In their regular ‘Behind the Sticks’ interview series, Ultra Combo chatted to Selfless Gaming’s Fiyah Liger to talk about his development as a player, how he came to play Riptor and his personal history with Killer Instinct as a franchise. While he did play KI as a kid with his dad and brother in arcades, Fiyah Liger actually started in the FGC playing Marvel 3. It was after seeing Killer Instinct top 8 at CEO 2014 that he really considered playing the game, and he only got stuck into the actual competitive scene after watching ChrisG mess about with Riptor on her release.
While Sabrewulf did seem like a suitable pick for his playstyle, Fiyah (as his name suggests) always had an affinity for flame-based characters so playing a fire-spewing, genetically engineered raptor seemed like the perfect fit. After training for about four months and attending tournaments like Texas Showdown, Fiyah deems his placing at last year’s Combo Breaker as his breakout performance, where he made top 16 and had to fight his Riptor mentor, PaulB, in his first match. From that initial experience, it has been a matter of grinding online, competing in tournaments like 8BitBeatdown and attending offline events wherever possible in order to get where he is today.
The whole interview is a good read, as it goes through how to improve as KI player, as well as his thoughts on what helped him smash through that mental block in his play, and allowed him to place consistently in top 8 at the majority of tournaments.
Source: Ultra Combo