Jason D.

Holy crap, this is awesome. So yes, I will very much be there. Let's go, BB community!

My god, you're right! I used to see a ton of Bangs. Where did they all go? Was he not easy enough to play?

My god, it's worse than I thought! You DO need practice! Ensenga is Johnny's move. Are you thinking of Axl's... 6H?

Speaking of which, you don't play GG either. What's up with that? And hey Zong, why not practice GG tonight? I'll help you. Trial by fire. You learn that Slide Head timing, or you're getting zoned out.

Have you tried buffering the 1D into the BBL motion? 6321D46C.

What move breaks guard through barrier? If the opponent has 1 primer left, doing a barrier guard will reduce the barrier gauge by 1/3 instead of guard breaking the character. Rachel's BBL works no differently. However, yes, that (or a similar) BBL setup is EXTREMELY good for guard breaking. You can also 4B, 5CC after it for two more primers. I actually prefer if people do barrier, because then they're in danger mode when they're guard crushed. Much better damage. And the Rachel didn't do 7D after she winded herself upward, just 7. She needed to be a bit further back, so that George isn't too far away when he's summoned, and thus he'll be able to activate in time to pick them up off the ground like that.

Well I'm working overtime today, so... not too good. However, dreamskep contacted me telepathically and said he was totally going to go. Jesus, man, you live in Fullerton! You have no excuse! Just take Harbor north.

Funny, I remember that differently.

And don't forget 100% meter, 4 winds, and starting from the oh-so-common 6A counter-hit.

I've got it a few times, when someone IBs a 5B, and then apparently tries to mash through my next move. But yeah, it's not very likely. I was actually trying this combo yesterday though, just for the fun of it. 5C is so horrible as a poke.

Frame traps? You could, but who's going to mash when they're cursed? And I haven't found winding away to be very useful when Rachel is cursed. For one, going straight up and off-screen can still get her hit by the... D bug, I think it is? Flying from side to side works a lot better, but it's also guaranteed to get her a negative penalty. At which point, if you fly into a stray bug, you are so boned. If she's jumping in the air to avoid bugs the wind can change her trajectory for a little "triple jump" action, but the wind isn't particularly abuseable considering the sheer amount of bugs around. And if she is hopping a lot, it's going to run out real fast anyway.

Haha. That's me shouting "burst!" when he got air-grabbed. ...And this was the semi-finals? Geez. Still so disappointed in that day.

Ah, yes, her "even" match-ups. I've been wondering about these too, and I'd love to hear another Rachel player's opinions on them. Personally, I think the information is just old. Like, before they discovered a lot of Arakune's 100% curse and 10k+ damage stuff, and before Hazama players learned how to use him properly. But okay, here's my take on it. First off, Arakune. 50-50 doesn't seem too far off, considering that he can't do much before he has her cursed. But even so, his 5C is still an excellent (and curse-filled) anti-air, and Rachel has no real way to stop him from approaching in with his j.B. So with that in mind, he CAN actually fight back pre-curse. But overall, rushing him down works fairly well in the beginning, although with his teleport dash, air backdash teleport, and his natural tendency to jump and chicken block, it's not too hard for Arakune to get himself back to a neutral position. At a distance it's just Rachel throwing random lobelias, and Arakune creating a maze of clouds and bugs in the center of the screen and daring her to run into them. Oh, and George doesn't ever do much since Arakune's usually in the air. The fight is pretty stupid at this point, but I'd say slightly in Arakune's favor since it only takes three hits until... Curse time! Arakune's fever mode is incredibly bad for Rachel. No reversals. Once she's cursed, it's basically 16 seconds of Rachel in block stun, having to deal with mix-ups, cross-ups, and frame traps. One mistake and the round can be over. And even one mistake with only three seconds of curse left can still be extremely painful. Curse mode is extremely in Arakune's favor, but that should be obvious. Overall it's kind of hard to rate this match-up, since it's not so much about who's doing damage, but Rachel's damage vs. Arakune's curse moves. The basic idea is: DON'T GET CURSED. Until then, she can hold her own. After that, she gets raped. Unfortunately, due to her low damage output and his instant-curse combos, it's not so easy to get through the entire round with putting him into a fever. And for that I'd say the match is slightly in his favor. Now, Rachel v. Hazama. Man, where to start. I hate this match-up. Well, let's start at the beginning. When I first started playing CS, this match-up seemed pretty even on paper. Both characters did a lot of zoning, and both had some pretty low-damage bnb combos. Unfortunately, it seems the Hazama players learned a lot more tricks since then, and left Rachel players behind. First off, zoning. Rachel throws lobelias, Hazama throws chains. Both are probably jumping around like idiots, and trying to get that perfect angle in so that they can hit the other without a projectile collision. The only thing is, let's say Rachel hits him. One fireball of damage, and then maybe a Sword Iris (lightning) if she was ready. That's it. If Hazama hits her with a chain, he has about a month to hit-confirm it and then pull himself in for a full bnb combo. About 2.2k, or so? Plus oki and a lot of meter gain. Just in general, chains own lobelias. They don't depend on a limited resource (wind), they fly out faster, and they are way better at doing damage afterwards. Hazama wins at zoning. At close range, they're fairly even when at neutral. 5A, 2A, and 5B are pretty similar for both characters. (Though I'd give Hazama's 5B the nod for its crazy frame advantage.) Standing slightly further back, Hazama's 3C owns everything she does. And of course, all these close and medium range moves of his are pretty easy to hit-confirm into his bnbs. When Hazama's on the offense, Rachel can't do much to stop him. Maybe cat chair an overhead kick. But mostly she just has to wait until he's done. And since she can't 6A his j.B or j.C, he can get in whenever he wants. Bad on defense isn't new to her, but certainly doesn't help the matchup. And the fact that he has a command grab makes his pressure against her just slightly better than average. Unfortunately, Hazama can't be rushed down by Rachel in the same way. His super kick makes it VERY dangerous to do any long blockstrings. Hazama IBs, Rachel's kissing the sky, big damage. He certainly can do this with most George, pumpkin, and lobelia traps too. Any trade is totally in his favor. And with his meter gain, he almost always has this deterrent active. So yeah, in conclusion, I'd say this match-up is easily in Hazama's favor, and I'm actually curious to know why they've said 5-5. He may not be able to kill you in three bnbs like the top three, but he also does more damage than Rachel, has easier hit-confirms, and he owns every position the match could be in. Long-range, short, offense (obviously), defense (surprisingly)... it's all good for him. In fact, in most of my own matches against good Hazamas, all I can do is wait for him to make a mistake, and then capitalize on it. And that's not a good sign.

Huh. That's interesting. I've never tried 2A before. And yeah, I usually just do 2B, 236A, 236A, and then... whatever. oki or damage. I usually prefer damage, but either works.

Which is?

Oh, yeah, this. Totally right. As far as I could tell Mu seemed exactly like Lambda in terms of what works on her. You can't 3C her on the ground, she falls very close to Rachel after 5CC (so a B lobelia could miss), and she's also kind of skinny when being electrocuted.

Oh, for BB, Zong won. Bao got second. Unremarkable Litchi player (who also beat me) got third. Words cannot express my disappointment. But other than that, if you did manage to get in, the cap was kind of worth it, in the sense of winning. It was pretty much a slaughter between the people you've heard of and the random attendees who signed up. Though in the sense of good matches, most of it was pretty painful to watch. Oh yeah, and huge props to the Xie and Pulsr commentary. It was the only thing that kept me awake.

So hey, I was playing English BB:CS today. And to put this to rest: Yeah, exactly the same as arcade.

Ah, that was you? I didn't remember who. Good job! Though, even if it did work, I don't know if you'd want to brag about trying to counter that with j.a... Also, you should've came today, render! Everyone was asking "Where's render at?" Followed shortly by "And I hope he's thinking about me..."

Huh? What do you mean? Last I've heard the console version has no balance changes, and won't have any until the patch comes out about six months from now. And doing 2.5k - 3.0k damage has always been possible if you can get a 5B or 5C starter. It's just that any USEFUL starter gets you about 1.8k - 2.0k.

Well, luckily the move is pretty useless now anyway outside of combos and as an old Street Fighter-esque no-followup overhead. Though the hitbox viewer in general has been nice for clearing up a lot of things. Like why that move once lost to Jin's j.a.

The 2-day passes are only for consecutive days, so... yeah.

I hope you mean you like Toph in a personality way, because... she's a bit young, you know. And I totally second Katara. Also, Wicked, if you can sign people up early, sign me up too! You will be my new best friend! (Or if that's too many names at once, get Bao to, or something.)

"If I enter, I could have a chance of winning these prizes!" *mashes the buttons*