Leslie’s Blog Day 5 and 6
Sep 19th
Day 5:
Today we walked from Shibuya to Harajuka. Very tiring o.O
After that as usual, we headed down to the arcade. In the last push before SBO, I managed to play against Air again, a Rufus player (probably Death Metabo a Master Ranked Rufus Player), and a Master ranked Bison player.
The Bison player quite amazingly didn’t jump forward during the entire match. Whenever he wanted to get in, he would focus dash in, then hold down back, waiting to Ex Scissor Kick through a Tiger Shot once he had bar. Seriously, all the Bisons in Japan know how to bait Sagat’s Uppercut, for example, they would cross up MK or HK then teleport back, or do a safe jump HP then teleport away. Against them, it was best to block and not try to score an FADC uppercut, since this would normally result in Sagat eating a full punish combo.
Played a game against Super Uraijjo, a Master Ranked Zangief, who was the only Zangief I’ve lost to in Japan. He was very efficient in using d.LP> Ex Greenhand to whiff punish Sagat’s normals, and I couldn’t just press stand HK whenever I felt like it. His reaction was really quite fast so if I wanted to shoot a Tiger shot, I would have to do it from close. Otherwise, he would be able to Ex Greenhand the Tiger Shot on reaction. Also he won the match by punishing a whiffed uppercut with cr.LK (whiffed to buffer motion for Ultra)then Ultra. Very pain.
By the end of the night, I felt quite prepared for SBO, because I felt that I had a better understanding of how Japanese players played, and so I was definitely a lot more confident than I was when I arrived on Day 1.
Day 6
Today is SBO day! Didn’t get to sleep well last night. I kept on thinking about a lot of things, like setups and trying to recall how all the different players I had fought in Japan played.
The trip to the SBO venue is quite long and expensive. Thankfully I only have to go there today -_-’
Once we reached the venue, we waited in the arena to wait for the staff to call us to gather. After about 20 mins, he brought us to a corner, which was probably our Block Bracket where we had to wait until they called our team name. While waiting, we watched some of the other matches and discussed who among us would go first. Was quite shocked to see MDR’s team, which came in second at the Japanese nationals, get taken out by 50 Yen’s team in the first round (Note: Tetra, Carzydog Ken and Vintagesoul also took part in the last chance qualifiers where they lost of 50 Yen’s team, getting OCVed by Dath’s Viper). Tommy volunteered to go first, and so when we were finally called up, he went first….
And Tommy OCVed the team of DED (RY), Hoimin LVL3 (DIC)and Arison (SG)!
After that we went back to our bracket area. We saw Shiro’s team, so we knew that they had also won their match and would be our next opponents. We discussed our strategy against Shiro’s team, and decided that Tommy would go first to suss our their team’s first pick. If Shiro went first and beat Tommy, then Xian could go next. If Ojisan Boy or Mizoteru won first and beat Tommy, then I would go, since we felt that Blanka would be a bad match up for Xian. The idea here was to protect Xian as long as possible so that he could fight Shiro.
Tommy went first and they sent Mizoteru! I watched how Mizoteru played and I felt that he had very good reactions while playing a very strong waiting game. After Tommy lost, I decided to try to win by out turtling Mizoteru.
I ended up losing the first round when he got an early life lead (either by chipping with Blanka Balls or sliding… can’t remember). I tried to keep to my game plan by shooting Tiger shots which he avoided throughout the entire match by coward crouching under. By the time I decided that I should attack, time was running out and I got killed trying to get in.
In the second round, I managed to get the life lead when he blocked some Tiger Shots. Mizoteru was forced to jump twice- the first time I uppercutted him, and the second time, I uppercutted into Ultra for the win!
In the third round, I tried to play safe, but somehow, Mizoteru managed to sneak in a LP Roll (whiff)> Throw, followed by a hop through me when I was waking up, leading to an Electricity combo, which gave him a very significant life lead. After that he went back to his game plan of crouching under Tiger Shots and doing Ex Rainbow Rolls to get out of the corner. I tried to push him into the corner with Tiger Shots until time started running low, then I tried to start chipping him with Tiger Knees. As time ran out, Mizoteru did his Ultra to run the clock, I went through it with an Ex Uppercut then did my own Ultra on the other side, but of no use… Time had ran out =\
Xian played 3rd but also failed to cracked Mizoteru’s shell… And so our SBO dream was ended, not in the hands of a famous Sagat or a scary Akuma, but against Japan’s number 1 turtle Blanka =(
After that we got to watch the rest of the matches but without a seat, so it was quite tiring. At the end of SBO, we met up with DAICHI who brought us out to dinner. Good stuff.
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Final thoughts:
In general I find that Japanese players are very safe players who can be aggressive when they need to be. What impressed me the most was their use of frame traps to efficiently punish throw tech attempts, their level of execution, and their knowledge of their characters. I think that in order for Singapore to catch up, we need to share more on what our own characters, or what our opponent’s characters are capable of. At the same time, we also need to be open minded in listening whenever another player shares knowledge with us.
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Well we catch our flight tommorow, and I’m gonna miss Japan. Really hope that I can come back if there’s another opportunity. It’s been an honour to represent Singapore for SBO and to share my experiences with you all…
SEE YOU ALL IN THE ARCADES!
Tommy’s Blog (transcribed by Paul)
Sep 19th
Day 1
Tommy was very happy to finally arrive as this was his first time here in Japan, and it was especially nice to be here with so many friends.
After a checking in at the hotel, and a quick Bento meal, Tommy and Paul headed straight for the Shijuku Game Taito Station.
General Impressions:
Tommy feels that the Japanese are really strong. Not only is their standard strong, but their reaction speeds and their sense of distance control was really strong. Tommy found himself whiffing a lot of attacks. Tommy especially found a lot of difficulty with the Zangiefs down here, and was surprised that the Japanese Zangief users he fought came in all ages and were all so strong (note: The only Zangiefs in the house yesterday were Mahoshoujo, Cantona and Super Uriajjo a Master Zangief). He did not win a single game off a Japanese Zangief, but he feels that if he had played with them a few more days, he should have a chance at beating them. He feels that the Zangiefs here were especially good at standing outside of your effective distance, then whiff punishing any poke attacks. On top of that, their execution was strong and they didn’t miss many combos.
The Sagats, Balrogs and Akumas he fought were strong, but he found them still beatable. The Balrogs he fought were very defensive (very “tur” leh!) but also worked on pushing you towards the corner, while remaining as safe as they could (note: Zak Bennett was in the house that day also, and he also plays a very strong defensive Balrog, even though he’s not Japanese).
Day 2
Today, Tommy took part in SBO and managed to OCV the first team Team Singapore fought. He was quite happy even though he felt that they weren’t really the strongest players that Japan had to offer. Note: Tommy OCVed the first Team that Team Singapore played against, consisting of DED (RY), Hoimin LVL3 (DIC)and Arison (SG). However the second team they played, was Shiro’s team, featuring Shiro (AB), Ojisan Boy (SG) and Mizoteru (BL). The team fielded Mizoteru (BL) first and this was the first time Tommy was fighting against him.
Tommy has always thought that he, himself, is a very “turtle” player, but he felt that Mizoteru was much more of a “turtle” than himself. So he had to be very careful and not make a single mistake. But he felt very happy when fighting him, because he felt that by being a “turtle” player, Mizoteru had in fact turned the match into a battle of reaction speeds. For example, during the entire match, Tommy had shot 2 fireballs, and both fireballs had been punished by slides on reaction. After that, Tommy didn’t throw any more fireballs. After that he had to keep on walking forward and blocking, in order to push Mizoteru into the corner. However, in reaction to Tommy’s push, Mizoteru would jump in and attack, and Tommy failed to react to these jump-ins. In effect, Tommy thinks that he lost because this was his first time fighting such a strong “turtle” Blanka. Without a gameplan against such a “turtle” Blanka, all his attempts to attack Mizoteru were easily reacted to and he himself was not prepared to react whenever Mizoteru attacked.
If he had more chances to play with Mizoteru, he would definitely try harder to push Mizoteru into the corner and reduce Mizoteru’s opportunities to attack him.
In all, he felt that he learnt a lot during his trip here and he would definitely like to come back if he could. Additionally, he knows that it wasn’t easy for him to make it here. Fortunately there were many friends who supported him and he is very grateful for that. He wishes that there will be future opportunities for him to bring these friends to Japan to see it all for themselves, because Japan seems like a great tourism spot, with great people, great food, and of course, great Streetfighter.
Day 3 and Day 4
Sep 17th
Hi guys, Leslie here again (with Paul copywriting lah). Sorry for the lack of updates. We were watching SBO match vids last night till a bit too late.
Day 3
Anyway, on Day 3, we went to the legendary Tsukiji fish market in the drizzle, and ran into an Oba-san parade. After that we went to the Ginza district for awhile. Wtf is Muji is like Ikea in Japan?
Soon after that we trooped back to Shinjuku Game Station where it was international night with players from China, Taiwan, Kuwait, Korea (feat. Laugh and Infiltration), America and of course us and the Japanese. Yes lah I got 17 wins in the arcade. No lah, it was only against the less famous players.
Notable players in attendence included Kindevu (who was using Sagat o.O) and Bon chan (SG). Kindevu and Bon chan looked like they were having some sort of grudge match and they left soon after, but not before Kindevu greeted Xian with a xia-lan “Shhhaaaaanggrriiiilaaaa”. Other notable players: TUC (DIC), Yuru (RY), Eita (RY and AK) and Air (RY).
Lost against Eita’s Ryu who was really good at landing the Ultra outside of combos, for example ultra by pure reaction in a fireball game (didn’t seem to be off any particular set up).
Managed to beat Yuru’s Ryu (by a pixel). Really calm Ryu who didn’t jump much, so it really came down a footsie’s fireball match. I managed to get a good life lead by in the close range fireball war with Sagat’s faster standing shot recovery.
Played with this strong (BB+ ranked) Bison player (don’t know his name) who would neutral jump and teleport on the spot a lot when he wanted to stay safe. On attack he would focus through two consecutive fireballs and do a HK (which might hit or force me to block… if his second focus was a correctly Yomied one, it would give him enough time to hit me with the HK), which would put him in a good position for Bison to be in (since if he jumped over a fireball he would land a full combo, and he could also Ex Double Knee through fireballs on reaction).
In general i found the standard of the international players to be pretty much on par with us… So it feels to me that its the Japanese playing at a level above the rest of the world, and the rest of the world playing at a similar level.
Day 4
For the tournament, we’ll be collating observations from both myself and Xian.
Again Team Singapore ends up fighting the most ridiculously stacked team in its first match and yes we got OCVed by Mago and Momochi respectively, a bit sian. (In all fairness though, non of the other international teams made it past the first round either… like I was saying, it just looks like the Japanese are playing at a level above the rest of the world).
In the finals Nemo took out 4 characters from the Japanese Gian Peng Team! Taking out Bon-chan, Kindevu, Momochi and Mago, Nemo says “No one scared of match up lah.”
Nemo was very on point with his s.HK> MK Lightning Legs> c.HK combo, which would then set him up for an ambigious cross up df+HK (which works very well on Sagat, Zangief and a few other characters). Once the df+HK connects then he can connect the same combo again… Who says that SF4 is a turtle game?
Other random observations:
(Leslie and Xian) Rchan brought us to the best ramen that no one knows about, Itazan Ramen (Ver 1), named after Itazan because he introduced Rchan to the place. Best ramen I’ve ever eaten (even though I don’t really like ramen).
(Xian) Wtf is I always end up fighting Momochi in tournament, whether its in Singapore, Korea or Japan?
(Leslie and Xian) Today was like a who’s who of international Street Fighter- on top of the international players that we saw on the last few nights, there was also Guile God.HK, Zak Bennett, Poong Ko, Ricky Ortiz, KSK.
(Xian) Wtf is the Rufuses down here always Ex Messiah whenever he tries to Demon Flip grab, resulting in me eating the full Ex Messiah.
(Leslie) Yes lah. I finally manged to play KOK Sagat today. Yes lah (x2) KOK Sagat is very tur and doesn’t poh jump. I managed to narrowly beat him in a Tiger shot battle. Random Observation: One thing about Singapore Sagats is that they don’t know how to do a high tiger shot when a large opponent (Namely: Zangief, Sagat, Rufus, Balrog, Abel) is waking up. They should do it because, large opponents will have to block it on wake up, even if they hold crouch, and after they block it, you will have more frame advantage for the follow up tiger shot, because standing shot recovers faster.
(Leslie) Ojisan Boy lost all his Sagat mirrors today in casuals. It looks like the Sagat mirror match is really a test of “who is more clutch when they have the life lead” and a bit of luck.
Xian is taking part in SBO for KOF tommorow, so let’s wish him all the best. Also, Tommy is arriving tommorow… Team Singapore is finally assembled and its time for the last burst before SBO!
Day 2
Sep 15th
Hey guys its Leslie again.
Today we met up with Jasper and went to Akihabara to look around. We stopped by the Sega Arcade to play a few games of SF4 there before heading to Taito arcade at Shinjuku. There were quite a number of famous players today including Mago (SG), Fuudo (RY), Shiro (AB), TKD (EL), Mahoshojo (ZA), Itabashi (ZA), Yoshiwo (GU) , Akua (SG), Hanamaruki (SG), Ameriken (SG), Reiketsu (Claw), Air (RY), Togawa (RY), Aoi (SG/AB). Aside from Japanese players the Kuwaiti and American players came as well including Justin Wong and Marn.
Read the rest on the Community Blog!
1st Day in Tokyo
Sep 14th
Hi guys, Me, Paul, Carzy and Jasper arrived at Tokyo around 1.30pm and we went straight to the hotel and check in where we met with Rchan. I Haven’t Slept since last night and couldn’t get much sleep on the plane too so I’m quite tired.
We went to have our dinner at some nearby restaurant and the food there is quite good. After having our dinner, Paul and Carzy went back to the hotel to chill for a bit while me and Rchan went to the Taito Game Station Arcade. There weren’t many people in the arcade at first but it was crowded later on in the night.
I got in some few games with some of the grandmasters/masters (E.g., Shiro, Aojiru Guile, Hanamaruki, Aoi, Yoshiwo, Reiketsu, a Dictator grandmaster) there and lost to shiro (abel) badly. Also played another master ranked Abel and was very impressed. Their Abels there are very strong and maybe i dont have much experience against a good abel. His frame traps, setups, and most importantly, the consistency on their execution was very good, making it hard to react to it, and forcing me into making mistakes.
Examples- Both Shiro and the other Abel were inputting option select forward+MKs after their crouch shorts, and catching me with it whenever I backdashed against a crouch short.
Also, both Abels were able to keep their cross up MKs and cross up rolls very ambigious, and I blocked wrongly a lot.
So put these two together, and you have a situation like this: After a knockdown (normal throw or tornado normally), Shiro goes for an ambigious cross up MK, then goes straight into a cr.LK (OS f+MK) then 50/50 between a tornado throw or a frame trap (like another cr.LK> s.LP> c.LP> f+MK> dash> s.HP)… Really hard to make so many right guesses in such a short time frame.
Watched and played Hanamaruki quite a bit. Really impressed by his knowledge of character specific setups… Was seeing setups against Rufus and Akuma that I didn’t see before (sorry need to experiment a bit before I can explain what he was doing… will do so another day).
Also played against Reiketsu’s Vega… (and I’m pretty sure I also played, and almost lost a game against Reiketsu’s girlfriend… I would’ve lost but I managed to win with a GANGAT UPPERCUT). I feel that the main difference between Japanese and Singapore Vegas is that Japanese Vegas have almost flawless execution on their combos, for example, every connected cr.jab would definitely result in me getting Izuna dropped.
Yoshiwo’s Guile also gets special mention. I was really impressed by the sense of spacing he displayed, particularly he knew all the right distances for the Guile/Sagat match up and was scoring jump in HKs at a distance where if he empty jumped, my uppercut would’ve whiffed.
In general, what really impresses me about Japan is the level of play displayed by all their so-called mid-level players. Even a random C ranked Ryu was doing f+HP> d+HP> Uppercut with a 100% consistency. And all players, even low ranked ones, showed good knowledge of their character’s set ups and options in each situation. In fact, it seems that what seperates the grandmasters from the rest isn’t knowledge of the game, but their ability to execute the things they know consistently.
Oh, and wtf is Aojiru Guile punishing my Uppercut FADC backdash and Jasper’s Ex Green Hand FADC backdash with FULL ULTRA.
Anyway, tired now. Gotta go sleep. I look forward to the next few days, definitely hope that I’ll be able to adapt fast enough to the Japanese style!
SF4 and me.
Aug 31st
Hi guys, I’m back to post again. Recently i have been practicing my setups with sagat. Trying out new things and applying to my gameplay. I hope u guys do tell me how i could improve on my gameplay if your happen to play against me and what areas i could improve on. E.g Execution or fireball game Etc. Dont be afraid to come up and tell me. I would gladly appreciate it. Have been searching for new sagat videos of bonchan and mago but cant seem to find much too. Thats all for now. =)
Hello Round1.sg
Aug 27th
Hellos Round1.sg Its Leslie here. I will be going to japan on 14th sept. Xian and tommy will be going on the 16th. I plan to go there earlier to settle myself down with the japanese players and their style of playing. Haven’t been going to bugis during the weekdays as there is little people around. Will be going down later to train on certain matchups that I’m still not confident in. See You Guys around!
