C - Ken, AKuma, Ryu, a Rant

I have this friend. He plays 99% of the time, C Ken, Akuma and Ryu.

The thing is, I feel he’s hella good. Perfect execution of damaging combos, dash in C.MK into Shinkuu HDK at the right time. Teleport into Corner SGS and other tricky stuff, and he RCs with impunity. his cross ups are almost always the indistinguishable kind (Where I have to JD Back, THEN forward as he lands.)

Most of the time, people line up to play against him, but not to practice, they want to beat him, because they want to make him lose. This is why…

He gives a lot of players a very hard time unless they’re using the top tier teams. Like we all know, RC isn’t everything (Well, not for these three characters anyway). His main weaknesses on his off days will be the Top tiers. On his ok days he’ll play very carefully and he’ll give them a run for their money. But still, use a Full High Tier Team, K-Are, C-Geese Rolento Sagat etcetc and he’ll have a difficult time against them. Just use RC blanka on him and he’s almost a goner. but you have to be a REALLY good RC Blanka.

Thing is, I actually hear people complaining about him, saying that He RCs too much, that they can’t handle his RC, they feel that he’s turtling (He’s not, from what I see, he’s Zoning). ACtually it’s the other guys who are turtling, as in, runaway a LOT.

Of course, he is somewhat a trash talker, like some of us are, but not in an offensive way really, he’ll just keep saying, “I’m the Best! Muaahaha” when he wins. Or he’ll stand and thumbs down whoever is on the other side (We have three Dual side Cabinets for CVS2 at the Arcade where I go). ANyway, because he does that, people naturally wanna put him down.

This is the thing. I’ve seen people use K-CBS against him, lose, and say that the way he’s playing is too unfair etc etc. They’ll tell him that without RC he’s nothing. (From what I see, that’s kinda true, he will have LOTS more bad matchups than he will have now). Then again, it just goes to show that he’s l33t innit? In my eyes he is of course, thats why I ALWAYS wanna play against him. He’s the ONLY other guy who can consistently 50/50 with me without using Top Tiers.

Since I’m one of the few people around here who will give him kudos, I’m hoping that some of you, after reading this will just, erm, think he’s a skilled player too.

End Rant.

I use c-ken/guile/sagat2 for fun a lot of times, and I can only do RC funky kick. I still get random people who complain about my “roll cancel” despite the fact that I like to use jab shoryuken a lot more.

hehe sometimes people think i am “trash talking” when i smile or when i do my wepeel style on dizzied opponents…i really don’t mean to! gotta have a sense of humor :rofl:

Youre ranting because your friend is good with a team?
I … uhh I-I …uhmmm… I guess… uhhh… youre real sensitive about what people think.

Well, actually, i think he just deserves some, pats on the back for doing a good job, thats all :smiley:

OMG…tell the people using K-CBS that they own that team for free unless this guy is like Choi status or something…that is, unless they don’t have a clue how to whore top tiers and/or JD anything at all…and give that guy props for still using shotos, if he really is that good…Shotos in any groove have bad matuchups everywhere.

The whole “RCs too much”, “turtling” and “cheap” argument is just SG logic over and over again. I’d enjoy playing at bugis alot more if some people would just shut up and play rather than trash talk about means and ways.

Ken is a pretty buff player, but I don’t see the need to give him props cuz he gives himself more than enough already.

He doesn’t actually give himself props, he taunts and all, but the thing is he has never never ever ever complained when he goes against really bad matchups, and when everyone says he thinks he’s the best, well, the thing is, have you ever heard him personally telling you that? If he hasn’t then you have to start wondering if it’s true that he’s going around telling people that, because it doesn’t seem to be the case. It could be just be a by product of his constant never give up, never say die, never admit to being second best attitude.

He’s never told me that he’s the best, he’s probably only told Anthony and Richard that because he’s just trash talking with them (I don’t even know if he told them that). Whenever you hear people say ‘He thinks he’s still King although he’s lost X number of times’, you gotta wonder if he really thinks that way.

He’s one of the rare people in SG who goes ahead and challenges the strongest players around without using Top Tiers/ High Middles himself. No matter what anyone else says about him, I’ll still give him props. I really gotta say, when anyone uses some *-are equivalent teams giving him really bad matchups, WINS and then says ‘And he says he’s the best, psssh’, I really feel bad that his gameplay goes unappreciated.

And one more thing to add to the ‘SG Logic’ which you mentioned (Which is worldwide mentality anyway), is the lack of knowledge of Tierings. I Still get (Even just This Week) our regular guys asking why some characters are refered to as ‘Top Tier’, which makes them appreciate his gameplay even less.

there’s some random korean guy who knows how to use that team in norcal too.

annoying ass hoe.

Well, I did get shouted at after I beat him 8 straight before. He gets pretty pissed when he loses alot to anyone other than anthony. (2nd best mentality) And he constantly refers to himself as “pro” on fightclub.com when talking to players from HK and malaysia.

As for people not appreciating his gameplay, nobody does when they lose. I’m one of the top players, yet I’ve never said that aloud to anyone or ever bragged about it, but look how much trash talk and shit i have to endure. (jh, simon, xz) Ken’s the one who actually goes around trash talking and taunting (self proclaiming himself to be no.2, at least in the past), so you can hardly be surprised people all want to see him lose.

I’m cool with him, and he’s a very fun player to play against. (doesn’t turtle and has very good execution) We should all just chill and enjoy the game, why bother with rankings and politics and whatnot.

About your first sentence, to some of us older players. we never get pissed off getting killed by Anth because we recognise him as being the only toppest of the top top ARE player in SG. Ken would get pissed off by any other A-Are team because He’s is playing a technically good game, but all it takes is for the other player to just be as good as Anthony in one of the 3 (Sak, Blank, Bis)(Most of the time Blanka) to give him a heckuva hard time. (But still he doesn’t complain & whine) And he IS Pro, see, even you call yourself Top Player here in a US board, I’m sure it’s ok for him to call himself Pro on fightclub. And I appreciate his gameplay BECAUSE I lose to him. That’s where most players are blind. They see beyond the technical aspects and look at the win numbers. Good to see you recognise his execution. But maybe he’s not pro to you because he’s not going win any tournaments anytime soon? That would be right from a certain point of view.

I know you don’t trash talk, and that’s all good and fine, and I like you for that, and I’ll give you moral support whenever you need it, but this thread is about people recognising that his skills are really honed. On a side note, you think u have it bad with the trash talking? Ken has it the worst. People have been coming up to him asking him to switch his characters (Since 3 years ago). People have dissed him about being stubborn in using only characters that he knows how to use (??? as opposed to switching to *-are???). Instead of saying “Play harder :D”, people are saying “Switch to Sagat/Blanka/Sak/insertcurrenthightier you f00”. Why? because that’s the SG mentality. (Some of this was 2~3 years ago so may not know abt it.)

Anyway, if it were about ‘ranking’ I won’t be posting about him. He’s clearly lost a lot. Many players in SG are too lazy to put the same amount of effort playing non High Tiers and even trying to win with them even in casual matches. It’s so easy to be ‘Ranked’ as one of the better players in SG. Just take an ARE team or Follow in Anthony’s footsteps. After all, how many people can take those on in casual matches? Thats how it works in SG. If you follow some conversations around, you’ll hear that a lot of People like TL because he plays a really good Maki, XXX, Rock.

Look at Simon. He’s been playing Top Tier all along in the hopes of being termed as No.1. And he almost succeeded because he was good at exploiting and he was ‘patient’. Same with anyone in SG, Take C-are, be patient and poke while you build a bar, and hope for a random rushdown pressure into super. You take A -Are, Do lotsa stuff while you build Super, and go for the Ping. You take P-Are…well no one in SG comes close to that kind of level yet. S-Are? none, here. N-Are? No-one. K-Are, only JH and Richard.

All viable strategies of course, but you notice we aren’t even talking about high Middle etcetc, we’re talking about ARE. But I digress.

Maybe you misunderstand what this thread is about.

"We should all just chill and enjoy the game, why bother with rankings and politics and whatnot."

It’s not About ranking. It’s not about Politics, (if anything I’m trying to make everyone see him for skills and stop all this trash about him, but, haha, only you and I ever come here, so whats the use). And whatnots cover everything else so i dunnoe how to react to that :D. It’s about recognising that his skills are indeed up there. He has contributed to the SG society something that majority of other players do not, and that is Something New so that the community can grow.

On another Side note, I’m kinda sad JH switched from K to C. He was the best K-are in SG. Now we only have one K-are to practice with (Rchrd).

Hmm, I guess I didn’t start playing early enough to understand the mentality of some of the older players. But I mean, I don’t ever diss Ken for sticking to his team and using the tactics he uses, I have a laugh with him whenever we watch JH and his constant turtling, but I don’t understand how we’re supposed to “appreciate his team”. I mean, swell, he uses a team he likes and has stuck to it for years despite what people say about it. What are we gonna do, give him a medal? You get what i mean. =)

As for calling myself a top player, it usually works out when nobody can argue against it. If Anthony went around calling himself no.1, i don’t think a single person could say a word against that. As for Ken self-proclaiming himself no.2, i think that’s where most of the flak he takes comes from. Being considered a top player matters alot to some people more than others. coughsimoncough I personally don’t care, I just play my chosen team to the best of my ability and see how I fare.

Anyhow, your argument that picking high tiers = top player doesn’t pull through. Top tiers take just as much skill to use as C-shotos or any other team. When I was in Japan, I only met 1 A-Are user during my 7 days there. Looks like the Japanese care far less about tiers than the rest of the world. Most don’t even bat an eyelid when they come across RC blanka, they concentrate on doing what they can to even up the odds rather than whining about it. I get the impression they play the game and their team cause they want to and enjoy it, without all that hassle about tiers and RC and whatnot.

JH switched from K to C cause he was dying against A-groove so as to give him a fighting chance. His C team is far scarier IMO. But much more turtle. =(

Hmm…

Last I checked, “top players” don’t need to tell everyone that they are good…people just know…or figure it out on their own.

I’ll second the argument that top tier characters don’t make you a top player…

…and in that same respect, whoever this JH guy is probably wouldn’t be considered a “top player” (and hopefully the distinction doesn’t matter to him…) if he switched grooves just to have a “fighting chance” against A-groove. Last I checked, A-Sak is the only consistent problem for K…and that’s only a third of a team…that takes more damage than most…and doesn’t have threatening options until she has meter…In my experience, and observations of others, most K players that try to switch to other grooves because of A-groove aren’t nearly as successful long term as they were with K. Especially if there’s a lot of top tier whores over there…y’all should be getting hella practice against it…and learn how to beat it.

I guess that was a rant of my own.

Like i said before, i don’t know if you know what I’m talking about. There never was any argument that Picking High Tiers = Top player. The point I was making about Ken thinking that Anthony is the only Top Player, and the fact I think so too proves that point clearly enough, because we recognise his execution AND startegy, not because of the characters he use. What I was saying was, people in SG think that Picking the high Tiers and using them to beat the majority of the scrubdom or decent players makes them Top Players, which i Disagree with, if you carefully read my posts. And hey, you were in japan 7 days but you were playing for 7 days too? i thought you met up with Buk for like, 2…3 days tops? And like I said before, again, what you saw In Japan is what I hope I see here one day. Unfortunately majority of the people still want to stick to Are teams, so diversity isn’t really present. We need to talk, you seem to have something on your mind which distracts you from the many points I have in this discussion. You, me, IRC, ASAP.

And yes, JH switched to C groove because he was dying to the people who were Using A-Are against him, and why is he scarier now? because his Team is designed to have an easier time with Your kind of team. Did you know that I find it easier to play with him now? He’s Less scarier to me now (Even though I still lose lots to him). Which is why i was sad he switched. But at least he switched to C and not A, but we already had Simon for that.

Aaaaannnnd not to make it off topic, since this thread was to recognise Ken’s Strat and execution, I’ll say it again, I appreciate his gameplay, not just his ‘team’, and, I appreciate his mentality too. And don’t you see it? You appreciate the Japanese mentality of using whoever they like and getting good at it, and right here this is is exactly what Ken has been, was and will always be doing. If u appreciate the Japs, appreciate Ken for bringing C-Ryu, Ken, Akuma to this level in SG. Almost everyone else is just trying to bring the same old characters to the almost Top Player level, and we don’t benefit that much from that. (But, thats besides the point).

And Leezy, just for ur info, this JH guy has excellent execution and strats, as for whether he wants to be considered top player, well…i dunnoe.

I dont care who you are, A-blanka beats that whole team…I will R4 that shit for scrilla…wus CrAckin!!

I’m still not sold on it…I suppose I’d have to play him to know how good he is…'cause if his execution and strats are hella good (i.e. he knows how to fight against top tier shit, and can JD shit…), he should have no problem against any A-groove team. I mean…I’ve never played anyone from SG…which I’m assuming is Singapore, based on location…so I don’t know how good people are over there. Sounds like it’d be a fun vacation…

Aha Leezy, you caught it, I didn’t say if he was any good JDing everything. And the thing is he died mostly to A-Are, not just any A-Groove team, so that’s why he made the switch.

And it Will be a fun vacation!!! Comeee Come!!! :smiley:

Edit : Even more specifically he dies ato A -Sak, Blank, Bis.

Uhh

Unless i’ve really been mssing out, i think it’s more or less granted that A-Are gives any K team a heckuva time. Maybe calling it “a fighting chance” was a bit of exaggeration on my part. I’m pretty sure RC A-blanka will give K groove (any groove other than A for that matter) a hard time as well.

For the record, we have a handful of players who know what’s up with the game, so if either of you ever drop by I’m sure it’ll be dope.

Yeah, come on down, Rashio and I will give you the headache of your lives :smiley: (I’ll try at least, muaahahahaha)