fighting game mastery transcript

7/22/2019 Fighting Game Mastery Transcript

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/fighting-game-mastery-transcript 1/42

Fighting Game Mastery, Part 1

gootecks: Hey, what’s up guys, it’s gootecks -- Welcome to Fighting Game Mastery, Volume I,

featuring Complexity’s Filipino Champ, aka the Evo 2012 World Champion of Ultimate Marvel vs.

Capcom 3. How you doin’?

Filipino Champ: I’m doing good! Excited!

gootecks: This is something we’ve been working towards for a long time, and finally we got a

chance to sit down and produce this for you. So what we’re going to be going through in this

program is Champ is going to be kind enough to share some of his techniques, strategies,

mindsets, as well as practical action steps that you can take to become a better fighting game

player.

Most of this is going to revolve around Marvel as well as Street Fighter, but a lot of these

concepts are not really game specific, and a lot of this stuff you’re going to be able to apply intoyour own game. So let’s get started!

Champ, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how long you’ve been playing fighting games and

how long you’ve been playing competitively?

FC: Yeah, so I started fighting games I will say competitively around 2007/2006. My background

is from RTS; I used to play warcraft 3 so I am very competitive. I was one of the top players in

RTS games -- Warcraft -- and then I met Chunksta, who was like 2nd place finisher of Evo 2006,

and he showed me Marvel vs Capcom 2. So I checked it out and I saw the passion of a lot of

players. They get so hype, they’re so loud -- they are kinda like me, a bunch of extroverts y’know,so I was very excited about it when I saw it. And so I fell in love so I gave it a chance.

So then I met one of my friends like CJ, Hiro, and when I saw them very passionate and were,

like, in the game, so I tried to play it. So I played it like 6 months which I gave -- I will say like 30%

of my time since I was working, still playing RTS -- and then it was the very first tournament, it

was NCR, so I had to fight Chunksta, at top 16; and I actually beat him -- and in my very first

tournament I got 2nd in a major -- yeah very very lucky I guess, but that’s my first tournament.

And from that point I was like “Oh wow”, I was actually pretty good, so I think I might continue

playing this. But then there wasn't a lot of tournaments at that time. That was when the fighting

game started dying because there was no other new games coming out. And then Street Fighter

4 came out then and I was like I’m gonna give this game a chance. So I did, and so that’s

basically how it all started: Marvel 2.

gootecks: So the initial, I guess, surge of competition, and the initial success kind of drove you

towards working on your game more, and switching from RTS and moving to Street Fighter.

When was it that you really started to take Street Fighter serious?

1



FC: Actually, when I first ... I think my friend Crizzle told me that Street Fighter 4 is coming out on

console XBOX 360. I am not really a console guy, and I was like, “You know what? I am going to

buy the console today, buy the game and try to get a stick off Craigslist; so I’m going do it all

today.” Which I did, I bought it all on one day; I actually paid for an SE Madcatz stick -- which is

worth like $80 bucks right now -- I paid $250 for it so I could just play it right now!

So I was asking what character are good, basically which guy is top tier, so I look at the

characters, and I usually play the characters that I like, and that are I think bad ass and mostly

the villains. But since I never played Street Fighter games before -- by looking at the overall cast I

look at this character Dhalsim. He looks like a bad guy, he has the white eyes, he’s like floating,

he looks like an evil person. But little that I know he is actually a good guy saving people -- which I

regret picking him up, but I pick up dhalsim, and at that point I played all the time, I watched the

videos.

I actually watched some of your videos, and that actually helped me a lot just by watching. Youwere doing a Balrog tutorial, you were one of the first one who did a Balrog tutorial. And I was

like, “Oh wow! There’s actually little intricate stuff about this game,” and I actually met you at

Devastation, said what's up. You were like, I was pretty good, and I picked Dhalsim.

And, I reached a plateau because my circle was small. I was playing with Crizzle, Hiro and CJ,

and I was only learning four match-ups, and there wasn’t a lot of, like, there was a lot of big

cliques but not a lot of weekly tournaments or monthlies at the time. Because the game was still

out, unless you were in SoCal, then you get to play a lot with FFA, Denjin, with you guys and Ed

Ma -- but NoCal … there wasn’t really a lot.

John Choi and Ricky Ortiz weren’t really into Street Fighter 4 at that time until later on, so then I

was lucky to play with Ricky and John Choi. And they showed me how to play the game

correctly, and from that point that’s how it started, actually understanding how to play fighting

games in general.

gootecks: So then going forward, you actually had quite an impressive run at Street Fighter, you

were the first American to win a major here in SoCal with SCR, and you are also the first guy to

beat Daigo on American soil. What would you say was some of the factors that contributed to ,

let’s say, starting from just picking a character you thought was the bad guy, to beating -- at the

time -- the best in the word, and arguably, Daigo will always be like the best -- but you were able

to beat him on multiple occasions.

FC: I never really get intimidated by whatever the credentials of my opponent is. I always feel like

, yeah he is good so, I have to give him the respect that he is a very smart player, when I played

Daigo at that time. But I was very confident of my teachers, which was Ricky John Choi and

Valle at that time -- like I feel they trained me really well, so I was very prepared to fight however

good my opponent is.

2



So I was very confident, I know that it’s on my mind: I can't let this guy to intimidate me to change

my game accordingly to interpretation. I got to play my game and according to how he plays at

that current time; and thats how I should adapt my game: slowly, which was how I was raised --

you know, my fighting game roots.

gootecks: I will say that definitely like your Street Fighter 4 career highlight was beating Daigo onmultiple occasions. And then you kinda took a break from Street Fighter and then when Marvel

came out and you started getting into that.

FC: I think that my first top 8 was at Westcoast Warzone. I lost to Ed Ma at top 8, and that was

the first one that actually ignited the fire. And I was training a lot more with Ricky. I didn't take a

break from Street Fighter; Capcom actually put me to bench because they made AE, they made

Yun, Yang and Fei. I was forced to -- and I don't want to lose that much to a point I would

probably lose my confidence overall in games -- and there was really nothing I could do.

But then marvel came along -- and you know I loved Marvel 2 -- so I started picking Marvel 3. So Iput all my time and dedication to Marvel 3 because I really wanted to get an Evo medal, because

I have won majors before 2011 but Evo, so I just wanted an Evo medal at that time. I just wanted

to get one Evo medal; I had a documentary following me, and I was like, you know what, this is

my goal: I am going to train my hardest, I want to get an EVO medal. Which I did, so I was very

happy.

gootecks: So let’s talk a little bit about some of the mental preparations that went into your run in

2012 for Evo, Can you talk a little bit about the sacrifices that you had to make in order to put the

time in and the dedication required to become world champion?

FC: Oh man, that was a long road, dude First off I was very fortunate that we were able to create

FGTV in Union City in NorCal. So I was actually living with Ricky Ortiz, Shady K and PR Balrog,

but Ricky was mostly focused on SFxT and AE 2012, and I was focused on Marvel specifically,

and you know Eduardo was one of the best Marvel players in the world. So I was able to train

with him every single day, and on top of that, Shady K is like an absolute sensei, you know, just

like a super technician when it comes to the games. So he gets to show me a bunch of cool

tricks I could definitely adapt into my game.

I think I lack when it comes to creativity -- when it comes to combos -- but he fills up that void for

me, when learning new characters quickly he fills up that void in a sense he actually completes

my Marvel game at that time. So I actually played 10 hours every single day, and I was actually

doing weeklies in my house, which is Triple F (Fraud-Free Fridays) in NorCal. And I played all

the time, and I brought in the best people in the world. I brought Zak Bennett, IFC Yipes, Marlin

Pie, Dieminion, all the Japanese guys in my house. So I really trained really hard for Evo 2012.

gootecks: So in addition to training with these guys and having sparring partners like Shady K

and all the rest of FGTV, you were also broadcasting most of these sessions right on FGTV, on

3



Twitch. Do you think that that actually helped your game, because one might think that putting

yourself out like that and training all the time will give your opponent the opportunity to scout you

out and find out what your weaknesses are?

FC: I feel like winning because you have a trick or tricks -- winning like that, I think like it’s

fraudulent, because you only trying to win for the moment. I want to win longevity-wise long term-- I always look at the long term -- yeah, he might get one game, but if you look at it in a bigger

scheme of things …

So if I play like a million games, I will probably lose a hundred games, right, because I trained it

that way. My mentality is always long term -- I do not want to win because of one gimmick -- and

just let it rock. What if that gimmick gets figured out? So I mostly focus on my neutral game, so if

every single person that watches my channel knows my tricks -- how I TAC, all the little setups

that I’ve got -- if they all know how to block that, or seen that before, and I still beat them -- that

gives me confidence that I know that I am a better player than them.

So and also any time that they figure out a way out of a particular setup, or out of a particular

scenario that happens all the time -- that forces me to become more creative to create more

scenarios for me that is an optimal way, an optimal answer, for whatever answer they’ve got. So

basically I am starting to develop counter for their counter, and it gets higher and higher and

higher, so now when I fight someone who is not in that level yet of meta, I just completely

outclass them, you know.

gootecks: Because you are basically putting your game out there so as to find the holes in it,

and then patch the holes. But the only way you can patch the holes is by putting it out there -- not

just for your opponents and the people you train with, but also let’s say for the people at home --because I am sure there’s dudes in the chat room that be, like, Herculean, you know -- if they do

this, then that’s not going to work, so it’s kind of like, in a way, you are almost like kind of crowd

sourcing your training a little bit.

FC: It is like trial and error until I actually perfect the game plan, you know, my overall neutral

game. I feel like your neutral-game fundamentals has to be your core of your fighting-game style.

I feel like that’s got to be your source of power -- not like just from your tricks and setups -- that

means you can play multiple games later on, or other new games when it comes out, and you

will be able to play them just like a Justin Wong or Ricky or Daigo. They are just so good

because they got real fundamentals and real neutral game overall across the board. They never

had tricks; they don't have those setups and unblockables, they just completely outplay you.

Those are the people that inspire me to get better

gootecks: So can you define what the neutral game is to you?

FC: The neutral game to me, in my opinion, I think the real definition is: making the most optimal

decision in every single scenario; and also understanding the risk reward of that particular

4



decision that you made -- you know, calculated risks; mind games -- like I will do something and

I’m safe -- but I am planning that thought and this idea -- so later on throughout the set I will need

something like that to set up the trend. I believe the neutral game is how good you are or how

confident you are of your decision making. You know, how optimal they are -- just because it’s a

good decision doesn’t mean that it’s an optimal one. Yeah, if someone whiffs a DP, you can

punish with a sweep, or you can punish with a forward fierce, crouching fierce FADC right? It isalways the most optimal way to make them pay for that.

gootecks: Taking into account not only the life situation, the round situation, everybody’s meter

situation... So what do you have -- like a routine or a way that you mentally prepare for

high-pressure situation, whether its like Evo or whether it’s a weekly or a major?

FC: In a weekly, obviously it’s mostly NoCal guys, so I’m like Friendly Champ to them. But when

it comes to majors or SoCal or East Coast in general, I try to put on the F Champ side: I have to

be mean to them and intimidate them in general; and it also creates more tension and interest in

the stream that I am the villain.

And also like, I don’t know, you guys watched this Evo this year -- I was actually doing tea bag

and I was taunting my opponent, Zak, in top 8. Also top 32, top 16, I was doing that because I

know this is their first time in that stage, the first time in that particular big stage, and they will

crack, which they did, and I beat them 3-0, all of them. I feel like that is a very good strategy from

my part and I used that -- and I am not going to lie, that is actually very useful.

gootecks: What about when you were first getting to that stage, where you were the one in the

spotlight and it was your first time on stage -- can you think of like anything that you did? I mean

did you try to sit, focus, breathe or try to clear your head?

FC: Oh man, I was sweating; my palm, I was shaking, every time I try to do a combo and it's

clutch time -- my hands were just shaking and the buttons ... it was just crazy, you know, one

thing I saw when you were fighting Justin: every round you have to close out, you close your

eyes and you hold the stick and you start mashing like this and concentrating.

gootecks: That’s how I will do it

FC: Yeah, and it’s just like, you gotta. But lately I start to learn how to tell my mind, “Hey you gotta

do this now; All right, right, hey, stop being nervous, put that aside,” ... would be nervous later. I

start to develop how to communicate with my emotions in my mind more.

So now when I go to majors I don't get nervous anymore, or at least as much, but Evo I still get

nervous but not that much, because that’s my third year at least on Evo top 8. So I don't get as

nervous but it’s something you definitely learn through experience -- or the way I train for that is

that the way my house was set up was, I had the FGTV chat on a projector so I get to read all the

criticism, all the dropped combos ... if I lose a game I am free supposedly, even if you win like

5



200 straight games; and if you lose one game to CJ you are free.

But I take that as criticism, but it’s good because I know I am aware that there's something they

can criticise, which is good. And I know that people are watching so I can't make a lot of bad

decisions. So I can always tell my brain that this is the same situation you're gonna feel when

300,000 people watching you on stream on EVO -- it’s going to be the same. And also when I domy casual sessions I try to like play three out of five sets, tournament setting, so even though the

stage is only me and CJ playing, we are constantly doing three out of five sets. And after that we

restart the game and do it again so I can always practice the feeling of, what if I am down

two-zero, I need to close out this set.

So I get to replicate or mimic that feeling that I have, because I do not want to lose a set to CJ.

Because that means that if I lose to CJ three out of five, even if though I have beaten him 99

sets, it means that there will be one tournament that he is going to beat me. And I don't know

when that tournament that could be an EVO set.

So that helps me to practice my consistency -- oh yeah, we do play casuals, but there are times

we were like, are we going to play sets or play sets. That helps you practice my whole meta

game or how to prepare for situations like that: your clutch, how to practice your clutch. And I feel

like that’s the only way for you to practice your clutch.

gootecks: Putting yourself in situations where you are going to feel the pressure, even though

the stakes are relatively low -- you're just playing at home versus playing on the big stage -- but

you still get that rush because you don't want to look up, see the projector full of people hating on

you and telling you that you are free.

FC: Yes, also one thing that I do is that I play a lot of mini-games in my head. So if I'm playing

someone in a set that I know that I should beat like 99 percent of the time or 95 percent of the

time -- but since I am basically … I'm not gonna be learning as much as compared to them

learning from me -- what I do is that I will try to play a bunch of mini-games in my head.

Like OK, I am down two-zero and I am in loser’s, and I need to win six games. So even though

that we are playing casuals, but in my head I am playing serious -- like I have to win six straight

games to close it out. And I was able to actually use that experience, and that happened to me in

a weekly: I was down in a four-out-of-seven set and I was in loser’s to GC Yosh,i and he was up

three-zero, and I had to win eight games. So I turned on that mode and I won eight straight

games because I was already practicing with dealing with that situation in my head constantly in

casuals. And I was able to practice that, so it helps that’s when it actually paid off you know.

Those are the baby steps that you can do, you can take to practice your mental dexterity I'll say,

your mental toughness in general. Also when you are playing in tournaments and weeklies in

general, that also helps because you can always tell your brain, “This is a major” -- you can,

even though it does not feel like a major, but if you actually tell your brain to practice that, this a

6



feeling I am going to feel in a major if I am in top 8 right now: I need to close this; I need to win

this; I need to be in winner’s final. You know, stuff like that. And I always go through that. You

know.

gootecks: So now we have talked a little bit about developing your mental toughness, what aresome of the ways that you deal or cope with your losses? Like for example, I know it doesn't

happen very often but sometimes you will lose a big match (because everybody loses a big

match sometimes). What do you say to yourself afterwards, and how do you try to recover and

learn from that?

FC: It hurts me of course, because I take my training seriously, and also Complexity have been

taking care of me for the longest time. So I have a lot of pressure on my back to actually perform

for them, you know, but when I do lose I try to think about the overall picture. “Wait a minute, I lost

to …I lost, yeah, but if I could tally all the games that I played, how many did I actually lose? What

is my winning record overall? Yeah, I lost this tournament, but if I get top 5/top 3 in everytournament … “ Yeah, I am not consistently No. 1 or No. 2 or No. 3, but at least I am top 3, right,

or top 4 in the world. I am still there; I am still like one step to becoming the champion again or

becoming one of the best again.

So that always gives me the motivation after I lose. Of course I am sad, but what I try to do is

that I take that loss and patch it up -- how I lost -- so I would not lose to the same thing again. So

if ever I lose to something else someday, it’s something new, it’s something that is like a hole in

my system that I need to patch. It is something i need to work to become a better gamer overall

for the future.

I guess right now, It is not like the fighting games are done tomorrow -- you know what I mean -- I

know I will be playing fighting games for the next four years at least. So right now I think all my

losses is basically for me to fill up the void for my perfect form someday. Because I truly believe

that I haven’t really reached my peak or my prime yet. I haven’t even reached that because I

thought before that I have reached my peak one time in Marvel.

When Ultimate first came out they did an exhibition before the game first came out in NoCal, and

I was the best in Marvel Vanilla -- then I didn’t even make top 8 and I was very depressed. But I

told myself this is the first time, this is the first tournament -- the game is not even out yet so why

are you so mad? I have to tell myself that -- but then I am so competitive and I know that I am the

best in Nocal, so how could I have lost?

It took a lot from me from losing, and then the first Major was SCR, and I lost to Oliver and Noel

Brown. But the characters was Doctor Strange and Ghost Rider at that time, but I was so sad

and I couldn't take that loss. And I promised myself at that time that it will be the last time I was

not going to place in a tournament ever -- which I did -- and I got top 8, and I won Evo, and placed

multiple top 8 and top 3 all over. So I did it -- but since I patched those holes -- and now I am still

7



working on it, I am still working on becoming a better gamer overall. And that’s my goal overall

anyways.

gootecks: So what, have you ever felt like your skill have kind of plateaued? You know you talk

that you haven't reached your potential yet -- have you hit those skill plateaus along the way --and if so like what have you done to overcome that?

FC: I learn to break that, I watch my videos of all my losses during that time when I felt like I have

I have reached a certain plateau of stubbornness. Because I feel like plateaus is just you being

stubborn to learning new stuff, also your pride and your ego getting in your way, in your vision of

how to fix yourself, because that's the hardest thing for you to overcome -- is like to actually tell

yourself, like, “Bro, you are doing something wrong; stop doing that,” but then as an elite I was

like, “Wait a minute, I am so good! So what are you talking about Ryan -- I am so good! There is

nothing wrong, they just got lucky!” You know.

For you to understand and accept that you are actually messing up and you actually need to fix

something about your game -- I think that is the hardest part for a lot of gamers out there. And I

know that so as soon as I start overcoming that, the hardest part for me is to actually watch the

losses -- all the videos that I lost -- and for me to be able to watch that and how I lost, and I made

such a super decision, that it is not because they got lucky; I made a super decision in result to

them hitting me and me being in an uncomfortable situation which was super disadvantaged. In

result I lost -- I lost my momentum and I lost that match.

Me losing that match -- it affects my mental game -- me getting sent to loser’s, I didn't have the

same momentum, the same confidence that I had before that loss prior to that bad decision. Inresult I lost the tournament. So I start analyzing step-by-step how I lost and how I made that bad

decision. How I got hit, because it all started because I got hit -- I got sloppy, I got too confident, I

got too overconfident, you know. So if I fix that one thing, OK, why are you so confident? Why

you went in, you over-estimated his potential -- you got hit, you lost your confidence and got sent

to loser’s. Now you lost your momentum; now you lost the tournament.

So I try to stop. I try to minimize all these little mistakes and fix that. So when I watch that video of

me losing I get reminded how I lost that way -- I get to stop that, I get to patch that, patch those

holes so I can move forward to becoming a better gamer overall. That's how I usually do that.

And then slowly I can start seeing myself improving and I’m feeling -- and like, “Oh! Wait a

minute -- I got better because I am not getting hit by the same thing anymore and am not getting

hit by that dive-kick, crouching-short mix-ups anymore.”

(Unless it’s a 50/50 situation where you have to make a decision; yeah, that is validated because

if you are in a disadvantaged situation and you have to make a 50/50, and it’s either you get out

or you get hit. That is ok, that is validated because at that point there is no more good or bad

decision because you already messed up by being in that situation anyways. It's just about

8



making a good decision/guess at that point.)

I always look at it like this: If someone puts you in a 50/50 by making you block a jam session

assist, and they have the opportunity to go high or low, or left-right mix-ups on you, that’s your

fault for putting yourself in that position. That's the payment, OK. You don't look at it like, “Uh, I

made a bad decision by blocking left instead of blocking right.” No, you don't know that. That isthe price for putting yourself in that position; that is the price. You have to make a 50/50 decision

now.

If you can control not to be put in that 50/50 decision, then now you can dictate the pace of the

match and use the neutral game and not lose because of the 50/50s -- lose because you made

a bad decision. So that’s how I minimize my mistakes overall.

gootecks: Right, taking responsibility for putting yourself in that situation in the first place ... the

bad decision was not that you blocked incorrectly, the bad decision was that you were careless

or whatever to be put in that situation to begin with.

FC: Or being too overly aggressive ... “I decided to throw too many fireballs, so you jumped in,

but I blocked the jump in.” So I now have to guess, is he going to grab me or frame trap me?

“Guessed wrong -- I got grabbed, and after I got grabbed I got mixed up.” So did I make a bad

decision for guessing right, or I made a bad decision by throwing too many fireballs right?

gootecks: So the bad decision was, let’s say, two steps prior.

FC: Yes it is always a bad decision, but people need to understand that when they are making

mistakes. It is not because you guessed wrong, it's because you put yourself in that situation.

gootecks: That makes sense. All right, well, guys -- this about wraps up this section, so stay

tuned for the next section with more Filipino Champ.

9




gootecks: All right, guys, welcome back to part 2 of Fighting Game Mastery with Filipino

Champ! Right now we are going to be talking about the meta game.

Meta game is always … that is, like, very interesting. We are not going to be talking like youknow, “This move is plus-3; this move is plus-2.” I want to start off by talking about your take on

risk and reward, because ultimately when it comes to a fighting game you are going to have to

have a lot of decisions -- where you have to make a decision based on -- let’s say, you are

getting knocked down, or you have to make a decision based on them getting knocked down. So

can you talk a bit about the risk and reward calculations that go on in your head?

FC: All right. So let’s do something simple. Let's say I'm Dhalsim. I have 90 percent life, and I

zone this guy, which is Ryu, for like 30 seconds. And now he is down to 10 percent. But that one

time he finally gets a jump that I block.

So at that point that was the key decision: “OK, I zoned this guy and I have 90 percent, and he

has 10 health but he has full super and full ultra. OK, but I blocked the jump in, so he is plus-60.”

OK, at that point I am in a 50/50 situation, at that point -- so what am I supposed to do? Am I just

supposed to try and guess a grab, or crouch tech, late tech? Am I supposed to backdash? What

am I supposed to do?

The way I look at it is, like, wait a minute -- since I have 90 percent, he has full super; he has full

ultra; and there is still like 40 seconds on the clock. What I am gonna do is that I am going to take

the grab.

Why is that? In my head, risk reward. I will take the lesser of two evils. I rather take a grab --

which does 120 damage which will probably take like 12 percent of my health -- over an uppercut

full-combo-into-ultra, which will take 60 percent of my health. So I look at this at the base of

numbers: OK, so this takes 12 percent -- that means he can grab me five times, and during

those five times that he grabs me I can start mixing it up. I will have more time to gauge if he is

going to be more predictable.

So I will take the grab. And at that point I can start analyzing, “OK, he grabbed me; I will take it

again; he grabs me, I will take it again,” and that means I lost 36 percent [instead of] that potential

60 percent. Because at that point he is desperate. He has to go for it; he has to use his meter or

uppercut FADC, you know. So at that point I take the three grabs, at that point it's still a key

decision for me.

I am not saying I do this everytime, but at that point I will start to gauge it like, all right, I'm still

going to take the grab -- because at this point it is about me losing the game if I become too

hasty and make a bad decision. At that point I can lose the game, or I can still survive and make

another decision or extend the match longer because I have a life lead, you know. So basically I

10



try to base it off, like: how much life he has, and how much life I got, and how much meter he

got, and how much time it is.

So I will take more grabs than a full ultra potentially, so I try to extend the game longer. Because

the longer the game goes if I have life lead, the higher the chances of me winning.

gootecks: Right, because he has to, let’s say, make a move because time is running down, and

that’s when he is more likely to make a mistake

FC: And that's his only chance of winning -- is for him to land that super to ultra, or the uppercut

to ultra. So at that point, let’s say that I take two grabs, and at that time, 75 percent chance he is

going to uppercut; he is going to go for uppercut FADC, once he burns that super -- that

uppercut FADC I could backdash now -- you know what I'm talking about -- then I’m out. Then I'm

neutral game -- I win because I have the life lead. So I have always waited for that.

In Marvel it translates to this: I have three characters, five bars and X-factor, OK, and this guy'sDark Vergil. I'm in the ground and I'm not going to call my assist anymore -- I am going to fight

this guy one character at a time while he's using X-factor, using meter. Because what happens

is that his window of opportunity to win is if he gets a happy birthday. Once he gets a happy

birthday and he's X-factored, now the matchup is one-versus-one. I will make him work for every

single damage that he does -- I know it is just a matter of time before he hits me, because he is

X-factor and level-three Vergil -- but I will make sure to make him work for it.

As a matter of fact, a lot of characters like ________ or Wolverine -- if you are fighting a

level-three X-factor Wolverine, if I can't jump -- obviously I will try to jump and plink dash out of

those situations -- but if I can't I will take those grabs.

Because: If I get grabbed it will scale automatically and they have to use more resources to kill

me. Two: It takes more time for them to grab -- the actual animation. And three: Their X-factor is

running out. Instead of me trying to call an assist to push them away and I get happy birthday’d ...

Because at that time you just have to make a decision: Do you want to lose quick? Do you want

to risk your 70 percent chance of winning right now? Do you want to be that greedy, or do you

just want to wait it out?

Because at that time that 30 or 20 percent chance or window -- remember, he has a window to

win -- that's like 20 percent that window shrinks in time; if you wait it out you win by default. So

like if you survive that barrage that he has -- that small window, that 10-second, 12-second

window -- if you survive that, you basically should win if you play the matchup just by default. By

not making any stupid decisions -- you know, so playing it standard.

gootecks: Such as like knowing not to call your assist, and just try and stay out of trouble.

FC: Calling your assist right away, trying to like fight him while he is X-factored, or being too

11



greedy by like … as soon as he attacks you, you X-factor and try to attack him; then you just

burn your level-one X-factor. What if that hit or your grab didn't work out and he jumps -- that

means that you have burned your lead to tie with him, OK, and instead of you having that

advantage, you made it even for him; you made it winnable for him.

Why would you do that? Why would you help your opponent? A lot of people they don’t look at itlike that. A lot of players in general have this tunnel vision, they only see the moment -- what is

going on, and it's like, “Oh! I need to fight back! I need to fight back! He's attacking me! He's too

fast, I'm panicking!”

But I think that one thing everybody needs to learn is composure in general. “It's OK, keep your

cool, you have a big lead.” It doesn't show that much in life because he has two characters and

he burns a level-two X-factor at that time; and you have three characters so technically in paper

you only have one character lead, right? No -- you have a big lead because you still have

level-three X-factor and you still have meter coming to you -- because if he does hit you with

X-factor level two, you're building more meter for your level-three character later on.

The way I try to teach majority of the people is that when you look at Marvel, don't try to win just

that particular character matchup, win the battle -- win the whole game, don't just win the battle.

Look at the whole game in general -- how to win that one match. Don't look at it like, “I have to

beat this character first.” No -- don't look at it like, “What am I supposed to do to minimize that

road map? So I need to go from point A to point B. OK, now, what is the fastest way for me to

get to point B? Obviously now this guy is X-factored this time -- now I have to make a detour.

What is the quickest shortcut for me to get there, from point A to point B -- but now I've got to

make a detour?”

Don't make a bad decision to create a detour and [consequently] an accident on the way -- and

eventually you’re not getting to point B. So ... yeah.

gootecks: Makes sense. So when you are competing at a high level, often times you playing

against a lot of the same guys that you have played before. But sometimes a guy will come out

of nowhere and you are not sure what his skill level is, or style is. What's your decision-making

process, and how do you size up an unfamiliar player?

FC: This is good. All right this is how I do it, since I go to a lot of tournaments on a regular basis

all over the world. I generalize them, I put them in categories. I have a program in my head. Let's

say I fight someone like, say, in Street Fighter. I fight a focus-attack player who likes to focus all

the time to get in, who becomes a little bit desperate that when he gets into 60 percent he starts

focusing more.

So I generalize that. I try to develop a strategy against that focus type of player. So in round one I

get to determine: if this guy is a jumper, is this guy a focuser, a zoner, a waiting kind of person, is

this guy a good player... That kind of analyses.

12



The situation too -- like me, I develop different game plans for different kinds of styles. I can't

make game plans according to each player, but I can make game plans according to the type of

player you are. You know -- your play style in general. So if this guy is a complete heavy

rushdown player, now I need to turn on the defense mode more; I need to strengthen more on

my defense and hold my ground more, and not push myself back to the corner. If I'm getting intothe corner, before I get myself to the corner, I always think that I am already in the corner so I

could fight my way out, and try to push him into the corner, so I have more real space in the

back. “This guy is overly aggressive.” That’s got to be my game plan -- to not corner myself, and

deny him that benefit because he is going to benefit more if i am in the corner. So I try to

minimize whatever the benefit he gets from his playstyle.

So if I am fighting someone that is very focus heavy, I'm going to throw more light attacks. So if

he does focus my light attack, I can punish him with a medium attack for dashing forward. So if I

throw a light attack -- a long light attack like standing short -- if he focuses that, if he dashes

forward, I punish him with a back medium kick. I get to hit him -- you know -- and usually it getsadvanced, so in time I was able to develop more data. Like the focus-attack kind of player,

eventually after you punish him a couple of times he becomes a jumper.

So my brain automatically tells me that you can start looking into these types of things. His focus

attack will branch out into two things: It's either he is going to be more of a jumper; or more of an

EX-type of player -- is he going to use more EX meter to get in right now -- because he is

frustrated right now, his bread and butter strategy does not work out. He has to resort to this at

least, or else in neutral he will lose. So sometimes it will look like, “Oh my God, Champ’s

reaction is ridiculous; I can't believe he anti-aired him like that.” But no, I was already prepared

that he is going to transition into that type of play style.

So a lot of people give me credit that my reaction is ridiculous, but no -- I am looking out for more

stuff because I have been in that situation so many times. Like someone jumps in at me, I hit him

with a back-roundhouse when they land. It’s either they do two things: It’s either they do EX rush,

or they jump again, so I look out and wait. If they EX rush, I grab them again. If they jump again, I

just back-roundhouse again. If they focus, I standing light and back-medium kick. And now I shut

down three of their options. The only way they can do [anything] is to back up again, which, they

can build meter right?

So I put them like in small little scenes -- it’s like a movie: scene one, scene two, scene three.

This is what is about to happen: if he does this then I do this. So I try to play that out.

The thing is, when you fight a top player they could change their style so quick, and you have to

be on top of your game at all times. Because once I mess up and make like a bad read, and I

think he is about to turn on his rush mode and then he starts to become more patient and

becoming more of a footsie, space-control kind of player … but since I did a different strategy, I

start looking into more of focus and jumps, and I start whiffing lights and he starts to

13



whiff-punishing me -- that’s the time i start losing. Because I'm starting to look into the wrong

things instead of like paying attention into what he is doing.

Sometimes I have to check myself and stop trying to assume so much. Try to pay attention into

what he is really doing; try to make a read, stop trying to use the program. Sometimes use your

intuition -- start to feel it out. That's what I usually do.

gootecks: So what about the flip side? What happens when you find yourself making mistakes?

FC: When I find myself making mistakes, it’s, A: Is that this guy is putting me into a lot of bad

situations? What I mean by that is that he constantly puts me in situations where I have to make

decisions that are not in my favor.

Like Ryu -- he will start throwing fireballs where I can't physically react with standing fierce. He

will walk to my standing-short range and throw fireball -- at that range I can't really fierce; I can't

reaction Yoga Tower because I can get hit by the counter hit. So what happens to me is either that I slide -- but there is a risk of me being so close to him that he might do his on crouching

strong or low-forward range -- then I might have to eat more mixup.

So what happens since he constantly put me in those situations, I intend to backdash myself and

eventually getting myself in the corner, in result to me being at a very disadvantaged situation.

And I start losing more health and I start panicking and making more bad decision -- just

because of me not trying to control the footsie game, not trying to walk forward.

Iif someone starts to play the spacing game I look at it like this: Street Fighter has three rules,

just like Rock-Paper-Scissors. Whiff punishing and footsies loses to walking forward. The flipside to it is that the other guy is trying to stick out normals, because you are walking forward the

counter is walking back and wiff punishing them too. So it’s a constant chain reaction -- whoever

gives up that walk-back or forward, it’s a battle of constant space. Like Dhalsim in general --

even if he has like 100 percent health -- but if I am in the corner I am losing.

So -- and also, when I start making bad decisions and it’s because I am struggling to read this

person -- what type of play style he has, or what type of player he is. “Obviously this guy is an

up-and-comer; he is not an established top player yet, so I don't have the data to what kind of

player he is” -- that's when I am struggling what kind of player he is. Like when I first played Marq

Teddy, I never heard who he is ever, but since I played him two out of three I never really had a

data on him: what type of a Guy player he is … I didn't know that he was. I have data for an

aggressive player but I didn't know he was an EX aggressive player like that, and nonstop

pelican, you know. He is not bad; he is a very good player -- had [no] data for that, which resulted

[for me to go] back to the drawing board. “I need to start patching my holes again -- that's like a

new play style I am not familiar with.” Also I am not familiar to the Guy matchup on that level that

he knows how to fight me -- that means I have a bunch of homework to work on.

14



So when I lose, it is something that, like, the matchup is not so bad obviously -- I know when I

lose because of something I am not very familiar with and something that I can definitely work

on.

So I go back to the tapes and watch them maybe like 12 times to realize those little steps: before

I was hit; how I got hit; why I was there; how did I get hit there; why am I too close; how come ididn't expect him to EX run, how come I wasn't looking for that -- like he has 40 percent [and] I

have 90 percent and he was full screen, how come I wasn't expecting a EX run -- why did I throw

a fireball there; why did I throw a fierce -- the risk/reward for me throwing a fierce is just for block

damage, but the reward for him is that he gets a knockdown in result to my death -- why did i

throw a fireball, why didn't I just walk forward when he was full screen? Why did I go greed for a

that 12-damage chip block or fierce block -- there is no damage; why did I do that?

Those that are things I talk to myself why did I do that. “That’s a bad call, Ryan, why did you do

that?” So those are the risk/rewards that I try to pay attention to, and it’s not easy. But if you start

looking at your matches not just by the results -- like [not just], “I lost because this guy is better than me,” but more like, “I got hit because I doing this.”

So if you can prevent yourself from getting hit in the overall picture, you start losing less and start

winning more. Those are, like, the beginning. That's like a virus -- if you prevent them from

happening you won't die and you don't get sick -- so that's what I try to do. I try to minimize those

little baby situations, and if I constantly control that, it means I lose less and win more.

gootecks: Wow, OK. I was going to ask you about the process of analyzing a match but I think

you pretty much covered that.

OK, so then what is the actual process of filling the gaps in your game? Y'know you talk about

filling the holes when you take a loss -- when somebody got you with your back against the wall

-- what is the process of fixing these holes?

FC: It’s like this: So I watched the tape again and I look at it like this, OK, this guy jumped in at

this range. At the ... I will say the standing roundhouse and in between the back roundhouse and

standing roundhouse range -- at that point there is small gap there. That if you jump, my back

roundhouse will whiff; and if I do a standing righthouse, it will be too slow that you will beat it out

with a jump in normal OK.

So its like, OK, how do I fix that? How do I prevent him from jumping in that range? So now I have

to train myself to do an air-to-air attack. I had to start doing air-to-air attacks, which is a lot harder

than a normal ground air-to-air attack, because 1: You have to jump and press a button earlier,

right, on the way up. Which the jumping frames in Street Fighter in general … pre-jump frames

is four frames on the way up, is from six to 10 frames ... plus pressing the actual normal is from

six to nine frames, depending on the normal that you press. So it’s a lot of frames instead of the

normal six-frames roundhouse or a standing roundhouse that is 13 frame. So there is a lot more

15



time. So that means you have to look into it, you have to be prepared for it because a lot of

people don’t know that human reaction is between 19 to 22 frames.

gootecks: So out of 60 frames-per-second game, you are talking one-third of a second.

FC: Yes. A lot of people I know, right ... so I have seen people react on this. Let me give you anexample. If human reaction was less than that, let me tell you there will be no such thing as

fireball game. That means every single person that throws a fireball, everybody could jump into a

fireball. For you to jump in on fireball, that is a commitment. You don't react and jump and punish

someone throwing a fireball, because a fireball is 14 frames, plus the travel time. You can't

actually react.

That is why people get hit by the standing short of Ryu -- because it looks like a fireball; they are

reacting to something Ryu is doing, but they are not actually reacting to the physical animation of

a fireball.

There's a lot of misconception out there, you know, on, “[My] reaction was off, that’s why he was

uppercutting me while I was jumping over his fireball.” No, dude, you cant do that. I was like, “You

are just guessing; stop assuming that. Not everybody has those reads that Mike Ross does, you

know.” Like you know what I mean.

So thats how I usually prepare for my stuff. I try to fix those holes, try to be more aware of the

stuff -- like if i'm at that particular range, that option of him jumping could beat my back

roundhouse and standing roundhouse, then I start looking for a jump strong or a slide in general.

If I am too late -- you know, if I ever walk in that particular range, that sweet spot if you may say

that -- both of my two anti-air option would not work, I would start looking at that. If he walks backthat means the green light will turn in my head -- like, if he jumps here at this point you have this

option. 1: Throw another fireball because he will land into the fireball; 2: To throw standing

roundhouse; or 3: Walk forward a little bit and back roundhouse -- you know.

If he walks forward into that sweet spot, you have two options. 1: To keep it safe, just backdash

and make him earn that another space; or 2: Contest that with a jump strong or air-to-air. If he

walks in really closer he's dead, because you have two dominant options: You have back

roundhouse, or you got EX up flame y'know.

So usually, you might have an off-day that your judgement of space is not on point, so you tend

to misjudge where he jumped at. All those little steps -- y'know, that's why people get hit, that’s

where the human factor kicks in. “Oh, I made a mistake,” “Oh, I made a bad call,” which

happens all the time in fighting games.

gootecks: That makes sense. So how do you deal with players that you may consider gimmicky

or players that go nuts?

16



FC: Players that go nuts in general are very hard to beat in the first game -- very hard because

they will basically never stop. Thats why [if] they go nuts it's very hard to beat in the first game.

But if they are not a top player … like Eduardo, like he is very good at going nuts; he actually

made a science around it and being so aggressive -- their going-nuts file to download is not that

big. They only have one or two strategies how to get in.

At that point my goal is one, I try to press less buttons, because if I press buttons fighting

someone who goes nuts [it] means I am helping them to open me up; I am basically trying to

hook them up, “Yo, this is your playstyle? I am going to give you an antidote beating me faster -- I

am going to press those buttons with you, let’s make this like a head-on collision! OK, let’s do

that, OK!”

But I try to focus on pressing less buttons -- but focusing on not blocking, because if I block what

happens is that he gets to puts me in more 50/50, and that’s to his advantage because he goes

nuts. And when he goes nuts he might go uppercut, uppercut, uppercut up close. So I focus onnot blocking and not pressing buttons, but focus more on evading which comes as a different

branch of defense -- being able to evade -- that is, being able to avoid those situations that you

have to block. That is where movement and evading skills come in. So when I fight someone that

goes nuts I move more, I run away more -- literally running away, evading more; constant

movement.

So I practice my movement in general: my plink dashing; my back dashing with Magneto; if I was

Dhalsim my teleporting; my slides under his jump-ins. All applies to whatever the game has to

offer for you to evade [and] not actually block or being in that 50/50 situation. I try to switch --

basically put all my power into evading and not pressing buttons.

So people go, “Hey, Champ, how do you hit him when you are moving away and being evasive

and not just pressing buttons?” This is what happens: When they are constantly coming at you

and you are evading, you are basically creating opportunities for them to be more open for you to

attack safely -- by you being evasive they start whiffing more; by them whiffing more because

you are not blocking, they start whiffing more; by them whiffing more their normals heavily in

recovery just by whiffing.

If you fail to whiff punish, that's OK because they can't press any buttons or come at you

because they just whiffed, right. If they are stuck in recovery, they are stuck on the ground and

that’s your turn.

I call that, "That’s your turn to play." That's your turn to call your assist; that’s your turn to jump in

at him and call your assist and put him in a 50/50 scenario. If you put them in a 50/50, if they

manage to block that go back to your game plan: Get back to evasive; earn that 50/50; don't

force it, earn it again; run away; make him whiff.

17



If he whiffs again, put him in another 50/50 situation. Make him pay for that 50/50, and eventually

he is not going to guess right all the time. And when you hit him then you kill him. You make him

pay for that. Thats how you manage people that goes nuts. y'know.

gootecks: Nice, OK. So I guess the last question of the session is going to be: What is your

definition of “optimal”, or “efficiency”?

FC: “Optimal” to me is being able to make the best decision at that current time. Like I

mentioned, let’s say someone whiffed. You can translate this to max damage obviously -- or max

damage combos in general. So if someone whiffs a DP then you go for the optimal max damage

uppercut, FADC, super -- you know.

To me, optimal is making someone pay or making the best decision for that particular time.

Thats when risk and reward kicks in as we mentioned earlier.

Optimal is like, let’s say for instance: Let me give you a predicament that a lot of Marvel playerslistening to this are very familiar with this scenario. Magneto is full screen and Dormammu is full

screen. I'm Dormammu. If Magneto throws a full-screen disruptor, Dormammu can't punish him

with a teleport or full combo, right?

What I can punish is, I can super on reaction on block. What if I don't have any super -- I can't

really hit him at all right? You can punish him with a situation, if you can't punish with real

damage or make him pay with something that can benefit you in the course of the match or that

in result will put him in big disadvantage.

I punish that with a charge -- one charge instead. If I block a disruptor (which is a fireball whichkind of has a lot of recovery), I punish that with a charge. He didn't get hit, but I am gaining. By

you gaining something you are actually winning slowly.

You don't necessarily have to win right now, but by getting small advantage here and there that

you can take -- that in result later on in the course of the match you are just increasing your

chances of winning. If you guys both play solid straight you win by default; if you guys just play

straight-up solid you will win, because you had an advantage early on -- you know.

gootecks: Because let’s say you blocked the disruptor and you do red power up, and he throws

it again -- two red powerups -- and he throws it again -- three.

FC: Now there is a meta.

gootecks: Now you can just level-three explosion into X-factor into super and then ...

FC: You're dead.

18



gootecks: Right.

FC: So basically like, he does disruptor, I do one at that point -- there is a meta already, I already

have a data for that. If I charge one, this guy is about to go because he doesn't want me to have

one. So I am already prepared for that.

So now I have two options: If he is full screen I can charge one more, or I can play it safe and put

a carpet and teleport to the other side, OK, and that’s the mix-up. you know. I can put a carpet

and then teleport to the other side, or two charges. And I know he is about to go at me, so I call

my assist and teleport to the other side. At that point I have a big advantage already. Once I get

three charges I get to control the pace of the match. If you guys both play straight up solid, you

win.

A lot of optimal scenarios for me is, like ... let’s say on the incoming mix-up I could go for the

usual cross-up mix-up, right, which is a very good 50/50. I could definitely optimize that 50/50

scenario by adding layers into that earned mix-up that I basically got. So I would go for a 50/50cross-up -- during that cross-up I will try to call my assist at that time.

So if I go for a 50/50 cross-up, if they guess right and block it they would have to block my assist.

Then as soon as they block my assist there is another 50/50 scenario for me that i could take.

So I can go for a high/low.

So that means that I optimize that opportunity that was given for me, that I basically earned. So

instead of me getting one 50/50 chance I was able to get two 50/50 chance that he has to guess,

that is optimizing different situations like if you are fighting someone like spencer, a lot of people

like when he does bionic arm, no I mean if they do overhead a lot of people just try to push blockand running away or they do overhead they push block then X-factor then grabbing him, so what I

try to do is to pay attention to the particular overhead instead of spending resources or running

away and this is negative, I try to grab him you know it is grabbable but it is one frame grab.

gootecks: before it comes out

FC: If you block the overhead it is actually not safe, but a lot of people they tend to push block,

which what happens is you put yourself in more blockstun but since you pushed him away you

can definitely run away, you can actually punish him by you running away but I try to punish him

with some real damage.

Also lets say someone in marvel whiffed a super, whiffed a super in the air, ok so he like is in

the air, lets say for instance , who has a super in the air? lets say Dr Strange was in super jump

height and he supered and you block it during the ground ok so now you have an opportunity to

punish him, so you have a punish, a lot of people will just jump in and grab him ok, which is a

pretty good punish anyways since you get a full combo, but the problem is if you grab him the

damage scale to the maximum scale right away, instead of earning a full combo hit confirm from

19



the super jump height bringing them down and straight into the actual real combo, you optimize

that particular scenario again so now when the opportunity happens you can actually kill them

instead of using resources like meter, X-Factor or TAC, you don't have to do that anymore, you

could just use your full optimal combo extensions to your assist and now save your meter that

can help you win the match later on, or you save your x-factor or you don't have to risk a TAC

y'know.

gootecks: so instead of spending the meter after you get the air throw, you instead building

meter because you took the time to learn the actual punish not like the easy way out.

FC: yeah, its actually like being optimal overall in your game is very important, because like there

is alot of combos in marvel like one touch kills but alot of people what they do you have to use

two bars, three bars , they have to use X-Factor and TAC's right, but like Dormamu in general

alot of people like to do launch B,B,C,S extension then super which takes like 70% of their life bar

but it only builds you ninety percent of the meter ok that you used so basically not meter positive

and you only did seven hundred which will not even kill the important characters y'know you cankill if you TAC or use an X-factor or use another bar but if you actually learn the optimal combo

when you got that free hit which is wall bounce into jump loop into extension you can actually kill

like ninety percent of the cast with using one bar but building two bars, yeah thats true it is the

same result you killed that character and you won that battle but during the battle you were

working that match you were working that advantage , you are at an advantage because you

killed a character so you are up one character, but your lead wasn't that big compared to you

killing that character and building a meter instead of like you kill a character but you lost a bar you

understand, so those stuff are very important because they all add up later on because when

opportunity presents when you are down to the final character and you actually catch them and

you don't have any meter but one bar but if you have actually optimized your combo earlier tobuild off with that level three later when you actually hit him but since you didnt optimize your

combo earlier, now you have to go for a reset, now you have to hit him again. so its like a chain

reaction, optimizing your combo is number one, optimizing your movement, optimizing your

punishes, your situations like what you could do if I am in the corner what I can do is I could

super jump and then fly then I can wave dash out of the corner but I can get chased down

because wavedashing is slow but I can optimize that by learning how to plink dash, it is very hard

for a lot of people to learn plink dashing but that's the best way for you to do it thats optimize your

dashing by you optimizing your escape route in the corner that help your other game which is

evading, your defence, your being able to avoid situations. by optimizing your plink dashing you

also got better against those going nuts people because you improved one aspect of your game,

its a chain reaction to basically fighting certain kinds of matchup

gootecks: so taking the time to optimize your game will kind of help you stack your tiny

advantages and creating an insurmountable obstacle that they aren’t able to overcome in the

course of the match?

FC: it starts patching those holes that you have slowly but you wont even notice it, until one time,

20



oh wow I'm not getting hit by that anymore I actually learnt this one but you were actually thinking

about it at the time when you learned it, also optimising your plink dashing there's two types of

plink dashing, sometimes some people they plink like they plink light punch into medium plus H

ok but that's the wrong way to do it, I feel like everybody should plink with H plus L and M

because if you are plinking like that its like you are pianoing or you are pianoing in reverse as you

start to piano with H M L instead of L M H, it has to be H M L. The pianoing has to start that wayfor one reason, if you are plink dashing using that method and someone jumps at you to hit you,

you grab them automatically option select and if they try to grab you, you tech.

So you optimize that scenario if ever they try to mess with you while you are trying to run away,

you punish them or that's also defense because you tech but if you are just try to plink the other

way if they try to grab you and you go for it you get hit,so that's another one way of you getting hit,

so those little scenarios also adds up if you could avoid getting grabbed in marvel thats at least a

couple of games out of ten games that you just saved from losing.

gootecks: Alright, well guys that wraps up part two of fighting game mastery with Filipino

Champ, stay tuned and we are going into the nitty gritty of Marvel.


Genesis: Hello what is up guys, I am back with more fighting game philosophies with fillipino

champ, this is part three of our section and now we are going to be getting more into the nitty

gritty of things and the more specific stuff this section being specifically on marvel.

So obviously like you said earlier, you specifically focused on Marvel the most out of all the

games you do right now one of the best in the world, EVO 2012 champion. How do you feelabout the overall balance of marvel as a whole? I mean what drew you to the various series in

the first place?

FC: The overall balance of marvel, I honestly think that Marvel is still on its infancy stages, like

lets say I try to compare it to super street fighter because it is about the same amount of time

that it has, overall marvel 3 series has been out for three years because it is the same thing

when super came out was around the three year era, at that time no one knew that Fei Long was

that good at that time, no one knew that Fei Long was that good until Mago showed so there was

still a lot of stuff that we haven't discovered yet, every single day there was like new glitches, new

tactics are being discovered in Marvel so I feel like Marvel overall balance is still evolving, yeah

there are the obvious top tier characters like Zero, Morrigan, Vergil, like Magneto I feel like is a

very good character but I feel like the overall balance of Marvel right is, there's top tiers but the

game is still evolving like there is alot of stuff to learn,there's alot of like I wish that more more

players will actually start to like exploring more because there is so much stuff in the game that

we haven't even tapped yet, and there is a lot of tech out there that we haven't even optimized to

its fullest potential. So if we actually start optimizing those little situations and you can start

seeing like oh wait a minute, oh wow this character is actually very good with this team but we

21



just haven't really optimized that yet.

I actually like how Morrigan is very dominant because of Chris G, Chris is only playing Morrigan

at forty percent, he is not even using like the other sixty percent stuff that Morrigan has and

imagine like, I know Chris G is not very optimal when it comes to playing Morrigan or any of his

characters but he is a very good player overall, but imagine if someone that is very optimal playsthat it will be so scary you know.

Genesis: Yeah, so how do you feel about that now, I'm just going to touch on the topic of that,

that right now you are saying that the balance of the game and the meta of the game I feel have

kinda shifted more towards zoning becoming extremely powerful whereas rushdown is powerful

but only in certain burst where as you said earlier, if you can get away and you can be evasive

the entire game with characters like, Dormammu, Morrigan and Magneto with all that missiles

backing them that's almost a bit more dominant than the rushdown style is now.

FC: Absolutely because, this is the thing, only Justin Wong actually I will consider like playing arushdown team because he has Wolverine but then if I look at his team overall I think it is kind of

very balanced, I think that's the best way to go is to create a balanced team like a front heavy

team like a rushdown and a zoning character backing you up and a support character , I feel like

that's very good.

But then I think zoning in particular are very strong is because of one reason, there's alot of new

players that plays, actually new fighting game players playing marvel, first sign of a new player is

they don't have discipline, so when you don't have discipline yet, because you are getting spoiled

with X-factors and happy birthdays you are getting those baby wins, those accidental wins or

those quick wins those Marvel wins you may say and you start think like oh that is the best wayfor me to do it, I'm winning and that's probably the right strategy, I don't have to control it I just

have to press buttons, its probably good, which is a bad way to learn the game in general but,

the reason why zoning is so dominant right now . I am not saying that zoning is too strong but I

feel like it is very strong.

The reason why it is very dominant is because the zoning characters, the top tier zoning

characters, they can actually control their nuts strategy by default, So it forces the newer players

to think outside the box which in result for them to start losing it looks like the zoning in particular

are more dominant but I think it is very balanced overall, if both parties are both playing at the

highest level I feel like it is very balanced because I spoke to Flocker actually at ECT and I was

talking to him and I said what are you going to do you are going to fight Chris G in grand finals

now, I don't know in winners finals and he said, you know what, I have been trying to play keep

away with him with Zero, but I always lose because I came to the conclusion like Morrigan zoning

is better than Zero even though I have clones, super and buster but this time I am going to try

and rush him down, I say oh really? you are not going to save it for EVO, like you told me to? he

said, No I'm going to beat him, and he told me that I'm going to rush him down and he rushed

him down and he beat Chris at winners and Grand finals.

22



So that just shows that they're both opposites, both of them are at the top of their game until right

now , Flocker playing rushdown game and Chris G playing the keep away game and Flocker

beat him and that shows that it could go either way. So its just a matter of what type of

rushdown, You got to earn your rushdown, you can't force your way into that rushdown or force

your will

Genesis: Yeah once you actually get it you either burst and go with it, but like you said if you

don't get it you need to back up rethink your plan, don't keep going and get hit out of something

stupid.

FC: Yeah play neutral, play neutral earn your mix-up as a rushdown, put him in a situations that

he has to make a decision "am I gonna block this or am I gonna jump?" or try to run away. Put

him constantly in those situations, I'm saying that. I know it is not easy because playing against

Morrigan is very frustrating, I know it is not easy but I am saying if someone plays it like that with

science it makes it like evenish at least or maybe at 5.5 , at best 6-4 in zoning favor

Genesis: so you feel that a higher level of play zoning isn't really that powerful, little things that

you see here and there, signs of a new player, they come in and think, he's is running away with

missiles, I'm frustrated I can't get in I don't want to do this whereas at a higher level it's more of

ok I need to avoid the missiles I need to not get put in that situations, stay in the air no matter

what they may be, you feel at a higher level than that zoning isn't so effective maybe like 6-4 at

most?

FC: ehm, its 6-4 at most

Genesis: Alright

FC: I don't really call zoning I feel like controlling.

Genesis: Yeah controlling that's a good way to put it.

FC: At the entire history of the Marvel 3 series and the most dominant players are like Justin

Wong, myself, Chris and Flocker, yeah those four, they are undeniably the most dominant for the

whole lifespan of the game , PR Balrog, you can put him there, there's five people there I guess.

But like four out of those five people, they are mostly defence oriented even Flocker, if you

actually watch his Zero, his Zero is not a nuts Zero he's actually a zoning make you block an

arrow and then a 50-50 until he puts you in that situation where you have to guess that time that

the lightning loops happen and he earned that time that he hits you and as a result he lightning

loop you, that's when the tier happens because he actually has the lightning loop.

But like Justin Wong, very controlling with Storm, he controls the space with wolverine, Chris G

is zoning, I'm mostly a controlling zoning type. So if you notice that the majority of the top players

actually like to control because Marvel in general by nature is a random game with happy

birthdays and X-Factor, by you controlling that you are minimising the random factor, so by you

23



minimising the random factor that creates consistency in your gameplay and shows in results

Genesis: So by that you said you like to control, that a lot of the top players like to control so

those situations don't go awry so you don't get put in bad situations. What ties to that are who

are you favorite and least favorite characters that make you feel like you are losing control, top

five or just characters that you don't like fighting against.

FC: Alright, so let me see, wolverine is very difficult

Genesis: Yeah thats like everyone first character on the list of characters they hate

FC: Yeah wolverine is very difficult to control, but it is manageable but compared to the whole

cast he is very difficult to control. Ehm Zero, you can definitely control him but the problem is

when you fight a zero, imagine if Zero cannot kill you in one touch ok and he has to DHC to kill

you, but he is still in that character his mix-up incoming is not as strong, the meta fighting Zero

will be a little bit more easier, because the fact that when you are fighting Zero the meta is that Icannot let him touch me so I am playing so careful and so run away, because if I make one

mistake I can lose my whole team. That is why people play differently when they are fighting

Zero, they are afraid they play so timid so careful and so cautious and in result that creates more

opportunities for the Zero players in general. That's why I feel like Zero is manageable, the only

thing that is holding us back is because of that mind game that if he touches us I can lose the

game but wolverine is definitely hard to control because of his dive speed, his low profile

crouching shorts, he's able of instant overhead you with jump light and frame advantage of the

dive kick.

I think number two for me would be Nova, because Nova in general is very hard to zone because

of the box H option select is like a frame trap, a grab, a hit, a cross-up like anything you canpossibly think of. Also he has a super that I call the boop box super where the human rocket

punch super is invincible to projectiles and control it, he can cross him up, he can go in and go

back and come back at you, so that super stops all the actual controlling and zoning you got for

that span of the super.

So I feel that Nova and Wolverine are the two hardest characters to control, for me at least but I

think that for the overall game I think Vergil is number three.

Genesis: Yeah I definitely think that Vergil is kind a problem and we have already seen your

tutorial and if you guys haven't seen it you can go check it out in his channel for controlling Vergil

in a sense, however specifically do you think you will go for through controlling Wolverine and

Nova, what are the thought processes that you think of with your team?

FC: Two of my worst matchups I think of at EVO was Wolverine and Nova at that time, so after

EVO I said to myself . I knew I was good at fighting zero I just knew I made a bad decision and

so I lost to Cloud , That was fine, I lost, I was disappointed that I lost. I didn't lose because I

wasn't good at fighting Zero, I lost because I made a bad call and I put myself in bad situations, I

was too confident also. I knew that I was good fighting Zero because I was able to beat Flocker in

24



two first of fives and actually the total score was ten three so I knew I was good fighting Zeros but

I wasn't confident fighting Wolverine so when I came home after EVO usually everyone wants to

rest but me I was like lets go back to the drawing board, I'm a train already, so I trained

specifically let try to make it lighter,this time my training I'm going to focus on one character at a

time so I focus on one level of my bad matchup which is wolverine so I was building up a

strategy.So I came up with, me I was playing Magneto I came up with a strategy to

1. Stay mostly on the ground if I have to, if he is in that range where he can berserker slash me

and I block an assist, I try not to jump or run away at that particular time because what happens

is that that creates opportunities for him to grab me or hit me with lights while I'm jumping so I

crouch more and not push block that berserker slash because a lot of people make that mistake,

they push block the berserker slash, two scenarios, if they berserker slash you push block it and

they dont super you are in a disadvantage, because any push block that you do is an additional

twenty frames of advantage to your opponent, but you pushed him away but you are not at

advantage you are basically at minus twenty at that point by your push blocking. You pushblockan unsafe move that you can punish with a grab or a crouching light, lets say he does berserker

slash and you push block and he cancels into berserker charge for a speed up, now you have to

eat a 50/50 mix-up, no actually thirty three percent, he can go jump light or crouching short, if

you try to jump or block the overhead or he can grab you or he can go berserker slash again to

the other side, so by you push blocking him you gave him four opportunities to open you up so I

learned that and I put it in my game so do not push block that .

Also I learned new ways to throw magnetic blasts with my new tiger knee super jump forward

magnetic blast so Magneto will super jump with magnetic blast with him and I throw another

magnetic blast the other way so what happens is that when Magneto lands but the first magneticblast that I throw is right behind me so I throw one magnetic blast in front of so whatever side

that he likes to do if you super jump they dash under you and make you block a 50/50 left or right,

if he does that he gets hit by the other magnetic blast that I threw first since I tiger kneed and

super jumped the first one, the other one will protect me in the back and the second one will

protect me in the front so I learned those two things to defend myself in those situations so that

is the key stuff that I tried which it worked because I was able to win Lan Hammer, I beat PR Rog

and I was beating him consistently lately, I was beating his Wolverine you know it obviously

worked so now I think after TFC i'm going to start working on Nova, I'm start going to training

mode learning specifics like actually learning matchups like street fighter you know learn the

specific baby stuff like you know but actually those little things actually wins matches, those little

things wins the matches gives you little advantages benefits you later on.

Genesis: Yeah like you said earlier those little things in the match, even showing awareness that

I know about that is something that can instill fear into the other person and make them think

entirely different like oh he does know how to counter that so I got to be more careful therefore

they might not play as well. What is your strategy to feel a little bit more with Dormammu, like

Dormammu i think he has an easier time than wolverine because he can keep him out and if he

25



gets in

FC: I actually think that wolverine beats Dormammu, because if you start with Dorm then he

loses. The way that marvel works during the ready fight! the guy can be next to you right away

and basically Dormammu has no chance to set up his traps and carpets, missilies and pillars in

general so if Dormammu is second Wolverine is usually point they never really get to fight eachother what happens is that if my point character hits you then I call in DHC Dormammu and kill

your point and if I don't necessary hit you I can super and then DHC Dormammu and come in

instantly in control of the match so it's kind of a very different match but fullscreen obviously

dormammu beats everybody in the game but up close he is very weak because of the fact that

Dormammu has a tough time controlling, not controlling but holding his ground because of the

fact he doesn't have a plink dash he doesn't have a wave jump so he has to jump you losing

those steps you want to take forward a little bit to put you in those advantageous situation so you

end up jumping and swiping.

That is one of his biggest faults because he doesn't have an actual dash and in street fighter holding your ground is very important that applies to all game being able to hold your ground and

say hey this is me, you have to respect my ground this is my spot I'm going to zone you right

now you are going to earn every single step before you get to me, but since dorm doesn't have a

fast ground dash what happens is that he ends up super jumping because that is the next

fastest thing that he can do and by him super jumping that creates situations for opponents to

dash to the other side because when you super jump you can't throw your carpets, your pillars,

your dark holes you can only charge and teleport, if you teleport you are still in the air and he can

still make you pay and every time you are still in the air , a lot of people don't know this, the longer

you are in the air the longer you are disadvantaged the guy that is on the ground will always have

an assist advantage because they get to call their assist first or they get to punish before your assist comes out because you cannot protect them because you are in the air so they always

have an assist advantage so by you having an assist advantage so if you can block an assist

you can't push block the assist now you are in a 50/50 scenario again where you have to guess

and you guess wrong you lose your character. so thats one of the flaws, one of the problems

actually.

Genesis: so you feel like disadvantage is the fact there is so much guessing its almost as if the

risk reward is kinda skewed in street fighter the risk reward is kind of balanced whereas in this

game its like the reward is so high.

FC: Risk reward is high but you can make them pay by stalling it, lets say you have a risk reward

and you know that they are going to hit you eventually you can stall that, you can make them

work for that, you can make them combo you a little bit longer, now you can use your advantage

later on because you can X-Factor, you have meter, thats how I look at it, thats how I punish

those scenarios at least.

Genesis: Sometimes you can punish scenarios maybe by you getting hit, not forcefully getting

26



hit but thinking long term like I'm up on life the timer is running out he's not going to kill me and

with time still so technically I'm still winning.

FC: I got meter and X-Factor and he has used his resources and X-Factor and I got four bars

and i have Dorm Doom, I got a pixel dorm and I have doom and this guy has x-factor, he has

zero bar and he's got wolverine ok. i will just raw tag my Doom, it looks so crubby right, but lookif I have to make a decision and I'm cornered right and if I'm getting cornered he has the chance

of opening up my dorm who is basically my X-Factor character of my team so I just raw tag my

Doom. If i raw tag my doom there is a chance that my Doom will hit him with tag that means that

my Dorm would heal then I can run away with doom then I can super then DHC into ball and

x-factor superchip for the win that's one scenario.

Second scenario if I raw tag my doom and he blocks it or makes it wiff he combos my doom this

is what's going to happen, since he is comboing my doom he doesn't have meter so he can't kill

my Doom anyways, lets say he like tries to build meter off my Doom, that means he combos my

doom he takes forty percent but he can't kill me so what happens is that he has to go for another reset, I'm pretty sure I can escape since there's a lot of resets are not as strong while

airborne and most likely will go for a grab reset in the air or try to go for a tech whatever, so I

super in the air if that reset fails I super and DHC to Dorm and I still win.

The third scenario will be this, they can combo and optimally what they could do is to snap in

Dorm and dorm may have healed like five percent and they have to take time to optimize so now

I come in and x-factor to help me block correctly and if he is in a disadvantaged position I can

grab him and kill him and then to the same strategy, balls missiles then chip him out and I win,

so when i did raw tag the risk reward was so high for me, it was a risk but the reward was so

high I can, so are the stuff that is not scrubby but very calculated at that time. a lot of people lookat it oh its a raw tag and its so scrubby but its not but there are some scrubby tags obviously but

that one i mentioned for that particular scenario is a very good tag.

Genesis: and i think that the core of this game is to knowing when to take risk and know when to

take risk, and as you said always make two smart decisions and one dumb one to always keep

people on their toes stuff like that. So now we kind of talked about the styles the main styles of

marvel is kinda like towards zoning and you think it is still in the part of its infancy so in about

three to five years do you think the same styles are still going to be dominant?

FC: absolutely not

Genesis: why not?

FC: what do you mean styles as far as duos of a team

Genesis: oh yeah if you want to go to specific shells like Mori Doom, Dorm Doom

27



FC: So like Mori Doom, Dorm Doom, Mag missiles assist, Viper Strider will be up there because

viper is one of the characters that constantly evolves and doesn't have a cap, the zero teams will

always be dominant. All those duos that we just mentioned, the common ones they are still going

to be dominant but there will still be more duos, you will see more Nova spencers you will see

more of like, I always think that viewtiful joe is one of the underrated characters he is obviously

have more of the complete high skill, high cap character that has a lot of potential but not fullytapped yet, I know that a rocket racoon in a team is very good but he is not fully tapped yet, not

alot of the current top players is playing rocket racoon, only the newer players are playing that

character so it takes time for them to evolve as a player but given like two to three years they will

eventually evolve into a good player or a very good marvel player in general so you start seeing

more of those stuff so and then by those stuff evolving you may start thinking that a character in

or a particular duo or a particular shell may counter this particular shell and that creates a whole

new meta the level of play gets higher like the morrigan doom will be countered by the dorm

doom and dorm doom might get countered by nova spencer becomes like an overall thing they

start mixing up their shells they start adding more support characters becomes more front heavy

teams or more anchor heavy teams so it becomes more like that it's going to evolve, its going tochange, there are some characters that will be completely irrelevant and obsolete because

there's already characters that have been capped out that cannot evolve anymore.

Genesis: so who do you feel then besides rocket viewtiful joe and Rocket racoon, who do you

feel is underrated, i know alot of people the two they talk about are X-23 and Jill, are characters

that have potential to be ok.

FC: I had the opportunity to talk to Ray Ray about this and Ray Ray are among the people that

are most knowledgeable about marvel, very knowledgeable actually to the core the very specifics

of it, he is definitely a scientist of the game . We actually both said that Jill and X-23 are bothoverrated characters like why would you play X-23 when you can just play Wolverine, or play x23

when you play zero if your goal is to not let them play then play zero, why play Jill why would you

do that, like basically why would you play Ryu when you can pick Akuma in vanilla its kind of like

that, yeah sure they both have purpose and it will throw people off guard but in three years

everybody will know every single trick and that particular character will eventually get pushed to

the side

Genesis: So who do you feel is underrated and has a potential to be solid then? like you said

Viewtiful Joe and Rocket Racoon.

FC: Viewtiful Joe and Rocket Racoon are definitely up there, everybody knows that Viper is

definitely good, I know that Strider on point will someday be a very good strategy because the

fact that strider is a very complete character and has all the option and right now the only reason

why Strider point is not working out is because people are still making mistakes, those baby

mistakes and strider only has seven fifty and you make those baby mistakes you pay a lot but

towards the end of the game or as the game evolves the mistakes becomes less and the better

the character is on point the more results you get so I am starting to see Clockwork do good with

28



Strider on point which is good you know very good evolution of the game there is one of that, I

feel like Firebrand is up there still trying to get better, getting better slowly, I feel like trish has a

potential to be like one of the strongest support characters, I feel like her role is like of Doom, a

Strange, those type of characters that fills that void like an Amy those are the voids that she fills.

Ah let me see, I think Storm still has a lot of growth, still has a lot of room to grow but yeah man

that's basically it.

Genesis: And I heard you mention in that last little part too, you said that you feel that characters

that are complete characters. What to you defines a complete character?

FC: A complete character to me the number one thing for me to say that it is a complete

character is that your skill level will not to be held back by the limitations of the character so the

more you get better the more it shows by you playing that character, it shows like for instance

Chris G, Flocker and Justin Wong decide to merge into one super fighing gamer but they play

Ghost Rider, Hsien Ko and I will say Phoenix Wright, I bet you they will never win a Major,

because of the fact that the limitations of the character is holding back their skill so one of thecriteria for me for a complete character is that the character is not going to hold back your

potential as a player.

Two is that is that character capable of zoning and rushing down not zoning dominantly and not

rushing down dominantly and has been able to do the both, is that character have good

movement does he have a dash, which is very important. So those are my criteria of a complete

character.

Genesis: Alright, very cool. So you feel then that your team is a complete team then, as a

whole?

FC: I feel both of my team are very strong, I feel like both of my teams are high tier to top tier like

the other teams.

Genesis: we will go into that later. So the last thing is pretty much something that people dont

think about alot in Marvel and I want you to touch on it too and that's being a Street FIghter player

as well and knowing fundamentals and footsies, there is alot of footsies in marvel too and I think

a lot of new players just see alot of stuff going on and hitting buttons and they are trying to punish

this with that, Define footsies in Marvel because I think it's a very big thing that alot of people dont

understand and once you understand it becomes something that is eye opening to how you play

the game.

FC: Lets talk about that, yeah thats good, lets start first the common one, I feel one of the branch

of footsies is holding your ground ok, so one of the examples is that you know actually one

match of Kane Blue River vs Neo, ok they were playing offstream so this is the scenario, Kane

blue river Hagar left with no x-factor by the way and kane blue river is coming in with Hagar with

no x-factor so its like fifteen seconds left he has twenty percent Hagar and Neo has forty percent

Doctor Doom, but he has that incoming on Hagar, so obviously if its incoming then he is coming

29



from that corner so Neo goes for an incoming and he failed and KBR blocked the mixup what

Neo did was he ran away back to the corner which gave KBL the advantage that was able to

bring him to the other corner without paying for ever steps leading to that corner, as a result he

got cornered and panicked so KBR knew that Neo was going to jump again and he got hit by the

piped and Neo lost the match and he got eliminated from the tournament.

So what NEO Could have done there was basically this, in normal street fighter rule which isholding your ground, if he did this he would have been better he went for incoming and KBR

blocks he backs up he backs up outside the pipe or jump pipe range, he stay there he throws

photons, jump gun, jump back gun, jump back gun, plasma beam if he super jumps photons he

has to block one if he rolls forward dash forward under him, if he back rolls recovery backdash

do you are always full screen, plasma beam, photon photon missiles then super right? make him

pay until you get to the corner, I don't think he will even get you into the corner at that point fifteen

seconds would have run out and you win by default and you win the match.

Same thing so footsies applies to this, Magneto, basically you want to stay in the range that you

are comfortable enough that you want to, footsies in marvel in general is not like same in streetfighter which mostly revolves around wiff punishing, because in marvel it is very hard to wiff

punish but it is possible and in high level people do it but in Marvel the way footsies works in by

punishing them by putting them in a messed up situation thats how I look at footsies, lets say

someone this guy does triangle jump, Magneto vs Magneto, if magneto does a super jump and

triangle jump with H, super jump up forward dash down forward with H. Me as a Magneto will not

try to block that because he will be in fair advantage and I will be in 50-50 what I will try to do is I

will back dash and make him wiff that then I will super jump also and dash down with H, as a wiff

punish I didn't make it hit him but I made him block it usually that's what we call the air footsies,

making them wiff a dive kick and punish them with a situation which could result in a 50/50 and

you opening them up. Also footsies in marvel is also counter calling your assist, footsies in General translates in

ground control, so if you have a counter assist that means you control the ground, as soon as he

calls his drones you call your plasma beam, as you soon as you call in the drones it hits the

drones and clears the drones , you basically knock sentinel down and then you assist your

assist is out potentially, so this what happens the guy that called the drones will super jump out

so now you have an opportunity to make him guess a 50/50 on the way down or two if he blocks

the plasma beam then you get the 50/50 because you actually hit his drone and he wasn't

prepared for it because of the counter calling, three, if he decides to jump back and both wiff and

he lands you have the advantage to call an assist first than him, because his own assist is still

getting up from getting knocked down leaving the screen and trying to recover while you have the

option to call your assist again while you are on the offence.

So that is creating ground control which is also a branch of footsies. Being able to counter your

opponents assist, being able to read your opponent assist calling thats part of footsies in marvel

and putting yourself into situations that you can hit their assists and being covered with your own

assist and they try to hit you but they got punished with your assist in general, you know. So

that's how you play footsies in Marvel.

30



Genesis: so do you think that's the big difference in Marvel, Street fighter or both is that in street

fighter you tend to punish with situations but mostly wiff punishes and actual damage but in

marvel you punish with situations that will lead to a character killing so thats the big definitive gap

that is between the two games.

FC: Yeah, space control is obviously always there and will always be there space control,

because space control applies to assist calling , when you call your assist you air footsies, that

is what you call space control. It all applies, it all comes down to filling up that void, those holes in

your game that creates you into an overall good gamer.

Genesis: and as far as air footsies, that may be something that street fighter players are not all

that entirely familiar with or not to the degree fo what it is in Marvel, do you kinda want to touch on

what air footsies is in Marvel for people that might not understand that?

FC: Air footsies in marvel, like if you want me to compare it with street fighter you mean?

Genesis: Ah yeah, so people can understand when they want to make the transition or stuff like

that.

FC: Air footsies is like, air footsies in marvel, if you like if I want to translate that into street fighter

it would be like two shotos like Ryu vs Ryu, Ryu would do low forward in the low forward range,

but Ryu will walk back and sweep it, or he would do standing short so he would lift that leg in

order to wiff that low forward you just throw and he can wiff punish it with his own sweep, that's

usually how the air footsies convert into street fighter.

Street fighter is being able to, the ground control happens like this, being able to intimidate themwith your walk speed, being able to intimidate them when you walking forward they start walking

back resulting in them being in a disadvantaged position by them walking back into the corner, by

you walking forward and making then start hitting normals so,you can start walking into them, by

you knowing that they are going to be sticking out normals, you start to wiff short to change your

hitbox and wiff punishing that. that's usually how it all translates, being able to control space.

Genesis: And then in marvel, we are about wrapping up, do you feel, which control do you find

more dominant, because there are teams that are more front heavy and ground control oriented

and there are also teams that are also front heavy but they are more air control oriented and we

have seen the positives of air that you can get away, evasive and stuff like that where as ground

gets the short bursts and stuff like that, which one do you feel is more effective.

FC: Actually I have played both styles, I don't know if you have noticed but I have played Mag

beam alot and I also play Mag Missiles a lot. I did that for training because I wanted to be overall

not just an air footsies or air control type of guy but be able to control the ground and also the air,

there's two difference, One thing is obviously if you are on the ground more what happens is that

you are susceptible to more of the ground mixups and you are tend to be put in those mess up

31



situations than compared to you staying in the air more but the flip side is that if you are on the

ground more and you play the grounded game more you get more opportunities to actually open

them up you start to get more happy birthdays, you start to get more crouching mediums,

because they start jumping, you start controlling the ground more you get more beams more

assist punishes more counter calling because you are on the ground more when I am in the air I

can only call missiles here and there but if I'm in the ground more I get more options but then Iam giving away my evasiveness too much compared to having missiles and also playing the air

game I get more chances if they hit me in the air the missiles will help me break that combo and

I get away more so both styles are evenly just as good.

Genesis: so do you feel air is that one of the big mistakes players make because I heard you

say about air control is that they always try to stay in the air and they always jump and stuff like

that and that's when ground control really excels because when you do hit the ground if you try to

instantly jump back up or if you press a lot of button you are going to get hit or jumped grabbed

so do you feel like ground control are more based on reads then and that kind of stuff work in the

air

FC: basically both are reads, but knowing the situation when its your turn to actually stay in the

ground, its like that's when the risk and the reward happens again like ok, I ran away too much

and finally he got me pinned down in the corner, am I going to risk me being so predictable by

me running away staying away so much all the course of twenty seconds am I going to jump

again and be more predictable or I'm going to stay in the ground and fight my way on the ground

and fight my way ground wise and play footsies air footsies with him but controlling my ground

more and then by me controlling my ground more like I'm not more predictable so this is what

happens, majority of the players sense if you are trying to play more of the air game, as soon as

finally they got you pinned down in the corner they start guessing an air grab, so this is whathappens you stay on the ground, you see an assist you crouch and this guy is so frustrated is

so desperate in a sense he starts dashing forward and super jumping H guessing that you are

about to jump ok but you didn't and he super jumps and then wiffs an H you super jump and

punish him with a grab at that point, so that creates opportunities and then if you punish him one

time with that particular scenario that creates a whole new meta that gives you, I call this ehmm,

you get a token to run away next time because he has that one second to think about hey the last

time he actually punished me for chasing him so this time he might stay on the ground the ball is

in your corner you actually have that decision to make, I could mix this up now I could jump again

and make him chase me again.

Genesis: Very smart, Alright this pretty much wraps up this first section of marvel with

fundamentals with the fighting game mastery with champ and we will be back with more.

32




Gootecks: Alright welcome back guys, this if Fighting Game Mastery with Filipino Champ and

today we’re gonna be talking about training mode. Now, in your experience both dealing with

Street Fighter and Marvel, how important is training mode to becoming a better player? I mean, if

I’m just at home, can I just be grinding out matches online and hope to get better? Or do I need tospend time working on my stuff?

FC: I think training mode is a big part in improving yourself, your overall skills as a player

because in training mode you can practice your dexterity, which is your execution. So obviously

some people say like, “yeah I really got bad execution”. It can’t be that bad and I feel like you

could improve on your execution overall but it does take time, it does take practice. Like how

much time do you really put in your bread and butter combo? People don’t understand, every

time I stream, I practice my bread and butter all the time and I actually, I think I probably spend,

let’s say if I spend 70% of my time actually fighting people, playing people, I spend my other 30%

in training mode. That’s how much I spend on that. I don’t just practice my combos in general,but I also practice situations that I usually get hit by, like say a normal duo like say Marvel, it’s

very good because you could record a particular situation and then you could playback, you

know, repeat right? And then you know, that’s your opponent basically so let’s say Wesker,

Magneto right? Wesker, Magneto you do call disruptor assist of Magneto and then you do

gunshot then teleport okay. So what happens then, before in the early stages of Marvel 3

(Ultimate), that was such a very good combination and no one knew how to get around. But I

was actually one of the first people that actually said that Wesker is not a very good character

overall, so I was able to delete Wesker in the roster in Norcal because I constantly put myself in

situations that Wesker would gunshot and call disruptor. So what I would try to do is normal jump

and make both of those stuff whiff, but since gunshot teleport is a commitment, what happens isthat you normal jump it and then the disruptor of magneto whiffs and Wesker dashes in because

of the commitment because he always assumes that was gonna make you block, or hit you, or

cross you up. Wesker’s teleport is space dependent, it doesn’t track. Like some teleports like,

Phoenix or Vergil, they track. Like if you teleport with light, you end up in front of them, medium,

the back, and H (or C) is right above their heads. So Wesker’s teleport tracks so he always does

light teleport which is the only thing that matters at that time because it just goes straight like ¾

of the screen or half screen range, around that. So what I do is I try to dash forward around that

area, so as soon as he does pop shot, you see the actual animation of him like about to shoot

that gun, I just normal jump because if I normal jump, let’s say he just pop shots and calls

disruptor and doesn’t do anything, it just whiffs and I land, and it’s neutral again. But since he

wasted his assist, I can call mine and attack. If he does pop shot, and calls disruptor and he

does teleport, the beam would whiff, the pop shot would whiff and I’m still in the air, and I will land

with a jumping attack next to him because technically there’s still recovery on the teleport, or I

would just do normal jump, then backdash in the air, air backdash, then throw magnetic blast

and he’ll land into the blast or I would do a forward or I would just go normal jump, dash forward,

and it will act like we would switch screens and I would throw a magnetic blast the other way. So

just constantly practicing those particular situations, practicing like, “oh what am I gonna do if

33



Magneto calls drones assist full screen, and he’s dashing really fast on the ground, what do I

do?” You know, so I try to practice that, you know, you practice situations that usually hits you.

Gootecks: So how do you go about figuring the solutions to those situations, because a

regular jump, I mean, it sounds obvious now in retrospect but at the time, that wasn’t an

obvious solution?

Filipino Champ: So how I go about it is this. I put the actual scenario where his offense starts.

So say magneto is on the ground and calls his drones full screen and he dashes forward. So

what I do is, I record that and put that on playback and I do say option A. Let’s try to do this first,

let’s try to call my assist and attack too with him as a reaction, but I’ll call my faster assist right? I

was like, you worked out a little bit but if he does call disruptor and call his drones then, his

drones will still survive and I would end up blocking the drone and he’ll get a mix-up. So I was

like, umm that’s not very good. Then I start looking for more information like okay, this is what I’m

going to do, I’m going to do tiger knee my projectile, which is disruptor, which covers the air, Iwould say like a normal jump, a little bit like below normal jump height, because since you tiger

knee’d it, very low to the ground. So what happens is that, it hits, if Magneto does disruptor too

and calls drones, what happens is that your disruptor will hit Sentinel’s head because he’s so

tall. So it stops the drones from coming so now you can throw your assist. So I start trying to try

a lot of situations, by the way, it’s a lot of trial and error. It’s not like a quick 5 minute session, you

know actually put time into it. It’s like going to the gym, you put like an hour or 30 minutes a day

you know, it’s a commitment to actually study. That’s when you start understanding your losses.

Once you start understanding your losses, how they are happening, how you are getting hit,

training mode becomes more and more essential because you can start putting yourself in those

situations that you usually have problems with. And then the frame data actually kicks in too. It’slike okay wait a minute, if I really can’t stop this particular setup that he does to actually generate

offense, then how much frame advantage does he have? Is there a gap that I can figure out?

Can I punish it if I block his beam? Can I punish Magneto first before the drones get hit? Say for

instance, there’s nothing you can do than to just block. Then you just practice, now you just start

practicing how to block it better. Alright, if you absolutely have no other way for you to escape

that, if it puts you in a messed up situation and you can’t punish, you can’t contest it, you don’t

have enough frame advantage for your character or your character is not fast enough, then you

could practice blocking the setups you know. You’re not going to be able to block it 100% of the

time but it will increase the chances of you blocking it in result your wins will be more and your

losses will be less.

Gootecks: Ok so then, can you walk us through like your workflow? Like let’s say for example,

you had an hour to play. Now if you’re spending 70% of your time in training mode, let’s say that’s

like 15 minutes, so you have 45 minutes of playing and then 15 minutes of training mode, what

are you actually doing? Are you let’s say playing 45 minutes and then looking back at one of your

losses and then seeing what one of those scenarios are and then working that out in training

34



mode? Or are you practicing your execution?

Filipino Champ: This is usually what I do ok. Let’s say I only have an hour to play, and all my

friends are coming at 7:00 o’clock. So what I do is, at 6:45 I’m gonna start Marvel, I’m gonna do

my warm-ups first a little bit for like 2 minutes. Get my bread and butter going first. So getting

familiar with my hands, my hands are not cold anymore, get that ready. Also, now I start payingattention to, since Drew Grimey and Apologyman are coming, so they use these characters.

They use C. Viper and Strider. So let me practice that punish of that Strider assist over and over

again because that will help me later. This translates into like, oh yeah big tournament tomorrow,

this guy is in my pool, let me practice how to get out of a let’s say a Viper, Strider duo - how to

fight that better? So you practice in training mode. Find ways to get around it. Be creative. You

don’t really have to find the most advanced one, but find ways to make it easier for your skill

level, for your knowledge. You can always find a way. For instance, he does call Vajra in the air

right? You keep getting hit in the air, so now, try not to jump and just dash forward on the ground.

When he calls it, dash forward so it whiffs. So that’s not advanced, it’s just dashing right? And it

gets advanced when he calls the Vajra assist and you can start launching it on reaction becauseyou got better right? You get a little more better, now you can start hitting it while you’re super

jumping. Now you can still do what you usually do but now since you got faster, you got more

familiar with punishing the assist, you got more familiar with the matchup, now when you’re

super jumping you start hearing Strider coming. Now you can start hitting him in the air and

continuing what you’re doing. Make it easier for yourself, practice the situations you know,

prepare. It’s all about preparation so that’s what I usually do.

Gootecks: What about like special settings in training mode and shortcuts? You know, Marvel’s

training mode is a lot more different and a lot more capable than Street Fighter. The default

settings, do you keep those? Do you use shortcuts?

Filipino Champ: What I do is, depending on what situation I am practicing, that’s how I set it up.

So say for instance, I got my default controls which is type B, then the seventh and eighth button

which is the L1 and L2, what I try to do is, I change the L1 into record dummy - which is record

player 2. Then I got my eighth button which is my L2, as playback. Sometimes it’s playback,

sometimes it’s playback repeat. So if you put playback repeat, he will constantly do what you

record over and over again. So that’s how usually my settings usually are. Then, as far as meter

let’s say for instance I’m practicing a combo, or trying to optimize my combo, what I do is, I put

the meter into 1, just 1 bar, and meter regeneration to off. So, I could start looking at it like okay, if

I get a hit in the first 2 seconds of the match, I start with 1 meter anyway right? Can I kill this

character? Am I able to build at least a bar or 2 bars so that I can kill with a level 3? Or can I just

kill with a DHC (delayed hyper combo) - with 2 supers? So I start practicing that. Then you start

optimizing it with extensions with your assist. Oh well, he plays Hulk, unless I x-factor or really do

the most complicated, impractical combo, then I just had to TAC or go for a reset. I start

understanding that, like I need to do this with this guy. And it gets easier in time, so the more you

spend time in training mode, now you can start generalizing more. So the Hulks, the Thors, the

Haggars, the Taskmasters, all those guys are in the category of big body. Let’s just say they

35



have a lot of health. So if fighting that, I do this combo, when I hit him. When I’m fighting the more

important characters like the Morrigans, the Vergils, the Zeros and the Magnetos, I don’t have to

do those combos, I can just do this combo to kill him. Then you start understanding it more, the

more you spend time in training mode. Also learning data, not just frame data in general but

learning how much health that this character has, how fast they are, do they have a ground

dash, do they just have hops, or could they dash cancel their normals? Learning the overallgame data, like how much faster does this character get if he’s x-factored? Just learning those

data because also affects also their recovery, their frame advantage in general you know. Like if

you’re fighting Hulk, and for some reason you snapped him out because you can’t kill him right,

because he’s usually a point character. So you snap him out and you snap in his third character,

so what happens is Hulk becomes the anchor character right. So now Hulk is anchor, so let’s

say you were able to kill the other two characters, Hulk comes in, and he x-factors level 3. But

Hulk doesn’t get any speed boost, just by you knowing that he only gets damage boost right, but

then he doesn’t really matter if he has damage boost because you die anyway if he touches you.

So now you can tell your brain, okay this guy is the same exact character, he’s just glowing red.

Gootecks: Because you did the research in training mode.

Filipino Champ: Yeah, because I did the research in training mode and also read articles in

Eventhubs and the data of the game. So that actually helps. Like how much faster does Vergil

get? Does his usual setups work if he’s x-factored? Like is it easier to block? I put myself in

situations, like say Vergil does A, B, C, cross-up, not x-factored. Ok, I was able to block that. Let

me put him in devil trigger so when he’s devil triggered, he’s 15% faster. So I do A, B, C,

cross-up. Is that easier to block? Oh, it’s a little bit harder. Now I put him in level 1 x-factor then

A, B, C, cross-up. A, B, C, cross-up with devil trigger and x-factor. I do that over and over again. I

try to consistently practice my familiarity with the game so it goes to my muscle memory how toblock that. So now when I see the match, and this guy has two characters and he x-factors with

Vergil, now I know he’s level 2 x-factor, so now I know the adjustment to make because I actually

went into training mode to practice those situations.

Gootecks: Because you took the time.

Filipino Champ: Yes, because I took the time to do it. So a lot of people out there, they get hit

with the stuff, especially in Marvel, they get hit with the stuff that they’ve never seen before, which

is not your fault. But if you watch the players, or if you actually do some work on YouTube and

stuff and you see a particular setup, you can start getting more knowledge. Like check out

Twitter, check out YouTube, check out Cross Counter. Use your resources in general. Then

once you see a particular scenario that you’ve seen in the video, it’s like oh wow, that’s a pretty

weird setup. Go to training mode, you could try it, you could actually replicate that same exact

scenario. Like let me give you one more example. I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with Doom,

Ammy combination, like Marlinpie. His famous, follow my lead right? That’s such a hard mix-up

to block. But, I went to training mode and do it over and over again and I found gaps that I could

actually grab Doom, while he’s going for a mix-up. Obviously it’s not easy, it’s not easy at all.

36



Absolutely not easy, but you could practice it. By you practicing it, it doesn’t guarantee that you

will block it every time but increase the chances of you blocking it. That means by you increasing

your chances of blocking it, it increases your win ratio overall.

Gootecks: Because you’ve seen it so many times in training mode.

Filipino Champ: Yes. Or found ways around it.

Gootecks; So in that situation, you see the setup, and then you use L1 or L2 to record, and then

you do the setup on yourself and then you would hold down L2 to have them do it over and over

again.

Filipino Champ: I do it one at a time so I do playback. Let’s do it this way, I would play Magneto,

Doom, Dorm. And then I put Doom, Ammy, two characters right? Doom, Ammy and whatever

random. So I would put the character the dummy options into having 2 supers, and level 2

x-factor only and I would do record. I would have them dash forward, crouch once, so I have atiming for when it’s about to happen, so a queue. Dash once is how I record it, then I do team

super, then I do my usual overhead, light or cross-up whatever, I do that and then stop the

recording and then I playback. So as soon as I seem him flash, follow my lead, let me see what I

can do first. So I try option 1, let me see if I could just block this and just try and block it normally

without pressing any buttons. Oh no it’s bad, because he can just constantly cross-up me up

and I get out of block stun because there are actually stops in the super, Ammy the back of the

super. So let me do option 2, let me try to stay in the air and block that and just stay in the air. So

what happens is like hmm, it’s slightly better but I can still get hit low because what if he does

low. So I try option 3, let me super jump up back and push block. Just push block randomly. Oh it

kind of works but I get opened up because sometimes I push block but then I’m not in block stunbecause you know there are gaps in the super, so I end up whiffing a button and technically in

the air and getting combo’d eventually. So now I learn how to actually time my push block. You

know, Ammy’s super has different elements animations so when it does lightning you push block

once, when the lightning stops it becomes fire, you push block once, and then fire changes to

ice, you push block once. So I start to understand that more. I try to put myself in different areas

of the screen to know what are my options.

Gootecks: Starting with block and then going to, what was the second one?

Filipino Champ: Block, air block.

Gootecks: Block, air block and then super jump back. And then super jump push block a bunch

of times and then finally learning the timing of the push block.

Filipino Champ: Yeah, in different spaces. So if he’s super close and he does that, I have 2

options. 1 is I could try to, once he’s approaching me while he’s backing with Ammy, I could try to

x-factor and grab Doom. So Doom would be in grab animation, Ammy would leave and I’d throw

37



Doom and combo and kill Doom. You know you could practice that too. There’s a lot of stuff you

can do in Marvel like it’s all about expanding your knowledge, and you being familiar with different

situations. It doesn’t guarantee you to win every time but always remember it increases the

chance of you winning. Your overall win ratio will go up. It could be just by 0.5, 1% but you’re still

getting better slowly.

Gootecks: What about execution and optimizing your combos? Earlier, you were talking about

optimizing combos and before we actually started recording, we were mentioning sometimes

you know you’ll just wake up and then try stuff. But when it comes to optimizing your combos, is

that something that you’re doing, say on paper? Or is that something where you’re just sitting in

training mode trying different stuff?

Filipino Champ: After you get to a certain level of familiarity with the game, once you become a

super specialist of your characters, randomly you would start thinking stuff like, oh yeah that kind

of makes sense, that would work with my character since I know my character so much. I have

3 characters, I know those characters so that might work you know. You start trying stuff thatactually makes sense, to make your combos better. But, before you get to that level, that’s the

time that actually requires more work because you have to learn your characters to a certain

degree to be more creative with them. So what I do is, as I mentioned earlier, I try to put my

meter into 1 and see if I can kill a character. That’s the start to optimizing your stuff. Try and kill

this character from the first hit, starting with a crouching jab. From that, you kill this character at

the beginning of the match or could you kill this character with a grab. Could you kill this

character with an air grab? Could you kill this character if you have absolutely no meter and you

have to start with zero? With zero meter could you kill this character? You gotta start answering

those questions because look, people say like Champ, you never not have meter, like you

always have at least 75% or 1 bar. I said, that’s true but let me give you a scenario when youabsolutely have zero meter. Let me tell you this, let’s say for instance you grab someone at the

beginning of the match, then you were able to combo them that give you 1 bar okay? Then you

use your super to kill them, then you DHC to your next character okay? So now you have zero

bar or maybe 1%. Now the next character is coming in and you have an incoming mix-up. So

since you have an incoming mix-up there’s a good chance that you’re gonna hit them. So what

happens when you hit this character, do you do x-factor? Or you TAC? Or you have a combo

specifically for that situation that you could use so you don’t have to use your resources or take a

risk to TAC? And then they’re like, oh yeah see if you actually learn it for that particular scenario

that happens all the time but you never pay attention to that right? Because you just say, I’m

gonna x-factor or TAC right? But when happens when you actually save both of those options for

the third character? Now that person that you are fighting is like, damn this guy still has 3

characters and x-factor while I have a lot of bars and x-factor but damn, you’re just giving them

more pressure.

Gootecks: So learning the different combos for different situations would be, how to kill a

character with 1 bar; how to kill a character with no bar; and how to kill a character...what about

with like 1 assist vs. 2 assists? Would be the other situations that you have to prepare for?

38



Filipino Champ: The other situations that you have to prepare for is this. Extension combos

using your assists are very common in Marvel. But some people, they make a mistake like this,

like they get a hit from you know straight up, their point character got a hit. And they combo and

they use two extensions with their assists. But a lot of people, they don’t pay attention to this

particular detail. Because half the time you’re using your assist in neutral. So what happens, youalready used your assist, then you got the hit. So now that assist that you’re supposed to use at

the combo extension is not available anymore because you already used it at the beginning to

get the hit. So could you kill the character even though you used your missiles or plasma beam

in neutral? Could you still kill him using one extension? Like you gotta start answering those

questions with your team. Are you able to do that? Like do you really have to TAC? Or do you

have to go for a reset? Or could you just resort to kill him? It all comes down to actually training

mode and those stuff can only be answered in training mode.

Gootecks: Makes sense. What about learning a new character? Like for example, if you’ve

never played a character before and then you sit in training mode. What is the process that yougo through because I’m sure like there’s gotta be a few characters that in Marvel that you haven’t

touched before or a character in Street Fighter that you haven’t played before. What’s the

process of learning?

Filipino Champ: What I do usually is the easiest way. I go to training mode. Let me just check

this character out, you know if I really like him in a sense for me to actually split. Put a little bit

more time into him, let me just check him out. The one I check is normals. Oh wow this is

special moves, oh he’s not a charge character you know. I look at those stuff. Is he a piano type

of character? Do you have to do a hundred hand inputs? I do not like to do that, it’s like I don’t

want to do that let me try a different one alright? So I try to look at the absolute basis, what’s hisanti-air? Let me check this out because you could find that out by yourself obviously by just the

animation of the character of what he’s doing, you’ll know that’s an anti-air. What’s his super

like? Then I go to missions, trials because you’ll learn the day 1 combos from that right? Then

you do the day 1 combos. Then you go to YouTube and say oh let me see that advanced combo

video, let me see the players who actually plays this. Then it’s like oh okay, that’s how you’re

supposed to play this character. Then I start making teams around that character or playing that

character with my style. Then trying those characters with the lower level people that you know

you’re better than. You wanna test them out because technically that’ll even the playing field

because even though you’re better than them, you’re not better than them in that particular

match-up because you’re not good with the character but they’re using their mains. So that gives

you a challenge. Like I still wanna beat this guy because in your head, it’ll mess with your ego

you’re like, I always beat this guy with my main, I always beat this guy with my main, now I’m

using my new character now he’s beating me, and you get mad. A lot of people quit halfway

they’re like let me just go on my main because I wanna beat this guy you know. But it applies to

every single fighting game. Take your losses, because you’re just getting better. Take your

losses. So every time I play a new character I actually want to lose a lot which is good because I

want to learn. It’s like, oh okay he can’t do that then, oh okay, so this character in particular, I’m

39



minus if I do this or oh, I can’t fly anymore because this character doesn’t have flight like

Magneto, Doom does, so oh okay I have to learn how to fight better on the ground or dash better.

So now let’s say I play Wesker, I try to learn Wesker in a high level. What happens is that there’s

the stuff that I can get away with, with Magneto like say if I get cornered, I could fight a little bit

then super jump and fly out. I can’t do that with Wesker. So what happens is that, hmm I learn

how to fight more on the ground because I have no option to get out but to unsafely teleport. So Istart to learn more how to fight on the ground, to play those up close footsies with jabs. Then

when I switch to Magneto, my defense got better for holding down because I learned those

fundamentals from playing the other character. So it’s really something that is very interesting

that you learn, you take something from one character that you’re playing, and you always have

it. So when you’re playing other characters you just copy paste that whatever applies to that

character and you just basically copy paste your fundamentals database which is absolutely

amazing.

Gootecks: So looking at the cast of Street Fighter and the cast of Marvel, what percentage of

the cast do you think would you say that you can play competently, I mean obviously not likewinning tournaments or anything but you know just basically knowing, doing the basic stuff of the

whole cast?

Filipino Champ: I could probably play in Marvel, I could play a good...let’s see there are 52

characters, I could play a good 85% of the cast just doing stuff you know. The other 15% I have

an idea of what they’re doing but I can’t do it because I never really picked them. In Street Fighter

I could probably play I would say 60%.

Gootecks: Would you say that that’s an important component of understanding the matchups?

Because as you learn other characters, would you say that it’s not just your own fundamentals,for example, the Wesker ground game, Wesker and Magneto ground game example but, do you

find that just learning a little bit of a new character goes along with when you fight them?

Filipino Champ: Yes, there’s a lot of characters that I have no idea how to fight but what I did

was actually played them in training mode to figure out the properties or advantages of, what’s

the weakness of the character, you know what’s the place where the character doesn’t want to

be at. Say like, I try to play like Wolverine. Ohh, damn I keep getting hit by Wolverine like this so I

try to pick Wolverine in training mode or low level casuals and I start understanding like, oh wow I

can’t just divekick because if my divekick whiffs those people punish me. So now when I fight

against a Wolverine with my main characters I try to make the divekick whiff so I can whiff punish

it. I get a better understanding of ins and outs of the match-up. You don’t have to main Wolverine,

just play him for an hour and you understand more the overall of the match-up. Same goes to

Street Fighter.

Gootecks: Okay so, we’ve talked a lot about training mode specifically but, I’m going to talk

about how, I kind of want to talk about your workflow during your week. Like how much time

during the day are you spending training with, either in training mode by yourself or playing

40



against other people as well as streaming and competing in tournaments, like how much time do

you put in everyday and every week?

Filipino Champ: My schedule usually fluctuates because depending if it’s tournament season or

depending on what I’m training for. Let’s say for instance the usual, there’s a tournament on the

weekend, a major that I’m training for. So I try to have at least 2 sessions. The sessions like lastfor 6 hours so that’s like 12 hours a week already. Bring people in, play with those guys. Then I’ll

also have one weekly tournament to go to which is my weekly, When’s Norcal? weekly. Which is

like a tournament match so you only get to play like 4 or 5 people. 32 man to 48 man tournament

so that’s my play time. Then my stream usually I just talk to my stream, try to like play some

training mode, that’s my training mode time which is usually like an hour to two hours a day. So

around 26 hours to 28 hours, maybe 30 of playtime a week.

Gootecks: How important would you say it is to have training partners? You know you have the

guys that you play with all the time at FGTV, how do they add to your overall game?

Filipino Champ: They actually help. They’re basically the most important element of your

evolution as a gamer because those training partners that you have are the ones that are gonna

give you your losses. They’re the ones who are gonna put you in situations that you’ve never

been into. They’re the ones that are going to constantly challenge you. It’s like a chain reaction,

you step on them they step on you, you find a counter to them they find a counter to that

because they don’t want to lose to you too. They know how you play so you have to change how

you play so you could beat them. Then they understand that oh wow, he actually plays his

gameplay let me change mine too. So now you have two databases of two different playstyles

right away from playing one person. So it gets bigger and bigger, the database gets bigger and

bigger and so on. And also that saying that, you’re only as good as the people you’re playingagainst or playing with.

Gootecks: What about if you don’t live in an area where there’s a lot of players. What can you

do if you kind of live in an isolated area to improve?

Filipino Champ: Are there any players whatsoever?

Gootecks: Let’s say you live in a faraway country, a relatively obscure European country where

there’s not a lot of players, what can you do?

Filipino Champ: Well if you really love fighting games, and you’re from a particular state or

country that doesn’t really have a big following of the games that you like, like Street Fighter or

Marvel, then what I suggest is try to play online, which is not the best training because you

actually reach a peak playing online, but try to put some time playing online because you at least

learn like how to fight people. You’ll have a better understanding of actually fighting a person

instead of just fighting, instead of just playing arcade mode. You’ll still get to feel the

competitiveness, you know that harsh feeling of a loss, that good feeling of a victory, you’ll at

41



least get to feel that you know. Also, try to watch more videos, use social media, try to connect,

try to find people that might be actually playing from your area. Use Twitter, go to the forums, go

to SRK, Eventhubs, ask around because there’s fighting gamers all over the world and you could

ask around, hey do you guys have sessions or are there any weeklys in my area. Ask around. If

not, then try to build a scene. If you have the resources and time, try to build a scene. Try to build

your scene, be that person, make a difference. So you could always do that. Then, if you reallylove fighting games, try to invest in that by traveling. So start in one travel. Like try to go to one

big tournament, try to go to EVO first. Check it out. Get all of your casuals in there for the whole

week. Then next year be like, hmm I really enjoyed that, let me try to go for two majors this time. I

don’t know what major you’re gonna pick the other time but then EVO and then whatever major

and it just grows from there.

Gootecks: Well I think that about wraps it up. Thank you guys for watching Fighting Game

Mastery with Filipino Champ. You can hit me up on Twitter @gootecks, and where can people hit

you up for more info? Champ, where can people go?

Filipino Champ: You can check out twitch.tv/fgtvlive or you can follow me on Twitter

@FChampRyan.

Gootecks: Alright guys, thank you for watching. We’ll see you guys later.

fighting game mastery transcript

Documents