I’d like to add to my previous post that Poongko actually won shadowloo showdown 2011 . So basically your argument about gamerbee, xian and poongko possibly not even being on the same level as the top US players is ludicrous. They’ve all travelled abroad and won tournaments amongst the best players and placed more consistently In EVO ( excl. xian) than every top US player bar ricky. I can’t really say much more on that.
What top US guys have gone to japanese tournaments, australian tournaments and won?
What top US guys have won EVO ? What happened at the sf25th tournament? All the top US guys were out first except for snake eyez. I think the US even had more qualifiers. Some of these guys had to qualify abroad. This is just one example but a very good one in giving insight into the outcome of the top japanese/asian doing battle with the best from the US.
Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition v2012 — Results
WW|Infiltration (Akuma)
MCZ|Daigo Umehara (Ryu)
RZR|Fuudo (Fei Long)
MCZ|Tokido (Akuma)
AVM|GamerBee (Adon, Yun)
AGE|Snake Eyez (Zangief)
MCZ|Mago (Fei Long)
EG|Momochi (Cody, Akuma)
Alioune (Cammy)
BT|Dieminion (Guile)
RZR|Problem X (Seth)
Wolfkrone (C. Viper)
EG|fLoE (Guy)
EG|Justin Wong (Rufus)
AGE|Vangief (Zangief)
EG|Ricky Ortiz (Rufus)
When you look back at all the major tournaments involving the US and japanese top players, its pretty obvious that overall the japanese consistently place higher. Of course they lose matches here and there . They aren’t invincible . The top US guys do beat them but not as consistently as the japanese beat the US guys. Overall though, they 100% lag behind and this is just tournaments which I have repeatedly said don’t carry as much significance when compared to leagues but we haven’t seen any leagues yet. You will see exposure if that happens. Looking at a single tournament isn’t enough but when you look back over the games life span, you will see nearly all of the tournaments involving a mix of international top players being won by non us players. I can’t really spell it out much more.
Proper analysis of this data, i.e. the level of top class competition at a tournament. For example you couldn’t compare a tournament win in EVO/Godsgarden/Shadowloo showdown to a win in dreamhack/NCR. Results must be weighted correctly.
What makes Hakan the worst character in the game? Just because you don’t see people playing him or you don’t understand enough about the character doesn’t mean he’s ass. Are you just succumbing to the mob mentality accustomed with tier lists? Apparently Evil ryu is ass according to many (US) tier lists. I’ve played him a bit and consider him a good character but by no means top tier. He is on the verge of being a very solid and dangerous character imo. Completely overlooked through laziness like hakan. They require more thought to exploit their optimal strategies. People generally take the easier route in life.
Then a guy called sako comes along and and cleans up 7-0 in A LEAGUE versus some of THE best players around with an exceptional game difference. I know he used Ibuki for a few matchups but he played evil ryu like he was one of the best characters. He takes a character that most people don’t consider and shows the world their potential. Exactly like Infiltration did with Hakan. That’s the difference with their mentality. They don’t follow the general consensus. They take the character and study them. Look to exploit everything they can. People look at a tier list and the lack of people playing said characters and somehow in their mind they create a huge disparity between “tiers”. I agree that certain characters are stronger / weaker relative to the cast but this disparity is much smaller than people imagine in their heads.
You can’t suggest that Infiltration should be revered for beating a few players with Hakan. It’s meaningless. He is an underestimated character and people are not familiar with the matchup. Plus it’s Infiltration. If you believe this puts him on some godly status then you should be bowing at sako’s feet. He just BEAT ALL 7 at the topanga asia league with 4 of those matches being with evil ryu.
I’m a scrub, so take this with a grain of salt. But tier lists are a pure statistical thing. “how many times has character x won against y in high level matches?” This statistic can be used to look into the game and try to see what characters beat others, and which are the “best”. But it’s just a statistic.
This sort of thing is used in games like chess. “in the situation x, where there are some different moves I could do, which moves win games the most in pro matches?”. Specially in the game go people use that a lot, because it’s too complex to analyze all the possible alternatives.
The huge difference is that in go you have dozens (or many more) high level players , and only two “characters”: Black and white. So the statistics are much more reliable. In SSF4 tier lists you have 40 characters which make for hundreds of possible matchups, and only a very limited amount of players that are at the same level playing this characters. So statistically the margin of error is huge. Once you consider that some characters never got their full potential out, the list becomes even less useful.
So tier lists are in theory much less useful than actual game analysis.
If there were like 1000 SSF4 pro players using different characters, and for every character at least like 20 people using them consistently, then you could take the wins and losses form such a list and take it a little more seriously.
6 out of the 7 US players for 25th anniversary placed in the bottom 8 of the 16 man bracket…that’s some pretty disgraceful placing overall.
US has never done well in a Japanese AE tournament, except one of those pre-SBO 5on5 events which I think the US team got 8th…don’t recall exactly, it was a while ago. People that don’t follow the scene closely really underestimate the level of the players that don’t travel outside of Japan…most of these players are pretty close, if not, on the level of Kazunoko, Fuudo, Daigo, etc and this is why tournaments like Godsgarden, SBO and whatever other cup events they hold (like the various 5on5) are way above the level of any American tournament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO1nfv7MeLQ
Ryan isn´t a US guy, but still I think some of the top players of the non “Homo Japonicus” could beat the members of “Homo Japonicus” in longer sets. But they are still free against the grandmaster of the Seppuku Arcade called Zenpou Tenshin.
I honestly don’t think you get it. We have all accepted that the japanese lose matches. Both sides do. They would lose some long sets too. In the long run though, they would come out on top. Compiled tournament evidence leads to an accurate extrapolation.
Instead of adding something meaningful to the debate you are just trying to poke fun at Emil . He is a little extreme in some things he said and at times both sides can lose perspective, but his general argument is correct. Again, look at the tournament results as a whole and not just “cherry picked” matches to suit your most recent post.
Now, that puts things into a better perspective doesn’t it?
Your analysis and argument falls short in so many ways it is becoming rather irritating. If you are going to continue to just select random matches without giving the bigger picture , prepare to look foolish and have your incomplete knowledge of this scene unveiled before your very eyes.
You want to lock this thread? Is this not an open forum? What gives you the right to butt in and suggest this?
I think I silenced quite a few people when the evidence came out ,so maybe it is for the best .
I’ve discovered a new thing. It’s where you write a bunch of stuff, throw in some evidence that supports your case while dismissing evidence that doesn’t support your case, oversimplify things so as to help your argument, write paragraphs upon paragraphs that no one really wants to respond to, end posts with witty sentences that have a sense of finality to them such as “if you don’t see I’m right by now I don’t know what else to say,” be convinced that the argument you are making is much stronger than it actually is, and then declare your victory when no one bothers to respond because good faith has been broken and everyone would rather kill themselves than continue the conversation.
I know that’s a mouthful so you can just call it “doing a skullodream” for shorthand.
The difference between ryu/akuma in ae2012 is smaller than the difference between yun/akuma in AE. The match that Daigo spanked Infiltration with Yun at NCR9 is not very meaningful but it does give some insight. I would say its a 6-4 yun in AE , possibly 6.5-3.5. Anything more and you are just kidding yourself into thinking the level of disparity is that large. I guess it was shocking to see a different character dictate the flow of a match rather than akuma for a change. That caught people by surprise and suddenly " oh this matchup sucks so bad for akuma…I cant beat yun…waaah!"
Here’s a video of a top yun vs a top akuma and akuma wins. The matchup was winnable but more difficult than usual for akuma, which is something akuma players were just not used to. For that reason, the match at NCR9 does give a more balanced perspective on Daigo vs Infiltration. Yes, yun had an advantage but by no means was it “free”. Infiltration lost pretty badly , like daigo has with a slightly inferior ryu in their meetings.
Actually there is a reason to close the thread, and it is not the fact that the Japanese master race debate isn’t going anywhere. This thread is supposed to be bout what the title suggests. What is being discussed now has nothing to do with this topic and should go in a new thread.
No offense, but there is no way in hell it was simply 6-4. If you ever played that match as Akuma against a good Yun it was probably Akuma’s worst match up in the entire SF4 series. 7-3 easily.
There was not a damn thing Akuma could do that Yun couldn’t punish.
So Akuma and Yun was 6-4 in AE and still 6-4 2012 when Yun got nerfed significantly? LOL!!! Tokido Absolutely hated this match up because it was horrible.
Remember Kazunoko’s exargerated tier list?
Zangief 6-4
Barlog 7-3
Seth 7-3
Akuma 8-2
Fei Long 6-4
Gen 8-2
Dee Jay 7-3
Juri 8-2
Akuma is one of Yun’s easiest match ups because he can’t keep him away, his teleports get lunge punched for free and air fireballs are dangerous to throw. Granted it was unlikely that it was a 8-2 match up, it was nowhere near 6-4 like it is now, it was at the VERY least a 7-3.
It gets worse than lunged. Most good Yuns use to the lunge or HK dive kick to track down the teleport, but land just next to it for a decent sized punish. It is so hard to get Yun off of you if the other player knows the correct spacings and timings.