Do not sleep on Vice, that is all I have to say about her. Definitely a staple on my team, well never drop her. Or Terry. Or Shen.
Hey, you know how it feels when you get caught in Grant’s 100% Makoto combos:p
I play Ibuki. Everything in 3s is a near 100% combo against me. =P
Grant plays a setup driven Makoto. If you bite his bait, yeah, it’s a sure win for him. You can play better footsies than him though, so if you apply pressure to his neutral jumps and poke game EVEN WHEN YOU’RE ON CHIP, he crumples to mix-ups since he doesn’t play the high-low block game well – he telegraphs his gameplay when he’s thinking about his options during all of these moments. The only thing he can do is randomly karakusa and parry you if you pressure him hardcore, but even then Grant wants you to get carried away because that’s how his whole punishment game works. Knock him out of his setups, apply pressure, bait, repeat. Even if he DOES get you, he won’t rush you down for the win like a bat out of hell – he doesn’t play Makoto like that in the hundreds of games I’ve versed him in. If this were true, the moment he hit 2 stocks, he would have raped you head on, but he never did it even once, last night. He’s looking for situations to setup; the more time he has to think, the better he plays. He plays this way for EVERYONE, and lets his tight execution, spacing, and punishment game win his fights.
DON, Y MUST I EDUCATE U AT 3S?! D8
Great. Expose Grant’s weaknesses so he can work on it and even be harder to beat lol:p
I hope he does. The better he gets, the more I get to download for free, which makes me even better. I really want to see him push more high/low mix-ups and resets so that his setups aren’t nearly as straight forward. HEAR THAT GRANT! I WANT YOU TO DO THESE THINGS! DO THEM! NOW! DO IT!
And as for you Mr. EX-DP-on-wake-up-when-things-get-rough, I see your tic throw setups. I know most of them now. The one in the corner after the cross-up, the block-string feint into throw, that dirty EX fireball mid/close when you feel pressured, etc… You play 3s like an OG straight out of a hot game of ST. Given another month of the same setups (they haven’t changed up by that much), I’ll have your number, clean. EXPOSED! Level up, Don. I want stronger comp! 
Edit: Oh, so this can be fair, and so that all the frauds are exposed, I can’t deal with well-paced rushdown. Rush me down. I will fall. Suga made me realize this when he beat me with SF4 style shenanigans with Ibuki. 
You’re all scrubs in 3s.
Thank you everyone for showing up this past Friday. It was fun as always. We had twelve people. Thank you ALAX, Lavell, Mr. 12, Todd, Lee, Karafail, Kent, Galzpanic, outforjustice, The Absolute, Courtney, and John.
Thank you and I hope to see y’all this coming Freitag.
You know my play style better than I do. D:
Yeah, I gotta fix that. People tell me that my Makoto’s too passive. I should be chasing my opponents more instead of letting them come to me.
So you guys think AE 2012 will be good? I got hype hopes for it and then after a week I’ll probably be dissapointed butfor now it’s a little exciting. But like I always said before (but never actually do) is that to truly appreciated the SF4 series you gotta main the new characters i.e. Viper, Juri, etc. I think SF4 gets easily dismissed because if you use SF2 or 3S or Alpha characters you’re gonna be comparing them to their original counters parts. AE Guy is no where as fun as Alpha Guy. AE Makoto or Dudley are no where as fun as they are in 3S.
I just use Ryu cause I’m lazy and want to win. But also at the same time using Ryu didn’t make me appreciate SF4 enough…
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s you refusing to change, but more so that you can’t help it because of the nature of the character, and how that influenced your overall play style over the course of time. Most of Makoto’s moves are unsafe outside of her godlike air-to-air game, so it’s only natural that you learned how to play her safe to find a sweet spot to operate from (the pokes and neutral jumps).
Playing aggressive requires more in the way of tic-hits and pressure with your normals, but not in a random sense, per se. A lot of it comes down to knowing when the other guy is pissed, genuinely surprising them with an ace card, and knowing when to tell yourself “stop!”. Agitating your opponent, understanding their intent based upon situations, identifying the “neutral” pace to know when it’s time to play footsies or a mix-up game (Don’s pacing, for example, grinds to a halt at mid-close if you so much as threaten his game, forcing everything into neutral so he can offset aggression), scare tactics – all that comes from finding the rhythm set by the aggressor, which normally occurs after a hard/soft knock down or block-string series. You already have some idea how to do so with Makoto’s meaty strong into karakusa on hard knockdown, and even though I’m not the best Makoto player out there, I think you could create even more situations off of stuff as simple as standing jab or her standing strong for counter hitting, if you wanted to.
Finding strong block-strings to work off of is a good way to establish that “what can I do after X normal” or “is this enough pressure to cause my opponent to mash out a reversal” thinking. Despite the fact that block-string is generally unsafe in 3s, it’s still important to have something since you can fundamentally dissemble the string for very specific uses and situations (you have bits and pieces of a solid block-string game, passive as it is). My Ibuki, for example, has 10 setups off of standing jab as an anti-air and many more on the ground, all leading into situations I can control or identify. However, if, say, I tested you earlier with a standing short or TC series to see if you’re the type to react to every little thing, I may not commit to the mix-ups later that require risky strings off of that jab unless I know you’re intimidated in some form. Best way to identify this is by looking at a player’s movement patterns: if they’re walking back or dashing back a lot, then they’re uncomfortable (GO IN!); if they’re jumping in, looking for hits, then they’re anxious to get anything going (focus on a punishment game, then transition into a mix-up game to create confusion and frustration in the other player); poking? they’re thinking (play mix-up); if you see someone walking without any form of deviance, then they’re in full control and know what they need to do (this commonly happens a lot when players want to grab you from short ranges, actually, so respect that or commit to the “dp everything” mentality as a mix-up option to throw them off, occasionally).
The moment you can grasp the flow of the game from these sort of situations and the player specific ones, I can ‘almost’ promise you that you’ll feel a lot more comfortable doing things you normally wouldn’t do with your Makoto, offensively, and notice holes in your game you didn’t see before. And~~~ this is where I shut up because I’m giving away too much of my tech! >=(
Don’t forget Ibuki! D:
2012 seems to allow a larger array of combos now. I was never big on the game, but I can still find enjoyment in playing Rose. I used to play Viper a little bit, but that was long before I even knew how to SJC consistently. =/
Oh, hey, what is this on the front page I see?
:] Props Bro Don.
Cool. Thanks bro.
Thanks Tim for the flattering well written article and thanks Fighting Game Community for your support:) Much appreciated.
What I DON’T see is my name anywhere in that article.
Congrats on that front page goodness Don.
9 days!!!
how come they didn’t write about your fucking psychotic meltdown? or your infraction for being a racist?
this article is fucking bias.
ni8wing, nice article on srk front page man, glad you get recognition for your efforts. hope all is well and thanks for the visits!
Thank you sir. Much appreciated. I’m only trying to do what you and the rest of your fellow Titan OG’s are doing. And that’s to keep the SF scene alive even though I only do it 1/4 as good as you guys. You, Valle, Mr. Wiz, and the rest of the Titan OG’s are the inspiration for scrubs like me lol. You guys are the Titans because you are the first. Compared to you I’m just aluminum lol.
This is so wrong. They don’t even look like Mai and Chun. Or do they?
Tomorrow we shall have a gathering. Anyone new interested please text me at 310 344 9367.
I finally replaced my Super Turbo sticks with IL’s and they work great. I was surprised how accurate and smooth they are. Best American stick right now, maybe ever made. It’s funny how I only know about the IL’s now. This joystick is a miracle. The square gate is small and hitting those corners are so easy. I don’t want to say it but it kinda feels like a Japanese joystick. But don’t take my word for it try it out.
Tonight we shall have a gathering. Anyone and everyone is invited. The more the merrier. I’ll be going around to collect the E fee so please have it ready when I ask for it. Anyone new interested please text me at 310 344 9367. Hope to see everyone tonight.
i will play kof