Sabin SF4 Japan Q/A - match of the day: Barfights II

c_nul · October 1, 2009, 10:20pm

Ouais c’est ca dans les DOM/Antilles/FWI.

Bon ben c’est bon Ranix t’en prend deux ok !! :lovin:

L’arcadia, c’est le genre de magazine qui est vite en rupture ou on peut en trouver facilement pendant tous le mois ?

Dead end = Out of stock in Playasia… :sad:

Sabin · October 1, 2009, 10:46pm

Wao (Ken)/Sabin (Dhalsim) vs CANTONA (Zangief) @ Sega Avion 9/23/09
[media=youtube]YG_1_7x10XI[/media]

Are people having trouble getting Tougeki DVD’s overseas? I may be able to buy a few and ship them overseas for a decent price.

as usual will answer questions later

LuckyDay · October 1, 2009, 10:48pm

That would be awesome. If you could get them we would buy them.

broz0rs · October 1, 2009, 11:20pm

hi art, is the person you are talking to your new girlfriend? she has fairly decent english for japanese standards.

Gaijin87 · October 1, 2009, 11:54pm

You can get all the Arcadia magazines and Tougeki DVDs ('08 and some previous years) through Amazon Japan, as long as you’re willing to pay the outrageous shipping. (~$25).

khayri · October 1, 2009, 11:56pm

Thanks on the wao vid homie. I might be willing to pay for the DVD’s and the SBO joint from Arcadia if u can. Let me know

Wikum · October 2, 2009, 12:00am

that cantona guy is my favourite zangief. is he the best gief you have played so far in japan?

DominicanPower · October 2, 2009, 12:03am

Who’s that lil mama talking

ocdscale · October 2, 2009, 12:11am

Someone requested a compiled Q&A. Obviously Sabin shouldn’t have to do that after giving us so much info, so here it is.
Rather than getting all the questions and all the responses, I just took Sabin’s responses and categorized them. I also included posts from other members when appropriate.
I obviously excluded stuff about Meru, Emil, 2ch and random shit. This is just substantive stuff Sabin/others brought back from Japan.

Abel

Spoiler

Sabin:

i havent seen enough abel vs chun to really say. nemo hasnt been around when i was around! havent seen nuki either. TKD plays chun but you know its just his alternate so w/e.

also when i say fuck niggas up in close im thinking of sim mindset too much since he sucks in close. i meant to say he can make people hesitate to throw shit out cause his vortex is pretty decent. its no uppercut fadc but it still aint bad.

as for my sim vs ur abel yea if u dont beat me u should feel bad cause its in ur favor lol. which is why i should probably learn ryu for this match…hmm.

the reason why i have a high opinion of abel is because there are quite a few high level BP players with Abel…and I see them getting in vs sagat, akuma (lol not gief) and lots of other characters. He does have his issues, but then again who doesnt have counters?

Akuma

Spoiler

Sabin:

gouki vortex is like, land any combo into tatsu, sweep
after that, then sets u up in the perfect position for
crossup air tatsu -> sweep

you can try this again, if they are in disbelief of the crossup after 2nd sweep
or you can mix it up with ambiguous j. forward, then you can do stand jab -> rh x3 ending in tatsu/sweep, by then they are usually stunned tho
lastly if they start becoming wise to which way to block, you can do demon flip to catch them if they try to block…

then you can mix up with empty jump into cr. short into combo…hard to tell which side they will be on either…
combine this with gouki air fireball crossup setups (or fake crossups) and you have the best vortex in the game imo, though you really need to watch 10-15 games before you can see ALL the options cant see them all in 1 video. basically everyone who gets hit by this is usually free for the rest of the round, shit is cheap as fuck.

also im not sure about this but i think goukis demon flip will grab crouchers on the first frame of their wakeup, kind of like how cammys hooligan wil grab crouchers on their wakeup frames (not sure how many people know about this, but sanford showed me this months back.) I think Goukis demon flip has the same property.

Sabin:

as for gouki, i guess i can answer this well since i played tokido tonight…btw vs me they try to turtle until they knock me down then its rush down city

i think i went like 2-4 or something. the games i lost, were because i either

a) tried to instant overhead tokido like a idiot and got ultra demoned in my recovery - i was trying to find a sweet spot for overhead so that he couldnt demon me and i guess i failed haha

b) got knocked down and got vortexed as usual rofl. i was trying anything to escape the setup besides blocking lol. one time he jumped at me with jump medium kick and i did super and i got away from the vortex haha since it didnt cross me up. a few times i started to block crossup tatsu and i was blocking the jump MK so he did his normal jump divekick at the apex of his jump which looks like demon flip KINDA…and it mindfucked me and i walked forward into it. lol.

the games i won were because prety much, i didnt let him get close to me, punished all demon flip setups with jump mp or jump back headbutt or whatever so i didnt get knocked down into the vortex. its not impossible but its really hard.

oh yeah i played umehara tonight again and it wasnt so even. score was i think 1-4 me or something, he had a 17 game win streak by then and the one game i beat him…he left after that, i hella wanted a runback lol cause he raped my BP.

[spoiler=Ghostal] Oh man, no wonder you got beat.
That Akuma was Yuu?, dude is quite a tough character.
For reference and name comparison:
[media=youtube]gx2DcyyHUrU[/media][/details]

Blanka

Spoiler

Sabin:

ok so check it…i get to shibuya sportsland earlier today before trf nakano and this blanka player challenges me, he has like 75% win ratio so im like wtf ok. after he beats me hes like hi sabin im mizoteru! and he was hella nice guy actually.

dude is the most patient blanka ever but will rush when he needs to. he has ultimate control of spacing and knows when to take risks…start of the match hes turtling like crazy until he has ex meter then uses ex meter intelligently. he also doesnt do the same thing every time. for example, when i got him in a advantageous situation for myself hed start to ex KKK ball outta there…first few times i did it i b. stronged him since i thought that would work 100% but he started doing it behind me, in front of me so id get crossed up and b. strong would miss completely. if he did it in front of me id whiff b. strong and get grabbed for free. SMART STUFF! and godlike zoning too.

50/50 all day in the corner…
i can break all his grabs but it doesnt fucking matter hes right on top of me still
if he gets a grab im in hella 50/50 situation. jab ball to elec in the corner as crossup, of course we all know that, but once i started blocking it, he would change the spacing up on it, by doing a jab ball i think? that hella looked like it would cross me up on wakeup (post throw) but it didnt and i got ticked

at that point im scared and i have to guess hah.

also lands low fwd ultra basically every single time and thats a 1frame link.
grabs a lot, a LOT, even if you tech, hes still on that ass anyways. knows when to walk fwd/slide through fireball games too most of the time and will even use short kick ball to gain a little ground through fireballs. dude is just hella smart.

i lost 9-1 to him before he had to go and i had 6 of those games but guy is just so damn clutch. i was so flustered to run away and try to hit him that when i did block some shit like his ultra, i would completely flub the super and do j. fierce instead haha.

he would do stuff like walkup low fwd, jab, delayed stand fwd (the double knee for throw break/counterhit bait.

sorry thats all i can remember for now sorry i cant record as id like. id love to record some matches with this guy hes too good, blanka vortex once ur knocked down lol. no wonder why justin gave him mad props and i can see why combo/valle lost to him. No shame in that one.

Boxer

Spoiler

Sabin:

So I get to Mist 2 @ Umeda and I see a 89K BP Boxer, and I’m like wtf? This guy is higher ranked than Bamyu (the boxer that is the best player at Mist 2 according to Az, I would agree too.)

Turns out it’s Maeda Taison, the Boxer guy that everyone is jizzing about over on the Daigo thread, lol. I recorded just the vs screen then showed it to my gf later for confirmation. Either way, it was a nice surprise.
Final score? Probably something like 8-3 me 7-3 me or something like that, I don’t remember the whole score.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to record it since my gf was meeting her friend during the day…so ah well. I think probably by the 5th or 6th game i beat him he lit a cigarette and came over and smiled at me. Then the last game he came over, shook my hand and gave me some props. It was a nice feeling, too bad I can’t communicate with the guy. He played very conservatively vs me and I’m pretty good fighting against turtle boxers (at least compred to Bamyu’s, we go 50-50 more often and that fool doesnt give me any time to think.) Either way, it was good stuff. He didn’t get any dash ultras or ex armor craziness on me since I’m generally aware of the spacing. Bamyu is a nice guy too, we had some epic battles at Mist 2 the night before. It’s hard to play that guy in a long set since it requires so much mental energy to play him, he has one of the best adaptation skills ive ever seen.

Chun

Spoiler

[spoiler=Azreal]I got to play against Nuki at casuals at SBO, and I played next to Nemo for a few rounds at casual before the Shiozawa Cup.

SFIV Chun actually has a great toolset. She?s got a great mixup game, can get in fairly easily, can also play keep-away fairly well. The main difficulty with the character is that her options are all very specific to certain situations. For example, if Ryu jumps in at Chun with J.RH, depending on the distance and timing of the jump, Chun?s best options may change from S.MK, C.RH, C.MP, EX SBK, FA dash backwards, or just block it. As a Chun player, you have like half a second to figure out which option is best and use it.

Nemo and Nuki, they just knew. No hesistation, no mistakes. In this situation, use this. It?s the kind of knowledge you can only gain from a lot of experience with the character, as they have. Like many other Japanese players, they?re also really good at reading their opponents, as well as setting them up - baiting them into a specific response, and then countering with the best possible option. When I fought against Nuki, he kept getting me with sweep a lot. I had to take a moment and figure out that he was reading exactly when I was going to get up off DB and try to move forwards or backwards, and that?s when I was getting hit with sweep. He?d then safe jump in, and with my AA options pretty much null I tried backdashing to safety, but he?d already anticipated that and hit me with sweep as he landed.

They?re also really smart about meter usage. Meterless combos to start the fight, and so if they need to use it in clutch situations later on they have plenty. Plus, Chun with a full super bar takes away a LOT of options.

Nuki is really solid with his fundamentals, footsies, and spacing. He will just beat you methodically. Nemo is more or a risk taker. Chun has low vitality, so many people will try to be somewhat defensive with her late in the round to conserve health. Nemo will just go at you. Its not completely reckless - he does set up a lot of his attacks beforehand. I also noticed that Nemo will kind of take a beating for the entire first half of the round, and then just unleash a string of successful attacks and before you know it the round is his. [/details]

Claw

Spoiler

ocdscale · October 2, 2009, 12:16am

C. Viper

Spoiler

Dictator

Spoiler

[spoiler=DevilJin 01] Yeah he’s hard to use at high level almost exclusively based on the fact that his tools are limited as far as being able to win matches at high level. Same reason why Elena was tough to use. She was easy to pick up and had some solid normals and options but tough to master because her lack of powerful consistent win options. She didn’t have Genei Jin, 2 high priority normals that went into a 2 stock half life super, a million ways to combo into a 3 stock super, half life EX combos (dudley) etc. Which inherently forced her to think and react to the opponent more in order to win. You can only make Elena better after a certain point by just playing the best players and playing them often. Before and after tournaments.

Dictators tools are better for flustering than they are for winning. Winning with Dictator basically asks of you to block a lot when pressure and be tricky with your defensive maneuvers which none of that sets up any real scary offensive. Even Dhalsim technically has a potentially scarier offense than Dictator and he’s just trying to keep you out most of the time. If you lost to Dictator it’s basically because you fell for one too many of his low damage mix ups which gave him a health lead and then he continued to pressure and zone you until you lost. Which can basically be remedied by picking a better character or someone who generally has better options for turning the match around.

Unless Arturo was a Dictator player himself I don’t see him seeing much more than what he’s already told you. The rest of the Japanese Dictators performing as well as they do is just basically going hardbody and playing everyday at the arcade. That alone will suffice for a character that has enough options to put up a fight like Dictator. They’re not going to be doing anything different other than reacting quicker and keeping themselves out of more situations. Which is not something anyone can come from Japan and tell you how to do. You just gotta be playing with nice people and put that together for yourself. Especially with a character as bare as Dictator.[/details]

Sabin:

see what deviljin wrote. btw i personally dont think devils reverse is always the best idea since it corners you but im not a dictator player. i mean the last dictator player i played outturtled me, hard to believe but yea…kim plays defensively until he sees a opening and he goes balls out. basically it depends and theres no one straight answer. dictator doesnt really have hella parlor tricks anyway…it comes down to playing the game more and being more solid with their spacing, period. thats how i feel when i play vs japan here and its not something you can explain easily or even see in videos. i even get hit by simple mixups that i feel i should be blocking but when the japanese do it its like fucking unblockable haha. example rog ex overhead over and over im like wtf is he really gonna go for it twice and sure enough he does. i think its mainly cause of the fact that they play h2h and you cant see their buttons or their emotions while playing, they will go balls out with unsafe shit and unsafe dps without fadc etc just because. sorry i went off on a tangent here.

about stomps, they use it the same way that you and andre do, kim was trying to do some crazy stuff with the stomps vs me but couldnt get the setup out, you should ask him for parlor tricks if anything

Fuerte

Spoiler

Sabin:

As for TKD, I was able to play him last night @ bigbox with my Sim. First game I played him, I won and I know hes a past TRF winner. I think we went about 4-4 for the night overall. Everyone is REALLY scared to play him here, since noone really knows how to fight Fuerte but because I have so much Fuerte experience (thanks to OJ, Manny, cheapocrespo from FL, halcyonryu for all the fuerte exp!) I was able to do really well vs him. Actually, his fuerte fights totally different from what I expected. He actually turtles a lot vs my sim and waits for me to throw a reckless fireball so he can walljump into loop. If I dont throw a fireball tho, I can catch him with j. strong off the wall…basically im trying to stop him from goign crazy. When he gets in on me, he will keep doing run stop low fwd run stop low short to prevent me from doing anything to move, but if I block a few reps and THEN IAT, I can usually get away. Of course his execution is on point and if i dont mess up hes dead etc but its hard for him to land the loop on me. At one point he just knocked me down and tried to do it raw, lol. And hes good at punishing my teleports.

Guile

Spoiler

Ken

Spoiler

Honda

Spoiler

Sabin:

i played another grand master honda at shinjuku sportsland tonight…honda is actually a really really good char and i leanred some things behind the obvious hhs setups

first, super invinciblity is more than his ultra, when honda gets a super, i cant throw a fireball, even from 3/4th screen super will go right through that shit free (he has to predict i will throw a fireball though.)

2ndly, his antiair options vs sim are very similar to zangiefs…meaning he has a wheel of options he can use for antiair vs sim if he guesses right. neutral fierce, and honda j. strong i believe will beat sim j. strong, j. far RH in the air

at specific angles j. fierce, j. rh, j. strong (when i throw a fireball) all beat sims b. rh antiair options from afar and trade at worst.
so then i tried using slide to tripguard this, but they will just delay the j. strong to hit my slide.

so, i have to treat this match like zangief kind of. rarely try to antiair him, instead, just let him whiff his antiair and whiff punish his normal in the air…and iat barckwards a lot, dont let him even get close to you. i was able to fuck up a grandmaster honda once i figured out to whiff punish his jumpins instead of trying to beat them straight up. this match is actually very grueling cause if he hits you once, its soooo much life…but i think i can beat akimos honda if i play him next week at trf if i play well.

Sabin:

real talk, i was beasting the shit out of niggas at shinjuku sportsland/bigbox tonight.
i beat a master honda like 10 in a row at sportsland rofl
then i go to bigbox and akimo happens to be there…i fucked his shit up with a few perfects (well it wasnt free, i won 3-2 though.)

nice to win more for once while im here, haha.
so now my BP is over 21000 i think with 58% win ratio, im getting better. looks like my anti-honda strats i wrote earlier, REALLY do work. if i whiff punish his jumpins instead of trying to beat them its not so bad.

just when honda is sitting on super its really tough cause it means i cant throw fireballs. so when he wastes a EX, im happy

i wanted to go to the other cabinet after i perfected akimo and be like HOLD THAT SHIT but i didnt want meru to hate me lolol

Rufus

Spoiler

[spoiler=Destin]You can choose whether you option select with lk or lp by staggering your input similar to a p link. If you go from lp~lk, you should get the throw break as well as the low punch, and the throw break comes out a frame later which is usually a plus in the great scheme of things. That helps depending on the height he is dive kicking.

Also while blocking and holding DB, an input of df, db, KKK+lp will option select a backwards teleport and throw break without standing, so you can do the teleport attempt late, still get a throw break, and not have to worry too much about the low kicks. Hopefully that helps a bit (at least in my head), I’m not a sim player.

If the rufus is doing dive kicks high though, maybe you could option select a slide forwards? [/details]

Ryu

Spoiler

ocdscale · October 2, 2009, 12:21am

Sagat

Spoiler

Sabin:

oh yeah, last few days ive been playing ameriken. first day, he was really impressed with my sim, said i fight hella diff than iyo since we were going back and forth. dude really thought i was at tougeki for press and thought i was a justin wong fanboy or something…thats how little he knows about the scene lol. said if he knew i was serious he would have made a effort to wake up on time at tougeki lol, stop making me sad Ken!! today though he had my number! he played against a lot of sims today at shinjuku sportsland and learned the match a little better. i think i only beat him like 3 games out of like 10 tonight so good shit to him. sagat damage is just too much sometimes for me, but it helps me get better since i dont like to lose to ameriken or anyone.

this guy is hella funny btw, he beats a lot of japanese players on a regular basis, streaks more than me actually and talks shit and has fun while doing it…i like it.

[spoiler=Alioune][Sagat?s cheap shit] Kara option-selects , kara fb , kara dp ,kara knee ,zoning etc…[/details]

hfz69

[details=Spoiler]oh and some random info from mago’s blog:

he had a session vs TKD(fuerte) and the results:
(Mago???)
???
???
???

2)vs umehara(ryu)
(mago???umehara?)
???
??
???

he lost and kinda pissed at that fact and swore that in their next meeting it will be his(umehara) death anniversary lol

vs dragon boy(ken)
?mago???dragon boy??
???
???
???
???
???

he said despite winning more than losing, he felt that he lost against dragon boy lol…[/details]

Sim

Spoiler

Sabin:

first, fp fireball is better in fireball wars because it travels faster even if it dissipates quicker. i dont know why i didnt do this before, esp vs sagat, and guile.

2nd, have to start using tripguard more. boxer players who try to jump at me with j. rh at that “sweet spot” that beats sim, or try to do it early to beat my stand rh - that shit loses to df+strong, and gets tripguarded by df+fierce…really really useful.

3rd, RH slide tripguards zangiefs j. fwd which is hella good that move gives me a shitload of problems if done early. also tripguards stand fierce and a lot of other random shit. i wanna see what he mixes it up with though so hopefully i get to play a gief again.

4 b. jab (overhead) into super might be good and reliable vs duckers esp people without a DP. might be good against bison…

there was this sim player i played in mirror who would go for it at every opportunity and i thit me a few times until i raw supered on wakeup one match. he gave me some encouragement whenever id win with sim though…

[spoiler=Iyo]

[/details]

Zangief

Spoiler

Sabin:

they understand the wheel of options better than most western giefs (except for maybe UltraDavid and Temujin perhaps)

I can antiair him every time if I guess right…but thats what it is, a straight guess. B. RH, stand rh, j. strong etc etc ALL work as antiairs, but if the gief player catches on, he can beat those options cleanly every time…with the exception of EX upflame, which is my get off me move. I have to be REALLY aware of his options and be sure not to do the same antiair more than 2 times in a row otherwise i will get vortexed into my death. I get scared to use b. rh here since gief players here have mastered empty jump arcs into spd/ultra etc.

It only takes two wrong guesses for me to start losing in this matchup. Im getting better at keepign them away, but Japanese zangief players def took m me by surprise, I thought it was free. Intelligent use of standing RH to stop my IAT backwards teleports, smart short jumps to bait me into throwing a fireball, then they green glove -> ex greenglove to punish me from fullscreen…good use o fstanding jab, and swiching up antiair options often to keep me guessing (early or late j. fwd, knee, splash, HEADBUTT, j strong etc etc, just gotta find out what beats what.)

[spoiler=UltraDavid] If it hits, you get a free combo. If it doesn’t, there’s one open frame between the mk slide and the short slide/back+short, meaning that if Gief tries regular spd it’ll lose to your short because it has 2 frames of startup and no invincibility. He could do ultra or ex spd, but that’s not too likely. So yeah, it’s a potentially unsafe string on block, but it’s much safer than rh slide and pushes Zangief back a little more than rh slide. Early antiair meaty mk slide to teleport back is 100% safe though, obviously depending on the location on screen.

Like I said, personally I don’t like sliding on Gief. But if I was gonna use a slide, it’d be mk.[/details]

ocdscale · October 2, 2009, 12:24am

Japanese Players

Spoiler

Sabin:

As for me vs the rest of the japanese players…
any arcade outside bigbox? im going on winning streaks mostly and i have a lot of wins vs master card players (50k BP etc…) so its not about how many points you have. There was a 50K rufus player that I scraped with my sim that didnt know the sim/rufus fight as well as someone like, Marn…so yeah…BP doesnt tell the full story.

my record right now I think is close to 50 something/46 something losses, and Im C plus class right now. My card is registered as Sabin so you can look it up whenever I guess.

At bigbox though…its so hard to beat the top players here. If I play well I can get 2 out of 6 wins maybe but quite often I lose a lot. Plus people here have experience fighting Iyo, so its definetely tough. Good thing is I can see where my holes are in my sim game, and playing at bigbox is like being in the hyperbolic time chamber so its all good.

[spoiler=HeartNana] Keep in mind that there’s a LOT of players that you don’t see vids of. Just because you don’t see youtube vids doesn’t mean that player doesn’t exist. The playerbase in Japan is so much bigger that for every character, there’s someone who’s REALLY good with them that you’ve never heard of. You can’t generalize all the players like that because there’s just too many to group into one category.

There could be an average honda who knows the Sim matchup well, and might do better than a better honda with a higher BP who doesn’t understand the matchup as well.

There are all sorts of players with all sorts of playing styles using all sorts of characters, so generlization questions can’t really be answered because the answer is the same: “it depends.” [/details]

Sabin:

[How can they play so much?]
well as a gaijin that doesnt speak japanese, (ie, my opinion doesnt really mean shit) there are a few theories ive come up with

they come from rich japanese families that can bankroll them np

they are neets (not in school/working), though with the older sf crowd this tends to be less of a problem

japanese arent rich most of them work retail jobs for 900-1000 yen a hour and hate their lives and arcades are another cheap form of entertainment (even though it can be expensive) that allows you to zone the fuck out and not worry about how u hate ur life (karaoke bars, manga kissas, pachinko parlors and game centers all fall into this same category imo)

cant really have gatherings at niggas houses since shit is tiny, so it makes sense to have these kinda meeting areas like arcades and population density is so small etc.

once again, I CAN BE TOTALLY WRONG ON ALL OF THESE POINTS since i dont speak japanese.

Sabin:

depends. most of the japanese guys that have been to usa say sup, even daigo hehe. and kims ppl that introduced me that i met at shibuya sportsland
is pretty nice, esp the max akuma etc they all acknowledge me. itabashi zangief spoke to me in english at the last trf and said ruudo told me your ryu was really hard to get in on, even though he beat me 60/40 so that was nice.

so yeah its not all bad here. i just talk about the bad parts more and im stepping up my taunting game, last night i was playing this ryu player DIOR and he did overhead x3 on my wakeup, im like wtf no respect so the next time i hit him with a combo, i start taunting him, and we got into a taunt war. one time he focused lvl 2 crumpled me did taunt, dp fadc ultra…so we got more creative with the taunt setups. i think the funniest was when i was over his body on knock down, did a taunt and cancelled it into backdash and then i super comboed his dp in recovery, shit was jokes

Sabin:

There is no best player in Japan. Period. The skill level is too fucking high for there to be a absolute best. Sure there are players that are BEST in the country with their characters (but a lot of debate tho), or one of the best PLAYERS in the country, but there is no absolute best player. Because of the format being single elim and the sill level being so high anyone can win/lose on any given day. Of course there are players that are more consistent than others but…its not like the USA where Justin will run a train through the whole USA at least 90% of the time. Skill level is more evened out here.

Just because they arent a ‘name’ player, doesnt mean they arent as good as shit. There are a lot of players that you have never heard of or will never hear of (and thats one of the reasons why I’m here, to tell you aout them lol) BIGBOX and other places have a lot of random no-names that could place top in US tourneys no problem. Doesn’t mean they cant be beat or anything, I can beat some of these no names pretty consistently and vice versa.

I know the Youtube syndrome is rampant and people believe only what they see on youtube, but it isnt the end all be all of everything. Honestly that Blanka I played against wasnt all that great, but I see some of the comments on the vid like ‘Sim beats Blanka 6-4, look at this video as proof’! all he can do is stand FP and he cant do shit! etc etc etc…which is something I dont even believe. I mean I have a video where I basically make Uryo look like a random scrub…does that mean Sim vs Viper is 6/4 sim? not really it just so happens I played well in that 1 match. But yeah… I actually think Blanka gives Sim real problems, just we havent gotten to that level yet with Blanka where we can give good sim players trouble. Like I said before,

BoggleMinds

Spoiler

There is a rivalry between East (Kanto) and West (Kansai). Although they probably don’t travel frequently across country (Japan is like the size of California), they do meet up for major tournaments. These include Tougeki, Cooperation Cup (3S), X-Mania (ST) etc.

[quote=Sabinnewsflash: theres no best in japan. anyone can beat anyone on any given day and ive learned that. also, even the best players are not gods. theyre just REALLY FUCKING GOOD lol. as i said in the beginning of the thread were NOT THAT FAR BEHIND. we just need access to the same kind of high level comp that theyre so lucky to get.[/quote]

ocdscale · October 2, 2009, 12:26am

Team USA

Spoiler

[spoiler=Azreal] a-cho tourney had 24 teams it seems… don’t know the real number but all I know is that there were six pools (we were in Pool 6) with four teams in each pool. We got out of our pool but had to play a tiebreaker round robin and got OCV’d by RF, so they advanced to the final 8, and eventually won the whole thing. I guess we’re tied for 9th then? It was a bit confusing because it wasn’t really single elim until the top 8 bracket.

Anyway!

Our pool was:

Sabin (DH), Azrael (CH), me (HO)
Uyro (VI), Cantona (ZA), Kuronuko (CH) – #1 Viper + #1 Gief in Kansai… dunno who the Kuronuko was but he’s a Chun player and really solid
Yassun (RY), Hagoromo (AB), Johnny Jongi (ZA) – Dunno who they were… seemed like nice guys though.
Ponsuke (KE), Tanao (AB), Wareware Wadebu Senda (CH) – Dunno who this was to be honest and didn’t play them either.

Basically the setup was that the team that went 3 - 0 would advance automatically, and anyone that went 2 - 1 would have to play a tiebreaker to determine who goes on. Then the team that won that tiebreaker would have to face the other pool’s tiebreaker winners to see who would advance to the top 8. So basically, you’d have 6 teams going 3 - 0, and 2 teams who went 2 - 1.

First match was against Johnny Jongi’s team. I went up first, and i was actually convinced I’d scrub it out cuz I’m not good against Abel at all. I was so confident in my scrubiness, in fact, that I told my boss I’d be able to come to a work function after I lost lol.

Reno vs. Yassun, Reno 2 - 0
Reno vs. Hagoromo, Reno 2 - 1
Reno vs. Johnny Jongi, Reno 2 - 0

Well, guess I had to cancel that work function! We went on to face Uryo’s team next…

Reno vs. Kuronuko, Kuronuko 2 - 0
Azrael vs. Kuronuko, Azrael 2 - 1 (?)
Azrael vs. Cantona, Cantona 2 - 0 (?)
Sabin vs. Cantona, Cantona 2 - 1

Kuronuko pretty much owned me for free here. His Chun is solid and I have a lot of trouble with that match as a Honda player. The Az vs Kuronuko match was really good on both sides. Good decision-making and good use of pokes IMO. The Sabin vs. Cantona match was kind of annoying because Sabin would literally get a good three j.fierces in, but then Cantona would pull out a lariat and beat the j.fierce clean and even it up. The end basically came with Sabin (according to him) flubbed up the Ultra and ate a lariat (? I forget)

Johnny Jongi’s team had to fight Ponsuke’s team as both of them were 0 - 1, and Johnny Jongi’s team won so we had to roll that match back.
Reno vs. Yassun, Reno 2 - 0
Reno vs. Hagoromo, Hagoromo 2 - 1
Azrael vs. Hagoromo, Azrael 2 - 1
Azrael vs. Johnny Jongi, Azrael 2 - 1

Good shit by Az to HOLD IT TOGETHER against a solid gief that really showed no fear and didn’t care about taking 23984237943 s.roundhouses to the head.

So we ended up going 2 - 1 in our pool so we had to advance to the tiebreaker round robin to see who would advance to the top 8.

Too bad RF’s team went 2 - 1 too. He OCV’d us pretty fucking quickly, and those guys were seriously not fucking around lol. Usually RF was either 2nd or 3rd for their matches but this time he went first to mop us up. So we were out after that.

Still, we had a decent run IMO. I’m sure Az and Sabin will fill in more details.

Just for the record, before anyone calls out Sabin for not winning in the tourney, he was doing very well in his matches before and after the tourney, and even Rikuson (top 15 Sagat player) went up to him and said he was awesome, and most of the players who were watching his matches were impressed too. It’s just too bad that he got stuck with matches against the #1 gief in Osaka and the #4 player in the country.[/details]

Sabin:

Yeah, I didn’t do that good in the tourney due to Reno and Az beasting. Reno OCV’ed a team by himself on his first try. Then we lost to Uryo’s team…so yeah lol. Cantona beat all of is (the guy who I said was owning me last night.) I was going in expecting to lose but I actually had a chance to win, I just flubbed it up. First round he steamrolls me, 2nd round I stop him from advancing and take that. 3rd round he gets a early lead and I edge it down to his 15% life to my 5%…and I have super and ultra. Time is running out, 15 seconds left…hes in the corner…and what do I do? teleport into the corner and eat a SPD (instead of doing ultra.) Like I said last tournament…I hate my execution forever really =/ Oh and I recorded all of the matches so yeah dont worry. Played Uryo once, made him look free in the one game i played him so I was happy. It’s too bad I didn’t get to beat Cantona in tournament cause I really wanted to play Uryo but that’s how it goes.

Vs RF’s team, yeah RF’s team pretty much OCV’ed us. Az had a chance to win 1 round but failed to capitalize and 2nd round he just got smoked. I brought down RF to 20% and i was doing well most of the round, but i mistimed my b. rh and ate j rh into combo into ultra both rounds. Pretty much I was never in control.
I played a lot of casuals with a lot of Kansai beasts. I went 2-2 with Rikuson (top 15 Sagat in the country) he actually came up to me and said good shit so that was really nice. Beat the Grand Master Gouki again that I’ve been owning all weekend for some reason haha. Went 3-1 with CYGNUS and pretty much I held my own against most of the Kansai beasts, didnt get owned, so I’m not super salty or anything. I was just happy to play really good players.

Still, I had a lot of fun playing in the tournament, and playing casuals all day was awesome. Kindevu used nothing but Ryu this tournament BTW, he has a master Ryu already with 60k BP. Oh yeah also, I didn’t lose BP I’m at 34200 BP now or something. So close to being master! Pretty much I won a little bit more than I lost but I was unable to turn it up during my 2 tourney matches. Reno and Az are the heroes of the day they played solid as hell in tournament.

post some vids and catch up later.

Azreal

[details=Spoiler] My left middle finger is fucked up, but I’m gonna try this anyway.

I probably should have lost the Chun mirror against Kuroneko. We were both fighting pretty evenly going into the last round. I was watching his super meter, because Chun’s super punishes EVERYTHING. We Chun players tend to abuse sweep as a poke, and Chun’s super can punish a BLOCKED sweep. I had been watching his meter, but either he gained a full bar and I didn’t notice, or I’m stupid, but I threw a sweep that got blocked. He tried to punish with super, but must have done it too late, because I was able to block. The trade off for 2 frames of startup is 14 years of recovery, so I was able to counter ultra FTW.

The Gief I fought against…he had that No Fear Style…basically, he just keeps moving forward no matter what, and eventually you end up in a corner. NEVER where you want to be against Gief. I got creamed the first round but adjusted somehow.

I could have taken the first round off RF, but I couldn’t clutch it out and he took the V. That’s why he’s a top player and I’m not.

Reno held it down, OCV’ing that team the first time and taking out their first the second go.

Watching Sabin play, I can definitely say he can hang with these guys. 30,000BP in one month fighting against nothing but top players is nothing to sneeze at. Yeah, he won and lost some, but everybody loses in this game. Sometimes people act like the top Japanese players don’t lost, and that’s not even remotely true. Get the SBO DVD, Gosho makes Mago and Nemo look like scrubs. Sabin had win streaks, and even matches he lost, it was by no means free. So haters should STFU.

Oh, and I can’t believe there’s a fuckin MAID CAFE right in the middle of a-cho now. That’s new, I didn’t see it there last month. And there’s a monitor connected to the action, so you can get fried chicken and coke served to you by a Japanese girl in a maid outfit, and watch SFIV while you eat and play Dragon Quest. Ridiculous.

Oh, and a few pics.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...919_164721.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...919_184400.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...919_184428.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...919_184454.jpg

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US vs Japan skill difference

Spoiler

Sabin:

were obviously lightyears ahead with the console chars for obvious reason, its almost like a different game heh.

were way behind when it comes to gouki. edma, sanford, etc are really good gouki players, but they dont do the jab -> rh loop consistently like the japanese do. They also dont abuse the gouki vortex bs mixup that he has after a tatsu -> sweep combo either.

basically a lot of combos that we thought were impractical in general, are quite practical here.

were a bit behind on viper too, but i know marn/flashmetroid took that cheap shit back to the US…hmm now that i think about it…blanka as well, havent played a blanka like mizoterus in the us ever.

iirc our boxers, sims, ryus are roughly around the same level. iyo is better than me, but thats roughly because of his mindset when it comes to sf in general. i feel if i keep playing here i can get as good as him provided my execution gets better

fuerte, were not too far behind, they have some parlor tricks that we dont do, but i think if they we were SO far behind, i wouldnt be able to fight vs fuerte as well as i do here. its roughly the same. of course i can only count the number of good fuerte players in the us on one hand

sagat…way behind, usa sagats are not abusing the cheap shit like mago, ojisanboy, even ameriken/sagat girl (lol) does.

Sabin:

heres the thing though…
just cause i might be beasting in japan, i said since the start, that were ONLY A MONTH OR TWO BEHIND japan when it comes to sf4.
look, ive been here for 45 days and already im a master. ther are people here with 3000 games played and still not master status at all heh.

its not like im gonna be automatically godlike when i come back, i can still see myself losing to the same people i lost to before i left. i just wanted to prove a point that a american player can hang in sf in japan, given that i have the same enviroment to train in as they do (strong arcade comp.) the only reason why justin doesnt do so hot in japan is because hes not here for long enough. japan style is weird at first, you get raped until you get used to their tricks, theyre not unbeatable by any means (but still strong players)

Food

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Drugs

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SimSimIV · October 2, 2009, 12:36am

Holy crap!

You are a god ocdscale:D
I’m making a doc out of it xD

foxisquick · October 2, 2009, 12:48am

Sabin so a lot of people in the usa really hate on zangief and i saw your post saying that you thought he was shit but after seeing him in japan you understand him being high tier.

Have you seen what giefs do against dictators and boxers? ALso can you comment on where viper is in the scheme of tiers. I was looking for a tier list based on your opinions, if someone can poinst me to one or Sabin can you do a rough list for us?

T-Rez · October 2, 2009, 1:45am

Great job Ocdscale. It would be great if the first post was updated with all of that info.

Josh-TheFunkDOC · October 2, 2009, 4:13am

Regarding a tier list, it would probably look like the Arcadia ones. Something like…

Top: Sagat
High: Akuma, Ryu, Zangief
Upper-mid: Boxer, Rufus, Viper, maybe Dictator & Honda (yes, really)
Mid/Low-mid (not sure who would fall where): Chun, Abel, Blanka, Fuerte, Dhalsim
Low: Guile, Ken
LOL: Claw

If I had to guess, I think Art would put Chun & Abel in mid and Fuerte in lower-mid. Oh yeah, and Sim in low. But it wouldn’t be hugely different from that basic outline above, I’d think.

Shadow5587 · October 2, 2009, 8:53am

I wish I had 500 posts so I could rep ocdscale. What epic posting.

MrChowda · October 2, 2009, 9:05am

Hey Sabin,

Been keeping up with this thread everyday. Some real great info in here. Congrats on getting your Master rank too!

Here’s a question that I don’t think has been asked yet…

What do the Japanese think of the voices? I know the majority of people in the west despise the english voices, but do Japanese think the voice acting is ridiculous since it’s their native tongue?

My best example would have to be Fei-Long:
Shouting "I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOST’ when he’s defeated in english sounds recockulous, but even though “ORE NO MAKENAAAAA” has generally the same meaning, it sounds… correct.

Mr.Biscuits · October 2, 2009, 9:46am

Art, what exactly is the technique the Gouki player told you to use to escape the demon flip grab? You said something about Jump cancel Teleport?