Since Frosty Faustings is a celebration of all things Guilty Gear, my journey to Chicago wouldn’t have been complete without talking with the Guilty Gear scene; one name popped up that needs no introduction to the American Guilty Gear community.
Panda Global’s Kyohei “MarlinPie” Lehr is one of America’s best players, finding his way into both Evo Top 8 and ArcRevo in 2016–finishing 7th in the former, and bowing out early in the latter, a victim of the single game syndrome of Japanese tournaments. He is an amazingly creative and hype player to watch. While at Frosty Faustings IX, Shoryuken sat down with him to talk about his experience with the game.
Corey “Missing Person” Lanier: First off, you had a great year last year, with you becoming the sole American representative at Evo 2016 in Guilty Gear Xrd -REVELATOR- Top 8. How was the experience for you?
Kyohei “MarlinPie” Lehr”: I feel like my career in Guilty Gear finally paid off. I hadn’t played against most of the Japanese players in the tournament before. I had been to Japan and played at Mikado and A-Cho, but I hadn’t encountered those players yet. To be honest, I was really nervous playing against them. I didn’t think I had a chance, but I decided to just go ham, and managed to beat around eight or nine of them on the way to top 8. I couldn’t beat Ogawa, but I’m starting to feel like America is getting there in Guilty Gear. We have to keep our momentum up.
Missing Person: And you not only made Top 8 at Evo, but you made it into ArcRevo. How was the experience there?
MarlinPie: First to one is the scariest tournament format ever. I can play anything but first to one. It just can’t happen anymore! When I’m going to Japan to play an international event, to lose two rounds and have it all be done is just a bummer. I enjoyed the thrill of it though. I couldn’t play all the top Japanese players at Evo, so going over there was a chance to get that experience.
Missing Person: How long did you stay in Japan to train?
MarlinPie: I spent three weeks over there. There is a fundamental difference between how American and Japanese players play. There has to be a resource where everyone is getting their information from. Very few places outside of Dustloop and Reddit go over strategies. If you go anywhere to play in Japan, they are killers. It’s crazy how good they are.
Missing Person: With Dogura and Go1 out for Frosty, how do you feel about your chances?
MarlinPie: I feel good. I always think that I’m going to win, but anything can happen. Sin was nerfed and Dogura has picked up Raven. I have a lot of experience in Japan against Raven, so I feel pretty confident if I face Dogura. We’ll see what happens. [MarlinPie went on to place 5th in the event.]
Missing Person: Do you feel like the fact that Japan received the game a year before America did has any factor in North America’s struggle to becoming relevant in Guilty Gear?
MarlinPie: I don’t think it’s that caliber of a problem now. The players that are doing well in Guilty Gear have been playing for over 20 years now. I don’t think any American has been playing the game for over 20 years at this point. The only new school player that I can think of is Machaboo–the Evo 2016 winner–and he started with Guilty Gear XX#Reload. So that’s still over a decade of experience under his belt.
American players haven’t been playing for that long. The top players in the States aren’t very old school. The experience gap really shows when the old school and new school players play against each other. They don’t know what to do in certain situations and scrambles. When they have that, on top of getting the game earlier, and having lagless online play even with Korea, they have a very fortunate recipe for success.
Missing Person: Out of the American scene–other than yourself–who would you list as the top 3 players?
MarlinPie: LostSoul has got to be my favorite. Even though he hasn’t been able to travel much, I still feel like he’s one of the best. I want to say BjornSonofBears for the top three, but his performance has been somewhat inconsistent at times. [BjornSonofBears went on to finish second at Frosty Faustings IX.] The rest is a definite tossup between GCYoshi, Lord Knight and Elvenshadow. Elvenshadow is one of the only players in America that I know of that has more experience than me in this game.
Missing Person: How long have you been involved with the series, just for comparison?
MarlinPie: I have been playing Guilty Gear for 16 years now. Elvenshadow started just a little bit before me. He was already a top player when I started the game.
Missing Person: What has driven you to keep playing Guilty Gear out of all the possible titles?
MarlinPie: Because it’s the best game in the world. No other fighter comes even remotely close to the level of creativity that Guilty Gear has. There’s no fighting game that’s similar to this. It’s very different, and I just happen to love this style of game.
Missing Person: Speaking of creativity, we saw you do a lot of creative stuff early on with Viper in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. With it coming to Evo, will we see you back playing Marvel?
MarlinPie: This has been a secret, but I have started playing Marvel again. I’m not confident with my play yet, and everyone that has kept up with the game has improved. I have taken off two or three years from the game. With Marvel getting a lot of attention with the rereleases and Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, I wanted to go back to my roots with this game before Infinite releases.
By popular demand, I’m definitely picking up Infinite. I’m not sure if I’ll keep with it though. There’s some doubts regarding the style of the game. It looks like a cross between Street Fighter X Tekken and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom to me. I might not like it, but I’ll try it at least.
