Today's SF4 Tournament thoughts and Notes

今日 の スト４ トーナメント + NOTES

Japanese Vega= American Bison
I hate having to explain that.

Ok, so I'm still playing SF4 a lot. Especially after work or if I have no appointments.
I like it a little more, but it's mainly because I'm winning more. GOOD REASON.

Today there was a tournament at Game Sakura INN. Thanks to INO's kindness, I was able to enter even though I showed up late. Nothing much to say here. Lately, I've been more successful because I out annoy my opponents. If I know the matchup, I'm pretty confident.
I always face versus Ryu, Sagat, and Zangief. So I don't feel weird playing vs those characters. But currently, I still don't know how to fight vs Rufus, Abel, or Blanka. Especially Blanka.

At the tournament today I played a Honda player first round and I won, but I was extremely close to losing. I don't play vs many hondas, so of course I got grabbed a couple times and headbutted a couple times. I atleast know that EX scissor kicks can punish a blocked headbutt, and you best believe I waited for those.

I use to hate how Bison played, but I became to realize, even though Bison has to play like a chicken 75% of the time, if you play that way successfully, he actually does quite well vs most of the cast. The problem is it's really hard playing a perfect hit and run character game after game. It's natural to give in to the urge to attack when you truly think the risk is worth it. Case in point...

My next match was against Takada. A strong Sagat player who smokes like crazy.
Vega vs Sagat is probably 3:7 in Sagat's favor. Basically, Bison has to put himself in risky situation's because Sagat deals too much damage too quickly. Sagat can keep Bison away very easily, so if time is running down and Sagat and Bison have the same life, It's still in Sagat's favor.

I lose the first round which is pretty close if I recall, I played good ground game and got hit with some fireballs and uppercuts. 2nd round I straight up kill the fool. It was pretty quick. Peep the vids on INO's website whenever they get uploaded. 3rd round was pretty competitive, but near the end I got hit by some more sagatness and at the very end all I remember was I correctly read him jumping back so I did jump strong strong with Bison but it just barely missed and I got kicked in the face. くそげ。

It would have felt SUPER SWEET, if I beat him. REVENGE. But it didn't happen.

NEXT TIME TAKADA, YOU'RE MINE.

Morikawa(CvS2 A-Hibiki, Bison, Blanka player) ended up winning the tournament with his homeless blue Ryu color. He's cool.

OK SF4 Notes:

So I've been listening to Gooteck's SF4 podcasts (www.gootecks.com) and I've also glanced at INO's tier list. For the most part, I sort of agree with INO's tier list, but I would change a couple of things. I also heard Combo's and Justin's tier list.

So.... as an awesome somewhat known American player, I'd like to add my piece.

Tier list goes like this hoes:

1st Zangief,
2nd: Sagat,
3rd: Ryu, Balrog(boxer)
4th: Bison, Ken, Blanka, Rufus
5th: who cares

So basically tiers don't really matter in my opinion unless you're playing the tiers 1, 2. Agaisnt zangief and sagat you have to play their game. but everyone else is different. Its a counter game just like ST in my opinion. Stupid if you ask me. You lose games because of the tiers. Anyway.

The more time you spend building meter with Bison and avoiding getting hit, I think it's more likely you will win that round.

Bison actually doesn't build meter that quickly, but hes good at avoiding fireballs and shit. But the thing is Bison with no meter is not scary at all. It is absolutely not worth it going up against a Sagat or Ryu if you have no meter. Bison cant even do the same amount of damage ryu and sagat can do without meter when bison HAS meter. You are only scary once you have meter, don't trick yourself.

I personally believe actually that even when you start a round, and let's say Bison has 100% and Ryu has 100%. Bison is actually losing because Ryu can do more without meter from the get go.

I'll write more later.