Ah OHN.

I had so much fun last year at OHNX. The hype, Melbourne vs. Sydney in Marvel, the KG moneymatches, and way too many popoffs to even count.

More importantly, the schnitzel at the Bavarian Beer Garden, and the ribs at Hurricanes, and the incredible popping-off-the-buttons-off-her-shirt bustiness of the waitresses at the Beer Garden…

Good times.

I always enjoy interstate majors for a very selfish reason.

I don’t have to do shit!

Don’t have to sleep and wake up early to set up stuff. Don’t have to run anything.

Just play all day! Hang out and talk to people. Stay up late and play, eat and hang out some more. It’s bloody awesome.

This year I haven’t been posting much because I have actually been able to grind hard for once in preparation for a major.

The end result? Instead of having a feeling of uber-preparedness, I feel more keenly aware of my own deficiencies in my gameplay and my team. I know I’m not going to do well at OHN because after grinding so hard and so long, I simply know where I stand. My primary training partners have been Somniac, Daichi and Toxy, and while they’ve helped me immeasurably, they’ve also taught me two truths: Spencer is a sandbag and Magneto is a huge asshole. They’ve helped me come to the disappointing realisation that my team is just not that good or synergetic with Spencer on point. I need to drop Spencer for Magneto who can fully utilise Ammy assist with his insane high/low game. While it’s disappointing to realise that all the work I’ve put into Spencer is going to go down the drain, and that I don’t actually have time to learn Magneto in time for OHN, at least well- I know where I stand.

(A lot of people have tried to dissuade me from dropping Spencer, but it just boils down to this. Spencer is a pressure character, not a mixup character. And Ammy assist does not cover his approach so that he can get in easily to apply his pressure like his better assists do, like Taskmaster/Hawkeye/Akuma or Dr Strange. His high/low game is very seeable, especially when compared to the gigantic- tap-dancin’ on your head- double overhead tri-dash L asshole Magneto.)

And my AE game has dropped a lot quite a bit since I have been grinding Marvel a ton. But it’s all good. I am realistic and will be happy enough if I play to the best of my ability, I’m not expecting any miracle results. (Especially since I have Tom first round in Marvel.)

But I’m looking forward to the hype, and cheering Melbourne boys on, especially my training partners.

There’s been a lot of trash talk going on, and personally- I’m not really happy with a lot of it. But that’s just me, and of course people are welcome to do what they want. I’m just not the kind of guy to trash talk people, so I try to stay out of it. (Though I do seem to get popped on a lot. Which mystifies me because why would you pop off on someone’s who ass.)

Also, I don’t believe in excess homerism…when people ask me (and I get asked semi-often) who my top ten in Australia for Marvel is, I always have to reply honestly and say: I really can’t say because I haven’t watched the other states play Marvel. While it’s easy to simply list the top ten guys as the top ten guys in your area that you see regularly, to me saying that is not giving an informed opinion. And I like to make informed decisions and opinions. So while it might seem like a bit of a copout to say “I haven’t seen enough of the other states to say”, that’s how I honestly feel.

Take the example of last year’s OHN. Nobody from Melbourne knew how good Arnold was until people started playing him in casuals. Everyone worried about Tom, then Toxy did well against him in casuals and the general optimism in the Melbourne camp went up. I’m just saying, nobody knows how good everybody else is until they’ve played them in person. Yeah, now that I think about it, I probably should have put a “unpopular decision alert” before my last two paragraphs.

So there’s been lots and lots of drama, and issues with the venue in terms of rego cap and top 4 timeslots… DISREGARD!

I just want to play, and enjoy the high level of play that’s going to be at OHN. Also, with all the OHN venue issues, I’m sure the TOs simply had to make the best of a bad situation. Sometimes it’s really easy to criticise without knowing about the hand-wringing and the heated back and forths that go into these unpopular but necessary decisions (I’m also guilty of this). So kudos to the OHN staff for putting this major together, I’m sure it will be great.

So I’ll be flying up with Rossco, Andrew, Pyro, Kevin, Bun, Fish and Loki this Friday morning, and rooming at the Mantra on Kent. I’m really looking forward to this weekend, and GGs in advance to everybody that I will play at OHN.

Yeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh