From: Trien Ho Subject: ECC4 Experience [LooooOooonG] Date: Friday, June 04, 1999 5:14 PM Finals are pretty much over for me so heres my chance to do my own little report on ECC4! We arrived to the Break on Friday evening (around 6 - 7pm), there were only 1 A3 machine setup at the moment and it wasn't on the big screen like it normally was! There we saw Scott Braburn DRENCHED in sweat! Anyways, I guess because the controls were brand new and that I'm used to playing on loose sticks, it was too tight for comfort. The evening of practice was spent getting used to the control. =P The next day. Man, I don't know how they were able to fit 115+ ppl in that place! 4 machines were setup with A3, we noticed John Choi and Valle taking over one of the machines and decided to give them a try. All I can say about these guys are that they are incredible! If you watched them play, you'd notice their style totally stands out among the crowd. I did get the chance to play Choi/Valle's A-Guy with my A-Gen. Choi totally rocked with Guy, I've had my share of experience dealing with A-Guys and stuff but Choi's ground game and ability to combo into super on a whim was totally dominating. It seems that John would run/stop in front of you just out of attack range and whenever I tried to stick any limb out, I'd get countered. He was totally dominating, I did get 2nd round beating Alex though, he wasn't as proficient in using Guy as Choi. The Tourney The first East vs West highlight of the Tourney was the David Boudrea (X-Sim) vs Tom Cannon (V-Sim) match. Tom enlightened everyone with his incrediblely nasty corner fireball -> slide VC that gobbled up a FULL guard meter and still had plenty of gas left to inflict 40%+ damage! It seemed that the VC just all of sudden starts taking "Chunks" of guard after 5 seconds or so.. man this is even worse Akuma's Red Fireball ->Hopkick VC. Boudreau seemed to have the better Sim and should've won the match up. But his inability to getting knocked into the corner and VCed costed him his game. =( My matchups: vs. Cole (X-Balrog, V-Sim) Whew whew! My first matchup is with one of the most "feared" sims from the West Coast! =P Having played him already in the previous day, I guess he thought he could use his X-Rog to beat my Gen. His strategy seems to involve lots of rushing fierces(?) to try to knock me into the corner then take advantage of Rog's low jumping fierce/strong(?) -> Jab jab Rush repeat to kill guard and add pressure. I simply countered this with Mantis C.Fierce to stop his rushes and if I get knocked into the corner, watch for jump and Waterfall -> lvl 2+ Air Grab. After losing the first game, Cole finally dished out his V-Sim. After seeing what happened to Boudreau's Sim, I made a mental note to keep out of the corner. Having lots of experience vs. Boudrea's sim at home gave me the advantage against Cole's sim. By keeping myself out of the corner I was able to beat him 2 rounds straight pretty much using jab rolls, far away J.roundhouse -> overhead/walk throw and Air Super to counter his drills. During the matchup, Cole had alot of WC ppl behind him cheering him on and stuff. I found it kinda funny when someone made a comment somehting like "WC Upset in the making" after the match. Vs. John A.? (A.Cody/A.Gief) I pretty much dominated this matchup. All I had to do was keep repeating C.Fierces just outside of his range. He couldn't figure out any other way to get in other than to jump-in, which I then waterfall -> super for free. Against his A.Gief was a little more trickier, having not fought Giefs for a long while (everyone gave up on him in boston) I had a little tougher time deciding which is the best strategy to go up against him. I decided to start with mantis using defensive pokes and watch for his jumps. Soon he was able to overcome this strategy with overpowering far away jump fierces and getting in close enough for lvl3 SPDs. I lost a game, I was deciding then whether or not to go to V-Ken or stick with Gen. I know V-Ken can smack Gief around like there's no tommorow but becuase I haven't used him in forever, I decided to play it safe and go at it again with Gen. Switching to crane, I countered ALL of his J.Fierces with my own Straight up Jump Fierce. That was basically all I needed to win the match. =P Vs. Ric Collins (V. Cammy) Damn Cammys! That's all I have to say! The general consensus was Cammy = weak char., wrong! Her wierd style with those high priority drills, cannon spikes, s.roundhouse? + that whacked ass full screen anti-air/ground VC that does 40%+ each time completely shut down my Gen offense. I spent the entire match trying to defend against those pokes.. without much success apparently =P I did, however try to use V-Ryu against her, but due to lack of usage, I lost anyways =P. Vs. Tony Lim (X-Gen) Having being knocked into the Losers bracket I was worried about having to play an X-chun (another one of those wierd dangerous chars) I was relieved to when Tony picked X-Gen. X-Gen's strategy is basically pressing forward with S.Jab, C.Short, S.Forward -> S. Roll and repeat. Because those those little pokes are high priority with fast recovery, it's hard to counter poke against it so you end up trying to jumpin, at which point you get waterfalled.. Luckily Tony's X-Gen wasn't as sharp as Ric Collin's(I played against his X-Gen the day before) so I basically won the matchup. Vs. John G.? (A.Cammy) Eerg! Another Cammy!!! Same basic stuff that smacked me around before was used here.. again =P I lost the first game, switched to Vega as a last ditch effort, I did get a little better result.. but I only started using Vega like 2 weeks ago so I stunk and lost. =P An interesting thing I want to mention is how Jason Cole was able to climb all the way back up from the losers bracket only to lose to Eddie Lee's runaway Vega. He even kicked John Choi out of the tournament (V.Ryu vs. V.Sim). I asked John later why he didn't use Gen against Cole, he responded by saying that he plays him all the time and that he knows how to beat him.. Thao's X-Dhalsim was the best sim I've ever seen man! How many people can do a c.strong -> Yoga flame super combo?!?!? He smacked Eddie Lee's Vega around just like that. The match was pretty much determined when at the beginning Thao smacked Eddie Lee's Vega out of his wall dive with a J. Roundhouse. Amir's X-Rolento is the most super agressive rolento around! He was all out all over Valle's Ryu constantly all the time! He was able to beat Valle's V-Ryu a game or two with him before Valle defeated him, I think. It was defintely a fun event and being able to see so much incredibly whacked VCs and stuffs made it well worth the trip!