Digital Watches

Figure peeps might have questions, and it's a good way to motivate peeps to do the science the people want.

I currently plan to go. Anyone want to split a hotel room?

Yeah, you can RC things like in XX... AND they have the pause. So basically you can reversal (RC) -- Check game state -- Choose next move. So that's fun.

Axl-Sol is looking like a pretty good matchup honestly. Sol has a lot of tools this version but he still has trouble working around Axl's strong midrange gameplan. At least that's what it seems like from the footage I've seen thus far.

Also, way less disappointed with Rashousen than I thought I'd be. It's still got decent range and speed, and is great at what it's always been great at: Calling out spacing bluffs. Plus you can YRC it to still call out jumps. So it's pretty good. Not +R good, but good.

Rules of engagement definitely apply. If Axl commits to a move other than 5K, 2K, or 3P, and it doesn't connect, he fucked up and you win. I'm thinking that stance-cycling might be a fun gimmick to win a hype round with, but it's not going in my main bag of tricks because it's committing to a weaker option set for minimal headgames. After playing a little Xrd this weekend, I'm pretty convinced that having #R Ps and a pretty safe dragon punch might be broken. Haitaka is solid damage but it's not what's making this character win.

As always, this tournament was amazing. Even with the other bullshit I've got going on it managed to be fun and awesome. You guys' scene is full of incredible people and it's not even funny how good a venue Foonzo is. I want to come back every time. Shoutouts: Canadia: Essay - Good to finally put a face to the name. It's always fun to play an I-No that makes me work for it, even though that matchup is still stacked. I hope we meet again. Rhanmah - Ditto the above, I was surprised to not see you place higher. And get the fuck on twitter already Kaeru - Thank you for the hoodie and for being a wise and caring shadow king of all Canada. I took your advice to heart and it helped even when all my fears turned out to be well-founded and true. Also we never played and we especially never played baiken mirrors. This is wrong. DerQ - Didn't see you much but you're still a cool guy. Long live beer fest. Pedro - Thanks for putting me up on your GDLK couch and waking my lazy ass up to go to stuff. Anthony - You're an awesome cook. You should TOTALLY play Axl, fuck Anji. You're a cool guy. That is all. Brice - Thanks for letting me hang out at your place and showing me FORT CHAMBLY. Good luck with the move. Will the WALLS OF WAIFU survive? Unsanctifier - Thanks a ton for picking me up at the airport and being a super chill dude with a great outlook on life. Hit me up if you're ever in Portland or even Seattle. Thelo - Your Justice + Fundamentals combo is stronk like bull. Keep it up. Also always good to see more members of the Axl Conspiracy in action. I enjoyed the shit out of our long mirror set. Amurika: LordKnight - Man we never talk much. What are you like as a person? You seem nice. Good shit in BB and side tournaments. One day we'll have some game we both actually play and I'll probably still get bodied. Xrd? Eshi - What about these? http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/Five-Fingers-V-Classic-LR-Mens.htm Zidane - I still don't feel like I have you figured out in GG, but I'mma keep trying. Also good talks, you're a good friend to have when shit is tough. I've still got $5 canadian in my wallet and we're gonna play for it, believe it. I hope one day you get to fuck comma. M@houko - DA GOD. I never feel bad losing to your full ham bridget, and your victory dance skills are amazing. You're winning at life. St1ckbug - Commentary with you was amazing and I dunno why you don't wanna play Jams, I literally never practice. Sorry about what happened and I hope you and your family are alright. XAQ - Your quiet collected personality and insane oki ability are a winning combination. You should still move to Portland. ... Say it! I'm sure I forgot some people. You're all cool, I promise.

Yup. Tiers are relative, so we could have a game where no one got nerfed and they still got worse because other characters are better. For the most part, +R characters gained more options, which makes for a more fun game.

Wow, seriously? That's nuts.

Haitaka isn't just a zoning tool for Axl, it's like the strongest zoning tool I've ever seen. And also does pressure. And adds damage to everything. And makes julienne fries. Jesus.

@Horokei: Moved your post to the video thread.

Technical throw range is 45 pixels, which can be measured exactly if you take the time to, but that looks roughly right. I'll note that while 6S+H is usually the best option select, you get good mileage out of 6K+H if you're sure you're in range, because it'll nail them out of jumping back and get you advantage even if they manage to FD it. Use with caution against characters with good throw-invuln moves.

Man, the Sol matchup looks even more about footsies than it was before (and it was always about footsies IMO). Niiyama pulls off the whole "keep calm and carry on" playstyle really well, and I think that speaks to what the changes are going to make Axl play like overall in Xrd: You're going to need to be patient, get your positioning right, and just play a fundamentals game, since the high-pressure style is way less meter-efficient now.

He played through at least slash and most of AC, and I think he was around during #R. I'm sure he's around, just doesn't get recorded much or something

@izusa re: YRCs: Yup, I'm looking forward to baiting out people whose anti-Axl gameplan is roughly "I think these moves hit his limbs, let's spam them" even more!

I'm surprised to see a tier list with Baiken over Millia. I knew she was rising but that's higher than I thought.

I'm pretty sure most characters still have two animations, just they might not all unambiguously look like face down or face up. But to find out which is which, Ama's advice is right: See what moves knock down face up, and it will be the same no matter what character it's being done to.

Sounds good to me, I appreciate the offer. If that is possible, how many and which days could we stay there?

Woah buddy, there's some misinformation there. -Testament can't have 3 nets out, max is 2 -No, chains are not whiff-cancellable. They are cancellable on hit and block, and hitting a counterattack stance like warrant counts as a hit. Notably, you can't special-cancel 2H, so it becomes a pretty risky tool because of warrant, but the others all definitely work fine. You can option-select here with 236P (Which does nothing if he doesn't warrant, and tenhouseki if he does) As far as the matchup goes overall, I'd still call it 6-4 in Axl's favor, and one of Testament's worst matchups, if not his worst. The reasons why are pretty complicated, but I'll try to explain them quickly. -Testament needs to set up, and you don't need to let him. Getting skulls, nets, or trees out is basically impossible from neutral if you're doing your job. With full-screen rashousen, IAD j.S, and rensen, you have no excuse for letting him get stuff on the map if you haven't lost an exchange and gotten to frame disadvantage. -Even when testament is set up, you have a lot of annoying tools to break it all up. At range, there are often lots of opportunities to just knock out webs, and you've got attacks at a lot of convenient angles that let you thread the needle against relatively stationary stuff like trees and barneys. -Testament can't win exchanges at any range Axl wants to operate, and his approach tools are very weak. Combined with the fact that he can't set up from neutral, this means that you're going to be forcing Testament out of his defensive comfort zone. He also has a very hard time preventing your approach. j.S in particular is a tool Testament doesn't have many good answers for. -You're right about not wanting to get hit by skulls, mostly because this is Testament's best and really only way to turn this matchup in his favor. Against testament, I tend to burst combos I know will end in curse, rather than ones that will do a lot of damage. You don't want a curse on you. However, they become a lot less scary once you remember Axl's solution to every bad situation: Block until it's over. Both Testament and Axl have pretty weak tools for getting out of pressure. Fortunately, Testament's defense basically melts against Axl, so really your job is to just be extremely aggressive and not let him play his game. Keep him knocked down and stay on top of him. If you get behind, block, know that Testament's offensive game is finite and will end, and then you'll be in a neutral situation again. Neutral is bad for Testament in this matchup.

Yeah, I've been super busy, my bad. 6K-2S always worked, it's 5P-6K that's new. The 2P changes are insane to me, because f.S was always a strong spacing/battering tool in strings, and being able to do it from a massive-reach low is great. I highly recommend going for FB Kyokusageki even when you're not close enough to land the f.S. Also, once you've got them thinking that's your go-to string, bust out the 2P-6H chain. The crazy buffs that move got work in your favor here: it's a lot faster than 63214S as an overhead, and it's relatively safe on block.

Yeah, it definitely does turn out you get more damage for tacking on another 6K-2S... IF you aren't continuing into a corner combo. Which is a lot of the time, so very worthwhile to do. When you are willing to spend the meter to get them to the corner, the scaling will matter more. Good to know!

Your oki tools are going to be somewhat situational and matchup-specific, but you've got a lot of options to work with. The safest by far is meaty safe jump. Go for either j.P, j.H, or j.S. These hit overhead, net you damage and another knockdown with the right spacing, and are pretty reversal-safe, since they're safe-jumps. j.P is a decent tick throw, j.H leads to a lot more damage. I've seen some japanese players fall with j.P-K before too, but that has to be done from higher up. On some characters you can do Sol-like fuzzy guard setups with j.K, but the timing and spacing are extremely tight. j.S is mainly for when you're too far away to get anything else, but it can still be a strong safejump. Your best low options are 2K, 2H, and 3P, for completely different reasons. 2K is your fastest low, so if you're trying to do something like j.P into low-throw mixup, that's the low you want. But it's also low-risk and a decent tick throw setup, so not a bad option overall. In certain matchups it's extremely safe, because it'll go under certain reversals (Like Vapor Thrust and whatever Jam's DP is called). 2H and 3P are good options when you want to stay out of throw range, and 2H especially can be spaced to dodge or clash with VV, robo-DP, and others. 2H is riskier, and throwing from it is way more of a gimmick than 3P or 2K. You *shouldn't* use 2P as a meaty. It's very vulnerable to reversals, it's not as fast as 2K, and it's less safe than 3P. There's stuff you can get off of it, but the risk-reward is a lot better from blockstun than from wakeup, so use it then instead. 6H is a decent overhead if you don't have time to jump, but it loses to anything invincible and is fairly telegraphed, so it's not a good option against anyone with a reversal. The rest of your options are very situational/gimmicky. You've got 2H FRC (Which you use to hard-bait reversals), 63214S, which can be decently ambiguous as a crossup. You can FRC it to throw or go for a different overhead. Then there's crossup kokuugeki, which is interesting for a lot of reasons: it's got an FRC to make it safe, it's a projectile, so they can't hit it with a reversal (They can still hit YOU, so if you don't know your spacing still be careful), but most interestingly, it stops your momentum, so it can be very ambiguous whether it'll cross up or not, especially in situations like knockdown from an airthrow, where they'll wake up backwards. Even more situational/gimmicky are benten (Calls out throws) and counter (Calls out reversals). Hopefully that's a decent enough baseline for what you should use and when. Okizeme is a very complicated thing in GG, so experience will probably help more than anything.

Don't bother with dashing 5K on almost any character. Just throw a delayed 5P or 6K from exactly where you're standing. I think the only character you need to dash K for is Johnny (And maybe one or two more). Almost every other character can be hit by standing 5P or standing 6K, and for most characters, both will work. However, until you get a really good handle on positioning, I would suggest that your throw combo in midscreen be throw, Rensen. This is guaranteed knockdown on the cast. You lose a very small amount of damage this way, but it lets you stop thinking about your throw combo and start thinking about okizeme. If you start playing this way, I can almost guarantee you'll get better faster than if you take the time to learn all your character-specific throw combos first.

I'm always skeptical of throwing extra 2S-6K nonsense into combos: Does it really get you more damage, or does it prorate your damage away? For combos that are just going to end in midscreen kokuugeki, less hits will make it more likely you can do something into benten-H for the knockdown instead. For combos that are going to be more substantial, you want to get to the big hits as soon as possible, to maximize unscaled damage. To that end, I'd say one 2S is always enough unless you really want an ambiguous tech trap (In which case more power to you, positional game matters more than optimized combos). But I don't know any exact numbers for comparison, so I'm thinking you or I should do some science on it.

Any new word on what hotels folks are staying at? Also, I'm planning on being there for a week (From wednesday to the following tuesday) and hotels are spendy for that many nights. I don't mean to impose, but if anyone could put me and my ladyfriend up for some of those days? PM me or something if you think this sounds awesome (Because you want to hang out, or are just super nice)