ehuangsan

I sort of agree in that although a tier list is interesting from a theoretical standpoint, GG is so tactically sharp and double edged that it does not really matter from a practical point of view. There are no matchups where one side is dead lost like Chun v. Alex in 3S, or even as bad as one side only gets one shot at winning per round or he otherwise loses like say, Yun v. Q in 3S. Although there are matchups that you could classify as 6-4ish, the reality is that every character has some offensive BS and every character can force a double edged situation where it's so tactically complex and sharp that the person with better understanding as to what is going on will tend to win out, and the person with lesser understanding will tend to get crushed. I suppose if you had computers playing perfectly in such situations, you can figure out which character will tend to win out and tier it out that way, but there are a lot of situations that I don't think even top players understand too well. From my personal experience, even though I have been playing since XX, I have played in matches where sometimes even I don't know what is going on. So from a human play point of view, the tier list is meaningless. That's why I think GG is pretty cool. The only other game that I can think of that renders tier lists to be meaningless is SSVSP, but that game does it backwards in comparison (rather dull tactically, but so strategically complex that the person with better understanding will win out most of the time, and what character will win a given tourney is extremely random).

DC's playing style actually makes a lot of sense if you believe that your chances of winning a round drop drastically if the round drags out for too long or if you forfeit the initiative. All of the decisions you see him make logically follow from that premise, including the apparent reckless waste of coins. (hint: to him, whether the coin hits or not is not nearly as important as the coin's role in taking away offensive opportunities from his opponent and allowing him to seize an initiative, even if only for a brief moment) Another thing to take away is that stutter step TK Air mist finer FRC at point blank is one hell of a throw bait trick.

I think that's right. For Zappa, outside of Raoh and rather specific summon setups, he does absolute jack for damage. He's even worse than Ky in that regard. It's also difficult to get people into those setups that let Zappa do lots of damage. If a person decides to simply control space and lock Zappa down rather than attack him directly, it becomes really difficult for Zappa to start anything. But Americans like to attack recklessly...and end up getting killed and thinking that Zappa is better than he really is. Both are also terrible at defense and breaking out of pressure, but at least Zappa has some options that cause it to be rather risky to attack him at times. Venom just sits there and eats a bucket of fail until he lucks out or dies. So despite all of Venom's wonderful offense, once he gets pressured, his chances of collapsing and losing the round become rather frighteningly high.

Sims is proof that you can always random anyone out with Slayer at any given time. Though to be fair, he was really on point that day.

That's a good schedule; I'm down with that. I wasn't certain that I could make it on Saturday, but Sunday should be cool.

Too burned out this week, I'll probably go to the next one.

I treat it as bi-weekly, although I think Fred shows up every Friday anyway.

Bo Kai is pretty stupid yes, but it's too slow for use off a hit stun cancel. Pixie Dust comes out almost instantly; I think the only move fast enough to punish Pixie Dust off hit stun cancel is another Pixie Dust (or maybe Diesel's power knuckle). That makes Mephis almost unapproachable. I think Mephis is broken tier now.

Anyone showing up today? EDIT: NVM, can't go today anyway.

Someone upload the MB replays onto youtube. We got to show the world the power of H-Nanaya.

Quite a lot of people still play or pretend to play GG. Now if only people would play MB so I can troll them with my new main.....

I will not be there on Friday either.

I'll play you MB whenever. I think the new MB is beautiful. The new H-Nanaya is one of the most fun characters that I've ever played in any fighting game.

GG should still get a lot of entrants. I would really like to have MB, but I guess it depends on how many people sign up for it. It would be nice to be able to showcase the new MB.

LET THE TROLLING COMMENCE

Actually GG had quite a turnout for casuals. If people would show up by noon instead of lol 3:00 PM, then we could've had a pretty big tourney. MB OTOH is sadness and fail. I wanted to troll with my new 5-min H-Nanaya main too

These are the tourney matches (all from capture screen 2): Sam (Mi) vs. Kijiyama (CH) - 6:35-8:45 (partial) Foam-Dome (BA) vs. ?? (PO) - 11:36 - 15:56 KatanaDash (OS) vs. Shining Aquas (AN) - 19:48 - 28:35 Tsubasa (MA) vs. PhaethonH (MA) - 29:29 - 36:43 Sam (MI) vs. ehuangsan (KY) - 38:57 - 43:47 Tenkai (JO) vs. Dakanya (JA) - 49:23 - 54:07 Honnou (IN) vs. PhaethonH (MA) - 55:55 - 1:00:38 Magz (SL) vs. Shining Aquas (AN) - 1:01:55 - 1:05:18 Katanadash (OS) v. PhaethonH (MA) - 1:06:34 - 1:12:15 Dakanya (JA) vs. Kijiyama (TE) - 1:16:27 - 1:23:28 Foam-Dome (BA) vs. Sam (MI) - 1:25:14 - 1:27:44 Shining Aquas (AN) vs. Tsubasa (MA) - 1:54:25 = 1:59:42 Shining Aquas (AN) vs. Kijiyama (CH) - 2:00:27 - 2:05:44 ehuangsan (KY) vs. Honnou (IN) = 2:08:49 - 2:11:52 Sam (MI) vs. PhaethonH (MA) - 2:13:40 - 2:18:28 Tenkai (JO) vs. Magz (SL) - 2:24:49 - 2:30:33 Honnou (IN) vs. Kijiyama (CH) - 2:32:39 - 2:35:55 PhaethonH (MA) vs. Magz (SL) - 2:37:16-2:41:07 The rest are casuals of mostly Ky vs. Robo-Ky. Final 4 was on Finest KO but was apparently taken down.

Jab Whiff Throw/Crossover Greed Sever mixup This is one of my favorite tricks. A pretty huge portion of my game revolves around trying to get people to mash buttons because they're afraid of getting thrown. After I throw my opponent a few times using various throw tricks, eventually the opponent gets irritated enough to mash buttons to avoid getting thrown when he sees one of the setups. That is when I switch and go for counterhit instead, hopefully leading to more damage than a throw would have given. One of the tricks I use on oki is to run up to my opponent and whiff a 5P at point blank just as they're getting up. This is a pretty old trick since the early days of SF. The jab whiff is just about the same time the throw invincibility on wakeup goes away, so you can immediately throw them once the jab annimation is done. Plus, it causes opponents to freeze up because they see you are doing something and instinctively (at least in higher level play) block. Eventually, your opponent will catch on and will start mashing throw in anticipation to the jab whiff throw. That's when you do a crossover greed sever instead. If they mashed HS expecting a throw, you will sail right over their HS and counterhit them into an air combo. EDIT: Video Example @ 4:13

Put them up

Creating Chaos and Inducing Variance - Stealing Victories From People Who Play Better Than You "You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one." - Mikhail Tal Sometimes, especially at tournies, you will run into an opponent who is clearly better than you at many if not most aspects of the game, and playing your normal game or playing your character by the book will simply not work. Yet, because tournies are often short matches (best of three or maybe even single games), your chances of winning a match against such an opponent are never zero, and sometimes, luck can be on your side. Often, you can bring about such luck by creating chaos and inducing variance. What do I mean by creating chaos and inducing variance? I would define it as reducing the difference in skill by creating highly volatile situations where the chances of your opponent making a mistake increases, even if your own chances of getting utterly crushed increases disproportinately. Usually, the creator of such high risk and high variance situations will be the one at a disavantage, but sometimes, luck will be on that person's side and reward him with a victory. With a few exceptions, top players in pretty much any game prefer to avoid such situations in order to let their skill difference and "correct play" determine the outcome. This is to snap them out of that mentality. Now, I do not mean doing something stupid. Jumping in recklessly to challenge Ky's 6P AA when Ky has already demonstrated that he can and will use 6P when you do so and that yes, you will get counterhit every time, is not creating chaos, it is being stupid. What I am talking about it trying to place yourself in a situation where, although there are very high chances of the opponent refuting your attempt and leaving you at a worse or round losing situation, there are also high chances of you inducing a lot of damage and stealing the round away. Examples include random super (like DOT or whale), reckless and illegitimate blockstrings to induce counterhits, throwing air FRC S Stun Edges when it would be extremely risky to do so in the hopes of a counter hit into high damage combo, normal super jumping over your opponent and air dashing recklessly to confuse the opponent into doing something wrong, and so on. Several years ago in one of the NorCal ranbats, I was up against very good Axl player. At the time, I had just taken up AC casually since retiring during the #R days and was not really all that use to AC Ky. In the first game, I tried to play the matchup straight up as Axl-Ky matches go, however, he clearly knew how to use Axl better than I knew how to play Ky, and he knew the AC matchup a lot better than I did. The result was that I got grounded into submission very quickly and lost the first game rather horribly. So in the second game, in order to increase the variance of the match, I proceeded to blitz him extremely aggressively and put him into a difficult decision. In the process of locking him down, I was utilizing a lot of illegitamite pressure strings and tactics in order to increase the variance of the situation. Basically, if he countered correctly, I would lose 70%+ life and the initiative and with it, the game. If he countered incorrectly, he would lose roughly half of his life and get knocked down, whereupon I could blitz him again. Normally, this would not be a wise strategy as I would lose in the long run from the sheer damage disparity. However, since the next loss would be elimination and I was up against someone who knew how to play the game better than I did, this was better than just being grounded into submission again in a straight up contest. Luckily, he reacted incorrectly. He either did not want to enter into such complications, or perhaps he was waiting for a throw attempt to counter attack, but for whatever reason, he chose to block instead of mashing buttons. This decision isn't really a mistake; normally, mashing buttons is a stupid idea in Guilty Gear, but in this case, he really needed to press a button to get out. Instead, he sat and blocked 30 game seconds worth of seemingly perpetual blockstun, losing all of his tension and 25% life from pure chip damage. Eventually, he tried to do something, but chose the wrong button and pretty much lost all of his life and the round with it. There's probably a vid of that match somewhere out there, but I dunno where. I still lost the match, but it shows that variance can be your friend in short matches. Of course, this isn't a viable long term solution, as your higher skilled opponent will eventually crush you even more disproportinately over the long run if you continue to do that all the time. There is no substitute for skill. But when all else fails, sometimes you just gotta roll the dice.

Agreed. I don't agree with this, because Ky will simply stare at you and decide if he can counter hit you with 5S, 5HS, 6P, stutter step 2HS or ground SE. If he counterhits you with that, then you just gave Ky a reason to do massive damage to you. This is also Stun Dipper FRC air throw bait. Rather, you should force Ky into blockstun either by TK ensenga RC air dash or FRC cheddar beam/air mist finer to push your way in. You are already getting ticky-tacked to death; don't hand Ky a chance to induce massive damage without a good reason. Yes. You have to slowly push him into the corner and/or earn a coin hit. Without it, Ky is not going to respect you and can merrily go on his way with spamming SEs and lol slashes.

Sure, I can do that. Ky vs. Johnny This is one of my most common matchups. I think this matchup is either 5.5-4.5 or 6-4 in favor of Ky. As with my maxim above, Ky can choose to control space with a combination of pokes and fireballs, and the burden of proof is on Johnny to do something about it. I think this match is easier to play as Ky than as Johnny. If Johnny does catch you, you can die very quickly, but Johnny does have to set himself up to catch you, which isn't easy. Ky is allowed roughly 2 horrible blunders and perhaps one extra minor blunder a round, which is incredible since Ky is normally restricted to one horrible blunder and one minor blunder or less against most other characters. The Faith Barrage Almost a decade ago (gee I am old), there was a Ky player known as Faith, who is in my opinion, the best Ky player ever, even better than Mittie, Buppa, Machaboo, Hayashi and whomever. He made Ky look absolutely broken in GGXX and #R, which is very difficult to do. It would've been interesting to see what he would do if he played AC, but alas, he retired in the heyday of #R, which is roughly the time when I also retired. Anyway, one day, he played a legendary three game match against a Johnny player named Yua, where he decided to troll his opponent. He won the match by throwing over a hundred stun edges and about 40 CSEs while being an all around asshole. This is one game from that match. The Japanese nickname for this match roughly translates to "The Faith Barrage", but soon it morphed into a cohesive system and named the same. Thus, the "Faith Barrage" was born, and other Japanese Ky players copied the ideas from this match. It's not really anything concrete, but more like a general set of principles: - From half to 3/4ths screen away, zone with a flurry of 5S, 2S, SEs,and TK SEs. - Baiting your opponent to do half screen whiffs by dash breaking outside their max range, and punishing the whiffs with an SE or 5S/2S. - Passively controlling your space and placing the burden on your opponent to do something about it. - Identifying patterns involving heavy pokes in your opponents block strings, FDing right before the heavy poke, and punishing the resulting whiff with a SE. - Generally being an all around asshole. I think the Faith Barrage still works against Johnny; the only changes are that Johnny has a jackhound that can go through SEs and that flying cheddar beam move FRC that allows him to fly at you at almost full screen away (sorry, I'm bad with move names). Still, the above principles are the same; you just have to be a little smarter with it. When Johnny pokes, he's fully committed to it since they're slow, so you can punish a lot of them with SEs and slashes. I think this matchup is worse for Johnny in AC than in XX since Johnny's air pokes kinda suck now in comparison to Ky's AAs. Basically, the match is like an outboxer versus an inboxer, where Ky is the outboxer (like Apollo vs. Rocky or Mashiba vs. Ippo or whatever you want). Johnny does massive damage once he gets you (30-40% without coin, 50-65% with), but the burden of proof is on him to get to you. You can jab away with SEs, slashes and maintain your space. Johnny has to patiently eat or block the occasional SE or poke and inch his way in to earn a coin and a chance to slaughter you. If he hasn't coined you, Johnny isn't really all that scary and you can be fairly aggressive with the SEs and pokes. Now if he does push you into the corner, he does get pretty good chances to do a combo into coin for potential massive damage, or if he's coined you already, then some massive damage combo. On defense, it's important to pay attention to whether he has level 2 or level 1 Mist Finer, since if he only has level 1, you can guess towards blocking high against Johnny's jump cancelable pokes or at quarter screen distances to prevent the TK ensenga. If you're a baller, you can slashback the TK ensenga and 5HS for counterhit, but I think that's excessively risky. If he has level 2 Mist Finer, then you have to guess if he's going to TK ensenga or mist finer low, and more often than not you will guess wrong and lose 50-65% life. Oh well, that's one horrible blunder and not death and in comparison to other characters, it doesn't hurt all that much. Consistent with the Faith Barrage, always check what kind of auto-pilot block strings the Johnny player likes to do, because if he likes to incorporate a 5S or HS somewhere in it, pushblock before the S/HS and punish his S/HS whiff with a SE or 5S. If he likes to abuse 5HS/6HS in a block string, check him with a counterhit stun dipper for good damage. Play like an asshole all around, control your space, and sometimes, see if you can bait Johnny into whiffing stupid pokes from quarter to half screen away, and smacking him with a SE, 5S or sometimes, CH stundipper. If done right, these matches are often pretty long and somewhat boring. Next up: I dunno. Requests or Ky v. May or other Ky tactics/strategies/tricks.

That vid makes me cringe and cry.

Yes please let us know ASAP 'cause I would like to schedule accordingly. I mean, I do have a life outside of fighting games