Rochester Revival Results

Hey all... finally got back from Revival after the CVS2 tourney (third place, woo-hoo!) at like 5:00 in the morning and I figured I'd post the quick results. I'm really tired so I'll write a full write up/report thingie tomorrow... I'd definitely like to thank BMF, kbcat, Llanfair, and Reno for showing up - it was a blast. There wouldn't have been much of a tournament without you guys. You guys also helped us organize the iron man and all so that was awesome. Everyone said it was great to have you and that he hoped you had a good time.

Anyways, we did an iron-man to do seating for the double elimination tournament. The results were:
1. Rich (Namflow)
2. Graham (kbcat)
3. Owen (Llanfair)
4. Alex (Super Golden)
5. Reno (Reno) /versus/images/icons/smile.gif
6. Patryk (BMF)
7. David
8. Nate



Then came the double elimination:
1. Rich
2. Alex
3. Reno
4. Owen





Good games played by everyone, a lot of them were really, *really* close. We got some practice matches, all the iron man (I think), and all of the double elimination taped directly from the TV so we should have matches online pretty soon.

And I have the pic of all the players at the end but I didn't want to post your pic all over the web without your permission. If not I could just IM it to you or something...

Anyways all and all it was a great amount of fun, and even though there were only 8 people in the tournament I think it had some of the best matches & relative level of play compared to any of the other tournaments there at Revival.

Anyways its tired so I need to get some sleep. Hope you guys made it home safe, I'll write more when I'm awake.

 

Hey, sounds like the tournament was good fun!

Congrats to Namflow for the win!! Even with those wily Canadians present. Impressive Jacky power! /versus/images/icons/cool.gif


Let's see some vids now! /versus/images/icons/grin.gif

 

post movies now!

Well done, twins.

GE

 

Hey guys,

First off big thanks for Toronto for making it the tournament it was --- they were thoughtful and brought a monitor/ps2 so we had two VF4 stations going on... They also helped run the tournament (which Rich and I found out we were in charge of two days before)... I think everything ran pretty smoothly, and we all got to play a lot of VF...

As for gameplay I was happy to play against skilled Akira and Kage players (Rich never plays as them) and saw some nice Pai combos from Llanfair that Rich never does... Surprised to see three or so Lion players in the tournament... During the ironman I thought I had shaken off all tournament nerves but they came back during the double elimination... There were some really tight matches...

We are working on capturing some movies right now, which should be up in the media section soon enough...

And did you find your keys BMF? Hope so,

-Alex

 

Hey all there are 3 movies up in the media section (and more on the way!). And does anyone from Toronto mind me posting the group pic up here? If not I'll post it tomorrow or something.

 

I've finally got some time to collect my thoughts on the weekend's VF festivities. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

All week, BMF and I had trained on the PS2 to get ourselves reaquainted with Version C. Our matches are often fast paced, with the intent of taking advantage of the other's strategy from the last round - bouts of fury and yomi. The week was great and I was looking forward to some PS2 VF4 on the Saturday.

Keen to get away early, I had arranged to meet up with BMF at the subway at around 8:00am and we proceeded to kbcat's. The three of us grabbed some snacks and jumped into the car to pick up Reno and head south for the US of A. After picking up Mr.VersusCity.net we were pretty excited to play and before long we were arriving at the front entrance to RIT. woot! Looking for a place to park we decided to ask a police officer in his car in front of the building we were going in to - he gave us the nod and said we could park in the lot right next to us - how convenient! Sure enough, a break for lunch later on yielded a parking ticket (W.T.F?).

Anyway, onto the tourney and play. We walked into the Student Alumni Union to find about 7 big screens setup, each with a projector for games ranging from Smash Bros., CVS2, TTT, and of course VF4. I know I was in "wow" mode - the organizers had clearly done their homework and the venue was awesome. We got ourselves registered for VF4 (Reno for GGXX as well) and met up with Golden boys upstairs where VF4 was setup. It was around 1:00pm when we started playing for warmup and we played for a while as the tourney didn't officially begin until 5:30 or so. NAmflow and Supergolden, the four of us Tea Partiers, and two other random RIT guys had signed up for VF4 - 8 people, perfect I thought...makes for easy elimination charts. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

I won't reiterate the results posted already - but I will comment on the playing itself. From the very start, Namflow's Lion busted out like 17 wins straight and I knew that the competition would be good and that Toronto experience was not going to walk in and take the title without a fight, that's for sure. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif All of us from Toronto were having trouble racking wins from the two Golden's. Their style of play completely rubbed ours the wrong way. Toronto play is fast, with lots of attacks looking for a setup. We play with the risk of stagger/throw and enjoy the payoff of a nicely setup combo or sequence - many of us feel it's worth the risk. Rochester style is quite different. Both Namflow and Supergolden play out their matches on the defense. They move back almost always at the start of a round. Once they've knocked you down, often they will retreat to give themselves a safe distance from the rising opponent. They rarely crouch. They would rather eat throw after throw than be staggered. This was the wall we encountered, and our aggressive styles were rendered useless at first as we found the majority of our midlevel attacks being blocked and found our throw attempts difficult as the space between the characters was great. For the Rochester crew, this was great - they were winning constantly - and I appreciate having to rethink strategies in order to adapt. That's what makes VF fun - the strategy - but even so, I found the adaptation frustrating.

For my ironman - I chose to play my old staple: Wolf. I soon discovered this to be a mistake as I rely highly on floats im my play - there was little chance of floating either of the Rochester boys. I soon discovered that by whoring low punches and low kicks, a few matches were won. As much as I didn't want to play that way, I found it to be a solution to my present dliemma. After a 3/7 (wins/losses) in my own ironman, I switched to Pai for my fights in other's ironmans and came out with 6/7 wins. With a sweep and my normal array of inashis, Pai seemed to be handling better. Yay! /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

The elimination was ok - BMF owned me in the first round. Kudos to him for picking it up, as he was having earlier trouble. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif And Reno, you bastard. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif I think I have eliminated Reno in every VF4 tourney in Toronto to date - he exacted his revenge and played really well, ralying to win two games straight after I had taken him in the first of our best of 3.

Watching Reno and SuperGolden battle it out in the Loser Bracket Final, reinstated my feeling of frustration - SuperG's effective strategy of + --> +, mixed in with the occasional sweep proved to be too strong /versus/images/icons/smile.gif I too, had faced that sequence and I know that Reno was feeling the same.

All of us can take a lot from this experience - I learned very quickly that I must have more depth to my repertoir in order to deal with more machi style players that I may encounter. I saw it as a flaw in my own play. And I can only hope that we will get stronger because of it /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

Overall, I had a blast - I do enjoy playing with both Namflow and SuperGolden and their enthusiasm for the game is refreshing. They're both strong competitors and extremely nice guys. Thanks to both for the invite to Rochester!

I know that we will have them up in Toronto before long - they're extremely close neighbours and VF in Toronto can only get better by playing outside our circle. Congrats to Namflow for the win and I look forward to meeting up with them again! /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

cheers!

 

Yea... I'm glad you guys liked the setup, it was really nice. The first time I ever played VF on a big screen like that.

The competition was really fierce (like I said before, probablly the most even tournament there). Super and I get into arguments like "You started to backdash at the start of the round, so then I started to do it as well" and then he says "no no no, you started to backdash first!" As far as the running away when soemone is down is concerned, if I'm fast enough I normally try for a quick pounce, but then try to zone enough to get a whiffed rising attack. I remember doing that back on Saturn VF2...

I remember talking with either BMF or kbcat and he said "you guys always blocked my okizeme" and I'm like "... oki what?" And then I was playing against llanfair and he's like "you guys never duck" as he shook his head in disblief and I was like "am I supposed to?" I remember the first time I went to NYC and people kept ducking all the time and I was really confused like "Why are you ducking?" The way I see it was I first grew up on street fighter where ducking & blocking was really safe, but in VF it seems like your safer standing up than you are ducking. Mid stagger = /versus/images/icons/frown.gif.

I always think of ducking as to block low attacks, not to avoid throws. And since low attacks (for the most part) arn't that powerful and may even leave you at a disadvantage if they hit I don't fear them that much.

Haha I also remember when I escape llanfair's wolf's ++ throw and he was completley baffled and said "why would you escape ?" And when I would play with super with wolf our default throw would be for his steiner driver/jackhammer. For a minute I thought you were gonna accuse me of cheating by reading your mind or something like that. /versus/images/icons/crazy.gif

But you guys did do very good as well. I mean you caught on and started to throw. Llanfair's Pai is sick as all hell (some new videos will properly display this) as well as BMF's akira. Everyone else was really tight as well.

Hmm... as far as super's jacky is concerned, I definitely know your pain. Sometimes he just gets into this turtle/poke mode which is a pain in the ass to deal with.

I definitely felt some of your frustration (especially when I was playing kbcat with my jacky) and I felt kind of bad. Normally when I play a game and don't do that well I just keep playing and don't let it bother me. Like once I was playing CVS2 against Grifter (the tall asian dude running the CVS2 tourney) in my room and he kept kicking my ass over and over and over by playing really defensive, but by the end I kept playing and eventually started to win (if I remember what he said was that he just couldn't play like that anymore or something...)

But even with our conflicting styles, super's matches with reno came down to the last round, as did my matches with BMF, so its not like it was a total mismatch in styles.

Definitely looking forward to playing everyone again sometime, perhaps for the next MOAT or whenever.

argh I wish I could capture more videos now, stupid guy hogging the machine... /versus/images/icons/frown.gif

oh well enough rambling, I'll see ya all

 

Thanks for your thoughts Llanfair...

Some more from me:

Llanfair: I do remember you doing high punch (guard cancel?) throw a couple times successfully on Rich and myself... It was a nice adaptation (if you don't usually do that) that worked well....

kbcat and Reno lions: I'll say right off that bat I don't like playing against Lion... I know he makes a different sound for his lunging mid/low attacks but I don't have it memorized so if you do one there's probably a 50/50 chance it will hit me... kbcat said he was scared after one of our matches, but believe me i was just as scared... namflow has conditioned me to fear the lion...

my matches against reno: i did find that the elbows, low backfist, and delayed sweeps were being pretty effective... whenever i tried for a throw i'd get a low punch or something, and decided forget that, back to the elbows and backfists...

my matches against rich: i was pretty happy with our winner's semi final match, but i think i could have put up a better fight in the finals... i've beaten him three straight before, he's beaten me three straight before --- it happens

while getting a soda with kbcat he mentioned that bmf's akira was a wildcard --- and i saw what he meant, bmf really turned it up a notch for his match against llanfair in the winners bracket...

i was fearful of my match against kbcat in the tournament (i lost to him both times during the iron man)... i was lucky to pull it off in the double elim...

thanks again for coming down... i'm sure we'll be up in toronto a few more times before we graduate...

see you later,

-Alex

 

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Haha I also remember when I escape llanfair's wolf's ++ throw and he was completley baffled and said "why would you escape ?" And when I would play with super with wolf our default throw would be for his steiner driver/jackhammer. For a minute I thought you were gonna accuse me of cheating by reading your mind or something like that.

[/ QUOTE ]

hehe...yeah I remember that one. All I can remember is that I was so surprised to have have the throw reversed. It was one of those situations where I was certain you'd have thought I would twirl or armbar, and I hadn't tossed out a df+P+G throw at all, so I was really surprised. /versus/images/icons/smile.gif Good yomi on your part.

It's always good to play against different styles of play - it can only improve one's repertoir of strategy. I hope no one thinks that I'm bashing you guys - I'm not - I was just reporting on how I felt the play was like /versus/images/icons/smile.gif If it wins, it wins /versus/images/icons/smile.gif The ball's in my court to come up with an alternaitve strategy for the next time we meet - mwuhahaha! /versus/images/icons/smile.gif

cheers,