SCR - AE2012 and UMVC3

SCR 2011 was definitely a tournament I was looking forward to. I had practiced a lot and wanted to accomplish good results. However, I didn't place well and I feel my results reflect the way I had prepared.

For UMVC3, I lost to Fanatiq and Olaf. I didn't really put much time practicing for this game in the hopes that pure fundamentals was enough. I was most definitely wrong and deserved the results for UMVC3.

There wasn't much to say during Olaf's match since I don't exactly remember what happened. However, against Fanatiq, I eventually ate setups that I normally do on other people. The trick is not to push block while your incoming character comes in otherwise you eat a normal or drones.

Having prepared for AE 2012, the event finally had started. I was looking forward to progressing well enough to make it to the next day. However, I made a mistake I had done in the past.

During my pools, I had to play Chris King. This match was to decide who played against Latif.

During casuals, Chris King and I had been playing. The matches were going back and forth but I was comfortable with his play-style and how to handle it. It was finally our time to play on stream.

My thoughts were, "Well, he's seen me play in casuals and will probably do different things during the match." What I mean by different things is different spacings, usages of normals and kara-throws.

Lo and behold, he played almost similar to when we played in casuals with the exception of his kara-throw usages. I lost the set 0-2 playing extremely out of character.

This meant I jumped more than usual and threw more than usual. I tried to change it up while Chris King was just playing his game.

I told him after the set, "I tried to play differently thinking you would do the same." He replied, "No dude. You shouldn't have done that. The way we played in casuals is how I usually play the match-up. I did change some kara-throw situations, but nothing was different."

I outplayed myself. While expressing myself to Air (Kenny), he said, "Why would you do that? Always play the match-up. Daigo taught me the match-up and I taught you. Why would you go against it? It's okay now you know."

I was disappointed in myself. This has happened before at SBO Qualifiers against my friend Alex (Fei Long). I figured we played so much on XBL that he'd change his play-style (given it's best of 1). He didn't and I lost the match attempting to change my play-style rather playing the match-up.

My next match was against DRS FilipinoMan (Rose). I don't remember exactly what happened but he outplayed me for the most part. Most of his damage was from chip or random normal moves. If I remember correctly, he had at least two ultra 2's every round (at the very least, the rounds he had won).

I slowly walked into his moves and ate random damage. I eventually lost 0-2 without even giving him a challenge.

My guess was that I don't understand the match-up completely. He outplayed me simply from normals and fireballs. Rarely did he get a mix-up or throw in which I hadn't seen.

There was another instance where crouching fierce would have won me the round and set. He jumped towards me and I hesitated to dp (since in the past it had whiffed). He did the ambiguous jumping short in the corner and I blocked the wrong way.

He punished me with a full super and I lost the round and set. Lesson to be learned is not to hesitate and remember to use all your character's moves to your advantage. At the time, I didn't and it cost me the set.

In the end, DRS FilipinoMan won and I lost. It's back to the drawing board in that match-up for me.

My expectations didn't reflect my practice time. There are cases where you practice and lose to a match-up you aren't familiar with or didn't study. In my case, there was no excuse for not playing the match-ups correctly.

Thank you guys for the cheers at SCR 2011. It wasn't a tournament to do well in, but an event to learn from. I learned a lot during SCR and I feel it will only get better from here on out. :)

-Miky