The New Generation of Street Fighter is Officially Here | Extra Trashy - Trash Talk

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Big week for fighting games. We just saw potentially the new
generation of Street Fighter talent taking over the last CPT
premiere and we got our hands on2 XKO.
Finally. Have our opinions changed?
Can we stop presenting ourselvesas haters of two XKO?
I guess we got to find out in this episode.
Idom how you doing man? I'm doing good, doing good like
you said, good. Week 2 XKO UFA just happened so

(00:21):
that was also pretty sick as well.
Good week. Overall, do you have any
thoughts about that top eight? I think the big storyline from
that top 8 is where are the Ogs,man?
It's it's the new generation. This was the first top eight.
We're going into it. There wasn't we got to give
credit to to know the prodigy little exception there.
There wasn't a post point seasonCPT champion in this event.

(00:43):
There was no EVO champion, therewas no Captain Cup champion.
There was no expected favorite. I would say going into this top
8, aside from maybe 1 Chilean prodigy in there.
But really it was a a group of players that have been
consistently performing over thepast couple of Street Fighter
six seasons on the come up in this top 8.
So once you got into that top 8 bracket, you didn't really know

(01:05):
what was going to happen. It was going to be like a new
face holding that final trophy there.
So I think that was a really interesting storyline coming
away from this, this top 8. Because going into it we had
Juicy Joe Broski you had on the winter side, rather you had
Kings Vega versus Riddles, Saharversus Nephew, Broski versus
Noah, and Blahs versus Juicy Joe.

(01:25):
And so that was a really interesting top 8 mix.
Like did you have any thoughts when you saw that?
Cause first of all, there's a bunch of NA in there, all new
players. I don't know what to think when
I saw this top 8. And he's and he's the the best
region for Street Fighter. Obviously, before I get
attacked, you know, I'm just going to throw that out there.
Second of all, there were a lot of, like you said, new faces,

(01:47):
like people you weren't really expecting.
But like blahs to me was if I saw that top 8, Blas would have
been my pick immediately to win.Actually, Blas was my pick.
My 2 picks to win. UFA before the tournament
started was punk and blah. And you know, Punk didn't do too
so hot unfortunately. But Blas, when I saw Blas in the
top eight, I was like, yeah, this kid, this kids do for

(02:09):
something. So it's kind of kind of his
time. Yeah, fax that, that was that
was my pick as well. Even in the loser's side, I was
like, blah's probably going to make a run here.
That was that was my prediction as well.
We'll get right back to that discussion about UF 8 in just a
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(02:29):
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end of extra trashy episodes in the dumpster diving Q&A
sections. OK, that's all I got back to the
UFA discussion. But I guess before we get into

(02:51):
the details of that top eight, we got to talk about the obvious
you you brought up punk, man, Wehad a classic showdown, punk
versus Daigo in pools of this tournament, which was kind of
the precursor to how this top eight came to be.
So like so so filled with faces that you would not initially
call to be a guaranteed champion.
You expect one of those people to be in top 8A handful of them,

(03:14):
but to be a top 8 comprised of all these players who haven't
won a CPT super premiere, it's like, well, pretty surprising.
But Punk ended up going to losers in pools to Nassim Claw
with his E Honda and then Broskiput Daigo into losers in Pool.
So all four of those players were in the same pool, which is
nuts. Shows the level of the talent at
this tournament because there's only 393 players actually

(03:36):
entered. But the density of talent absurd
because this is in the the second-half of the CPT season,
there's very little points remaining.
And so we're starting to see like the solidification of that
top 6 leaderboard for CPT points.
And players like Punk really needed the CPT points.
He was on the the precipice, on the verge of securing himself a

(03:56):
point qualification by being in that top six.
He was on the lower half. So, you know, he wanted to have
a good weekend here, but going to losers early put him up
against Daigo. And historically that has been
really bad for Daigo. And we know Daigo in Street
Fighter 6 hasn't been having themost success that we've seen
from him in, you know, 20 plus years, 25 plus years of Street

(04:18):
Fighter. And going to this match, I, I
looked at the records, he was undefeated.
Punk was I think 1 and O or two and O over Daigo in Street
Fighter six. And then throughout Street
Fighter Five's lifespan, he onlylost one set out of eight in
major tournament appearances. And, and Punk really actually
got his career started, I would almost argue by beating Daigo at
final round 2017. Punk didn't make top eight that

(04:40):
tournament. But we all know about 2017 Punk,
right? The most winningest player, most
dominant Capcom season we've ever seen.
He would go on to win or place top 2 or top three to every
other premiere after that. But final round 2017, the first
big wave he made was whoa, Punk,the guy from Philly, the guy
from the online tournaments, that young kid just beat Daigo.
I remember hearing the rumors inperson, like the, the crowd was

(05:02):
buzzing with that energy. And so of course, when they
showed down here today, people were tuning in, right?
It was, it was an exciting set and it was very interesting to
watch. I don't know if you had any
thoughts about how it actually played out.
I, as somebody who's played Daigo a lot in Street Fighter
six, I, I, I think the worst thing you can do with Daigo is
let Daigo play Street Fighter. And the way punk plays, punk

(05:23):
plays really like slow and methodical.
He can obviously, you know, get the train rolling and kind of,
you know, steamroll you as well.But the more you let Daigo play
Street Fighter, I think the worst is going to get, the worst
is going to get for you. And you're letting Daigo throw
fireball are kind of just like condition you to not really do
anything. You're playing into this game
and he, I think he just loves that.

(05:45):
Well did you see how many overheads he was doing?
When I watched this set at firstit was like OK, A1 overhead, A2
overhead. And then at by the end of the
set I think he did like 7 like double digit overhead attempts,
just raw and neutral and most ofthem landed.
More than 50% of his raw overheads landed.
It was at least 10 plus overheads I believe.
Diego used to do that in Street Fighter 4 though.

(06:06):
That's what I'm saying. You're letting Diego play Street
Fighter. That's the problem.
But it was so weird, right? Normally you get in that range
and in Street Fighter Six you never, it's so rare to see that
sort of style to like poke away.Essentially.
It's essentially a poke. And generally the poking game in
Street Fighter 6 is usually a means to an end to earn you the
button to dry brush, right, because the damage output is

(06:27):
just so high compared to a raw poke.
And to do the overhead, you're open, you're getting into low
forward range, right. But it felt like Daigo was
playing the reverse psychology here, where Punk is also a
rather risk adverse player. So whenever he's in that range
with the Kuma where low forward is a threat, Punk is like, yeah,
I'm obviously going to hold downback here, block the dry rush,

(06:47):
maybe DPOS it. If if Daigo tries to get a
little frisky and overextend andyou know what I mean, deal with
it then let him waste the meter.And so Daigo kept getting into
that range and just overhead shop, overhead shop, overhead
shop, overhead shop over and over and over.
And it was really effective. I was like, wow, like this feels
like a a strategy. Like not like him not just

(07:08):
playing Street Fighter Six, but something tailor made.
To deal with how Punk operates. So that really stood out to me
when I watched the match. Yeah.
I just think it's something about Daigo.
He wants to play slow but like SF 6 is just overall kind of
chaotic so you might get hit or something might happen.
I know Broski beat him in one ofthem.

(07:30):
I'm actually not sure who beat him in losers though, but I'm
very curious. What?
Oh oh Jack beat him literally literally right after America
still got him. It's a Jack probably just said,
yeah, I'm just gonna look for a dry Russian.
Yeah, you know what I mean? Like I'm always keep under 6 and
so Jack got him right after. OK, so yeah, it's it's something
like a slow style versus Taco just doesn't work.

(07:50):
It's kind of why I'm always likeskeptical to see like how they
would, you know, change the drive system or how the game
works, because you're I always feel like you're one or two
changes away from Diego style being super effective versus
where we are now, where it's notreally that good because, you
know, button in the drive rush might kill you, right.

(08:11):
Man, it's it's interesting to see how that style actually
worked out really well. So that was a big buzz, right?
Like it's just like a pair of of2 legends really like punk, you
know, people love to deride him people, you know, he robs people
the wrong way and he maybe has made some personal missteps in
his public perception. Maybe some PR training would
have done him some good to some people.
But love him or hate him, man, he's a he's a legend of our

(08:34):
scene at this point. He's Eva champion, one of the
most winningest players of all time.
So to see like those two generations collide, it's always
going to be be a big event, eventhough it's a pools match and
they both ended up losing like one plate outside the CPT
points, you know, like none of them got CPT points, but it's
one of the biggest stories out of this event.
It was very funny to see that. And but you know what, you know

(08:55):
this, this also makes me think Igo got his get back on both you
and Punk. I don't know, man, ever since
you dropped that trash talk where you said Punk told you
item specifically to play him like he's a scrub at EVO 2022.
That was the advice that you said Punk bestowed upon you.
He got you at EVO and now I got a Punk at UFA.

(09:16):
So I don't know, maybe maybe Diamond's been watching some
trash talk waiting to get that revenge.
I mean, the problem is I feel like we both didn't play him
like a scrub. Now, that was our initial
thought. We didn't play him like a scrub.
Giving too much respect. That was the problem.
Yeah. It's kind of funny watching your
match at him versus him at EVO versus the match where you beat

(09:36):
him at ECT 2024. That was a chaotic match.
But it also shows his versatility because you were
playing him, you know, like, Hey, Are you ready for this, my
man? Like I'm I'm going to throw some
DIS at you and go ham. And he was like, oh, word, you
want you want to throw down likehe met you with that energy at
ECT. It was a chaotic match.
He was going random DI for random DI, random DP nonstop,

(09:59):
you know, like he was willing toswing.
And then the way he played against Punk, night and day
difference, literally like a a aSuper Turbo Ryu match, like a
Street Fighter 4 where you matchlike it was so interesting to
see. So if you've kind of missed out
on some more old school show to style type of gameplay, watch
that match. Unfortunately, it didn't last

(10:19):
for too long in the bracket because I don't think that's
going to work versus everybody, but it worked there.
And so we had a classic showdownbetween those two players there,
but that was kind of like the precursor to this top eight that
we wanted to get into because somany of the the the people you
expected like a punk, whatever, they all fell far before a top
8. And getting to that top eight, I

(10:40):
think one of the biggest storieshere was, was Riddles, right?
Riddles had a really good run and riddles formerly a smash
ultimate player he's been on thecome up for a while right.
We've talked about him at esports World Cup.
He had a great run at the LCQ went crazy ham of the LCQ got
into esports World Cup. Unfortunately he went oh into
it. If I remember correctly,

(11:00):
listening to Memochi and I believe MENA Rd., but had great
sets and his set versus Memoche at Esports World Cup was down to
the wire. Amazing set.
And so this time he's the one who put Blas into losers because
I was expecting Blas to dominate.
Once I saw top 16, I was like, yeah, this is finally Blas
chance to win the big tournament.
And then Riddles, the former dedicated Smash player, beat him

(11:23):
instead. So that was like a really big
upset. And yeah, I really expected Blas
to win when I saw the top 16. So that really surprised me.
I don't know if it surprised you.
Oh, yeah. I, I, I wasn't expecting Blas to
like, like you said, to lose to Riddles.
Like obviously if there was likeif I had to bet all my money on,
I would obviously take Blas. But it was kind the way Riddles

(11:48):
kind of played against Blas, in my opinion, was kind of just
like a very bully style. And it I felt like Blas felt
like a bit uncomfortable playingagainst Terry, like he didn't
really know where to stand because like Terry's really good
at kind of threatening with bareknuckle.
You don't want to throw fireballs because your fireball
might trade are, you know, EX fireball, might, you know,
exchange and then Terry gets a full combo.

(12:10):
So I really, I felt like boss was a bit more out, like out of
position against Terry or I didn't really have a a good
place to stand I felt like. That's interesting because Boss
actually has a really good Terryhimself as well.
It's not like he's not familiar with the character.
Blas has played every Shoto S character and tournament at this
point as well. But yeah, riddles has just been

(12:31):
leveling it up. Like whenever I watch as Terry,
he's he's definitely my favoriteTerry player by far.
Like whenever I watch him, he has more and more creative
approaches and styles to how he operates.
He's even using like the target combo low Ford to advocate
target combo and he's doing unsafe hit confirms to frame
trap people for trying to do like DPOS or like jab OS.

(12:54):
Like he'll cancel the fireball point blank just to like throw
you off in case you try to interpret the button because
there's always a gap there. If he does like a drivers
cancel, for example. So he's constantly evolving his
his set of tools and his setup game.
So he's pushing the tech forwardon that technical sense.
And then even just his rhythm for this button placement and

(13:16):
timing, it's been really impressive.
So Riddles has just been stepping it up and he's and he
got made it into the top 8 winner side kind of picking up
the mantle for for Canada, maybetaking over.
Oh, why is it, why is it, why amI forgetting his name?
Safe. Safe.
Excuse me. Yeah, yeah.
So yeah, he's picking up the mantle for Canada, taking it

(13:38):
over from Safe here because Safewas like the first big surprise
in Street Fighter 6 for making top 8A Captain Cup for Canada.
It's Canada usually doesn't havethat many representatives at in
traditional fighting games like that, but now Canada and top
eight winners of ACPT Premier, that's pretty big.
Something new that is definitelysomething new that we're not

(13:59):
really used to seeing. Yeah, but, but I, I, for me, I
think the, for me, the main storyline for the top 16 was
Kings Vega, cuz I am actually a huge fan of his Blanca and I, I
do like watching Blanca, but he,his kind of game sense was kind

(14:22):
of reminded me of a bit of like how MENA plays Blanca where like
he'll walk back a lot. But like drivers stand light
kick for Blanca. It's kind of like impossible to
check. It reminds me of like a Ken
drivers jab but he was getting so much mileage off and just
playing everyone and kind of like staying in outside of the
low forward range and then just doing drivers stand light kick.

(14:42):
Yeah, I felt like he had a much slower style compared to MENA
Rd. Like there's elements of what
you would think of that MENA Rd.has.
But to me, MENA Rd. is constantly mixing the options
and cranking the mental stack. Like he's always applying some
kind of pressure where King's Vegas seems sometimes he's
content to play footsies a lot more and he'll he'll do things

(15:03):
like just walk out of range and use Stan medium and crutching
heavy punch and just kind of wait around a little bit before
he uses his burst options. So I felt like he had a a little
bit of a slower place and I was not surprised to see him in top
16 originally. But I feel like he has an
interesting story because he is one of the players who's been
making a big come up in the pastyear and I feel he's had next to

(15:26):
0 screen time. He's got 0 clout in the West
because because he's not a knownname, he's usually relatively
lower seeded. He had kind of work and, and
earned these wins to kind of gethigher seeds and people tend to
just not put him on stream, right.
So I, I compiled some of his major wins.
So he over the past year where he's been really travelling and

(15:49):
trying to compete, he got 33rd at EVO Japan.
He ended up getting 13th at the this Asia Champions League
qualifier, 17th at CEO, 13th at Blink Respawn, he got then 65th
at EVO and then 17th at the esports World Cup Last Chance
Qualifier, and then all of a sudden 4th place at CPT Japan

(16:14):
World Warrior. You know the event with 2300
plus entrance right? So that is that means he was the
4th best player out of Japan on that weekend.
Big deal, very big deal. So that's a so he's placing
solid in all these tournaments and he's beating a lot of
notable players at that blink respawn event.
For example, he beat Tokido and Punk 2O and dual Kevin 21.

(16:36):
I don't recall seeing any of those matches on stream.
Yeah, actually, yeah. Now that you say that, I
actually don't remember that either.
I don't think any of those matches.
He also beat Daigo 21. It's CPT Japan's super premier
in 2024. So like he's beaten all these
household names, but you know, there's limited stream bandwidth
and generally the street runnersare trying to pick like the most

(16:58):
notable notable matches that thebiggest match is going to
generate the most buzz. So I feel like for a while,
Kings Vega, while he's been on the grind as a relatively newer
player than the scene, hasn't been given, given the respect
put on his name. And so they go, Oh yeah, Dyger
versus Sablanca, he's going to get watched.
Tokido versus Sablanca, who cares, right?
And then he's been low key watching them.

(17:19):
He had to put together a significant run of stringing all
those wins together in in one tournament until CPT Japan,
right? And so at that point, it's like,
OK, you got to watch out for this guy.
Like he's going to be a consistent threat going forward.
And he showed it off this tournament given that that top
eight winners appearance, winning over Juicy Joe and and

(17:39):
getting that qualification. So yeah, we'll get more into his
play in the top 8. But I want to give one one other
shout out in the top 16 to a surprise player, Kiyuki out of
Brazil. So she plays JP and in this
first international premier appearance, she beat Akainu
Problem X Hope Ryu say in the JPmirror and kills you, which is

(18:01):
huge kills you to me is one of the best players and has been
one of the best players in the world for a long time.
So that to me is a huge win. And to come out of Brazil and do
that, it reminds me a little bitof last year out of Brazil we
have we had Zenki Bolado who hadtheir first like really big
notable appearance at UFA last year, beating big Bird and
making top eight that tournament.

(18:22):
So Brazil showed up again to to UFA and having a big run.
I don't know if you saw any of her games or not.
Yeah, Kiyuki had a really good run.
Funny enough, Kiyuki got put into losers by Blas super early
on. So like, that's just
unfortunate, like pool seating and like stuff like that.
But yeah, Kiki went on a crazy run like you said.

(18:42):
Yeah, she had a lot of setups kind of just like with JP and
her style kind of reminded me a bit of like Kakaru kind of more
of AJP sense, like stand around,do nothing, kind of like the
portal, do a lot of the work andjust sort of like try to keep
the game under control. So like her, her style was
really good and like I said, shewas one of the I always think

(19:05):
it's refreshing to see AJP on a on a Street Fighter 6 screen or
just in Street Fighter 6IN Jenna.
I like watching JP. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How the tables have turned right.
Like people just say hate on JP so much.
I think the sentiment has shifted a little bit.
I know people still hate fighting him Fair, whatever, you
know, that's your prerogative. But I think high level JP is
very interesting to watch and shout out to.

(19:25):
You keep having a big international performance like
that and appearance, and they'recurrently third in the CPT World
Warrior points for the Brazil region.
So Brazil's just such a strong region, man.
Not Pedro, I think is currently leading the pack there.
So we've seen whenever they are able to send a representative
out internationally, they alwaysmake a splash, whether it be

(19:46):
Zingy Pilato and not Pedro now Kiyuki.
So shout out to Brazil has been one of the strongest regions for
Street Fighter for a long time and has one of the largest
communities. So they've they've been
consistently producing some of the best talent on the planet.
So hopefully we can see more of the representation at
international tournaments going forward.
But I think that kind of brings us into our top 8.

(20:08):
So like I mentioned before, we had the the players into this
bracket were Kings Daca versus Riddle, Sahara, Nephew, Broski,
Noah The Prodigy, and Blah's Juicy Joe.
Yeah, I, I was thinking Blase was going to go on a run, but I
was also hoping before that thatwe almost had an all NA winners
finals. So close, right.

(20:30):
Riddles versus Kings Vegas, a hard versus nephew.
We could have had an all NA winners finals out of nowhere in
ACPT premiere and we had three NA players.
We're claiming riddles. You know, we're saying NA here,
not USA. Yeah, we're we're claiming
riddles right now, but man, 3NA players in the top 8 for
premier. It feels like it's been a very,
very long time. And that's three NA players

(20:53):
without counting. There's no punk and there's no
you know, the IT gets a little, the lines get a little blurry
when you count MENA Rd. you know, so there's no punk in
there. There's no dual cabin.
The other like consistent notable representation.
So yeah, what do you think is NAback?
What's going on here NA? Is really good like I said, I
feel like people underestimate and AI know everyone's like, oh,

(21:16):
you know, North America beating their chest, you know, talking
about how much we're better thanevery other region.
But we're we're pretty strong. We're pretty consistent.
Like we have a lot of good players, even dual Kevin.
I know when I saw dual Kevin andtop 16 are even like before the
tournament started, I was I was so sure dual Kevin was going to
make top 8. Unfortunately didn't happen.

(21:37):
But yeah, we we have so many good player and, you know, we
got to glaze our own players. Come on.
Right. We got to you got to lift them
up. No, I respect that.
You're watching them home. You got to you got to uplift
their spirits. No, I, I.
Respect that I root for NA whenever I get a chance.
It's just it's interesting to see because generally for Street

(21:59):
Fighter six, it's like we have 1-2 Max or zero, you know what I
mean, in terms of representationin top 8.
So this was a really interestingbracket.
I was like, dude, we could have an all NA winners finals.
When is the last time that has happened at any CPT premiere
ever, right? Unless it's, you know, Punkin
MENA Rd. right, or you know, some kind of where you're

(22:21):
blurring the lines a little bit,you know, are you going to count
DRS NA technically, geographically, yes, but
culturally absolutely not. You know, like so it was really
unexpected to see that and this whole top 8 is players who have
never won a CPT premier post point system.
Now know the prodigy. Of course he won blink respawn
in 2024. All respect to him.

(22:42):
I think it's an amazing player as well as much as people like
the you know, people, they love him or hate him, you know, for
his antics outside of the game. Really strong player.
But Blink Respawn 2024 was not the same type of event as Blink
Respawn 2025 or any of the the CPT premieres in 2025 because of

(23:02):
the point system. Just the number of topical
players traveling to all these events now is just
astronomically higher because ofthe point system, which gives
you a consolation prize for not winning the whole thing.
If there's an auto qualifier spot and then points to qualify
for placing and I believe the top 16 at least for maybe top
32. And then if you're in that top 6
to the leaderboard at the end, you also qualify.

(23:24):
So a lot of these players are chasing those points and that
just raises the level of competition.
So it would be the first time for any player here to win a CPT
Point Premier style event, a brand new champion, no matter
which way you sliced it. Of course Blas was the favorite
going into this then he was longdue.
But it felt like everyone in this event was due.

(23:46):
Everyone in this tournament has in this top 8 was on the grind
on the come up. Nephew had gotten the closest to
winning, I think a similar caliber event.
He got second at CPT Singapore in 2024, which had like all of
Japan there. That was the one event where the
top Japanese players actually travelled to.
So he's he was the closest, I think, to winning a similarly
stacked event. And you know, this time didn't

(24:09):
work out for him. Unfortunately.
After that, winners finals for us NA stands kings vacant Sahara
end up taking their sets of a riddles and nephew.
So it was an all of Japan winners finals.
But then as we went through the loser side blahs, he definitely
started cleaning up. It was looking like the blahs of
old for a while. So three over over Juicy Joe,

(24:29):
three one over Nephew, then three O over Riddles and the
revenge set getting his run backthere.
I don't know if you saw anythingnew about his style and those
loser sets leading up to Kings Vega, but he was just cooking
like usual. For for me, I mean, that was
just the Blas I'm used to seeing.
Like that was just like confident Blas.

(24:51):
I felt like he was laughing and having a good time.
You know, like I said, if he is he, if he's having fun, it's a
bad day for you if you're playing against him.
So that that's kind of what I'veseen.
He I, I will say going into the losers finals with Kings Vega,
the one thing I wanted to highlight, Blas loves Hashegeki

(25:11):
and I, I think Kings Vega watching was like, he loves
Hashogeki. I'm going to DI yeah.
And I think every DI hit and I think that was kind of just the,
the difference in kind of play style.
Yeah. Or just like the risk he's
willing to take. That was a really interesting
take away because it was early on in the set we saw Blobs was

(25:32):
doing his classic Hashogeki strings where you either Perry
and risk getting punched, counter thrown or you block and
lose all your drive gauge. You know, we've seen it a bunch
of Times Now at this point he's done it to everybody on the
planet and Kings Vega just let the DI RIP early on in the set
and it worked right, Because if you go for the Hash of Gecko,
there's a slight gap there. You get that DI to connect, you
got a full punch counter combo. And I was like, oh, like someone

(25:55):
responded, you know, I feel likeactually the best players on the
planet just hold that shit for, you know, a couple of six months
now since he's shown up at Captain Cup botting everybody.
And after he represented that DI, there was a later
interaction where it's a very, very similar situation.
King Vega was in the danger zonewith only three bars of drive
gauge and he was forced to blockan OD Hashogeki.

(26:17):
Once that happens, it's like your your drive gauge just
magically disappears against Blase's Ryu.
And he held up back and jumped away and Blas didn't do anything
because he he was like, I can't just autopilot my string now
because he might DI. So it paid off in dividends.
Not only did he get the DI counter early on in the set, but
later on Blas was like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't just do this

(26:40):
string. And King Seiko was able to jump
away and reset the situation andgo on to win that round as well.
So yeah, I do feel like he someone finally had an answer
for Blas. It's very interesting to see.
It's it's funny because that's that's kind of SF6 in a in a
nutshell. If I feel like DI is 90% of the
time the answer to a lot of the autopilot block strings like you

(27:03):
do, you know, button in the drind, right?
If you match the eye, Ken's going to stop it.
Same if the same thing playing against mine.
If she's doing oh, then you likebutton in the fan, mash the eye,
it's going to stop her. It's just no one's willing to
take the risk because if you're wrong, it's it's not worth it.
So I, it's kind of one thing of how SF 6 is kind of balanced or

(27:25):
like how the game kind of works.These answers, there's always
going to be answers in the game just because of the mechanics.
Are you willing to do the answeris the real question.
Right. Yeah.
And it felt like no one was willing to do it for a while.
But I think Blas has proven he'slike, hey, you better do
something. Yeah.
This is like 4 tournaments in four major or five major top 8

(27:49):
appearances in someone's like OK, he's really not going to
stop like this. He's really going to keep doing
this Hazel Gecky string, I better do something about it.
And King's Vega, he came correctly and I had never seen
Blas seem so disabled in that sense.
Like it felt like his game plan really did not build momentum
like it normally always does. Normally he's able to so

(28:09):
carefully place all his buttons and then once he gets a block
string going, your drive gauge is under attack which forces you
to make mistakes. And this, this set, it didn't
feel that way. It felt like he was on the back
foot the entire time. It wasn't like Kings Vega got by
by the skin of his teeth and encountered specifically these
interactions. It was like, no, the game plan
just didn't come together like it typically does for blahs,

(28:29):
which was a really rare to see. I feel like I haven't seen Blahs
be that convincingly beat in a high stakes tournament match,
whatever. Like I forget every time he's
won, it's been like a struggle, you know, like someone won, but
it was close, right? But I've never seen him be
convincingly beat where I felt like Kings Vega was not really

(28:50):
breaking a sweat towards the end.
It wasn't stressful. It's like he nullified the
strategy. And yeah, it worked really well.
And that earned Kings Vega his grand final appearance against
Sahara. So going into this grand finals
and the winners finals between these two players, there is a
lot of lore here because aside from being two of the Japanese
players who've been on the come up for a long time, I want to

(29:12):
talk a little bit about Sahara, right?
Sahara is an interesting player as well because when I saw the
announcement that Sahara was going to be joining Good 8
Squad, which is the reigning Street Fighter League world
champion team, I said who? That was my first.
I don't know if you knew it. Did you know who Sahara was when
that announcement was was made at the time?

(29:35):
He Sahara did well at a few tournaments last year.
I knew he was like an up and coming Ed player, but I think
that was probably the most I've seen of him.
But I I was surprised to see them them drop down.
I'm drawing a blank. Who is?
The I think it was YHC mochi I always.

(29:55):
Think so? No.
It wasn't Tori Meshi I man. What is?
Is it? It wasn't Torameshi, It was
three. It was YFC Mochi.
Yeah, he was on good squad. OK.
So, yeah, they got rid of YFC Mochi to get Sahara.
And I was like, oh, that's weird.
I I like, I know Mochi didn't play that much in the grand

(30:16):
finals at at Capcom Cup. You know, he was kind of, you
know, cheerleading because there's a lot of Kimberly's on
that team, but it's picking up Sahara.
I was like, oh, well, that's interesting.
I guess. You know, you no need for
Dolson. Like, yeah, so he's probably
been practicing or getting a lotof advice from like, Gatchi Kun
Kawano and Pugaris or I think maybe a lot of the advice or

(30:41):
just being able to play with them has probably leveled them
up exponentially. Yeah, and some of the lore that
came out about Sahara is that heused to be a Fortnite and
Valorant player before Street Fighter Six, so he was a really
strong FPS player. And in Street Fighter Six he
actually was part of Haitani's youth program.
So in Japan, there's a lot of programs that are put on by the
notable community members, including Haitani having this

(31:01):
youth program, and they're really focusing on mentoring
future talents and up and comingplayers and Sahara who you know,
I think if you demonstrate competitive success in another
field of gaming, you can definitely transition over to
Street Fighter. I think part of this topic is
also once again, just another data point in destroying Street
Fighter player egos because thatthat sentiment is mostly done.

(31:24):
I feel like it. It's mostly like really old
school pre 2015 E sports mentality that like, oh, Street
Fighter players are so much better.
Like no other players can keep up with Street Fighter players.
Riddles came from Smash Ultimateand he's one of the he's
definitely top five, maybe NA right now and one of the best
players in the world and kickingasshole over the world.

(31:45):
Sahara here was an FPS Valerie player switch on over.
If you play a different game at a high level, you can switch
over to Street Fighter and do work.
Absolutely. I, I think that it's been blown
out the water now. And so, yeah, so he switched to
the genre and really just with the release of Street Fighter
six started playing Street Fighter and now he's in grand
finals of a CPT premiere up against Kings Vega, who Kings

(32:07):
Vega was also his training partner and he travelled the
world's competing with Kings Vega leading up to this grand
finals appearance and apparentlyin their first international
tournament. E Cross always has a scoop here.
He says CPT 2024 Singapore was both Sahara and Kings Vegas,
first major out of Japan. Sahara was eliminated by Kings

(32:28):
Vega in that tournament. They've been traveling all over
since then. And now they're about to rematch
in winners finals of their firstCPT premier top 8.
So they, they're like, you know,they're the training partners
from, from Japan on the come up this whole CPT season and, and,
and then some in winners finals and then on to grand finals.
So that was really interesting to see that lore unfold in front

(32:50):
of us. And like we mentioned with the
King's Vega, Sahara was not having the best tournament
results leading up to this. So on top of me being surprised
of like, who is this guy? Why was he signed to good 8
squad? Why HT mochi is God like we just
saw his performance at esports World Cup.
You know, he can he's you know, he's a elderly gentleman who's

(33:11):
been cooking for a long time, right?
He's in his 40s. He's been doing the thing.
He's consistent, right? And Sahara, like he had some
good results. He almost made it into E World's
World Cup by getting 2nd place at BAM in Australia.
In fact, I felt like he was supposed to win.
He cooked in the winner's finalsthere against Narikun and then
Narikun reset the bracket and picked him apart in the end to

(33:32):
earn his Esports World Cup qualifying spot at Comma
Breaker. He ended up getting 33rd at CEO,
17th, not bad. Blake Respawn, 9th place, that's
not bad. EVO at Vegas, 17th not bad.
These are solid placements, definitely really strong
placements. Then at Esports World Cup LCQ

(33:54):
after he got second place to almost qualify out of Australia,
he ends up going Owen 2 and thenLCQ.
Yeah, that that was kind of my main thing too.
It is I have to know. And this is not even a Street
Fighter across any fighting game.
This has got to be the first time.

(34:16):
And Owen 2. Went to win an event that is
such a huge jump. I don't think I've ever seen
something like that. Yeah, yeah, that that's crazy.
And then the people he lost to, I, I look it up, he lost to
Nuggets and Zing Getsu. And I am not familiar with
either of these players. So all respect to Nugget and all

(34:37):
respect, respect to Zingetsu. But apparently those are the
people who took out Sahara and the eastwards World Cup LCQ.
So that was a rough break to go all the way to Saudi Arabia
after getting so close to qualifying for each world's
World Cup and the beginning of the the EWC season, then to fail
at the very end spectacularly todo it as bad as possible.

(34:58):
Then after that, a week before UFA was the World Warrior Japan
CBT Premier Kings. Vega got 4th place there, a
great confidence booster going into his first premier.
Amazing result for him, right? Sahara got 257th place.
I mean, OK, the CPI will throw this out there.

(35:20):
He did place the same as our current Capcom Cup champion.
So also you got to be thinking you got the same place as
cockatoo. So it's just this was this is
your Capcom Cup kind of it's it's so weird.
I feel like SO6's placements areall over the place.
Like I said, it's it's I don't want to say it's random, but at

(35:41):
the same time, I think Street Fighter Six has the has a lot of
extreme when it comes to placements and it's kind of like
hard to kind of track. I don't know ever who's going to
do well. I feel like a lot of the people
seeded to do well at UFA didn't do as well as they were intended
to. I think Itazong was the first
seed and I want to say he got like 49 for something.

(36:03):
And I think Blas was the only one who was top 8 projected to
get top 8 actually. So I think Blas was the only
expected top eighter who got top8.
So like SF6 results are all overthe place.
But I, I don't like saying that,but well, it is, I don't like
saying that. But, you know, if I use the the

(36:24):
word that's on top of my mind, people are, you know, go kind of
crazy. Are you trying to say that
Street Fighter 6 is random? Is that what you're trying to
say? I never said.
I never said that R word. I would never use that word.
Thank you for clarifying. You're not using the R word item
We, we needed to know. Yeah, it's tough, man.
I mean volatile. You can use the V word instead

(36:45):
volatile, right? I, I think that Street Fighter 6
is definitely volatile for a first to two game.
I think that's I, I, I don't think that can be disputed.
I mean, the, the level of competition is too high.
It's a high damage game. I think our CPT tournaments
being first to two is bogus, andI've been saying that for a very
long time. I think it just, it just feeds
into this randomness. And I also will have strong

(37:07):
feelings about the logistics of it, how people swear up and down
that Street Fighter 6 versus 3 would break the entire ecosystem
for TOSI don't want to get into it, but I just think if you
ignore logistics, obviously first to two, it's more volatile
in this game than first to three, on top of the fact that
there's a ton of really strong players in every bracket.
But yeah, 257th in CPT Japan forsome people, that'd be an

(37:30):
amazing result. Like don't get me wrong, that's
a 2000 man tournament, right? And you still have to beat a ton
of strong players to get there. But for a play like Sahara, oh,
into two 157th place, he wants to get first place at UFA.
Like he's going to this tournament.
Like, oh crap, I have just bombed my last two tournaments.

(37:52):
You know, I got signed to the world champion team.
They they are investing in me and they believe in me.
And, and I might not have won these level of events so far,
but I've shown this promise and Haitani invested in me.
Now my fellow teammates are investing in me.
I feel that's a lot of pressure for a player who just started
playing fighting games for Street Fighter six.

(38:13):
That is an insane amount of pressure.
And you just bombed your last two tournaments.
Bad for for a player shooting tobe in Kaplan Cup and shooting to
win Street Fighter League Worlds, right And then to go
into UFA and then to play your training partner who has been
there with you, going the world,trying to make a name for
yourself and slowly building that resume to meet in winners

(38:36):
and grand finals like that. I feel like it's such an amazing
thing to see finally come together at the end like that.
And in the end, Sahara was. Beating his friend's ass man
crap out of kings Vega that grand finals was I think that
grand finals was faster than theevo grand finals.
It was really bad. It was actually a a a speed run

(39:00):
that was a a games done quick. Yeah, that might be the fastest
CPT Premier Grand finals we've ever seen, but.
I I like Sahara's energy in it, even in the winner's finals,
even in a set against Nephew. By the way, shout out to Nephew.
He was the closest to beating Sahara.
He was up 21 over Sahara and wasabout to win three one I
believe, or maybe 3-2. No three one.

(39:21):
I think he was going to win three one.
Sahara made a comeback with an UNK check.
He did a button into DI into thecorner and killed him.
And if nephew counted the DI, itwas the set was over.
Nephew would have won three one and moved on.
But you know, Sahara was all these moments.
He was like in his chair yelling.
He was getting hyped like he wasshowing some some energy.
And I really like that he would see how hyped up he was about

(39:44):
his his run so far and how much it meant to him to actually get
this win. And so in the end, Sahar gets
the job done, proves that he belongs on the squad, right?
He was the only member of good 8squad not in Kaplan Cup.
They all auto qualified, right? They picked him up after the
fact. And so he had to earn his
qualification the old fashioned way by winning a premiere.

(40:04):
And he got the job done three over Kings Vega and takes it in
style with the fastest grand finals we've ever seen.
In the end, though, that shakes up the leaderboard.
For the CPT points, this was tough for NA because even though
we had three players for NA in this top eight players like Dual
Kevin and Punk, they needed those points bad.

(40:26):
They all got knocked out of the running.
Now the the last player in the leaderboard and the top six that
was Kings Vega because he got that cool 300 points to bump him
up there but Dual Kevin down in 9th place to 310 Punk with three
111th place. There's only two CPT events
remaining, Evo France in a couple weeks, which is crazy

(40:47):
that they're going back to France right after and then
Fight Club Championship 6 Chengdu so.
The man had to go all the way toChina, yeah, to close out the
season to get these points in the last time.
CPT China is going to be basically the L, excuse me, the

(41:07):
LCQ for a lot of players. So I, I'm curious how, you know,
hungry everyone's going to be going to China.
Obviously it'll probably be a lot of Japanese players go in
there and, you know, I know a lot of the American players who
could also qualify. I expect those pools to actually
be much. There's not going to be a lot of
fluff I'm expecting from the China pool because the players

(41:31):
who have no chance of qualifyingprobably won't show up because,
you know, what's the point? But at the same time, the people
who can qualify, you know, like the top 32 on the leaderboard,
are all going to be there tryingto get into Capcom Cup.
That's true. It's going to be way more dense.
And I would also argue there's going to be a ton of Chinese
players because the Chinese Street Fighter Six community is
really strong and they don't travel to as many events.

(41:53):
Like we see like Shaohai, we seeZhen and we see who's who's
going to slip. In my mind, VX Bao, those are
like, I think the three most like prolific representatives
right now out of China, but there's still a ton of players
that we, you know, we're very we're literally disconnected in
a literal sense from the ChineseInternet infrastructure.

(42:15):
They have their whole other sphere of social media and it's
it's like a strange kind of digital curtain between US and
the Chinese community. But don't get it twisted, like
there's a ton of strong players in China besides the the names
that you might know and see at these international events.
So I wouldn't be surprised if wesee like a Yang Ming.

(42:36):
I'm probably what your name young me on, you know, like he's
always just randomly in a top 8 every couple of like every five
years he just shows up out of nowhere.
And now there's a lot of other strong players.
But I I would argue that it's probably going to have more
attendance than Kings of the world last year did as the de
facto LCQ Kings of the world wasthe last auto qualifying

(42:58):
tournament, but there was no point system and the way the
points are working up, it's really, really close.
So the points are very top heavyfor the leaderboard.
So you just need one strong performance and you'll catapult
yourself into the running. So yeah, I'm talking about how
dual Kevin and Punk needed thosepoints.
Dual Kevin has 310 and Kings Vega, the cut off for for the

(43:20):
top six spots to qualify is 350.If you get third place, that is
what 100 points. 3rd place is 250 points, 2nd place is 300.
So if you're if you have 100, ifyou're a NOAA the Prodigy at 190
points and and you get third place, you get 250 points, you
could theoretically jump into the the qualifying spots out of

(43:43):
nowhere. So you just need one good
placement. So I would argue that a lot of
players who are on the leaderboard will make a run for
it way more than we saw people trying for Kings of the World,
because that was only first place right.
At that point. A lot of people are like, let me
save my travel budget for next year, right?
Yeah. I I think my prediction is this
will be like you said, no fluff in the pools, but also a lot of

(44:07):
representation at top level. I think it's going to be really
stacked straight to killers throughout.
So could be interesting to see how that shakes up.
But it's also going to depend onEVO France.
Do we have any predictions for that?
That's crazy. We have an EVO coming up.
You know, for us it's like, it'snot, it's not Evo, but it's EVO
kind of thing. But it's, yeah, it's in another

(44:29):
month. So it's it should be an
interesting tournament. I'm curious how the first Evil
France will go. But I think a lot of the players
on the top of the leaderboards, like you were saying, if you got
second at an event, I'm pretty sure you're just up there at
this point because I think Ryu Kichi's in the qualifier spot.

(44:49):
He got second at Evo Japan, I think the one after Kaku was
already qualified. Yeah, if you want the quick
rundown, quick rundown to give you the context, Memochi is for
sure qualifying. He's in first with 570 points,
Blazin second with 470, so 100 point drop off Ryu Kishi with

(45:10):
460, it'll Boshi with 440, any Walker with 410 Enno's there
with 400, but he auto qualified.So it goes down to the next
spot, which is Kings Vega with 350.
So that's the top 6 currently. Yeah, so a lot of the sorry, so
a lot of people who got second was just kind of in that safe
spot. Like I said, Edison got second

(45:30):
at a combo breaker. So I feel like if you just get
second or even just 3rd at one event, you're kind of in a safe
kind of spot. Kings Vega got catapulted up
there for getting second at UFA as well.
So you just need a good second or third place and then you're
kind of just in at this point, Ifeel like.
Yeah, you need some points though.
I mean, it's it's not guaranteedbecause there could be a

(45:52):
nightmare top 8 for you where like 2nd through 4th, 2nd
through 5th is everybody right below you in the leaderboard?
Do they all jump you? You know what I mean?
So, so I think there's incentivestill for like I, I, if I'm
Inabashi Zhengi I and I bomb outof Evo France, I'm going to
China, you know what I mean? Like I'm going to try to defend

(46:14):
my spot because it, there's, there's two opportunities now
for major shake UPS in that leaderboard.
And, but I think the point system is actually I, I kind of
like this distribution because it really means that anyone
still has a shot all the way through to the end.
I think that's the the best way to go about it when you have a
shorter season. That way people don't just like
give up and stop going early on for a longer season.

(46:37):
I think it's OK to have more, you know, less top heavy point
distribution. So you can like average out.
If you do well in the first half, you're still incentivize a
little bit, but you're probably good.
This way everybody sweat until the end, which I kind of like.
I think I think only Memochi in my opinion, is is safe.
Maybe someone can crush the numbers.
I'm I'm talking out of my ass here, but Memochi is like 570

(47:00):
points. He's good, right?
Look, he's making it into cap oncup.
Everyone else is trying to jump over like ending Walker.
I would say 410. That is not safe.
That is not safe. That there's if any, if Moke
duel, Kevin Kakutu and Punk all get top four, it's over.
He's he's out right. Well, actually.
OK, Kaku's already qualified though.

(47:22):
Oh, then Kakutu doesn't count. Even so then Jen, whatever.
Yeah, it it keeps going down thelist right there.
There's there's a ton of playersat 250 points and above, so any
one of them can jump you in one event, but there's also 2
remaining. So I think the action is going
to be building all the way through to the to the end of the
season. So I like how the point system

(47:42):
has worked out so far. I think it's made it
entertaining and it's it's forced all of the best players
to stress the entire time for, for our entertainment.
As a spectator, CPT has been great, maybe, maybe a bit too
many bisons and mice out there. But as a spectator, I will say
watching all the events have actually been like super
interesting and watching kind oflike I say, watching more of the

(48:04):
best players with travel and youknow, compete.
So that's, that's sick too. I've been getting a lot of a lot
of new new faces. Also just randomly bring us up.
There were no bisons and mice orKuma's in top 8 at UFA.
Everyone's saying the game's broken and imbalanced actually
balance game. I didn't.
I didn't even realize that. Yeah, yeah, that was a

(48:26):
discussion point. Also, the same thing was being
said for CPT World Warrior Japan, where there was very
little Mize up there. Then we had two chumlees instead
in top 8. So yeah, I mean, generally it's
often true that the most annoying character at mid to mid
high level is not the best character in the game.

(48:48):
Or. Rather that they're beatable and
they wouldn't so dominate the meta.
I still think my's top three minimum me personally, but I I
think this always goes to show, especially the theory that you
always talk about the game is relatively balanced around the
mechanics right. It's like, I also agree with
that, that any character can winon any given day, aside from

(49:10):
like some notable exceptions where it becomes exponentially
harder to maintain a long bracket run.
But we've seen a ton of character variety.
I think the balance in this gamehas, it's been pretty good.
It's been a good season. Like I said, we've seen a lot of
newer characters. Maybe not for the the Lily fans
out there, but even, you know, shout out to Mystic Smash.

(49:31):
He did really good with Elena. He used to play Marvel 3 all the
time back in the day. So actually shout out to Mystic
Smash. Good run.
Yeah, Mystic Smash took out somesome big names, but also Dogro
with Elena at at CPT Japan WorldWarrior and most people and
myself included. I was like, this character is
too complex. Like I was like, this is too

(49:52):
much work for for too little like the squeeze was not worth
the juice was not worth the squeeze in the situation.
But we're seeing people do work with Elena.
So you might not win every tournament with your favorite
pick, but I think in this game such a so balanced around the
centralized universal mechanics that it's best to pick what you
want to play. And if you land on Lily, I'm

(50:15):
sorry, like, maybe you should have better taste, right?
But for everyone else, you know,you'll, you'll be OK.
Just just play who you want, have some fun and and try your
best. And with that, I think it's time
to hit up the next topic to XKO has officially been out in close
beta for about a week now, and Iknow I was getting a lot of hate

(50:37):
for questioning whether this game would be the savior of the
FTC so desperately craves and and needs.
And while I don't know if it's going to ever achieve those
ludicrous heights that people were projecting when this game
was first announced, with right E Sports backing and all that,
I'm having a lot of fun. More so than I thought I would
be after my first beta experience I I was a bit unsure

(51:02):
of how this would pan out, but I've been really enjoying
playing a lot of Two XKO and diving into the mechanics so far
and it seems like it's been a very positive reception from
people in the game. So how have you been feeling
about Two XKO item? I think it is I really been
enjoying 2X KO. I have obviously my gripes and
like maybe a few complaints hereand there, very, very minor

(51:23):
complaint. But at the same time I've been
having a lot of fun with it. I think a lot of the character
kind of kind of really get to have like different play styles.
Labbing in that game is extremely fun.
I feel like training mode, training mode and tag games is
broken because you could have you have like a, a playground
basically of just like stuff to play with.

(51:45):
So I, I've been having a lot of fun.
I've been playing a lot of VI and Ari.
So that's kind of been my team. So I, I think I think it's
really good. I, like you said, I don't think
it's going to reach the you know, we made it out of the the
the gutter with this one FTC thing.
But I, I've been having a lot offun.

(52:06):
I think I, I hope more league streamers will try it.
Are non fighting game. Players will try it, even though
I think that a game is very hardfor somebody who's never played
a fighting game. But I hope more people aren't
willing to try it because I think it's a really good game.
Yeah, a lot of the discussions have been around complaints
about the controls and also a lot of discussion around the

(52:29):
accessibility like you were referencing who was this game
really for? Because I do think it's a very,
very difficult game it. It is kind of hard.
But their their mission statement from the beginning was
to have a game that has enough accessibility to be fun to pick
up and play, but not one that you're going to master right
away. They they want the better player

(52:50):
to win. I forgot the exact quote but
there was a little bit of a tongue in cheek sort of joke
about this game I think referencing other E sports
directives and and and directions to other games other.
Fighting games, you know where like, the better player, you
know, the better player doesn't always win because that's,
that's boring. You've heard that one before.
Yeah, I think Tom Cannon, if I remember correctly, had a had a

(53:13):
quote about like, yeah, like we want this game to be.
The better player wins. The better player always wins
and very difficult to master, but at the same time, they want
it to be fun for people picking it up.
And I think they kind of made that balance in a in a way.
I see the promise because there's so many mechanics in the
game. Every time I'm playing it, like
every session, I'm like, OK, I got to use a new mechanic

(53:35):
because I, I'm, I'm still a weekend.
I have not played a solid round where I am intentionally and and
consciously leveraging all the mechanics with my hands the way
I want to. If I, if I try to use Perry and
retreating guard and push block and mash my buttons, the
challenge and use assist, you know, if I try to like
incorporate and wake up reversalattack and you know, if I try to

(53:58):
incorporate all these mechanics in a real flow of a match, at
some point I'm going to press the wrong button or just like
like I'm going to short circuit and not actually have my hands
cooperate with my brain because there's so much going on.
So very difficult to digest all the mechanics.
But if you're just trying to mash, people are criticizing the

(54:20):
control scheme for having the special inputs S1 and S2 because
often you only have even 4 inputs and that adds 2 more
buttons to the controller layoutwhich could have been instead of
with motion inputs on your light, medium, heavy attack
buttons. Which would free up more buttons
because you have so many mechanics and macros that you're
using all of these buttons for. I'm playing A9 button game or an

(54:43):
8 button game which I've never done before.
I'm playing with eight buttons. I'm usually a six.
Street Fighter six. I became A7 button with a thumb
parry. Now I'm playing with seven
buttons. Right.
Too many for me. Like I can't.
My brain is short circuiting while I'm playing the game.
So that was a a critique. And it's like, does this make
the game actually easier than motion controls?

(55:04):
And I would argue still, yes, I,I still think for I, I still
think for a brand new fighting game player, the number one most
frustrating barrier to entry forthem is to not be able to easily
make the character do something cool on screen.
And if there's a special move that they want access to and
they can't make it occur ever once in training mode without
having to do deliberate practiceor look up the tutorials, I

(55:27):
think that's a much bigger barrier to entry.
I think this is going to have the Tekken effect though, where
the mid level fighting game player who is competent in other
series is going to struggle to pick up two XKO because they're
going to want to actually know what they're doing and they're
going to struggle to get into itversus a brand new player who

(55:47):
ignorance is bliss with them. They're just mashing.
I press S1, my character does cool thing.
I I mash auto combo, they do cool thing.
I think they're going to be satiated a little bit.
I think the mashing will be a little easier for them.
But the mid level player who wants to be competent is going
to have a lot to chew on. You know it's going to be
difficult that that's my take onthe difficulty curve.

(56:11):
I I am a bit on the opposite side.
I think for me, I think the gamewould be easier.
Maybe like you said, for somebody who doesn't ought to do
specials, you know, like the special buy it.
I think the game would be easierif I wanted to throw a fire
below Ari. It was quarter circle light.
And then I have like another kind of my moose somewhere else.

(56:32):
I think this is probably the most buttons I've also used.
I played with eight buttons before, but kind of like you
were saying, it's hard for me toutilize every mechanic because
sometimes I'm kind of forgettingthat certain mechanics exist and
stuff. And I also think just combos in
general. Obviously there's way easier
combos to do, but the combos areno longer do you know, when I

(56:57):
look on notations, you know, it's like, you know, do this,
this this quarter circle forwardlight or medium or whatever, and
then this is how you do the combo.
No, now it's like you do this isthe then it's like a timing kind
of gap in your combo and you have to hold this button for X
amount of frames to get the perfect hit.
I don't know if the characters you play have this, but Ari has
a lot of like minute detail combos and I'm like I I can do

(57:23):
them, but like I don't think this is easy for fighting it for
a fighting game player differentin a sense that if I just have
to do like this, this this Koto circle light to do my fireball
and then quarter circle back to do the next special and to
super, this will be a lot easierthan all these like my new
timing thing. So for me I think it's it's

(57:47):
harder, but I do think I think understanding the game might be
complicated for a lot of new player, but I do think it
bridges the gap of the more fun stuff for tag games like moving
like the movements very easy to understand and much easier than
like older fighting games. So I think that does it right

(58:08):
and you can kind of see the the dopamine kind of happen.
At an earlier level right? I guess I would argue that what
the problems you're describing are for a mid level fighting
game player because a beginner is not going to worry about
those combos. They're they're going to
literally mash. There are advanced combo is
going to be light, medium, heavy.
Yeah, you know what I mean? Like that's going to be like,
wow, I did a chain like I I pressed the buttons in the right

(58:30):
order, you know, like Simon Sayspress LMH.
You know, like wow, that to me is beginner level right.
So I agree with what you're saying.
I think that's that's kind of what I wanted to or my opinion
there is that the mid level player wants to be competent and
complete a combo into a knockdown with proper Okie,
yeah, good luck. Like that's it's kind of tough

(58:51):
to get into the flow of a competent game.
I it's really it's really kind of hard, especially for a player
like me who's not like A tag game aficionado.
I've dabbled this one. I feel inspired to like get
competent and I can see like, wow, it's going to be a lot of
work like there's a lot of mechanics and the combos can be
difficult. I think what I heard though is
that Ari has specific the hardest combos and they got rid

(59:14):
of a lot of her easier routes. I played Darius blitz so I'm
going as baby mode as possible here man.
Like I I have a few saucier combos, but you know, like I, I
got the easy team that that's what I want.
I want easy characters. I've, I've been playing VI and
like VI has easy combos and I kind of gravitated towards the
easier combo, but she has some hard stuff that's like very hard

(59:36):
to hit. So I, I've been dropping that
consistently. So I have to go down to like the
intermediate combos. Now.
I don't even do like the Super hard, you know, one hit does 700
damage. I do like OK, I'm not going to
drop this but I'll do like 500 damage instead of 700 or
something. Yeah, but I think that's good.
I think that it's good that there's levels to it.

(59:56):
But I I do agree that sometimes you need some streamlined
gameplay for the mid level. I think that's what Street
Fighter Six does extremely well.The mid level of Street Fighter
6 is so easy to get into. Because the game is so
streamlined. Yeah, right.
So I think modern controls for Street Fighter 6 gets the
beginner player in there and then if they decide to go to

(01:00:19):
motion controls or not, it doesn't really matter.
You're going to get into the midlevel like you're going to get
to the flow of the game. Very the mechanics are straight,
like it all kind of goes together.
Paris, your block button drive rush means your plus and it gets
you in and you have access to itfrom the beginning.
And then DI armors things and you counter to the DI with DI,
right. It's like it all kind of flows
together, whereas I I think thatpath forward is going to be

(01:00:41):
rather ambiguous in two XKO. Like I did not know so many
things with the wake up system till today.
Like I didn't know that roles, tech roles were punishable by
throw. I was like, why do I keep
getting thrown? Like I swear I'm tecking and
like, and people were like, oh, you got to use the wake up
reversal. And I'm like, I don't even know
how to do the wake up reversal. I'm not going to lie, I've been

(01:01:02):
playing for a week. I have no clue how to use the
the the universal wake up DP. Yeah, it's they I I don't know
because I didn't really play thetutorials because I got to play
like early and I got to play like a lot of early build, but I
didn't really play the tutorials.
I don't know if the tutorial does a good or bad job of

(01:01:23):
explaining the game. I don't know how well or for
newer player is the tutorial good?
I know that's like the main thing people complain about with
fighting games like tutorials even good for fighting game.
I know I've seen people on Twitter saying St. 2 SKO doesn't
have like character guides, thatthey're kind of missing.
They don't teach you how to playthe character.

(01:01:44):
They're just like here you go play playing character.
I've seen that's a common complaint as well.
My biggest complaint though is the bugs in training mode.
I think this training mode is good but it's really buggy right
now. I I if I could give a report to
the devs. Dude there's so many UI bugs and
so many times have used safe states.
You start trying to turn on the bot to do reversal actions.

(01:02:06):
The the menu will say it says it's going to do all these
reversal actions. But if you like use the safe
state on a slot where you set anaction.
That slot becomes permanently bugged and no matter what, it
will never do that wake up a reversal action ever again on
that safe state. You have to go to like a
different wake up option. There's so many little things
where I'm like I, the menus are a little tough to navigate.

(01:02:26):
I think the in general, the menus are like the biggest
complaint I have. You can sometimes access the
menus when you're doing like therematch screen.
You can accidentally hit optionsbefore it's visible to the
player. So like it's doing the win pose.
And then if you start mashing buttons or actually accessing
the, the rematch screen menu andyou can do things like quit or
rematch. I've I've quit out of games

(01:02:48):
before it even showed me the menu.
I was like, I was waiting to hitrematch.
I was kind of mashing buttons and then suddenly I'm in the
lobby and I'm like, what just happened?
You know, or you get to the match and you know, it's only
these lobby systems right now. Ranked is coming soon and I'll
see the ghost of all the lobby avatars inside the game just

(01:03:09):
floating in the background. Like there's, there's there's UI
bugs like that where like the lobby avatars are floating in
the middle of match. So it's still a little jank.
Like there's still some things they got to work out as a
product, but I've been very impressed.
I've been having a lot of fun playing it.
So I'm not sure if this rollout is going to be super hype.

(01:03:29):
Do you think this is going to actually grow in size?
I, I don't know how they're going to keep adding waves of
invites and then have a formal release and then I can't tell
how big this is going to be right now.
That was so my always my main concern.
I'm still unsure. If I were on the two SKO dev
team, I my three things, if I could have three people work on

(01:03:49):
anything right now, get as many characters out as possible, I
would have to, you know, haul out league characters.
I would have to say it's probably easier because, you
know, you have a catalog to choose from because just take
the Champions from league. That's number one.
Number two, maybe try to do something with like the the

(01:04:10):
visual effect. I kind of use my brother as a
cheat code every time I show hima fighting game.
It one thing he noticed really fast was like the characters
like punches have no oomph. Like there's nothing like when
there's a combo. It's like, oh, he got like hit
really hard, you know, impact onthe mood.
I feel like that's kind of missing as well.

(01:04:32):
And for me, I think the last thing I would have to say is
just try to get more people play.
I don't know why they're doing like this Blues beta thing.
Just throw it out there. I to me like this is a season 0.
The game's out. This is this is 2 SKO.
Just let more people play. And I think more people would

(01:04:54):
try it. If, you know, I turn on valor it
for one day and then it's like, Hey, play 2 SKO what's free.
And I'm like, hey, you know, might as well download this and
then you go on and play. So I think that's the three
things I would do. Yeah, I think they they need to
get a lot more content into the game.
So maybe they're trying to wait to do that kind of cross
promotion strategy when they feel more prepared.

(01:05:15):
It's just really hard to get a sense of when that is because
for some of us the game is just out, but we're just playing the
game. But it also feels like, I don't
know, like it feels empty a little bit.
I feel like I'm not participating in a large
community wide event. And generally for a fighting
game, the most fun for most games is on release, right?

(01:05:36):
Like it's usually a big rush to determine all of the tech to
figure out what characters can do.
And it's a really fun collaborative time where
everyone is really excited and there's a lot of discovery
happening in that period. And everything is novel,
everything is brand new. And to be able to participate in
that community side of it on a brand new release of fighting

(01:06:00):
him, I think it's a really special time in any game.
Like it's always super fun. And whether you stick with it or
not, like a very small percentage of players are going
to stick with a fighting game after a couple of months.
And that's normal, right? It's just like that's when you
start to hit the wall and your ego starts to get involved and
it's like, hey, like, do you really, really care about this
game? Do you want to keep progressing
when you're going to start getting diminishing returns?

(01:06:21):
And now suddenly you care if youwin or lose in the beginning of
a game and the honeymoon phase, man, win or lose, you're having
a great and old time. Oh man, that was so silly.
I've never seen that combo. Nice dude, great Higgin for him.
Wow, that was cool. Three months in this this combo
again, you scrub your mashing onthis.
You don't respect my, you know what I mean?
Like it can take a turn for the worse because suddenly you care,

(01:06:43):
you're invested. And that's when you really
determine like, hey, is this thegame for me or not like, or is
it time to wait for the next major release and partake in the
fun period, the honeymoon phase of discovery With this kind of a
release, there is no honeymoon phase really.
It's like a distributed, it's really long and stretched out
and extended. And like some of us are getting
that that rush now of having thebrand new fighting game.

(01:07:06):
And then it's also trickling outthat information to the public
slowly over time. So even if you're not in the
beta, it's kind of spoiling it for you.
So by the time you get into the game, it might feel old.
I don't know, like I don't know if this is going to work out in
the the fighting game sense. I know this is a common strategy
applied to other genres of games, right?

(01:07:27):
This is not a unique thing. It was done with Valorant,
right? But I just don't know if it's
the same, if the same rules apply to a fighting game.
I just don't know. It's it's a really it's kind of
an experimental thing that Riot is doing right now with Project
L. So I I hope for the best.
But I'm a little unsure. You said project L.

(01:07:48):
Oh brother, see see see how manyproblems there are with this.
Oh, I didn't. I caught that.
I was like, huh, Project L? See how many problems are on
with this rollout dude, Like even subconsciously Project L is
still flying out there even though 2 XKO is literally set in
the game. You know, like Oh no.
So I'm having a lot of fun, but I still have those same

(01:08:10):
concerns. Yeah, yeah, it's fighting games.
Got a it. You're working harder when in my
opinion, when you do a fighting game, you got to work 2 times as
harder as like a shooter to try to get people in.
So for me, I, I think this game actually has a lot of potential.
I definitely think they can makeit better.
Luckily, you know, we're in the patch era, We could fix the

(01:08:32):
problems If there's a fighting games have a problem.
It's not like you know, the 90s or the 2000s where you get the
game and that's it. So hopefully to do a lot of
patches, they could do a lot of changes.
I think it's could. I don't know if it could be the
biggest like Riot League of Legends here, but it could
definitely be one of the most popular fighting games out.

(01:08:55):
It could and I want to get propsat the end.
Here, I just thought of this Duos is actually really fun.
I did not think I would enjoy it.
I played duos with SK and I was like, you know what?
It's a lot more engaging and funthan I thought it would be
because me personally, you know,I'm kind of I like fighting
games because I like being antisocial, right?
I like playing alone in my room.Don't talk to me.

(01:09:17):
You're a faceless entity on the Internet and I'm trying to beat
your ass, right? But I played duos with SK and I
was like, OK, like I see how it's engaging and how you can
play even if you're across levels and have fun with your
friend. And there's different fuses you
can choose as well to either increase or limit their
involvement in your match, right, because you could
potentially do like the assist fused, or you can play like a

(01:09:39):
regular double down or freestylefuse and get if you do 2 times
assist or freestyle. If you're really trying to be In
Sync with your partner and like actively do multiple tag handoff
mix ups and combo conversions. And it's really engaging in that
sense. I was kind of surprised how
interactive it really felt and how it requires you to
communicate with your your partner like, hey, OK, tag, I'm

(01:10:02):
going to tag in here or like, oh, go for the burst here.
You know, like there's, there's actual call outs that start
occurring between between you 2.So I think there's so much
potential in duos for having players be more engaged and, and
every person who is a 2X Kale player can then try to get their
friends and ease them into the game and also the content

(01:10:23):
potential for streamers as well.I knew there was potential
there, but after experiencing itfirst hand, I really believe in
that potential. I think that's The X Factor that
this game has to to outlive thisbeta cycle that it's in.
Because that makes me concerned for a traditional fighting game.
But because of the social elements of the two V2, I think

(01:10:45):
there's I think that has a way out.
I think it has something that isvery unique to XKO that I didn't
firmly believe in before, but I'm a lot more optimistic about
it now. I have no friends.
I never played duo. I played duos.
I played duos in the in the early betas with my brother, but

(01:11:07):
I kind of like limited him to like a lot of the stuff he could
actually do. So it was like it was kind of
just watching me play, which andit's not really that that
engaging, especially for somebody like who actually knows
how to play a fight again. But you know, I, I haven't tried
duos yet since the since the betas come out.
So I've kind of just been playing mostly solo.
It sounds like you're just a badpartner and you're selfish.

(01:11:29):
You didn't tag it in. I probably am a bad partner, yo.
I'm not, I'm not good with thesethese shooting like shooting
elements in my fighting games. I do call outs when I play, but
when I play fighting games, I'm playing for myself.
I'm trying to I'm trying to use my own brain and do everything
my way. That's true.
That's true. The fighting game players have

(01:11:50):
to learn to be less selfish and collaborate.
That's true. And at the end here we're to go
dumpster diving over at patreon.com/brian under score F
To answer your questions, we have one here from MDQP.
He has a question for both me and one for item as well.
He asked Brian, are there any games outside of Street Fighter
that you'd like to focus on seriously?
You mentioned how you have enjoyed Token and I was
wondering if you ever got the competitive itch from FPC games

(01:12:11):
outside of Street Fighter. For me, seriously that's that's
like, you know, that's the big qualifier here.
I have played other games like Iplayed DBFZ competitively for a
while and I entered tournaments or other games here and there.
But seriously, probably not for fun is what I would do.
For me personally, I'm just a slow learner of fighting games
so I've already put in the 10,000 hours in the Street

(01:12:32):
Fighter so maybe some cost fallacy is applying there.
But I can be competent in StreetFighter at least, and maintain a
certain level. For other games, though, I play
until I get bored of it or want to go back to Street Fighter.
That's essentially how it goes. And right now, like I'm enjoying
playing two XKO. I'm going to keep playing that
until I either get tired of it or I really want to compete in

(01:12:55):
it. Right?
It's one of the other. Like there's always that
honeymoon phase. I'll probably enter a tournament
or two. In the meantime.
I did play a little invitation tournament, Battle of the Bands.
I got smoked by Super Noon. I beat Strider and then got
smoked by Jibril. So like they threw some really
good tag players in there in between.
So I don't know if that counts. That's generally my flow chart.

(01:13:17):
If I would pick up one seriously, that's that's not
very, very likely. But he also has a question for
you, Idom. Idom.
I know Street Fighter Six has one of the best packages in
terms of features, but is there anything that he feels Idom is
missing and would appreciate as a competitor?
It could be a feature scene in other titles, or something new
entirely that he thinks fightinggames need.

(01:13:40):
So for me, I used to, I used to play a lot of Overwatch growing,
not growing up because that was,that was like 10 years ago.
But I used to play, I used to play a lot of Overwatch and I
obviously I watched like all theE sports games for when I'm
spectating or just watching an event.
They could like they have like different camera views where

(01:14:01):
they can kind of like watch a lot of the what's going on the
outside, how the teams are kind of strategizing or like
different views on like a team fight or something going on,
who's building their all, yada, yada, yada.
Obviously we don't need that in fighting games.
You just need the, the hand in hand to try to see the 2
characters. But I think it would be cool if
fighting games have like a replay feature of like, hey,

(01:14:23):
you're watching and you're watching, you're spectating kind
of just like watching from an online lobby.
But the the guy spectating can go back and say, oh, what
happens if the guy did this here?
Or what happens if like a replayability function just for
like the viewers to kind of lookback or maybe to have maybe a

(01:14:45):
bit of the numbers are trying tosee like maybe a more of the
insights are kind of what they could do differently.
Oh, like, hey, with this commandgrab and punish there, obviously
we have replay takeover, but youcan't do that for tournament
matches. It's kind of just like simple
something along those lines. But for tournament matches are
to see if like what I did versusDiego could have been, you know,

(01:15:07):
done differently or try to use something differently, kind of
just go back in the matches really.
Yeah, like a spec, a live version of the replay takeover
kind of that'd be really sick for online tournaments.
But not only that, you bring up a good point, a spectator client
in general, but also solve otherissues for offline tournaments.
That's that's how they have solved the broadcasting issues
for major events. For other games is there's a

(01:15:28):
spectator client you're not streaming the actual HDMI or
display port cable feed from thePC of someone playing the game
The the broadcasters using the spectator client on a local area
network to view the game. And we get a lot of issues in
the FTC, not just from the Playstations that causing native
input delay in this monitors or any of that, but also literally

(01:15:51):
the stream stations themselves. There's powered splitters
there's often times there's passthroughs on capture cards.
There's a lot of things in the chain of command here that can
potentially add input delay and cause technical issues, when
really there should be no interference from the broadcast
on the local tournament setup. It should be a spectator client

(01:16:11):
that they're washing through so it doesn't interfere with the
players. And the players should just
have, you know, a display port cable straight from the, the
console to the monitor. It should just be that, right?
And so that would actually resolve a lot of technical
issues and performance issues for offline tournaments.
So I think that's another like way to leverage that like
enhanced spectator lobby. You're talking about spectator

(01:16:34):
client for both online and offline tournaments.
We we definitely could use that.Yeah, no more, no more laggy
tournaments. I you know, I'm, I don't like
saying, you know, I don't like going on Twitter be like, yo,
the setup's laggy, you know, this is bad tournament because,
you know, the the game slowed down or even though the console
didn't feel good, I don't like doing that because I feel
everyone should go to tournaments because tournaments

(01:16:55):
are really fun. But I do think that would fix a
lot of issues and it would get less annoying.
And I just think it's cool in general.
Like the stuff I get to see in Overwatch just because they have
a spectator client is really eyeopening and shows levels today.
It like shows layers to the game.
Very. That's a really good answer.
I don't, I didn't consider that.Yeah, we definitely could use

(01:17:17):
that in the FGC. Will we ever get that?
Probably not. Probably not 2.
XKO. 2 XKO, 2 KO. Maybe, I don't know, we'll have
to see. I heard they that Valorin still
doesn't have replays though. Or they implemented replays only
for yourself but not for other players so.
Don't don't copy Valerie. If any game does it, the best is
open Overwatch. So Overwatch.

(01:17:38):
Copy Overwatch. Man, I thought right was going
to be our savior. I don't know, man, I don't know.
All right, well, that's going towrap it up.
Thanks again to MDQP for the question.
On Patreon, this has been Extra Trashy and we're signing off
Peace. Thank you so much for making it
to the end of another episode ofExtra Trashy.
If you're watching the show right now on YouTube or even on
the video feed on Spotify, you should be seeing some names

(01:17:59):
scrolling by on the screen. These are the people who support
us over at patreon.com/bryant under Score F and who make the
the show possible. We want to give a very special
thank you to all of these Patreon members for helping
keeping this show a weekly recurring thing.
Thank you so much. I'd like to give a very special
thank you personally to the landfill members, SBO Hazaris,

(01:18:20):
Smoking Sea Bass, Chuckle Chuck and Kelly Lyles, thank you so
much and thank you for tuning into Extra Trashy.
We'll see you in the next one. Peace.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The New Generation of Street Fighter is Officially Here | Extra Trashy