“How’d Choi beat Daigo?”

That was the question on everyone’s lips at Evo 2014, as word spread that John “ChoiBoy” Choi’s legendary Ryu had taken out Daigo “The Beast” Umehara of Team Mad Catz in four straight rounds, ending Umehara’s run at an Ultra Street Fighter IV championship.

To gather their thoughts on the match, I spoke with a panel of excellent minds in the fighting game community: Long “ShadyK” Tran, Eric “Juicebox” Albino, Team Spooky’s Arturo “Sabin” Sanchez, Anthony “Crackfiend” Nguyen, Jay “Viscant” Snyder of Brokentier, and, of course, John Choi himself. Here’s what they had to say.

I’m surprised how many people thought this was an upset. Choi probably has the best shoto versus shoto game in the world, even in Street Fighter IV. In fact, he doesn’t lose many old school type matchups. When you see him go down in a tournament, it’s usually to a mix-up heavy character like Makoto or Yun. A few years ago, Choi and Daigo played a Ryu mirror match in Super Street FIghter IV (I think at NorCal or SoCal Regionals — I can’t seem to find the video), and it came down to pixels of the last round of the set, with Daigo taking it. This was when Choi wasn’t all that practiced and Daigo was dominating, so it shows how valuable Choi’s raw matchup knowledge is from past games.

He’s just a monster when it comes to any classic zoning matchup, even in unfavorable ones like Ryu versus Dhalsim. He doesn’t even have the best Ryu tech; it’s just that his opponent-reading skills are unmatched. Plus, you have to factor in that Ryu probably has a slight edge over Evil Ryu with a better crouching MK (since the entire mid-range game in this matchup is based on crouching MK and Hadoken). So yeah, it really wasn’t a huge shocker to see Choi beat the Beast.

Match 1, Game 1: John Choi plays defensively, Daigo unable to really get much started. John uses occasional aggressive cr.MKs and EX fireballs to keep Daigo guessing on the approach. Also read one fireball with a jump for big damage.

1-2: Starts the same, but Daigo is able to corner John and lands two EX axe kicks. Daigo lands two cr.MKs this round, but does not convert off of them with FADCs. John continues to play well defensively, baits Daigo’s DP to bring the life totals closer, and takes back the lead with hadoukens. He successfully gets a timeout.

2-1: John gets an early focus crumple for the lead, and Daigo soon answers with his own but fails the conversion. Daigo is able to get his mixup game going this round but John makes a good read on Daigo’s movement and evens it out with a F+HP combo and steals the round.

2-2: This round starts out evenly. When Daigo dashes forward after a LV1 focus hit, he does an uppercut FADC to another uppercut for the weak hit. This may have been another error, unless he was playing ahead of himself (he may have expected the DP to be blocked so he wanted to do another one after the FADC). Daigo chooses to play more defensively this round, possibly trying to bait a jump from John. After landing a sweep he is able to get a BnB combo but -again- fails the conversion. John is able to close it out with another great read with F+HP and a final jump over a fireball.

John Choi was playing very good defense with occasional offensive movements for this entire set. He made great reads for big damage and the win in almost every round. Although both players made execution mistakes, Daigo’s were much more costly and cost him two separate rounds. John’s defense was simply excellent and prevented Daigo from getting much of anything going. It’s possible that Daigo was not in “top form” due to hunger/sleep/nervousness/etc., but I think at the end of the day he simply underestimated Choi’s ability to play the matchup.

After reviewing the match several times, John defeating Daigo at Evo came down to a few simple things. Lets get the obvious out of the way first: the combo drops. Simply put, John played better and made fewer mistakes. It was strange to see both of them missing simple FADC combos (especially Daigo), but the human element is a factor. Regardless of who is “better” on paper, the player that wins is the one that makes fewer mistakes during the set.

To go into it further and examine the more subtle stuff: John had better control during the mid-range game, which allowed him to control the pace of the match. Although Evil Ryu has superior walk speed and superior damage (not to mention that his cr.MK -> fireball is a true blockstring from farther ranges) Ryu still has a superior cr.MK frame data-wise. The frame data on both their regular fireballs are exactly the same, but Ryu’s EX fireball has faster startup and a better advantage on block, allowing John to score some knockdowns and keep the pace of the match in his favor.

[column size=”one-half”]

Evil Ryu

Crouching MK – 7f startup, -3 on block

Fireball – 13f startup, -6 on block

EX Fireball – 12f startup, 0 on block

[/column] [column size=”one-half” last=”true”]

Ryu

Crouching MK – 5f startup, -2 on block

Fireball – 13f startup, -6 on block

EX Fireball – 11f startup, +1 on block

[/column]

Source: Bradygames Official Ultra Street Fighter IV frame data app (hopefully in the future, frame data apps will measure fireball speeds so that I can know for sure. 🙂 )

In addition to this, John also played very conservatively during the match as a shoto — his style is more reserved than Alex Valle’s for sure, considering Valle is famously known for rushing down. In one match, Choi won by timer scam!

I’d like to propose an additional question: How did Daigo lose to John Choi this year? At a glance, the questions may seem synonymous — but if you take a closer look, I’m merely making both players accountable for the outcome of the match, which I believe is more fair. Let’s take a look at the first question:

How did John Choi beat Daigo?

John Choi is one of the most fundamentally sound players to ever play Street Fighter. His investment in fireballs and ability to land them usually yields a lot of returns, and that is exactly what happened against Daigo. I’ll elaborate more on this a bit later, but let’s take a look at Daigo.

How did Daigo lose to John Choi?

Daigo’s greatest strength ended up becoming his biggest weakness: fireball game/footsies. He is not weak in these categories — but, his decision to use footsies/fireball games as the primary strategy for Evil Ryu became his biggest flaw. Ryu’s damage output opportunities don’t compare to Evil Ryu’s, that’s a given. However, Daigo chose to try and match John’s pace — slow and meticulous. To support this theory, let us look at some basic numbers for the fireball war.

Fireball Output: John Choi vs Daigo

Just looking at the numbers alone, John outperformed Daigo in every category for the fireball war during their Evo match. Daigo tried matching the pace and paid the price. Even if the numbers were roughly the same, it’s still in favor of Ryu simply because he has more health and does more damage from his fireballs. Daigo relied on what he knew best, but John’s conversion and damage output with his fireballs were too much to handle.

To tell you the truth, I didn’t see this match live so I had to look it up on YouTube just now and watch it. I say this because since I already know what happened before I processed the match, I might be a little biased and try to look for reasons that aren’t there.

The first thing I see is that this isn’t the cleanest game. John dropped a few combos and Daigo dropped a few as well. Given the nature of the characters, a sloppy game obviously benefits Ryu over Evil Ryu. That’s Evil Ryu’s whole game, turning a low forward into huge damage, and that never happened. Daigo never got a full Evil Ryu combo off. In the second game he had a couple opportunities and dropped them both, one a drop off close fierce which is just a massive drop given the context of the match. If Daigo plays clean in the second game both rounds go completely differently and are probably wins for Daigo.

But what definitively won the match for John was the fireball game. The story of the whole match is Daigo trying to be the bully here and taking advantage of his low forward into fireball and John throwing fireballs slightly outside of that range to keep Daigo at bay. John knows that this strategy is going to cost him screen space; part of finding this range involves moving backwards. But he’s trying to give as little ground as possible and he manages to hold his ground relatively well. Also, even though the strategy called for John to throw more unprotected fireballs, Daigo doesn’t jump his fireballs EVER during the set whereas John lands a successful jump in during round one that basically wins him the round and a successful jump-in in the final seconds to seal the set.

Daigo couldn’t take advantage of Ryu’s weaknesses in this match either. There are plenty of times that John does a max range low forward into fireball that isn’t a true block string. Even though this is one of the reasons Daigo is dropping Ryu, he couldn’t make John pay here. I found that ironic, at least in an Alanis Morissette way.

It’s important not to read too much into this short set. As I said, drops play a huge factor through the second game and in the first game, Daigo inexplicably lets John out of the corner in the second round which swings the whole round, a round that John would win very narrowly. This clearly wasn’t the best Daigo has to offer but I give John a lot of credit. He held his ground when he needed to and got a lot of mileage out of Ryu’s “weaker” low forward and won the match on old-school Street Fighter fundamentals.

I attribute it to a little bit of scouting, a little bit of practice, and a lot to luck. =)

For scouting, I saw Daigo play against Alex Valle and Ryan “RG|Filipino Champ” Ramirez earlier in the day. I used the knowledge I gained from observing those matches to prepare my game plan. I saw Valle’s Ryu try to fight Evil Ryu head-on, and that did not pan out too well due to the damage differential. I saw Champ successfully minimize Evil Ryu’s high damage output by choosing lower damage defense options. I’ll elaborate on these points a bit later.

For practice, my sole knowledge of fighting against Evil Ryu comes from the practice session I had with Eduardo “EG|PR Balrog” Perez. I got a chance to play against Ed’s Evil Ryu with my Ryu a few days before Evo, and I initially approached the match as I normally do for a shoto mirror, which is to constantly get to close range to maximize the use of Ryu’s fast normal attacks. I knew his medium kick was slower than mine so I figured I would just get close and beat him out with speed

But that plan did not work out well, as Ed started destroying me whenever I tried to approach. I ran into his foot while jockeying for position and ended up losing a ton of life. Whenever we were at close range, he would fake throws and land counter hits with fierce or hop kick that would result in massive damage. Although I felt that we were both getting a similar number of openings, I just could not keep up with the damage differential. I learned that it was not wise to take Evil Ryu head-on with Ryu.

Since I could not fight up close, I then thought about what other strategy I could focus on. In a matchup, you always want to maximize on your strengths and minimize your weakness. I felt Ryu was weak in the close-up game against Evil Ryu due to the damage options. Once Ryu gets inside footsie range, he has an advantage with his faster medium kick. Just outside of footsie range, Evil Ryu has advantage with the damage potential that results from walking into his kick. From far range, Ryu has the clear advantage with a better fireball game. So my game plan was to play to the best advantage and stick to the classic fireball game and stay away as much as possible. If Evil Ryu got within striking distance, I would make sure to block low and get out to fireball range or to inside footsie range and harass with my faster kicks. I wanted to avoid running into his foot while jockeying for position so I used EX fireballs often to make him weary about sticking it out. And finally, I mixed in rushing fierce punches to annoy even further outside of footsie range.

If Evil Ryu ever got near me, I chose to take the throw damage rather than the counter hit damage. This tactic was something I used back in the Capcom vs. SNK 2 days whenever A-Bison got near me with meter. I chose the lesser of two evils by taking a low damaging throw than eating a custom combo for 80% life. I observed Champ successfully utilizing this tactic against Daigo earlier in the day; he chose to take three throws in a row rather than being hit by a combo which would do even more damage.

As soon as I saw the bracket and knew I would face Daigo next, I sat down and started playing out the scenarios in my head using the experience I gained by sparring with Ed and observing Valle and Champ. My happy place was far away throwing fireballs, and my death came whenever I got near. I would need to use all of my meter to stay in my happy zones. I drilled this into my head, and went into the match with that game plan. Fortunately, this all paid off, and I was victorious this time.

Oh, and the luck factor comes from Daigo dropping some combos. I believe this version was just too new for him to completely master Evil Ryu. I later watched Daigo’s matches against a Honda and Claw player and saw dropped combos as well. But I have no doubt in my mind that Daigo will be back stronger than ever next time. I have the utmost respect for Daigo and I was honored to face him. I hope I’m fortunate enough to face him again in the future.