"Meet Your Mod" Episode 17: OrionXElite

This Week: OrionXElite

- Why did you choose that particular handle, is there a story or reference you'd like to explain?

I got this name mostly as a spin off of my nickname in high school. I'm Irish and my middle name is Ryan so my idiot friends decided to call me O'Ryan(Clever bastards). About my Junior year when I got my 360, I changed it to Orion and added the "XElite" part for shits and giggles

- What is your background with fighting games...Did you start with BB or are your OG like SFII?

I remember playing MvC1 at my mom's bowling alley all the time when I was 9 or 10 and thinking how badass Jin was cause he could punch people with a robot and make his clothes go boom. Then I got Melee and was hooked on it. I had a routine schedule I would follow everyday to keep my hands nimble. Our high school had a pretty competitive scene so I would play with a bunch of my friends from class. Then there was a tournament one day near the end of our Senior year so me and 2 other friends went. The winners got to play a pre-released version of Brawl so we flipped our shit and tried to win but I got like 4th while one of my friends blew everyone away with Yoshi. From there I got really into Brawl but then I stumbled onto BBCT and I remember sitting with the DVD tutorials on youtube so I could try and learn Tager's Combos. I know it sounds fanboy as hell, but I wouldn't be playing today if it wasn't for MikeZ's CT tutorial <3

- What competitive scene are you involved with? (Ranbats, Arcades, XBL, PSN, Reload Online etc.) Would you elaborate the benefits of this particular scene?

I'm part of NorCal's BB scene and I love it. Everyone is a bunch a trolls who just love to beat the crap out of each other while trying to learn the game as much as possible. I mainly just play at the random casuals that get setup or briefly online to keep my Tager yomi crisp. The biggest benefits of this scene are mainly that everyone is hype as hell so there are almost no dull moments. Not to mention that if one is willing to learn, EVERYONE will jump in and try to help if needed.

- How strong do you feel your nation is as a whole, what is the next step to strengthening it?

I personally think we're pretty strong. We do lack some serious abilities though like the ability to have easy access to constant(and lagfree) competition. Yeah, we can play online to get some matchup experience but in many cases, the connection is limiting our abilities to play at our highest level to gain the most out of it. Local scenes are great for training but it limits the amount of matchup knowledge we can obtain since most people only play one or 2 characters. People need to be willing to take a hit and learn someone new if they wanna improve they're overall skill. Character knowledge is the most important step towards improving, not just frame data and knowing the other guy's gimmicks, but knowing how the character operates, what he can get combo-wise from anywhere and what are the major crutches of each character.

- Which player(s) give you the most trouble and why?

If this was still CS1, I'd say Dacidbro but that was just cause Bang was stupid. Now its CopperDabbit that bugs the hell out of me. Hes always been an incredibly smart player and despite the changes from CS1 to CS2, his Arakune is still a frustrating pain to deal with.

- What has been the most helpful tool while growing stronger in BB?

Training mode and the desire to learn. I remember in CS1 just sitting in training mode figuring out EVERY gatling I could IB 720 through with Tager and reading the frame data while I ate lunch at school. I'm now in the process of finding gatlings I can 6A through with Valk :3 But on top of that, I'm always willing to look into something weird and see why and how it works. I see something strange in a video, I immediately go to training mode to try it out. Because of this, I figure out other things I can do using that method and it kinda snowballs into me making ridiculous combos :3

- Is there anything you'd like to share regarding your respective character or Dustloop in general?

More people need to pick up Valk. Yeah hes hard as all hell to learn but hes easily the most fun character in the game to play. The freedom you get with Wolf form is absolutely endless. 8-way Dash with the ability to use the most retarded mixup in the game? AMAZING :3 The execution barrier is extremely high but once you break though that boundary you find a whole new character behind it and its easily the most fun I've had with BB.