Recent Thoughts/SSF4 Tourney

Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this blog! Man, it feels weird, but also feels good to be back. I've been super busy since Midwest Championships, with schoolwork, photography, and my Street Fighter playing, as well. lol.


So basically to sum it up, I came back from MWC exhausted, but I had fun when I went. Although I was somewhat happy with my performance, I still felt that there was something that was holding me back, or something that I was doing wrong. I started researching, and searching myself to possibly figure out what that was. My conclusion? I figured that I wasn't playing with the right character. So there started my long mission of trying to find a new main. I jumped from Sagat to Rufus again, to Bison/Blanka/Balrog/Cammy/Ryu...the list goes on. I kept jumping and jumping for the next couple months...


Until a week or two ago. I was running through the trials in SSF4 to try and get the icons for each character, and I ran across E. Honda. I thought he had some nerfs, but it turns out very little, if anything at all was changed. He was doing some massive damage, and I found that I was able to naturally Piano his Hundred Hand Slap combos with little effort. I decided to give him a shot and see what I could do.


It was love at first sight. I loved the damage that I could do with him. Granted, he has a hard time with fireball characters, but I love high-damage characters, hence the reason I used Sagat in Street Fighter 4. I still use him in Super Street Fighter 4 now, but I have to play him a lot more carefully and patiently than I did in SF4. I still see some results with Sagat, but I'm really liking Honda so far. So I hit the lab, and I've kept practicing, and Honda is now my main.




So I've been using him exclusively for about a week and a half or so now, and I had my first local ranbat with him today. Overall I think I did fairly well. I went 4-2, and fought some good people. I ended fighting the top player in Michigan, Wolfkrone, for my 3rd match. It was a great match, his Viper was a beast, as usual. I thought that Honda's EX Headbutt could stop the Burn Kick mixups, but that wasn't the case. Seems that they've stopped that in SSF4, which is alright. The matchup would have been almost unwinnable for Viper at that point, if it did. The first game I just kept on doing a lot of Buttslams, which Viper seems to have no answer for, and Wolfkrone said he personally didn't know what to do when I was doing that. I mixed it up the first round of the second game, and took it, barely. I was up one round and one game, and then.....IDK. I just stopped doing what I was supposed to. I decided to try and style on him, and went to try and build meter, as to try and go for Jab --> Hands --> FADC --> Ultra 2. I went for it, when he had about half a bar of life, and it would have killed him...

...if I didn't mess it up and get EX Oicho instead. D=


Missing it killed my momentum, but I brought it down the last hits of the last round, which I was happy with. I went into losers, beat a Zangief, and then had to go up against a local Balrog/Ryu player, Rusty. I don't know the matchup with Honda vs Balrog at all, so it took it pretty convincingly. *He was rushing me down like crazy, and I wasn't sure what to do. I'll learn it over time, though. I'm just starting out with Honda.* So I went back and forth at the character select screen, wondering if I should choose Bison and play footsies with him and go with Knee Pressure, or just use my old stand-by Sagat. I decided to go with Sagat, Ultra 1. *In case I got counter crumple or FADC Uppercut. He wasn't doing much jumping so Ultra 2 wasn't beneficial in this case*


So I played it patiently, because I REALLY didn't want to lose to Rusty, no offense to him. So I turtled, turtled, and turtled some more. Played footsies, anti-aired when I needed to. It was close, but I pulled it out against his Balrog. He then rushes back to the Character select screen and pulls out Ryu. Oh boy. Here we go. "I'm done", I thought. But then I just told myself mentally that if I just played it patiently, I could beat him. I'd done it before, and I could do it again.


I got a counter crumple 2 or 3 times with FA, and went into Ultra 1 after it. Got the C. LK --> C. LK --> C. MP --> Low Tiger shot blockstring a few times. I was mainly doing that to be safe, I wasn't feeling risky enough to do uppercut, as it was 1-1 at that point, so I was being super super safe and patient. He tried jumping in a few times, and I anti-aired him rather well. I was able to pull it out, though. In Rusty's defense though, he was going from Balrog to Ryu, which is a drastic change in characters. I was happy I pulled it out though. I was all excited, then I heard behind me:


"Yo, Q. We're up next." I turned around, and behold, who was standing there?


Perfect freaking Legend. I even told him just as he sat down: "You're one of the two guys I didn't/don't want to face." He laughed, and asked who the other guy was. I told him it was Alucard. I can't deal with Rush-down Balrogs that well. We laughed, did the button check, and picked our characters. No matter what, I was picking Honda the first game. I saw him run to Akuma, which I was somewhat happy with. I felt that if I got in on him I could do decent. But as soon as I picked Honda, he ran over to Seth. 3-7 matchups ftl. Ugh. There wasn't much I could do, as I didn't know the matchup at all.


I played my best, and took a round from him, but he pulled it out that game. I switched to Sagat, since I knew the match relatively well from playing a friend of mine, PapaRhino, but there was only one problem: He didn't play anything at all like PapaRhino, so I was kind of puzzled as to what to do. It was a fun match either way, though.



So in closing, the tournament went well. I took 5th place, which I was extremely happy with, being that I had just picked up Honda and it was my first tournament with him. I wasn't upset to who I lost to, as I lost to the best player in MI, and probably the best in OH. Nothing to be upset about. I'll continue to practice, and hopefully when I go to Columbus next month for a big tournament, I'll do well there too. Honda FTW!




So that about wraps this up, I just felt like updating and talking about what went on at the tournament today. It was pretty fun, overall. Except for Rusty running his mouth when me and Perfect Legend were playing, I feel that it threw both of us off our game a bit, not that the outcome would probably have changed. *shrug* It was really annoying, man. No offense. Next time just keep it down, if you would please.




This is Q, signing off. I'll try to update again soon, and let y'all know what's going on. Peace.