Or to put it in another way, is Daigo a better ‘street fighter’ player than Infiltration, it’s just that Akuma is a better character than Ryu which is why Infiltration has been able to beat him so much?
Btw I’m not a Daigo ‘fanboy’, it’s just an honest question.
I’m not a Daigo fanboy either, but I would say yeah. Infiltration is definitely the best player as of now, their is no denying that though.
I think Infiltration, Daigo, and Xian[KoF legend] are the best in my opinion. Xian would be godlike with Gouki or if he mained Yun again. That gen… something special about it. Lol
Watch that 30 minute Daigo interview in newyork that got uploaded to youtube a few days ago, its pretty good.
Daigo messed around with Akuma before going back to Ryu early on in AE2012. I think the difference is in mind set, Akuma works MUCH better for infiltration than Daigo because Infiltration in general has better mixups (not just from a character stand point.) even in AE Daigo was a fairly straight forward Yun player who relied more on the neutral game and didn’t go for the mixups nearly as often as Kazunoko or Xian. Ryu suits him more because Daigo is a very strong neutral game player and while Akuma is above average in the neutral game, Ryu is better.
Overall I think Daigo and Infiltration are about equal. However I think Infiltration is a better researcher while Daigo is a better adapter. Infiltration researches his opponents much more (so it seems) than Daigo or pretty much anyone else and often has not only one solid gameplan against them but sometimes a 2nd or 3rd backup option. Daigo is amazing at learning from his mistakes nearly instantly and adapting to the situation. He is probably the best introspective player in the world able to see his own weaknesses and strengths and learn to adjust them on the fly or to train in the future. (look at his new joystick techniques and timings for throwing fireballs specifically created after western players started listening to his inputs.)
That said, I think that infiltrations reaction times are faster (likely partly due to the age differences) and that really helps him out.
This is something that can’t really be answered. Daigo has invested tons of time and years into Ryu…he even played Ryu back in ST. Also certain characters fit certain players better.
Xian is also very impressive in what he’s done lately with his Gen. The hardest character to play, and also only mid tier.
Daigo is not so far from Infiltration skill-wise but as of right now Infiltration is the best. Still, without his NOTES he isn’t as mpressive: he lost to BnB.chuchu and to Breno_Fight3rs in Brazil earlier this year ( though he did beat Breno later in a 1st to 5 or omething, 5-2 I tihnk)
Anyway, Infiltration has that korean approach to professional gaming, the truly -professional- approach, as in treating winning like a job. He has tons of notes, chooses his character and plays to WIN. Everything he does is to win. And he wins.
Daigo’s best character is Ryu, not Akuma. It isn’t always a polar thing, getting a “better” character doesn’t make you a better competitor. You also have the characters that work well for your mindset, personality and natural reactions/instincts.
I think a better question might be: why do people find it so easy to like daigos playstyle and not infiltrations?
My answer would be because daigo uses “pure fundamentals” to win…ie in game adaptation, top flight reflexes, insane execution… The works… Whereas infiltration to me at least is much less impressive visually… He just wins and its hard to see why… But when daigo wins its very easy to see why… Well thats my take anyway.
This reminds me of an eminem lyric about himself that i would apply to infiltration:
“The new ice cube… Motherfuckers hate to like you”
Lol
As far as daigo winning more with akuma, he certainly could if he really wanted to… But its clear he just likes playing as ryu… One loss versus poongko with yun and he never went back… Whereas hes taken so many losses with ryu but still comes back…its cause he just likes ryus playstyle.
Lets not forget the character he used when he put America on blast as to the Japanese prowess…hint:
Infiltration has more problems with opponents, he never fought before, like Luminaire, Riceata, Knuckledu, Chuchu, Breno and the rest, but however, his succes comes from his professional approch, he does not only prepare for the opponents used characters, he also prepares much for the player himself. And don´t forget the fact that he has also good pocket characters for counter picking.
Some of the pros should honestly counter pick more.
Infiltration strikes me as a talented player (of course) but his major asset is his professional approach. There are some really gifted FG prodigies out there who don’t have such good results. Justin Wong is possibly the biggest FG talent of the last 10 years, Daigo comes close. There are other brilliant guys out there too.
Still, look at Starcraft. Koreans treat this like a job, not like a fun competition. Also bear in mind Daigo is a superstar. A day at the office for Daigo involves tons of appearances, interviews, marketing, brand management as well as training.
A day at the office for Infiltration involves studying how to win more. That’s it.
When they hit the stage Daigo has to deal with the crushing pressure of expectation (support is great when you are the underdog, it can overwhelm you when you’re the favorite and this is something sports psychologist work a lot with). Infiltration deals mostly with the crowd wanting him to lose.
At first I also thought, that infiltration only wins, because he is playing akuma (which is really an easy character in my opinion). But then I saw the match against Ricky ortiz rufus, where infiltration played Ryu, you can really see what an amazing player he is!!! I think if Infiltration would main Ryu, he would be better as Daigo in only a view days.
in my textbook daigo is going to be the best street fighter player forever !
infiltration mastered akuma and right now noone can touch him as long as he uses that broken char (i hope the patch will fix that)…
now imagine daigo starts maining and mastering cammy ! what do you think would infiltration be able to beat daigo? i dont think so
infiltration is a tier whore and a counterpicker !!! i dont have the slightest respect for that guy !!! he wants to win the match no matter what (remeber what he did to filipino champ?) !
on the other side daigo is a little bit of a peoples player !
No. Daigo has lots of experience in the game and all but he’s stuck to Ryu for a majority of the time. Yes he transistioned to Yun given how retarded the character was in Snap Da Condom On edition, But he quickly reverted back to Ryu in Apology Edition.
Akuma also doesn’t have Ryu’s ultra 1. Something which Daigo has made it a point to land almost at will. Daigo’s consistency with landing Ultra 1 is just one of many things that Daigo uses to demoralize his opponents.
I don´t want to remind you, which of these 2 players still used his former main character in AE and which one picked a top tier for AE.
And concerning counter picking, if you are in a tournament with a nice prize money and you are now in the finals. Let´s say, you would main Bison and your opponent is a Guile player, would you still use Bison, despite the fact, it is a 8-2 matchup for Guile?
Your character choices have to be done in a way, where all matchups can be covered with nearly no bad matchups. If you think that your main doesn´t do well against character Y, then pick someone else for this matchup, who does better.
About Filipino Chump, if you are maining a char, who doesn´t work well with the metagame of SF4 and has also a lot of bad matchups(Abel, Hakan, Makoto, Yun, etc), then he will have a hard time, but in the end, the player is himself responsible for his defeat. Never blame the matchup difficulty. Another thing is, FChamp deserved it.
“I feel that it’s the act of quietly accepting defeat without making excuses.” -Daigo
This is something, some people can´t admit and Fchamp is one of them and also one of hardest thing in the FGC, according to Daigo.