Friday, August 21, 2009

My First (serious) Tournament

So last week a friend and I made the journey 90 miles north to the Minnesota Meltdown annual fighting game gathering and tournament. I ended up placing 9th out of 15 entrants in BlazBlue, which - while nothing to write home about - isn't that bad considering I took rounds (and sometimes games) from the 5th and 2nd place finishers. So although I have a lot of work to do, I made a lot of progress and learned quite a bit.

Lessons Learned:

1.) It ain't over till it's over.

More than once I resorted to my usually-useful "get them down to low life and turtle with projectiles" only to eat a Spark Bolt -> 720 for MASSIVE SOVIET DAMAGE. When playing in tournaments, playing it safe towards the end isn't always a good idea (especially when facing Tager, who I had no idea could combo his projectile into his Throw of Doom).

2.) Mind games are real.

It's amazing how much the "flow" of the match dictates what your opponent will do. There is a lot of "feeling" that you can get from the person next to you. You can tell when they're panicking, you can tell when they're nervous. It's a completely different experience than playing online. Dictating the pace of the match (and not letting your opponent do it) is the best way to gain ground.

3.) Don't Ride the Icening!

It's true what they say in the forums. Ice Car works better online than it does in person, and anyone worth their salt will know how to block it and punish you. Only use Ice Car to get across the screen or in combos. And if you lose your combo chain before initiating the Ice Car, expect a world of hurt if you go through with it.

4.) If something works on you, they'll do it again. (and again, and again...)

Two examples: versus a Haku and a Noel.

6A is frighteningly effective against j.B. So much so that he had me on lockdown for the majority of the match. Usually Haku is one of my better matchups, but I had a really hard time with the one I met there. He also managed to lull me into a false sense of security by jumping around and provoking my ice car, which always ended in badness (see above.) For some stupid reason, I couldn't stop myself from jumping in even though I was eating 6A every time. I guess subconsciously I must have thought that my placement was off and that's why I was taking the hit, but it turns out the priority of that move is godly. And he would gladly hit me with it every time I attempted a jump-in.

One of Noel's combos has a property that if you tech out the wrong way, you're going to get combo'd again. I fell for this not once, not twice, but 3 times. And another person watching even commented on it.

So yes, I gained a lot of worthwhile experience by going to this tournament. I think what I need to work on the most, rather than combo execution, is fundamental execution and pressure escape. Once I'm in a 9832749832 hit combo, I just start to mash and hope for the best. I need to study the best means of escape for the characters I have the most problems with - namely Ragna, Rachel, Nu, and Noel.

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