Accurate depiction of China
This past weekend, October 27, I went to Colorado Spring to participate in the Bromance 4 tournament. Originally a 2v2 format tournament that had too many no shows for Persona 4 Arena, so they made it singles, giving only Street Fighter 4 and Marvel 2v2 formats. I think I was the only participant with his partner there who, ironically, helped me during the tournament.
I will only talk about one match, as there is only one video available from the tournament and only one real notable match: Grand Finals vs True_Tech.
Yes: My handle is "Ryyudo" and my opponent's handle is "True_Tech". Feel free to comment about their typos in the title. It'll amuse me even AFTER they change it.
The set, WHILE we were playing, had to become 2 out of 3 because of "time constraints". There's a lot to say about this but I'll leave it at "poor planning". I think the Tournament Organizer really screwed True_Tech's chances of winning by doing this. More on this later.
True_Tech was one of the few remaining people in Colorado I have not played, and it was not a tournament match I looked forward to. He plays Aigis. The Grand Finals video is my third time playing against an Aigis. The second time, being Winner's Finals at the same tournament (where I beat him), and the first time being some random, bad, online player. Furthermore, I rarely see Aigis played in videos or on streams. Making these matches slightly more challenging, but enjoyable.
My matches with True_Tech were actually fun. Mostly because of the challenge of facing a completely new character, for me, in a win-or-die situation. I needed to learn the match-up in a VERY time-limited environment; analyzing every situation as we played, what to expect, when to burst, how to punish, etc..
It was, and still is watching the video, a lot of information to process. Fortunately for me, after winning the Winner's Finals I spoke with, my would-be Bromance teammate, Greg/Spineshark about Aigis. He played around with Aigis for a small stint of time before going to Yosuke/Elizabeth, and invited me to ask questions.
The conversation went like this
The Q&A session was rather... pathetic. The information I lacked on Aigis was basic at best. The things I needed to ask about made me feel like I should have lost the Winner's Finals match. Sadly, my memory is weak at best and I only remember one thing he said, which I only used once or twice in the Grand Finals: Rolling through Aigis' 2B, the half circular bullet spray.
Better than nothing!
The rest of the matches was figuring out how to outplay True_Tech: What is he weak to and what will he not fall for. He was weak to jumping C, Tomoe's Air Slash, pressure, but he rarely fell for my 236A, flying double-kick, shenanigans. Changing my play style around these patterns made the match all the more rewarding. Rewarded with a win for playing good and calm, even when getting beat up.
I don't think I blocked a single string during Aigis' Orgia mode, and I pretty much accepted that I couldn't. In the later matches, you'll see me trying to stay more airborne and throwing out attacks for Aigis to run into. It was a lot safer in the air because I found out Aigi's 2B is not unblockable while airborne and True_Tech does not air-grab often. My good play was a mix of playing against the player and the character. Fortunately for me, I got the right amount of time to learn how to play against True_Tech, and he didn't have enough time to counter this.
Because of the shortened 2 out of 3 Grand Finals, my ability to read opponents quickly came into play. When I started to change my game half way through, True_Tech didn't have enough time or remaining matches to make necessary changes. To be fair, he most likely felt like he did fine because he hit me so often, so he may not have felt the need to change-up styles. In turn, to save mentality and to work on the things I can fix, I just expected to play my games from a half-life deficit and abuse his lack-of defense afterward.
The last thing to add to video commentary, and this is completely my fault, is the functionality of my C button. I knew it was working maybe 75% of the time before the tournament started. I discovered it had issues when I messed around on King of Fighters '98 a couple days before the tournament. Because KoF'98 was emulated on my PC, I figured it was an emulation issue and shrugged it off without further testing.
Dumb.
Move.
It caused some problems during my matches on Saturday, especially during Grand Finals. I missed a lot of opportunities and combos with the lack of a 100% working C attack. Since then I've fixed it; it seems fine after a training mode session.
During the Grand Final matches, I felt an odd sense of confidence. I did not consider that I could lose. Something felt really... simple about the whole match that if I continued to play my game, making the appropriate changes, I wouldn't lose the tournament. Even after being reset on, I remained strangely calm and confident about the whole situation. I just knew I could beat True_Tech; that his game wasn't strong enough, despite my lack of knowledge, to beat me.
I will watch the video a few more times for major flaws and things I am not capitalizing on, abusing, etc.. I feel I will get much stronger before the next tournament, King of Iron Fresh, in November. Colorado's biggest tournament yet with a $1,000 bonus pot for Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (!!!!).
There's only one more person I need to face in Colorado, and I don't expect to lose to him. There are a couple who may up their game enough, so I need to be concerned. I figure if I stick to my game plan of leveling up enough between tournaments that people continue to not be prepared, I'll be fine.
With this tournament, I am now the 5-time Persona 4 Arena Champion of Colorado/New Mexico. As the game says "They're Unstoppable", but really I don't think people put forth the effort minus a select few because they feel like "What's the point? Ryyudo is going to win anyway."
