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Spark wins BBCS2 @ Evolution 2011!

By Guest, in Home,

Congratulations to Spark for winning BBCS2 at Evolution 2011! He put on a VERY impressive showing, coming all the way back from losers to take it all! Rest of the results for top 8 are below:

1st - Spark (Hakumen), PNW
2nd - Lord Knight (Litchi, Makoto), NJ
3rd - Tokido (Noel), Japan
4th - Zong_1 (Carl), SoCal
5th - Severin (Lambda), Socal / HeartNana (Makoto), Japan/Chicago
7th - Wuku (Hazama, Rachel), PNW / DSmoove (Noel), SoCal

Brackets:

Winners Semifinals

- Lord Knight sends Zong-1 to losers
- Tokido sends HeartNana to losers

Winners Final

- Lord Knight sends Tokido to losers

Losers Final 8

- Severin eliminates Wuku!
- Spark eliminates DSmoove!

Losers Quarterfinals

- Zong_1 eliminates Severin!
- Spark eliminates HeartNana!

Losers Semifnals

- Spark eliminates Zong_1!

Losers Finals

- Spark eliminates Tokido!

Grand Finals

- Spark comes back from Losers and defeats Lord Knight, 3-0, 3-0!
Guest

Your Top 8 For BBCS2 @ Evolution 2011!

By Guest, in Home,

After a long day of grueling matches, the top 8 has been decided for Sunday, and they are:

Winners:

Tokido (Noel)
HeartNana (Makoto)
Zong_1 (Carl)
Lord Knight (Litchi)

Losers:

Wuku (Hazama)
Spark (Hakumen)
Severin (Lambda)
DSmoove12 (Noel)

Be sure to tune in to the main Evo stream on 10 AM PST to see the conclusion to this tournament!
Guest
The biggest open fighting game tournament in America kicks off tomorrow, with over thousands of participants dueling it out across five different games selected for the main events, and if you have no idea on what to expect, don't fret! I threw up a quick listing for those watching from the confines of their couches.

Evo Stream 1 (IPW X TS): http://www.ustream.tv/channel/evo-1

Low Quality Version of Evo Stream 1: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/evo-low

Evo Stream 2 (FKO X Offcast): http://www.ustream.tv/channel/evo-2

The above are the two streams that will be broadcasting the entire Evolution tournament, and each of them will be broadcasting a certain game on a certain day.

*Note: All times listed are on Pacific Standard Time.

Friday, July 29th

Tournament Schedule

8:00 AM – 6:00 PM: Pool Play, SSF4:AE (Evo Stream 1), Mortal Kombat (Evo Stream 2)
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Quarterfinals, SSF4:AE (Evo Stream 1), Mortal Kombat (Evo Stream 2)
8:00 PM – 11:00 PM: Semifinals, SSF4:AE (Evo Stream 1), Mortal Kombat (Evo Stream 2)

Saturday, July 30th

Tournament Schedule

8:00 AM – 6:00 PM: Pool Play, MvC3 (Evo Stream 1), Tekken & Blazblue (Evo Stream 2)
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM: Quarterfinals, MvC3 (Evo Stream 1)
8:00 PM – 11:00 PM: Semifinals, MvC3 (Evo Stream 1)
12:00 AM: MvC3 EC vs. WC 5 on 5 Exhibition (Evo Stream 1)

Sunday, July 31

All times are approximate! We will also have some surprises in store throughout the day.

* All games will be broadcasted on Evo Stream 1 on Sunday.

10:00 AM: Blazblue Finals
12:00 AM: Tekken 6 Finals
2:00 PM: Mortal Kombat 9 Finals
3:30 PM: SF3 Third Strike Exhibition
5:00 PM: Marvel Vs Capcom 3 Finals
6:30 PM: Screening, Balrog: Behind the Glory.
7:00 PM: SSF4:AE Finals
9:00 PM: Closing Ceremonies

Tourney results for the relevant games (i.e. main games, side tourneys for BB/GG) will be displayed in the Evolution 2011 Results thread.
Guest
Relius Clover has been announced as a playable character in the upcoming BBCS2+ for PSVita.

Relius is Carl Clover's father, and he is credited with creating the Murakumo units, as well as turning his daughter Ada into Nirvana. While very little of his gameplay has been revealed, he appears to have a doll gauge similar to Carl's gauge for Nirvana, so it's possible that he controls a doll like Carl but has a different fighting style. Rumors on the street are that loketests for this PSVita version will begin in Akiba next month.

There has been no confirmation of Relius or other possible characters becoming DLC for PS3/360 thus far.



Source: Latest Famitsu.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
Guest

Evo Pool Assignments are up!

By Guest, in Home,

http://evo2k.com/checkin/

Check when you're scheduled to play here and don't be late! They will be very strict on no-show disqualifications this year in order to keep things on schedule.

Xie has been adding a list of people and what pool they are in here:
http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?11011-Evolution-2011-at-the-Rio-Las-Vegas-NV-July-29-31.-Get-hype!&p=1079965&viewfull=1#post1079965
Guest

"Meet Your Mod" Episode 17: OrionXElite

By Guest, in Home,

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.
Guest

2011: Vampire Savior Renaissance

By Guest, in Home,

It has been an explosive week for the fighting game community. Evolution tournament just around the corner & loads of announcements at Comic-Con. :3 One of much discussion is the short teaser.

A rather convenient timing as Vampire Savior has been in a rebirth this tournament season. We have seen growing numbers which have outnumbered even guilty gear.

Starting back in Final Round XIII (Much credit to Kajoq for organizing/running/supplying hardware), leading to an exhibition stream at UFGT7 (props to Keits & MightyMar & ZenBlaster for making this happen), Dustloop.com picking up this series as a central hub for information and now this short teaser from Capcom!

We will have to wait and see what is in store for this franchise, but we're glad to know it's in Capcom's goals.

Until than, be sure to check out the recent addition to Dustloop.com. Vampire Savior
Guest
With Evolution 2011 being only 2 weeks away, I thought it would be appropriate to not only give a heads up, but also recap a little bit of Dustloop's history with the Evolution series as well. Before I go into story mode, a couple of reminders about Evolution 2011:
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]

Last date to register for Evolution 2011 is July 18! Register at http://evo2k.com/.

Wireless Dual Shock 3 controllers are banned for the tournament. No, this is not some anti-pad player movement; you can still use pads, just not the Wireless Dual Shock 3 ones. Click here for more info on the ruling.

Evolution 2011 begins on July 29, so if you're going to the event, keep in mind that the festivities start on Friday morning (if you're only playing in the BBCS2 main event tournament, that starts on Saturday, but show up on Friday anyway to enjoy the event beforehand).

If you can't make it to the event, rest assured that there will be not one, but multiple streams of the event courtesy of the IPlayWinnerxTeam Spooky crew. Stay tuned to this page for streaming info.


With that out of the way, I guess it's story time for a little history lesson on the Dustloop scene and Evolution. Before Evolution became rooted in the glitz and glamour of Vegas, it all started in empty ballrooms at universities, and the games weren't played on consoles back then. And that is where the journey begins...

In the beginning...

...Guilty Gear XX was created. It was the year 2002, and the big games at the time were MvC2 and CvS2 (ironically, SF3:3S has been out for a while by then, but it wasn't played as widely as the other two until that obvious moment in 2004, but that's a whole other story), and most importantly, arcades still existed in the United States. In this story, the arcade on our trip down memory lane is the legendary Southern Hills GolfLand arcade (aka SHGL) in Orange County, Southern California. Before SHGL was demolished in 2003 to make way for apartment complexes, it was the arcade to go to in Southern California for top notch competition in the big 2 games, with weekly tournaments reaching up to 128 entrants in each game.

One day, a GGXX cabinet showed up at SHGL. People started to play it in between the downtime from waiting for their tournament matches or the long lines at the MvC2 and CvS2 cabinets, and they actually found the game quite fun. By then, almost everyone has given GGXX a spin (yes, some of your favorite old school SoCal Street Fighter players played some GGXX back then), and tournaments were being held for it at SHGL. An English online information hub for GGXX was started at gamecombos.com (the precursor to Dustloop.com) by trag, and people began looking up combo vids, match vids, and started breaking down the game. After that, Sols were dustlooping all over the place, Slayers were biting people to death, and Eddies were learning how to control the shadow. At that time, Evolution 2002 was strictly a Capcom-only affair, but the tourney began to evolve (harhar) in 2003.

Evolution 2003 - Cal Poly Pomona, Southern California

Evolution 2003 was the first time the Evo series began adding non-Capcom games to its lineup such as Tekken Tag Tournament, Virtua Fighter 4:Evolution, Tekken 4, Soul Calibur 2, and of course Guilty Gear XX. Tournaments were still played on arcade cabinets, so they hauled in a number of cabinets for each game into the ballroom at Cal Poly Pomona, which is no easy feat in terms of manpower and finances. With that said, the first Guilty Gear XX tournament was ran, and the top 4 (off the top of my head) were:

1st - Daigo Umehara (Sol)
2nd - Miu (Sol)
3rd - ID (Sol)
4th - Mago (Johnny)

...Kind of ironic, since the game has yet to turn into a full-fledged Eddie-fest. Overall, it was a successful tournament despite the abundance of TEYAHs. Daigo pretty much Ume-Volcanic Vipered his way to the top spot while the rest of the American players that didn't have access to arcades with GGXX were still trying to grasp the game, since it has only been a couple of months before Evo when the game came out on consoles. Nevertheless, Evo2004 was shaping up to be even better than 2003, since everyone would have enough practice by then.

Evolution 2004 - Cal Poly Pomona, Southern California (Part Deux)

The big change from Evo2003 to Evo2004 was the move towards consoles. With arcade cabs being labor intensive and costly in setting up, the move to consoles was seen as an alleviation to the forementioned problems, but there was an obvious backlash by the arcade players (especially those that played games that have differences between the arcade and console versions, no matter how small they were). Nevertheless, the players evolved to the external circumstances, and the top 4 results for the Guilty Gear XX tournament were:

1st - Daigo Umehara (Sol)
2nd - Kindevu (Eddie)
3rd - RF (Faust)
4th - Kensou (Chipp)

It was a much more varied character lineup compared to 2003, but Daigo repeated his 2003 performance, Ume-Volcanic Vipering and Dustlooping his way to the crown. However, Guilty Gear XX #Reload was released that year with revisions, and was coming out on Japanese PS2s only...

Evolution 2005 - Green Valley Ranch, Las Vegas

The move to Las Vegas in 2005 came with a surprise; Evolution partnered up with MLG, back when MLG only covered Halo. Before the move to Las Vegas, Evolution got by with very few, if any, sponsors. It was a strictly community-run event, with the expenses coming out of the pocket of the organizers. But with the move to Las Vegas, Evo was able to not only escape the stigma of college ballrooms, but were able to alleviate some expenses by partnering up with MLG. That year, Guilty Gear XX #Reload was in the lineup, and the top 4 were:

1st - RF (Faust)
2nd - Kindevu (Eddie)
3rd - Miu (Sol)
4th - Marn (Eddie)

And out of the top 8, there were 5 Eddie players, so the evolution of Guilty Gear to an Eddie-fest was already underway, and not to forget, gamecombos.com evolved into Dustloop.com. However, changes to Evolution 2006 thankfully lessened the impact of Eddie-fests in a big way.

Evolution 2006 - Red Rock Resort, Las Vegas

After partnering up with MLG the previous year, Evolution was able to secure Toyota as a sponsor for 2006 (and 2007). With Toyota as a sponsor, Evolution was able to throw regional tournaments under the Evolution name before "the big one" in Las Vegas. Hence, Evolution East and Evolution West were born. Not only that, but Guilty Gear underwent yet another change in which not only did they switch to Guilty Gear XX Slash, but they changed the main tournament format to 3v3 teams. The change to teams meant Eddie-fests were tempered somewhat, since there were no duplicate characters allowed on each team. The top 4 results at Evo Vegas were:

1st - Ruu (Bridget) / MINT (Testament) / BAS (Eddie)
2nd - Daigo Umehara (Sol) / RF (Faust) / Kindevu (Eddie)
3rd - Alex G (Dizzy) / FlashMetroid (Jam) / Mynus (I-No)
4th - Cue (Eddie) / Juicy G (Sol) / ElvenShadow (Faust)

So yeah, Japan takes the top 2 spots, but the character variety was very nice, especially with Ruu aka "the best Bridget player that ever lived" showing us what Buri was capable of in the right hands.

Evolution 2007 - Green Valley Ranch, Las Vegas (Part Deux)

Evolution returns to the Green Valley Ranch, except without MLG assist this time. Also, with Toyota sponsorship, Evolution was able to throw even more regional tourneys under their banner, so not only did we have Evo East and West, but North and South as well. However, a dilemma would appear with Guilty Gear that would change the world forever (well, it was bound to happen, whether you blame the parties involved or time itself, I'll leave it up to you). Guilty Gear was changed to Accent Core in the middle of regionals thanks to console release, so some regional tourneys were ran with Slash, and others used Accent Core. Nevertheless, the switch to Accent Core changed things up because people only had less than 2 months to practice on the new version before Evo Vegas, which to this day still remains a source of bitter debate over whether it was wise to switch or not. Anyways, top 4 results for that tourney were:

1st - Yossan (I-No) / Gibson (Eddie)
2nd - Alex G (Dizzy) / FlashMetroid (Jam) / Marn (Eddie)
3rd - MINT (Testament) / BAS (Eddie) / Kami-chan (Slayer)
4th - Juicy G (Order Sol) / AKA (Millia) / Blacksnake (Venom)

So yeah, a 2-man team of one of the best I-No players in Japan and a good Japanese Eddie player wins a 3-man tournament. Also, Guilty Gear gets dropped from the Evolution lineup the next year after some drama I don't feel like recapping.

Evolution 2008 - The Tropicana, Las Vegas

Evolution's sponsorship with Toyota expired, so they're back to doing one big main event in Vegas only. A lackluster game lineup plus Guilty Gear not being a main event game plus it being at the Tropicana left a lot to be desired. So yeah, Guilty Gear was a side tournament at this Evo, but that didn't deter people from showing up. As a result, the Guilty Gear side tournament ended up outdrawing some games from the main lineup, and as a reward, was given a spot back into the main lineup for Evolution 2009.

Also, the revealing of Street Fighter 4 and BlazBlue:Calamity Trigger at this Evo was a foreshadowing of things to come.

Evolution 2009 - The Rio, Las Vegas

With the release of Street Fighter 4, BlazBlue, and Tekken 6 breathing life back into the community, Evolution came roaring back from a muted 2008, and thus we have the modern Evolution era. Guilty Gear XX Accent Core was a singles tournament this time around, but the emergence of BlazBlue put the community on notice, as almost 200 entrants entered the singles side tournament sponsored by Aksys Games. The grand finals of that side tournament was played on the main stage, with HeartNana's Noel winning over Goryus' Nu-13. Not to forget, both players qualified for SBO that year as well. Anyways, the top 4 for the Guilty Gear tourney was:

1st - Latif (Eddie)
2nd - Marn (Eddie)
3rd - FlashMetroid (May)
4th - Hellmonkey (Baiken)

And with that, Guilty Gear (and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, for bonus story points) is retired from the main Evolution game lineup (until it gets re-released on XBL/PSN or a new Guilty Gear comes out), but with the emergence of BlazBlue as a spiritual successor, the Dustloop community is still involved with Evolution.

Evolution 2010 - Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas

Evolution 2010 was a weird year because BlazBlue was not in the main game lineup due to the game being in version limbo; BlazBlue:Continuum Shift was revealed, and with that, the community was given a choice of having an outdated version of BlazBlue in the main lineup, or not having BlazBlue at all. Since the majority of the community was waiting for BBCS (which in fact, came out on consoles just a week before Evolution 2010), along with the burnout of how BBCT developed competitively, the community turned down its spot in the main lineup, which was then given to MvC2 as a last hurrah for that game. Nevertheless, people still travelled to Evolution to play in the BBCS side tournaments, with Spark winning with his Hakumen over Veteru's Ragna in the finals. And later in the year, BBCS2 was released in Japanese arcades...

Also, Guilty Gear lived on in the form of side tournaments, albeit with some hilarious drama in the grand finals involving one of Evolution's directors.

Evolution 2011 - The Rio, Las Vegas (Part Deux)

With the release of BBCS2 in Japanese arcades, a severe case of deja vu was developing over BlazBlue and Evolution. Some form of BlazBlue has yet to be featured in Evolution's main lineup, but luckily, BBCS2 was released on consoles in May, which meant BBCS2 was a go for Evolution 2011. Also, the flames of Guilty Gear are still being kept alive via side tournaments again, proving that while people may move on to other games, Guilty Gear will never die. And games that die will always get revived in some form if the demand is there. This year, SF3:3S is being revived through an Online Edition version of the game being available on the XBox 360 and Playstation 3. And the producer of 3SOE? None other than Derek Neal, a.k.a. Goryus...

And with that, the story has reached its present point. It is up to you, the community, to continue the story...
Guest

Dustloop downtime explanation and future

By Guest, in Home,

Hey guys, I know you guys have been sad and confused why dustloop was down this past week and i'm here to explain the situation:

WHY
We were shut down last week due to the fact that we were using a lot of server CPU, causing the server to shut down intermittently until it culminated in a permanent shutdown at the end of last week.
We've been temporarily moved to a higher tier of service for 2 or 3 days to give me time to fix problems on the site. The higher tier of service is quite expensive ($200 a month!) so I've been looking into how to optimize the site to reduce our server load. I believe I've found the cause and we won't need to be footing such a huge bill.

WHAT'S NEXT
After that they'll be checking our server load and assuming we're okay, we'll be moved back down to our original service (with a much more manageable price tag - $40 a month), which means we might go back down again for a bit while that gets changed again.

I know people want to use the forums to arrange things like a GG side tourney and a BB team tourney for Evo, and I sincerely apologize that the site had to go down now...
Guest

"Meet Your Mod" Episode 16: C0R

By Guest, in Home,

This Week: C0R

Why did you choose that particular handle, is there a story or reference you'd like to explain?
Sounds badass; I always rather liked cor, meaning heart, and repped it in almost all my online tags. But for some reason the name was always taken on IRC, so I threw in a 0 instead of an o and it stuck with me.

What is your background with fighting games...Did you start with BB or are your OG like SFII?
I managed to expose myself to almost every fighting game at one time or another when I was young. But never beyond a casual arcade experience. Tekken Tag Team was a big one, along with the Gameboy Color Mortal Kombat series. Soul Calibur 2 demo on the Gamecube disc (Why would you want to play anyone but Nightmare or Cassandra? Beats me), things like that. Then one day I was fooling around on IGN looking for spoilers and such, when I noticed a preview of KOF12 and figured, hey, cool, I remember that forgotten genre from when I was younger, let's go check it out. But when I got to Gamecrazy and they where sold out, the cleric suggest I get CT. I couldn't turn down the Noel art, and it began.

Then came CS. I was beyond hype for that game, but sadly, when I got it, I quickly outstripped my hometown friends in terms of experience and knowledge. Rather discouraged, I, once again, was fooling around online, this time looking for cool guy combos, and managed to find dustloop. Two weeks later I walked into a PNW meet and sat down with some random asian dude with glasses who played a black hakumen.

He sent me to another dimension, kicking my ambition to become a skilled player into overdrive. Thanks Spark.

What competitive scene are you involved with? (Ranbats, Arcades, XBL, PSN, Reload Online etc.) Would you elaborate the benefits of this particular scene?
The greater Seattle area has so many high level players, it's rather incredible. Nothing trains you like playing only the best in America multiple times a week, for 8-14 hours at a time. The old GG scene here is stocked with sage fighting gamers like Wuku, Woki, Veteru, TSK and Spark, all of whom are packed with years and years of fighting game experience. The BB competition is also very strong, bringing in a ton of new players such as myself.

Two to three times a week we've got multiple setups for almost every game, including SF, BB, GG and MvC, there's even a copy or two of AH3 lying around in case anyone's in the mood.

The scene doesn't have... official overtones, thus lacks things like regular, high-turnout tournaments or even a permanent venue, but I feel that PNW has the most passionate players. People who are always excited to tear each other apart then laugh about it after an entire day of mashing, any day of the week. I personally think the hardcore drive to be better, which runs through the scene like blood in a vein, would be suppressed if it was much larger or more official, so I'm very pleased with how it is now. I'm not saying I'd discourage advertising to more people, it's just that I think people with the same drive and passion, would somehow find us.

The presence of a local high turnout tournament would be savage though!

How strong do you feel your nation is as a whole, what is the next step to strengthening it?
I was once asked what I thought the top spectrum of American player's PSRs would be if they played BB in Japan. I responded with 175~200. High, yes, but, big surprise, still a ways to go before contesting the strongest of the Japanese players. Why? Because we don't play enough. They simply play more, with better competition, who in turn gets better. Every day, after work, or after school. It's a cycle of skill that keeps building on itself day after day until you become the best, then you get better. In addition to playing more, I feel like the Japanese get more out of the games they do play. It matters to them because in an arcade scene there's a lot of pressure to succeed. You lose, you sit in the corner going: "God damn, I'm such a fool, if only I had thrown Paper instead of Rock. I'll do better next time, I can't afford lunch if I lose the next one."

If America wants to level up, then they should probably prove it to themselves. Getting better means learning from all the losses, even more so than the wins. But you can't learn from losing if you don't spend the effort to evaluate why you lost, or how to fix it. It's the approach to success that I think sets Japan apart from America more than anything else.

On a logistics note, your physical presence supports your scene more than anything else. Another body in the room, another voice to build the hype, another player to learn from and grow with, all it takes.

Of course if everyone chipped in some quarters and always did their best to get better, that would help too.

Which player(s) give you the most trouble and why?
Huey goddamn 253.

Out of any player I've ever fought, he's the only one who can make me salty. Not because he's more experienced than me or calls me out every single time for doing something moronic. Not because he mashes on purple throws mid combo at 7am after 14 hours of BB when I'm way to tired to react to them, or when he buffers Daifunka after every move in my block-string and waits for me to hit the wrong button. No, it's because I can't think when playing him. He's got a mind control device inside my head, crushing my reads and throwing my yomi. Maybe it's because we're a lot alike in ways, and he can always identify with what I'm trying to do. Whatever it is. Maybe one day I'll overpower it.

Other then that? I feel very comfortable and very strong playing against experienced people like Veter and Spark, their methods and stratagems are powerful, but understandable. I get beat by the wild play. Hopefully I can become solid enough so that sort of thing no longer phases me.

What has been the most helpful tool while growing stronger in BB?
I went over this briefly earlier, but it's really in what you get out of your games. I got (still am) stomped by sG's Litchi more times that I can count. My response was to calculate the matches, redo them in my head, try and correct every minute mistake one by one until they no longer where made. I never once thought "Oh Litchi is top tier I can never compete". Instead always, always practicing to better myself, to outplay my opponent instead of outpicking them. A great way to do this is to record your matches, and watch every single one as many times as you need to. I CRINGE at the recordings of my casuals, seeing myself get completely exposed for the smallest mistakes and the most minute decisions. It gets my blood flowing to duplicate the situation in training mode, until I can overcome it.

Is there anything you'd like to share regarding your respective character or Dustloop in general?
µ challenges you. She tests you. I've never really felt that way with another character. Sure you can learn the combos and the setups, but it's something else that really appeals to me.

Makoto punishes you with 2c in the corner, she's going to show you some top end moves. You get nicked with µ's command laser midscreen? Whatever. Hit confirming off that laser into a huge damage combo that only works there, with that specific laser pattern, completely dependent on your skill, level of awareness, and absolute balls in order to succeed? Glorious victory. It's the ability to make up shit on the fly, to simply feel in your core that it works, to skate on that command laser across the sky like batman on a grappling wire.

It's worth the hard work guys, it really is. So keep it up. She's a sleeper character, a beast waiting to be awakened by the player's trust in that gigantic beam of light. It took what, 10 years for people to figure out all the cool stuff you could do with Venom? I feel that people have just scratched the surface of what you can do with µ, and that she will stand among the strongest in CS2 once her metagame is fully developed. She's easily one of the hardest characters to learn and fully understand in BB, that's a hint at how powerful she can really be.
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