American Poverty 5

I don't know...it just sortta happened.
Last time I flew was like...6+ years ago?
Man.

And yes, certain other people, I know I have just lost all excuses not to go visit you...
So expect me some time this year?

NEC 2007

I got 7th out of 32.
Not bad at all, considering when you look at the people above me.
Then again I had a comparitively easy bracket:
Lord Knight -> Arlieth(l) -> Capps Indigo -> KenmastersX -> Chibi -> Choco(l)

I knew brandon would do really well, I just didn't know how well.
It was sort of weird, cause like he was one of the first netplayers I ever truly enjoyed playing and respected, that and he's the only CL I ENJOY playing.
We played zero casuals however, mainly cause I was sort of dead tired every time we had a chance.

I took a match off Arly, and I'm sort of annoyed that I lost, even though he's the best Nero in the USA and the best native player on the West Coast (kijea and nerina are exchange students) and I've never fought Nero.
I know that matchup is stupidly in my favor, 236a and teleports all day.

I know Zar really wanted to MM brandon after the tournament, as did Sp00ky.
They were both out for blood after teams the previous day (which ended up as basically brandino fighting Arlieth's team 10 times or something as Lord Knight kept scrubbing out.)

XAQ seemed pretty sad faced the entire day haha, not sure why.
He eliminated sp00ky but lost to Zar (Standard).

Choco is like the first Satsuki I ever played since version PC came out, I took one round with 5C before he ran a train on me and I got utterly confused.
Should have stuck to the plan (play it safe, ring whore all day.)

I still can't beat sphyra's Hisui, our casuals were like 18-1.
He sent Sp00ky to loser's second round.
He's really formulaic, but so am I, and his formula completely shuts down mine.
Not sure why he stopped blocking XAQ's overheads though (Arc's are slower than Warc's!)

There are quite a lot of people below/equal to me in place who would have ended my run really early too.
Zaeler is STILL FUCKING RANDOM.
Fighting Chibi was ugly, as always.
I always forget how to play when I'm against him.
Hnana was raping me in casuals.
bell was being mean on commentary and calling out my moves before I did them.
"YOUR SHIT IS WEAK!"
Sp00ky is a lot lower than he should be.
Dippy is also a lot lower than he should be, but he fought hnana, and I probably had a worse chance than him against 2aaaa Sion.
Finally, Lord Knight continued his scrubouts by losing to me (orz) and then getting eliminated early. :V
He's good, you can have momentum for 3/4ths of the match with Vakiha, but all it takes is 3 combos to die.

Anyway, pretty damn good for my first Major.
Mad slops to Philly for being an overall hole and people getting their stuff stolen all around me. (Hyperhal lost a ps2, ipod, a NGPC!?, and his clothes, Brandon lost his cell, SK lost his PSP, etc etc the list goes on. Myself, I'm a paranoid bastard because of the clowns I live with, so I made out all right.)
Still, definitely coming back next year to this hole.
This tournament honestly revived, or at least injected a shot into our little scene.

TEXT MIXUP TOO STRONG

So one day in the lands of Melty Blood, random user wondered aloud how some of not-so-random user's quotes would sound in a stuffy British accent.

This is the result.

Melty Blood Version B2 PC is OUT!

Melty Blood Version B2 PC is OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!
NYANYANYANYA

Web2Zone tournament

The place is pretty huge, I didn't know there was a downstairs.
Anyway, MBAC, I got kumuhands.
Suddenly I could not do a bnb.
It made me a sadpanda.
Tourney wise I killed two players worse than me before losing to I think...Zaeler then Dippy.
Blah I need my stick.
Spooky got randomed out by Ciels (Damian and Andrew).
XAQ got randomed into losers by Zaeler before getting mad and crushing everything in his path.
Tinshi showed up late and entered 3s (it was teams).
Somehow he got third.
Arturo and Flare got second.
Mutant and Justin Wong (Using ghetto Yun now), got first.
Damn 3s.

James Chen (among many) tells it like it is.

For those of you who haven't been rolling with the Showdown lols, basically Emogear's "Showdown" tournament and upcoming SBO qualifiers have been caught by drama llamas after quite a few people had problems with how Showdown was run.

The entire thread is sort of a civil point counterpoint style, with some flames but everyone trying really hard to keep their patience.
What's ticking everyone off is basically:
1. If showdown is an example of what type of tournament Emogear will run then why the fuck does he control SBO spots? (Yes, people have still not been paid.)
2. His rule 7 basically states that if he doesn't like you you're not going to SBO even if you qualified.

Tons of arbitrary bullshit, everyone now knows that Showdown was basically an attempt to get Texas, and specifically PZ players, to Japan, not any sort of team USA effort.
Thing is it FAILED spectacularly.
Out of staters won everything and now Emotiongear is dragging his feet.

Arturo in particular really wanted to flame Emotiongear down to the ground, but Emotiongear holds the SBO spots for Arcana Hearts, and thus his tickets, so he really couldn't post his full opinion at all for fear of reprisals.

Anyway the tide is turning.
Arturo learned Empire is backing him; even if he doesn't get the qualifier spot (because of llamas) Empire will send him to the last chance qualifier in Japan.
Arlieth and John Choi have also stated (not in the thread cough) that they will back Arturo.
SRK mods are posting like crazy in the thread (they are also backing Arturo *political maneuvering*)
Unfortunately Aruturo still didn't let loose cause Arlieth played nice guy politics, it'd be bad form if he flamed (too easy.)
But he did lay his cards out on the table and basically say, "You have jerked us around, and I'm not happy about it."

Anyway Emotiongear pretty much does not answer Sabin and goes and attacks ChaoticBlue in the thread because it's an easier target.
Then jchensor shows up and tells it straight.

And that's the drama llama news over Texas showdown.

MBAC verB2 for PC probably delayed

The 070427 entry is pretty bleak.
"This isn't a forward facing difficult journey, I feel we are going backwards."
And a winner of a line:
"I feel like I am being punished for past sins."

Anyway lines 8 and 9 basically say that they probably won't make the end of June release.

がんばります…プログラマが。
Good luck programmers! T_T

Showdown Wrap Up

Spooky/Zar got second, Spooky didn't lose to Mint this time around but Ruu was still too high a cat to jump over.
Incidentally, Ruu/Mint won GGAC, AHF (Arturo/Marn got second), and MBAC.
Too freaking good.

Japanese also took Tekken DR, crazy 17 year old Heihachi user doing EWGF EWGF WTF.
Thing is, USA doesn't allow stage select, Japan does.
So after Bronson killed off the Heihachi genius, Japan counterpicked a stage with no walls.

Tokido OCVed the finals in 3s, except that Japan had actually been put in the losers by the undefeated USA team.
Then they decided to make the finals SINGLE ELIMINATION, so Japan didn't have to win twice to win.
In the words of Mopreme on SRK:

Hi. When are the grand finals for 3rd Strike going to be held?

Thanks.

You can feel the bitterness.

Finally, AHF and MBAC weren't on the large screen, so no FINALS RECORDED FOR THEIR GAY DVDS EVEN IF THEY SAID NOT TO BRING CAMERAS TO THE LAST DAY.
That and the crowd consisted of a thousand otakus in love with Japan.
"Let's hear it for USA!" (clap clap)
"Let's hear it for Japan!" (sound of 1000 otakus screaming)
Arturo: "What fucking country am I in again?"

It seems the general opinion of a lot of people is fuck you Texas.

Further edit:
Seems like the prize money wasn't paid to ONLY USA PEOPLE at the event.

what happened to this? Everything was cool until I couldn't get my money, but I see how it works.

Maybe next time I'll enter the tourney and tell them I'll mail them my entry fee later or maybe I'll tell Time Warner I don't have thier money but I'll send it to them when I feel like it. The way I see it, if I gave you my money on the spot why couldn't get my prizes on the spot like you guys said.

Product Zero strikes again!

HYPE

Spooky and Zar are in the grand finals against Ruu/Mint.
They took down Bas/Tokido and will play Ruu/Mint on Sunday.
Lol just for the record, BAS does not play Melty Blood, he didn't even have the bnb dow.
Tokido however, seems to play a beastly Warc, although Spooky said he doesn't know how to deal with VSion's summon shenanigan gimmicks and was getting destroyed in casuals when Spooky used them.
Fubarduck lost to Tokido.

Mint actually peaced Spooky out to the first time in the tournament with a 5C to the face after activate.
Saiyid then picked up the slack but lost in last round to Ruu, sending them to the losers.
But hell I knew they weren't going to get randomed out.
HYPEEEEEEEEEE

Texas Showdown

LIVE UPDATES LOL:
Arturo missed his initial flight.
Missed CvS2, Arcana, Tekken 5 DR, everything he was signed for.
I feel really bad for him, especially on Arcana, because he was singlehandedly trying to build a scene and he really was the best guy we had statewise in that game.
Whoever goes to Japan won't stand a ghost of a chance.

In the Melty Blood: Act Cadenza department:
Mint uses Warc, he got destroyed in casuals.
Ruu, as expected, is fucking godly.
Spooky got like one round and that was it.
He was counting Aoko's jumps and doing 236a ex ice trap after Saiyid ran out of them.
Tournament has yet to start, there's about 10? teams.
Saiyid better think up some anticat strats quick.
Thing is Ruu/Mint is Japanese so they can't qualify for SBO in Japan at an American tournament.
And it's double elim.
Spooky/Zar should easily steamroll the rest of the players, they are our nation's best in MBAC after all.
GET HYPE!

Footnotes:
LOL DPC IS BANNED FROM ALL EVO TOURNAMENTS AHAHAHAHA.
Wait Pyrolee is banned too?
And Arly made the decision?
STUPID FIGHTING GAME DRAMA.
GET HYPE!

Apartment Troubles #1

Someone stole my pot.
Not drugs, but my cooking pot.
You can use it if you want but WHY WOULD YOU TAKE IT OUT OF THE KITCHEN.
Same with my chopsticks, and my RAZOR (from the bathroom.)
And you know what?
I bet it was the Chinese guy who came back from two weeks wherever.
It sounds mean but shit was NOT disappearing until he came back.
And WHO THE FUCK ELSE USES CHOPSTICKS!
DAMN CHINESE, ALWAYS TRYING TO STEAL FROM TAIWAN! (I kid I kid.)

I've requested a custom stick off of SRK, xarcades are shit and HRAPs die in a year (according to spooky.)
I guess I want to get serious about MBAC at least, I waited till after I actually foudn a job and moved because there's no way my parents would tolerate competitive gaming in their house.
They think I waste enough of my life on it already, if I randomly disappeared at moments to go across the country they'd be very hard to deal with.

Today the full weight of "wow you haven't talked to people in real life in forever outside of family after graduation" hit, it was sort of sad.
Went to a random EB to pick up lots of used games for ps2, basically what I did at the end of the ps1 lifecycle (Har har Suikoden 1 and 2 still in original case for 9 dollars. I should ebay that shit.)
Girl there happens to be Taiwanese. :V
Says the sims were too girly for her (Anna you and your damn sims!) :V
Says she doesn't buy new games because she is too cheap for them and her JAPANESE IS BETTER THAN HER NONEXISTENT TAIWANESE. :V
That and she's like the first person to ever get my idiotic screenname pronounciation right on the first try. :V
It was a nice feeling.

MBAC ver. B CE

Well, they fixed Sion's 2C, and looks like...they made some other changes.



Fear the Neco Arc COWS.
White Len is looking pretty nonshitty as of now actually.

FUCKING LEGENDARY!

Haha a word on internet celebrity.
I occasionally get recognized online now by strangers because of my youtube videos.
It's a small thing, and rather niche-oriented, but when random joe is like, "OMG YOU," it's a nice feeling.

Anyway, I hang out in #MBAC a lot now, where there is someone named Sabin, aka Arturo Sanchez, and someone named HNana, aka XCTU.

Arturo's a real legend in the fighting game community, guy has tournament wins up the wazoo and is a proven EC player.
The fact he showed up at Sp00ky's house during my stay there sort of impressed me; the fact he's going out in the community to promote freaking ARCANA HEARTS impresses me also (Though the final version removed Lilica loop. WTF. GG Lilica T_T)
XCTU was one of the best Soul Calibur II players (Talim user) in existence.
In fact he's sort of one of the reasons I picked up Talim, the other was Kayane, random 12 year old French girl (at the time.)
Thing is I didn't know HNana was XCTU, I knew he was in Japan and was a dork like the rest of us, but it surprised me when I found out.

Anyway he's learning IaMP :V :V :V
Let's hear it for more competitive players joining the fold.

Sp00ky's sausagefest report

Stayed 21-25th.
Really fun.
I think I might "get serious" at Melty Blood, but I'd need a stick first, the pad is completely destroying my hands.
Bellreisa was almost exactly the same offline, which is good and bad haha.
Saw that clown Buri and Sp00ky again, met Zaelar, XAQ, Saiyid, Tinshi, Chibi and Arturo (who came at the very end after cleaning up the Arcana Hearts ranbat at Chinatown Fair).
Dippy COMPLETELY emoed out Thursday; he left the next day.

About Melty Blood, if I meet someone with a faster better air normal (Ren) than Warc's jB, I lose 90% of my game.
As such how badly I lost depended on their character.
(Notice I didn't say how I did, I pretty much lost to everyone there for free)
My highlight was a random bara 236C off of Saiyid's Akiha 2A (lolpadhax)
I was in IaMP mode a lot, trying to jump out of blockstrings and not blocking low (which you really should in MBAC).
That and I loved superjump jB like an only child.
Saiyid is really really strong.
He plays too many secondaries at a decently high level that can kill you for free, and then when he plays Aoko it's worse.
I managed to lose to his Miyako, Akiha, Nero, Satsuki, Hisui, Tohno, Nanaya, Aoko...ok yeah uh hell if I remember all of them.
Sp00ky got more perfects on me than anyone else, I really don't know what to do against him, so aggressive.
Zaeler's Ciel doesn't do stupid crap now, but he still loves the ex hiero just a little too much.
Bell's Ren is decent, but it's still Ren.
Still, freaking jA beats out jB, so I'm left with not many noob-friendly tactics to do.
Tinshi's rather screwy when drunk, his Shiki is crazy "rush that shit down," ignoring orbs (at his own peril) like mad.
Chibi's Hisui is solid, I had a lot of trouble figuring it out, but Saiyid's is better (freaking Saiyid).
XAQ's Arc is ANNOYING, freaking charge 5B is DEFINITELY definitely faster than Warcs, that blockstring basically forces you to always block high on wake up against him.
I never fought his M. Hisui.
Buri plays MBAC like I play MBAC, which is to say, not much.
His Miyako was lols; I could trade games with him cause we both sucked.

IaMP was still rape.
Bell really really doesn't like that Alice vs Suika match though, he'd switch to Yuyuko just to equal out the lame factor.
Buri would still get peaced out lol.
Dorks (aka chibi tinshi and saiyid zaeler) played way too much Ranma, that game is SLOW, but still hilarious in a party situation where Genma randomly wins with a panda slide.
I'm surprised to learn that Chibi and Zaelar still use pads, though Chibi can use stick.

Anyway, we ate free food (86 noodles/Papa Johns) and slept for free (though very cramped, 750 for an apartment like twice the size of my room, geez NYC) and it was a pretty awesome experience all around.

Oh right, Chinatown Fair is CRAMPED and there's no place to sit but the racing games.
The current NYC Arcana hearts scene is like 5 Kamuis, 1 Kira, and 1 Meifang.
Kamui mirrors galore.
I didn't get to touch the machine because of the ranbat going on, maybe next time.
Need to at least lose with Lilica once.

ココロが止まらない

I was looking for the first song in this video forever, it's catchy as hell, my initial sources failed me so I started transliterating lyrics myself and googling them in Japanese.
Unfortunately, my transliteration needs a lot of work.
I transliterated wo as mo, suru as sugu, and riyuu and jiyuu.
I fail completely.
Good thing pbox has Japanese friends...
Ironically, the song turned out to be sung by a Korean group called Jewelry.

Melty Blood Act Cadenza bonanza

Wow Ecole came out with a verB demo that let's you test out White Len!
Awesome.
Wait a sec, they said they couldn't bring MBAC to the computer and that we are all stuck with Final Tuned!
What liars!




Second half of this post is the finals of the NEC MBAC tournament are finally up (well some of it anyway.)
Pretty damn good show by Sp00ky and Zar here.

FUCK YOU RONALD REAGAN!

Well today was SUPPOSED to be the day of my road test but guess what? The test is postponed by TWO FUCKING WEEKS cause Reagan's funeral! Who the hell repeatedly checks the motor vehicles website for this shit? Not me...godamn it and my dad took a half day too from his crazy stressful hour away job just to sit in the passenger seat all the way to Newburgh when upon reaching we find a little taped on sign to the road test sign saying "blah blah POSTPONED SUCKERS! blah blah." Bah, right now I'm angry and it might sound ridiculously callous but couldn't he have waited say...a week to die? All those hours wasted driving around and now we get two more weeks of torture waiting and MORE driving around to Newburgh. Bastardness.

On a completely unrelated note SATSUKI is insane. I think I found the character I'm going to play in Melty Blood Re:ACT, cause easy chained supers into chained throw equaling 75% damage = love.

Doko miteru no?

Well, Melty Blood Re:Act is interesting, to say the least. It's funny how I only knew of the bread and butter infinite in the original game by reading a guide of the sequel. Anyway we got six new characters, two or so that I haven't even seen (Neko-Arc, Executioner Ciel). The other four are Ren, White Ren, Aoko Aozaki, and Satsuki. I've been playing on easy so I don't really get to see the crazy moves some of these people have (like Aoko), but Satsuki is really easy to combo. Ren/White Ren, on the other hand, is NOT easy to combo. Hell her standing C isn't bufferable at all. Evidentally Neko-Arc is god, but that's sort of hard to imagine cause Neko-Arc is a little shrimp Arc with cat ears. Executioner Ciel is always without the nun habit, her 7 scriptures is always out and she has perma hyper armor.

Anyway at least they toned the crazy Chinese martial artist shrimp girl down. My god half a super meter for 80% damage that's unblockable in the air = no. Also I am warming to Ren/Satsuki. Satsuki is MUCH easier to use, and hits very VERY hard, Ren seems to have more finesse. I'll post more pictures of the game but for now you'll have to look at lots of Ren:

Edit: Agh large images rape this tepmlate like a Japanese school girl, I'll just post links.
Akiha reversed vs White Ren
Ren drops the cake on j00!
Ren's blood heat super vs white ren...think instant hell murder after she changes into her nightie =D