DIZeLAN 6/25/11 (L-W-L) and the end of T. Hawk.

Although I didn't plan on going to this tournament at DIZeLAN , even up to the day before, pending other plans, general laziness, and reluctance to (for the first time) enter a tournament using a character other than T.Hawk, something told me I had to do it. I have to give credit to Hugo101 and WonderChef for inspiring me to go by asking for a ride there to test their skills in SSF4:AE, MK9, and MvC3. I only the other hand, was only interested in SSF4: AE. This would be a significant event for me because as I said, would not be using the character I have entered every single tournament since the release of SSF4 (unlike SF4 which of the two or three tournaments I entered, used Ryu). 


Hugo101 and I picked up WonderChef and arrived around 11:30. DIZeLAN is an 80 mile round-trip drive so it would be a full day event for us. Joe and BeeJay had just opened up shop and they were still setting up stations. I had to get practicing as soon as possible. I thought the tournament for SSF:AE was scheduled to start at 12 but instead MvC3 came first. This worked out positively for me as I was able to get an hour or so of practice in with Yun and Fei Long. Yun is a new character that is widely recognized as the best in the game. Fei Long is a top tier character (modeled after Bruce Lee) as well, possibly 2nd or 3rd best at this point in time of the ever transitioning tier list. 


At first I thought I would play with Yun, then switch to Fei if I lost. The point was not to fall back on T. Hawk. I even registered in the tournament as "No More T. Hawk". I would be using Fei for the first time in a tournament, and possibly for the first time ever ("day one Fei") as I had only tried a few things with him in training mode in the months past. During practice, I felt I learned quite a bit, getting into the motions of muscle memory and and setting patterns down. Some other players were helping me out too. One o'clock rolls around and the tournament begins. 


My first matchup I actually don't remember what happened or who I played except that it ended in a loss. It's a total blank. However my second match was against a player who was at his first tournament, new to the game, and using one of the new characters, Oni. We shared one thing in common with our new character choices. I defeated him and went on to my next match against someone who knew multiple characters so I didn't know what to expect. He chose Sagat, and we went all three games and I lost by a hair. Interestingly, I was hardly disappointed but instead content with how I played for only having played Fei for a couple hours. One of the other players was eager to see me play and insisted that I should have won the match. Thanks for the reassurance, wish it would have turned out that way. It was nice to have someone admire a day one Fei. 


Yes, I'm hopping on the supposed bandwagon and moving to a top tier character. Some frown upon people who switch and others like the talented Shizza see it in a much more realistic sense. At ReveLAtions, Shizza told me he felt that if you're losing, you should switch and that the majority of other players aren't even seriously paying attention to your decisions-so who cares? T. Hawk takes too much effort and I'll explain this in a future post. For now, he's on the farthest back burner. 


One thing that I love about Fei is that Flamekick shortcut (F,B,F,K) this makes it very easy to anti-air an opponent. At this early stage I feel his speed allows me to be more coordinated, it's as if I have cat like reflexes especially with the shortcut. I don't know any of his matchups or specifics so this makes it hard to elaborate on how I played in the tournament. He seems to be a counter character and I think I should be effective with him. Off to study Mago from Japan, and hopefully get some practice from XBlades and Hugo101. 


One more thing- sorry IkeTakeda, we were too far out when you called. Next time.