Top Players from the East: a review
I actually haven’t finished the fourth report but Shadowloo’s stream had me gunning for the keyboard.
re: Oz
Old Timer asked about Oz playing 13. Now I didn’t see that much but he entered the team battle tournament, lost and went home. I cant remember what characters he was using apart from dlc iori and maybe dlc kyo. While effective, many of the old timers play this style, and if you watch Dakou playing at shadowloo showdown, it’s very similar, which will win against your average player but will fail against the top players using new characters such as Saiki, Duo Lon and Karate.
re: Cap
A quick special mention for another old timer, Cap looks to be potentially very strong and is picking up new characters such as K’, to add to his typical arsenary of EX Iori and errr Iori? Watching him pulverise everyone only to get blown up by Shen just shows he still needs experience of the new character setups, but definitely has the potential to bring back terror into the hearts of his opponents.
re: Tokido
As you will have seen from the SSK12 stream, Tokido hasn’t been resting on his SF laurels, and did the smart thing by picking the top tier characters in 13, picking Mr Karate and learning the strategies (something I warned Ryan Hart about, and he agreed to pick him up too, yet… evidently he didn’t have time to follow through).
However, his lack of match up experience cost him – this is partly not his own fault because everyone he played at 13 in Tokyo was using top tier characters ie Karate Iori Shen EX Kyo. It was rare to see Andy, Robert, Duo Lon, Leona, Mature, Ash and Ralf and when they were played they were either um… still learning or masters. I only saw one Billy player in Tokyo and he was not yet a master by any means. Xiaohai, who along with Dakou, know the kof98 matchups like the back of their hand, picked Billy and it was quite plain to see that Tokido had no idea what to do. This counter pick was a tide turner and the outcome could have been very different otherwise… The ‘murder face’ definitely has the potential and capability to be one of the strongest players at kof13, but his lack of match ups against the other characters will be his weakness.
re: Dakou
You’re only as good as the people you play.
Xiaohai trained with Dakou no doubt, but it seems Dakou didn’t bother to expand his characters past 98, which cost him, when it came to fight Karate. No doubt when he went up against Xiaohai he had already mentally given up as Xiaohai knows him so well. Watching Dakou play other matches, I felt really disappointed because it really did seem that he only practiced Iori’s HD combo (and probably bastardised from 2k2)- and dropped a few along the way. Not to say nobody drops combos, even Bala does, but we’re talking ggpo all time legend here. The hype for the infamous Yessterday has all been blown out for me, Dakou obviously isn’t taking 13 seriously, which is a real shame.
re: Xiaohai
Thankfully, the hype for China’s no1 kof player has now only just begun, as he did practise, and learn Karate AND Billy as a tactical backup plan which worked like a charm. Now we can begin discussing the hypothetical matchups against other famous players such as Bala and Dune. Bala and Dune won’t be fazed by any character selection so it’s down to reaction and prediction skills, and Xiaohai has evidently got both in spades. However, if his character range is still within 98, he too will fall to Duo Lon and Saiki tactics, not to mention Shen and Chin! I hope Xiaohai will take this game seriously.
re: Dune
I have to say right now I can’t see Dune being ready to compete in any majors due to his schedule with studying for the bar. You’ll see him spend a good hour beating the living hell out of me with the most efficient HD combos but when we went to Shinjuku he had serious problems with some of the players there, using you know who.
re: Oogosho
It’s quite simple. Oogosho is currently using Chin, Raiden and Daimon. He is a monster with this team, but this team is still not good enough and I’ve only seen him hit the Daimon HD combo once out of six times… yet Oogosho seems to refuse to tier whore. The price of honour is quite steep…
re: Urasia
Recent no1 on psn ranks for kof13, lag tactics didnt help in the end, getting knocked out at Shinjuku. He may well need time to re adapt to offline play.
re: Shoki
Look at this guy move. Just watch, and be reminded that KOF actually gives you a lot more mobility than you think! He has been playing with everyone and will tier whore to win. He wont save meter and uses pretty much whatever he has on stock when given an opportunity. I am almost in agreement with Toxic Avenger on this one. This guy may well be one of the best, however there is one other player…
re: Mari-chan
Winner of the Tournament at Shinjuku Carnival but lost to Shoki at Versus. Need to get some more footage but he uses sdms efficiently at long range and has Karate and Shen down pat.
To be frank, there isn’t one Japanese player that has stayed on a machine with a win streak for that long, each player has a counter player, eg: Oogosho beats everyone but Haregoro, Haregoro always loses to random Shen, Shen gets wiped out by Nagihey, who gets beat by Koukou, who gets beat by Mari, who gets beat by Shoki, who gets beat by Cap, who gets beat by Oogosho… etc etc. It’s actually early days for the Japanese KOF community, but noting the way they are playing now, and the way the Chinese are not taking it seriously, it’s going to be quite obvious which two countries will be at the finals at MLG/EVO.
As most of the Japanese players mentioned cannot afford a ticket to the USA, the worst thing will be that one of those finalists will probably not even know 13 properly.
So for me, right at this moment, the top 3 players in the world are Bala, Shoki and Mari-chan. It’s more about results than performance because everyone drops combos and goes funny in the brain at tournaments. All round knowledge of KOF13 and offline match experience is what makes these players stand out for me.
No doubt this could change next month, and as soon as Dune passes the bar (ganbatte!), perhaps we’ll see a return to form.
Next up, going to analyse some of the play at Sinaloa.
Ratings
- The King of Fighters ’95 4Gag Battle
(5.00 out of 5)
- The King of Fighters ’95 4Gag Battle
About Oyaji
I don’t know how much exposure and time these guys have put into the game but at this rate they will give the Bala and co some problems by EVO time. For the sake of a balanced competition for those guys at EVO hopefully these guys will show up, I love the guys in the States but they are too good right now for everyone them sides. 🙂 Mad hype all around for EVO and other upcoming events – watching a kof world war. Never better a time to be a fan of this series.
Well, Shoki is “good” in the other games but he isn’t “that good”. He does have the potential to be “that good” in XIII, the game fits his own style better than the previous KoFs and he is playing this game pretty ‘motivatedly’, so he is ability is likely to improve a lot in the future.
Dune (and Haregoro) has this type of soft, relaxed, kind, all rounder personality, that “prevents them” from being “one of the best of the best” and has them currently in “one of the best”, it’s not like they are stuck there permanently, it’s just that they need much more effort and practice than other top players to increase their ability. Dune is a perfect example, in one year he is one of the best nation wide in 98, but by the next year he couldn’t keep up and their skill dropped a lot, then by the next year he would again raise his level by having more time to dedicate and stuff, but by the next year he would fall back again; Dune’s player history is filled with circumstances like that, were he reaches a Leonardo Da Vinci level of genius at the game, but later drops back into more human levels due to real life knocking the door and then his level goes up later as he gets more obsessed with the game once again.
Urasia’s case is similar to that of Dune, right now he isn’t “that good”. The difference with Dune is that he has constantly managed too keep himself being a world class player in one game regardless of being one of his good years or one of his bad ones, that game being XI. Outside that game he has trouble raising his skill higher… The fact that he is still glued playing XI arcade tournaments frequently may have to do with it his skill at that game, and that he has problems training in other games.
Oogosho is similar to Shoki and he can get a lot better, as you pointed out he has the problem that he is not that shameless, har har. I do think that switching out characters wouldn’t help him; I have him figured as a type of slow learner, so by switching out to stronger characters he wouldn’t look stronger even if he practices a lot, unless we are speaking of “more years down the line”. I do think that balance in XIII is good enough that he can keep playing as he has been and be fine.
Xiaohai and Dakou’s case is pretty obvious. Judging by their age range, it’s likely that 10 and 15 years ago they could dedicate between 15 to 20 hours a day to playing “that single game”, and that actually showed in their skill level when one sees them playing, it’s insane. Right now times have changed, not only they can not possibly dedicate that amount of time to a game, but having actual sponsors pushes them to playing a lot of games by being a public face at event and streams; not “that single game”, so their skill doesn’t look that dramatically amazing as it does when they played in the NeoGeo board.
Mari has been uploading some “sister matches” batches at nico and they are scary good.
Also, I do think that some other players, like Korean players and from other parts of Asia can become seriously horribly good. Right now there are some pretty skilled guys, but they have some trouble adapting (has to do with the problem of their own communities using few characters). If things keep up as they have been and they gather more motivation and experience, a lot of players from HK, Korea and Taiwan are going to become semi invincible, the fact that XIII is so easy to grasp at it’s essence has to do with it.