REPOST: Log: CT MvsC2 Championships
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their NG readers...
Today there was a tournament in Meriden....a full state tournament for
MvsC2 in 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 stickes 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 they both
have meter, it becomes 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 Srider with a ducking FP over and over and
over....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, 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 and 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 chip trap working, 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 if you're not used
to the controls, you're going to make stupid mistakes, so ALWAYS
PRACTICE BEFOREHAND.
-IMHO, Cable owns Doom. Just jump with him and VB/AHVB his
photons....if BH assist, jump with Doom and airblock it 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 order of the Doom/BH trap.
-Tron assist is 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.***
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