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Kenshinoyo wins Step Yo Game Up Bi-weeklies (7/31) Now with video footage!

Fromundaman

I write too much.
Welcome back to my novel length tournament write-up threads!
This week the Cincinnati crew put on quite a show. Luckily for us, the Street Fighter crew was generous and offered us their time slot this week since our events are coinciding with the Street Fighter League, meaning they will probably have the stream again every time in the next 2 months.
That said, it shows that we don't stream often, and as such I apologize for the VERY loud game audio. I also apologize for the downtime between matches. Cincinnati is free to converters.


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Notable Mentions:

-Kenshinoyo makes a triumphant return to our events after missing the last 2 or 3.
-CCCCRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGG! and his brother SaucyJack return to Step Yo Game Up, something I honestly didn't expect but am pleased to see. New blood is always welcome, and hopefully they will keep coming back and keep improving.
-A newcomer joined our midst. Josh came to Step Yo Game Up for the first time. Unfortunately he had a trial by fire as I don't really sandbag in tournament.
-VGMtheVagabond accomplished a life goal by creating enough salt to open his own mine.
-My poor controller lived a full life and had no regrets.
-I am a choke artist of the highest calibur.
-I'mmaAriesBaby! finally returns, even if I did have to pay for his entry to convince him to play, bringing the hype with him.
-I am the most biased commentator.


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RESULTS:

1st place: Kenshinoyo (Martian Manhunter)
2nd place: @Mod (Superman)
3rd place: @Fromundaman (Joker)
4th place: @VGMtheVagabond (Raven/Doomsday)
5th place: MPII (Zod/Batgirl)
5th place: I'mmaAriesBaby! (Shazam)
9th place: Red Cyclone (Wonder Woman)
9th place: CCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!! (Superman)
9th place: @Sonic Lionheart (Nightwing/Hawkgirl)
9th place: Josh (Harley Quinn/Solomon Grundy)

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STREAM ARCHIVE:


We put the stream in youtube form, in 2 big files. Unfortunately, like I mentioned before, our audio kind of sucks. Sorry about that.
Anyway we have all of winner's side recorded and some of loser's.


Part 1


Part 2

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I have started every result thread with the phrase "We kicked off this event", so this time I will not do that.
I will also only write about the matches that are recorded because I spent the entire tournament playing on the stream station or commentating.




Instead, we got the ball rolling with a match between Fromundaman and newcomer Josh (00:08:00). Fromundaman is a dick hole and doesn't believe in going easy on anyone in tournament. While Josh did a great job of blocking setups he was unfamiliar with, ultimately Fromundaman took the set.






Following this up, we had Sonic Lionheart go up against VGMtheVagabond (00:17:15). We saw a lot of patience and respect from both players in this match. Sonic picked Nightwing for the first two games against VGMtheVagabond's Raven. VGM did a great job of keeping Nightwing out and Sonic Lionheart failed to punish VGM's teleports, but was punishing all blocked Soul Crushes. Unfortunately this wasn't enough, and Sonic Lionheart's Nightwing got timed out both games.
Game 3 Sonic Lionheart decided to go big or go home and chose Scorpion. I assume the thought process was that teleport would allow him to get in on Raven, but unfortunately he was still respecting Raven as though he were still playing Nightwing and VGMtheVagabond took the match convincingly, sending Sonic Lionheart to losers.

Sonic, I am so sorry. I have failed you as a friend. Friends don't let friends do Scorpion. Not even once.







We followed up this match with a match that threatened to kill my voice: Mod's Doomsday vs CCCCRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s Superman. (00:34:15)
CCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!! is a relatively new player to our scene. This unfortunately meant he did not have the Doomsday experience yet, and Earthshaker proved deadly as Mod took this set in a convincing, earth-shaking manner. To CCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!'s credit, he took the losses well and remained calm throughout the set, and started finding answers in the last match.

Unfortunately I don't know how/where to contact him so I'm going to write advice for him in here along with the writeup and hope he sees it when I post this in the various facebook threads.
CCCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!, here's some advice for you:

I do have to say you are doing a good job considering how new you are. That said, here are some things to work on:

(I heard you use combo notations in the stream commentary so I will assume you know them. If you don't, let me know next time you see me or hit me up on here and/or FB and I will explain it.)

-Go into training mode and practice doing combos off of F23 and F2>breath.
-Stop doing random divebombs. I don't know why they were working, but we will start punishing those.
-Use your dashes more; Superman has good ones.
-Straight laser is your friend in a zoning war.
-Go into training mode and practice both waking up and blocking Doomsday's Earthshaker (We've all had to do both of these at some point).
-Abuse the fact your trait breaks armor. If you see Doomsday use trait, use yours too.





After this we had Fromundaman's Joker go up against I'mmaAriesBaby!'s Shazam (00:45:40). These two played a couple of times in the past, and Fromundaman's extensive Shazam knowledge thanks to playing against Ryuseken has always helped him. That said I'mmaAriesBaby! is a smart player and has strong fundamentals thanks to the other fighting games he has played.

WARNING: This set contains hype as fuck backdashing.

The first match was on watchtower and Fromundaman punished everything to take it in a convincing manner.

I'mmaAriesBaby! was not going to just let that happen though and ran it back, making an excellent adaptation changes to a more punish heavy hit-and-run style mixed with zoning and great stage control to take the second match just as convincingly, forcing Fromundaman to switch the stage.

Next match went to Metropolis Museum. I'mmaAriesBaby! got a strong start, abusing his mobility to stay out of Joker's range and visibly getting into Fromundaman's head. The match was starting to look hopeless when Fromundaman used his clash both to regain health and composure. This proved wise, and a few punishes later, Fromundaman had I'mmaAriesBaby! right where he wanted him: The corner. Thanks to OTGs being a thing, Shazam's teleports were taken out of the equation for the rest of the first healthbar, and a few good reads allowed Fromundaman to make up the life deficit in the second healthbar despite drops, forcing Shazam to clash and escape the corner. At this point, with very little time left on the clock, Fromundaman decided to be a scumbag and time I'mmaAriesBaby! out to take a very close game 3.

Game 4 started with a ballsy dash up command grab, but Joker evened it up very quickly by punishing a teleport and going into OTG shenanigans. The rest of the healthbar was a very back and forth zoning war between the two characters.
With both characters relatively even, we saw a mix of careful zoning and ballsy offense, and an unfortunate jump into a set of teeth from Aries. Ultimately Fromundaman took the set though with some Oki-Doke interactible usage.






What followed was a whole bunch of technical difficulties followed by the saltiest set in the history of this tournament series: VGMtheVagabond vs MPII the Ronin (01:08:00).
Through a series of amazing reads and a lack of Bagirl vortexing, VGM's Raven looked solid as it took the first match against MPII's Batgirl.
The second match looked equally dominant as VGM made read after read.
MPII decided to switch to Zod for the 3rd match; probably a wise choice considering his Zod is better than his Batgirl by a good margin.
Unfortunately for MPII, it was very clear that VGM was in his head, leading to him making poor use of his trait and dropping combos, allowing VGM to take that game as well.

Now for those of you watching the footage, you will realize the game goes to the home menu the moment the game ends. This is the result of MPII being so upset that he threw his controller (Or rather the one he borrowed from me...) on the ground with enough force that it not only unplugged that one, but also unplugged VGM's converter before stomping off. In his defense, there is stuff going on in his life that resulted in him being in a bad mood from the moment he walked in the door.
If you watch further, you will hear a conversation between us as he pulls a PL moment.
The salt was real. While I am an A-hole, I am not 100% dick, so I will leave it at that.






VGMtheVagabond rode his newfound high into his next match against Mod (01:25:30). This set saw a back and forth zoning war between Raven and Superman with a ridiculously high number of dark voids (That move should build a lot more meter when you successfully catch a projectile) and trait teleports from VGMtheVagabond and some extremely well placed Superman punches from Mod.
As both of these players are extremely patient and willing to zone a long as it works, the first match was a close one that Mod took with a timeout.
The second one was relatively back and forth but Mod capitalized on VGM's trait teleports to take the match.
The third match Mod adapted to MB void and started forward dashing the vertical ones, realizing it's better to take the horizontal hit if it comes out then eat the vertical one and allow Raven to combo. This combined with him getting Raven to the corner allowed him to take the third match and the set.




Meanwhile matches were happening off-stream in losers that I didn't see.
On one side of the bracket, MPII took his anger out on Josh, knocking him out of the tournament.


On the other side, Sonic Lionheart was facing off against I'mmaAriesBaby!. Considering how Sonic Lionheart has placed in the past, as well as the fact that one of the characters he plays is Hawkgirl, it was an incredible upset when I'mmaAriesBaby! knocked him out of the tournament. I really wish we had been able to stream this one.




Meanwhile back in winners we had Kenshinoyo's Martian Manhunter facing off against Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman (01:41:15). Kenshinoyo has been absent for the last few events, but he has been one of our scenes strongest players, a claim he wanted to reinforce today.
I won't bother reintroducing Red Cyclone because I do that a lot in the match video, and have done so in every write up to date.
These players have not played in tournament in quite a long time, since before I started running these events I think, and Kenshinoyo went in hard showing Red Cyclone (And the rest of us!) that his absence was not spent slacking, taking the first match in an absolutely dominating fashion.
Red Cyclone started to answer back, but unfortunately for him his matchup inexperience showed and Kenshinoyo handily took the set, knocking Red Cyclone to losers.





This led to a matchup that we see surprisingly often considering the tier disparity between the two characters: Kenshinoyo's Martian Manhunter vs Fromundaman's Joker (01:49:30). This match is almost guaranteed to produce salt, although mild compared to the contents of the day, as both tend to get upset when they lose, which is weird considering both are good players (If I do say so myself!) and their tournament sets go back and forth all of the time.
VGM also gets on stream here to explain the saltiness of the day at this point before the match starts.

The matches are relatively even. Kenshinoyo makes use of his new and improved zoning while Fromundaman makes use of bad moves and non-existent pressure to keep him in check. Both players drop stuff and punish each other for it.
Fromundaman takes the first match with 8% gunshots while Kenshinoyo takes it right back game 2 with a time out.

Game 3 shows Fromundaman take a huge lead with non-existent pressure and traps using useless moves. Kenshinoyo clashes to avoid what was about to be some really really dumb BGB shenanigans and regains enough life to press an offensive of his own, retaking the life lead with some sick combos into interactibles.
It comes down to almost even life but with Martian having the positional advantage. Kenshinoyo throws out a MB orb to start his zoning but somehow Fromundaman managed to react fast enough to punish it with a pie (I honestly don't know how and will never be able to do it again) to take the match.

Kenshinoyo was visibly rattled going into game 4 and started respecting everything, allowing Fromundaman to abuse the shit out of his useless + frames to put on some retarded pressure and traps, taking game 4 in a convincing fashion and moving on to winner's finals.

Also someone remind Fromundaman that D2>MB RLG is a good punish for low teleport.





Next we had a runback from the previous event: Mod's Superman vs Fromundaman's Joker(Part II 00:12:00). Fromundaman was determined not to let Mod stop him from taking another event.
The match starts with a zoning war. Fromundaman's inconsistent laser backdashes hurt him though (Need to go back into training mode and practice that again it seems...) and he found himself needing to play mid range footsies with Supes. The match keeps going back and forth, but Fromundaman gets Mod to the corner, where in an uncharacteristic moment he dropped 2 corner conversions and let Mod out safely. Mod took advantage of this lease of life the two fought all the way back across the stage. Near the end Fromundaman took a life lead but in a series of bad decisions mixed with Mod's good zoning lost it all and Mod took game 1.

Mod kicks off game 2 in a dominant fashion, bullying Fromundaman's Joker and bringing him to the corner where he finishes Fromundaman's grey health bar. Mod manages to catch Fromundaman trying to escape the corner at the start of the next round as well, forcing Fromundaman to use an early clash to escape. Fromundaman manages to corner Mod right back though, and the rest of Mod's healthbar disappears, evening up the match. From there Mod bullies his way out and both players throw random projectiles to keep each other in check until Mod finally lands a hit, but thanks to being the luckiest son of a crowbar out there, Fromundaman manages to turn Mod's combo drop into an opportunity to corner him, forcing a bad clash out of Mod.
With less than 15 seconds on the clock and a sizeable health lead, Fromundaman decides to go for the time out and just holds back, thinking there's no way the comeback is possible if he just blocks... Then he eats an interactible and a laser to lose the round.

By the time game 3 kicked off, Fromundaman was demoralized. Despite getting a few reset and punish opportunities and even getting the corner, Mod took game 3 pretty solidly, sending Fromundaman to Losers.
Based on what I say in the commentary, you can tell that A) I am a fan of Hyperbole, and B) I felt I had a bigger lead than I did.


Offstream, MPII had beaten CCCCCCCCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!! in losers, knocking him out of the tournament and putting a damper on my commentary.

After that, Kenshinoyo played MPII and knocked him out of the tournament to move to Loser's semi-finals.





Back onto stream matches! We started streaming the Loser's Bracket at this point and got to see Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman up against I'mmaAriesBaby!'s Shazam, and what a match this was! (Part II 00:27:15)
I'mmaAriesBaby! abused the shit out of his mobility to literally run circles around Red Cyclone's Wonder Woman.
We had a controller change for match 2, but it did not help as Red Cyclone struggled to learn the matchup on the fly, but I'mmaAriesBaby!'s epic backdashes and hit-and-run style took him to victory, taking the next two matches and knocking Red Cyclone out of the tournament.




I'mmaAriesBaby! stayed on stream to play VGMtheVagabond's Raven next(Part II 00:38:45). VGM knows the Shazam matchup pretty well, but Aries has managed to beat VGM's Raven once before. Both players had been playing phenomenally up to this point, so anyone could take this.
One of Aries' main weaknesses was highlighted in this match though: He is not an Injustice player, and as such lacks some knowledge about the game, such as how bad Raven's wakeups are and how Shazam's post-knockdown game is. This proved fatal as the set went on.
Despite a close first match, VGM's experience fighting Shazam combined with Aries' lack of knowledge led to VGM taking it and going to Loser's Semi where Kenshinoyo awaited.




VGM meets Kenshinoyo in Loser's Semi for a Raven vs Martian matchup (Part II 00:47:45). They start it on Themyscara and VGM goes in like a madman and despite some rather crucial drops takes the first match in a convincing manner.
Kenshinoyo wasn't taking it lying down though and answers back, switching to a more rushdown style and taking the match nearly unscathed, even closing it out with some silly looking orb into orb juggles.
VGM rematches but Kenshinoyo continues to look dominant through the first healthbar. VGM starts answering back but unfortunately uses 3 bars to drop a crucial combo in a moment that may have cost him the match and broken his spirit.

VGM took a moment to compose himself and switched to Doomsday, a decision I didn't believe in, but that turned out to be a better idea than I thought.
While Kenshinoyo looked dominant once again in the beginning, VGM answered back and quickly evened up the game with both players on a full red healthbar. The match goes back and forth, but ultimately Kenshinoyo's Martian takes it with a clutch throw, knocking VGMtheVagabond out of the tournament.




This led to a rematch of Kenshinoyo's Martian and Fromundaman's Joker in winner's finals. (Part II 00:58:00) That's right, you are actually seeing this matchup twice!

Kenshinoyo kicked off the first match with a vengeance, styling on Fromundaman as he took the first match.

Fromundaman answers back in the second match, but Kenshinoyo does an excellent job of reading and punishing Fromundaman before ultimately clutching it out at the end with some well placed grabs.

Drops started showing from both players going into the third match. Kenshinoyo started abusing his grab range and Fromundaman's inability to tech grabs more as the match went on, but thanks to useless move cancels, Fromundaman was able to take game 3.

Kenshinoyo was obviously not pleased and proceeded to perfect Fromundaman's Joker in the first healthbar of game 4. Fromundaman tries to answer back, but Kenshinoyo's vengeance would not be denied, and he knocks Fromundaman out of the tournament, moving on to fight Mod in Grand Finals.




Mod and Kenshinoyo have played very often in our events before, and do occasionally practice against each other outside of our events as well. Both are phenomenal players, so this promised to be an interesting fight. (Part II 01:11:35)

Mod shows excellent matchup knowledge as he recognizes and blocks every Manhunter setup Kenshinoyo tries, but he was unable to deal with Kenshinoyo's new and improved zoning capabilities.
Mod tried throughout the set to counterzone with lasers, but as the set went on Kenshinoyo was scouting those lasers and blowing Mod up for them making for a rather quick 3-0 reset.

We went into the reset with Mod starting strong, but Kenshinoyo was here to win, and he struck back stronger still, building a strong life lead game 1 of the reset. Mod managed to push Kenshinoyo back to the corner, making back all of the life deficit until Kenshinoyo clashed his way out, leaving both players with relatively even life and leading to a very intense game of full screen footsies. Kenshinoyo scouted out a laser and punished it to take the match.

Game 2 Mod switched to Cyborg Superman, and the following match was an intense and close fought one, but a few crucial drops and scouted lasers cost Mod the match, putting Kenshinoyo up 2-0 in the reset.


Kenshinoyo could taste victory in game 3 as he opened the match with a perfect round. Mod wasn't giving up without a fight though and got Kenshinoyo in the corner, where he took a lot of health before going for a divebomb reset that was blocked and punished. Kenshinoyo continued zoning and building a life lead, but Superman started coming back with a few touches here and there. Unfortunately for him, he was somehow caught with the suit of armor which killed all hope of victory and gave Kenshinoyo the win. Once more Kenshinoyo won Step Yo Game Up, something we will have to not let happen again.



 
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NB Semi Evil Ryu

Former Sub-Zero of the Midwest (2011 - 2015)
-CCCCRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGG! and his brother SaucyJack return to Step Yo Game Up
Wait.

We have TWO Saucy Jack's in our community?

@GGA Saucy Jack

I propose a Saucy Jack vs. Saucy Jack exhibition. The winner.....

......gets to keep the "Saucy Jack" name.


(And it should totally take place at Naptown Clutch IV)
 
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Sonic Lionheart

Starfire - Canary - Supergirl
I am sorry for my horrible showing. Playing a decent amount of casuals with VGM showed me what to do in the Raven match so him winning is unlikely now. Love ya @VGMtheVagabond lol. Also next time I won't play with my food with Aries and go straight to Hawkgirl instead of only using her last match. I am going to Godlike Saturday and will put on a better show. I am coming for you @NB Semi Evil Ryu lol.
 

Fromundaman

I write too much.
@Fromundaman I'm still waiting, sir. Why didn't you regulate on my behalf? You have forsaken me.
This is our ticket to popularity!

I'm going to tell him to name himself something like "Gross Gargoyles Attack SaucyJack" so that I can abbreviate it and become one of the cool kids!



EDIT:


Oh and @Vengeance135 here's videos if you wanted to see me play.
 
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OG Mannimal

OG "OG Mannimal" Mannimal
Just so ya know I'm typing this as I watch so if I say you didn't do something but did do it later, just know I didn't see it yet.

@VGMtheVagabond I saw in your first match that you weren't hit/block confirming your jump ins. If your j2 is blocked, use 223, if it hits use f2. Obviously you won't be able to confirm every time so if you do end up going 223, cancel 22 into lift as the 3 scales. I also noticed you drop BGB combos. Use f2~BGB instead of going for a raw BGB. Punish dashes with d1 lift. Whiff stand 1 to bait your opponent into doing something unsafe. Also, you kept jumping back against NW until you got to full screen, but you do not want to be there in that MU. Try to stay in SC range. And I know you said you know you shouldn't be jump~trait~teleport so we don't need to say anything, but yeah don't do that often. When you do do it, it should only be if you really need to take life, cause it's a big risk. Try to catch your opponent off guard by teleporting in front of them instead of behind them, since people normally expect the teleport to hit behind them. In the NW MU if you read a staff pound after you blocked one, you can dash forward and whiff punish with soul crush. Inside of your combos instead of doing f222 lift, do f2 lift, it scales less.

Vs MPII: Raven wins the footsie battle in this MU with lift, to stop jumps, and d1, to catch dashes. Catching dashes is extremely important in this MU, and I saw after a blocked lift you did fj2, and the BG dashes forward. You would have been able to catch this dash with d1 lift. If you block a bola and read another bola you can dash forward soul crush and catch BG on startup. Oh and don't do raw f3 on knockdown against characters with good wakeups. I saw you did mb f3 in the neutral a couple of times, not really sure why, maybe because you thought BG would jump? Ravens j2 beats out all of her air normals pretty consistently, so use that if you read a jump. Make sure you hit confirm j3 into d1 lift, you would hit j3 but then not follow up, happened in your first match too. You're missing out on 44% dawgggg!

In general try to use ji3 after a b3, gets more damage. It's weird timing but once you practice it you'll get it down. The only time I don't use j3 is if I know j2 f222 crush will kill, and I'm afraid of the drop.

Vs MPII's Zod: Hit confirm f222 lift, f222 leaves you at neutral frames but lift is -9 or something like that. Reflect his mb zod balls in the air when he tries to get trait set up. Of course this introduces the meta, where if you do that and he reads it, he could go for mb low laser and hit you. If you're in trait in this situation I believe you can teleport and punish, but I'm not too sure to be honest as his mb balls auto correct,

Overall I've seen a lot of people dash up to you after a blocked lift and you jump forward, missing an opportunity to punish the dash in with d1 lift.

Also, props for making someone rage offline LOL

Vs Mod: You seem to know this MU pretty well, but (as of the first game) you killed yourself by using the teleport j2 stuff again. STAHPPPP. You don't need to have a pillar on the screen every second. You can wait and see what they do to check them and also learn their tendencies. For the most part I'd say to crouch the high heat zap instead of reflect, since a ton of SM players like to forward dash afterwards, and you can catch them with crush. The SM player dashed up after a blocked soul crush midscreen, and again you jumped forward when you could have punished the dash with d1 lift. Punish dashes pls, it's not only damage but also makes your opponent hesitant to move. I like your use of pushblock in this MU. Work on trip guarding too, the SM player whiffed a lot of jump ins that could have been punished with b23 or d1 lift. This MU = Zone

Ok thats all I'm going to do tonight, hope it helped.