So last time we looked over the first two reasons people stagnate, players who try to get better by looking for tricks, and players who skip over fundamentals to get to the “good stuff”.

Time to finish and were bouncing very much into mentality and strategy side of the game. These two points I find are much more prevalent especially with players who are on the cusp, maybe top 8 finishes but wins offline are inconsistent.

“I don’t know, I just do it because it works”





One of the best players in the Oceanic region is ‘ZG’ and one of the things that happens when you get to play sets with him is afterwards he will constantly question what it is you are doing, why did you go for the things you go for, what is your end goal. Did you have a reason structured behind your actions. If not he will s*** on you for it (but its helpful s***ing)

If I had to boil this down to one word : Autopilot.

If you are purely on autopilot when playing a fighting game, you might as well be playing a single player game. Because it means no matter what they are doing, you would be doing the same thing regardless.



Very often these types of players are executionally, very competent. They could very easily teach you how to play their main character for example, but there is a difference between knowing the information, and being able to use it intelligently. They have read the guides, they have watched the tutorials, they have practiced the combos and the setups. But what they aren’t doing is thinking with their brain



Lets say for example we have two Cammy players playing the mirror match together.



Now player 1 goes in and thinks:

“Standing medium kick is a good button, I am standing in range where s.mk is good, I am going to press my s.mk”.



What’s the problem here? I watched NL, he used s.mk in this spot, why is it bad?Lets look at the other player.

“Okay he seems to want to press s.mk as I approach this spacing, let me walk around this distance and look for a whiff punish.” “Okay he is afraid to press maybe I can now poke with s.mk and see what his response is.” “Okay he is looking to pre-empt the poke by jumping, this range is now a spot where I look for the anti air”

There is of course, many different situations that can arise from this example and you probably aren’t thinking out loud if full sentences like that. But the most important thing I want you to see here is player 2’s ability to critically think about what is happening. And because of that he is able to create a decision and a plan that goes “I saw __________ therefore I will do __________”.

Its important that you can follow through your train of thought to the logical end. What you will find is you will be able to understand situations and decisions in hindsight and be able to ask yourself “Did that make sense? Was there a better option? What is my adjustment?”.



Adaptation comes from being able to ask and answer these kind of questions. You will make poor decisions, sometimes you may even win games by those decisions, but you still need to be able to look objectively and be able to understand why what is happening happens. Why does it work, and when does it fall apart.

If you don’t you will play obliviously and try and bulldoze your way though opponents with technical knowledge.

“This guy is playing so dumb, does all this random s***, he’s not playing the game”





For those who have came into SFV as their first game and weren’t around for the famous Gandhi vs FSP match go give it a watch. Its a great laugh, everyone has a great time (except FSP) and I’m certain at one point or another you will be both Gandhi and then FSP.



While this was probably on the more extreme end of possible examples. I have often heard people say things like: “I do so much better against the good players. You can’t read these guys! They do things that makes no sense”.



In Poker there is a term called playing “tight” and to be a tight player (I have a lot of poker analogies, if you are interested you can vote for it as my next article).



In very simple terms playing tight means you only play the hands with very high win percentage. In this way you are minimising and avoiding the situations where randomness can affect outcomes resulting in higher win percentage against very “loose” players. You aren’t getting suckered into playing situations that are unfavourable, you aren’t leaving it up to chance.



The FGC equivalent of this is a term which gets thrown around a lot is “Let them hang themselves”.



Think about what options like tick throws, frametraps, mixups, plus on block normal pressure etc. What are the goals of these options? They are options to open an opponent up.



But if an opponent is jumping in randomly, If they are dragon punching at every opportunity, trying to take large amounts of space by dashing. Then what are you trying to open up? They have already opened themselves up, so you don’t need any of that stuff. The risk in trying to play a scramble with them in this spot leaves more opportunities for it to work, Why leave it up to chance if you don’t have to.



Sometimes it isn’t even the fact they play this way that makes it difficult, sometimes its just the fact you have to play in the most boring way possible in order to win, which is an ordeal in itself. But learning that patience learning to step back, talk to yourself and say “I’m not going to play their game, I’m going to sit tight, block and punish, keep it simple”.



As my hero Day[9] once said “If the opponent is doing something weird, the best strategy, Is just to go fucking kill him”







Both of the things I’ve talked about today are very different ways of thinking about the game because these are both examples of things that aren’t easily measured in training mode.



This isn’t a question of “How do I beat x character” its a question of “How do I beat x player”, and that solution is often not a technical solution, its a strategic/theory based one.

Often I feel even at the very highest levels of play the people that you may go to for tech videos and the people who are actually winning tournaments has a relatively small overlap.

I hope you enjoyed this first article (even though it was divided in 2), If you would like to vote on the next topic I’m running a poll on twitter. The options will be”

- Why the health bar is a lie.

- What Poker can teach about decision making

- The art of Storytelling as a commentator