Modesto Results and what it means

[Pikachu]

Ok, I'm sure Jon and Brian will have tons to say themselves, so I won't speak for them, though I suspect we're in general agreement with all this. I hope they can second my thoughts later from their own views.

We went to Modesto, starting out fairly tired, but hoping for the best. When we arrived, we found out that the tourney wasn't well run. Thankfully, I actually brought my PS2 just in case... and it turns out that the PS2 was the reason this tourney even happened at all.

For casuals, we all played some alts to scope out the comp. I was up first, naturally, since it way my PS, and I played against like.. I don't even remember what I played against. After losing like, the first round, I cleaned up completely afterwards and soon got over any jitters and started using some Sidewinder loops. People were actually a little surprised. Eventually, I did lose, and more casuals were played.

We ended up playing tons more casuals and the tournament, but it gave Brian a chance to show off Anji and Jon to show off Johnny. We each went on a tear whenever we went on the machine.. and I honestly think we played better than usual. The results of the tourney? We took all the money, with Brian in 1st, me in 2nd, and Jon in 3rd. Kinda not surprising even under ideal circumstances.

The short of all this is that the weeks of play paid off. This is proof that for all our shortcomings, none of us are playing in vain. Absolutely none of us. No exceptions. We may not be able to take on Japanese yet, but progress is still progress. I played some ugly ass Eddie today, too, but I still managed to clutch a lot of wins.

And for all the frustrations as we practice, it seemed to fade away in competition. There's just no more room for frustration, and in all honesty, the stress melts away a lot more. There's no more uncertainty about your progress... the competition is just solid, honest and leaves no more room to question yourself. It's a fantastic way to know where you stand and find a way to move on.

Even better, the group that was there was about a dozen strong, and there was no elitism there. Just a lot of camaraderie and meeting some decent new people. Everyone was there to learn, maybe except for one guy, but he didn't even come close to ruining anything. Just a fanboy who left early after getting knocked out. Everyone else there genuinely loved the game and was there to enjoy themselves. The finals between me and Brian were amongst the most intense games we played. Brian swept me clean 3-0 in the last set, but the rounds individually were hella close. And I wish everyone could have been there to see us both getting cheered on. Lots of trash talking about how dirty Eddie was one moment, while egging Brian to hit combos, and then the same people would go nuts when I hit an unblockable.

It kind of led me to question whether it was because the people weren't quite as skilled and weren't used to seeing our brand of insanity, or if we performed a little more spectacularly. Reality dictates it must lie somewhere between those two points. Probably doesn't even matter that much, in the end. There was just mad respect all around for everyone just showing up, win or lose.

I guess this post is a way to share the cool shit that happened today, and yeah, this is directed at Chip and Al, not to rub it in anyone's face, but just to say that the next time something like this rolls around, we really oughta all go. Even this small fry tourney ended up with some CvS2 on the side, MvC2 on the side, just to mix it up, have fun, and put on a show. There was a guy who wanted to pick up some quick Eddie shit. I told him that I'd gladly trade that info for some Magneto combos, just for shits and giggles. He had no problem coughing up info on the spot and demonstrating on a stick how to do it.

Scoping out the comp, I can say we can all hang. There isn't one of us that'd be looked down on or anything. Skill sets ran the gamut from absolutely new to pretty decent. Everyone there was hungry to get better, even if we were trying to eliminate one another in the tourney. At one point, I mentioned trying to get more shit started up in the Bay Area, and that besides just trying to take a shot at the Japanese (everyone there wanted to go to Evo), NorCal should struggle to regain some respect from the Midwest. The thought of that alone got everyone psyched up. It's just encouraging and motivating to know I'm not the only one trying bit by bit to get better. It's also nice to know that people were ready to invite us over for CvS2 and MvC2, even if we didn't play those games as much. That generosity isn't found in a lot of other places.

So here's to hoping that in the new year, we continue to find the will to keep going, and have the faith that we're not clawing away uselessly and making no progress. Let's keep supporting each other and make an impact at the next tourney.

[Pikachu]

As an addendum, though, besides all the touchy feely good stuff, what worked?

FRAME ADVANTAGE. SAFETY. Something about going insane during our practice and knowing how to deal with it, then reverting back to a mode of relative sanity against strangers.... it wins. Shenanigans rarely worked, unless it involved a high hit box + low hit box simultaneously. When I played Ky in casuals and just did a lot of safe stuff, I was able to just rush like mad. I won't steal Brian and Jon's thunder since they had a similar approach with their own styles. They can add to it.

HIT ONE GOOD COMBO. It's America! People love you just for trying. A two rep Sidewinder loop earns you some points. I can't tell you how incomplete a lot of combos end up... when you just go for something blatantly cool, your image is elevated. Hit it, and you're awesome. Your image will help you out.

[Duragar]

Sigh....

I really should've gone. D&D pretty slow this week, and we didn't really do anything plot-wise that I wasn't already pretty sure about. I felt guilty about ditching them a second week for the tourney (last week I wanted to WoW it up, so I called in sick, and they ended up cancelling because too few people were available), but they would have been fine without me this week.

Though I haven't had much of a chance to practice with my new stick, it would have been an excellent chance to get some game time in on it.

So... given how well that tourney seemed to go (based on Josh's synopsis), Has the idea of running a tourney ourselves crossed anyone's mind? Or hell, just casual invites to the Modesto people and anyone else who would be interested. Of course, I'm getting way ahead of myself here, because in all fairness, the only really feasable place to hold something like that it Al's house, and that's definitely something that I have no place in offering up.

However, playing with more than just our small group will not only help our game, but give the Guilty Gear community something to talk about.

Thoughts? If we can get some ideas running, we could pitch in together and make it work.

[Duragar]

By the way, Josh, a couple questions from my end about the tourney.

1) Could you give me any specifics on what you did with Ky that you thought worked well?

2) Did you see/play against any other Ky players at the tourney? If so, what did you think of them?

Just curious about the competition.

[Pikachu]

No other Ky players at the tourney.

The stuff I did with Ky that works is the same stuff I do when I play you guys, but with a bit less risk. 6K pressure works wonders, since people still think it's punishable, though 6HS isn't something anyone wants to fall for.

Other than that, I just poked a lot with ground stun edge when I thought they'd run at me, and lots of psychic FRC Air stun edge to cover ground. I scored a lot of damage off good placement of stun edge because people don't dash break with FD.

Knowing when they're tired of being poked is the key to getting in. A willingness to be a little patient, but not fearful is a good thing in general for GGAC. You can do a lot of zoning from full, 3/4, or half screen with Ky The reaction when the opponent is the first to get impatient are as follows:

1. They get overly defensive because they're getting hit. You can tell this is happening when they do a little less than usual from full screen. What you can do then is to close the gap steadily between the two of you using movement (not IAD, but segmented dashing with use of FD, a few j.D if you want to risk it... just using the presence of your character to push back). An alternative method here is to aim an Air Stun Edge at them, FRC, and dash after it... this is the most direct and quickest way to get in.

2. They get overly jumpy after being zoned, because the average player sees air dashes as the best way to get out. While is is true in a limited sense, psychic HS ASE will peg them out of it every time. If they're at the right height, an air throw works too. If they're REALLY predictable, just j.k, j.s, dj.s, dj.hs, VT, LJ them.

3. They get impatient and just try to bull rush you back. This is true for the more rush oriented characters of GG. Now, figuring out their approach is key, and though you can guess incorrectly, FRC's can at least cover you. S ASE with FRC's should hit ground dashes, and if the projectile misses, at least you can get away afterwards. Low HS ASE is good for air dashes, and can hit tall running characters, too. Finally, ground stun edges stop dashes cold, but I like ASE because they can cover air and ground at the same time. Air dash back ACSE is good against slightly slower characters like Slayer (without 50% tension).

Other methods include early 2D cancelled into CSE for instant pressure or 5HS into another SE they have to block. If you FRC that SE, then you're also guaranteed to be able to run in.


Once you're actually in, then you need to know your gatlings well. Stuff like Greed Sever didn't work too well for me, unfortunately, though 5D worked a lot more if I threw it on its own, especially after CSE (like no 5K, 5D... just plain 5D). Otherwise, ways to land Dust are after one of my long, long, long Ky block strings, where they're hypnotized by the many normals and react slower to the high block. It's all in context, though, so I'll explain this more irl maybe.

I used the following pressure strings the most:

1. 2P, 2K, dash in again, 2P, 2K, 6K (Frame Advantage), 2K (they eat CH here), 2D, CSE, more pressure

2. 2P, 2K, 6K, 2K (learned to block), 5D

3. 6P, c.S, 6K, etc. The variation here makes it so they're not always mentally preparing themselves for the 6K mixups.. otherwise, they're more ready if I 2P, 2K 6K each time.

4. long gatling into 2D, where I push myself out a little more, and cancel into SE. Then I wait to see their reaction in case they try to twitch out of the corner. This is a good way to change pace because they'll be in the mentality that you're doing everything you can to get in (because your pressure strings are long... so surely you must be zealous in attacking!). But if you wait for a reaction, the flow of the game has changed, and they may not be aware of it. You'll have to kinda guess whether they'll stay grounded or if they'll try to air dash out, which you should 6P that shit or uppercut it if they air dash high (which is what scrubs like to do more). Air throw kinda works, but it's hard to react that fast all the time.

5. After CSE, throw.

6. After CSE, 2P tick throw.

7. After CSE, jump whiff punch, late air dash S, HS, land, knockdown combo.

I recycled the above strings over and over again. There are tons more variations to try based on how you think the opponent will react, but I didn't play tons of Ky games.

[Pikachu]

Also, regarding running our own event, I'd be up for it easily. But venue has always been the problem. However, if we somehow got a venue and a decent mass of people (which is no problem anymore, btw), then we can persuade the Fairfield guys to come maybe. Bay Area has a mass of players but just no organization since the guys in Fairfield and Vacaville have more organized mass, and more venues to host probably. The good thing is that Dustloop has taken notice of the presence of new Bay Area players who were able to make a decent showing, so I'm pretty sure we can get the attention we need and ignite a scene.

Chip, you should learn Marvel from some of these guys.

[buhwhyen]

More or less, Josh, Jon, and I came to a consensus about the tourney during the drive back and dinner so this is probably a repeat of what Josh said but with less details about everything that went down, but I'll post my abbreviated version of the tourney and how I felt about it.

I think the tourney went really well, after we got the guy running the tourney to start the GGXX brackets, before that it was a bit slow after this first hour or two of casuals. It was pretty damn disorganized because it was the first tourney this guy had run, but we more or less ran the GG tourney on our own, so that went really smooth and was overall really fun. There was actually a surprising amount of hype and good manners, considering how "vicious" we were not playing our main during casuals. It was actually pretty funny listening to one guy's reaction when Josh busted out Eddie during the first round of the tourney. He was screaming "what the fuck! Thats hella vicious, dude. Keeping a secret character for the tourney. These dudes are serious!" and he just kept screaming shit like this throughout the entirety of Josh's first match.

On the note of how well we played during the tourney...I think that I actually played really well, aside from dropping some really brain dead easy combos. I surprised myself by actually playing really safe, outside the first set I played against Jon (the only set I lost during the tourney). I was actually kind of nervous while waiting for my matches to come up and stuff, which is pretty normal for me, but once I sat down to play I calmed down (also normal for me). I noticed that I was actually more nervous during Josh's matches than my own. At one point my heart was racing, and I was like "WTF, I'm not even playing."

I was actually surprised how excited everyone was going into the grand finals (against Josh) because during most of the tourney, when Josh, Jon, or I weren't playing, people actually weren't glued to the TV. They were actually talking, mostly with one of us, about random things we were doing during our matches. But when the Grand finals came around, the place got hella loud. A bunch of times during and between the matches/sets I was kinda confused cause these guys would be screaming about all sorts of contradictory shit. First its like "OMG he blocked Eddie pressure!" then it turned into "WTF Eddie, kill him" to all sorts of other shit. I thought at first they were hella dumb and couldn't make up their minds who the hell to cheer for, but then I kinda just realized they just really had never seen this match up in person and even more so than that, never seen American players play the match like we did. It was more to hype the matches than anything. Everyone was surprisingly friendly and easy going even though a bunch of people went 0-2, almost everyone stayed till the end of the tourney to watch.


Outside my synopsis of the events, theres a few important things you should all know.

1) My Anji completely destroyed people (during casuals). Why? Not because they fell for my stupid Anji stomp tricks (they actually blocked almost all of them), but rather because I used moves with SLIGHT frame advantage and played people based on how they would probably react since the move didn't *seem* safe. Stomp, for example hardly hit itself, however, it also leaves me at +2 on block, so I threw out 2P and almost every time landed a CH. Granted this didn't get my any real damage because it only lead to a 5K, 2D, fuujin (sometimes missed because of character), though I was completely safe with my attacks and they hella couldn't deal with it. As Josh mentioned, shenanigans didn't work, I realized this rather quickly myself. So after switching to a safer approach, I thoroughly abused people's

2) You both (Alvin and Chip) could have done really well. These people were really just picking the game up, or started to play GG again after a hiatus (hadn't really played since GGXX, like us). Most of the people there had a good grasp of how fighting games work in general, but none of them really had too much knowledge (and experience) of playing Accent Core. I honestly believe you guys would have at least been able to play on par with these guys.


As far as hosting our own tourney goes..The only problem we have, and its the problem we have always had, is we don't have a place to host a tourney. Thats the big big big issue. We could try to get something similar to what was done in Modesto, but I don't know of any restaurant with that many TVs to use or would be available to rent (The place in Modesto closed on Sundays so they could "rent" the place for the day). So I really just don't know of a place to hold a tourney, since we would get a decent number of people (probably 10+ at least) to attend if we plan it out well. Actually now we might be able to go to SVGL or someplace like that and convince the manager to invest in a GGXXAC machine because we learned people are actually willing to drive to play. Most of the players at the Modesto tourney were from the Fairfield/Vacaville area, about an hour? or so drive away.

In response to Chip's other question...There were no Ky players at the tourney. And all Josh did was play a safe game where he actually didn't go for or land any big damage combos. Hell, he barely landed combos, more random hits here and there while staying safe. What really let Josh play Ky was the fact that he used knowledge of frame data to always leave himself at positive frame advantage so he wouldn't have to worry about people spazzing at him. And really, thats the key to beating scrubs/people who really just don't have knowledge of the game. Things can *look* unsafe, but are really +1 or +2 on block. These are the moves that really will just destroy scrubs because if they try to spaz after them, you can almost guarantee a CH.

Another note about the general game play...They didn't FRC at all. So when Josh FRC'd Ky's air stun edge, they just froze cause they didn't know what the hell was going on. Similarly with my Order Sol's FRC action charge after uppercut, they were all screaming "WTF KZO?" or something like that during my matches.

[feedback]

Most things have already been covered in depth by both Josh and Brian. So I don't have much to add.

After arriving and watching a few casuals it was pretty obvious that we were 2-3 levels better than anyone else as we cleared the floor with our alts. It was a nice surprise to see how well everyone was taking their beatings and nobody really got pissed off or bent out of shape after playing us. Unfortunately I think we did scare off some potential tourney players, but those who stayed, except for the one fan boy, turned out to be a good crowd. It was interesting to see how excited they got when watching some of our matches with their interesting comments and cheers. Overall I consider it a worthwhile trip even if I did have to wake up at 8:40 or so.

As for how we did, overall I think that we all played a better game than we usually do. I guess it's the competitive environment that brought out the best in us. Never before have I seen Brian hit that many supers when he wanted too.

And as a last note I agree with both Brian and Josh when they said that both of you (Alvin and Chip) could hang with these guys if not kill some of them outright. Our weekly Tuesday night sessions do make a difference as it was seen in our performance so we should all keep up the good work so we can continue to own at our next tournament showing. We should also go gank the team name the Aristocrats if it isn't already taken, that'd be hilarious.