Northwest VF (Pacific NW, North America)

I ended up staying til about 1am thanks to good games from Andisheh and Fatbear, and introduced new comer AE player Brandon to the series. I think that was my best breakdown of VF so far, but man this game is hard to explain in a short and sweet manner.

Extra GGs to Fatbear, your Akira is getting really close to being really scary, and I think tonight had some of our best bouts yet. Super fun games, I really like the match up, everything just feels so powerful and it seems all about smart striking and strong counters, at least right now.

Great night. Thanks to everyone that made it out.

 

While I couldn't make it to Best Bout... I had a lot of fun doing a training session (Vanessa vs. Jean) with Jetay while he was there last night!

Great stuff, and excellent progress during the matches too. In the last half of the session you were getting a better feel for the tools Vanessa has in both stances and how they could be used against Jean. Great games!

 

Just letting everyone here know that tomorrow (Tuesday) I'm going to try to go to Best Bout! No guarantees, but I'll be trying to go from 7pm-9:30pm.

Hope to see you guys there tomorrow night!

 

I will be there at seven. I swear to fuck it better be open on time this time.

 

I had a really awesome time at Best Bout on Tuesday night! Thanks for the games, everyone! And 7:30-9:50, while shorter than normal, was every bit awesome! I love being at Best Bout ^_^

Yangsing
Thanks a lot for the games. Sorry all of the sticks at Best Bout are beaten up and not functioning 100% (and everyone knows it and Ethan warns about it), but I still had an awesome time fighting you as always. Lion vs. Kage is incredibly fun! Neck and neck matches all night, and that's after your Best Bout-Stick handicap!

I will have to keep working on things, but I felt that while I still low punch after certain setups, I have reduced this and I am making the match more dynamic. I still have habits that can be manipulated into setups for you, but I feel that this aspect has improved (that I am changing up a little bit more and changing the responses a little bit more) and I will keep working on it.

I am curious about your thoughts on Kage's 2_3P because I think it's an awesome move and while I know you know how to use it, I don't remember seeing it used as much in your arsenal anymore.

One other thing, while I think your Kage is awesome as is already, for whatever reason I don't remember seeing much PK in it (but I could simply be not remembering it). Maybe we'll do a multi-character session and test out where it should be happening. I think Kage can be pretty mean off of PK, but that's because i've fought AyuFanb0y.

OMNE
Always good to train with you man. I like how your Vanessa is developing. I like how you did not over-spam 9P too much anymore, but you used it at very good moments when reading. That said, I think stagger setup should lead to another attack, not the 9P (the 9P combo might be too greedy because I think you only landed this one me once). I don't know if Vanessa has guarantees after the stagger, but if she does not have guarantees, then you need to force mixups and the only situation where I see 9P working is when I low attack, and honestly, I don't think I'm going to low attack out of stagger unless you make me think you can combo off of a pure high attack. But even considering this, I still don't feel (not saying I know) it's correct with stagger. Normally with a stagger you first go for guaranteed damage. If there is no guaranteed damage from stagger, then normally you mixup between some oppressive mid attack (like a launcher) or a throw (unless you have some insane low attack that combos on normal hit). You want me to be defensive and blocking, but you also want to punish the high or the low block. Even catch throw can be good here though when I'm staggered I actually look out for catch throws more and will often attack the catch throw because I'm watching your attacks more than normal from a stagger. This is why it is optimal to force a guessing game of mid/throw on stagger situations. However, you can only throw me after the stagger wears off--this is a VF rule and why people whiff throws after hitting someone against a wall. As counterintuitive as it is, staggers are throw proof (I think this is by design to prevent situations like wolf staggering you against a wall and doing massive damage with giant swing or burning hammer--VF doesn't want super strong throws to be this guaranteed from the staggers). Anyways, again, the big tip is Stagger --> Low/Mid. NOT Stagger --> Special High.

Second tip for Omne:
I'm not sure if you are holding throw escape while guarding. You were doing it at Northwest Majors a bit, though you got discouraged when you didn't get the throw escape you wanted or intended. But if you're not already doing this, you gotta be doing it anytime you're just standing and guarding. And I know it's hard to train yourself to do this when someone hits you with a basic poke, but if you are already intending to guard when someone pokes you, might as well have that throw escape in as a safety. I felt I got a lot of free damage from throws in our matches today, though I think I do remember some throw escapes in there too. So if you're already doing this, awesome. If not, you definitely should traing yourself to do this always and naturally ^_^

Third Tip:
It's part of Lion's game, and also Jean's game, but if I push a small gap of distance between us from an attack that pushes (like Lion's 2_6P+K), always keep in mind that this can setup a bait trap. The best policy here, if your opponent has successfully baited you before, is to play the baiting game back at the opponent. The chances that you will run in with a successful attack should be less than 50% if your opponent is trapping you like this. Another way to think of it is this... if the momentum breaks (whether it was from my attack or yours), take it as an opportunity to set the momentum back in your favor. Usually this is best done by being more patient or trying to trap the person that is trying to trap you. Momentum breaks work for both players ^_^ While Simon fell victim to this for quite a while tonight, he figured it out before my matches with him were halfway over, and the flow of the matches took a very different turn once he acted accordingly.

Those are my tips for Jetay for tonight, though I might come up with more later ^_^

To be continued (because VFDC now has a 10K character limit on posts) -->

 

R_Panda
Man, it's been about 7 weeks? Awesome matches and as you already know, you are stronger ^_^ Those were really fun matches and you started to see the trap-plays Lion can apply during the last half of our games. Good job punishing things like 43P and some of the other lows! Also punishing 6PP, excellent job with that. You were paying attention to what I've been saying for awhile to everyone lol. Thanks for not letting me get away with stuff like those!

I felt for most of the night you let me get away with evading a lot, but at the very end of the night you started punishing the evades in a couple of ways. One way was just half-circular it or maybe even throw it (though I don't remember that much throwing though I remember some). The other method you used were using Brad's swaying to work for you to allow you to do more "string hitting" against evades, forcing me to block or get hit (and for the record, I mostly got hit once you started doing this, which was also late in our session).

Keep learning Lion's throws to escape them properly because you definitely are inputting throw escapes when you play (excellent!), so you want to be sure what he's throwing you with. And you got a lot of them!

Brad's high elbow is a good whiff punisher, but I don't think it's a strong backdash punisher. I gave Steelbaz this tip, I'll give it to you now, practice and figure out in Dojo how Brad can punish a backdashing opponent from elbow range and from sidekick range. Sidekick range is probably too hard, but elbow range should work and that should be your bread and butter way of punishing backdashes. The way to test this is to set the AI to backdash as a reaction to your attack, then go to detailed settings and set stagger recovery to fastest. Now, when you do a backstagger combo, watch the combo counter to know if it was guaranteed. If it was not guaranteed, you will have one less attack registered in the count--don't look for the color as it wil always be white, but look to see if it matches how many hits occurred. But yeah, punishing backdashes, while not priority #1 is important imo because a character like Lion loves to whiff punish Brad if he can, it's easier damage. But remember, punish backdashes on reads, not guesses ^_^

BTW, your game looks tighter, which is a good thing. It looks like you trimmed some fat in your game and saved the fat for some special moments ^_^

Fatbear
Oh man, you finally have the VF flow down. Like you really have the traditional VF flow down now. This is a huge step and now I am sure you're able to see options much more clearly than before and your reactions are getting sharper! Also, awesome throw escape yomi, keep it up, it is one of your skills. Whether I mixed it up or stayed with the same one, or my throw was influenced by ring position, you nailed throw escapes like over 60% which is huge.

I'm glad you're focusing on core stuff, and your great execution abilities is finally making its way into your VF game! I am so crazy excited with how you played tonight and where you will be going from here.

At some point, Akira's anti evade measures should be building into your game with things like throws, his limited half circulars, and delaying some of the attacks a little bit (maybe 3366P can be your delayed DE). Just a guess though, but it feels like you will need to stop your opponent from evading you. That said, you are using mostly moves that can be evaded and still be safe ^_^

Don't stop playing VF, you're only getting better and better and I am excited that your game has now reached its current level and will continue to grow! I really hope you are going to EOS!

Andi - I'm sorry we didn't get matches but it was really good to see you, man! Really really god to see you!

Ethan - Thanks a lot man for everything, I love Best Bout! Well, not as much as my wife and child, but I love Best Bout!

A lot more people I want to have shoutouts with because Best Bout was pretty good tonight! Also good that Derrick and I were at Best Bout at the same time for once, pretty sweet!

Sorry I didn't break apart the paragraphs much for my thoughts on the players.

 

A reminder that tonight is Thursday Night Fights @ Dante's in Seattle!

R_Panda may also be hosting a session at the Downtown Dojo in Portland, but you'll have to start up a conversation with him to get the details if that's happening.

Tomorrow night will be X-Factor Fridays @ Best Bout Gaming in Portland! Earlier this week, Tuesday had awesome VF and UMvC3 matches happening at Best Bout. This Friday should also be a great session!

 

you all streaming?

 

In theory, our Tues. and Fri. night sessions at Best Bout will be streamed in the future. It really depends on if the one/two people that can run the stream show up.

 

Streaming is kind of resuming, as our lead stream expert is back from a well-deserved vacation.

I am excited to get the streams going!

Truth be told, they just came back on on Tuesday. It is my fault for not pushing VF on the stream, we kind of let UMvC3 take over the stream. But it was actually a good opportunity to get on the stream and it would have taken me no more than 15 minutes to at least spread the word through the normal channels and ask certain players to help spread the word.

That said, there are a few challenges for our streaming, imo. These are just my observations, they have not been discussed, and they are not even complaints--more like a list of obstacles to address to make a stream better and I'll put them up here.

The summary is: we have an awesome stream expert who is working hard on it, but our community might need to adjust a bit to help accommodate the needs of the stream to be more professional--this is on the community. Because our community has always been a looser form of organization (not a bad thing, in fact it's great for many things) it creates a lot of challenges to the professionalism of the stream.

• Our stream guy, Slash5150 is great, so I really have no complaints about him. When he's there (and he usually is there as much as possible, far more than most people even) he's on it and he's really trying to get everyone in line to get a great stream going.
• Our community is very much run by itself, this is a good thing for us, but it's a complication for the organization of things like streams. It has the following implications:
  • It is difficult to schedule. You don't know who is going to be there and when and we are often late.
  • What goes on the stream ends up really being up to the players. And trust me, Slash tries to get the good stuff on the stream but you end up having players (including me, I will admit) that don't really want to move from the current setup--especially if we're on a series of runbacks.
    • Again, I am guilty of this and I am trying to fix this myself when I know the stream is going.
    • And again, Slash really tries to push past this and get a good stream going.
  • Streams are productions, and productions are in my experience much more complicated than the viewers imagine. When things run smoothly, it's fine. When trying to troubleshoot what the heck is going on, it's often very tricky and often unintuitive without proper experience.
    • Slash is our expert. And I think Jeromie is a secondary expert but his schedule does not always mesh with the Best Bout schedule.
    • We will need to train others eventually, to at least keep a stream going and what not. That said, this is easier said than done and requires some serious will on the parts of the learners too, but we can do this.
  • Slash does a lot, but we also need a VFDC guy with some reputation announcing to VFDC if a stream is happening for sure (with VF) when it's going to happen. This can be through the combined use of:
    • Shoutbox
    • Twitter Account #vfdc
    • VFDC Status Update
    • A post in Akai's stream thread
    • Sending a direct messsage to any VFDC known players, if you're up for doing that.
  • But I have to say, I like that Best Bout is run more freely and self-regulatory--this has allowed maximum comfort for the players and a sense of ownership of the space in a way. That said, it is also true that more of us could or should feel more like stake-holders, hopefully taking the space for granted much less because it serves a very valuable function for our community.

Anyways, that's my take. At least on my future visits, I will make it a priority and try to be more active in spreading the word. That said, the lack of timeliness makes me hesitant about announcing the stream any earlier than 2 hours before it happens, if only because I myself am unsure if it's happening. Though if Slash tells me it is for sure happening and either myself or someone I know who is there can be the guy to help get the VF players on the stream station and make a few quick posts to twitter/vfdc, then I think we'll have a start and can work up from there!

I know that regarding myself, I would also try to let players like Chibiaya know because I feel you're good about spreading the word if you happen to be available at the time ^_^ I would also utilize Kamaiis Ookin or Steelbaz too since they have a stake in Northwest VF and are already vocal too!

Just my thoughts! And Slash, thanks for the hard work you've put in and welcome back from vacation!

 

Speaking for myself, now that Evo is over I'm much more interested in going on stream. Not jumping on stream was a calculated move so whoever my opponents would be wouldn't have previous footage of me to study. Odd enough, this worked out since my actual first opponent didn't show and my second opponent wasn't able to study my bad habits before our match.

Again, not a problem anymore and I definitely want to jump on stream and help show off some NW scrub Jacky!

Yeah, I was trying to promote the stream whenever I was at Best Bout prior to Evo. Unfortunately the first two times I did that the stream was down for the night so I stopped trying after. But again, I will definitely use my twitter (@ajs_), shoutbox and this stream thread in the VF.tv sub forum for promotion!

 

I wish someone who is actually a part of Best Bout would learn how to run the stream. Having to rely on Slash is not necessary and is unfair to him anyway. I'd like to get some more exposure for VF in the nw but I wouldn't dare post up about a stream right now unless i was physically there and had VF on stream.

No real VF sesh today, it's poker night.
I think I'm going to start alternating VF and poker weeks at my house, at least as far as Thursdays are concerned.

 

It isn't hard to stream. takes like an hour to make a semi decent stream.

 

I'm going to try to make it out to BB Friday.

 

For the record, I am also planning on going, but if I do go it'll be pretty late tonight ^_^

 

On Friday (actually Saturday), I was able to go to Best Bout very late at around 1:45am and got in some awesome matches with AJS, Shinryujin, and Yangsing! Unfortunately, I did not get matches with Mackinzie but hopefully next time!

In any case, I had a blast on Friday night (I mean Saturday morning)!

On a personal note, I'm pretty happy with how I played all night. I came in telling myself I was going to play even more moral and try really hard to be more properly responsive in my play and I think I mostly succeeded at this. I cut down on some of the backdashing and abare that has been a big habit in my game lately, but I still used them at times, but I just tried to fight more toe-to-toe. That worked great, though later in the evening I found myself struggling against Yangsing's Shun as it kept me at long range while my brain was hardwired on close range and I was getting out hit on a lot of stuff (which is normal for Shun to do to people). More on that a bit later.

AJS
The first set of matches we had, I was focusing on just being more responsive to Jacky's favorite pokes and I think I was succeeding at this. Focused really hard on more solid defense, cutting off abare instincts. Pretty simple flowchart stuff, keeping my options more on the solid side and less on the hard-countering side except when very deliberate. I think this worked out very well for me, and then tried to use backdash as a deliberate option (as opposed to just doing it because it's a flowchart) against certain things and this went well too. If I recall correctly though, you did win out on the throw yomi in the first set pretty good--it wasn't the patterns I had grown used to from you in the past nor was it sticking to neutral throw--it felt like you were going for mindgame throwing. It's kind of hazy in my memory though, that was the impression I was left with.

The second set of matches we had to finish the evening off was pretty awesome. You raised your game compared to the first set and it was back and forth in my memory. Really really fun stuff and I think by the end of the night your reads were really strong. You also trimmed a lot of fat from your Jacky's game, while still mixing in more options--it was a lot harder to take advantage of your Jacky. I think two of the matches I won were because you over-committed after a dropped combo. If you were able to improvise those situations or complete the combos, I would have lost those matches for sure. Awesome stuff, and it was a very fun way to end the night!

Shinryujin
I came in pretty hard and about as sharp as I've been lately when fighting you. Your Sarah got disrupted by my jabs while charging in, we will work on some options to keep an opponent at bay, Sarah's got some good ones ^_^ I think what I showed you in the Lion vs. Sarah matches was a lot of things I learned from training a bit with Steelbaz, watching Goat Cheese play Sarah, and some tips that Chibiaya posted on his podcast a week and a half ago. That said, I like your Sarah so we will work on that!

Your Pai gave me a lot more trouble, I like a lot of what you did with Pai! Mixed up throws, poked strongly against me, and almost maximized damage. Keep it up, looking forward to some training sessions this week!

Yangsing
I feel glad that I came in tonight prepared to fight Kage and I think I did pretty well! I followed your advice from Tueday, I pretty much kept it moral and I really tried to keep a leash on my backdashing! And I think that did so much work because Kage feeds on abare so strongly, as well as predictable dashing or evading. I kept telling myself in my head to properly mix up things (especially evade direction, but also reduce overall evade usage), reduce the backdashing, try to use advantages more, and just try to play solid. And I think it let to me doing very well in our matches of Lion vs. Kage! But I'm always looking forward to those matches, win or lose, your Kage has always helped me so much! I like your Kage enough that this weekend I've actually been playing with Kage in the game. As we've both concluded.... he's such a technical character.

But damn, your Shun owned me tonight. With how much focus I had on close-range combat against your Kage and AJS's Jacky, I got VERY PREDICTABLE AND VERY SLOPPY with long range. On top of that, for whatever reason I forgot to punish Shun for going for BT Sou Sabaki. I always know it's a low attack (at the risk of being killed by his reverse flip-landing-kick). But on Friday night, I kept attacking into it, sometimes trying whimsical things (like 46K+G). BTW, congrats on being the first Shun to nail me with your lying down options while I use 46K+G against that stance! The mixup that always gets me is K+G and 1K. Not only mid/low, but they punish evade directions opposite from one another. It's a great mixup and can be very annoying! Also, I ran into your bird stance so many times! I will work on that, even though I have worked on that since Vanilla, but I will work it back into my game hehe. Your Shun has leveled up though! It is now reminding me of MasaRED's Shun, though still different. 3P is also a poke I get hit with too often, so I will work on that! Good stuff and great games!

Anyhow, that's a summary of what I remember from Friday night (I mean Saturday morning). Awesome times, I'm looking forward to more training!

 

Reminding all Portland-Area (including Vancouver, WA and Salem, OR) players that Best Bout will have Throwdown Tuesdays tonight!

And I might be going from 7:30pm-9:30pm. Gotta get a bunch of work in first.

That said, Tuesdays have been pretty electric lately with activities across various games (a lot of VF and a lot of MvC3 last week actually) and some theatrical money-matching going on on these nights.

Maybe we'll get VF streamed tonight ^_^

 

so did you guys stream?

 

Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on who), they had another crowd around the stream station with AE on it when I got there. I think they mainly played AE and UMVC3 on that station and there were some money matches on it as well.

Also, Tuesday's VF gang kind of trickled in steadily throughout the night. I wish we were on stream though because imo, all of the matches were freaking awesome!

Now it's time for me to talk about how happy I am with Portland (and Vancouver, WA) VF
A lot of stuff going on in each match and part of my upcoming report will be talking about how much deeper and more competitive Portland's VF pool has gotten. We still have a ways to go overall, but my gosh it's gotten very very competitive and the overall level of play is seeing an excellent growth.

To give an idea of how competitive Portland has gotten... while there would be a proper seeding order, if we had a Portland VF tournament right now, I feel that anybody within what I would consider the Top 5 in Portland could win that tournament--anybody in that Top 5 should not be a real surprise for winning the tournament. And those 5 players bring something different to the table too, it's pretty awesome.

The dark-horses outside the Top 5 are also very competitive too, and it's really just polishing up certain aspects of gameplay, maybe trimming fat for more muscle, and increasing "sharpness" in overall play that needs to be done to put those dark horses in the same layer of competitiveness as the current Top 5.

The kicker is, everyone is still on a good incline on the growth curve. The dark horses are training more now than a month ago.

The Top 5 aren't settling either, the level of play is still increasing and we're all working hard to push Portland's (and Vancouver, WA's) and our personal level of VF forward. Last week, AJS and I felt like we played the best matches against each other ever and were still pushing our general fighting level up (like we had broken some layer of inbred play too, because we were playing legit VF that night). I feel that R_Panda and I played some of the best VF we have ever played against each other in our final set last night, his game getting more and more clean and throwing fewer and fewer mistakes. Fatbear has found time to dojo train at home despite work and family, and he has finally found the VF flow--but in explosive fashion, he has rocketed up into that Top 5 group I mentioned. Fatbear's growth in the Akira vs. Lion matchup between last week and this week was awesome too and I had to fight him like I've had to fight any strong Akira in the country. And Yangsing is always strong across a cast of characters and is one of the best at reading opponents as well as backed with excellent execution--I have a feeling he's going to level up again soon too.

However, I should note I hogged the VF station the 2.5 or so hours I was there that night since I am unable to go much these days and I didn't lose any of the First to Five sets that I had. But really really great matches were had and I still plan to write a report on that because it was just so much fun and a lot of stuff went on gameplay wise, with a list of things that everyone can work on here and there.

I found out more VF players came later too and had some good matches.

I'll talk to Slash about getting on the stream, but we will also need to make sure there's enough players to provide an entertaining rotation on the stream right away so it doesn't get stale, and I think enforcing a First to Five (with maybe a limit of one Runback) will provide some added entertainment and variety to the stream.

 

Man, I felt pretty off it in our first set or so (probably poisoned from all this scv I've been dabbling in...), but our last set was fantastic! Your assessment of my focused vs relaxed game is so interestingly accurate, and I hadn't really thought about it before you mentioned it to me, so thanks.^^ I'll see what I can do to balance myself, and see if that improves my game or not. The times I really get focused I do feel are most often when I get in the zone, but maybe I can relax into the zone...we'll see.

EoS is arriving faster than ever. I'll need to be sharpening up everyday soon.