It’s time for a new exhibition series! Tension Pulse is the successor to the Super Steam Xrd Exhibition League, an online series featuring players from all over the country and beyond in commentated first-to-seven matches. As the Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- era drew to a close, the Steam launch of Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 (fixed up with some patches!) is also the inauguration of the “Season 2” of quality online exhibition matches.
It’s the same format as before: two sets of matches leading to FT7s, streamed and packaged with quality commentary. We’ll see the new REV 2 characters in the first set, some new players, and maybe a few returning ones in the future as well.
On deck are FaultyDefense with a brand new character, the Business Ninja Answer, versus TheArm’s Ramlethal Valentine. The other match-up features TSB|Blaze’s Raven–more excited than ever before–against yours truly, the one and only, SRK writer and old Baiken main: Woocash.
FaultyDefense
On REV 2 changes: “Well, I’m playing a new character, one that has a much more dynamic offense. I think his neutral game is actually very boring, but on touch he wants to be extremely aggressive, which is more in line with my history of picking characters.”
On his opponent: “I’m worried about getting blown-up in the corner. Arm watches good anime, which makes him a threat in any anime game. It’s a long-proven fact that if you have #### taste, you’re doomed to fail at these games.
“For real though, we’ve played several times and it always comes down to the wire. Most of my wins involve me put in some situation where I should have died, a scramble happens, and I luck out somehow. So I’m hoping that through some miracle, our first time playing online turns out to be a clean, fun set… fingers crossed. Sin and Answer probably play the match-up very similarly, but with Answer it’s easier for me to die off of a bad read or laziness, and it’s a bit harder to turn the random hit into big damage. We’ll see if I can hit the big stuff online, if not, I’m going to want to favor a long, slow game.”
On his own playstyle: “I’ve learned to tone down my rushdown tendencies to keep from dying in neutral, but I still get antsy when I’m not landing hits. Because of Answer’s poor meter gain and difficulty of punishes on both short and lightweight characters, I’m still unsure of how hard I need to be going in on a character like Millia and if I should be playing risk/reward or simply keeping her at bay with Answer’s amazing normals. I’d like to think I have a more calculated approach going into the match-up, but when the game is playing I tend to let my instincts take over more often than I should.”
TheArm
On REV 2 changes: “Basically nothing. Ram is functionally the exact same character. Her new moves have very few practical uses so you won’t see me use them much (if at all). 214S does not reach far enough to help safely confirm regular hit fS and the reward, even on hi,t is just some meter in exchange for no knockdown and a total loss of pressure. The air versions are massively unsafe when done anywhere other than right before you land and again have very little reward as you can’t combo afterward meterless.
The moves really don’t seem to have a place in Ram’s kit when she is so focused around getting one hit and running setplay as neither of them really help in that primary gameplan.”
On his opponent: “I think Faulty is a strong player who has an exceptional ability to pick up and play multiple/new characters. We haven’t played since 2016 CEO, where he beat me with Sin, so I am interested to see how it goes this time.”
On his own playstyle: “My playstyle focuses on movement and setting up traps. However, if I see a chance to hit someone or take my turn, I will, as Ram’s reward is off the charts once I am able to get the hit and run the setplay.”
TSB|Blaze
On REV 2 changes: “My character overall! He feels like a new character after his changes. At level 1 excitement, he’s worse than REV 1 Raven, but at level 2 and 3, he’s a lot better. Some of his combo routes are new and change up on the go depending on the excitement level. I feel he is a lot stronger in REV 2, but also a lot harder. He only gets stronger if the player gets him there.”
On his opponent: “I played Woocash at Combo Breaker for a couple of sets and was very impressed by how fast he caught up with Baiken. I’m expecting a good match, but I’m also going to try my best to body him 
.”
On his own playstyle: “My playstyle is pure rushdown. I don’t like giving my opponent a chance to think or breathe. I like putting them in difficult situations where they will desperately make a mistake, and I make them pay for it. And thanks to Raven’s buffs in this version, it also buffed my playstyle 
.”
SRK|Woocash
On REV 2 changes: “One of my old mains returns! It’s momentous, and I’ve only had a month to play so far. Despite a playstyle that looks similar, she’s quite different, and I can’t say that I have a good grasp of Azami yet. The counters are much more difficult to use than before but more rewarding. Tatami isn’t quite as broken it was once before, but YRC Tatami is great. Her normals are much more impactful up close and can lead to huge damage. Overall, I’m still adjusting! If you see me blown up a lot for no reason, I probably was trying to use Azami.”
On my opponent: “Blaze is quite aggressive, which is what will lead to his downfall. Baiken is the exact type of character than can take advantage of the opponent’s strength and aggressiveness against them. He does have a good grasp of Raven stuff already, and the REV 2 changes sure are scary. It will take on-point execution on my part to work him down as well as finely planned pressure. It will be tough, but doable.”
On my own playstyle: “Playing Sin in Xrd has made me an aggressive risk-taker (Bull Bash all day!) so I have to tone down quite a bit. In reality, my favorite thing is to pull off something effective that’s almost jaw-dropping to the opponent–think something like Baiken’s Azami super, out of nowhere. I love doing the exact counter at the exact right time to surprise my foe. I’m actually not a very analytical or thoughtful player. I play with feeling. As someone I value in the FGC has told me once, I’m someone who greatly uses intuition–often to good effect!
“It’s also an honor to play in an exhibition that I’ve written so much about, not to mention be the opener for Tension Pulse. It’s a lot of pressure, and I actually haven’t had many opportunities to be so directly involved with FG community stuff, so I hope to get out there more!”
Pray for my Baiken during the Tension Pulse kickoff, which is tomorrow, June 22nd, on Silva_hime’s Twitch channel as always. starting at 9:00 PM EST/8:00 PM CST/6:00 PM PDT. TheBeautifulDude and Samifish11 will grace the microphone stations.
To learn more about this online league, read all about its predecessor, the Super Steam Xrd Exhibition League.
Sources: interviews; Mdesilva