pretty much a completely different feeling from Shadowloo Showdown where it was so hectic and tiring from the get go. Having so many people enter AE and ten million international guests will do that for you. I remember at Shadowloo Showdown there was this huge line early in the morning, but at BAM around the same time this morning people are still slowly trickling in. I help out a bit with registration but I leave after a bit- I don’t want to step on Javi’s toes, and he seems to have things well-covered.

BAM really benefitted from the monthly Couchwarriors staff meetings- we have ample staff for every position, and everyone knows their set roles and responsibilities. There’s Bata and Javi sitting at the registration desk, Bugs has pre-planned multiple shifts for his stream team, Loki is doing brackets and we have different teams of judges for every game. The main thing I like about our multiple teams of bracket staff is that the big boss, Loki, does not ever have to step on the floor and handle a bracket, freeing himself up for the more important and big picture stuff.

close enough?

Take Spoony and I for example. We had four judges ready to go for Marvel- Syntax, Bernard, Gab and Shadowfox (with Anthony as a backup) even though it turned out we didn’t even need that many people. We even had people coming in from other organizations to help run things, such as Dna and his Guf crew who became part of the CW meetings and eventually helped run AE brackets. So it was really cool to see all this collaboration.

People start coming in and registration is going pretty smoothly. I have a bit of spare time to walk around and talk to people. Even guys like Igor who I haven’t seen in ages. I even see guys from Bluehouse like that Bison who I call “That Bison Guy” in my arcade battle log. I discover that his actual tag is Eveazn and he and his Cody buddy even ask me to join teams. I didn’t really want to enter teams so I direct them to Beefspecial who was looking for a team earlier. It’s kinda cool to be able to finally put a tag to some of the faces.

My job for the day is to be the match organizer for the stream. I go back and forth between the bracket organizers for AE, in this case Andrew and Chris Ho from Galactic Circus, and line up good matches for the stream. I try to keep at least two matches lined up after the match currently playing and sit the players on the red couches directly behind the stream setup.

I had fun. Andrew and Chris were very helpful and by the end of the day we settled into a rhythm and pretty much they had matches lined up for me every time I walked over. I noticed that I quickly ended up not paying very much attention to what was going on the big screen- I just wanted every match to finish a swift 2-0!

The BAM magazines arrive, and I buy two copies of Double KO. It looks great; Dave did a sick job on designing the whole thing. The Ryu and Sagat covers, the layout, everything looked so good.

It’s kind of impressive that the whole thing came together so fast. I think like three weeks before BAM there was still hardly any content for the magazine, and I didn’t think that it was actually gonna happen. Fast forward two weeks later and we had multiple interviews, player profiles, a Melbourne terminology guide and sections for each game.  Dave put it all together in one sexy package and Bugs put it to print. Wow.

Loki even wrote a troll “fake Muttons callout” editorial, in which I call out the whole community in abrasive fashion and promise to beat down everybody with my Hello Kitty purse.  Dave even made a little cute Muttons logo to go with it. Great job guys, I had a good laugh.

I was a little disappointed that they changed my power grid categories for the player profiles though. I originally had pretty wacky categories to replace the more mundane categories such as power/rushdown, defense/runaway etc.  I’ll put them here:

Power Grid Legend (Scale 1-5)

Clinginess: This is how much the player wants to get up in your face, rush you down, and keep you under his thumb. Players with high Clinginess are very aggressive, and always want to keep their arms tightly around you.

Fear of Commitment: Players with high FoC always want to maintain space from their opponents. They prefer to fight at a distance, and avoid close encounters. They also take their time in making decisions, and would prefer for you to make the first move.

Fimble factor: The title is self-explanatory; how prone a player is to fimbling something. Out of the blue or in the clutch, due to his poor execution or nerves. It may also apply to other negative things- pure bad luck for example. Opponents mysteriously falling out of Ultras, or perennially bad brackets!

Lack of Conscience: Just how much the player does not give a fuck. He will uppercut without meter, random Ultra from full screen with a complete lack of remorse. He will go all in, every single time. The Carnage factor. It’s not random if it hits right?

Romance: The X-factor. That something extra in his game; be it charisma, flashiness, or impossibly good looks. This is how much inherent hype the player brings into the room, and affects how readily the loving masses declare him to be their People’s Champion.

Dave changed the categories to more standard things like In Your Face replacing Clinginess and Got Game replacing Romance. I guess it makes it easier for a wider audience to understand the power grid, but it just isn’t gay enough for me.

Goddamn it, I put in a lot of time writing the legend specifically for these homoerotic categories, and Spoony and I even took a lot of time coming up with ratings for each player. Now you take away my Romance category?!?!?!

Nah it’s all good. You did a great job Dave.

One last thing…this might seem like a petty gripe. But I noticed that a few top players didn’t buy the magazine- because they said they could just get it later for free from Dave.

C’mon guys, it’s only two freaking bucks! I could have done the same thing and gotten a copy from Dave but I bought two copies because a) I wanted to keep a copy for myself, and b) I wanted to support the work that all the guys put into it. I think it’s kind of missing the point if you just grab a copy off them. Just put in a measly two bucks and support your buddy’s work!

Don’t be such hockas… Okay, okay, rant over.

I notice Shang Tsung and Afterdeath in the crowd. Shang Tsung in particular put on an amazing performance in AE singles. I went over and shook his hand, and despite his “Australian Murderface” face, he’s extremely chill and nice guy.

I remember asking him; “So with Bomb leaving Australia, who do you think will be the best in Sydney now?’

He looked straight with me with a completely straight face and dead serious eyes and said with no hesitation; “Me.”

Now I remember Shang Tsung coming onto the scene, trash talkin’ and calling people out in the Ozhadou thread. I remember thinking at the time; who’s this pad Bison player who actually has the cojones to call out dudes like Crazyfreerider and Humanbomb of all people, to a moneymatch having never even played in an offline tournament before?

But as the legend goes; he showed up true to his word and took his lickings and after that the Sydney community took him in and he became one of their top players.

I think that’s a really rare and truly the stuff of legends- a trash talking online warrior who actually backed up his talk, but when talking to Zan- he thought that wasn’t such a rare thing. He thought that a lot of top players are who they are because they put themselves out there and kinda put themselves into situations where they actually have to back it up.

So I think Shang’s confidence is a large part of why he is so good. And I only wish I could have a little more of that kind of confidence in me.

Personally, I did shit in AE. The only person I beat was, no offence sir, a male Chun Li cosplayer by the name of BiosB. He was clearly new to the game, and he didn’t even know we were allowed to play on pad!

So I went over and grabbed a 360 pad for him, and we played. He was taking rounds off me just doing sonic boom, down roundhouse, sonic boom, down roundhouse.

I don’t know what the hell I was doing.

At first I tried to DP in between the hits of the down roundhouse but I kept screwing it up or trading. Finally I managed to focus through the second hit for a big punish, but it only took me what? Three, four times to actually do it? FAIL.

I swear I got even more mindfucked after the match because I was playing so badly! Losing rounds to Guile sweep….

In that state of mind, I found out I had to play Phero next. Phero, obviously, is damn good. And he must have been looking to get some payback on my “model father to Phero JR” joke in Double KO because he pounded me hard. No hetero.

After I lost, I felt really salty. Not because I lost to Phero; I know Phero is better than me. But because I never really got into it…it seemed like I was playing at half-speed, really sluggishly and half in a daze. I never turned it up and just got rolled over. So I was really disappointed in myself.

But GG Phero senior!

My next opponent was William.

Funnily enough, the last guy that I played at the arcade before BAM was William’s Fei Long.

I lost most of my games in the arcade against him, but I would say I gave him a decent fight in most of the games.

I remember in the arcade when the round was about to start, I would be wary of immediate opening rekka. And I would do things like preemptive low forward/strong/stand jab/focus attack to kind of warn him off that.

And he never did it. He always waited a bit, or threw a feint to start the round.

But at BAM, I sat down and the first thing he did at the start of the round was rekka, rekka, rekka. I ate the whole thing, got up and ate another rekka, rekka, rekka to the face. Corner.

Then he would just rape the shit out of me in the corner, as Fei Longs are wont to do.

This seemed to happen just about every round, and before I knew it he just kept getting momentum and perfected me in the last round to win the set.

So I was out. GG William. He gave me this consolatory shoulder pat and smile, saying, “Bad matchup. Bad matchup.” Whereas I just had this expression of pure black gloomy sadface.

I tried to put it behind me, and went back to my steam hustler job. Ali soon took over my shift, and I got a chance to go sit down and play Ultimate Marvel and SFxTekken.

Now initially the first time I sat down to play Ultimate Marvel I was put off- not by the game, but apparently all the button layouts were screwed up. And you couldn’t actually access button config in this build. So after a few games I said fuck this, and went off to play SFxTekken.

Everyone really seemed to be enjoying this game, but I wasn’t really feeling it.

I sat down and was the boring asshole that tried to do low forward fireball and fireball shoryu traps. I didn’t really like the chain system; I think it’s kind of stupid and Marvel-lesque to have universal combo chains for each character. Like you do LMH, press another H for the launcher and auto-tag, and then you can do H xx special move with your partner.

This seemed to be the generic thing that everyone was doing, and it didn’t feel that much like Street Fighter to me…But to be fair I have only played SFII and SFIV. Maybe because I didn’t play things like Darkstalkers and Alpha I shouldn’t be talking too much…

What was more interesting to me was how guys like Carnage were instantly getting into the game and discovering things. He would play it for a bit and discover interesting things and tactics- like he would do charge fireball with Ryu for the super, dash forward to cancel it to bait the jump and then DP it. He would figure out all the weird inputs like D MP+MK for Pandora or raw tag inputs and things like that.

He was clearly enjoying himself and in his element. He was this explorer of the games quickly jumping onto things, while I was this guy still stuck in my old ways. Clearly Carnage has done this exploration of new fighting games many times before, and more importantly, in the pre-Youtube age.

Maybe that’s the difference between the brain of top player and a low-level player like me. How quickly and naturally they take to game mechanics and characters, and think about/approach new games.

I later got to play more of the two games when someone figured out how to configure the buttons (I think in Xbox dashboard) and in Loki’s room after Saturday was done.

While everyone was trying the new UMVC3 characters, again I was the only asshole who would continually pick his vanilla MVC3 team of She-Hulk, Taskmaster and Spencer. Team X-copy Combofiend.

So first off- She-Hulk’s new slide is ASS.

When I first heard about the nerf I was like; wait. I need that move to slide under disruptors and to punish beam supers and shit. How am I supposed to get in on asshole zoners like Deadpool and Magneto now? Also, comboing after the Take Out The Trash super is going to be way,way harder. And what about all her kara grab setups?

Previously I heard she got an air-dash to make up for the loss of the slide, which to me, feels  really wack on She-Hulk.

But in this build she does not have an air-dash.

And the slide now goes less than half the distance, while probably taking around the same number of frames. So previously she would slide across the ground really fast because of the sheer range of the move, now she kind of snails across the ground. It felt really shit to me. Now I’m just gonna feel pissed off whenever I look at Hawkeye doing his slide.

Not being able to chain Ls is to me also feels like an unnecessary nerf.

I tried the lamppost move- it is hella slow. Sure you can runner’s stance cancel it but it causes a wall-bounce so you can’t even do Super after it. WTF am I supposed to do with this slow-ass move? To me this feels like a “filler buff” where Capcom puts in useless changes to pacify you about the important things that they are taking away.

I wish I could do the runner’s stance cancel relaunch consistently enough to do some solid testing at BAM, but I also heard the torpedo has increased pushback, knocking the opponent further away. Obviously, that potentially makes midscreen runner’s stance cancel relaunch much harder or impossible, and with the removal of the TAC glitch, She-Hulk just lost her two viable relaunches. Yay.

So I’m seriously considering dropping She-Hulk now. Which I’m pissed about because I really, really like the character.  She just feels so solid to me and appeals to my play-style. Good normals, a great anti-air, damage and boobs. What more could I want?

On a more serious note, she’s definitely my best character and I’ve put quite a lot of time into her trying to get the more advanced executional stuff down. Oh well. I might just replace her with Doom. That new jS is so stupid…

I really don’t understand a lot of the changes Capcom made, not just with She-Hulk. For example, nerfing Tron’s Jump H and Haggar’s non-assist stuff….why Capcom? I understand nerfing their assists, but it’s not like they were great characters outside their assists so now…Tron’s just going to be bottom tier? Guys like Cap America definitely deserved their buffs, but buffs to characters like Dormammu and Doom? With that crazy new jS?

Also, I hate getting blown up by Sentinel, but in my opinion the Rocket Punch nerf is totally unwarranted. Especially after I saw Nemesis’s super, which is a full-screen tracking OTG projectile that ends with Nemesis jumping on the guy for an easy DHC second super. So you just do S, j M M H S and do that super from anywhere on screen which is even more brain dead than Sentinel’s old combo.

It’s not even the easy rocket punch into super that makes Sentinel good…anyway.

Edit: After talking to Gab, he reckons that it is the general hit stun nerf that causes them to flip out before the super hits them than an actual nerf to Rocket Punch. Hm. Editedit: In Max’s latest video he says the untechable knockdown time of the OTG rocket punch has been lowered significantly.

I tried Taskmaster and his Spidey Swing hits differently now, and it feels like you have to adjust the timing for all his BnBs. I haven’t gotten his advanced long combos down or I would’ve tested them more extensively, but from what I’ve heard, they are no longer possible which is a big bummer. Basically Taskmaster being not much a mixup character lost his main strength- his raw damage. The nerf of OTG arrows also really hurts my basic DHC setup…

His new command grab thing is pretty cool- you can cancel it and make it safe, and you can get Super or full combos after. Pretty nifty. But it can be blocked and I’m not sure whether using it in combos will actually do more damage. So I’m not sure of its practicality.

Spencer felt the same. His Death from Above move feels like it takes quite long to startup however. Not sure how effective it will be as an attack. Maybe it will be more of a combo tool.

The day starts winding down. The pool brackets are almost done and we almost have our top 8 for AE.

I had fun just walking around at this point. I spy a guy playing Dark Souls, so I sit down and watch a bit. I immediately decide what I will be doing for the next two weeks after BAM. The stream is going great, and we’re keeping to the schedule and look to be ending on time.

One thing that I made sure to do the whole day was to keep drinking litre after litre of water. And when the day was done even the lure of UMVC3 and SFxTekken in Loki’s room didn’t keep me up that late, and I went to bed around 1 AM. I wanted to keep my voice ready for running Marvel brackets. And after the weekend was done, I still felt pretty good physically. I didn’t fall sick or blow out my throat/voice which happened to me at both Shadowloo Showdowns. So I think I did a much better good job of looking after myself this time around.

So I was walking around and I heard this big buzz in the room, I walked over to the main stage and discovered that Sol had knocked Toxy into the losers bracket! I stood there for a moment thinking about the ramifications.

Now Sol is my good buddy, always offering me training, advice and lots of encouragement, and while I have never repaid his good faith with some actual results, I’ve always been really grateful for all his help. Now he has never won a major before, and in my opinion, knocking Toxy into loser’s had just greatly, greatly improved his chances of winning BAM.

So I was standing there feeling really good about my buddy’s chances. Of course, I had no idea about the cataclysmic events that were about to happen in the top 8 tomorrow…

To be continued in Part 2…

Being a cheap asian bastard, I’ve always thought; well nobody is paying for me for this. And the limited functions of the free wordpress interface serves me pretty well. So why pay money for something I don’t need?

But I finally decided to give it a try. It’s less than twenty bucks. And I’ve never had a domain to call my own before. What the hell.

I’ll still do things exactly the way I do them now- I just finally clicked the button.

At the time, I smiled, shook his hand and walked off. I didn’t feel that salty at the time, which Sol has told me probably means something is wrong with me. But now after the fact, I feel pretty disappointed. Primarily because Antman doesn’t really play SF4, and his main game is Marvel. But credit to Anthony, he played well and kept doing the things that I wasn’t punishing him for. (Jab Jab jump over and cross up Mk, or doing unsafe sweeps.) GGs man.

Maybe it’s the stream curse. So far, I’ve lost every single game I’ve played on stream.

But I’m really, really sick of losing the Ryu mirror. In arcades, online and in tournament.

The one good thing about losing on stream is that I can watch the match afterwards and review things.

Match starts at 47:30 (Double click to view)

In the first game I think I did pretty well. I pushed him back with my walking and anti-aired him more consistently.

The second game I either lost my concentration or stepped it down a gear, but he became the aggressor. The next two games I lost was because of a combination of basic mistakes I kept making.

1-      I kept getting hit by EX fireballs, which hurts because I would walk forward and exchange block damage, focus grey life in order to push him back/close distance, and then get hit by a EX fireball which would reset all that momentum and positioning I’ve worked so hard for.

2-      I never punished his sweeps. This seems to be a real big weakness of mine and one that I was personally kicking myself during the match. I think I was dividing my attention too much. Whereas I was being more predictable, Anthony had shown a propensity to do unexpected things such as random Tatsus, jump ins, sweeps and EX fireballs, and I was more concerned about blocking all the things he was doing then specifically trying to punish sweep. But I should have been doing it.

3-      He was doing a lot of basic clp clp blockstrings followed by crossup mk. All those things are autocorrect dp-able or I can do jump back fierce- anything is better than blocking it and eating more mixup. Maybe blocking it once or twice is okay but not over and over.

4-      I should have mixed up my blockstrings/tech throws. I kept walking forward and getting hit by him mashing crouch jab. I should have noticed that “Marvel habit” and just done a tight tick throw instead of walk forward delayed counterhits/throws. I’m pretty sure tight or immediate tick throws would’ve worked as jabs do not tech anything. Urgh.

5-      I should have baited his uppercut more. He had shown that he would uppercut in a lot of situations and I could have gotten big damage off those. And I think I did not uppercut enough myself and gave him too much respect.

A lot of simple basic errors that I kept making allowed Anthony to come back and beat me. Again while I’m disappointed in myself, it was good being able to watch myself making those mistakes.

Also, I noticed myself making more execution errors as the game went on and maybe as I lost my composure. In the earlier rounds I was hitting my stuff, and hitting even the difficult or high level stuff I was going for. In the last game not only did I miss a very crucial cmp chp tatsu combo that I should hit in my sleep…I also got a super instead of a DP which basically blew all my meter and almost any chance of me coming back.

Things didn’t go much better for me after that- I lost to Ali and went 0-2 again.

Ali really has my number these days. I think the Akuma matchup is really one I need to work on as well. I feel so afraid of his sweep I’m scared to play footsies. Then I throw fireballs a lot which I find to be not very good against Akuma’s red fireballs and EX dive kicks. I have no choice but to try to block his vortex because of all his un-dpable dive kicks and whiff palm land behind shenanigans whereas he can just DP my crossups or teleport away. So I’m not sure what I should be doing in that match.

Somehow I did better in Marvel. I lost 26 straight games to Gab in casuals and my first match was against him on stream. Joy!

Fuck Wesker.

I was able to use some of my new tech that I’ve been working on, but overall I got bodied by the same shit. Wolverine and Wesker.

I also played Fish on the stream and everyone was going crazy during my match. Yelling a lot, chanting “muttonfiend”…I found it all extremely distracting and just wished everyone would shut the hell up!

I also found it weird that people were getting so hype when I was clearly playing so bad. Maybe it’s the underdog factor? I don’t know.

Anyway I played like shit and hit two lucky bionic arms and killed Fish the second game, even managing to fimble the OTG grapple after the first one which would’ve made the dramatic last Bionic Arm completely unnecessary. And everybody went nuts. Again I don’t understand it. It was just two scrubby bionic arms. AND I lost the next game and the set.

Oh well. At least I had some kind of fun.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I actually really enjoy Shadowfox and Anthony’s Marvel commentary. Good natured humour and hype. Good shit.

This is my second time at Shadowloo Night Live, and I have to say I’ve been enjoying the new location. Brunswick is more central and it’s only a twenty, twenty five minute tram or train ride from the city. Which is pretty good for me.

Quite importantly, it’s right next to the train/tram station. For people like me who don’t drive and often lug setups to events, that is quite a good thing!

Everyone seemed to have fun, and having a fortnightly stream will also be really good for the Melbourne scene. I like the fact that the event is in a actual suburb and we can go out for drinks and food and have a good time instead of being stuck with Encore pizza at CCH and Domino’s/Subway at Deakin all the time!

So good shit to the Shadowloo guys for finding this venue, and Bugs for lugging his stream setup there. You guys rock.