Since joining the fighting game community in the distant past of 2007, I have witnessed the level of discourse shift up and down over the years. I've followed the discussion spreading out from traditional forums like SRK and TZ into chat rooms, first Skype-groups and now Discord. The platforms used to host the discussion isn’t the only thing that has changed, the way people talk has definitely evolved at the same pace. Some of it positively impacting the discourse (Remember Capcom players refusing to accept even the notion of number notation?) and some of it negatively. Nothing however bugs me more than the reintroduction of the concept of “cheapness” and the perversion of the term scrub. In an effort to save the current timeline, or at least my sanity, let’s take a look at how scrub is (incorrectly) used now, but also what the word actually means.

Ghosts of notations past

Ah, scrub. What a lovely word, and how often you see it written and hear it spoken. But when people are asked to define it, what is their answer? “Ah! A scrub is a bad player” they say confidently. No, that’s incorrect, a scrub generally tends to be a bad player but you can certainly be bad without being a scrub. So they ponder the question and once more they cry out. “Oh, how silly of me! A scrub is of course a player that relies on cheap and bad strategies. Like a Bryan constantly hitting snake edge and orbital heel! Or a Ken mashing Shoryuken during block strings!” However certain they are of their answer, once again they are assuredly incorrect.

A scrub is not defined by their ability to skillfully pilot their character in game, nor are they defined by the effectiveness of their strategy. The scrub is defined by their approach to the game and what they consider fair or unfair. Most often expressed with the ever so meaningless word cheap. To better understand this we are going to take a quick detour in the land of cheapness, or as certain parts of the Tekken community has come to discuss it as of late, rule breaking characters!

Now what exactly is considered cheap? As Seth Killian famously wrote in series Domination 101, cheapness is intrinsically linked to wins and losses.

“Ever notice that no one who just loses all the time ever gets their style called “cheap” (or “dishonorable”) no matter what they’re doing? I start with this because it helps to underscore the generally whiny, name-calling nature of the complaint. No matter how you play, no one seems to care much… unless you’re winning. If you’re not threatening their (sorry) dominance at the machine, the scrub doesn’t care what the hell you’re doing. It’s only when you’re doing something they can’t beat that he bothers to drop phrases like “cheap”.

So we have our first ingredient laid out, if it beats them it’s easier to call it cheap than to learn how it works. Very often this takes form in strategies that are rarely seen or in strategies that are easier to perform than they are to counter.

Which drops us neatly into the territory of so called rule breaking, a term thrown out by people to disguise that they are in fact stupid enough to call something cheap. An example of an oft pointed out “rule breaker” in the Tekken series is the character Ling Xiaoyu, she does things other characters cannot do (mainly avoid mid attacks with the stance art of phoenix) “THAT IS BREAKING THE RULES” the scrub cries out!

But if we stopped to think for just a moment, we would end up having to point out where these infallible set of rules stem from. Invariably I think we will find that they are imaginary and always have been. As Sirlin writes in his essays about playing to win “A scrub is a player that is handicapped by self imposed rules that the game knows nothing about”. Ling is in the game (and has been for over 20 years mind you) ergo she adheres to the games rules, as far as the game is concerned she and her move-set is integral to its design. Furthermore Ling is available to both players, one could ask them if the goalie in a game of soccer is breaking the rules and sanctity of the game? He or she can touch the ball with their hands? Sounds pretty cheap to me.

Find the scrub

Even if we were to somehow concede the point that you can in fact magically break the rules of the game by being different enough to this imagined “baseline” character, what kind of differences would their rulebook give a pass? Would Kazuya’s i13 +5 launcher not be a breach of the rules? What about Devil Jin’s launching hell sweep? If you really prod that rulebook of theirs we would find that it is entirely arbitrary, some strategies get a pass because they are attached to characters the scrub finds cool. Some because the scrub considers manual dexterity equivalent to being skillful and others just because the scrub has become used to seeing them. To round out this thought let’s look at a Seth Killian quote again, this time regarding how to you can work out what is cheap or not.

“Just wait until you’re losing a lot. Then, rather than experience the fear that you might have to figure something difficult out, you can rest assured that the reason you were losing was because you were the victim of “cheap” tactics! “

With this detour in the land of cheapness done let us return to the scrub. If you in the midst of angst ridden rage find yourself complaining about “Scrubs mashing dragon punch” or “Cheap Lings not learning the real game” you are in fact the one engaging in scrub-thinking. One could try to argue that someone not adapting and doing the same thing makes them a scrub, but we all have our habits, some impacting the game in a large way, some not. Even the strongest players in the world has things they fall back on mindlessly if pressured enough.

Not a scrub in sight

The scrub makes up rules, the scrub decides what is fair and not, the scrub believes playing a certain way is cheap and another legit. All the while calling the people who actually play to win scrubs, funny that. Now don’t get me wrong, someone who’s entire game plan revolves around their opponent not blocking a snake edge probably won’t be gunning for a lot of first place finishes. But doing so just makes them a bad player, not a scrub.

There’s nothing wrong with a person deciding that they don’t want to play a certain way, but it becomes scrubby once they start villainizing people who get their enjoyment out of playing to win. Sticking to a set of personal convictions is all fine and dandy but one should realize it will never make you more skilled than anyone else. The game doesn’t care about who did the hardest combo or the least sweeps, it only cares about who won.

In closing, please don’t be a whiny-ass scrub!