So America gets bopped by Daigo for years and now they assist him in his battle against other Asians.
I’ve been a victim of replaying matches on fraudulent pc tournaments. Replaying matches is bullshit, but what can you do? It’s the same rules for other non fighting games, it’s just they’re not silly enough to play on the wrong version.
Mago if you consider him one, since he used to be A League.
He lost to Kazunoko, Tokido and Bonchan.
They had to replay the sets. Some characters are much better or worse depending on version.
It sucks to use so much mental energy for nothing, but as competitors and people who take their craft seriously, I doubt any of them wanted to get by on a fraudulent basis.
Good thing nobody mained Dee Jay.
it was good to see some US players rise to the occasion and take it to the next level as possible against Japan… compared to 5 years ago where most would be like “whelp Japan is here ggs”. Probably the perfect reflecting tournament for Smug to look back and see what went wrong and change the gameplan, he has a lot more years to learn.
If they didn’t do the replay. It most likely would have been kazunoko vs daigo winners finals. that’s a huge difference compared to a knuckledu vs daigo winners finals
I thought you were talking about Adon. I’m watching that match now actually since I had work and missed everything. I’m at game 2 round 1 and he did it at least twice.
Who from America is going to be a consistent threat going forward?
JP players aren’t losing to Rufus at this point. Wong and Ricky are skilled enough, but they aren’t doing it with him. Ricky doesn’t play SF4 Rolento, and Wongs Rose isn’t on the level yet. So you can’t count on them.
Smug is still inexperienced at that level. I see him making a big leap after he gets his shit pushed in at Topanga, but he isn’t ready.
Strider is dope, but how well can a read based character perform for consistency?
Ricky and Justin were content with being top5 usa. Never trying to level up. Now that the stakes are higher, they are finally learning secondary characters?
I guess Knuckle Du?
Sadly Snake Eyez might not crack top 3 with the Gief nerfs, unless he starts practicing E. Ryu more.
Right now what America needs is an Elena expert she has become the popular pocket character as of late.
Abel is hardly a read based character. He is, however, a doormat for Rufus and Yun. Maybe I’m mistaken but Strider travels about as much as he posts on SRK these days anyway.
Strider was at Winter Brawl, I think he’s traveling. He got 5th there too.
I hope to see Strider break out this year. He’s always been good though.
People often forget how young and non travel Smug is yet. With time he’s gonna be that guy we can count on to take out the asians players, for sure.
Even someone like NuckleDu has so much room to improve. Viscant was tweeting during the event something that blew my mind, but Daigo has been coming to the US to play Fighting Games for longer than those two have been born. Just think about that for a second…
Daigo brought something like that up recently in the Topanga League.
He was facing Michael Tan and he said something like “I’ve literally been playing in arcades since before Michael was born, I can’t lose to him.”
How is Abel not read based? He has solid aspects but he’s built around mix ups. And not the safe kind like the more dominant characters use.
I thought Strider was the most impressive American at NCR. Beat Momochi rather easily and had Daigo(the rematch) and Bonchan on the ropes. At the same time I think that had a lot to do with the their characters. It would be a different story if he had faced Kazunoko, Tokido, or Mago. The characters those guys play would be all up in his grill. As impressive as he was, I think he would have to have good draws(like Bonchan vs the Guile’s at FR) to have a good chance of winning a CPT Premier Event when all the top dogs will be there.
Well mixups and frame traps IMO at least. His crossup mixups are really good though even without reads.
I still think Rico Suave is a little bit better Abel, but that could easily change with more 801 strider playing Abel and going to events. I know Strider has switched up characters a number of times.
Abel has a decent footsies tools, even if he’s a read character.
I think the longer the sets are, the better this kind of character fair.
Honestly Rico Suave has a history of getting blown up hard against practically every international player he plays against.
So this weekend
Mago beat Imstilldadaddy, Overmostheads, Infexious and Tokido twice
Tokido beat Xian, Luffy, Problem X, Shoryusengan
Daigo beat Knuckledu, K Brad, 801 Strider, Smug, Vicious and Gamerbee
Gamerbee beat Smug, Momochi, Bonchan, Kazunoko, FilipinoMan, and Velociraptor