Month: November 2016

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Why Do Some of the Top Pro Players Meditate Before Matches?

FGC commentator Paul Harrison explores the value of calming the mind before battle.

It’s been observed multiple times from Japanese players, particularly–and most famously–Daigo Umehara and Tokido, closing their eyes and breathing deeply and slowly right before a match, or between difficult games of a set. They’re bringing the principles of meditation to their game, and have spoken before on how it helps them focus during their fights.

In his article for The Daily Meditation, Paul Harrison explores how this means to increase awareness and maintain relaxation during stress has been adopted from traditional martial arts, and how–while it’s associated more with Asian players–he’s observed it working its way into the habits of Western players as well. Read the full article by Paul Harrison here.

Source: The Daily Meditation

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In-Depth King of Fighters XIV Beginner Character Guides on Terry Bogard and Love Heart

A lot of new players are getting into King of Fighters with the series’ latest installment. In response to this sudden interest, dedicated fans have been hard at work crafting tutorials to help guide newcomers through the massive roster and find the characters that truly works for them.

Ra3bones is one such player, regularly putting out beginner guides for characters. He’s covered roughly half of the cast at this point, and most recently tackles Terry and Love Heart.

For his other works, feel free to check out his playlist with all of his guides to date.

Source: Ra3bones

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Rise Up the Ranks in Street Fighter V–By Playing Casual Matches, According to Xuses

Rank up faster in Street Fighter V, with this one weird tip…

Xuses took a break from the usual match uploads and player compilations to talk a little bit about his personal strategy on how to break a CFN “plateau” and push your rank up the ladder in Street Fighter V. Very simply: back off Ranked Match, and play more Casual Match.

The reasoning is solid: playing Casual keeps you facing opponents in a similar rank to what you’d face in Ranked Match, but removing the threat of lost League Points lets you focus on improving your play and matchup knowledge with less emotional pressure. It sounds obvious, but impatience and the craving for that next rank up will keep many players from taking a break to hone their skills–and result in lost points they’ll need to struggle to regain. Give yourself some breathing room when necessary, and you can hit Platinum faster overall than if you stick with Ranked exclusively.

Source: XusesGB

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The Jump-In Podcast Talks Changes to the Capcom Pro Tour, Street Fighter V Online and More with Infiltration

Following the Capcom Pro Tour Asia Finals at the G-Star Expo in Busan earlier this weekend, Kim1234 of the Jump-In podcast got the chance to catch up with Razer and Viewsonic’s Infiltration to discuss lots about Street Fighter V and the Capcom Pro Tour. Discussing his recent character usage at premier events, Infiltration says that following Evo and people starting to figure out how to defeat Nash, it made sense to figure out other characters and gain essential match up knowledge ahead of Capcom Cup in December. He feels the meta has changed wildly since an event like Evo, so premier events are the perfect places to test out his more diverse character pool ahead of the real competition at Capcom Cup.

Infiltration shed some light on his warm up routine, saying that he prefers to visualize matches and theorize possible situations, rather than playing friendlies. His reasoning is that he plays Street Fighter V so much anyway, that he isn’t suddenly going to forget a combo because he didn’t warm up so mental preparing is more important. He briefly touched on his opinion on the current qualifying system of the Capcom Pro Tour, stating that he actually prefers elements of the old system, like seeding passing down through players who have already qualified so that deserving players aren’t gatekept at stacked tournaments.

All this and a lot more is discussed during this interview, where the translation for Infiltration’s answers is provided by fellow top quality FGC content creator Gerald Lee from Core-A Gaming. Make sure to give the whole interview a listen, as Infiltration’s answers are pretty enlightening.

Source: The Jump-In Podcast