It’s time to gear up for a special BlazBlue: Central Fiction community event. Exceed Assault continues with a new set of teams, and it’s the match-up a lot of us have been dreaming about: Team Jubei is going to take on Team Nine! The brand new character has a steep wall to climb, so we’ll have to see how much the competitors have already mastered.
This streamed exhibition features commentary. Following the team battles, there’s a unique exhibition with Betadood. The famous Ragna player, in story mode-style, will inaugurate CF2 by playing against every other character in the game!
Let’s hear from the players to see what they have to say about the exhibition and the match-ups.
Team Jubei: Fame96, UnsafeOnHit, NickExtreme1
UnsafeOnHit is representing Team Jubei in the responses below.
What kind of character is Jubei?
“Jubei is a very mobile character with a lot of decent pressure tools and mix-up options that are pretty safe. He’s pretty annoying to deal with once he gets a hit on you and his okizeme is very good. His normals aren’t exactly the best but they’re above average and get the job done. He’s a very solid character.”
How will you approach the match-up?
“In fighting Nine, there will be a lot of moving around the screen with his command dashes and short hop to get the Nine player to commit to something, so I can take advantage of her recently-nerfed recovery on her buttons to work my way in and gain the advantage. His fast run coupled with how low he goes to the ground during it will help dealing with her air buttons if she decides to take that approach.
“Once a knockdown is scored the advantage gets pretty skewed due to Nine’s lack of defensive options so from there, it’d be a rinse-and-repeat of trying to hit her again after knocking her down.”
Team Nine: MastaStef, Nemesis, NitroNoodles
MastaStef speaks for Team Nine below.
On the match-up: “I honestly haven’t played it yet. The Exceed Assault event will actually be my first time playing it. But I have watched some Jubei footage and messed around with him, so I can play theory fighter. This is just my opinion, but I want to say it’s in Nine’s favor. His high mobility and small stature can definitely make him slippery to catch and even more so when he’s popped his install. However, I still don’t think he can easily approach Nine, which is where most characters have issues in the match-up. Nine can also play elusively making it hard for him to catch her as well. I’d say Nine would only really have issues on defense or if Jubei has the life lead since it would be very difficult for her to chase him down. But once again, I don’t have any hands on experience in the MU yet, so this should be taken with a grain of salt.”
On the CF2 Nine changes: “Honestly, the 2.0 patch didn’t really change Nine too much. At most, it made it to where you have to play more creatively and less simplistic. You can’t auto pilot as hard, I guess you could say. Double dashing is more risky now, so you have to decide the correct time to use it. A lot of her lesser used spells have been changed to add a bit more room for creative setups and situations. She received a fair amount of nerfs, sure, but she received enough small changes to balance them out. You’re rewarded more for playing smarter and finding new ways to use her spells. If you want to just dash around, throw out buttons and mash on Kunzite, however, you probably won’t enjoy Nine as much. You can still do that, but it’s definitely less effective.”
On individual style: “I’ve always viewed myself as a more defensive player in fighting games, so I think I do play differently from most Nines in that regard. I tend to sit back, block and watch my opponent more often than haphazardly going in, unless I know my opponent just isn’t ready for it or the match-up calls for it. But I think a lot of Nines play differently. A few examples: NitroNoodles seems to be more setup heavy, where as Lueshi and Havoc_Noah are pretty aggressive, Genosade is reset/mix-up heavy, and I tend to be more defensive and patient. I know to most people it looks like Nines all do the same stuff, but it’s actually really cool to see the subtle differences in everyone’s play.”
Ragna vs. the world
To usher in the CF2.0 era, Betadood will face every other character in the game in a kumite after the team exhibition!
Woocash: You’re sort of the flagship Ragna player in the US right now. How do you feel about that?
Betadood: It’s only been a year since I started traveling out of state to compete, so I’m not really used to having this kind of recognition yet! BlazBlue is a game that means a lot to me, and I’m really happy that so many people have enjoyed watching my play so far. I hope it inspires you to try out the character, or even the game itself.
Woocash: You’re facing a lot of characters in a row, how are you preparing for this?
Betadood: Keeping my goals in mind for each match-up and adapting to player specific playstyles are my main priorities. There’s a lot to keep in mind against 36 different match-ups, and with the recent version 2.0 patch, there are new changes I’m not used to dealing with yet. The FT1 format won’t give a lot of chances to correct errors or capitalize on a potential weakness either. Keeping my focus up during the entire set will be a challenge for sure.
Woocash: Which match-ups do you fear the most and which are you most confident about?
Betadood: It’s cliché, but characters that can keep Ragna out of his optimal ranges during neutral are definitely the hardest for me. Against characters like this, it’s difficult to get a chance to run your offensive pressure. Luckily Ragna has some great tools for his neutral game. So even if it’s an uphill battle, it’s never hopeless. As for the match-ups that I do enjoy playing against… Characters that are also neutral based/balanced types are always fun. My favorite of all would be Jin though. Not only is the match-ups dynamic fun to play, the rivalry between the two is just so cool!
This special exhibition takes place later today, September 14th, at 7:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM CT / 4:00 PM PT over on Twitch.tv/logichole. Tune around then for the Team Jubei vs. Team Nine exhibition, followed by the Betadood kumite.
If you’d like to catch up on Exceed Assault, refer to the previous episode, which has Hazama fighting Susano’o and Naoto against Bullet.
Source: interviews
