Tour De Shadaloo Day 3

Day 3 in Sydney, and all the boys are tired. Except myself for some reason. I oddly managed to naturally get up at 8am before my alarm even goes off. I try to make as much noise as I can with the floorboards and the clanking of the locker door, but to no avail. Everyone still sleeps. I'm just about to head out myself to get some coffee and then it's a domino effect of waking up. Righteo then!

Off we go once more for dim sum, where we stuff our faces full of siu mai and har gau and head off to UTS again to support our boy HONKEYBOMB in the finals. The day felt a lot more laid back today for at least four of us. For poor ol' Honkeybomb however, he was a mess of nerves and insomnia.

"HKB: Dieu, I get no sleep last night DIEUUUU"
"HKB: I don't want to play today... will you play for me instead?"
"HKB: I want to quit SF4... I so suck."
"HKB: I don't want to let down WA ah."

Poor lad was a mess. In any case, we banded together to support him. We arrived early to get HKB warmed up with some casuals. And of course, over comes Melvin still grinning after his win over Daigo the previous night. It's awn like Donkey Kong. Two games later and Melvin licks the Saxa Salt block... we then proceed to laugh and chuckle at the prospect of HKB and Melvin meeting each other in the finals... Oh no...

It's 1pm and it's time for the finals to start. All round, some great matches went on with some truly top level play. Honestly, it's great to see that Australia has such quality within our ranks. For me at least, it was quite interesting to see how hype a video game could get! I mean, I've watched streams and stuff, but never really experienced it for myself. Hypest moment for me had to be ToXy vs. Daigo. When he took that final round with the Raging Demon I know I went nuts.

But yes, focusing back on W.A. HKB first game in Winner's is up against... Melvin! Oh, laughs for days. How did it go? Let's just say the Honkeybomb was fully armed and Melvin couldn't diffuse it. Shit was nasty to watch.


Melvin: *don'tlooksaltydon'tlooksaltydon'tlooksalty*
HKB: I win! :D

Up next for HKB was robsux, a very impressive NSW player. He could play a variety of characters and ended up counter picking Ricky's Guile with his Viper. Turned out to be the right choice in the end, as robsux had some great execution (FFF SEX COMBO!) combined with some great matchup knowledge using jab thunder knuckle to go under sonic booms. Perth Stealth bomber had to drop HKB in the Saxa bracket...

Where he met none other than Eric a.k.a. dk. HKB still thinking this was vanilla tried to counter pick dk's classic Honda choice, but Eric had some new tricks. Honda has new fireball invincibility on the startup of headbutt I believe and dk abused that shit all day. Added that with the loss of Tiger Knee lockdown and HKB got diffused after getting Ultra'd through a fireball. Profound Sadness. Team Perth has been scrubbed out in Singles.

The rest of the finals had many great moments. Too many to mention (or remember :S), suffice to say, it was HYPE. Congratulations go out to Daigo and Johnny for nabbing the tickets to EVO. Good luck to you both!

Later on was the Team tournament which had a very relaxed atmosphere which was great. Team Perth came up against the 3 wise men and my A-game decided to desert me and I got scrubbed out bad. derrace was up next and took out my conqueror only to fall to a Boxer. HKB then also proceeded to get scrubbed out by said Boxer. PROFOUND SADNESS! Team Perth had epically failed on all fronts! I LOSSSSSSSTTTTTTT.

At this point though, none of us really cared. We were more interested in playing casuals with the others and just socialising. Easily best moment for me was playing against Humanbomb (HKB's arch-nemesis) in casuals. Good thing I know Cantonese which meant I could trash talk... I mean chat with Johnny :) His Akuma is way too good still. Not much matchup experience there, but I did manage to eke out a win against his Guile whilst also wowing some others with Dash Ultra... mwehehe.

Me before I'm about to get Humanbomb'ed.

Valky-poo also managed a win against Humanbomb too! We've officially started our own club as well (with the blessing of Johnny of course). Notable casual sets with others include Jack, Just-S, Sol, some dojo style training with dk and of course Normy. Can never get enough of Normy. I regret not taking a photo with 'The Norminator'. Okay, I'm just making up nicknames now.

Myself and the man who loves his english tea, fights with dignity and keeps it classy... Jack Hu... I MEAN... Jack Luo

My sifu in the Honda matchup, dk a.k.a. Eric

After a while, I wandered back over to the main projector setup where the team tournament was still going strong. Loved the laid back atmosphere, especially with wizbore mistaking UTS for his own lounge room, and some god like commentary by bbbenson, hebretto and Afterdeath. So much smacktalk and love at the same time :) Congrats to Melvin and co. (I believe robsux was in there? I forget...) for taking out Teams and letting Melvin not go home completely salty about the weekend.

A little bit of help shifting the setups back to GGS later and that was EVO APAC weekend over. So many matches, so many friendships gained, so many great memories and moments and of course... so much salt >.<

To all the Perth boys who didn't go, I couldn't recommend it more. Honestly, you are treated so well over there by the Sydney boys, meet so many great people and level up so much in such a short space of time. To all the boys in the other parts of Australia and also New Zealand as well, see you all at BAM :)

FA absorb dash back,

Jase

Tour De Shadaloo Day 2

So as would become the norm on this trip, I am the first to wake up and again thank my lucky stairs that I crashed (and burned a little) on Shane's floor the previous night as the combined hours of sleep left me feeling relatively refreshed.

Two of our boys looking sharp and ready for action.

After the boys got ready, we headed for Dim Sum, stuffed our faces and headed over to UTS to register.

UTS building, a.k.a. concrete sex.

The boys at the table kindly took some time out of stuffing their faces full of Subway to sign us in. We had a quick look around of the venue and to say the least, we were very impressed. The casuals were neatly seperated from the competition area. A very impressive dual projector screen setup was on the main stage with even a live stream going on which I believe was a first for a major Australian tournament.

Benson displaying his mullet in all it's glory while Joey looks really really ridiculously good looking.

We were all then kindly reminded that it might be a good idea to check the bracket to see get an idea of who we would be up against. It also happened to be the case that Daigo got no free ticket to the EVO APAC finals and would be playing pools in the Last Chance qualifiers. We were also told by Melvin (top bloke!) the previous night that there were four pools with each of us Perth boys being separated apart into each pool. At the time we joked about which of us would be the unlucky sod who would be in Daigo's pool.

I scrolled down my pool and had a look. I saw CrazyFreeRider who I had managed to catch on XBoxLive Endless battle and well... we saw how good his Seth was. He had me quite worried as no-one plays Seth in W.A. and I'm quite notorious for bunking out on unfamiliar matchups. Scroll down a little further and whaddaya know... Daigo.

Now, I actually hate this term, but seriously, there was no other way to describe the situation other than... FUCK MY LIFE. With all due respect to the other players in the bracket, I predicted at that point that Daigo and CrazyFreeRider would qualify for the finals tomorrow.

We had actually arrived fairly early though as the tournament only started at 3pm. Casuals were underway on the big screens and Afterdeath a.k.a. George was running a train with his 'Gief. Again, I don't know the 'Gief matchup very well because our resident 'Gief player Terry doesn't come to meetups all too often. I had a go myself and well... it went how you would expect the matchup to go. Balrog zones out 'Gief with superior normals for 70% of his health, then one mistake means Gief is in that ass and it's GGs thanks for playing. My first taste of interstate play was very interesting. I learnt a lot about the matchup from that one game.

After that, I was approached by Mark from Brisbane to do commentary for the stream! Would I? Of course I would! Who would be my commentary partner in crime? None other than Normy from Brissie! Yet another top bloke.

Things got especially interesting when Daigo wanted to warm up with casuals on the big screen. It was all fun and smiles until profound sadness! I got kicked off commentary by Henry a.k.a. Genxa :( Quite funny how nobody cared about the casuals on the big screen until Daigo entered. It was like watching the children of Hamelin and Daigo was the pied piper. I felt sorry for Humanbomb and ToXy duking it out on the non streaming screen. The Top 2 from last years OHN were shown no love. The Daigo effect I guess.

ToXy gets no love as Daigo plays his warm up casuals.

Getting kicked off commentary did mean however I got a chance at casuals with ToXy from Melbourne. Time to really put my skills to the test against one of Australia's best: My Balrog against his Akuma. A very solid match, where I managed to match him for solidity (I'm Balrog baby!). I read on SRK that auto-correct Super/Ultra is godlike in this matchup and for sure I pulled it out in a very clutch moment with the rounds being 1-1 at the time. We were at next to no health each, but I had him pressured in the corner. ToXy teleports out of the corner, I see this and auto-correct Super! I hear the crowd gasp... only to see that my moment of clutchness turns into profound sadness as I executed too early and my Super goes past Akuma while he's still in his invincible teleporting frames. He smacks me in my recovery and again it's GGs thanks for playing. 0-2 in interstate casuals... Hmmm...

This was however the last casual game to be played as Pool play was starting and guess who's pool was up first? Mine of course. I could feel the nerves creeping in. My first major. Ok, easy Jase easy... it's just like any other match you've played. What's that Yang? I'm on the stream setup? FUCK MY LIFE. I'm up first against bksama, a Guile player. I feel rather confident in this matchup since my housemate Honkeybomb picked up Guile in SSF4 so I have a good grasp of what strategy to use. I put up a good fight, however my tournament nerves get to me and I go out 1-2 and into the Saxa bracket I go.

With a bucket of salt in one hand, I was a man on a mission. I proceeded to run a train in the loser's bracket winning five matches in a row against S2 Kevin, Issoropia, Playman, my initial conqueror bksama and then Paz. The train was full steam ahead until the next match got called... CrazyFreeRider vs MrChowda. A few days before we left Perth we were playing on XBOX live and ran into CrazyFreeRider's Seth. We were impressed would be an incredible understatement. Added that no one plays Seth in Perth meant I got 0-2'd and off I went to lick the salt block. Mmm... tasty.

My conqueror... CrazyFreeRider. No salt at all. He was simply too pro.

Next up in Pool B, was derrace, perhaps our best hope from the last chance qualifiers to make the EVO APAC Finals. Surprisingly, he got sent straight to loser's by a Boxer who went by the name Static. Hard to believe since he knows the Boxer matchup so well. In the Saxa bracket, he eked out the win against Auxide, yet another Boxer. However, in the next round, he fell victim to Kyokugen's very impressive looking Viper. Gotta love those FFF sex combos. Derrace then proceeded to take the entire salt block with him...

In Pool C, we had Andrew, a.k.a. Valkyran, a.k.a. Valky-poo abusing everyone lack of knowledge in the Claw matchup. I mean seriously, who the fuck plays Claw. I kid, I kid. Claw is serious business now in Super thanks to some buffs. Again, we got sent straight to loser's but no shame in this loss. vindk8, an insane Dhalsim player and what I would call Australia's best Sim player for sure. Andrew got zOwned and sent to the Saxa bracket... where he met Chris who I believe played T. Hawk and then Gouken. Valky-poo grinded out the win nicely but then fell victim to yet another Sim player this time in the form of CactusDragon. So much sodium!

Our final hope to send someone to join Ricky in the finals would be Taka! His first match was against a Claw player no less going by the name Zip. He was taken out with ease thanks to Valky-poo's elite Anti-Claw coaching tips. So pro. This took Taka and his rushdown Ken right into BeefyGoodness' path who mained T. Hawk. Oh dear. Rushdown vs Grappler aiieeeeeeeee. After Taka got Condor Dive'd into the Saxa Bracket, he came across Crazyandy a Gen player! We spotted one in the wilderness! Nerfed Gen plus matchup knowledge thanks to Guillotine-Fist meant Taka had no problems. Then came a heavy-hitter in the form of wizbore who's Ryu was just too solid for Taka and down he went... profound sadness all round for the Perth boys.

At the end of a quite grueling night, we headed down with the Sydney boys to SuperBowl for some disgustingly greasy Chinese food.

The Boyzzzzzzz

Cheers to Benson for taking the 'wise sage' role and telling us all about SFII footsies and whatnot. Shoutouts to Benson's lame tea pouring skills. Finally, shoutouts to Yang's intense food scooping skills. Benson ain't got nothing on you.

It had been a long day, so we headed back after supper to our palacial accomodation to get some much needed shut-eye.

FA absorb dash back

Jase

Tour De Shadaloo Day 1

*FLASHBACK*

It's the 16th of May around 3pm. Ricky has just been crowned Perth APAC champion.

We knew we couldn't just let a lone soldier tackle the east coast so the band of brothers Taka, Derrick, Ricky, Andrew and myself came together to form what would be Tour De Shadaloo's first squad unit to infiltrate the east coast.

The five of us all got together at the Perth Domestic airport at around 12am for our flight.

It was all going well until I tried to get to sleep. I stupidly did not buy a neck pillow, and had a very hard time trying to sleep. As soon as I tried to lie my head down on the tray in front of me, the women in front of me would convulse wildly and wake me up. When I tried to lie back in my own seat, fellow squad member Derrick would rock my seat. I call shenanigans.

After a nice cramped and sleepless 4.5 hour flight, we touched down in Sydney. Taka immediately whipped out his 'baby'; a brand new camcorder he bought purposely for the trip just the day before. Taka starts video logging until we get to the arrival gates. Taka is told in stern fashion to delete whatever he just recorded. Taka is salty at airport security.

Just as we walk outside, Taka starts vlogging again. There also happens to be a bit of a CSI going on as two police officers are questioning a rather suspect looking couple. What happens? You guessed it.

Police: What are you doing?! DELETE PLZ K THX BAI
Taka: Diu lei lo mo...
Police: Hmmm?
Taka: That means 'Sorry I'll do that right away' :)

Okay, I may be paraphrasing there. Nevertheless, we have a first laugh of the trip. We also manage to get swindled by the airport taxi driver who took us for a 'ride'. At least we saw the Audi building. We were deposited on George Street and settled into our base for the weekend.

Nothing fancy at all... but most importantly cheap cheap cheap. There was also a random dude who's a long term backpacker there that stayed in the same dorm. Hope we didn't disturb you too much mate! We were checked in, which meant it was time to meetup with Yang, who would turn out to take really good care of us 'stick out like sore thumb' out of towners. But there's so many pretty buildings!

Tram? What's that...?

Pretty building #1

Pretty building #2

Sometimes you want to go... where everybody knows your name!

Note that at this point, I have had no sleep in the past 36 hours.

By about 2:30pm, things start to get a little bit more exciting... in half an hour, our private session with some dude from Japan named 'Daigo Umehara' would start. I'd like to thank anyone and everyone who was involved in organising this private session with Daigo for us interstate people. You have no idea how much we appreciated it!

We're waiting inside GGS chatting to fellow ozhadou members and whatnot, also playing some casuals on the SF4 machines (I was free due to lack of sleep... profound sadness). Everytime anyone pops out from the stairway, we all look, but are only greeted with disappointment when we see it wasn't Daigo. Then, at about 3:45pm... Daigo's immaculately permed hair pokes up from the stairway. People are clapping his arrival.

Me posing with some Japanese dude.

Being the superstar in our community he is, we are all bugging him for his autograph and for photos. Needless to say, the guy is a humble champion. Not once did I see him refuse a photo or signature. In the words of Chris Hu: 'I RESPEK DAT.'

Chris Hu: I RESPEK DAT.

Not long after, a couple of Xbox's are setup and the private session is ready to go. The first challenger? Our very own Derrick a.k.a. derrace. He put up a good fight I must say, but Daigo being Daigo took it. Next up was another fellow soldier Andrew a.k.a. Valkyran. He showed us his claw skillz were no match for Umehara's beastliness and got taken down swiftly. Would also just like to say to whoever shouted out something along the lines of 'You're shit!' while Andrew was playing... we don't approve of stuff like that.

Roundhouse button got as broken as SF4 Sagat.

Then to make it a hat-trick of Perth scalps for Daigo, up stepped yours truly, Jase a.k.a. MrChowda. Was I nervous? Hell yeah! It's freakin' Daigo! The match starts and Daigo immediately starts chuckin' the hadous. I absorb a few and react to his next badly spaced hadou for a perfect jump in. What happens? DENIED. THE ROUNDHOUSE BUTTON WAS BROKEN. First blood could have gone to me, but the roundhouse button was broken. Andrew shares my disdain as he was suspect of said roundhouse button all along. To be honest, it threw me off my game and I got schooled from there on in. Plus tiredness... a poor excuse I know.

Me before my last set with Daigo. I reached absolute perfection... (That means getting P'd boys and girls)

What can I say about going up against Daigo? Well, you watch the youtube clips and think, damnnnnn he's a good player. But to play against him as he dissects your gameplan? And punishes you hard for practically any button you press? It's simultaneously beautiful yet horribly demoralising. Gotta love them juxtapositions. Whilst I'm sure many will just watch the videos and think man, why do these guys suck so much, I'm telling all of you now... you have no idea what's it's like to be there in person.

Did we benefit from the experience? Overall we got 6 games each against Daigo. And the unequivocal response in unison was... YES. Although Taka did ask Daigo after his first game.

Taka: What advice can you give me?
Daigo: It's only two games. I don't know.

A man of many words.

After our private session, we had some hotpot nearby and Ric managed to order some foul tasting ribs. Good job Ric! We went back to GGS which was now packed because the local NSW players were queuing up like lambs to the slaughter to have a go at Daigo. We instead decided to head over to Shane's a.k.a. Gamogo's place to get some casuals in. At this point I was really running on fumes. I fell asleep in the taxi on the way. I played one casual match against Shane's Akuma and I needed vaseline after the raping that occurred. Smartly, I lied down on Shane's nice floor rug and proceeded to K.O. myself while Shane's cat licked my face.

The guys woke me up when it was time to go, and we thanked Shane for graciously taking us in and headed back to the backpackers hostel. It was then that we discovered we had a mole within the ranks. Ric fell asleep before the rest of us and proceeded to demonstrate why a nickname of The Sleep Deprivator 5000 would be pretty apt. Ric, you have the most ridonkulous snoring ever. Seriously.

I only got 2 hours shut-eye that night and thanked my lucky stars I got some rest at Shane's place. I also found out however that my phone's internet capabilities are pretty good! And so ended our first day. The next day would be serious business... tournament time.

Smile Daigo!

He sorta was on candid camera. Daigo was gracious enough during his stay in Australia for the EVO APAC tournament to let a bunch of silly W.A. boys interview him. Knowing that everyone would ask boring old generic media style questions, we had one goal in mind... to make the cold calculating beast... laugh.

Enjoy!

Also, thanks to all who made this interview possible.

FA absorb dash back,

Jase

Tuesday Night Dojo sessions

Fear not fellow Perthians, my EVO APAC writeup only awaits the photos and videos to be collated together from the others. Day 1 of the EVO APAC trip should should be posted up by tonight.

In other news, myself and Andrew would like to invite anyone who is really wanting to get better at the game attend what we hope to be weekly sessions on how to improve your game in SSF4. By no means do we think we are god like at the game and our advice is the be all and end all. Rather, we've seen what the highest level of play is like and would like to share the knowledge we gained with you whilst also getting feedback from you guys.

These won't simply be casual meetups where we'll just get together, play and talk some trash to each other. Rather, people will be playing and we'll do coaching either as the other player or while on the sidelines. Expect of a lot of:

"Why you jump?"
"Why you press button?"
"Ehhhh punish suck"
and my personal favourite
"Ah DIEUUUUUUU"

Ricky a.k.a. Honkeybomb has in fact quit SSF4 (allegedly haha) but he has been coaching my matches while I play and I can tell you it helps a lot. We're planning to hold the dojo sessions at our apartment. Follow this thread on OzHadou for more info + sign yourself up to attend. Also please PM either myself (MrChowda) on OzHadou for the address if you haven't been to our place before.

FA absorb dash back

Jase