Playstation 4 Save Video Function is awesome + Drills, drills, drills

Had Kris Staltare over at my place last night and we played some sets. It’s so easy to just hit the “share” button on the stick and save the video straight to the PS4 without having to connect a device like an Avermedia LGP to the console!

I should save every set I ever play on my Playstation so that I can easily review my progress anytime I want. Should have done this from day 1!

I have so much I need to improve on.

I actually find, now that I’m spending significant time on SFV, that this game is hard.

Not hard in the way SFIV was mechanically – in fact I find combo execution is taking up much less time in my training mode routine. I mean more of the specific drills I’m finding myself running in SFV – drills that I’m finding absolutely essential.

Drills like:

1. Setting the dummy to do random recovery with a wakeup 3f jab and practice meatying all the different timings. (This includes meaty situations off combos and V-reversals.) I really struggle with this, especially with the difference between backrise/quickrise – my conversion into successful hit or recognition between the two is probably below 30% success rate.
2. Hit confirming into super from anything. I firmly believe getting a 100% success rate on your hit confirms into super with Ryu is key to any success with the character. Setting the dummy to random block and doing cmk/cmp hado into super, stand MP link into super, cmk into super (harder) but sometimes because of the range is still necessary, stand mk/stand lk V trigger hit confirms into super, stand jab crouch jab DP into super…I try to practice this every time I hit training mode. So far I’m seeing significant progress in my normal into hado into super but raw cmk into super remains a work in progress.
3. Dash up cLK cLP DP into super. This is essential to maintain a low threat from a dash or meaty. I recognised a fimble thing I was doing against Kris on his wake up. Dash up cMK hado. This is really bad because from that close the fireball is punishable. Not to mention you get zero oki after the fireball is blocked. You can tell I’m greedy to land super when I do that – but I should be doing cLK cLP instead for a proper low hit confirm/oki. The next step is to add stand/crouch hit confirms on top of that to do LK tatsu on stand hit for better oki ala Tokido.
4. Practicing defense against meaty throw/normals with jump OS or delayed tech. This has helped a lot.
5. Standing/crouching hit confirms. This is a particular deficiency of mine. Because SFIV Ryu rarely needed to confirm high/low. BnBs like cLK cLP cHP Tatsu force stand or cMP cMP cHK ignored crouching status. But in this game it matters a shit ton for Ryu. Confirming that standing hit and doing a tatsu instead of a fireball or EX fireball not only gets you way better damage and corner carry, it also saves you meter. Which is essential for that Super kill in the final round. I am experimenting with drills, but for now I make the dummy dash twice and jump up – landing into a crouch or a stand. I hit them when they land with stand MP stand MP/cMP stand LK/cLK cLP and try to hit confirm into Tatsu on stand and EX Tatsu/fireball on crouch. This leads me to my next drill…
6. Always input OS parry in every combo/blockstring I do. Even with the above stand/crouch hit confirm drill I do, I try to input OS parry on everything. It adds a bit more mechanical difficulty which further impairs my hit confirming but I figure it’s worth to thoroughly ensconce it into my muscle memory.
7. Can you think of any other drills I can add?

So when I say SFV is hard, I mean it’s harder than SFIV in different ways. Or perhaps just different – requiring the specific drills from above until I get used to the difference. Things like the layered wakeup timings or the specific hit confirms in this game.

Take cLK cLP DP for example. In SFIV you could link the DP after the cLP which made it significantly easier! In SFV you have to cancel the DP straight from the second light normal – which makes it much harder for me. It will come with practice though.

And I love practice.

 

 

Stuff Yo’ Couch Episode 3

This one took me a long-ass time to piece together. Stayed in the office till pretty late the whole week. I wonder if I can keep up this production schedule 😛 Ah well I will try my best.

The SFV launch tourney went awesome too. 80 plus people…it was like a BAM bracket. It was good to see a lot of old faces back, and some new faces as well. Hopefully it will gather momentum and we can get numbers akin to the heyday of SFIV. And then we’ll have numbers together with Smash to warrant using CW for our monthly ranbats 😛 (The logistical nightmare of doing it every month at CW though…)

I have been finally playing more SFV these days, I’ve gotten some free time due to an unexpected development in my personal life. While I’m still getting used to the game, I’m definitely enjoying the learning process. Learning my new normals, the new matchups, the new oki setups…it all has been a ton of fun. I’ve even started playing online again, which was extremely rare for me in the last four-five years of SFIV.

Also because I only have a short ethernet cable and my modem resides in my kitchen, check out my lazy-ass SFV setup 😛

My little SFV nook 😛

Things have changed big-time at CCH too. Over the last few months at CCH, there was a bit of diversity. We would have some classic, maybe a marvel setup. Some Guilty Gear perhaps. A Third Strike setup. And of course Igor with his ST supergun setup.

But once V hit? It was SFV setups wall to wall haha. Reminded me of the Vanilla days. I still hear lots of dissent and grumbling about the game from a lot of players, but I think everyone is just happy to have something new to play.

Personally I started out not liking the range of this normals in this game, but after getting used to Ryu’s fireball (different frame data with different buttons which is different to IV, and also having more recovery than IV) I think his footsie fireball is quite strong in this game with the removal of Focus as an universal anti-footsie and therefore anti-footsie fireball tool. There are downsides however with the reduced pushback, for example eating EX Legs from Chun Li after she blocks cMK Hadoken. So I have to get used to things like that.

It’s fun going through sites like SRK and Reddit and grabbing useful information.

Take for example, a precisely calculated list of the range of Ryu’s normals.

b.hk – 1.840 (second hit)
cr.hk – 1.771
st.hk – 1.697 (standing only)
f.hp – 1.434
st.mk – 1.416
st.hp – 1.296
st.lk – 1.290
cr.mk – 1.270
cr.mp – 1.200
st.mp – 1.150

The longest ranged normal? You wouldn’t have guessed it but it’s the second hit of Back Roundhouse. Also, check out how stumpy cMK is compared to some of his other normals. I guess Capcom really wants to encourage hitting a more diverse hitting of buttons in the mid-range when it comes to Ryu. I won’t lie though, I miss the old cMK like a motherf…

Getting used to things like being able to rush-down Zangief (yay!) Fishing for counterhit Crush Counters with Stand HK and whiffing on crouchers, or even questioning the merits of anti-air Medium DP vs anti-air stand light punch into dash under reset (I so far favour DP. Old habits die hard :P)

I’m slowly getting the hang of Ryu in this game. I’m a slow and unnatural learner. But I’m really looking forward to playing multiple characters in this game. So far I like Chun Li, Cammy, and Mika/Laura. My first big roadblock in this game, the character that I really have a hard time fighting against with Ryu is – Nash.

Which character beats Nash? Should I pick a character to cover my bad matchups or go with what the heart wants? (A jiggly grappler.)

This is the fun part. Strategising and schemin’.

 

It’s time :P

SFV Launch Tournament + The joy of training mode

Me attempting to use my old fireball zoning patterns in SFV

So, Street Fighter V has finally come out. Is it the one game to rule them all? The game to push our community to a Dota/LoL e-sports level? Personally I just want it to be a good game, and that it will get more people to come out and play, like Vanilla SFIV did.

I didn’t get to play much on launch week. Funnily enough, the only time I did play it was offline for about  twenty minutes at my lady friend’s place. Her little nine year old cousin was watching me play at the time and his comments went something like this:

“Where’s the story-mode? Where’s the content.”

“No cinematics?”

“Where’s the tutorials/challenge mode?”

“This game looks boring”

“The graphics look shit!”

Haha. Perhaps this is the general response of a casual gamer to Capcom’s content-less launch. I understand they had to launch before the CPT circuit though, so they’re sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place. Personally, all that single-player stuff doesn’t matter to me though, as all I need is versus and good netcode!

Shortly after, we had the SFV CouchWarriors launch tourney, and I believe it was a great success. We booked out the CQ (large hotel ballroom in the CBD that we usually only use for BAM) again since it was a special event, and we filled out the venue! I was really happy when I walked in on Saturday morning twenty minutes late for setup, and everything was already laid out with tables in formation and rows of flashing monitors and consoles. One thing that’s been great for the local community is the real growth in the CouchWarriors staff/board. Two or three years ago the board was getting a bit thin or meagre, but now our roster goes twenty-thirty strong. And more importantly, we get so many more hands on board to do stuff like moving equipment, setting up, manning the rego desk etc. A lot of this has to do with the explosion of Smash, and new dedicated, competent, hardworking tournament organisers like Darren, Ignis, Jack, Dom etc. Tones is doing a great job as equipment manager, and I’ve been chuffed at Javi’s treasur-ing and Rory’s continued hard work.

We still need a bit of new blood for the Capcom tournament organiser side though 😛 Spoony is now the CW president, and one lesson we learned from the previous BAM is that he should never run a bracket. He needs to have sort of an overlord role, creating seeded brackets at the front desk, putting out fires, directing the setup and schedule and things like that. If he runs a bracket it ties him up too much and can result in greater logistical problems overloading elsewhere.

At this SFV launch tourney I’m not sure of our overall attendance, but it must be near or over 300. We had 85 for SFV, 160 for Smash 4, and 80 for Melee. 85 is really good for a Capcom game in Melbourne, it’s nearly at the numbers we had for vanilla SFIV tournaments. At recent CW ranbats we’ve only had SFIV brackets of twenty something, 85 is basically BAM numbers. So it’s great!

I volunteered to run the SFV brackets, with Baraa as my fellow bracket runner. Unfortunately Baraa had to go run the MKX stream, so I had to rope in Gab and later Spoony to help me. Again, this means we’ll have to train some new blood to run our Capcom tournaments. (Smash have tons of willing volunteers.) The tournament ran fine, ZG won with his disgusting Vega, legacy controllers were a pain in the butt, and I left early in the top 8 to drive someone to the airport.

Another thing that was awesome for me was that James’ (Brewster) girlfriend Meg was happy to help me film reaction footage of the stream players with my DLSR for Stuff Yo’ Couch. This was fantastic because I was basically tied up from 230PM to around 7PM running SFV and I would have almost no footage if not for her. I’m very indebted to you Meg, thanks very much!

So finally after the launch tournament I was able to sit down and have some intimate one on one time with SFV. From playing casuals with Spoony I identified some issues that I wanted to test.

a) After forward throw, Ryu is negative after dashing up to meaty. I need another safer setup.

b) After MK tatsu, my meaties were having trouble with the variance between quick rise and back roll.

c) Having difficulty with DP into Super combos.

d) My SFV execution basically sucks, all my Ryu muscle memory is from SFIV and I keep trying to sweep from mediums for example.

e) Safe jump setups after Crush Counter sweep. Preferably a setup that leads to forward jump to eliminate the variance in range of the sweep hitting.

First things first: I had to learn more about the system mechanics of the game.

a) From the Prima Guide I learned that his dash is 16 frames. So add the 5 frame startup of his stand strong- I need something that is active before 21 frames after his forward throw. Solar Plexus Strike is 17 frames- aha! It catches and counter-hits wake up jab nicely into fHP stand MP tatsu combo (too far for cHP to combo). And if they don’t quick-rise (you can’t backroll after throw) I can do dash after the whiffed fHP and do stand MP and it counter-hits their wake up normal too. The only caveat is that fHP is slow and some players will be able to reaction uppercut it, and it is -2 so if they block it I’m at a disadvantage. But it’s way better than dashing up after the throw and getting wakeup jabbed by Chun Li. In the corner after throw I can even do back HK right after throw and it hits so meaty I can combo into cHP DP or stand MP cMK tatsu after. If they don’t quick-rise I can dash after the back HK and do another back HK for the same meaty situation or even stand HK for a bigger CC combo.

b) I read from the guide again that the variance in frames between quick-rise and backroll is 5 frames. Since distance doesn’t matter because I get a dash up after MK tatsu, what attack do I have that has a lot of active frames that cover both? The answer is back HK. I can always do stand MP (do cMP after not cHP because of distance) after the dash after a MK tatsu combo but it whiffs on backroll. Back HK tags both (4frame normal on quick rise) and is 0 on block. Not so great for tick throws, but it’s sweet I have an option that covers both!

c) I learned from twitter that ShadyK helped write the Prima guide. ShadyK is one of my heroes for learning tech, I learned a lot from his Doom at the start of UMVC3. I bought the Marvel guide cos Clockwork wrote it, and a very big reason for buying the SFV guide is because of ShadyK. He’s been dropping a lot of mechanics info on his twitter too. One of them being: DF D DF+P QCF+P no longer does DP into super like in SFIV. You have to have two discrete D F motions to get your special in super. So you could do it like this: DF D DF+P F QCF P or the traditional way of F D DF+P F QCF+P. I’m sort of getting it on the 2P side okay, but I have to drill, drill, drill to get consistent on both sides for tournament play.

d) My double-tapping sucks. I tried practicing all my combos with double-tapping but in real games my execution was haywire because double-tapping isn’t second nature to me yet. I’ll single tap for now since SFV execution is much easier with the three frames link window, and incorporate double tapping later once it’s more natural.

e) I know the existing 4 frame safe jump after CC sweep, which is whiff stand HK neutral jump HK. But it’s not ambiguous. I want a forward jump setup. I was trying things like slight step back cMK jump forward MK and things like that but I was unable to find a reliable setup. I was having difficulty recording stuff to replicate the CC sweep situation where the dummy does it to me and I either block or try to DP it. At least I found out that the timing of CC sweep and non-quick rise timing is identical! The other interesting thing I found out (again from ShadyK’s twitter) is that jump attack recovery frames in this game is 4 frames but you can cancel the last two frames into a special move. I wonder if there’s some advanced OS you could do with that hm…

Random stuff: Hilariously you can do stand Mk V-trigger cancel it and combo into light tatsu super. Even better, you can do stand HK stand LK tatsu into super too. Practical applications include max range whiff punishing, or even far jump ins where you can only combo into stand MK/sweep, but you could also do V-Trigger into the stand HK stand LK into tatsu super combo.

It’s great. This is one of things I love most about fighting games, going into the lab and being a scientist and testing setups and learning stuff. I’d lost that passion for the lab for SFIV for one or two years now, but I’m really enjoying the learning process again with SFV. So I still don’t know if this game will last or whether I will fall in love with it, but it’s definitely brought back the joy of training mode.

Get hype

BAM8 and OHN14 are on CPT baby. Winner of each will be flown to Capcom Cup Asia finals +CPT points

http://couchwarriors.org/wp/bam8/bam8-registration/

Stuff Yo’ Couch! OHN13, PAX and more…

I’m sorry I haven’t been writing in ages.

In fact I haven’t picked up my stick outside of CCH for almost two months. Something weird is happening to me. Am I finally losing my drive for fighting games? This is the year where I’ve watched the least amount of streams (almost zero) and done the least amount of training mode.

I still enjoy playing at events, I enjoy picking blue or black gi Ryu and playing footsies and chucking plasma. I still love smacking out an anti-air Fierce DP as hard as humanly possible.

I’ve almost completely transitioned out of a “must improve constantly” mindset where I used to always have SF on my mind, thinking of what new nugget to work on in training mode. How to improve my Magneto movement.

At PAX this month I went and helped out at the CouchWarriors booth. I did some Learn to Play sessions, teaching some kids how to play Marvel, and ran the UMVC3 tournament. Most of all- I just had fun playing! Plink dashing around the screen, chucking Magnetic blasts downwards at my scurrying opponents, hitting the assist button with my little pinky to get them encapsulated within Cold Star…It was all immense fun.

Perhaps I’ve finally found myself in the stage where playing is almost 100% pure pleasure now. I care less and less about my potential prowess in tournaments these days.

I went to OHN13 a few months ago and had a great time. I played a ton of casuals, ate almost four-five times a day – giant bowls of ramen:And had an amazing burger called the “Blame Canada” Burger with maple glazed streaky bacon, poutine & maple aioli: It was so good that – I shit you not- by the time I had finished taking this picture, Andrew aka Vitriol aka Vitty Paz had already finished his burger, and was walking back to the bar to order a second one!

See you might ask- why does a shitty Ryu player travel so much to interstate majors?

Meaty and safe jump set ups after EX fireball by TaliUSF4

(Quick rise)

EX fireball > Immediate empty jump > cmk (meaty)

(No quick rise)

EX fireball > Immediate empty jump > Cmk (whiff) > immediate empty jump > Normal attack (meaty)

(No quick rise)

Ex fireball > immediate empty jump > cr mk (whiff) >wait 2 frames > jump attack (4f safe jump)

Kinda useful stuff here. I never really developed EX fireball setups because I tend to avoid using it in combos to save for super, and there’s good non-meter combo enders like HK tatsu or sweep if crouching. It’s funny how Ryu’s soft knockdown setup tree is probably easier to set up and react to now than his hard knockdown delayed wake up stuff.

 

 

My life slogan

Courtesy of Broken Tier

New Community episode: featuring A1Major – BAM special. And some thoughts before BAM7

I took quite long to put this out, but in the end I’m glad I was able to get this out well in advance of the pre-reg closing date for BAM7. The good thing about taking so long to get to doing this is my brain slowly worked on a lot of ideas over the months, such as using the theme song from Ghost World – Jaan Pehechan Ho as the opening theme. (With a young Thora Birch with manic hair flying and dancing with her elbows out reverberating in my mind) And to use the Chamba drawing shot as the closer, things like that.

I have sort of put my camera away over the last few months, and I think I will only pick it up quite sparingly now, after a very frantic year of video work in 2014. I can’t believe I’ve done eleven episodes of Community already. (And my camera work is still shit.) I enjoy the editing process though, composing sequences is always fun.

This year has been one of great change for me in my personal life, I’ve had to shift a lot of things around, and somehow I find myself not playing fighting games that much anymore.

I still run CCH every fortnight, and I’m still heavily involved with CouchWarriors, especially in the lead-up to BAM. But I seldom watch streams anymore, and when I hear about the latest gossip in the US FGC or blow-up, I honestly don’t really care anymore. My scope of attention has basically shrunk to only what is necessary: is Ryu on screen.

If he’s not, well then, I simply don’t pay attention.

I haven’t touched Marvel in a month as well, and for a training room fiend like me, the recent months have felt like a big waste. Somehow I’m almost never home, roaming the streets late at night, and meeting friends, faces I haven’t seen in a while. Watching opaque middle-eastern films. Finding high-calorie escapes. Getting my soul slowly drained by Tinder.

I very much look forward to BAM…being over. I will see all my friends again and it will be great. But after it is over, I will have a long off-season to look forward to. I will probably try to get my license and once again endanger people on the road. I have been searching for a butterscotch blonde telecaster for quite a while now.

That being said- I still love Street Fighter. I just don’t care so much for the extraneous stuff around it anymore. When I sit down next to someone, and it’s that worn character in a gi moving back and forth on screen, my fingers rolling down to hit sweep and low forward fireball – I feel at home. I don’t think I will be leaving shelter anytime soon.

Facebook event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/680544222054295/

Venue: Event Room #2: CQ, 123 Queen Street, Melbourne

Registration:

http://couchwarriors.org/wp/battle-arena-melbourne-7/bam7-registration/

Streaming

If you can’t make the event check out our stream at http://www.twitch.tv/newgameplustv

 

The best thing about NCR?

Getting to watch lots and lots of John Choi off-stream footage.

Bonus footage- Choi interview from Spring Fighter:

http://www.twitch.tv/nycfurby/v/4019846

League of Sharpies: Season 1 END

League of Sharpies is over and done with, and I escaped relegation to D league by the skin of my chinny-chin chin.

Overall I went 3-4. 2-3 with DQs.

Beat: Spoony 7-2, Allen 7-2 (Allen got DQed from the league so I only have two wins nooo), Alex Canale 7-4

Got bopped by: Burnout 7-1, Muzztek 7-3, Tomcat 7-2, Cactus 7-3 (Cactus also got DQed)

Let me try to do a quick recap of my last three matches, Burnout, Muzztek and Alex.

BURNOUT THE KOREAN SHAMPOO SUPERSTAR

With Burnout I was fairly confident. I usually do pretty good against him in casuals. But the final score was 7-1 in his favour! He totally mopped the floor with me, and was the strongest example of someone being in my head the entire time.

After the match I sort of reflected on my failure. I was pretty unhappy with the result, mainly because of how completely Kevin (Burnout) controlled the match, read my intentions and resisted any attempt by me to reverse the momentum. Remember how I said I normally do pretty good against Kevin in casuals?

The thing is, now that I reflect upon it, I actually haven’t beaten Kevin in tournament in a long while. He definitely is the far greater tournament player, actually possessing clutch factor and a stubborn mind that refuses to bend to people’s conditioning. He beat me at SXC 2013 for example, and at quite a few other majors that I forget.

But anyway most of all I was disappointed that I didn’t manage to implement any of my lab stuff against him at all. Here are my notes:

Oni

• Stand lp to beat forward normals
• FHP is – 9
• Stand lp is good against F mk (-1 on block) and F hp but loses to F lk (-2 on block 5f su)
• Press stand mk (moves you forward, avoids stomp and smacks his throw/jab) or Backdash (doesn’t work in corner) after light slash if he does light stomp afterwards u can punish heavily
• Be careful of light slash reset during combos prepare to mash dp.
• Do cHP against air dash ex air tatsu
• Do normals against his jump ins instead of DP such as stand Rh chp stand hp etc or do LP DP
• U can punish his air dash back on reaction with tatsu or ultra
• Jump more against his bad fireballs (much worse recovery than other shotos)
• Treat him like ken and fish a bit with focus at mid-range to catch F hp and F mk

And I had a bit of personal notes vs. Kevin’s style but I forgot to save them after the match. I practiced quite a lot against his air back dash and air dash tatsu/stomp mixups, and practice beating out his main mid screen normal with my buttons.

And guess what- I failed to employ any of it -_-

He would jump in, and despite mentally telling myself over and over not to fierce DP I would fierce DP and eat a phat punish. Despite specifically practising to fight his fHP and mentally telling myself not to press buttons after a second one he still nailed me with consecutive fierces many times. Didn’t do stand MK against his stomps, I got hit by every slash mix-up…Everything went wrong.

When all my specific match-up stuff wasn’t working I went back trying to work the fireball game, but Kevin read my weak patterns and refused to let me set a rhythm and would jump-in/fHP/focus and punish me way more than any damage I was getting from my fireballs. The 7-1 score flattered me, not him.

I think no matter how much I lab, without committing the punishes and counters against a real-life Oni player I was never properly able to embed the stuff to muscle memory. Also, Kevin mindfucked me pretty good in the set.

Weeks later we played an extensive set at another CCH and I did SO GOOD! I was so frustrated at myself afterwards because I countered the air dash well with LP DPs/normal and fireball and tatsus to punish, and spaced his normals with whiff punishes, stand LP and cMP so much better. I was telling myself why couldn’t I bloody play like this in the set?!?! Urgh. This is why I suck.

Muzztek whipping me with his Poison       

This was actually the only match that I didn’t prepare for in the whole league. With apologies to James (Muzztek), I pretty much assumed that he was gonna get DQed since he had so many matches left to play and only one CCH left. I simply figured he wasn’t gonna show up 😛

Instead he rocks up, plays like five matches in a row and ends up taking first place. Damn you James!!

Poison is definitely a match that I have absolutely no idea how to play. The only Poison I could have practiced with to prepare for James…is James. So yeah.

To be honest I was expecting to get slapped 7-0. To take three games probably meant that James had something on his mind! I think I played okay solid (most of my damage came from James getting bored and jumping in on me). Once I got in the corner I was done- that Poison corner pressure is no joke. And I got hit by virtually every EX flip kick.

After the match James showed me some ranges in which I can fireball safely against non-EX flip kick, and Xavier showed me how cancelling into fierce fireball often leaves gaps that I should be able to exploit. I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of this massively annoying match. Enough said.

Alex C, he who anti-aired me with a motherfucking Dive Kick

Next up was my last match vs Alex. Lose and go down into D. While historically I have struggled against Cammy, I at least was semi-prepared for Alex, having put a couple of hours every week practicing anti-airs against her dive kicks, whiff punishing her common pokes and the character specific combos like cmp cmp stand mp DP or far stand HK stand MP DP. I practiced a little bit of the old Ryu jump MK unblockables on Cammy but I mainly focussed on keeping her out. Alex’s style is rough, down and dirty so if I keep him out I should have a strong chance to win.

In the end the score was 7-4, and we both played really sloppily. There were fimbles galore, and I dropped almost every single character specific Cammy combo (much to the disgust of Kon and Rossco who said I should just do the normal combos instead) and we were both handing each other rounds that should have been closed out.

I remember distinctly that Alex did an excellent job of confusing the hell out of me. He would stand there whiffing like five normals in a row in front of me,  completely whiff punishable stuff like her stand MK and I would just stand there slack-jawed not doing anything.

Because I never knew when Alex would do a random spiral arrow in my face/instant cannon strike/dash forward cLP/focus/jump- I had absolutely no idea what he was gonna do at any time.  He conditioned this hesitance and confusion in me, adversely affecting my reactions and decisiveness in terms of whiff punishing and things like that.

When Alex got in he was relentless and caused me a lot of trouble- but in the end I won sort of by weathering the storm. Just staying solid and letting him kill himself trying so hard to get in. I remember Rossco/Toxy et al. crowding around and getting hype during the match.

I really hated that. I wanted them to all STFU so that I could concentrate properly. In the end I probably laughed along too much with the crowd at all the fimble things that happened and never hit 100% concentration. Such as Alex dying when he jumped in with a mixup and I anti-aired with an instant jump back MP (fimbled MP DP). Or when I jumped in with a crossup tatsu for the win and mistimed it so badly he woke up with an instant EX Cannon strike and it ANTI-AIRED ME for the win. Ah such comedy and fimbles.

It’s a good feeling to finally finish a league season. Big thanks to H (Carnage) for running the league, and GGs to all my opponents. Even though I mostly got slapped, I think I learned a lot. Hopefully I can do better again next season!

New Ryu stand roundhouse combo: Stand HK stand MP DP

Just doing some Cammy testing in preparation for my League of Sharpies match with Alex, I came across a new Ultra 1.04 Cammy specific combo: Close Stand Hk stand MP DP. Does 318 damage and 460 stun, with a jump in it does 386 damage 620 stun.

I tested it some more and it also works on E Honda, Makoto, T hawk and Gief. Works on Dudley but doesn’t do full damage though. On Dudley you could already do close stand HK cHP EX tatsu so it doesn’t really matter for him.

Also last night at CCH, after playing some Marvel my right arm started hurting like crazy, specifically my upper arm around the triceps area. Hopefully this isn’t a sign of things to come or old age setting in…

Learning Ryu’s standing normal meaty option selects

I first started thinking about this a while back when I was labbing a way to hit both Dhalsim’s backdash and teleport on wakeup. I ended up coming up with some complicated hado motion to db option select that was way hard to do in match.

I ended up bemoaning the fact that Ryu’s stand LP whiffs on crouching opponents, unlike say Yun’s standing LP, which he can easily option select (cLK, stand LP+MP) as a meaty to get big damage on hit confirm or backdash. Ryu’s stand jab simply whiffs if they’re crouching, and you can get hit/thrown. I can always do an option select with stand LK which hits crouching opponents, but the problem then is that you cannot combo from stand LK to get a full combo.

I was thinking of ways to get Rolento (whose escape options work on my usual cLK+LP, cLP+cHK meaty because my sweep comes out too fast and whiffs), Ibuki (similarly, my sweep whiffs under her jumpy backdash), or dudes like Rolento, Vega etc with invincible backflips and how if I could option select a stand normal like far standing roundhouse or forward fierce, that would solve all my problems.

Then I watched this video by Momochi, which my good buddy Daichi helped translate:

And how he would input standing normal option selects while doing crouching lights! By inputting cLK (release stick to neutral and hit stand normal) then quickly chain to cLP.

I tested it with Ryu (while watching Capcom Cup when Ryu wasn’t on screen) and it works a treat.

Now I have cLK+LP (release stick to neutral and hit HP) cLP which gets me my full low hitting two-hit hit confirm, whilst smacking Rolento with far stand HP if he backdashes or rolls or flips for 120 juicy damage.

And I can do cLP+cLP (HK) cLP and the far standing roundhouse comes out to smack Ibuki’s backdash (yesss finally another way to control this bloody matchup) and I can use it against other long backdashes like Chun Li as well.

But the most juicy thing I found…is you can option select forward fierce on the following characters!

Ryu, Ken, Honda, Oni, Sagat, Dee Jay, rolento (does one hit to the flip), evil ryu, blanka, Rufus, Hugo (air reset so no point)

So in the mirror match if you try to backdash on me…you’re gonna get hit by minimum 260~300 plus damage muahahaha. Plus forward fierce is braindead to hit confirm, compared to stuff like cmk or stand MP meaty option selects.

This plus the new close standing roundhouse stuff to lab in Ultra 1.04…the learning never stops!

Edit: Hilariously I also learned that day that the best whiff punish of Adon stand HK is my own stand HK. I never thought to press that button, always using sweep and stand MP instead. While stand HK is much slower than sweep, the leniency of it’s range when whiff punishing Adon’s stand HK makes it so much easier. Doh.

Community: The Australian FGC E10p2 Youssef “FaYd” Faddoul & David “Kyokugen” Lee

Finally finished my OHN10 special!

In Part 2 of our OHN special our two guests discuss the history of Ozhadou and OHN, ST in Sydney, attracting new players to our scene, what keeps them in community, EVO2014 and who they would bring to a desert island.

So tired now…Finally get the hit the sack after a few days of straight editing. This weekend will be a blast at SXC though. Much needed break.

Community: The Australian FGC Episode 10 Part 1 Youssef “FaYd” Faddoul and David “Kyokugen” Lee

OHN12 Special!

It has been quite a long time since my last one. With Dusty Cartridge shutting down I was kind of undecided on what to do with the show. In the end I decided I have fun making these things, I have the gear already, and there’s still so many awesome dudes in the FGC that people need to know about.

These two guys definitely fit the bill. One of the best things for me at EVO 2014 was getting to know Youssef and David a lot better. With Kyokugen especially, I haven’t spoken much to him prior but we once started commiserating about our common tournament organiser woes, it was like a river started flowing “bro I know exactly what you mean T-T” kind of thing.

Two really good dudes who support the Sydney FGC whether it be YSB or Tekken or KOF. You got Kyokugen and Igor teaming up to make an Australian ST circuit at majors, Youssef showing ample hospitality to interstaters. I had a blast at OHN12 and I hope it shows in the video.

Now…time to make part 2 before I fly off on Friday for SXC…why do I do this to myself!!

http://sxc.agongame.net/sxc