I originally wrote about this fight here at

https://beingascrub.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/evo-apac-recap-day-one-saturday-pools-and-facing-the-beast/

But now the video is actually up, and watching it brings all the feelings of humilation and shame back to me fresh as it were just yesterday.

A few notes:

-The pace of the match was a lot faster than I remembered.

-He killed me a lot faster than I remember in game 1 and 2. Daigo can warp time?!?!

-Youtube comment from burlystrapper: this is painful to watch. I wholeheartedly agree.

-I wrote earlier that Daigo didn’t jump at me, that is mostly true. Except for the three times he successfully jumped in on me at the start of the round with good prediction.

-The two fadc backdashes really still makes me wanna kill myself.

-Too many botched Focus attacks through fireballs for me.

-1:01. Incredibly fast reaction.

-In game 2, round 2, I already saw that he had super. In my head I was already thinking “Don’t get hit by crossup tatsu super. Don’t get hit by crossup tatsu super.” And he still got me!!!

-2:31. Execution error by me fortuitously helps me avoid getting perfected. If my motion wasn’t that sloppy though, I think my button press timing would’ve resulted in an proper autocorrect dp. Of course I rush in and die like a noob immediately after.

-3:19. I think my footsies was much better in game 3, but still rather robotic and defensive. Or in this case, PREDICTABLE. Daigo punishes me accordingly.

-Crucial execution error at 3:35. I had two bars and an Ultra, and if I didn’t fimble my combo and continued it into an srk into Ultra, I would’ve left him with a tiny bit of health. You can see my frustration right after, I knew I missed, and did a stupid desperation DP.

-I think in retrospect obviously the backdashes were a sign of extreme nervousness. At that time I thought I did a good job of calming down after the big two errors, but obviously I was lying to myself. I also should’ve changed my ground game after Daigo started adapting with FAs. I think I should’ve mixed in some cmk ex fireball, but I guess that’s not really my style, and in this case, my downfall.

-I wanted to play one game of Hakan against Daigo, but with the crowd around me, I was too scared to. I really regret that.

-So there you have it! What would a match between a scrub and the best in the world look like? Enjoy. In any case, it was one hell of an experience!

Watch other videos of people who are actually good at Street Fighter vs Daigo at

http://www.youtube.com/user/ozhadou#p/u

Read original section from EVO APAC Recap: Day One Saturday Pools and Facing the Beast

“But back to my match. I sat down and shook Daigo’s hand. I felt the weight of the crowd bearing down on me. Now, I just witnessed Daigo destroy many top players right before my eyes. I decided that I would never jump at Daigo, and just basically try to play this super safe ground game against him with cmk fireball.

I actually thought I did okay against him; at least I didn’t die very quickly by doing stupid stuff like jumping at him or anything. I played with discipline, and basically tried to fight a losing battle pitting my ground game against Daigo. Another thing I noticed was Daigo counterhitting the hell out of everybody who pressed crouch tech for massive damage, and I told myself to not press anything out of panic, and just block. Because of that, I think I actually lasted much longer than I should have. I didn’t die instantly when I got to the corner.

However, I experienced my first big time straight up mistake in a pressure setting. I actually got two big punish opportunities on Daigo. The first one was one I baited a dp from Daigo with an empty jump. And the second one I can’t remember but I think was also a big opportunity. And both times I punished with my heavy punisher; chp, hp srk, fadc ultra.

And. Both. Times. I backdashed out of the fadc and did ultra which missed completely!!!!!!

It was so humiliating, hearing the crowd around go Urghhhohhhh when I did that, and both times Daigo just got up and Ultraed me back and killed me. The second time he chuckled a little bit, got up and killed me. I remember the commentator saying “And even Daigo’s laughing now”.

Urgh. That was so shameful. The rest of the match I was actually proud of my play, but those two big mistakes were major mindfucks. I actually thought I played quite calmly, because I saw many people shake they heads and let go of their controllers when they missed something big and Daigo would then murder them with a big combo. I vowed not to do that in my match, and lose my composure. But in the end I made those two big mistakes.

Daigo also showed me some trademark adaptation skills. At first he gave me some leeway, trying to figure me out, trying to play cmk and fireballs against me. Afterwards he saw straight through my tactics, and quickly put me away by focusing through my fireballs for heavy punishes, dash Ultraing through my fireballs, and supering through my fireballs. He just adapted so fast. I remember he killed me with an almost spiteful Kara throw; I was turtling in the corner, and I remember the sound of him smacking the buttons so hard, and he just Kara threw me for the win so decisively.

When it was over, I took my photo with him and shook his hand and got the hell out of that crowd. It was still such a buzz to finally play my Ryu idol Daigo, and if I had the chance I wish I could play a hundred matches with him! One in a lifetime experience, and one that I definitely savoured.

Me and the Beast. from spencerwu.net

One last funny thing about my match that I remember was that Daigo didn’t jump at me at all. As I’m sure many of the people who play me know, one of my major weakness is very slow anti-air reaction time, which is ironic, because I play a shoto. I always let people jump in on me, and I struggle to be on point with my dps. Now I think Daigo saw me playing a patient, grounded Ryu, and thought that hey, this guy is a defensive Ryu who is trying to get me to jump, and has great anti-air reaction time. But ironically I don’t have a good anti-air game! And I’m pretty sure if he jumped in on me, the matches would take less than 30 seconds for him to KO me!”