The D in Daigo stands for DOMINATION. This top 8 was Daigo telling everyone that I don’t need long sets to beat my opponents and see you scrubs in December!
It seemed that Daigo was playing more ballsy than he has been in recent memory, he was playing much more like he did with Ryu with the Shoryus and such. Let’s see how far he makes it at EVO this year (Calling top 16 for sure).
I feel this. It’s good that daigo’s reclaimed the swagger
One thing I noticed with Smug vs Gamerbee. Smug was having a lot of trouble with Gamerbee’s sweep keeping him out. I’m pretty sure Dudley can punish her blocked sweep with U1. I dunno if Gamerbee used sweep any time Dudley had ultra (can’t remember).
As opposed to 8? Murrica did it!
Everytime Bonchan beats Infiltrations Decapre, 3 tortured souls are free’d from Street Fighter Hell and released into the light.
He does occasionally, but not as much as you would think. Thing with Bonchan is he very rarely get’s put on the ground and always seems confident in his blocking. He’s able to stay patient after unbelievable amounts of time.
And I think is the right way to use DWU. Do it mindlessly make it easier for the attacker use the right setup. Even the other japanese players don’t use DWU all the time. Instead in western countries… Look at Smug,he do it 24/7.
They teleport to heaven, saying “HEH HUH”
I think Infil could have reaction ultra’d at a few key intervals in the bonchan match, guess he was just too focused on the ground game.
Until Bingo Unchained puts him on more tilt than a pinball machine in an earthquake.
The thing I noticed about Daigo’s evil Ryu during top 16 was that he’s finally playing him like did with his Ryu back in vanilla, super and ae 2012 days. He got back to playing that controlled chaos style that made win 2 straight evo titles. He played a such an aggressive rush down, but kept it lame enough to keep people honest, especially strider and smug. Another thing I noticed he wasn’t afraid to uppercut or jump at his opponents like he did before. Also his execution has improved tremendously.
To be honest, it seemed to me like he was focused on anything but the ground game. He seemed content to spin the wheel and hope that one hit eventually. Bonchan wasn’t having any of it though. He was punishing pretty much any error by Infiltration and his whiff punishment was spot on for facing a new(ish) character. I think Bonchan basically said to himself, I’ve got more life and more chances to counter your shit and just sat there.
If your character has a good ground game and can somewhat consistenly punish hands, then I think laming Decap out until you get the knockdown is the way to go. Most of her approaches are unsafe other than EX SA/hands/teleport fake.
DP FADC Ultra on hands feels so good.
I think if you have a good ground game, a basic Ken/Bison can easily take her out.
What about focus? Walk forward? Dash? teleport - dive kick properly spaced? Teleport EX Dive kick pretty much everytime? 
I do agree but he was also playing people nowhere near his level. Vicious, K Brad, 801Strider, Smug and Knuckledu… the only player from Asia he beat was Gamerebee and he’s dominated that guy since Super.
He essentially avoided Momochi, Kazunoko, Infiltraton who all beat him 2-0 the last time he played them
America held it down for Daigo, everyone he has trouble with essentially lost to America then got eliminated by other asians.
Has Smug ever beat a Topanga A league player in a FT5 or Tournament?
I didn’t get a chance to post this last night but replaying the games was totally the wrong thing to do.
The machine should either have been swapped out or immediately updated for all remaining games. It sucks for everyone who was playing under the old patch but going back and giving all the people in the losers seconds chances is basically a terrible precedent to set.
This falls squarely on the staff. Every time a machine is swapped out it should be checked to see if it is up to date. (plus fully unlocked for all the games that require it)
This should be a lesson to all future majors that you need to double check everything.
It’s in the CPT rules, it states that they can enforce a rematch if something like this goes wrong. While it is fucked up they had to replay the matches, it was really a catch 22, because even if most of the results were the same, some of those changes certainly had a big impact on the matchups. Had they not been given a rematch, the players would’ve had to suffer due to an error on the TO’s part anyhow, and since the ruleset existed beforehand, I think it was 100% the right thing to do.
This weekend has reinforced my belief in how far above most Daigo and Bonchan are when on point and know their opponents. Forget beating them, none of the opponents they faced could even find a working gameplan to deal damage to them. Decapre’s gimmicks, Guy’s rushdown, Adon’s offense, none of it touched them.