Power Up 2012 + Reflections

WHAT EVEN ARE YOU

This past weekend I went to Power Up over in Cincinnati.  Before I got any further, I warn you for impending salt coming your way.  To sum everything up very quickly, I went 0-2 in Skullgirls and 3-2 in Blazblue, and 4th in Melty Blood.  The one I'm really disappointed in is Skullgirls to be honest.  just the way I got eliminated was pretty frustrating for me.



When we got to Power Up, I played some casuals in Skullgirls and felt pretty good about my play.  I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to get first, but at least do pretty well.  I first played against Brandino, a fairly well known F-Ciel.  When I played against him, I was pretty confident because he played only Filia.  Both Toi_yet and Guiseppe played solo Filia so I felt I had a decent idea of how the match up was suppose to go.  And for most of the match that was how it was.  My neutral was superior to his, but what got me was getting thrown twice in the corner where I took all of my damage.  I realized this, but I didn't really do anything to stop it which was really unfortunate.  The score ended up being Brandino winning 2-0, but each match had come down to the last round which in general was pretty close.  With the way brackets was handled, I didn't have to play another match until 5 hours later.  When I did, I lost to Double's Cerebella butt-slam assist cause I didn't know how it worked.  Essentially, I got gimmicked out and lost.

NO YOU PS3

Blazblue, I lost to a Ragna (Jackie Chandler) and a Tager (Koopa_Klawz).  My lost to Jackie Chandler was, alot of me not knowing Ragna's gatlings, which is kinda ironic considering you expect me to know them since I see the character so often.  But, I don't see gatlings into 6C often so that caught me off guard too many times which got me counter hit a bunch and die.  As for Tager... there was a lot of unfortunate things that happened.  In the last game, I was on my way to getting a perfect when the PS3 overheated(?) and died.  Then there was a long break between when we restarted our match and I couldn't really get back into it.  I lost momentum and my state of mind at that moment.  I'm really sad that this happened, but it happens and I can't really do much about it.


Melty Blood was Melty Blood.  My Satsuki still can't perform the mixups after getting oki and shield is gdlk until it gets baited out.  Also, there's a bunch of matchups that I don't know about so that makes a little more insane.  I did get to meet Izusa again and meet ZomB and Beno, so it was nice meeting some of the Melty community.

GET IN THERE LEONARDO

So in the end, I'm quite disappointed in myself about how all of the tournaments went for me.  I could have gone through winners in Skullgirls if I had beaten Brandino when I had the upper hand the majority of the time and got gimmicked out on my second match.  Blazblue was just unfortunate and Melty Blood was Melty Blood.  Even then, I still had fun at the tournament because next to the venue, they have an actual arcade which is all on free play.  So I got to play CVS2 on American parts, Wind Jammers, and Magical Drop which was really fun.  Considering how badly the majority of how my tournament went, I think I enjoyed it most in the arcade.  Also, I learned that in TMNT the arcade game, all the turtles have dive kicks.
Turtles are OP.  

But in all seriousness, this let's me think about what I need to do to improve in both SG and BB.  For SG, I think it's almost better to mash throw, until your opponent starts punishing you for whiffing throws.  Throws get you essentially a unprorated combo from any starter (hint - for Valentine use cr HP) into a full combo for massive amounts of damage.  Until they can punish, that, keep on mashing throw tech.  Also, learn to deal with super good assists like Double's assist and Parasoul's Napalm Strike or w/e it's called.  BB, watch more Ragna videos because I need to know his blockstrings and watch out for shitty PS3/360s :/


And a small bit of shoutouts, playing 3rd Strike for 3 hours on the car ride back is gdlk.  Thank you Bonkler for your awesome car and Guiseppe for playing with me.  Also, shoutouts to Kevin for getting top 16 and almost beating Dieminion in Marvel and Klimax for 2-0 Perfect Legend in AE (lol).  Stay gdlk Pittsburgh