Pschh... I own Muttons. By Shadowloo.
Update: Ozhadou Results thread.
And Shadowloo Recap with videos and stats.
To prepare for the ranbat today, I woke up early to grind in training mode for about 4 hours. I probably should have gone to the arcade to play some matches, but I wasn’t too keen on blowing even more cash at Bluehouse than I have already this week.
I worked on my Sagat safe jumps, did some ambiguous crossup with tatsu option select training (after I missed a few opportunities against Somniac’s Bison at Bluehouse), brushed up on all my combos and watched a ton of South Park as I did it.
Training room is really good for discovering the little tics and small flaws in your execution. I discovered than I tend to release MP+MK too early when I do certain FADC combos such as cmp chp SRK FADC Ultra. So today I worked on making sure that I hold the MP+MK buttons for a split second longer so I don’t screw up the dash.
Then I had some foul-tasting leftover lasagna, and headed over to the city to meet Andrew and Andre.
They met me at Flinders Street Station, and I notice THK following along and generally harassing them.
Unfortunately for THK, when we got on the train to Boxhill, the train was extremely packed. So we had to walk all the way back to the last carriage and squeeze in. I looked around at Andrew and Andre and said, “Hey. Where’s Tian?”
We all looked around for him confusedly. We finally saw him standing outside the train making WTF gestures with both his arms as the train door shut and the train slowly moved off. Why he didn’t simply follow us onto the train I will never know.
As Andrew would say; It’s Only THK.
We get there around six, and everyone is there already. The TEC brothers, Cactus, Zero, Toxy, Heavy, Melvin, Pyro…
I put my coin down behind two other coins and waited. After it seemed like people weren’t keeping track of the coin order and there were so many people waiting already, I simply gave up waiting for a game and went to play Bishi Bashi.
So it’s mostly my fault that I didn’t get to play a single game of warmup casuals, but it probably didn’t matter because I’ve been severely lacking in the confidence department recently. Every time I sit down to play in front of the arcade screen I feel that I am going to lose.
That’s obviously not a good thing for a wannabe tournament player to be feeling. But that’s obviously what I am at this point; just a wannabe.
But it was nice to walk around and talk to people. I think that’s pretty much my favourite part of Boxhill tournaments because casuals are hard to come by and I have no hope at winning matches in the tournament anyway.
I talk to Berzerk and we have a long talk about a new podcast thing we might do. It sounds great, and I’m looking forward to how it will pan out. Berzerk seems really confident and motivated to do it as well, which is a stark contrast to my usual pessimism. So we’ll see how that turns out.
I saw a lot of new faces there today; I think AE is drawing people out. I got to meet the Cody player who was bodying me at Bluehouse two days before; his name is Simon. At the risk of sounding like a fifth-grader, I will say that meeting new people through Street Fighter is a totally awesome thing. Especially if they turn out to be really good dudes like a Bugsimus, or a dude that makes me bend over laughing like Rossco- Zerokill.
Speaking of Bugs, he was my first match!
I told him that he would probably do much better against me if he took Bison, but he stuck to his guns with Juri, which I respect.
I remember he had some good pinwheel pressure, and that he teleported a lot against my crossups. I kept whiffing throws under him every time he teleported above my head and at that time I really didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
He played really grounded and not too dive-kick happy against me like some other Juri players do. But I think it might have been to his disadvantage. Because really dive-kick happy Juris always do really well against me!
In the end he got in a really nice clutch EX dive kick but he unluckily whiffed the Ultra. So I got a pretty lucky punish and KO when I should have lost. GG Bugs.
When we were both eliminated later we ended up playing all sorts of random games like Ghost Squad and that vertical scrolling plane shooter just in front of the SF machines.
I ended up blowing like 8 bucks just to get to the last stage of that game, with Wei and Zero subbing in for Bugs. Here I am constantly bemoaning the constant drain on my wallet that AE is, but I end up spending a big chunk of cash on random games!
I think I just wanted to drown out my saltiness by accomplishing something- anything really, in any kind of game.
I then lost my next game to Somniac. As I sat down to play my match I gave Naruga a deflated look. I’m not sure if he was looking. But I knew I was going to get bodied.
And thusly, he delivered, easily squishing me 3-0. GG Somniac.
He was really helpful later, giving me a lot of advice.
I really appreciate him trying to help me, but I felt that a lot of what he was telling me I’ve already heard before from all the Bisons that beat me. I think I already know mostly what I am doing wrong in the matchup, and what I need to improve on. But it’s just trying to apply it that’s a bitch.
For example, Somniac told me that after I block a short scissors kick to try and walk back and make the next one whiff. And then punish it with sweep or whatever I have.
And I know this; I have to actively try to make him whiff his scissors, not just block it. Toxy has given me this exact advice six-eight months ago, and I watched him do it in Ryu versus Bison matches.
Six to eight months later, I’m still not doing it. That reflects badly on me the player though, and not the people trying to help me.
On a more positive note, I was happy to see some of my good friends showing real strong signs of improvement; Andrew took a game off Phatkau, and Zerokill took a game off Naruga. I really rate Patrick and Naruga as players, so for Zero and Andrew to be taking games off players of that calibre is something that really impresses me and I hope that I can do that someday too.
My next match was against Kyle.
I wasn’t feeling confident at this point, but I was trying to focus and concentrate on the match as much as I could.
I sat down, staring straight ahead at the screen. I took a long breath and exhale; trying calm myself down.
The match starts. I lose round 1, because I eat a lot of crouching strongs and generally get outfootsied. I get hit by a few wall dives, and random EX horizontal flying attacks. I remember blocking a lot and being under a lot of pressure from his Vega.
Somewhere later in that match, I won two rounds…but I cannot for the life of me remember how I actually did it. I can’t actually remember hitting him that much at all…so where did his life go?!? I can only remember just the ending of the rounds and all the stuff I was doing wrong.
I think the second round I was just walking forward, stopped and then walked forward again. He reacted to that with an Ultra, so I just blocked it and punished for the KO.
I think by the third round I was concentrating on not playing footsies as per the advice of Pyro and Spoony and trying to zone him out instead. I think I was doing a good job of it for the most part because I had a small life lead late in the round, and I was concentrating extremely hard.
He suddenly hit me with a quick two hits and started backflipping/backdashing away like crazy.
I was confused; why was he doing that? Why didn’t he continue to pressure me for the win?
It soon became clear to me; time expired and he won with a time out victory.
I had been totally oblivious to the clock, having been concentrating so much on zoning and spacing. It was a smart play by him to hit me to get the slight lead, and then run away for the win. I felt like a total noob for not realising the clock situation.
Again, I do not remember how I managed to hit him in round 4, but I remember the ending. I had the lead, and he came at me with a desperation wall dive crossup and time was running down. I very deliberately eyeballed his wall dive to make sure he wasn’t going to fly away instead of hitting me and autocorrect DPed him for the KO.
So it came down to the last round.
On hindsight, when I think back to the match, I was way too impatient with my offense. Every time I got in with a blocked jump-in I was so eager for the oki setup that I went for throws way too many times. I should have been more patient and fished for counterhit setups more.
I got teched and low shorted out of my repeated throw attempts a lot. I should have recognised this and changed my attack patterns. This was probably a sign of my lack of composure.
But back to the last round.
I got a knockdown late in the round, and went for a safe jump crossup going from left to right.
He woke up with Ultra, going to the left.
I fully expected my character to crossup and land safely behind him, so I stupidly blocked forward down, in this case to the right.
I was already weighing in my head whether I should throw an Ultra after his Ultra…
But I landed in front of him and ate the whole thing. I was really surprised as I watched it hit me and ripped the rest of my life bar away for the match victory. I sat there for a while letting my mistake sink in, before I went to shake Kyle’s hand.
Urgh…what a stupid mistake. In this case, as I can see which direction his Ultra is going because of the Ultra flash, regardless of where my character was going to land, I should have just blocked it down back, in this case to the left.
If I landed behind, I’m safe because Vega flew off in the other direction and I get to punish, most probably for the win.
If I land in front, I get to block because it’s a safe jump and I get to punish, most probably for the win.
Instead I did the dumbest thing possible and assumed it would crossup and blocked the other way. And lost the match because of it.
While it’s a bitter loss to take, I guess I learned a couple very valuable lessons today.
1- Always be aware of the clock.
2- Just block down back when crossing up against a wake up Ultra and you can see the direction of the Ultra.
3- Be composed, and play for the long term. Don’t think short term and keep thinking “I want the knockdown…nownowNOW” and then becoming very predictable.
GG Kyle. When I lose to you, I find it very hard to take. But I think when I play you, you expose a lot of my shortcomings, and I should try to approach that as a way to learn and improve.
Hopefully I don’t make the same dumb mistakes again.
I had to leave early, because if I waited to watch the rest of the top 8, I probably would not be able to make the last train/tram. (And I wanted to go home and sulk.)
That’s gonna be a problem in the future, because I generally like to watch the top 8.
And if one day pigs can fly, Kobe goes to heaven, and I somehow miraculously make top 8, how am I gonna get back home?
I’ll guess I’ll think of something.
So that’s my recap of the first Boxhill ranbat of 2011. GGs to everybody, thanks to the organisers and good to see the ranbats on again!
Being a Scrub 
That’s actually how I’ve lost to Vega players before as well, I’ll take your advice about always blocking the correct way to the ultra animation.
Also if they Bloody High Claw desperation ultra, make sure you crouch before he jumps off the wall, it whiffs on crouching opponents – but it can be tricky to know which way to block if you’re standing.
I didn’t know about the whiff crouch of Ultra 1, that’s good to know.
I know it can crossup though and have also been hit by it before:
Cool read good stuff muttons, you’re steadily improving and that’s all that matters :D. We should play more Claw vs Ryu matches but I play Claw way differently to Kyle so it might not be that much of a help lol.
It was a good thing you didn’t Ultra his Ultra because you would have been very disappointed lol. Don’t OS anything on wake up as well just walk forward works very well when people do that when I play Claw 😦 and don’t bother making him lose charge the only thing threatening about vega is EX FBA and that’s down charge so you can never make him lose it.
I hope I can make one of these someday *starts dreaming*
Thanks. I will have a think about the walk forward on wakeup. Not sure if I have the reaction time to catch a backdash unless I option select it though.
Why can’t you make it? Take the train from the city to Boxhill, if it’s express it doesn’t take too long.
Its more or less my parents don’t want me out at like past 8pm 😦 unless I get a ride home QQ.
I mean like if you safe jump in don’t OS anything and don’t commit to anything but c.lk and c.lp. Claw can’t do anything except backflip in which you just either sweep or walk forward and sweep, the difference is pretty noticable one is fast which you just sweep and the long one is slow so you can walk forward and sweep.
For just walking forward, I would test it out but I’m pretty sure meaty c.mp will beat all non flip options he trys lol XD. Also don’t go for CH set-ups ever vs Claw unless they don’t press anything inbetween strings, because they will mash jab until you can’t reach Claw lol, which isn’t a good position for Ryu.
Next time you play Claw test out his ability to anti-air because that is like crucial because putting him in a corner is like a death sentence for Claw.
also dude vamg (Nam) was at BoxHill he played Gen did you see him?
Really? Oh man I didn’t know! I would have really liked to introduce myself to him in person.
Hey Mutton, enjoyed the read mate. I like how you are very analytical regarding matches you lost and you have a plan to improve those areas which is something I want to apply to my game.. but where to start!
I think the last time I was playing properly in an arcade I was playing the original Mortal Kombat. Anyway did you find yourself getting discouraged when you were first getting into the competitive scene? I got pretty well destroyed in both my matches last night (perfected in the final round of a mirror match) and I left feeling pretty flat.
It was pretty clear that my game is not up to scratch for offline play and Im undecided whether I should just grind it out in training mode and against cpu for a while until Im more proficient in my execution? Anyways Im moving house this weekend but hopefully be back online next week if you are looking for a real life training dummy to beat up 🙂
Cheers
Thanks man.
To answer your question, yes I definitely felt discouraged when I was first getting into the scene and getting my ass whupped all the time. But at the same time even though I was constantly getting destroyed, I was thinking “I’m pretty new, and these guys have been playing for a while. So I still have a lot of room to improve. Don’t worry too much, you’ll get there.”
So I didn’t feel THAT discouraged at the start of my tournament play. I figured with a lot of practice and dedication eventually I would catch up to those guys (How naive.).
But these days I tend to feel a bit more discouraged because having played a lot of SF in the last two years, I think I know my limitations/ceiling/weaknesses more clearly now, and am a bit more pessimistic or realistic about my chances of ever improving up to that level.
But don’t be discouraged man, you’re way better than I was when I was starting. Obviously having better execution helps, and a lot of training room doesn’t hurt.
But I think to really improve you just have to play against real people a lot. And I mean a LOT. And definitely more than I do at the moment.
Because things like footsies, spacing, mind games, reading the opponent etc is hard to work on just by yourself in training room or against the CPU. Those are are my weak points as well, and I also need to play more.
Looking forward to playing some more matches with you online.
Nice read Muttons, Boy does that photo of Kyle make him look all evil and dastardly. At least you can say that you broke your 0-2 hoodoo, I attribute my success to the awesomeness of AE Makoto, if it were console I would have definitely had a much harder time as my wins were against Hondas.
Still need to work on my game though, especially in regards to general blocking, safe-jumping and option-selects (and when to use them). Although that safe jump os u1 i hit against Phatkau’s Honda made me feel all tingly inside (which would have failed had he used mp/hp/ex buttslam). Same as you though i got stomped by Somniac’s Bison and then I got mind raped by Sol’s Abel (both 3-0). We just have to keep working on our games.
Btw it’s ‘It’s only THK’ as opposed to ‘That’s only THK.
Yeah he does, I personally think the picture is pretty awesome in the context of the post. Great job on the Shadowloo guys for taking a lot of great photos that I can mooch off!
Aha I knew I was getting the catchphrase wrong! Changing it asap.
It’s not just Makoto in AE, your wins are simply because you have been improving a lot!
I would be tingly inside as well if I did an os Ultra in a tourney match 😛
@ Paladinight If you just safejump Claw, no OS, and react punish the flips, Claw can just backdash, just like everybody else, it’s not really worth trying to react to that. Sure, he can’t do that if you you cross him up, but then you’re not pushing him into the corner.
To force a knocked down Claw to eat your throw/counterhit mixup, you want an OS which beats backdash & both flips.
@ Mutton re: the clock thing, if it was me, what I would take from that, would be more “I need to be more composed, and feel more comfortable zoning”, since I would assume most of the time you are aware of the clock (people generally are after playing as much as us), so in my usual overthinking way, I would look into what prevented me from bein aware of something like that.
@ nyarlathotep1 Come to something like Chris’s club house, or SF Higher Education, there’s usually a setup or two with lower skilled players duking it out, and even if they’re only “lower skilled” in the sense of tournament players, spending time sitting down and playing them will still help a lot more than playing top 8 dudes/CPU/online
@ Andrew I know I’m having a lot more trouble with your Makoto in Chocolate than I used to, I could just be getting worse, but I hope not considering how much I’ve been burning in the arcades.
@ General. So sad I couldn’t make it 😦
Sadly Ryu cannot OS to beat more than one option
OS sweep beats backdash, OS mk tastu beats KKK flip (I think it hits on the other side >_>) and walk forward sweep beats PPP flip; I think letting him backdash is okay especially if you were holding forward because you still have some momentum going.
Besides even if you OS sweep he’d just mix up flips with reversal FADC backwards. (I know I’m pretty pessimistic, sorry guys :/)
Can chun OS to beat flips and backdash from Claw O_O, I’ma try with Viper never needed to OS Claw on wake up before.
Mutton do OS super like a champ and feel amazing about yourself 😀
Okay, I went into training mode and went through all this, because I wasn’t really sure myself :).
OS mk tatsu punishes KKK flip AND backdash. It’s true it usually hits behind Ryu on KKK flip :(. OS forward fierce punishes backdash, and puts you in a good situation to punish PPP flip manually, and OS forward dash lets you manually punish both PPP flip and KKK flip, with a better combo than just walk forward I believe, although the difference is pretty minimal, and if Claw backdashes, it leaves you at frame advantage, in a position to continue pressure, so yeah I like that option.
But even though that’s looks like the best option to me, I still feel like mk tatsu and frd fierce should be mixed in there in there to keep the damn Claw players on their toes.
As for wakeup Focus into backdash, yeah, you just have to sweep that on reaction, which isn’t easy, although Mutton has done it to me more than once, and it is itself much harder to do than most reversal moves IMO.
As for Chunners, your options are OS sweep, which only beats back dash, OS forward dash, which works pretty much the same as Ryu’s, although it is 2 frames faster, so it might even let you punish backdash if you’re lucky, although that’s never happened to me, and OS U2 which punishes all options (>:D).
I will say that part of the reason I’m pushing the OS route, is that I know that Mutton’s OSs are better than his reactions 🙂
(And OS super would only work if he played Evil Ryu, although that would be awesome :D)
@ Paladinknight and Spoony: What Spoony said.
My testing also yielded similar results to you…mk tatsu or f+fp is probably the best option…And just sweep FADC backwards on reaction. Which I can do sometimes…but I can’t sweep backdash on reaction which IMO justifies some sort of os.
Again… what Spoony said!
On a noob note, yesterday when playing a Boxer who constantly did FADC backwards off my safe jumps I was just hovering my finger over low roundhouse, and hitting it whenever I saw armour flash.
Because I did that so many times, I was also sweeping him on hit as well. So I discovered I can hit confirm low sweep off a jump in roundhouse!?!?!
I’m sorry guys, that is somehow very amazing to me 😦
Previous post was me, I fail at internets 😦
I can’t reply anymoar bah rage.
Oh yeah I forgot to try forward fierce (I suck at it though -_-) sorry and I didn’t test for backbash off mk tastu sorry for that too.
Forward dash is interesting do you just do J.rh / hp f, f? and I shall now use OS u2 when I use chun with u2 lmao.
Basically OS Forward fierce is the best option because you can punish all options afterwards manually if you can differentiate between the flips and cover backdash :), GJ team lmao jks
That’s really good mutton, congrats that’s pretty hard to do it’s like trying to hit confirm Ultra off a single jump in. If you get to that level of hit confirming it’s like scary lol.
GG’s Muttons.
This is getting linked straight to my Facebook wall 😀
(BTW, the most true tag ever is “THK makes no sense.”)
Playing Street Fighter in competition is quite difficult. Sometimes I feel like I am improving, and learning all the time. Other times, I feel like a complete idiot. Directly following your match, I played against a Bison player I didn’t know, and played literally the worst match of my life. If I ever play that badly again, I’m going to take up competitive Bishi Bashi instead. At least my horrible execution won’t be too much of an issue.
I was so frustrated with that match that I’ve completely decided to abandon Vega. I’m still soul searching for a new main. He needs to be super cheap, that much I know.
One day, I’ll have to get you to teach me how to option select and use it in training mode. I’ve read about it online and watched tutorials, but I still Don’t Get It. Furthermore, I don’t know if I have the execution to really do it.
I don’t really remember much about the match, but I do remember throwing out the Ultra and looking at it and thinking that I was dead. I hardly “pwned” you, considering I beat you by time out and you forgot to block. (I call it the “Kyle-factor”.)
Regardless, good games, and we both know we’ll be playing each other in tournament again soon (because we always get the same bracket, no matter what.)
GGs Kyle.
Yep, I probably need a whole category entitled “THK makes no sense”.
Don’t worry, I am pretty much on the verge of joining you in becoming a competitive Bishi Bashi player as well.
I’m not sure if you need to abandon Vega. I think Vega and Guile both suit your strengths as a player. You have great patience, and you put that to very good use with both characters.
And I also know execution is one of your worries. While I wouldn’t say these two characters don’t require execution, I think they can be played effectively with a low-execution style. And if it works, so much the better.
I’m willing to teach you os anytime you want. It’s definitely not as complicated as you think, and some of them require very little execution. I guess to learn the most obvious option selects you must first ask yourself if you know how to set up a safe jump with your character. If you know how to do that, I can teach you how to os in less than 5 minutes. Maybe at CCH we can go into training room for a while?
Hey a win is a win. You got the victory, regardless of what dumb mistake I made.
So yeah, you pwned me. 😛