Tournament Review: V for Vengeance (May 12)

For starters:

Skullgirls Grand Finals

Link to video as it'll be tiny on the blog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2T0bHplm97Y

ANY KoF footage is ???.  Theoretically, the original KoF station was being recorded all day, so it should have non-grand final footage too, which I would love to watch and review. If there's any video for that uploaded, I can put it up later... but I don't want to talk about KoF, at least, less than Skullgirls anyway. hahaha...

For anyone who may not know the tournament system:

- Brackets are double elimination: You have to lose TWO sets to be knocked out of the tournament.

- Set = first to 2 matches won or best 2 out of 3 matches.  

- Usually, when at the last two people of the Winner's bracket (people who haven't lost yet), Loser's bracket (people who have lost once), and Grand Finals, a set will be composed of first to 3 matches won, or best 3 out of 5 matches.

i.e. In the Skullgirls finals, I'm in winners, Ruben is in losers.  So I have to lose two sets to be out of the tournament.  But if he wins the first set, even if the score is 3-2 sets at the end, the bracket is reset and the score becomes 0-0 to start over on the new set.

This past Saturday, there was a tournament in Colorado Springs for the games: UMvC3, KoF, Skullgirls, SCV, and SSF4:AE2012.

With more acronyms that you can shake an acrobat attending ACRO at, it was a good size tournament, which was really relieving compared to the last tournament's numbers.  We even had number of new faces, mostly playing UMvC3 and SSF4.  I don't think the tournament organizers expected that many people as the venue ended up too small for that many people.

It was so busy and hard to navigate, and because there was only one guy really running them, I started to help run tournaments between matches.  I was Pac-Man moving through mazes of human bodies trying to find the Power Pellets, aka next people playing in the tournament.

(...Man, Pac-Man has a rough life; I wasn't even being chased!  Why are ghosts so racist?  Well I guess Pac-Man IS a cannibal and danger to society... is the society a majority of ghosts though?  Do Pacs and Ghosts get along normally?  Maybe Pac-Man is the last Pac alive?!?!  Well no, because he finds Ms.Pac-Man, so...  Maybe this is just a wrong part of town so-- okay, not important.  Sorry...)

It makes you wonder about Pac-Man though.  Admit it.

The tournament started with...

King of Fighters

Anyone following anything I do in King of Fighters knows I picked up a new character, Kim. I like Kim's rush down style, and he has the best music in the game.   Ironically, I took Shen out of my team for him.

...So much for my Twitter name...

The first few people I played I was able to steamroll with Kim for the most part.  He's a "get in there and FUCK THEIR FACE" character, and I thought I was doing fine in getting in my opponents' space and FUCKING THEIR FACES.  Of course, I hardly ever get to practice KoF.  I've been trying to play it online lately as it's all I have. Still, this gave me a false sense of security.  When I had to face Pedro and Edgar, I realized I really am missing a huge part of my game that I don't know how to handle: getting zoned out.

Both Pedro and Edgar play characters that have great range on their normal moves, and fireball characters that I couldn't get myself around.  It was frustrating, and damn embarrassing how free I was.  Even Pedro said, after the tournament, that he felt like I had given up on my last match against him.  I truly had not.

I was extremely upset and annoyed, and someone was patting me on the back which I really didn't want at the time and I, kind of, blew up at him a little, telling him to stop... which he followed up with another tap on my shoulder when he apologized (we laughed it off later, and I apologized for blowing up at him).  I was so out of ideas that I started trying to be more aggressive in ways I didn't know how to be.  It didn't work what-so-ever and I just got trashed on by the both of them, and probably why Pedro though I stopped trying.

When I picked up Kim I noticed my, previously, best character, Kula, is now garbage.  I couldn't remember what to do with her because I wasn't forced to use her at the beginning of every match like I used to be.  I HATE this about myself.  It's the same reason why I have so much trouble playing two game competitively, I get way too caught up in one character/game, and I have trouble mentally switching to another character or game when it's time.  My brain remains stuck on the last activity and I have no clue how I would even begin to work on this.

I crashed and burned with Kula because I hadn't be using her as much, and I crashed and burned with Kim because I'm inexperienced and not creative or solid enough.  Two 3-0 losses later, I'm out of the tournament with a 3rd place finish for KoF and a sick feeling in my stomach.

I probably looked like this after KoF.

But...I had to get over it quickly and take a chill pill.  Skullgirls started right after KoF finished.

Skullgirls

Most of my matches go pretty well.  I'm hitting my combos, I'm opening people up with my set-ups, and I'm blocking extremely well.  I spent a short bit of the first round of my first match getting into the Skullgirls feel of the game, nothing as bad as the previous tournament where I forgot I had 6 buttons.  Most of the bracket I do well in.  My most difficult matches are against Sexy Mike, a solo Parasoul player who has a general play style like me: Learn one or two strong combos and then spend the rest of the time trying to break open the opponent; and Ruben, the same guy I face in the finals, so I'll let his style speak for itself.

The match with Sexy Mike was a tough one. His combos hurt as much as mine do and he's very smart with attacking with the right moves at the right time.  The biggest flaw with Sexy Mike's is that he often seems to have controller issues.  While I, and many other, think/know it's his mistakes, he never admits to it, claims it as his own mistakes, or otherwise.  I think that may have been what really saved me in that match, his dropped/screwed up inputs.  It was enough for me to come back, hit him with a full combo, and be able to win the match.  In addition, he probably hasn't played many Painwheel players.  Painwheel players are a rarity.  I guess it's because she's "hard to learn"?  I disagree, but that's just me.

In the Winners Finals against Ruben, he picked a team of Painwheel and Cerebella (After I just got done saying all that rarity stuff about Painwheel too...).  His combos weren't as damaging as mine, but he landed them often. He used the Cerebella assist well, which kept me locked down for a lot of his pressure game.  Fortunately, being a Painwheel player, I blocked a lot of what he threw at me, and threw stuff back at him that he could not guard.  I landed full combos, played well, smart, and strong, and took it against Ruben, putting me in the Grand Finals.

I felt good the whole tournament, I was landing my combos consistently, doing good damage and pressure.  I was doing very good, to toot my own horn.

That all changed quickly as I went into Grand Finals...

Ruben made it through his match in Losers Finals and made it back to Grand Finals.  He actually decided to change his game plan up and picked Peacock/Cerebella.  Peacock is a bad match-up against Painwheel as I've been discovering over the last week, but it was worse than I knew.

I've only played one good Peacock (thanks Pete), so my knowledge of her is limited.  The fact I was having to learn on the fly (lol Painwheel jokes) shows in the Grand Finals video.  For example: see how I respond to blocked Peacock supers as the matches go on.

I was doing good on punishing the assist, and maybe I should have done more with that, but I could not land hits on Peacock, Ruben's defense was too good and I wasn't being creative enough.  When I did land a hit, I'd drop the combos because I was caught off guard or because it was from so far away.  Still, I fucked up, and I lost a LOT because of it.  I had trouble grabbing Peacock on ground, and I don't know how I missed the many opportunities to just jump and grab.  Mental failures, I guess.  Also, I didn't know Peacock's ground dash was that good.  It gets her out of corner so well and I'm unsure if I can punish before or have to wait to after.  Either way, it seemed really quick and hard to do anything against.  It got him out of the corner so many times for free, and just made another cat-and-mouse game I had to play.  I kept getting hit by Cerebella stuff that I really shouldn't have, too.  Most of all, I kept choking on my combos (while being told in the background not to choke), and just kept losing, especially in fully winnable situations.  Strangely enough, I kept my cool, despite losses.

After losing 4 straight and having the bracket reset, making the score 1-0 Ruben, I, finally, get a win against him.  Barely.  Had I not gotten all the chip damage on Cerebella's guard, I would have died from the resulting combo/command grab.  This makes it 1-1.  He takes the next one, then I take the next one, making it 2-2.  The final match of the tournament.

Now this I don't understand.  He decides he's going to change characters and go back to his original team of Painwheel/Cerebella.  This confused me greatly as he was doing so well with his Peacock team.  Now looking at it, the only comment on the video at this time agrees.  None the less, I count my blessings, and go into the next match.

He's definitely just wanting to throw my game off using Painwheel, and it works.  I'm blocking all the crazier mix-ups and cross-ups, but I get caught by simple lows.  Fortunately his combo isn't as damaging as it can be and he drops a couple of them.  Same with me though.  I think we're both pretty damn nervous, it's the final game, tournament point for the both of us, and we're hungry like the wolf for the tournament victory.

Here's where I think possibly one of my biggest errors actually became my biggest life saver...


I actually thought the score was 2-1.

Yes, I didn't think Ruben was on tournament point, so I was playing a lot more calm than I would if the situation was 2-2.  I did NOT figure this out until today when watching the tournament finals.  While I made a lot of mistakes in the match I don't think I would have made if I was fully focused, I think the fact that I wasn't stressing over the situation of the match made me think more clearly and calmly, despite the ridiculous zero-life situation.

I was seriously like this when I, belatedly, realized how close I was to losing.

Even after, stupidly, dropping my kill combo, I get to take home my barely acquired tournament win.

Aftermath

As far as KoF goes, I don't understand why I'm having so much trouble learning the game.  I really enjoy the game and enjoy it more than Skullgirls.  I understand that I don't get to practice it a lot as  the online is garbage and there aren't a lot of gatherings for live KoF, which I am also at fault for.  Still, it feels like other people are learning a lot faster than I am, regardless of the amount of time I put in.

I don't know if I'm missing something very basic, if I'm learning the wrong things, or what.  It's frustrating that I can't learn this game.  I wish I could sit down with someone really good and have them help me with what I need to work on.  It's a huge list of basics, I'm sure, but I don't know what that list is.  I watch videos, study tournament matches, read up on the Wikipedia and forums to find anything I can learn, but I feel I come out with less than I had before every time I go to a tournament.

I'm extraordinarily frustrated and disappointed at myself in my inability to learn King of Fighters.  Especially when I don't have an answer for myself on how to learn.

As far as Skullgirls goes, I feel I'm doing, surprisingly, well with the game.  I do end up playing it quite often because the online works with my shitty internet and I can practice whenever I feel like it.  I think that's the main thing that's helping me with learning Skullgirls.  After my matches with Ruben's Peacock, I've decided I need an assist on my team so I have more options again zoning characters like Peacock and Parasoul.  I picked up Double and am trying to learn how to use her so she's more than just an assist.  I am having a hard time with her, but it's only been 3 days since I've picked her up, so I need to be more patient.  I think I may only pull her out in zoning situations, namely Peacock.  I like Painwheel's solo damage too much and she opens up people well once she can get in.  We'll see.

(And what of the Pac-Man!?  Maybe he's actually Pruce Mayne, and under the guise of night, he becomes Pac-Man!  It would explain why the stages are always dark.  And he goes through the city, fighting crime and...)


Results:
KoF: 3rd
Skullgirls: 1st
Pac-Man: Waka Waka