Log: Connecticut MvsC2 Championships
Darksyde
Connecticut....this is my log of my personal experiences during the tournament.
The tournament was a surprising success. Even though it was delayed a week
(because a button broke last week and the arcade employees were unable to fix
it), I think it was honestly the best MvsC2 tournament that has been held in
CT. I think just about EVERBODY was there....around 40 people...with the
exception of maybe Bobby, Shoubert, Rob Aponte, and Dru....but without a doubt
there were people there to take their place anyway. Due to LOTS of traffic
delays (the Merritt Parkway was backed up for about a half hour), the
tournament started an hour late. The matches were different from last week: to
save time, all matches up to the semi-finals would be single fights, while the
semis would be best 2 out of 3. Well the tournament started out typically, with
regulars like P.J. (Essex on IRC)(Spiral/Magneto/?), me (Darksyde)
(Doom/Cyke/Cable), Ryan Lee (Strider/Cyclops/Doom), Brian Jin
(Strider/Doom/Cable), Rich Williams (Cable/Magneto/Iron Man), Richie from
Waterbury (Cable/Cyke/Tron), a kid named Andrew from Meriden (Magneto/Iron
Man/?), and others winning their first round matches without much of a hitch,
quickly weeding out most of the scrubs. But to a lot of people's surpirse, some
of the more favored players actually LOST their first round matches...Kev
(Cammy/Storm/Commando) and others. Why? Well let me explain something about the
controllers at Meriden Arcade (Jester's Courtyard). They're DIAGONAL FROM THE
SCREEN. That's right, they are diagonal, forcing you to look at the game from
an awkward angle. Let me explain in more detail:
The face of the controls on a normal cabinet is set up like this:
l joy1 buttons joy2 buttons l
l________________________________l
coinslot coinslot
But at Meriden arcade, it's set up like this:
\ /
\ joy1(angled) buttons(angled) /
\ buttons(ang.) joy2(angled) /
\______________________________/
coinslot coinslot
So basically, you're forced to stand diagonally to play the game. Why is this
bad? Because most players, by reflex, try to correct their stance to face the
game straight during a heated match.....forcing them to hold the joystick
wrong....and miss simple moves like AHVB or just blocking low. A LOT of people
were complaining about this, and it was very evident that during about 90% of
the matches, at some point someone would miss something that should have
connected, simply because they were not used to the controls. I thought the
loose sticks at ECC2000 were ghey, until I went to Meriden and saw the Clown
Machine.
Anyways....
Trying to remember some of the better matches and strategies...
It seemed like in general people wanted to take a break from Blackheart, I was
the only person in the entire tournament to use him. Most of the winning teams
instead consisted of Doom/Cable/Cyke/Strider combinations. There really wasn't
much new to see, besides that Cable is still a royal pain in the ass, and that
besides Cable and Commando, Doom really doesn't have any bad matches to speak
of. Some notable moments:
I think it was P.J. against Ty Pathammavong (who is, by the way, the ONLY
person ranked in CT on the CTF website for the MvsC2 100 hits tourney this
Sunday....and he told me he isn't even going, wtf) in the semi-finals of the
losers bracket......it came down to something like P.J.'s Cable/? vs. Ty's
Cable/Iceman or something like that. It was probably the worst match I've ever
seen....BOTH players who are usually on the ball, missed about 10 AHVB each
instead getting just FPs or stupid-looking rising FP viper beams......the match
ended with P.J. doing a standing short->RH chain into HVB, and for some reason
that I still can't understand, the HVB didn't connect but was able to be
blocked....Ty countered with his own HVB and it was peace out for Essex.
Another spectacular match was Ryan Lee (Strider/Doom/StormCammyCable?) vs.
Brian Jin (Doom/Cable/Cyke?). Well in short it was a pretty typical match, with
the Strider/Doom trap in effect until Jin's Cyke Anti-air assist stopping it
and leading into AHVB combos....a LOT of DHCing left both fighters with only
Doom remaining, with about 75% life. Truly a mirror match for the ages, both
immediately SJed and tried photons....which canceled each other out
perfectly...so both went for a photon array, which cancelled each other out
perfectly.....and the fight continued on the ground. Lots of blocked ground
chains. Eventually Jin got Ryan's Doom into an air combo finishing with a
photon array, but Ryan SJed again.....Jin tried to photon charge him on the way
up but missed...and Ryan basically did a photon array directly into Doom's
face. Ouch. Peace out, by pixels, an excellent match.
At some point during the night, I fought Ty Pathammavong, and I really can't
remember much besides that I dominated him. Don't ask me why Cen ranked him and
not me, I mean I respect his skills and all but there's just no reason why he
should be ranked while I'm just ignored. Maybe because I was giving Cen shit
the other night about banning the winner of a match from switching their
character order at the CTF tourney on Sunday. Whatever.
Anyways, I had to fight Richie from Waterbury (Cable/Cyke/Tron) to fight for
who would be the top contender, and who would fight the winner of the losers'
bracket for 2nd place. Richie is good, no doubt, and I respect his skills: the
first match was typical: he rarely misses an AHVB, he uses Cyke anti-air assist
very well to break traps, and to my surprise his Cable OWNS my Doom. Whenever I
tried to superjump and throw photons...he would be there with me about 90% of
the time, viper beaming or AHVBing me out of them. Its friggin annoying. I
wasn't planning on using Blackheart at all, so for the second match I was
forced to try to use my Cable to beat his...which usually is no problem with my
team of Cable/Doom/Cyke. But then he pulled out the secret weapon for Cable vs.
Cable mirror matches: the Tron projectile assist. I knew that for some reason
the assist did ridiculous damage, but I had no clue how good it was as an
assist for Cable. You see, usually since you can't do anything to Cable when
the match starts because both cables have meter (you're fearing a AHVB), it
becomes a jumping RH, assist matchup, until someone messes up and gets cought
with a AHVB. His damned Tron would come out and make me block, and during that
time he would jump over and cross me up with a RH, then combo into a standing
short->RH->HVB combo. Ouchie. So the next time I tried to call out Cyke to stop
Tron...he ate about 30% damage from Tron, in addition to a AHVB from Cable. I
couldn't counter (you CAN'T counter AHVBs) so basically he got the damage for
free. It seemed like no matter what I did he couldn't be stopped.....either
Tron/Cable chipped, or connected for big damage, or my assist hit but paid the
price. The match was over, I'd lost.
So I had to fight Ryan Lee, of all people, for 2nd place. We have a
long-standing rivalry of who is the best in our area, and lately is has been
undoubtedly me, with my Doom owning him about 90% of the time. But Ryan had
been watching Richie fight me, so I figured it would be unsafe to pick Doom and
have him copy what Richie was doing with Cable....so I took Blackheart out of
retirement and used Cyke/Cable/BH against his Strider/Storm/Doom. Decent match,
but I owned since about 90% of the time I can shut down his Strider with a
ducking FP over and over and over..it pretty much prevents him from using
Oroborous or teleporting, and so he's forced to jump and block a AAA from
Cable, then I just start over again....then if he teleports, jump back RH with
Cable Anti-air assist....Strider basically got shut down and died. Storm came
out, ate a lot of Cyke AAA->AHVB combos and died. Doom just gave up, heh. The
second match was a lot better, with Ryan's classic "rushdown" team of
Strider/Cammy/Storm if I'm not mistaken. He beat me that one, mainly because I
had a brain fart and missed about 4 AHVBs, coming out with dumb jumping attacks
instead. The final match was also very intense....basically a mirror match of
the last one, I wasn't willing to give up so easily. This time his Strider did
a little more damage to me....but I still shut him down. His Cammy was doing a
good number on my Cyke somehow, so I got Cable in there...which is usually a
good move, except that I forgot that Storm's projectile assist combined with
Cammy's jumping cannon drill is nearly unstoppable...and that Hail Storm
PUNISHES whiffed helpers...since Cyke was already low on health there was
little I could do........ eventually I called out Cyke by accident and he died
to a hail Storm, bleeh. So it was my Cable and BH (both about 50%) against his
Cammy and Storm. Cammy's Anti-air assist caught Cable and AGAIN Ryan comboed
into hailstorm....cable had about a pixel of energy left...so by total luck, I
landed a standing FP and comboed into a BH swtich. I was almost shutting down
Storm with jumping RHs, but she was tagging me a few times pretty good....a lot
of times I did Infernos and tried to cancel into Heart of Darkness, but instead
I got nothing (cuz of the fuqued diagonal controls) and ended up eating the
lighting attack-> electric storm combo. finally Ryan caught my BH with an air
combo, did a lighting attack in the combo, and tried to do an electric
storm....but then HE messed up because of the controls and the super came out
late....BH landed, did an Inferno, and this time the HOD cancel worked....PEACE
OUT STORM by pixels. Cammy came out with only a little chunk of health and
quickly lost to BH/Cable. It was one of the best matches I've ever been in,
with Ryan leading, me coming back, then Ryan coming back and almost winning (if
he had gotten that Storm air combo off it was over for me, it was just pure
luck that he messed up) and then me taking advantage of his mistake and taking
the win. MUCH respect for Ryan.
So again, it was me vs Richie for 1st place. At this point, the arcade was
sweltering because it has NO A/C ARG and I was tired out from playing the
grueling match against Ryan. Richie was all fresh and cheery, and gave me a big
smile. ARG. I drank about half of Speedy's soda and slowly picked Cable/Cyke/BH
to counter Richie's Cable/Cyke/Tron. At first it was working, my jump back
viperbeam + inferno assist keepaway in full effect, but then I tried to rush
him again...and started eating Tron assists...and ending up with only BH/Cyke.
BH made a TREMENDOUS comeback, defeating his Cyke and wittling his Cable down
to a sliver of energy....then his Cable AHVBed him out of existense....then my
Cyke with about 10% energy left jumped onto the scene and defeated Cable with a
single jumping RH. Finally, it was Tron vs. Cyke, but his Tron still had about
40% life left to my 10%. I caught him with about 2 blocked jump-back SOBs and
made the energy even....and then ate a standing jab->forward->lunch rush combo,
losing the match. HOW HUMILIATING.
Well it was the second match, and it would be the last one if I didn't
win....being stupid me, I totally forgot about the Doom/BH trap for some reason
and again went with Cable/Cyke/BH (I'm stubborn like that)......and got owned.
I tried to make my comeback with BH again, but every time I tried to cancel an
inferno into a HOD, BH would just stand there stupidly and gaze back at me like
I was retarded. Bastard. He ate about 3 AHVBs and I was basically peaced out.
In short, I learned a lot of things today:
-Even if you are a better player, one assist or trap or strategy that you don't
know how to counter can shut you down. And no matter what you do, if you're not
used to the controls, you're going to make stupid mistakes
-IMHO, Cable owns Doom. Just jump with him and VB/AHVB his photons....if BH
assist, jump with Doom and airblock the inferno and wait for Doom to try
something....if he does try to throw photons, AHVB or VB...if he doesn't you
land before him and can now call your own helper to mess up the trap.
-Tron assist is hella annoying.
-Joysticks that are angled to the screen suck. So many people were complaining,
and so many people were missing such simple things like AHVBs or Inferno->HOD
cancels....
-Arcades need air conditioning. Especially when packed with about 50 people.
-I need more sleep.
Well in conclusion, many props to all the players I faced today, including
notably Black Rich, Ty, Speedy, that Andrew Kid from Meriden......special props
to Ryan for always giving me excellent competition in tournaments (I finally
came out on top this time, heh, and I didn't even re-enter to beat
you!).....and an extra-special GOOD JOB to Richie for playing MvsC2 so much
that he learned how to shut down my Cable with a simple Tron assist. That's
one-one now Richie. Next time, it will be for keeps.....
***Finally, I hope to play a lot of you at CTF this Sunday for the 100Hits
MvsC2 tournament. Good luck to all the contenders and hope to see you all
there.***
Behold the true power of the Darksyde...
Stilt Man
Darksyde <whoa...@aol.com> wrote:
>-IMHO, Cable owns Doom. Just jump with him and VB/AHVB his photons....if BH
>assist, jump with Doom and airblock the inferno and wait for Doom to try
>something....if he does try to throw photons, AHVB or VB...if he doesn't you
>land before him and can now call your own helper to mess up the trap.
It makes a mess, yes, but there's an answer Doom can use for this: call BH,
super jump, then air dash straight up. If Cable tries to follow Doom, BH's
assist will force him to block and he starts back toward the ground... but
Doom is still climbing. With Cable forced to go back down, Doom can now
throw photon charges at will. Unless Cable finds a way to disrupt BH's assist
before going up, there's nothing he can do but block.
If Cable doesn't try going up after Doom, Doom doesn't really need to do the
air dash, but if he _does_ try going up, air dashing straight up will cure
it. As Doom is landing from one photon charge, Cable is still blocking it
and Doom can resume if he's got his timing right. (I'm still working on this
a bit myself, but it can be done.)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Stilt Man stil...@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~stiltman/stiltman.html
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