Niko

Will anybody record the tournament and put it on YouTube -- at least the Carl matches? I'm on PSN but would love to see these. Sounds like fun. Good luck to the Carl Clover fraction!

They charge a flat fee of $10 for the first item and $5 for each additional item.

This is where I bought mine. Fast shipping, too -- I live in Europe, so I'm used to waiting weeks for my packages to arrive.

What is this thread necromancy?! Eh, might as well... I find characters that do damage indirectly most appealing (in all genres, not just fighting games). Rushing the enemy down with raw power seems very boring to me. I like laying down traps and playing mind games with people; I prefer characters that are weak at first glance. So it was decided very early on that I would main Carl Clover and Rachel Alucard -- they fit that bill perfectly, and I liked their character designs on top of that. Unfortunately I'm a pretty crappy player and choosing two of the hardest-to-master characters in the game wasn't a very wise choice in retrospect. My Carl is intermediate at best, and Rachel is on indefinite hiatus. (I must say that Bang Shishigami really grew on me as a character. I might give him a try some time.)

Summaries or translations, both would be highly appreciated. Thanks to everybody involved in spreading the information!

I'd love to watch these videos, but unfortunately I'm on PS3. I would be much obliged if somebody could upload a few highlights to YouTube. And uploading replays to the PSN servers only works when your total rank is above 1500, correct?

I can understand part of the frustration with Carl. The thing about his infinite is that once you find yourself in the throw loop, there is nothing you can do except hope for the other player to make a mistake. It hands the control over to the Carl player for potentially the rest of the match. That is never a sign of good game design, especially in a fighting game, and I'm glad they removed that in Continuum Shift. Complaining about Carl's regular loops is ridiculous though. Reminds me of that hate mail I got -- the only one I ever received for using Carl; usually the feedback I get is pretty positive -- where the guy was asking me to "man up" and "stop using the doll to fight for me."

That cake is awesome! I have the same problem. I only manage to get Nirvana to appear on the right side about 50% of the time, which makes me want to bang my head against the closest wall. As for the other method, my 2C always comes out too late after the IAD. At least I get the 236A summon combo sometimes, so I've been practicing that one instead. I've tried that before, but it rarely ever works for me. I thought it wasn't a reliable technique, but I guess if others can do it just fine, I have to chalk that one up to crappy execution and practice more. Thanks for the tip!

While I do own a copy of the book, I too would love a digital version of the BlazBlue Material Collection. There's some really nice artwork in there -- Arakune's new illustration looks really badass, and Hakumen's is extra interesting because it features silhouettes of the other heroes. My personal favorite was this illustration of Carl Clover and his sister Ada. I might be biased though, being a top hat mainer and all... (My apologies if somebody posted this picture before. It's the only one I scanned, so I could nab it for my new avatar; I figured I might as well wet people's appetites for seipherzero's scans.)

Speaking of which, I sometimes get knocked out of Carl's roll. In the guide on this forum it says that A Vivace has full invincibility and B Vivace has head invincibility. Does that mean that all low attacks will hit me out of B version? And is it only attacks I'd have to block low, or all standing attacks that don't count as overheads?

Aside from instant-blocking, is there a reliable way to escape Tager's relentless close up pressure when magnetized? I fought a lot of Tager players tonight, and that situation caused me a lot of headache.

That's "Attack No. 1" as performed by Kumiko Osugi. It was the title theme of an old anime series about volleyball by the same name.

I use a pad, but I'm also a horrible player! Mapped the drive button to R1 as well. I have a question regarding the 2B 3C 22D 236A 2B 2C 8D etc. combo. If I do the Vivace too soon, Nirvana pops out on the wrong side (after Carl's roll finishes), and if I wait too long, the Vivace goes too far and I'm out of range for a direct 2B 2C followup. Obviously I'm doing it wrong. Is there a trick to it? Does the 3C count as a 2 input (meaning I could do 3C 2D in rapid succession for the teleport)? Any tips on performing that one would be greatly appreciated, especially concerning the timing of 22D.

I usually block her strings, but I don't know how to follow up. She's often out of range for me to attack while she reloads (especially if I used barrier guard). Exactly what do you punish with after a finished drive combo? Yeah, I've been trying to employ 6A, but more often than not she stuffs that with her other moves. It comes down to a guessing game, and not one in Carl's favor it seems to me. This is how my Noel friend usually beats me: Approach with either 236C or 5D crossup from the air, follow up with 3C or 5D/2D. Of course Nirvana is really helpful with catching Noel out of the air, but eventually she'll get through my defense. I block the initial air attack, and then it's guessing time for me again. Throw works nicely against her 3C, and 6A stuffs the 2D, but which one do I use? If I pick wrong, I eat a high damage combo. Is there something obvious I'm overlooking?

Newcomer Carl here who can perform the basic sandwich and clap loop most of the time. I win some and I lose some, but I have absolutely no idea how to deal with constant pressure in general and with Noel's drive combos in particular. I once lost to a level 12 Noel who did almost nothing but spam her drive from a full screen away... I keep reading about how it's a scrubby tactic and easy to counter, and I've tried applying the things mentioned in this thread, as well as experimenting on my own. Poking her out of the drive combo is really unsafe and gets me punished more often than not. Blocking crushes my guard libra before I can say "Deus Ex Nirvana," and barrier block pushes her out of my reach -- I find myself not being able to punish her even when she reloads. I can block her drive mixups without getting hit pretty reliably if lag isn't too bad, but I have no idea how to get an opening. Not to mention I'll receive negative penality real fast if I play defensively. The only thing that works for me somewhat is dashing away and starting a new attack/setup from afar. As a result, I play mainly hit and run against Noel now and don't even attempt to set up loops anymore. I'm just too scared of her drive demolishing my life bar. I'm obviously doing something wrong, so I would appreciate if one of the more seasoned players could explain, step by step, how to counter Noel's drive spam mixups as Carl specifically. When to block, when to counter, and which attacks to use in what situation. Thanks for reading.