Sophisticat

Valk is just about better in everything than Haku except defense. There is no contest: Valk is definitely an ugly 6-4 matchup at best. However, he has poor defensive options and relatively low hp. Best I can say here is that you should treat this matchup as you would Hazama and get your hits where you can. Valk is nearly as mobile as Tao, and more dangerous since Wolf mixup is very strong. His combos carry to the corner easily and he'll run a train on you so don't autopilot to counters or you're meat since he's got 10+ ways to bait them. I can't offer any specific counter-measures atm aside from vague tactics, but I would caution against being overly aggressive vs. Valk unless the other guy is defensive by nature; the tradeoff is not in your favour as he simply outdamages you if caught in a 2c CH trade or something like it. Stick to your defense and poke through gaps. Don't waste mag as Valk can bait your stuff as mentioned earlier. Otherwise, Psycho's bit on spacing/zoning is spot-on. Valk is hella aggressive, but is weak to being countered. He can weave and bob around your jabbing, but strong fundamental play certainly helps. Sa'll I got right now, and this is as a guy who mains both Valk and Haku. Just take my word that Valk >>> Haku in everything except defense.

Defense is one of the most important aspects of this matchup. Tao's plan is to mix you up as much as possible and make you lose patience by running all over the place. There's nothing to it but to suck it up, play defense and not get caught in her shenanigans while taking advantage of gaps in pressure where you can. One of your most important normals in this matchup is j.B. In air-to-ground approach, there is nothing you will want to use other than this. It is fast, has a good hitbox, and leads to decent dmg. It is also your preferred air-to-air normal for the very same reasons. J.C will not help you in this matchup since Tao's flying all over the place, and will likely CH you for free since j.C's hitbox is so thin. J.B is tighter and covers more space, so there's more room for error and capitalizing on a CH. When being pressured, look to counter the auto-pressure to keep them on their toes. This means 5D on her 6b on reaction, or 2D'ing jabs. If you can disrupt their rhythm here you'll have much more breathing space. Forget about zoning since you'll just get CH'd. Focus more on well-spaced 5b to beat careless jump-ins, and either j.C or air throw their attempts at jumping out. Your overall gameplan is to stick to the air -- refer to my comment on j.B. Tao can't mix you up here and your j.B is a threat to keep her in check. Poke, prod, and work your way into big damage and you'll eke out a win. The tactical approach will beat out Tao's shenanigans in the long run.

You guys do me proud. I raised ya good. Keep the Sophistication flame alive, MTL thrives on it! :')

Damn, this hurricane sounds like it's going to suck for the Summer Jam guys. I got rained-on on my end, too. Motorcycle closed-course test today and had to wait 4h only to get it cancelled because of rain. I've just spent the last 8h running around MTL on no food. FFUUUU... Anyway, if Irene's got major PMS or something I'd say it might be safer not go out. It sucks, but getting stranded ain't cool. :\ ----- Otherwise, Happy B-Day AM! I won't be on for the next couple days, so wishing it early. Have a good un'. :D

Lol, nice to see things are going good here. And yeah, dat 3S. Eb's on a honeymoon with Stark to watch the Dodgers play all season, and I've been installing glass paneling inside my new Dodge 2011 so I get a light show with my techno while cruising the midnight countryside.

Very nice vids, props to him for showing a diverse range of combos and their utilities. He pretty much covers all the bases, though I note the lack of mix-ups such as fuzzy j.B et al. The inclusion of resets is a nice touch though. Very good vids nonetheless.

I'd drop by, but I'd be crashing the party since it's my B-Day too. I've got my own celebration going on then anyway, so it's cool. I won't crash anything. :P

Imo, not worth it to spend on counters. Go for 1s or meterless and you'll still have decent carry for decent dmg. More stars than than and it's a waste. You're better off keeping big dmg spending for the corner, off a good starter or when they're getting low on hp.

Nemesis is bi-yearly? I thought it was only once per year. Whatever the case, Oct 29th sounds good for me. I think you can count me in that one.

Lulu is the one and only man I am gay for. True fact.

Nah, that's more than fine. We could definitely use that. Btw, transcribing and doing subs is more work than you think. A 5m vid like that could easily take more than an hour because people talk more than you realize and timing/coding/transcribing/translating is time-consuming. But if you're up to it, it'll definitely improve the vid. :P

Belle tronche les gars. :P Didn't know there was an interview thing going on with DL, but I approve even if I can't hear anything. My only criticism is that the vid is pretty dark. If contrast could be upped to improve that it would be perfect. @Nini: Match vids should be compressed easily by lowering resolution alone. My own vids are still 720/1080p, but I compress them to a ~450x250 resolution or something like that and it cuts down on file size massively while not sacrificing too much vid quality. The best here would be to compress to YT's approximate view and that should prove plenty. For a 10m vid for example, you wouldn't go above ~200-300mb I think.

You can add Valk being nerfed. Looks like a tightening of the tiers to me since these are all the higher-tiered characters.

I feel like they're just introducing some tweaks, not a full rebalance like CS2 was. Best feature is by far the increased pushback, that's a hell of a good buff to the game. Too many characters can just stay in your face and you can't do anything about it because barrier is shit for pushback (I'm looking at you Tsubaki!). Being more in line with how Faultless Defense works would be a welcome feature.

That's awesome, I might be able to make it tomorrow though I can't stay later than 5pm probably. We'll see.

Lol, tourney was good, we had fun and there was plenty of hype to go around... but honestly, you guys didn't miss much. The tourney was on Xbox and most players were Ps3 (which led to many lulz... Including my own first match. xD), there was only one station for the tourney matches (it should also be mentioned that the regular stations were all CS1 to boot), and the overall player level wasn't that high outside of a couple guys (us and some guys I think Pedro managed to talk to Foonzo about so we at least might have some new faces!). Anyway, Brice won (yay!) and we had fun and that's what counts. I think we're used to our own standards of quality for tourneys so this was a notch below that. That said, Shoutouts to gdlk ramen. We need to visit that place again. Shoutout to Brice for winning second time in a row! Going to make MTL Otakus poor at this rate. Shoutout to hype moments. Brice standing 720'ing Lvl5-chan as he does that dash special was hyyyyype. Shoutout to great loot and cool outfits. I'll be going again next year for sure. ----- I didn't see any Ragna 'player, though a couple (hot) Vermillions were spotted. I think FFXIII's Lightning was the most cosplayed VG character (also the BEST cosplayed. Again, hot stuff. Wish I'd taken pics. :D) Got me a couple posters and some Gunsmith Cats, too. ----- Now I need to visit Foonzo just to get in some real matches. OT was fun, but I'm craving for some real competition atm. When's the next meet?

I gotcha, thanks.

I'm going to OT. So what time's the tourney? I can't seem to find it on the schedule or anywhere else for that matter.

Make your own account, Eb!

Works for me, lol.

Okay, so I took a look at Otakuthon's schedule and it seems BB is on Xbox. D: Going to have to lug consoles over there? Also, there's a shit ton of porn going on over there, lol. Yuri, yaoi, hentai, 16-18+ stuff all over the page. Damn, stop reinforcing the perv stereotype! It's like anime's got it right all along. xD Brice is a man of taste, good sir. Add some Deadmau5 on top! You too, eh? I might sub him, I like his design and he might be the bridge between Haku and Valk's style I'm looking for.

What's this about interviews? Did MTLBB suddenly blow up and start wearing gold-plated bling while I wasn't looking? (Entirely possible, I fear, since I've scraped my old car for a Dodge 2011)

*Does a very quick check* OH. MY. GOD. CT 6a, man. Fuckin' CT 6a is back. Hell e'ffing yeah, bitches. They better keep this one in. :D

... ... ... I am going to be so free this weekend it's not funny. *Sobs* Anyway, it'll be nice seeing you guys again. Who's going to Otakuthon? We need to show the plebeians who's boss. :D

Not many realize Pawns are broken, yo. Shit's like Phoenix: get them to the other side and your Queen's resurrected!