A new week means it’s time for a new Super Steam Xrd Exhibition League match. As the League is now into its fourth week, a different set of challengers awaits. The Daredevils face each other in first-to-seven sets, while commentary will be provided by Sway and wne–with the latter having competed last week on the stream.
Here’s a breakdown of the participants:
Mynus
On the match: “Meta-wise, I feel I-no wins the matchup solidly solely based on things that Jam can’t control. Many of I-no’s countermeasures against her involve low profiling many of her moves ie. (6H, Puffball, f.S, etc.) with Stroke the Big Tree. The ability of I-no to low profile her Dragon Punch makes the rock-paper-scissors of avoiding her parry in her favor if I choose to go for note-less okizeme.
“That being said, once Jam gets started, frame traps, oki, and the ability to just go crazy sometimes is a situation I definitely have to avoid. I-no lacks defensive options outside of super, so staying mobile, countering in neutral against her approach and being relentless on offense is important to avoid someone like doren’s Jam getting started. Lastly, in this matchup, I-no needs to be conscious of wake-up parry on oki, so using note or lows on her wakeup is important to avoid that move altogether. I-no needs to treat Parry like Blitz, except for the fact that she cannot option-select parry with Vertical Chemical Love YRC like she can with Blitz Shield.”
On his opponent: “doren is a player of pure aggression! He looks to take control of every scramble situation, and anytime you might slip in neutral–he’s already taking advantage of your hesitation. Recently, doren has been making waves in multiple tournament top 8’s, showing everyone why he is the strongest Jam in the U.S. Being able to show your personality and skill through the character you play and be considered the standard of that play in peoples minds is something I respect in someone immensely.
“My main approach in this set is to set the tone that I won’t let him get away with anything sloppy in neutral or pressure, be as unpredictable on offense as possible, and don’t press too hard when on defense. If I can knock him down first, I feel that on pure momentum and mix-up alone, I can frustrate anyone to the point of total despair. In Xrd, doren and I have only met once in tournament; at Final Round 19. I put him in losers early in top 32, but he ended up beating me in the runback in top 8, and I was left with a very salty 7th place. It would be great to play him in tournament again; and hopefully that can happen this weekend at Super TSB, but for now I look to get a bit of revenge in this long set!”
On his own playstyle: “I would describe my gameplay style in Xrd as “Reactive Aggression.” I look to always stay mobile, use ALL of I-no’s movement options (which is necessary as she is actually limited by her hoverdash being a double-edged sword in neutral), counter sloppy approaches and slips in the opponents neutral, and finally, borderline unseeable mixups on offense once I score a knockdown. I-no isn’t actually a rushdown character in my opinion, she is more so of a far-mid to long range character with tools to score knockdowns to finally oppress her opponent. This is why I try to play as clean neutral as possible, and from what I’ve seen from other U.S. and Japanese I-nos, I play a lot faster than almost all of them.
“I-no’s mix-up and okizeme is one of the strongest in the game, and many of her options are unseeable to the point where actual, viable countermeasures on defense are for the opponent to take risks mashing or jumping out of mixup/pressure in order to avoid getting mixed-up to death. I actualy tell people this all the time: “defending against I-no doesn’t exist.” I originally am an MvC2 player, so I tend to play I-no as “Magneto” or “Storm” in a similar manner; there’s a certain satisfaction of making someone feel hopeless on defense, and so I always look to implement advanced movement and mix-up tactics.
“This past year, I feel I truly cemented that my play style is effective, being one of only 5 US players to make top 32 in Evo 2016. I also had the awesome opportunity to rep the U.S. alongside PG|MarlinPie at Toushinsai at Arc Revo in October and was able to show my strength as a player in general (not just with I-no) in some of the strongest Japanese arcades in Tokyo and Osaka. I know that I still have a lot of work to do to improve as a player and grow, so I truly look forward to a hard working 2017!”
doren2k
On the match: “My thoughts on the I-no match with Jam, I think it’s about even, honestly. Jam has to, of course, get through all of the Chemical Loves and Notes but when she finally gets in, I-no really has nothing that can keep Jam off except her reversal super. So I’m just gonna try my best to maneuver around whatever Mynus throws at me so I can get in and try to kill him while I have the chance. Cause nobody wants to block I-no or attempt to block I-no, you know 
.”
On his opponent: “Mynus has been playing Guilty Gear for a long time, I’m pretty sure longer than me. The first time I played Mynus I’m pretty sure was at NEC 2007, Jam vs I-no in a 3v3 team tournament 10 years ago . He’s very smart and really knowledgeable with his character. Easily the best I-no in the US.”
On his own playstyle: “I like to focus on movement a lot definitely with Jam because she is easily one of the fastest characters in the game, but she also struggles in neutral. So I think to be really good with the character your movement has to be on point. And I also work on confirms a lot because of how fast I play. The character has to make sure you can get max damage or close to it from every random hit. And oh yeah, of course, charge Ryujin 
–full-screen YOLO.”
DaveO
On the match: “I’m excited to play the matchup. I don’t have too much experience in it, but I’ve played it enough to have at least a basic idea. It’s an interesting one, in that the characters are designed to do the opposite things as each other, so a lot of rounds can end up really one-sided when one player gets momentum, though with Axl having a Dragon Punch in Xrd makes things a little different. I’m just hoping not to lose to a combination of myself and Sparrowhawk Stance.”
On his opponent: “I played Gekioh for the first time at Frosty Faustings a few years ago (Xrd SIGN 1.1, I think). I beat him pretty handily, though I was using Slayer at the time. I played him a bunch at Combo Breaker last year and he had gotten a lot better and did smarter things overall, and we had a lot of interesting games. I haven’t seen him play since then (unless I’m misremembering), but I’m assuming he’s gotten better since then, so I’m hoping we have a real good set for people to watch.”
On his own playstyle: “The easiest way to distil the way I like to play and think about games is to play the simplest way possible that is still good. I tend not to play characters like Ramlethal or Zato=1, and play characters like Slayer, Sol. I like to play with footsies, reactions, conditioning. Having good setups and lots of layers is fine, but I try to keep it not too convoluted or complex. I like characters that focus on frame traps or grab mixups rather than high/low/left/right, etc.”
Gekioh
On the match: “In general, I find the Sol match-up to be 5-5, leaning toward 6-4 in Axl’s favor, if you can keep Sol out, you can shut down most of his hard pressuring options. It’s when Sol gets a hard knockdown or a corner carry Axl really doesn’t have many tools to retain his neutral game. Axl’s main goal in this matchup is to zone, wait, go in on whiffed attacks with long recovery, and generally frustrate him until he jumps in or does something stupid. I hope that I can adapt to my opponent’s options and find a rhythm to counter and react to different situations. And not get Wild Thrown!”
On his opponent: “I’ve gotten in some decent sets with DaveO at the last couple majors (Frosty Faustings IX, CEOtaku ’16, Combo Breaker). Great guy to have some games with, and he’s a very strong opponent that I have to be very careful about maintaining my neutral game with a lot of movement, not pressing buttons when I shouldn’t. Also to not get Wild Thrown…. He Wild Throws a lot.”
On his own playstyle: “My training partner, Kizzercrate said it best: a mixture of Japanese “wall keep away” and American rushdown with some homebrew tricks that I learned on the way. I want my opponent to feel as though it’s never safe to tech after a knockdown or jump in carelessly. Neutral is where I shine, and I use all movement and low profile options to try and make sure I keep myself in an advantageous position, as standing still will more than often not get you killed, when every button you have is usually at a frame disadvantage.”
Gekioh and DaveO’s FT7 is first, followed by Mynus and doren2k. The show is tomorrow, Thursday, at 10:00 PM EST/9:00 PM CST/7:00 PM PST. As usual, it will be on silva_hime’s Twitch channel.
Last time, KidViper fought daymendou in a rematch, while Kizzercrate faced off against wne. Check out the recorded results in the clip below:
Sources: Mdesilva; interviews