KarbyP: Firstly, congratulations on winning Capcom Pro Tour Asia and qualifying for Capcom Cup 2014. How are you feeling right now?



MCZ|Daigo: I'm feeling very relieved right now. Now that I've managed to make it through to the Capcom Cup finals. Initially I didn't have any plans on attending the Capcom Cup finals, but mid-way through the Capcom Pro Tour -- about two months ago, shortly before the Taiwan qualifier -- I decided to give it a shot.



Since then I've been quite worried about whether or not I'd be able to qualify, so right now I'm really glad that I managed to.

KarbyP: Just before the grand finals you were telling me that you weren't very confident about taking it over RZR|Xian. But in the end you managed to beat him convicingly with a 7-2 victory -- so what were you worried about before?



MCZ|Daigo: Although I managed to win in the end, in a lot of the rounds the amount of health I had remaining were at dangerous levels.



So although the final results were 7-2, a lot of the time the matches could have gone either way, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the final results had turned out to be 7-5 instead.



KarbyP: What sort of preparation work did you do for Capcom Pro Tour Asia?



MCZ|Daigo: I studied match videos of the other players. All of them, from YouTube.



KarbyP: You watched the videos from YouTube on your PSP?



MCZ|Daigo: On PSP and on my smartphone.



KarbyP: I've been curious about this since I heard that you watched match videos on your PSP -- how do you get the videos onto the PSP?



MCZ|Daigo: Ah, one of my friends does that for me.



KarbyP: Of all the matches you played at Capcom Pro Tour Asia, which one(s) left the deepest impression on you?



MCZ|Daigo: Hmmm... that's a tough question. (After about 5 seconds of thinking) Ah, probably my match against RZR|Xian in the preliminaries. In that set he went with Ultra Combo W, which was something you don't see a lot of players do. And also, up until that match Xian didn't really use his Ultra Combos a whole lot, but when it was our turns to play, he started using his Mantis UC2 Shitenketsu a lot.



KarbyP: Oh, you mean that Ultra he used on you when you had Evil Ryu throw out a fireball or go for a throw?



MCZ|Daigo: Yep. He really caught me off-guard with that move.



KarbyP: I see. But in the grand finals it seemed like you found a counter for it in some of the situations. You'd activate your own Ultra Combo right after you see RZR|Xian activate the Shitenketsu. Is that something you thought up on the fly during the grand finals?



MCZ|Daigo: Ah, no, actually that was the result of some research I did earlier today, at the free play stations. I tested it out and practiced it.



KarbyP: That's interesting; so it was a situation you've actually prepared for. Now, of all the matches you played in the round-robin preliminaries, the only one you lost was your match against Poongko. Any afterthoughts on that match?



MCZ|Daigo: Hmmmmm... sorry, let me think for a little bit... hmmm, well, it's been quite a while since I've played Poongko. But above all, he put up a really strong fight.



KarbyP: Right. Now, earlier you said that you watch videos of the players to prepare for Capcom Pro Tour Asia, one of our readers (and forum moderator) zombiebrian wanted to know if you watched videos of players all across the world, or if you only watch those of players in Japan.



MCZ|Daigo: Normally I don't actually watch videos much. But when a tournament is drawing near, I'll watch videos to focus specifically on certain things. For both Japanese players, and international players.



KarbyP: Ah, I see. Now recently BE|Nemo provided to Arcadia Remix a general USF4 character tier list that had Ryu and Gen amongst the characters in the lowest tier. Do you agree with that assessment? That Ryu and Gen are bottom tier?



MCZ|Daigo: Hmmm, I don't really know for sure, but I think Hugo and... E. Honda are weak characters.



KarbyP: What about Dee Jay?



MCZ|Daigo: Ah, yeah, Dee Jay is a weak character too. Hugo, Dee Jay, Honda, and... let's see, who else... and Dhalsim, I think, are weak characters in this game.



KarbyP: So you think Ryu and Gen are a tier above those characters?



MCZ|Daigo: I don't really know about Gen, but as for Ryu I think that, as most might expect, he's at least a little stronger than those characters. Although... hmmm... it's really quite hard to say. He's a delicate character.



KarbyP: Finally, EventHubs reader GregN8 wants to know if you think you can still improve with Evil Ryu?



MCZ|Daigo: Yes, I think so. Or at least, I do plan to.



