A Decent Showing

I started off on Friday night playing casuals at Vegas. Now that GG has been announced for EVO and that I can 100% for sure attend EVO, it inspires me even more to play seriously. Lots of good players were there such as Natsume, Mugen, HH, Bleed, FAB, Mitsurugi, and Hot Zappa. I started off having a little trouble against some pink Potemkin but after a few loses I beat him and then from there on I was doing well for most of the night. Eventually Matt showed up. I beat HH’s Dizzy and Ky once each and after that he just went and played BB. I also played Mugen a bunch of times and he was picking all sorts of different characters. I beat him every time except I lost one game to his HOS. Also, I played Matt about maybe 10 games. He managed to beat me one time out of our set. This is the 3^rd time hes ever beaten me. I have noticed a great improvement in his game within the past few weeks.

We ended up playing pretty late, like passed 12. After getting some food, we headed to Current. Shortly after, Rod showed up. It wasn’t very crowded there, just a few Cirque guys, Bosch, Yago, and the Current staff. It was mainly just a regular night of drinking with lots of talking about Guilty Gear and other stuff. We stayed till 5 am closing time and decided to just get to sleep so we could get a little extra practice time in the morning. After getting some food, I went to the manga kissa and Matt came as well. Rod went home.

We woke up at around 11:30. Today would be the last G3 ranbat and it was scheduled to start at about 2:30. We headed right for Vegas. There was only like one guy there playing. I played him a bit and he wasn’t very good. I think like one other guy showed up and he was playing against Matt and the guy I was playing left after a while. It was pretty dead at Vegas after being there for a half hour or so, so we just decided to check out Sportsland. There was a purple May player there and he had a win streak. Matt and I both took turns trying to beat him. I cant stand May but after a few tries, I eventually beat him. However, the match I beat him, I noticed my slash button was messed up. I dropped like 3 combos because the slash didn’t come out. I told one of the guys who works there and he fixed the machine. I played the May a bit more and beat him again and then he left. For a while we were just sitting around and there was no comp to play against. Matt was messing around on BB against the computer. I got an email from Rod saying he arrived in Shinjuku. I guess he ended up going to Vegas. He said there was some comp there now and that he beat some female Bridget player who wasn’t Ririko. Matt and I thought about heading over there but it was only like 10 more minutes until signups were scheduled to start so we figured we might as well just wait. After about 10 minutes, people gradually started to show up and then it got packed pretty fast. MIU arrived and would be running the tournament as usual. I asked MIU if he heard about this year’s EVO lineup. He said he hadn’t seen it yet so I told him what was up. He was surprised to hear that EVO was in July and isn’t sure if he can come yet but probably can. When I told him Guilty was a main event, he was happy but didn’t seem all that excited that it was singles over teams. I guess he prefers that format. He also seemed disappointed that there is no CvS2 tournament. I told him that both Guilty teams and CvS2 will probably both have side tournaments run by players in any case. I asked him if a lot of Japanese Guilty Gear players will probably come but he said he doesn’t know yet (which makes sense considering no one probably knows about it yet). I couldn’t talk to him long though because he was busy taking signups. Rod was taking a while to get here for whatever reason so Matt signed him up. He eventually showed up and was debating whether to use I-no or Johnny. Matt signed him up as I-no so he just rolled with it. I got some good casual matches in before the tournament. I beat Taku’s Slayer 3 rounds in a row. Rod and Matt were getting hype and like encouraging me and shit. Rod was parodying the Marvel hype video but instead of saying “fuck the Knicks” he was like “fuck the Seibu Lions!” lol! (they are a Japanese baseball team). I also won a game of casuals vs Tsu’s Eddie and ABEGEN’s Potemkin. Inoue had a 20 win streak with his Eddie. I came very close to beating him but fell short. He eventually lost to some Baiken.

Just to sum things up, after every G3 ranbat, depending on how far you get, you get a certain amount of points and it adds up. They had the rankings list posted from all the previous ranbats. The top 4 as of before today’s tournament were..

1. Batako (ZA)

2. Motsuchi (BR)

3. Kiap (ED)

4. Karun (JA)

Eventually after lots of waiting, the tournament started. Matt, Rod, and I all got lucky and got a bye first round. HH entered this tournament with Ky. His first match was against the Baiken that beat Inoue’s Eddie. HH won his match. HH’s 2^nd match was against my Faust! He seemed pretty cocky (or maybe just being a nice guy? LOL!) and instead of doing RPS to pick what side we would play on, he just let me choose which one I wanted. I was doing well against HH last night so I had confidence that I could beat him. Rod and Matt were cheering me on while we played and lots of the Japanese players watching were getting pretty hype. I ended up beating him 2 rounds and taking the win! Not long after, it was time for Matt’s first match. He was up against Fumo’s ABA. Matt played his HOS really well and ended up taking it! Unfortunately for Rod, he wasn’t so fortunate. He was to fight a Jam player but the name on the signup sheet was unfamiliar. As soon as his match was called, I saw who it was that he had to fight. I asked Rod if he knows who that is and he said no. He assumed by the way I asked though, that the player was good. Rod’s first match of the tournament was vs Karun (who got 1^st place at the last one). Rod put up a good fight and actually won the first round but in the end, too many puff balls to the face eliminated Rod’s I-no from the brackets. Karun went on after that to defeat Nanashi’s Venom. Matt went up against Mitsurugi and put up a decent fight but Mitsurugi is just too good and Matt was eliminated. My next match was against Batako’s Zappa, the guy who is currently ranked in first place. The first round was going very well. I had his life down pretty low and then he got Raoh. I threw out a bomb bag and he managed to squeeze in a DP and hit me out of it, but the bomb bag fell on him and killed him, giving me the first round. The 2^nd round I zoned him really well and just kept him at bay and kept shutting down his summons and was able to take the 2^nd round as well! Once again people were getting pretty hype.

We were now at the final top 8 of the tournament. The top 8 remaining players were me (FA), Kawin (spiky hair Potemkin), ABEGEN (PO), Tsu (ED), Mitsurugi (ZA), Zero (OR), Karun (JA), and Akitan (IN). MIU was announcing the final 8 and was humming this funny song when someone was about to die. I dunno what it was from but other people started humming it too. Zero went vs Tsu and defeated him. Kawin and ABEGEN battled it out in a mirror match and Kawin won. Akitan took out Karun in a good match. That left me fighting against Mitsurugi. Mitsurugi is such a smart and careful player. It was going even for a while and eventually he got me in the corner with the ghosts and I just couldn’t excape for a very long time. I kept blocking and eventually I got out but he still ended up winning. I put up a decent fight but his Zappa was just too much and I was eliminated. We were now down to top 4. Kawin Pot bustered his way to victory against Mitsurugi in a really close one. Akitan took out Zero! Grand finals were Kawin vs Akitan. Akitan did alright but Kawin was just on fire and beasted on his I-no to take the whole tournament!

Im not sure what the rankings look like now as of todays results but G3 ranbats are now over and the final team has been determined. They might have the final results online. If not, I will ask around next week to find out who will play in the G3 finals. Todays tournament had a total of 49 entrants. It was a lot of fun and very hype. Even though I lost to Mitsurugi, I felt like I played pretty well and didn’t feel that bad about it. Matt and I didn’t eat all day yet so as soon as the tournament was over, we congratulated Kawin and talked to him briefly and then Matt, Rod, and I went to get some Wendys and I got a cigar too.

After that, we headed to Vegas to play casuals for the rest of the day. It was packed as hell with lots of people who were at the G3 tournament as well as some other players that weren’t there. I started off strong, getting a win against Nakamura’s Millia my first match. Then I beat Matt, and the orange I-no who is often there that talks to us a lot. After that I started to get into a slump and lost a bunch of times. For a while, Matt, Rod, and I kept trying to beat this one Potemkin. This guy was decent but wasn’t doing anything extremely special, its just that he was in our heads. He kept predicting everything we were gonna do. It was rather frustrating. He had a huge win streak and eventually someone else beat him. Then we started trying to beat this one other Po who was also beasting. We couldn’t beat him either and were starting to get pissed but then we realized it was Satoshi so we didn’t feel so bad. Eventually my losing streak ended and I got a 13 win streak to balance things out, so I didn’t feel so bad anymore. The streak was ended by that Potemkin again but he won by a pixel after a basically killed him and thought he was dead and I fucked up and he came back. I immediately rematched him and beat him 3 rounds. Everyone there today was just on the top of their game and playing very hard and very hungry. I played against HEVEN’s Venom like twice and lost. I wanted to rematch him but there was this one May player on the cab next to it and Rod, Matt, and a few other people were trying to beat this guy forever! No one could stop him. He was at the tournament too and was beasting earlier. I forgot his name but he uses default color. Rod said hes like some really famous May. Anyway, Rod and Matt suggested I try to beat him. I figured why not. I tried and lost. On like my 2^nd or 3^rd try though, I managed to beat him somehow and ended his like 30 something win streak! It felt good cuz I hate May so much. As the night went on, lots of people were still there even very late so we ended up playing till about 12:30! We got so many games in and really felt like it was a good long day of training.

After playing, we stopped to get some curry and then headed to Current. Tonight, there was a metal event. Most of the metal event regulars were there and a few of the normal regulars. Ai was there too! She had plans to go to both GODZ and PSY as well and asked us to come with her. We stayed and drank at Current for a while and I enjoyed my cigar. Then Ai had this one friend. I don’t remember her name, but for whatever reason, when she introduced her, she was like “this is my friend, she is very young”. LOL, that just seems odd to me but whatever. Ai went ahead to GODZ with her friend and then at about 2:30, Rod, Matt, and I left Current and met her at GODZ. SPG Chris was also there, as well as that big Norwegian dude who we talked to last week and some other people. We requested some songs and did more drinking and talking and then Ai and her friend said they were gonna go to PSY and asked us to meet up with them there soon. At about 4:15 or so, we left and went to PSY. Today was Request Man’s birthday but he already went home! I guess too many people bought him drinks and he couldn’t handle it anymore. Too bad, I wanted to see him a plastered on his birthday. There were still tons of people there though and you could barely even move inside there. Eventually Masami came as well as Mai and Hibiki. Also, a bunch of people who were at GODZ showed up too. It was pretty much just more drinking and stuff. We stayed till a little after 6 and then they closed the place so we all had to leave.

We wanted to keep drinking so we got a group together and did like 2 hours of karaoke. Rod was tired so he went home. It was me, Masami, Matt, the big Norwegian guy, these 2 British dudes, and some other white chick. We sang lots of good metal songs. I think I passed out for about 20 or 30 minutes towards the end. I didn’t even remember falling asleep and next thing I know its time to leave. Oh well. I drank a lot and it was already like 7:30 or 8 am so whatever. Everyone went home and I headed for the manga kissa.

The next day I woke up and my head hurt pretty bad. I popped a headache pill and got better eventually. I headed right for Vegas. It was already like 3:30 pm so there were a few people there. I started off by getting a 23 win streak right off the bat. I eventually lost by a pixel to a Millia player. I rematched him, won the first round, and then for whatever reason he went into IK mode at the start of the 2^nd round, stood there, I ran at him, he tried to IK me, missed, and then I think he just left the arcade. I dunno wtf that was about but whatever. Hot Zappa showed up with the Yellow Robo-ky who I think is her boyfriend. I beat him a few times in my win streak and I got a few more games in against him after that. That one foreigner Bridget player who is there sometimes named Ryan was also there. He was having a real hard time vs the Robo-ky but eventually beat him once I think. There was also this really good Millia there and I was going back and forth with him for a while and then he started to pull away but they were all really close. They he chose Chipp on me, won like 2 and then I beat him. Around this time, Matt and Rod eventually showed up really late. Matt had shit to do and Rod over slept. Matt played me after I beat that one dude’s Chipp and then I think he left once Matt got on the machine. It’s a shame cuz I wanted to play that guy more and I also wanted to ask him about his SBO plans. Oh well. I beat Matt and then I got a bunch of games in with Rod. He tried a few different characters against me. Mostly Johnny and I-no. He didn’t beat me but we had some good matches. Eventually, it was time to go so I said bye to those guys and headed for the train station.

When I was at the train station waiting for the train to arrive, I reached in my backpack to get something and I noticed it was all wet. The saline solution bottle for my contact lenses had opened up in the bag and spilled everywhere! My DS was soaking wet. I tried to clean it off and then turn it on but nothing happened. My DS is now broken. Fuck!!! I was pretty disappointed about that but I guess its just an excuse to get a DSi or something. I wasn’t really planning on buying one cuz my original DS still worked fine, but I guess I have to now. Fucking contact lense solution.. At least my PSP was ok cuz it was in a case and my MP3 player was in a different compartment of the backpack so it could have been much worse.

Overall it was a good weekend and I had a lot of fun. I did pretty decent at the tournament and got lots of great games of casuals in. SBO quals are coming soon so its time to keep playing hard. This Wednesday is a national holiday which means no work. Rod and Matt will come out to my town with their girlfriends for the first time and we will play some games at my place and get drunk. The next day we will all go skiing and snowboarding. Should be fun times.