Tourney Results from this Weekend

1: EG Justin Wong (She-Hulk, Wolverine, Akuma)
2: Rex0r (Magneto, Wolverine, Sentinel)
3: KeraHime~<3 (Tron Bonne, Dante, Sentinel)
4: fLoE (She-Hulk, Dante, Dormammu)
5: DMG PR Balrog (Dante, Wolverine, Tron Bonne)
5: Frankie G (Dante, Trish, Doctor Doom)
7: TS NerdJosh (She-Hulk, Taskmaster, Tron Bonne)
7: Omg ITZ Andre (Magneto, Amaterasu, Wesker)

Super Street Fighter 4
1: EG Justin Wong (Rufus, Adon)
2: Alex Valle (Ryu)
3: DMG PR Rog (Balrog)
4: EQ Ricky Ortiz (Rufus)
5: BLG JuiceBox Abel (Abel)
5: TFA BananaKen (Ken)
7: Wolfkrone (Viper)
7: fLoE (Rufus)

Mortal Kombat 9
1: Perfect Legend (Kung Lao)
2: DMG PR Rog (Raiden)
3: EG Justin Wong (Kung Lao)
4: Michaelangelo (Kabal)
5: KTH (Cyrax)
5: Alex Valle (Shang Tsung)
7: Playing To W1n (Raiden)
7: Limbo (Reptile)

Not too surprisingly, Justin Wong takes 1st place in SSF4 and Marvel vs Capcom 3 while getting a solid 3rd place in MK9. Guy's way too good. More surprising was that fLoE was unable to grab a top spot in MvC3. I'm also rather disappointed that top 8 in MvC3 had the same good characters we've seen in the past. Was hoping for Mike Ross to make a showing at this and wreck face.

And congrats go out to the winner of the Windy City Arcade stick during the raffle.  I gotta admit, I got really jealous. The buttons even light up!

National Fighting Game Stream Today

Today's blog post will feature Chicago's Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament stream. For those who don't know, the stream is a live video feed of multiple games going on in this 3-day tournament stream. There will be Mortal Kombat 9, Marvel vs Capcom 3, Super Street Fighter 4 and many other games that haven't been seen in a long while. Try to check it out. One common to thing to notice is that strong players usually stay strong across games. Justin Wong is one of those players who will just take first at anything he plays. Alex Valle, an amazing Street Fighter player across the series is destroying in Mortal Kombat 9. There are also random fighting game tournies of games I haven't even seen before. I'm personally hoping for some Arcana Heart hype. Check it out!

Watch live video from Level|Up Live on Justin.tv

Another note that I'll be mentioning: I'm probably going to start putting up some of my brawl matches here when I get back into the tourney scene in the upcoming month.

Family Issues

Unfortunately I had some family issues come up so couldn't update the blog yesterday (what a way to thank all my followers, right?). On the bright side, my mom's doing much better now and I can give you all more news and information from the fighting game scenes. Unfortunately, with the way things have been, today's post is more of an introduction to more future posts because I'm busy around the house playing the nurse. Couldn't leave you all without any update, right? Pretty sure you were all worried sick.

On an extra note, I actually got really into League of Legends now so expect to see some info from that too.

150 Followers

My next goal has been met. I want to thank everyone for helping me get this far. I'm going to keep going and keep getting new and exciting stories for you. This has been a blast so far. Aiming for 200 next, I know we can get there. You all are great and I want to say thanks again.

Country's Censorship Going Too Far?

The title should already tell you where I'm going with today's blog post. A story has been circulating the net for about a week or so now about how the upcoming 3DS fighter, Dead or Alive Dimensions will not be distributed throughout the majority of Sweden, Norway and Denmark. This is because three of the characters in the games are under the age of 18. In a fighting game, this isn't anything especially new (many traditional fighting games feature highschool characters after all) but the issue lies in the fact that the game features a mode where you can take pictures of the characters from every angle. So what does this mean in simple terms?

The game is being banned under child pornography laws. So basically, because characters like Eliot (a 16-year old highschooler taught by the master Gen-fu) are viewable in this mode, this game is being banned. Make no mistake, these characters are FULLY CLOTHED (well by DOA standards). But the photography of any characters, real or fictional under the age of 18 in a pornographic situation (being turned while fully clothed in a model viewer) is marked as illegal in Scandinavia. Fans of the series here in America won't have to worry though. We'll still be getting the game. Going by past DOA games though, maybe the claim wasn't entirely baseless.

What are your thoughts? Have censorship laws gone a bit too far or is this ban in certain countries a step in the right direction?

Thor High Tier?

So this past week was the 2nd session in the 4th season of Wednesday Night Fights, a tournament series for a couple of games. Although I try to balance out the information in this blog equally around fighting games, this is totally going to be another Marvel vs Capcom 3 post. What was so special about this Wednesday Night Fights (going to refer to it as WNF from this point on) is that Mike Ross made it to winner's finals playing Thor the entire way. Considering that Thor is typically thought of as a low tier character, this was a real accomplishment. He pulled wins over impressive names such as Clakey D and LLND and even gave Viscant (the tournament winner) a run for his money. Could this win bring about a new surge of Thor players? He's already a likable character and this isn't the first time a player has done really well with him. Justin Wong won an entire tournament before with a Thor/Hsien-ko/Chris team before. But that's not very important. This post is to give props to someone who definitely deserves it.

Mike Ross, you did good. Keep it up and we hope to see more of you!

For those who want to see exactly how he was beasting, you can look up his videos here: http://frame-advantage.com/event/wednesday-night-fights-4-2-mvc3-singles/281 or if you simply want to keep up with him, you can check out his youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/crosscountertv . I'm personally a Mike Ross fan now.

Dante's New Infinite in MvC3

When I first heard that Dante had an infinite in this game, I assumed that it was going to be his Acid Rain combo that was Tron-specific (especially since the video started with him versus Tron). As I watched, I quickly realized how dumb this combo is and that it's going to need to be fixed. Dante is already an extremely powerful character in MvC3. He can start and receive the DHC glitch, he has a powerful level 3 that's easy to combo into, a teleport that he can cover with assists to get through camp but most importantly, he has literally more options than any other character in the game. Because of that last reason, I suppose it was only a matter of time before something like this was figured out with the Devil May Cry hero.

The combo reminds me of something you'd see in MvC2. It looks really repetitive and it's clearly going to go on for a while. Probably the most disgusting thing about it isn't how meter-efficient and time-consuming it is. The most disgusting thing is that to do this infinite, you're actually MASHING on ONE button. Hold the stick in the down-forward position and jam on the Heavy button and Dante will perform this. How this wasn't discovered earlier is beyond me. Every Phoenix team WILL have a Dante on there to build the five bars and basically guarantee a win.



On an ENTIRELY unrelated note, I've considered picking Dante up.................

Something Needs to Be Said!

I was going to do another fighting game blog but a friend linked me to this when I got home and I got my mind blown a little bit. Needless to say, I'm subscribing to this guy. Hopefully everyone doesn't comment with a "Oh, you didn't know that?"



Thoughts? Was this common knowledge or did you learn something from this?

Back to the fighting game blog tomorrow, I promise!

Concept Art in Soul Calibur 5

Game's said to be about 10% complete. So we have a loooong wait to go. Here's a look into the future.

The above is Patroklos, Sophitia's son. You can see her daughter at the bottom of the page.

 Everyone knows who Siegfried is, I think. The manly beard might make him my new main if he actually makes it into the game.

Pyrrha, Sophitia's daughter.

Unfortunately this is all we have to work with since the game is nowhere near completion. Hoping for the best though.

Thor as a direct assist in MvC3

We talked about Thor's uses as an assist earlier. He has 3 assists with varying use to different teams. They are the Mighty Spark Projectile, the anti-air Mighty Strike and the combo-continuing Mighty Smash. Like most, I use the Mighty Smash for a couple of reasons. It helps my other characters lead into their super easier, of course. It also is one of the best crossover counters in the game. When blocking, if you press forward and Thor's assist button, Thor will come in with invincibility and punish whatever move was used with no lag. This makes it one of the safest tag-ins in the game. His projectile isn't great for starting approaches so mighty smash is my personal favorite.

Doesn't that just look amazing? Who wouldn't wanna have this guy on their team?

(Sorry about the short post. Stayed out pretty late last night and wanna get some sleep)

Soul Calibur V: It's About.. Time?

As many of you probably know, Soul Calibur V was recently announced and for fans of this series, this was great news. With a new game comes many changes however. The main cast is said to be getting divided. That is, some characters from previous games will be returning but definitely not all of them. Seeing as how the game takes place 17 years after the events in Soul Calibur IV, this shouldn't come as a big surprise and we can start guessing who's probably getting the boot. In a recent interview, it was mentioned that not only are the Soul Calibur and Soul Edge weapons being redesigned for this timeline but Siegfried might not be making a return. Being a main character since the original game 'Soul Edge', this was sure to shake up a few people. Female characters (not usually aging well) will probably be hit or miss on returning. Ivy was getting rather old but had such a unique playstyle that she would be very difficult to replace. Talim is most definitely coming back (being only in her mid-teens during the events of SC4). Sophitia is debatable as well. Her son is confirmed to be playable in this game with a spinoff of her style, a faster and more agile version.



We've been promised that gameplay is to be generally sped up and attacks and offense are going to be easier to initiate. Weapons in general will also be much smaller for storyline purposes. So what do you all think? Will you be looking forward to this game? Are there any characters you want to return or think won't make it?

What caused the hype?

Well, before Marvel vs Capcom 3 was released, I had very little interest in the title. I wasn't looking forward to it at all really. Marvel vs Capcom 2, although very competitive, was a game that was pretty widely known for being a super technical game where you ended up playing about 1 of 6 characters (no offense to MvC2 players, of course). So the entire series didn't appeal to me much at all since I'm known for playing characters that I like over characters that are good most of the time. Because of that, it should be no surprise that I didn't want to play. I did have a few things that swayed me, however. Recently, I put up a post about Thor's taunt in MvC3. That's one of the things that changed my mind completely. The taunt itself wasn't so much a game-changer but I really liked Thor from when I was younger and saw a movie about the Avengers on Cartoon Network. Hearing his booming voice as he swung Mjolnir in front of him brought back a surge of memories and I knew I wanted to break this character in MvC3.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, here's a short clip. To set it up: The avengers save the day once again but somebody's not being so much of a team player. So they all have to team up to bring down a teammate. The Thor in this movie is called out during early scenes of not actually being Thor and being legitimately insane. His hammer is said to have been created by S.H.I.E.L.D. and gives him Thor-like powers. So basically, this guy is a phony and he still shows people what is really good.

One other small note of interest: Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, is unable to be lifted by someone who isn't worthy to be called Thor. Enjoy the scene ;D I still find some parts hilarious to this day.

Well, Thor hype might be dying down some.

The Thor movie's been out for over a week. There's not a bunch of players using Thor nowadays. I'm thinking of expecting this blog into either a full on MvC3 guide or a general superhero blog. I might also keep it the same with little variations as we go along, which is what I'm leaning to the most. You guys are my followers. What do YOU think? Which direction would keep your attention the most? I really like the character but the character in a specific game might be too limiting of a topic for continuous discussion.

To be honest, I'm probably gonna stick with it how it is but if people want something new, I'll really consider it. Next blog's going to be on what made me decide Thor was a BA and started all this in the first place.

Comment with your thoughts.

The Taunt

Today's topic is going to be a little more chill. We're going to talk about one of Thor's most fun moves.



His Mighty Speech is a pretty unique special move in that as you long as you hold down the H button, Thor will rapidly charge his Hyper meter gauge at the bottom of the screen. It is also unique in that he can cancel any of his special moves that end on the ground with this move. So if Thor shoots a projectile, for example, he can instantly cancel into his Mighty Speech. This has very little use in combos but it's there.

The Mighty Speech can only be cancelled in two ways. Either you can release the button which will make Thor put his hand down and go back to neutral stance or (since it's a special move), you can cancel it directly into a super such as his Mighty Punish command grab. This is the only way to remove all the lag from it but burning a super is kind of counter-intuitive to what the taunt was being used for. You'll get like +1000 style points though.

100 Followers

I just wanted to use today's post to thank you all for following me and my blog. I got 100 followers and, I gotta say, it feels good. Get ready to count on some more great posts. And stay tuned because eventually I'm going to start getting into the more advanced strats that I created this blog for. Thanks again, everyone. Next landmark is 150!

Thor Partners

Well in general, you can seperate Thor's teammates into like three categories:

1) Teammates that help Thor approach

2) Teammates that help Thor do combo damage

3) Teammates that Thor helps

Category 1 would be characters with moves that can get the opponent in continuous blockstun like Dr. Doom's missiles, Ironman's beam assist or Akuma's tatsumaki assist. There are many more options but these are just examples.

Category 2 would include assists that can help Thor continue combos for more damage like X23's ankle slice or Wesker's samurai edge assist since these assists pick the opponents up off the ground for Thor to continue piling on the damage.

Finally, Category 3 would include characters that Thor's assists help. A strong point character like Zero or Magneto with no ability to ground bounce a character for longer combos would gladly welcome Thor into the mix.

Of course there's an option we haven't discussed. The last option is putting Thor with a gimmick team. In the end, the game is about fun. So some people will want to run teams like Gimpyfish does.



So who would you like to team Thor with? Or do you think Thor does better being thrown on other teams rather than having teams based around him?

Team Placement

I hope everyone had a lovely Mother's Day celebration. If you were wondering, mine was alright. Found out my girlfriend's mom started freaking out cause her son didn't do anything for her but say 'Happy Mothers Day'. That eventually stretched out to meaning that every male was doing her wrong and I was suddenly a bad guy. The gf stood up for me though so I'm good. Anyways, onto business.

Thor is a character that needs to find a specific role in any team he's on. He doesn't just splash with anyone unfortunately. He is also very ineffective without assists to help him get in. This is the reason why having Thor as the last slot on your team is going to just lead to a lot of trouble. It's pretty easy to run from Thor if the character you're playing has even relatively good mobility or a good zoning tool that Thor has to respect. Because of this, Thor's best position is going to be in either starting position so you can wrestle for momentum at the start or in second slot where you can DHC into one of Thor's supers to bring him in. The exact roles that Thor needs to be effective in a lead or secondary slot will be discussed in tomorrow's post. I'm pretty tired from the festivities yesterday.


So tell me about your Mother's Day drama if you had any or if not, do you like Thor in 1st, 2nd or 3rd slot on a team?

Mother's Day

So today I had to wake up early for work and I'm going to take my mom out for Mother's Day. There's a movie she wanted to see. So this post is more to ask what you all are doing today. I don't think any of my friends are doing anything too major but I usually like to make it somewhat special. This year, I only got her a card and am taking her out. I suppose I'll try to be more impressive on her birthday. What do you all have planned? Do you consider this a day worth going all out for?

A Guide to Movement

We've touched upon what we expect you to do to close that gap on someone keeping Thor out of his favorite range but it's never as easy as that. Today's post will talk about that with a few more visual cues. The video below was provided by a Thor player from the forums. This is where most Thor players should start so give it a look and tell me what you think.

It's Official / Autopiloting continued

I unfortunately had to work through the night yesterday. Didn't get off work until midnight. I heard the Thor movie was pretty good but it had some parts that rubbed people the wrong way (or at least the bigger fans). I'm going to get back on topic about Marvel vs Capcom 3 but I want to hear from you guys about how you thought the movie was if you saw it. I really am disappointed that I missed it. Do you think it was a great movie or overhyped? Superhero movies are usually pretty exciting, especially the marvel movies. Please don't ruin the movie's plot for other people reading the comments though. This marks the only Avengers movie that I missed but the Captain America movie's still not out, so we'll see. ANYWAYS, back to the topic at hand.

A big problem for people in Marvel vs Capcom 3 (and fighting games in general) is the autopiloting issue we talked about earlier. It's very easy to fall into predictable patterns based on how you've practiced in the past. Can happen to anyone but the key thing we've been talking about is how to bring it to an end. Autopiloting issue starts when a scrub-friendly tactic comes under your control that newer players have an issue dealing with. These tactics are usually safe so punishes aren't too big. Things like spamming Magneto's disruptor or throwing out Tron's giant aerial hitboxes with no mixup or even jamming on your Haggar assist every moment it's possible, all these are extreme examples of autopiloting. I've caught myself doing this before too and it really just slows your development. Everyone has probably felt it at some point.

Remember when the really old school Mortal Kombat was in arcades a long while back? Everytime you did a crouching uppercut, you would hear the announcer scream something cool, you'd hit the guy for a big chunk of health, you were crouching under your opponent's jabs so effectively dodged the majority of his moves and if the opponent blocked it, they couldn't even punish it. If you were like me on those old school machines, you got through like the first 6 levels of arcade uppercutting the heck out of anyone who dared throw his way in the reach of your mighty, rising dominance.

BUT what happened when you got to the higher levels? When you were convinced you ran this game and nobody could stop you? You'd go for the uppercut, the computer would crouch and uppercut you back and they'd get the announcer screaming for them. YOU PANIC. He's coming again? What do you do? Quick, make a decision! Uppercut. Get hit again. You're officially in the quicksand and you're trapped. This is an exaggerated example but it holds true. Even if you're used to wrecking your friends in any game with some powerful tactic, try not to rely on it too heavily. One day, you'll have to come up against someone who knows how to get around your tactic and will test if you have a backup plan. Fighting games are a test of adaptation in the end. Remember that.

Here's a video talking about a popular and powerful tactic from street fighter, also exaggerated but might bring up some nostalgia. For those not too huge on fighting game notation, DPM stands for dragon punch motion (pressing Forward, Down, then Down-Forward in quick succession). It's called this because it's the traditional notation for uppercut motion moves that have invincibility frames on the startup and rise a.k.a. Dragon Punches. Enjoy!

And remember to give opinions on the Thor movie if you saw it!

A Sad Day

So some unfortunate news came in. My job called me into work today and they want me to close. It looks like I'm not going to make the movie. This is.. all kinds of suck. Don't cry for me though. Keep the hype alive. I'll see it on the weekend. See the post below for a bit of cheering up!

A Day of Recognition

Well I was going to do a continued write up on getting around autopiloting in a fighting game but today is a special day. Tonight (or technically tomorrow) at midnight, the Thor movie is coming to theaters. Seeing as this specific blog is revolving around the strategies of the manliest character in video gaming history, I think we can dedicate one day to the hype that is Thor.

Tomorrow I'm going to finish getting all the hype off my chest then we'll get back to wrecking with this beast in Marvel vs Capcom 3!

Autopiloting

The worst thing about autopiloting in this game, I think, is that you lose alot of options that are naturally available to you. Every time that you make a split second decision like playing out the scenario you've done a million times in training mode, you're effectively limiting yourself to a level that is immune to improvement. That is one of the reasons Thor isn't regarded very highly in most of the speculated tierlists you'll see on sites like Shoryuken.com. When a character like Magneto autopilots, he still has a chance of getting a random airgrab that could kill you. Thor is a character of extremes. His correct guesses mean alot but his moves have very specific purposes. His command grab, for instance, is designed for people who are strictly blocking so if you want to use it then you have to scare the opponent into either blocking or simply not pressing buttons long enough to fall victim to it.


Think about it. If you finally get in on someone with a Mighty Strike and they block it, 90% of players will automatically go into their standard block string and mixup from there. The opponent's already blocking, why not skip to the direct counter and punish? A better option would been to mighty strike in and then go for the command grab since you know his mind's on blocking. Or say they just blocked your assist and are about to leave blockstun, what is your option? A big part of this game is remembering your opponent has options. If you can predict that, Thor WILL kill them. Alot of times in tight situations, I'll set bait like a Mighty Smash or a ground assist like X23's ankle slice and approach. Knowing that Thor's coming, common player mindset is to hold up-back to ignore the mixup and reduce blockstun. That is when I can meet them with a midair command grab.

This concept will be continued in a later post.

The Logic

In the video game Marvel vs Capcom 3, Thor is a powerful force. In general, Thor is meant to be up close, in your face and always ready to dish out the pain with his 3-way guessing game (High, low or command grab). One thing that's difficult to grasp for those who are actually getting into the game now is that, first and foremost, the goal of the game IS to outsmart the opponent. Since you're playing a character who happens to hit like a truck, when you guess right, it means alot more than when your opponent guesses right usually. So how can you make the most of this? Well it's pretty simple. Don't autopilot. Before I get into what that means completely, I don't want to get off track. Today's message is about playing Thor. We know he has a high priority approach move. We know he has sick damage off an aerial or crouching hit. We know his command grab'll do 50%+ on anyone in the cast at least if you land your combos.

But what we have to remember is that Thor isn't just a damage box who rushes you down with triangle jumps and command grabs. He's a character with a reasonable number of options that people don't give him enough credit for. For example, Wesker is a character who stereotypically gives Thor the business. It's a hard matchup for you. He'll gun you in the face all day and if he hits you out of the air, he gets a free combo. If you close the gap enough, he can teleport away or just reverse the pressure onto you. It's tough. So how can we deal with something like this? Simply put, don't play a grappler. Play Thor.

You have a projectile that can stand up to Wesker's gun. Light Mighty Spark is a really fast move with super fast startup, recovery and priority. You can stand up to Wesker and make it harder for him to continue the fight on his own terms. If he's getting blasted by lightning in his face every 0.5 seconds, he's not gonna be able to shoot you or chip you with assists. This will put a bit of fear into him. Instead of mindlessly rushing him down and getting tagged in the face all game with bullets, you effectively limit his options and force him to stop mashing out his f+H. This'll open an opportunity for you to approach. Against other characters, the options might have to be reversed. Magneto can shamelessly outcamp you but he can't combo off his projectiles from mid to fullscreen. This means there's less risk with barreling him down with Mighty Strikes especially since he's made of paper and a misplaced anti-air can get him killed very easily.

We'll talk more about this in a later post and hopefully can start talking about the dangers of autopiloting.

The Basics

Well generally, I think everyone is going to look at Thor's basic mobility and see that they have a bit of work ahead of them. His dash is pretty much trash. His airdash can go in multiple directions but it doesn't go far enough to reach the ground at minimum air dash height. This, at first glance, would leave him in the category of someone like Hulk who's probably gonna try to super armor his way in or get his super jump on. Since Thor's super armor only comes with fully charged moves, the problems only seem to get worse, don't they?

Well if you're reading this, you either know that what I said above isn't entirely accurate or you haven't found Thor's approach pattern. If you fall into the second category, I'd suggest you watch a match of Justin Wong's Thor. He doesn't have a particularly good Thor but he understands the basics well enough to start you off. For the others, you have to understand how stupid good Thor's aerial Mighty Strikes. He covers alot of ground, lands with very little lag (enough to have an advantage over an opponent who blocks this) and can eat any non-super projectile through the duration of the time that he's moving. All this adds to his Mighty Strike being, by far, his best move for opening an opponent up.

Although he has a pretty good tri-jump game and possibly the best rewards off a command grab in the game, most of the time you're going to be barreling into your opponent until they learn how much priority Mighty Strike has and learn that they must block. THAT is when you can play Thor.

I'm going to start describing what that means in the nextpost.

Getting in with Thor in MVC3

Well there's going to be alot of stuff to go through but to prepare you, getting in with Thor isn't the easiest thing in the world. We're going to try to do a list of general strategies and then break it down into character-specific strategies in the following posts.


This blog's also going to serve as a way to show what I've figured out in general.