Hey, we're back with another extra trashy.
In this one, we have too much to talk about.
Combo Breaker has just wrapped up the largest non EVO
tournament for Street Fighter, six of all time, and all the
young Japanese players are popping off.
What is going on at this tournament?
People cannot stop striking A pose for the camera.
We have all the details, the data, and the narrative
dissection for every which way this tournament went.
We also have first to two versus first to three, the discussion
that never ends. But this time there's a
different flavor to this discussion and more notably, the
people participating in it might actually be able to get
something done in this regard. And at the end of it all, we
have the latest evo registration drama because a new kid on the
block has taken a top four position.
We have the rivals of ether 2 platform fighter by off brand
games, the publishing company from content creator and
influence for Ludwig in the top four position, but people are
claiming he might have astroturfed his way in with
inorganic registrations. We'll get the full details
coming up in this episode. Welcome back to extra trash
sheet. We're back here again to talk
about all things Combo Breaker. First the two versus first the
three Discourse starting up again, and a little bit of
platform fighters drama with the EVO registration numbers.
Hi Dom, you survived Combo Breaker weekend.
Welcome back man, you're looking good.
Congrats on your top 8 by the way.
Hey, yes, there has been one top eight that I did and it was for
the greatest fighting game marvel versus count Com three.
You know, I had I had a good time at combo break.
I had a lot of lot of people, a lot of fans of the podcast
coming out to me and saying, you know, they love the show.
They like the me and Brian banter.
There's 11 specific fan who actually had a request for you,
Brian. Oh, no.
OK. You said we we have to stop
talking about fast food and burgers as much as we do on this
podcast 'cause he goes to the gym and it distracts him and it
really makes his mind wander because he's thinking about all
the food we're talking about on the podcast.
Why is that a request for me? You're the one that brings it up
every single time. You don't think I'm thinking the
same thing, I tell you. I mean, hungry as fuck when
we're recording. I'm I, I this is like right
before dinnertime, dude, I'm starving.
When you're when you bring up all the fast food, that's a you
thing. That's yeah, but you're, you're
going into it as well. So it's, it's both of our
problems. So I'm going to respect his
request. No, no McDonald's, no no nothing
today. Stop it.
You're already making me weak. I'm so hungry right now.
It's just the time we we record is like right before dinner time
is usually when it works out. And so yes, item starts and then
I I don't have the willpower to to stop the conversation.
OK, we promise no fast food analogies for one episode.
We'll see if that keeps up. So we do have a ton of stuff to
get into. So yeah, Imam didn't make top 8
at Street Fighter six this time. Didn't in in Marvel versus
Capcom three. We are going to go pretty deep
into Street Fighter 6 I believe because you know, this was one
of the biggest tournaments of all time.
Apparently the largest non EVO Street Fighter six bracket ever.
I believe that was calculated based on the pre DQ numbers, so
I'm not sure if that's altered post the adjustment from those,
but the actual number of entrants ended up being 1452
active players at this tournament, so about 100
something more than last year. So of course, one of the most
talented tournaments we've had so far and this is a an esports
World Cup qualifier and a captain Cup qualifier.
So CPT points on the line and qualification spots for top 2
for esports World Cup and 1st place goes directly to captain
Cup as well. So all the international players
are here and we got a little preview of it last week with
Dreamback Atlanta, which only had like less than 200 players.
But a lot of those players in that tournament are in this
tournament and a lot of them ended up showing up in both top
eights. 3 out of the the eight top eight players are in both
top eights, which is pretty surprising.
You rarely if ever see that amount of crossover between top
eights that that's a very rare occurrence to see.
Yeah, and to me, the thing that was even more not so two of them
are GEEF player. The Geef players are.
They're not helping the GEEF agenda.
Danny Pham is on on, you know, looking scared in his boots.
Because then Geef is broken and we know this now.
Yeah, what happened because you know Danny Pham shouts Danny.
You know his his always his go to excuse.
It's only Kobayan, right? But Junior is starting to
breaking through. So Kobe on one dream.
Heck, Atlanta last weekend we saw this insane run coming back
from the brink of defeat not once, not twice, but thrice.
And this time he's in top 8 again, but junior also top eight
winners again with his Zengi. So he's kind of challenging that
narrative that oh, it's only it's only Kobeon.
And in fact, I believe there's he was thinking he was one of
the most represented characters in the top 48 at all.
I believe there was at least three because we have the
newcomer to the block making a deep run, guy guy from USA, from
the Smash community, guy guy making a really deep run with
the Zengeef. Yeah, Guy.
Guy is actually New York for a New Yorker, and he's, yeah, he's
from Long Island, you know, not real New York, but he is from
New York. He's from Long Island.
And yeah, Luigi Player. So yeah, he comes out to the
locals sometimes. So you know what I'm saying to
him. Yeah, he's cooked.
He cooked up this tournament. Yeah Guy.
Guy is the highest placing American player this this
tournament. He got 9th place with Zenge and
you know what? The the Captain Cup curse
continues because Guy Guy put Sahara, the Captain Cup champion
into losers off stream. He then went on to beat Kusanagi
the the French Kusanagi who won UFA in 2024 with Ryu Harms who
also went on a really good run. Harms, who previously played
Honda and had a breakup performance last combo breaker,
is now playing modern Alex. I don't know if he played other
characters throughout the bracket, but he I think was also
the the highest placing Alex player, unless you count hot
dogs dog with his, you know, pocket Alex.
That did some work. So and then he went on to beat
Bon Chan on stream. So it was like 2 to make it
true, right. He took out the captain Co
champion off stream, Street Fighter six baby versus 2.
You know, it happens. But then he he got his big
moment against Bon Chan on stream and then it was a clean,
clean 20. I believe it was a beat down
kind of like that was a a really strong showing from him.
He ended up losing to Xiao Hai than Kobean after that and
Kobean just too good in the Geef matchup.
So no shame in that at all. So guy guy rap in America our
our highest placing player is Guy Guy, a Smash Ultimate Luigi
player playing Zhang Geef who apparently is a low tier
character still. Luigi.
Yeah. Luigi's like Zhangi.
If you get grabbed one time, you die.
It's the same. It's the same.
If you think about it, it's it's always the Luigi Grappler
pipeline. True, true.
You know that's my main and ultimate right?
Because of that combo. You guys don't know the plunger
combo is if the fighting game heads don't know, Luigi can
actually grab you with like a a pretty far range plunger that
pulls you in and then do a zero to death combo pretty
consistently on most of the cast.
So they they nerfed a little bit though after I played.
So I kind of dropped I was like, that's it.
You nerfed my cheese, I'm out of there.
Hey there, we'll get right back to the conversation, but I
wanted to take a moment to proudly announce what we're
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OK, back to the show. I'll be shout out again to Guy
Guy. Other little interesting upsets
because after day one, not too many upsets.
Day two it was everywhere. Zafrino getting a big 2O win
over Hikaru. So that was cool to see that Doc
Morales with Dolson out of I believe in Texas out of Midwest,
at least the CPT qualifier region 21 over Gatchikun
Carsonist with his Aki 2 over kills you and then harms also.
And if he was playing modern Alex beat Hope, who just got top
8 at Eva Japan with modern Aki 21 as well.
So a lot of these were off stream.
So these are some like the the American players, like doing
work to some of the really notable international players.
So a lot of big upsets going on. I don't know.
Was there any other interesting top 32, top 128 upsets?
I think there was another upset. I think Hibiki beat that IDOM
guy. That was a pretty big upset as
well. But, well, I was upset 'cause
you dropped the fucking combo. I, I don't, I maybe I should
play the game a bit more, but you know, yeah, that, that was a
that was a big, that was a big upset in my opinion.
But to be honest, all these upsets are like, not like
America has a lot of strong players.
You know, I, I saw a tweet about it and you know, the players
that are playing in these TNSS, playing in these motivation
academies, playing in these can opener, they don't get the shine
because like they're all, you know, you can't go to every
tournament, going to tournaments and America is expensive.
But I feel like everyone always shows outcomes out the column
breaker. And there are a lot of a lot of
those guys that enter those TNSS and stuff beat your favorite
players. So you can't sleep on them
either. Yeah, you can't sleep on the
American players. You might be surprised by even
10 year old kids like the baby 212.
So this was another like mini narrative that came out of this
The baby 212 that is his tag. He is 10 years old that he looks
like a baby and he is playing classic.
Can he get up He had a match on stream during pools and he
played really well really solid combo conversions won the match.
But the thing that really like added the twist that set this
over the edge to we look at a mini sub viral moment of the
weekend was he was going up against plasma dragon, who maybe
was just there for fun, just entering to have a good time,
support play game and hang out. They were they made the mistake
of playing modern jury against the kid playing classic Ken.
So this became a big mess of discourse around the classic
versus modern and a lot of Larpers.
I'm going to use the phrase it's it's it's catching on with me.
People who don't actually play competitively or like follow the
scene, they're using that to jump into the moment and to be
like, oh, This is why we don't need modern.
Like you just need to practice. You're a scrub if you play
modern and poor plasma dragon, like who?
He probably just showed up to have a good weekend and was just
like, hey, man, oh shit, I played a kid.
Oh man, the kids. Nice G GS.
He's becoming the the just being ragged on in this discourse
about how modern is cheap scrubby.
It's for people who are failing to live up to the honorable,
aspirational goal of actually learning to properly play the
game. And it became a whole little
shit show. And I don't know, I thought it
was kind of ugly a little bit. Even though I do have my
reservations about modern, I feel like it was a bunch of
people trying to feel superior and just dunk on somebody for no
reason when they themselves also don't even enter the tournament.
So why are they talking? I mean, the first of all,
there's a lot of people who, you know, think they they don't
enter online. I mean they don't enter
tournaments at all and they have a lot they are the people with
the most to say. But even at the same time, it's
I thought it was cool. You know, baby young kid playing
classic and you know, plasma dragon the wrong place, the
wrong time. I I really just feel like it was
that very unfortunate, But it's cool.
It's that kid had some nice Ken combos, good conversions.
He was do you did a genride loop.
That was cool, you know, 10 years old knowing how to do, you
know, optimal Cam Como. So yeah, that was to the baby.
I mean, I don't even think he's old.
Well, there's no age restriction on the podcast, but I don't
think he's old enough to know how YouTube works at this point.
Listen, we're. The YouTube is way older than
these kids, man. I don't know iPad babies or
ever. He probably shouldn't be on
YouTube. Hopefully he doesn't see this
podcast because he definitely shouldn't have.
But Johnson, the baby 212. He might have to re change that
tag. That's that's the problem.
You know what this reminds me of Jack.
I was like just a kid, just a kid.
I told him I was like, hey, you're going to have to rebrand
one day, man, that has an expiration date.
We'll see the baby sticks around long enough to to change the
tag. But it's cool to see, of course,
to celebrate a young players getting to the scene and
participating like that. We've been seeing a lot of that
from Japan. You see those tweets about like
legend rank ranked kids in Japan are like 8-9 ten years old,
which is crazy to see. And of course we're seeing a lot
of them successful around the 15 year old range having the scene.
So always good to have new players get into the mix.
So it's it's refreshing and inspiring to see.
I I think Noah still has most of the field beat.
No, the prodigy for being 8 years old, getting pretty far
like I believe top 32 at or maybe top 64 at Marvel 32011
evo. So I think he still has like the
best ratio of like youngest age to most ass beat.
You know what I mean? Like, like he still takes that
crown, but people are the kids are stepping up these days.
They're coming for that Prodigy title.
There's a there's a lot of kids stepping up and beating acid and
two, five and six. So like I say, yeah, blahs.
You know, all the kids are just doing work nowadays.
Yeah, but they're teenagers. Like there's AI think there's a
distinct difference, like like when when a 10 year old kid, the
baby beats you versus like blahs are hit now it's like, yeah, OK,
they're they're teenagers. But when the baby, it's like, oh
shit, yeah, I guess. 15 versus 10 is got a much, much different
right, You're right. But the the kids have nothing to
do. They're not playing anything.
The The kids are just playing Street Fighter all day.
Classic, classic old head excuse.
Oh my God, literally, that's that's what every old head says
when you're when we celebrate like a blase or and now doing
well, there's so many grumpy dudes who in their free time
watch TV and and sit on their couch eating chips and don't
practice and they're like, wow, these kids have all the free
time in the world world. Of course, you know, it's like,
come on, dude. Like, yeah.
When it was better, when these kids were paying taxes, then
they'll then they'll see. Yeah, with from their winnings
for winning major tournaments, that's where the taxes come
from. So that was a cool little detour
story in in this tournament. What else was there?
There's a few other side missions that occurred during
this one. I guess we'll get into the top
8. We'll break down who actually
qualified. So end of the top 8 on the
winner's side, we had a junior with a Zangief repeating his top
eight winners qualification from DreamHack Atlanta.
Oil King, who used mostly Terry's been mostly on Terry,
but a lot of received this weekend, which is surprising to
see. And this was the first premier
top 8 for Oil Oil King I think ever in Street Fighter 6.
I got to double check his stats, but it's at least in recent
memory the Oil King has been underperforming for his level.
You know the Evo 2023 Japan Street Fighter 5 champion had to
add a lot of clarifications there to make it clear, but you
know, he's he's been one of the premier players for Street
Fighter 5 for so long and in Street Fighter six he's been
good but not supreme right. So this is a big top 8 finish
for him. Then we have and now the 15 year
old youth team rejects player and his second ever
international premier, his first one being Chengdu, China, which
he won his first ever tournament away from home.
Now his second tournament, first time in America, he's in top
eight winners again. So that's huge going up against
Xiaohai loser side Fudo versus Mickey, Mickey making a a big
run there. He was one of the players who
eliminated MENA Rd. MENA Rd. lost to junior and
Mickey on the way there. And so making a big run return
to form for him after his third place Evo Vegas finishes this
year. And then VX Bao Kobeon, two
players who also made top 8 at dream hack Atlanta.
So VX Bao Kobe on being there makes sense.
Like Kobe on is finally like performing to his level and he
just went to Jimmy Atlanta. VX Bow also reminded me a little
bit of oil king here. Like VX Bow has always
consistently done well at captain cop Like, oh, he's a
solid, never exceptional. And I feel like his
international performances haven't been that well and and
maybe even ever right. Like he's always been good, but
never like in the big visible top 8.
So I think this is a big breakout weekend for him.
Yeah. Yeah, he's usually been kind of
performing a lot. I know ever since he's been more
committed to my I feel like before he was kind of going
through a character crisis. But you know, right, why he's
following. I saw, I saw that when I said
there's a lot of. People committed to that My but
yeah. But like I was saying, ever ever
since he's been more committed to my because before I felt like
he's kind of like playing, he's playing more so Bison and like
more Ed. But now that he's been way more
committed to my, I feel like he's been like having the the
consistency, the the kind of results that he's wanted.
Right, yeah, VX Bow plays JP Bison, Ed and mine.
He did use other characters in this tournament, but there's
definitely been more my representation and he went in
mind against Kobe on. But Speaking of like then I do
want to bring up the the Cat Cami's statistics.
We had the top 32 character representation breakdown and you
know, we had some interesting results there.
For example, we had three Zingis in top 32.
We mentioned with Guy, Guy Kobeyan and Junior.
Three M Bisons in the mix. 4 Blancas.
I want to point that out. Four Blancas.
MENA Rd. Shigematsu Tagaki is his name
Tgeki I I I'm mispronouncing his name or butchering it.
I, I apologize. And then who is the 4th off the
top of my head? I can't recall.
There's one more. OK, so to, to clarify, 4
Blancas, MENA Rd. Takagi, Shikimatsu and Kings
Vega all in top 32. So that's another narrative that
people have been pushing for a while that it's only MENA Rd.
and Japan is finally saying no man.
Like they're, they're, they're starting to centralized a little
bit. Like you're starting to see some
convergence finally happen. They started sending all the
Japanese Blancas to America now to beat to beat our asses.
And like I said, they all performed super well.
You know, it's the it's the show, Capcom.
Maybe, maybe Blanca does need a nerve.
Maybe the level 2 does get need to be toned down.
Maybe Daigo didn't lose for no reason.
Gotta bring that. Back no matter what.
But it's also not the level 2 man.
It's everything Like his mid screen throw loop is crazy.
I, I, I think he has the best strike throw pressure anywhere
on screen and and his his wake up Blanca ball and other
options. There's a lot of other factors
besides just a level 2 that make him obscenely strong.
And another point about that that I I think we missed earlier
is a lot of the players here were younger, new generation
Japanese talent, some of them on the youth program of a lot of
these orgs and all, a lot of them had been either like in
programs with legacy top players or have been competing for a
while. But this is one of their first
international showings with maybe they would only go to EVO
and that would be the only other showing.
But now they're here at Comic Breaker, they're gravitating
towards the top. To your characters, the new
meta. I feel like we're seeing the new
players in the new meta from the Japanese side, I feel like.
All the yunks just kind of I hate to use the word, but I feel
like all the the UNC's got smoke MAGA MAGA didn't do too well
this tournament like Taquito also didn't do too hot.
There are a lot of the the old Japanese guard that just kind of
that the game is that more to say than that right.
But I. Also see like the the they're,
they're gravitating towards those new sort of Street Fighter
six isms, the the Blanca, the Sagat and the Mai like a lot of
them are playing those characters like this is the way
to play. Not to say that these legacy
players are not playing top tier like Tokido's trying to make JP
work. It's still crusty to this day.
Fudo's doing still great, but he's on Ed.
That's one of the other options. Fitting in this meta, but I I I
do feel like there's less of this bias or hesitation to just
pick these characters that are obviously strong that people
have had reservations about like Blancas specifically.
Is what I'm noticing actually funny?
Story I I was walking around the, the setups, I think during
the Round 2 pool and I remember I had saw it was dual cabin
versus him now off stream. And I didn't, I didn't even know
he now played Saigon. I thought he was still on Ryu
and I was so surprised and like all I was thinking was solar
plexus gets nerfing. You just jump to Saigon
immediately. Like no thought after like no
thought anywhere. It's just like, oh, Ryu sucks
now time to play Saigon. And I was just like, it's, it's
smart. I I don't fault the kid, but at
the same time, it's just so it's so surprising.
I'm not used to really seeing that happen so fast.
Well, he also. Plays Shoto so that that allows
you to to make that swap, right. So even at Chengdu so fast,
right? It is fast, but at Chengdu,
right? He played Luke primarily until
he swapped to Ryu to to go the final distance.
So he already showed he was playing 2 characters at high
level. Adding sigat to the mix just
makes sense dude, if that's your skill set, if that's where you
kind of practice it like makes perfect sense to swap to that.
So yeah, now it's on the on the the sigat now.
But Speaking of all these young players, I do want to mention
back in the day, one day 2, for some reason, I don't know what
was in the water, everyone's just popping off.
We we see him now, immediately get up there and hit the I don't
know how he did it, man. He hits the the Joey Wheeler mog
face his how does his face retort like that?
I have. No idea.
He's, he's a, he's 15. He's a professional memester.
He's ready. He's ready for the spotlight.
He knows where every camera is, right?
He missed one. There was 1 pop off where he hit
like the camera. He was like, like he tried to
figure out which camera it was and he missed it, but I didn't
know if it was a fluke or not. When he was at when he won
Chengdu, you know, remember he popped off like crazy, saw the
trophy center the stage and then ran over and just like, yeah,
yeah, won post up on it and sort of mocking the whole crowd.
And I was like, oh, OK. Like he was ready to to aura
farm with the trophy over there. And no, he came prepared this
tournament as well. Every step of the way, he's
having fun and popping off. And they even showed how Mago
originally used to hit the dramatic kind of creepy over the
top smile. Mago hit it as well.
They did it together. Like he's kind of taking over
the mantle from Mago here and carrying the reins a little bit
in that regard. But then Takagi, he hit like the
the whole 4 minute swimming through pools pop off.
I don't know if you saw that he's like swimming through.
Pools the. Whole time and like after he won
and he's he's, he's put on a whole performance.
So a lot of the Japanese players, young guys are out here
destroying that whole image that used to be like the Daigo style
of Oh yeah, I won. The Stoic style.
That's gone, man. There, it's over.
All the kids are popping off on us.
And yeah, I mean, rightfully so. I wonder if like Hanal's
planning his pool run and it's just like, oh, when I beat this
guy, I'm going to hit the Joey Wheeler.
When I beat this guy, you know, I'm going to hit like, I don't
even know, like a backflip on stage or something on the mean
mog or something. Like he's he's planning every
win on bracket for a different meme.
He's ready. Yeah, no, I respected.
He definitely had a plan in there.
The funny thing is, apparently the Takagi pop off also like
went kind of viral in Japan. Like people were discussing if
it was too mean or not. And like they're trying to
explain the hey, I comma breaker people do that.
And apparently his opponent was like rapping the whole time or
singing loud. And so then he was dancing till,
I don't know, there was like weird discourse happening on the
Japan side of Twitter around that one, but it was just
surprising to see the amount of energy and coming out of that.
And before we get to the top eight, one last meme as well.
Duel Kevin had to fight Kobean again in this tournament.
Duel Kevin is the only person to beat Kobean at DreamHack Atlanta
last weekend. But then, you know, he still
ends up losing to Junior Zingy for right after and it was
eliminated from the tournament and Kobean went on to win after
that. This weekend he had played
Kobean again and this time he loses the set and kind of a
dramatic set. It was 2O but he almost made
this crazy comeback. But he gets Zangief again.
It's become an actual rivalry between him and Kobe on I
believe. But in general dual Kevin and
Zangief junior Kobe on MENA Rd. for a long time back when MENA
Rd. was working to Zangief, he always has these deep runs in
brackets and runs into a Zangief.
And we even had the the fan art now from the Japanese side
because now he's on Crazy Raccoon.
He's got all these Japanese fans they're making fan art of Duel
Kevin running into Zengeefs. One of these had the the shiny
moment. Here's Johnny Zengeef busting
through the door, Duel Kevin there screaming and reaction to
Zengeef coming through. Hopes it's the meme has reached
Japan basically of Duel Kevin must fight Zengeef and he always
has them in his nightmares. So I don't know will he ever get
over it? Will he actually commit to the
JP to fight Zengeef like he said he would?
I feel. Like, you know, Duel Kevin is a
professional. What he actually needs to do,
it's just learn Lily. That's the actual match up that
I that's the actual match up that I hear every Gu player
complained about. Be be the professional you want
to be. Learn Lily.
It'd probably take like 2 seconds anyway you can do it.
That's gotta. Be the most waste of your time
counter to ever. I mean I guess for dual Kevin As
if that's literally the only thing he has to worry about.
I respect him going for the JP, but it might be faster to learn
a Lily. Yeah exactly.
Just for that one match up. The JP will be more
well-rounded, but it might take a little longer.
But maybe he'll take your advice.
We'll see Lily at evo top eight this year with with dual Kevin
piloting him against Kobe on. But anyways, that's most of the
memes and tangential storylines coming out of combo breaker
before we get to the top 8. But the last character I didn't
mention on the a top 32 character representation was of
course, my 7 my players in top 32 and three of them in the top
8. So we it was my yet in coming at
you a lot of my this tournament, I.
When when I was there, I was playing my strive top 24 pools
like I was still playing strive and I swear every time I looked
up, it was my it was my on the Street Fighter screen.
I was like, what is going on? There was a different my on
stream every time and I was so like, ow, how is this happening?
Because I was cheering for guy guy, but every time I what do
you even lost the Xiaohai is myself.
It's different my every, every time.
So that was not really the the thing I wanted to see looking up
at at the Street Fighter stream. We're definitely.
Starting to see the my fatigue reach critical mass almost.
There's a lot more discourse about it from this tournament.
My aunts got to a degree, but of course there's way more My but
there was force to got so the my cigar matchup was all over the
place. And it's funny because we've
already seen the pinnacle of that with Blah's Xiaohai and I
don't think it'll ever get better than that.
So every other match comparatively is compared to
that and they're never as good because Blah's counter play for
my is just the best in the world.
Still, I think, I still think Moss Blahs.
I still think Blahs is the greatest player on the planet at
countering my in my opinion. So in comparison, it all just
looks kind of slop. So that was that was a big part
of this weekend. But into the top 8 itself.
Junior ends up winning that set against Oil King in winter
semifinals and gets into the winners finals and now beats
Xiaohai after going up 2O. Xiaohai winning two games and
and now finally close in and out pops off.
So winners finals Junior Hanao Fudo took out Mickey and Kobe on
VX Bao and then Xiaohai goes on the losers run beats Fudo 32
Kobe on took out Oil King three O then Xiaohai takes out Kobe on
three 1 so no 2P. That was the other narrative
brewing. Can Kobe on from losers again
Win 2 majors in a row, which would have completely been earth
shattering in a different way than we had this weekend, right?
IT would it. Would be over.
He's not bad. He's not bad.
Two consistent tournaments would have been nuts back-to-back.
Which is crazy, right? That.
Would have been Lashar levels like we've we've we've never
really seen beyond Lashar get 2 tournaments back-to-back like
even like Ben Rd. He's like the peak and valley
player, right? He has the highest peaks and a
lot of values between Lashar was the only one to do comma breaker
and CEO back-to-back. So dreamback Atlanta is not the
same caliber, but it was very dense, but it would still be
very extremely notable. But then the the notable thing
about winner's finals Junior, he got two winners finals of
DreamHack Atlanta top 2 is who qualifies into Esports World
Cup. Meaning if you win in winners
finals, even if you get second in the tournament, you're
guaranteed top 2. So you will earn Esports World
Cup qualification. Junior and that tournament
DreamHack Atlanta lost O3 winners finals and then lost O3
in losers finals, missing out on his Esports World Cup
qualification. Here he goes up against the now,
he goes up to two in the set, one game away from esports World
Cup qualification. He loses to Hanausigot, drops to
losers finals, and in losers finals, he goes up against
Xiaohai, and he loses 3 O to Xiaohai.
He got third place twice in a row.
That means that he was one set away from esports World Cup
qualification 4 times in the past two weekends.
That is so brutal. That is so brutal.
Sucks. It sucks, but that's that's how
it is somebody so many killers trying to get that esports World
Cup qualification spot, but just.
Got to win. You got to win and especially
when you're in winners finals already, I feel like you have a
cushion being in winners final and then the cushion's getting
taken away from you because you know, you just lose the winners
finals. So you got to really lock in and
losers and it didn't didn't happen right and.
Whoever comes from losers is is hot, you're colder like they're
going to start building momentum, right.
So that's dangerous. That's so dangerous mentally to
keep your composure and and stay focused like that.
So junior, I think you could see the pain on his face, but I also
think he was a very good sport about it.
Like I I like, I like his gumption.
You know what I mean? Like Junior seems like a, just
a, a fun player like I, I, he seems very positive.
So I respect his tenacity. So you could see that it was
hurting him, but he still put a smile on and, you know, so thank
you to the crowd and all that. So shout out to Junior.
Fantastic Zengeef player 2 third places in a row these major
tournaments. It's nothing to scoff at.
And he's going to have a lot of points on the CPT leaderboard
out of that. But he's back to square one for
qualification for East Sports World Cup, which is brutal.
That is that is rough. We'll see if he makes a a
miracle run to get back in because it's a lot to ask for to
do it again. Yeah, it's a lot.
Well, with that though, that set up the grand final, Xiaohai
versus Hanao. And this is interesting because
we have for one and now back-to-back grand final
appearances, 100% success rate of getting to grand finals at
premier tournaments. That's a a crazy stat point.
A lot of people were saying OK, OK, it's only, it's.
Only two though. Like that's, that's not really
fair. It's two.
It's older. Two it's older, 2 it's 2 for.
Two like it's it's only Two's tortoise.
That's not all. If you go if you go somewhere I
have 100 percent, 100% top rate out of like 1 tortoise is
nothing. What?
Listen, as someone who has 100% win rate against Daigo, I take
offense to you mincing the stats here.
OK. OK, OK, 100% is 100%.
OK, but come on. No, but that's another crazy
stat point your first two tournaments during grand finals
that that that's great. No, that's amazing.
I guess maybe you take. Offense with my framing 100%
success rate versus 2 for two of your all your tournaments to get
to grand finals and premieres. That's fucking incredible.
And you know, out of the Chengdu premiere, a lot of people were
were just like what, who is the kid?
What is happening? It wasn't a it wasn't a Blas
like situation where when Blas got stuck in a captain cup, he
went through so many killers and with Ryu and in such a cerebral
fashion with his play style, the way Blas plays, it gives this
sense of skill and expertise beyond his years.
And it it feels like you're watching Street Fighter in 2027.
You know what I mean? Like it feels like he's ahead of
the game. And now on the other hand, he's
very skilled, of course, but he plays a much more faster,
aggressive mix heavy game using a lot of the drive mechanics,
right. Like, it's a very much leaning
into the side of things that the tractors of Street Fighter Six
don't like. Yeah.
And so there's a lot of negative discourse.
When Hanao won that premiere, it wasn't a positive reception.
I would say all the way really. So I, I didn't feel like that
would Chengdu. I felt like it was different for
Chengdu because I felt like they were a lot less.
Players. There because they were already
qualified like that. Well even Lashar wasn't here.
True, but there was no lashar. I don't think Sha Hai was there
like a lot of the the Super super like premier SF 6 MENA
wasn't there Premier SF six players weren't there.
This one I feel like is a lot better, like this one is crazy.
Getting top two at combo breaker is nothing to scoff at,
especially with the level of competition there in in general.
Yeah, that's that's another good point.
However, there was I think that the the negative perception that
this tournament got was oh boy my mysa got grand final.
Yes, people were disappointed about the matchup, but you had a
good point. I wanted to touch on what you
said about Chengdu. Very good point.
It was the end of the season. A lot of people weren't
competing. And so the grand finals was was
Henal versus Tchotaro, right, which is also like a who for a
lot of people, even though he he also got more respect in his
name. He'd repeated a a deep
performance at Evo Japan, right? Like I think both these players
are like, hey, this wasn't a fluke.
You know, it's like you get the second big showing like that.
It it helps to settle the anxiety people have about what's
happening. Oh, there's a disturbance in the
established order of players here.
Oh, I don't like change, right. So so that was a big one.
But he did beat Punk at Chengdu, right?
Like that was one of his biggest wins.
Three. It was, I think it was three
over Punk. So that's a huge win.
But to get into this grand finals position, he beat Takagi
duel Kevin hot dog VX Bao Xiaohai junior, right?
Like, OK, like you're going, you're going through the
killers. Like there's no way around it.
You're going through household names at that point.
And he earned that spot. And the other angle of this
Xiaohai and now we go back. There is Xiaohai Blas Xiaohai's
name in Chinese. He won East Sports World Cup the
first time. He had his very emotional speech
because he was trying to prove that he could still hang with
the best and Street Fighter. Explain how his name means
little kid. Xiao Hai used to be the OG
little kid, you know, nine years old, eight years old, beating up
players in the Chinese arcades, playing King of Fighters.
And now he's the old head gatekeeping the children from
their championships. He he beats Xiaohai at esports
World Cup or sorry, Xiaohai beats Blas at esports World Cup.
Blas hits the run back at Captain Cup, but you know, Blas
still doesn't get the title. Even in Esports World Cup 2024
when he won that, he was down in the the top eight, first to five
sets versus Hikaru I believe like 1-4 or one.
Yeah, yeah, 41 and he made a crazy comeback with What is Ken?
Yes, yeah, I think he swapped. I think he tried multiple
characters before settling on the can, but maybe I'm mistaken.
But it was a crazy comeback. And he went on to win the
tournament after that. And Hikaru is also like a very
young player. I think he might be 18 or
something like that, or he's on the younger side.
And so he has his history now of going up against these up and
coming players very young and just brutally ending their hopes
and dreams. And this one was the most brutal
because, and now I'm on the set winners, finals.
But grand finals, you could feel the the hopes and dreams of a
now kind of slipping away game by game.
Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to agree with you on
that, 'cause I was watching that grand finals, I was there.
I was there watching that final. Yeah, unfortunately with every
single my fan with punish, I feel like the air is getting
sucked out of the room a little bit.
The hype was deflating because for one, seeing the kid when
he's hype, he he's leaning into it.
I think he's becoming a little bit of a fan favorite with his
antics. He's emotional.
He he wears his his highs and lows on his face and he's 15
years old. That's crazy, right?
And he's not playing My so guy is like that.
That's the number. One thing goes to playing my
right. That's a huge thing.
He's playing cigar. But people were definitely had
my fatigue so, so much so that sigat seemed refreshing at that
point. And but Xiaohai man, he played
Immaculate, like his spacing, his whip, punishing his
challenge timings, the way he called out fake pressure strings
or over extensions was really strong.
It wasn't even really about like OD fan or basic fan makes.
It really was just neutral. Like he he kind of out nuched
and outs timed the button sequences versus denial, which
my excel Excelsa. That's another one of our
amazing strengths. Well, her.
Her lights are with that. No, no, sorry.
Her lights are so good because they're very good at just like
interrupting stuff and even just poking out.
I would even say like her jab is so much better because her jab
her she has the jab of Chun Li and she still has like a lot of
like degenerate SF6 stuff because like her offense is so I
don't want to say mindless, but her offense is so.
Strong and. Safe and very repetitive.
That's why I think the my fatigue.
I was trying to say it in a nice way, but her her game plan is
just so simplistic and good and it's just very hard to to stop.
So even then, he's not really taking that many risks.
And at the same time, when she gets going, gonna throw, you
might do a meaty Crouch medium punch if you try to hold up.
You know, I, I know a lot of people say it's not a throw loop
if I called out the person holding up, but there's a reason
the person's holding up so he doesn't get thrown for the third
time. So it's, it's, it's still like a
throw. He's still just in the same kind
of silly vortex that I would call it an other game, but in
tree Fighter 6 is much different because.
The the. Character with good neutral has
Vortex, which that's not how fighting games work, right?
I I. Like how you didn't want to call
it mindless, but you explained all the reasons that Adam can
make it mindless. Like that's a good breakdown
cause 'cause we speak in facetiously or like we use
loaded language to compartmentalize all these ideas
under one under one umbrella. And so more casual fans might
not understand what you mean. So like when you explain how the
offensive loop she has is safe, confirmable and easy to
implement and has coverage for escape options.
And loops into itself. Oh, that's mindless 'cause you
just do it. You just do it.
And the flow chart just works 'cause you don't have to like
commit to hard reads or, or alter your game plan that
heavily once you get the party started.
And yeah, it's very true. And Xiaohai used that to just
allow him to focus on dominating the nuch and, and, and the, the
punish counter timings. What do you think about what
boosts tweet said where Boost went out and said the core
reason why my is hard to beat is because you cannot with punisher
crouching medium punch. I don't know if you saw this but
a bit of discourse about my Should she be nerfed or not?
Is it a problem? Boost is a bit of a scientist.
What do you think? So I.
Believe there were two characters who got in the the
actual Crouch medium punch nerve, which for me it's Luke
because Luke's was egregious the first season and Cami Cami also
got the same nerve. I think they should do that
across the board, though. That's not that's still not a
that's not a my exclusive thing That has to be a nerf across all
the characters because what my has it and out with punishing
chuns Terry's also up there. There's a lot of characters like
that. So I, it I always think it's
funny because I do think people bring up, Oh, I don't like my, I
don't like Sagat. My thing.
It's there's a huge bigger, there's a big elephant in the
room that people just don't want to talk about.
And that's why I actually don't like the I don't like the my
discussion because I do think my is a bit silly.
But if my gets nerfed to bottom one, you're just going to
complain about the next character?
You yes, yes, but let me compare her crutching media punches.
So my scratching media punch 6 frames 15 how many frames
recovery It has I believe 1615 frames recovery 6 frame start
up. We compare it to Terry.
Terry crutching media punch 6 frames, 131415 frames start
recovery 15 frames on a width. OK, so let me double check that.
15 frames on width for Terry and 17 frames on WIF for my.
There's more, there's a. Lot.
There's a. Lot of characters DJs the same,
it's it's DJ has the same thing. DJs crush media punch.
Actually it's very similar to my, but what's the difference?
I I think people are calling out stuff.
But for me, by the way I see it, it's more of a game problem.
It's not it's not my 'cause you my can get nerve to the bottom
1. I feel like people just jump on
Sagat next or Ed or whoever it might be.
Yes, they. Would, but here's my point about
that as someone who's been, you know, I played those characters
while they were top 1 and I felt the brunt of that discourse.
I played JP season 1. I know how it goes right?
Maybe I'm biased here, but I feel like all of those
characters are far more entertaining while they're
broken. My.
My is just boring as all hell to me.
I think my is the most boring character to be a top one
candidate in the game. I think that's my opinion.
I think. There is an I think there's an
argument for fighting game players, but I think it's a huge
hot topic for fighting games. Should the easy Should the easy
character be the best in the game?
Or should the Super technical character be the best in the
game? But then I feel like neither
side is right, or neither side has a good enough argument.
So while I do think my being really strong is a bad thing, I
don't think in some magical world if they made JP the best
in the game it's just going to fix all the problems either,
right? I.
I don't necessarily think so, but if I had to pick and choose,
I just think my is a very boring character so I would not pick my
She she just very quickly forces the the the worst parts about
the Street Fighter Six flow chart in this into it gets into
the throw situation way too easily and it loops itself so
fast I can say. The same with Luker Ken in the
beginning though Luker. Ken their neutral is a lot more
interesting in my opinion. That's just more interesting.
I I, I do think I, I, I agree with you.
Like they all it's, it's a game problem as well.
Like my represents to me the worst part about Street Fighter
6 plus the fan situation, which forces it even harder.
But I think my's more boring. I I just call me biased.
I it's more boring. I do think it's it's an influx
because I do think there's way more my players than there were
like Luke and Ken. But I do more so see it like I I
still think it's AI think it's overall more of a game problem.
Sure. I don't, I don't disagree, I
don't disagree overall, but I personally would vote to tone
down something about Mike 'cause I I think it's a little more a
little boring that that's we might take, but people, you
know, have different opinions on this.
But it's definitely caused a big discourse because of course,
shell high after that reset 31 dominates the the grand finals
final set 3O. And you can even hear like the
the the clip where Xiao Hai lands the final crouching medium
cake. Of course, he walks in and out
of range baits at the web like he's just playing great neutral
at that point, controlling the spacing really well.
Top tier God player with a top tier God character right now.
And it's a recipe for championships.
But you hear the crowd go like he lands the last crouching
medium cake whip punish and the driver's cancel.
And you hear Oh man. And then you know, he runs away
with it. That's.
I didn't. I didn't know that happened.
I went to the bar after Mcgeeks got eliminated.
Well, I actually started walking out.
A lot of people were done when it was most a sigat happening.
I I was. I was done.
I was I was hanging out with my friends and I was like, all
right, Russ beat everyone to the bar as soon as as soon as Kobe
Yan lost. I was like, I I'll I'll watch
this. Whatever.
I'll watch this later. Yeah, it.
Deflated a little bit of the high, but it's still an amazing
tournament. Results.
It's a little unfortunate that the character selection makes it
feel less interesting because there's so much lore to the
narrative, right? And Xiaohai getting another
championship. Xiaohai man, after this
tournament. Just to be clear, this guy a
month ago won EVO Japan for City of the Wolves.
So he qualified out of that tournament for Esports World Cup
and the S&K World Championship for City of the Wolves.
With this tournament he qualified for Esports World Cup
and Capcom Cup. For Street Fighter Six.
He's in 4 tour finals across two different games.
This man is just collecting all the paychecks.
There's all this funny money being of floated to the scene
right now. He's collecting all of the city
Wolves paychecks and he's he's getting all the bags for Street
Fighter Six. He has the chance to three peat
Esports World Cup. Now is the greatest time to do
it. He's he's playing amazing.
He has the confidence. I do think there is like a a
little mental thing and I've always I've said this plenty of
times as well. If you have the confidence in
your character, you feel unstoppable.
If you don't feel like your character is like weak or you
pick literally the best like tool for the job, your
confidence is at an all time high.
So I could only guess that Xiao Hai is definitely feeling that
could he's playing my Mai's really strong.
Also playing Billy Billy's really strong in city as well.
So he's definitely like confidence.
Is at its peak, I would say, right?
Yeah. It's interesting because in
Street Fighter League USA, you know, he had like a really bad
start in the first half and did better in the second-half.
But then Punk managed to clutch it up and eliminate him from the
playoffs. But I feel like there's been a
little bit of a valley for him right now for Street Fighter
Six. And then suddenly he's back
again. Like, it's crazy.
Like it reminds me of MENA Rd. right?
Like MENA Rd. is kind of the same way.
Xiaohai is now kind of the same way.
And he's been pretty consistent at hitting these decent peaks.
Top 8 at Evo Vegas now wouldn't come a breaker.
Like he always keeps showing up in these critical moments.
So Xiaohai make it a run for being one of the like, top five
best Street Fighter six players easy at this point, which is
interesting because I do feel like he doesn't have that many
titles, but the ones he have he has are just so impressive.
Like MENA Rd. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Xiaohai is winning the ones you want to win.
MENA Rd. is winning the ones you want to win.
Like not to say like, hey man, you know, winning, winning like
a ACEO doesn't mean anything or winning like a UFA doesn't mean
anything. But if it if I had to pick, I
definitely want to win like a Calcom Cup.
The the Ewcs, the Evos, those are the main ones, right?
For sure. So big place is Shanghai and now
of course big ups to the 15 year old new prodigy.
Taking Bloss is titled You thought you were the youngest
kid on the block. Now it's me and now and all the
players in top 8 and comma breaker as a whole.
Super fun tournament to watch and a lot of people had a great
time at it. So that's comma breaker.
So many narratives coming out of it will be here in the the after
effects of all these results for some time now.
We'll see how that all shapes up.
But we already got the spin off discourse immediately after
first to two versus first to three has reared its head once
more. This time MENA Rd. kicking this
one off and Matt Rd. had some really close sets this
tournament. The junior set was down to the
wire and you know he was unfortunately on the for him on
the losing side of that one he tweeted out.
I wonder how feasible it would be to have first and two pools
and early and early tournament stages but switch to 1st and
three for top 32. Would make competition so much
more stable. Deeper layers in the game and
doesn't seem like a lot of time at it for the event.
It would be amazing. And of course, the moment you
say first to two versus first to three and the FTC, especially
the Street Fighter six side of things, all hell breaks loose
between the people who are like, yeah, obviously we should do
that. And then the hardcore naysayers
who are like run 15,000,000 locals and pay RTO as a bonus
before you ever even think. About.
Recommending first to three. So how do we dissect this one?
How do we get into it? I think it's funny and I think
this discourse has come up. I, I actually think the Street
Fighter, Street Fighter 6 is born on 1st to three versus
first to two, more than Street Fighter 5 has at this point.
Because this is insane. This is even a problem during
SF5. But for my thing, for my
opinion, I don't I disagree with MENA.
I do think the game would probably be better for first to
three. I know smash does it as well.
I don't think smash. I think smash pools are usually
like first to two. But when it gets to top 64, top
32, that's when they start running first to three a lot of.
Them now just do full first to three.
They run less games. I mean, there's a lot of, I'll
get into my take, but yeah, they run less games, but they do
first to three all the way from most tournaments now.
Yeah, so I I do think it, it's it makes sense.
Like I feel like the farther you get in bracket I the more games
you shop, you should probably play.
But to go to the actual sports side of things.
Hey, man, it's the same thing every time.
Basketball is always first to four, baseball, same thing.
It's always the same thing. You're not changing the farther
you go in bracket. Football is always first to one,
can always be worse. You also got to think about it
like that. Yeah, I always like to draw
analogies to other sports, and the one that is always different
is football. Like every other, almost every
other competitive scene you get into, they spend far more time
to actually determine who proceeds in a match or bracket
and who decides it's the winner. Almost every other form of
competition, basketball, baseball, ping pong, they, they
go on and on the rounds of a match go on so much longer than
Street Fighter six first to two. It's insane.
It's like if you come from that world, you would be blown away
by the the, the 15 minute, 10 minute first to two that people
do to decide if if you win the match that you flew across the
planet to come to the tournament for, right.
But football's first to one 'cause I also think they like
the randomness and also it's too physically demanding.
Like you just if these were real street fights, we would also do
first to 1, you know what I mean?
Like you're going to die. So that's that to me is the
exception. And people would tell you that
Super Bowl and the playoffs are a little random like because
it's first to one the. Basketball stuff isn't random.
If if somebody gets injured. Oh, football.
No. Football.
Yeah, football. Football's.
A random sport like the better teams usually win, sort of.
But first to one is brutal man. Like you just lose.
Like, that's just how it is. But before I get into more of my
take about it, one interesting thing about this, which I even
bothered to bring this up, it's a little different this time,
right? I think the the flavor of this
discussion and the people discussing it are different
because a lot of international players spoke up about this,
which usually doesn't happen. Usually this is of a purely like
Western American type of conversation, but a couple
players threw their hats into the ring in support of MENA Rd.
Bonshan out of Japan said I honestly don't understand why
the regulations and formats of tournaments have not been
changed after Street Fighter Six.
I would like to know if there are reasons other than time
constraints. So Bon Chan speaking up.
It's interesting. Bon Chan has been like a lot
more vocal, I feel like lately of speaking his mind, which
historically Japanese players are known for, you know, just
playing the game. Just not really getting into
these kind of discussion topics or shaking the boat too much,
right? But Bon Chan speaking up saying
why hasn't it been changed? Another one we had, which was
interesting is, you know, people are like, oh, you're just salty,
you lost, you're just a salty loser.
How could you complain about this?
Well we had Xiaohai who just one comma breaker he tweeted out as
well and he said fully support mine bro MENA Rd.
Street Fighter 6 is too volatile for first to two.
Top 32 needs first to three to reward real skill adaptations
and give fans a better show. So you got to take away the
excuse about being salty about losing.
But one more that was really interesting to me was Kushina.
Kushina got top 8 at Dream heck Atlanta with Sigat.
He's one of the newer players in the scene out of Japan and he
comes of course from the FPS scene like Sahara does.
And he said to MENA, I totally agree.
Street Fighter 6 is genuinely a God tier game and so much fun.
But coming from FPS games, hey, don't laugh at that.
You're not you're not about to laugh at that.
You got to be careful about this.
OK? This is about to be clipped and
circulated. I.
Was remembering a joke is different.
That was a sneeze. Right, you were.
You had a cough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OK. Street Fighter 6 is generally a
God tier game. What's wrong, man?
OK, you got to. You got to.
Yeah, OK. Excuse me.
Sorry, Clear. Your throat OK and so much fun,
but coming from FPS games, there's more random elements
than I imagined. I think a lot of people enjoy it
precisely because of those random elements.
But when it comes to one V1 tournaments, the bigger the
skill gap, the better I feel. Wouldn't it be awesome to have
some monster of a player who just dominates first place?
And I fully agree with this part.
I I love that it comes from someone who's from outside of
the scene because I do think our competitions are so incongruent
and incompatible with the stakes and the development of the scene
where we've gone. There's so much tension between
so many factors, between the time constraints with what's
possible with T OS Open bracket format and the scale of the
tournaments and the grass roots prioritization of tournaments.
Not necessarily only being about determining the the best player
in the world or in that room, but also being like an Ave. for
fun and camaraderie and more of a social element for more casual
players than purely competition. And all the tour qualifications
full time pros fall flying around the world to come to test
their skills to earn qualifications into these
$1,000,000 prize for tournaments where the goal isn't even to get
money from that tournament. The goal is to do well in that
tournament to get money from another tournament, right.
So there's this tension from all these different competing
factors all at one time that always make this conversation
such a shit show. But if you focus on the
competition side of thing from outside of this, our sphere,
it's it's bewildering that people play for these stakes and
travel around the world and commit so much time and money to
compete in these formats. It's actually insane.
You would never do this in any other competitive space.
I, it's, it's weird because I do think there is a thing missing
and I know somebody's going to get mad because they're, I'm,
they're going to say I'm calling SF6 random.
But in every other fighting game, I swear to you, the
players who are winning are not even.
It's not remotely surprised. Some people will call it boring.
No Goichi. Goichi 1 Fatal Fury again.
That's not that surprising. I think Goichi one of the best
Fatal Fury player. Nitro one, Nitro 1 Guilty Gear
again. Well, Nitro's really good at
Guilty Gear. I know Jack and Nitro have been
kind of having their own little feud and Guilty Gear right now,
but to me that's exciting. That helps with the storylines
and stuff like that. Fabulous Zucchini has been
beating everyone's ass in Marvel and now people are like trying
to figure out why is O Kaggar Sandal so strong right now?
Is there any way to counter play the team?
Stuff like that. I think all that's Zippy, Zippy
1 Invincible and Zippy was beating everyone's ass and
Invincible too. So I think that helps.
I think people will always say oh that's not fair.
Street Fighter got like 7000 people playing and there's so
many killers and stuff like that.
But at the same time, you never know who's going to win.
Sahara drought Zahara got like 97th or something.
Blahs got like 49th, 65th. And it's it's so hard and
there's no like build up or like fun thing to happen.
It's cool that Xiaohai won, don't get me wrong, but at the
same time it's just like, what's the next tournament?
Blink. I don't know who's going to win
Blink right? Fucking yeah.
Fucking I don't know, MENA might win or.
Crossover. Or punk or I don't know.
I'm just name and play it at this point.
Blahs. Yeah, yeah, no, I, I 100% agree
with that. I do not like how unpredictable
Street Fighter 6 results are from as a fan perspective, just
from spectating. I I because I saw some arguments
being like oh I think it's first to two because they they think
it's more exciting for viewers and I don't know if I agree with
that. The one thing that draws me
really into the Melee competitive scene, I have been
following Melee casually, like semi casually for like 10 years
now or even longer since it was at EVO 2013.
It's really interesting to see the ebb and flow of the paradigm
shift of the players over time because that is such a high
skilled game with first to three and established players.
You see natural storylines develop over the years as
players fall in and out of that range.
And for a long time there was like the five gods.
People thought no one would fucking breakthrough there.
Like they even had that title and that that was like the
paradigm for years. Now suddenly you have players
like Rap Monster, a 19 year old Luigi player who's beating the
number one ranked player in the world.
But when he made his breakout performance, beating Zayn, the
number one ranked player in the world in like an online first to
five set, it wasn't just like a flash in the pan like that.
It was like, OK, he beat this the best player in an unofficial
set. What does he do the next
tournament? He beats him in the tournament,
he gets 9th place, he gets 7th place, he gets 2nd place.
When you have that breakthrough performance in those formats and
in those games with longer set formats, these first threes take
2530 minutes. Sometimes it's.
Consistency, that's building narrative that you can see the
momentum going and there was a satisfying build up to this.
It wasn't like, oh, this kid beat a guy one time and you
never hear of him again. The big problem with the
instability with Street Fighter is that often times you see
someone make the upset. I'll think guy Guy, for example,
amazing Zengi player, amazing player.
He doesn't fall into this category, but to say Guy, Guy
versus Sahara, he beat Sahara the Captain Cup champion off
stream 21. If he didn't get that win on
Bonchan on stream, that would just be an interesting trivia
stat point. You get what I'm saying?
It's not a narrative. It's not something satisfying.
It's like an FGC Jeopardy who put Sahara the Captain Cup
champion into losers on, you know, it would just be a stat
point that only people who read through the brackets would know.
So the longer set format, because the game is volatile and
fast enough to require that if it can help to shake up and make
things a little bit more consistent, I think that makes
it more satisfying for the viewers because the viewers
crave storylines and they can naturally feel the storylines.
And when you have randomness across too many brackets, it
prevents that from forming. So I, I disagree with the take
that first to two is more exciting.
It's exciting like candy. It's an instant dopamine hit
when you see an upset, but it's not a satisfying full 5 course
meal, Steak, potato, veggies and dessert.
You know what I mean, but. I think the other problem is if
the guy who's I think there's a lot of people in the world and
this is even just like sports and esports, because you brought
up the five gods of Melee back in the day with Marvel.
It was the the three gods. If if there was a tournament,
top three was going to be F champ, Chris G and Justin Wong.
And it was always those three in the top three until KBR came
around and started, you know, scooping them.
But at the same time that that to me is something cool and it
builds a really hype story like you said.
But I do think Capcom or even just like other players would
rather have, Hey, imagine if Meno is just getting top three
every bracket, our top what are just winning every bracket.
And then it just starts becoming devolving into oh, block is
broken. It starts and I feel like it
takes away from the excitement are no, no, it's Street Fighter
six. It just feels much weird because
I feel like there's not really much of AA character buildup or
it's still going to be random. I I don't want to say it's still
going to be random because like, I don't know, but it's still
going to have the problem of it's first to two.
We made it first to three. It's going to turn to 1st to
four because I got third looped in the first to three.
Then I got de eyed in the first to four.
So 9 needs to be first to five. No, there has to be a, a, a, a
limit. And also like people bring up
stat points and people, I now see people quoting me quoting
stat points. I have been trying to find the
original data I can pull up about like how much of an impact
versus 2 versus first 2-3 has. There was an original study done
on CPT tournaments from Street Fighter Five that found that the
player who was who had already lost the first two games, how
often do they win the first 2-3? So they were down to one or two
and they still won, which means versus 3 made a difference.
And it was something around 10 to 15% of the time it made a
difference. I can't find that.
I wish I could find that data. I think that person who
calculated, I can't remember their name, it's been years.
I think they moved on from the community, but they had all the
stat points from CPT events. That was Street Fighter 5.
I would argue it's probably bigger than Street Fighter six,
just just anecdotally, but 10% at a minimum is still very
significant in my opinion for swaying the results of a
tournament. Compound that over every single
match across the tournament you could have drastically different
outcomes. And we even saw Kobean.
His win was only because they did first to three at Dreammec
Atlanta. We would not have seen Kobean
finally win a major if it wasn't for first to three.
He was down O2 versus Kushina. The guy who said we should do
first to three to make things less random coming from FPS
games, he came back against that player 3 O and grand finals.
He did it twice in each set against nephew, down O2 each
time to reset and down O2 in grand finals last set to to win
the tournament. It makes a difference in terms
of the player outcome, but you get diminishing returns.
How much percentage change it'll it'll level out as you keep
adding more games. Right?
First to three I think is a sweet spot which we can do.
And the other argument is there's no time, time
constraints, first of three has been done for years at UFA and
Brussels challenge in Europe all the way through.
Like I always see like people who just immediately go, Oh no,
it can't be done, it's impossible.
It's been done It's been people are doing this.
We they TNS also for online it's different cause online runs
parallel everything else. But TNS can't open or run online
all the time. The even the CPT online
tournaments are first to two because they have to follow the
format consistently throughout every event for some reason.
So even CPT online is first to two.
There's no time constraints for online.
I also. I mean, they've been doing first
to two. I feel like they've been doing
first to two since the FGC was born.
So I just, they just kind of got used to it at that point.
Yeah, I think, I think this comes from unabashed
traditionalism. I don't think there's any logic
because I, I, I hate that that drags me with the wall.
I've seen, I haven't tweeted a thing about this because I see
so many tweets that make me want to go because they're just
lying. They're just lying and or
they're just wilfully ignorant at this point because we have
done 1st at three man. It's it exists.
UFA was first to three until it became part of CPT again.
Then they were forced to go back to first to two because you have
to have, you have to follow the CPT rules.
CPT sets the rules. Capcom controls this from the
top down for Capcom Pro Tour. So I think it would be
objectively better for everybody.
I, I think people would enjoy watching it.
I think there would be some things that are more boring and
some things that are better or more things that are better.
I I think there are like three other like factors.
I do also think you got to think about, hey, what about the?
That the. 1800 DJ that might have beaten ending Walker in
pools but it was first to three so now I got screwed over so he
could have went on in bracket. What are you you're thinking
about from the pro players perspective?
What about the 1800 DJ? I'm sitting at home watching
this tournament item. I'm thinking about what do I
want to watch? I don't want to watch the 1800
DJ win the first of two, then immediately lose right after.
It's still. An exciting.
It's still a exciting upset. It's exciting, it's exciting.
Upset. Just like, you know, eating a
pop in a Starburst is exciting, but that's not your dinner.
That that's what I'm saying it's it's ultimately unfulfilling.
It's empty calories, man, It's empty calories.
If you can stream together a series of upsets and longer
sets, then there's nothing you can detract from that.
And that shows a level of skill that means holy shit, you, you
showed up here. Like that's what's more
exciting. The more as a thought
experiment. Take it to the other extreme.
If the game becomes totally fucking random, which it's not,
obviously Street Fighter 6 is a very much a skill based game,
but it's a volatile game that would benefit from first to
three, just like a lot of other games are like that.
We just played an obscenely, I cannot stress enough how
obscenely short a first to two is to determine the better
player in almost any competitive endeavour.
It's absurd. So if you go to the other
extreme where this is literally flipping a 1/4 and calling heads
or tails, it's not satisfying in any sense of the way because
it's just purely random, right? Like, and if it's if it's 20%
skill based and 80% luck, it's still not satisfying.
It's too much luck, right? So there's a sweet spot here and
I don't think luck based things are satisfying to watch.
It's just not. It just doesn't show the the
element of skill expression or narrative that you build from
some level of consistency. I don't value too much, too many
upsets. I value an upset where it's
like, holy shit, it's a really strong player.
Like a blah situation. Blah's upsets were impactful
because he took out the best players in the world first to
three. That's it man No excuses, no
nothing. He showed clear, consistent
skill in game knowledge above his opponent's levels and they
could not adapt. That to me is exciting.
First to two It's cool but narratively flat I I.
Also think and yeah, and at least from my perspective, I
also think there's another side of this that Calcom doesn't
like. When like pro players or top
players say the game needs to be first to three, could you're
essentially calling the game random at that point?
I really do think that's not a good look either.
You're calling the game random if it needs to be 1st at 3:00
because if the game wasn't random, you wouldn't be arguing
against first at 2 I. Watch, I'm telling you, I
watched that ping pong match at the Olympics.
They played one round of the tournament.
Took three hours. Dude, they play so many games.
I'm just saying like, like, like that's a little too sensitive.
All games have an element of randomness in it.
That's normal. That's that's normal.
And I think you just mitigate that by playing the set a little
bit longer. I think Capcom likes the pace of
the game and likes the random elements of it because I think
that gets players hooked on playing.
I know we had this. I know you don't like my
crackpot theory about the the gameplay loop.
I honestly do believe that randomness is the most addicting
factor. Addiction stems from gambling.
Which stems to randomness 100%. That's why people like.
That's why people like what's a genre game?
The fucking yeah, yeah, they like Rd. like games.
That's why those games are always so popular.
But yeah, it's I don't know, it's weird.
And my my last point on this. I don't think games need to be
first at 3 unless you can literally get touched at depth
in though if if it can't happen, I don't I don't think your game
needs to be 1st at 3:00. That's that's not a touch of
death. You got you got like four or
five interactions. They're they're boring
interactions, but there are four or five interactions there.
Yeah, I I mean, I just. Think the most effective way, if
Capcom doesn't want to address the games they clearly don't
just make it first to three. I, I and I don't really buy the
logistics argument. Like combo breaker had hardly
any games on stream because the the down time between games was
crazy and people make the argument oh there'll be less
games on stream, they're all already or hardly any games on
stream. I don't know.
I I just feel like most arguments against it fall very
flat. But there I understand the
tension and also like day 1A combo breaker, for example, I
saw a bunch of double perfects, right?
So there's that as well. If you do it early, there's
going to be some lopsided matches that just extend longer
for no reason. So like I mentioned in the
beginning, I think there's so many different factors.
This is a culture clash of like, where are we going?
These people are traveling for millions of dollars and putting
their whole career on the line versus people who are in the
sham to hang out with their friends and drink all weekend.
You know what I mean? Like and so it's another it's a
classic E sports versus grassroots type type attention
going on. And we have not resolved that.
And so this will go on for eternal, but I feel like first
of three is a compromise in this situation for the the the format
like the first of three is the is a compromise to keep the
grassroots and the E sports thing going is how I feel.
But not everyone everyone agrees.
But it has been done. I need this argument to stop.
It has been done. First of three Street Fighter 6
tournaments have been done with no problem many times.
That part drives me nuts when people say that though.
Anyways, this will be another dead horse that will be revived
to be beat down once again, I'm sure.
Let's cap on finally responds. Hey, we'll get right back to the
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OK, back to the discussion. Last topic to round this out,
EVO registration drama with a little bit of A twist on this
one. So we have the pretty much
nearly final leaderboard count for EVO registration.
And this is always a big point of contention because it's like
the different community games like squaring up to see who's
the big dog. And also more importantly, where
do you where does your top 8 take place?
Because the top three for the registration leaderboard gets
the Sunday spots, obviously the most registered event event, and
it gets the Sunday finale spot. And then below that 4-5 and
maybe 6 I believe are on Saturday mainstage top 8.
So if you're the 4th place, you end up being the closing finale
show on Saturday, 1st place closing on Sunday.
And of course Street Fighter 6 is.
They haven't put out the numbers, but Street Fighter 6 is
going to blow the fucking water out of every other game as
always. I think Tekken would probably be
about half of what Street Fighter Six has.
It won't be. It won't be as bad as EVO Japan,
but it'll probably be like half. If Street Fighter 6 has like
5000, I think Tekken 8 would probably get like 2500.
Yeah, so EVO. Japan was what, like 7000 for
Street Fighter Six and like 900? Yeah, less than a. 1000, right?
Yeah, yeah, it'll be better for sure at Evo Vegas.
You're right about that. So current leaderboard as of May
25, 2026 is where the drama started.
Number one Street Fighter 62 Tekken 8 32 XKO, which that I
feel like that's kind of dodging some some heat right now because
of the next game that's a little surprising right two XKO on 3rd
I'm. Not I will be very, I was very
surprised. But at the same time, America
likes tag fighters. So maybe if people have been
getting into it, maybe it's another one of the people
registering early problems. So I don't know.
I'm not going to say anything. It's cool to see two SKO top
eight. I even 2 SKO's combo Breaker top
8 was really good so good on them.
I strongly suspect this is going to be because people registered
when the game was new or coming out.
I strongly suspect I think there's going to be a ton of
DQS. I'll say it like I'm not trying
to rock on 2X KOI think it's a cool game too, but I don't think
it's going to naturally carry the numbers to be third on this
leaderboard. Just like City of the Wolves,
this combo breaker had a massive drop off, more than 50%.
In terms of entrance, it was the same thing.
This was like the first major when City of the wolves was
releasing or announced or like it's the first big major coming
up post release of the game. So everyone before they even
play the game registers for the, for the, the tournament.
I registered for city of the wolves at comma breaker.
I was playing the game, but I, I didn't go to my pool.
I was busy. Look, maybe nursing a hangover
or something, I don't know. So I, I strongly suspect a lot
of people signed up for two XKO and they're not going to show
up, but we'll see. Maybe I'll be proven wrong,
it'll be I'll be checking out the top 8 no matter what.
But the game taking all the heat right now is #4 which is not
guilty of your strife. It is Rivals of Ether, 2A
platform fighter from Off Brand Games, the game publishing
company, from content creator and former Melee personality and
commentator Ludwig. And this is where the drama
starts because people are first seeing this, a lot of people
from the core. If you see going, you know,
they're like like, what is what is this?
What am I looking at? And then two, they're like, oh
shit, guilt of your strive is getting beat.
And then three, they hear, Oh shit, the Ludwig Astroturf evo.
That's what that's what the the discourse says.
We'll get we'll get into the details.
I don't think he did necessarily, but that's the
discourse. I I don't think he did either.
But at the same time I mean. I've never played Rivals of
Ether too, but it must be fun. I mean, Ludwig's pushing it.
I've heard people talk about it at events and people are always
playing it. I think I was saw it, it was
going on next to Marvel, I think during column Breakers.
So people are playing it. It's not like dead dead game,
not like DNF duel. I do think it's I think it's
it's it's cool. And plus Ludwig's going there to
play Street Fighter Six anyway for the the event with Tyler 1.
So, you know, now you'll have Rivals of Anything to play and
some Street Fighter 6. Yeah, Rivals of Ether 2 is
probably. The most successful non smash
smash platform fighter like it's managed to.
Survive. Because every other platform
fighter either has like a initial burst and then
completely dies. Rivals of Ether has survived.
I guess Bra Hollow is like an alternate reality even amongst
the platform fighter world. So rivals of ether.
I'm just checking the the steam charts. 819 players, 24 hours so
not terrible honestly for fighting numbers that's more
than a lot of these fighting games.
It's below guilty or strive numbers but it's more than most
to be honest, which is not much. So it's found its niche and
people are pissed because Ludwig had initially started some
programs. I saw actually his stream live
when he announced this and I was like sounds cool man, but I
don't know if it's going to come back to bite you.
He was saying how he wanted to make this the largest rivals of
Ether tournament ever and for that he's going to be running
some online tournaments, supplying passes to T OS and
going through other tournament results and basically saying,
hey, if you place top eight top 128, whatever, I will pay for
your registration to evo. So it was run through community
tournaments, which I feel like that's fine, that's normal.
Like it's not normal, but it's like it, it makes sense with the
spirit of it. You're rewarding people who are
actively playing your in your game and participating and show
an interest and are doing well, right?
It kind of all makes sense. It's kosher to me.
But I think at one point it started to grow a little bit
more in scale that it's like if you sign up for Rivals of Ether
and show proof of registration, we pay for it.
So Ludwig bought all these EVO passes and started distributing
them. And I think some people might be
taking advantage of it. So I don't know the exact
details when it grew in scale, but I think this is where people
started to get a little like, hey, is this dude just buying
out EVO and removing my game from the finale on Saturday and
supplanting it with his is, is he astroturfing this?
Is it artificial? Like this discourse started to
build and a lot of people will have the full context of it and
a lot of people are pissed about it.
And I think there's like layers to that because beyond it just
being someone like paying to help boost the numbers to get
more people to Evo, it's also a platform fighter.
I think there's a culture clash going on here as well.
Yeah, I know that. I've, I've seen so many people
saying, you know. Platform fighters aren't real,
fighting is. But at the same time, I think
it's cool. I think I think Ludwig is
actually helping the community a lot.
You know, getting going to Evo's an experience like not a lot of
people get to say, yo, I've gone to Evo.
So I think that that's really good.
I think it's sick that Ludwig is helping the FGC, but I get where
people are coming from. I think I think Rivals is going
to be the first game on Sunday because it's top 4.
Because it's only four games on Sunday, I think they change it
to be top three, so that was also.
My point of confusion as well. Even Ludwig clarified that he's
saying Saturday night so I had to verify.
I think they're only doing 3 games on Sundays.
What was what I'm understanding from this?
So that's that's I thought it was to get into Sunday, which to
me is like a bigger. Yeah, I mean, being the closing
finale on either night is a big deal.
Like if you're on Saturday, you want to be the final one, I
suppose. But I thought this was to get
into the arena on Sunday, which is a huge deal.
So apparently it's it's not even to open to be the opening game
on Sunday is. A really big deal like that.
That stuff is huge. So I, I didn't know it was just
on Saturday, but I guess even then it's it's cool.
I I think Ludwig's doing more good for the FTCI.
Think people are just being like bitter and it's all the this
old, old heads who are like smashes in a fighting game.
So this isn't a fighting game either.
And it's just kind of people being like, why are these non
fighting games being at my Eva? Well, they're also saying like
you're artificially inflated in the numbers and.
It makes other games look smaller when you might have a
bunch of DQS for your game. And so there's a bit of
competitiveness for people in their in Group as well.
And and and you know, so I understand that and it is just a
culture clash because some people argue like, hey, like if
you're not already organically going here for traditional
fighting games, why are you here?
You know, like there's I, I don't know how I always feel
about it. I think people are taking it too
seriously. But I also am sympathetic to the
idea of gatekeeping a little bit.
Like, I kind of get it. Like you have to put in, like
gatekeeping is meant to be done when done healthily.
It's meant to be like, hey, like you get access to more powerful
positions in the community once you have demonstrated to share
the same value. So we know we can trust you,
right? And so Ludwig hasn't done that
to have that position of power in the traditional FGC.
He's come from the Melee side of things.
So he does have he has connection like he got it.
He's been to EVO before. Melee used to be at EVO.
They share a common history. They shared hotel ballrooms.
Like there is a shared connection there.
But if you're if you get down to brass tacks, the demographic
between platform fighter fans, Smash fans and traditional FGC,
it's two separate circles on a Venn diagram.
There's like barely an overlap with like some Guilty Gear
stride. And like there is more these
days. I think it's it's become more
cross pollinated. But by and large, if you're a
marketer making a product, you pick one or the other.
They're two different demographics.
So there's a lot of tension there.
Ludwig did have a response to this.
I want to read that out. I'm seeing some people are upset
at the placement of Rivals of Ether 2 at Evo.
For anyone unaware, I'm publisher for that game.
I also Remember Remember being in the crowd at Evo 2016 and
watching Hungry Box beat Armada through losers.
I like how he's trying to like appeal to like the EVO goers and
they're all like, we were just waiting for that shit to get off
the stage. You know what I mean?
Like, I remember that too. Listen, I would love him there.
That was a sick grand finals that meant something to me as
well. I respect that.
But a lot of people are like, oh, this fucking smash, blur,
smash. Get these guys.
Get these guys out of here, right?
He continues. It was a Seminole weekend.
For me, I returned from Vegas and started grinding smash, got
my ass beat. Then I started grinding
commentary and later on that turned into streaming to have
another platform fighter and it'd be the one I published.
Means something to me regardless of how you feel about USDOT dot
dot. To clarify, I did buy a bunch of
evil passes to help make this the biggest Rivals 2 tournament
we've ever had. We handed passes to the top 128
players, ran online qualifiers, ran locals, and gave passes to T
OS to give up to their community.
I'm sure I got taken advantage of of people, sold coal codes,
shared them without permission and signed up with no intention
of playing. But that's the price of willing
to pay to make this the biggest rivals two event we've ever had.
The community has rallied around this and I'm pumped you go to
Eva this year. See y'all there Saturday night.
So he makes a point that it's Saturday.
So that's his spiel, that's his pitch to clarify what's going
on, but a lot of people are still a little bit like hey,
this feels funky. Something about it doesn't smell
right. I I didn't mean to make a smelly
smash player. You know that one flew over my
head. I.
Wasn't even ready for it. I didn't mean to, it just
happened. Couldn't help it.
But yeah, I mean, I, I think, I think this.
Stuff is it's it's over over over hated.
If you love a game, you know. I would also want people to play
it as a Guilty Gear Stride player.
It does suck that you know Strive is below Rivals of Ether
and I. I've never played.
Rivals of ether, but I. Would I?
If you have to ask me what do I think would probably be a better
game? I would probably have to lean a
little bit towards dry, but you know, I think it's cool.
I I do understand the kind of disdain for somebody just buying
their way ahead of me, but at the same time I I get it.
It's just, you know, big, big pond versus small pond.
And this, I mean this takes me back to literally how Smash
Melee. Got into EVO over Skullgirls
right? Like it's the same.
It's almost the same thing happened again.
That was worse because the game being in the tournament itself.
But Smash got into Melee, got into EVO with a poll.
They had a voting poll and I believe there's like a way to
buy votes or something. I forget the exact details of
that system way back in 2013. And so Meili had a big revival
because of that Evo showing. I watched that EVO.
I saw wobbles at the grand finals, wobbling everybody where
the technique is named from with ice climbers because of that.
And so I got into the like following the competitive scene
from from that EVO. And so that could have been a
different timeline if Skullgirls got it instead, right.
So it's just like this is another tension culture clash
between platform fighters and, and EVO and, and also Ludwig is
in the Tyler one. He's in the the show match with
Tyler one. He's not actively practicing
Street Fighter. Saudi bought out EVO.
A lot of people, some people are actually like boycotting Evo,
not attending. There's there's a lot of factors
going on right now where I think a lot of people are feeling like
Evo is not for me. Like, like I think a lot of
people have some frustrations building up.
Like it feels less grassroots and less about the, the the core
FGC who have supported it for so long.
So I think a lot of factors are at play here that are making
people grumpy. Yeah, I, I, I agree with you
there. But I I think that's.
Why a lot of people are kind of just looking forward to, to CEO
because like maybe evil is not for them this year, but I know a
lot of people are going to be attending CEO and I guess having
having more of a fun time there. I I guess, or at least I hope.
Yeah, I think a lot of people are pivoting to other
tournaments because of that. They just feel like Eva's
getting a little too different, like jumping getting too big for
its britches. Kind of like there's definitely
a sense of that going on. We'll see how that actually
impacts the numbers. I feel like it's still going to
be huge numbers. I don't see, it's like, I don't
know, it's gonna be even Japan numbers for Street Fighter, but
I think it's gonna be still pretty big numbers.
It's it's Street Fighter Six to me.
It's Street Fighter 6. I that that game actually makes
no sense to me, but you know, it keeps getting it keeps getting
bigger and bigger. So I, I, it's what, what do they
call it? I'm the one, I'm the contrarian
who's, who's yelling at Street Fighter Six.
But for some reason it's getting bigger and bigger.
So I guess maybe I'm the I'm the idiot?
What? It's just playing an idiot, I
don't think. Listen, I don't even think
you're an idiot. I just think I.
Think you're taking up a crusade that is is is difficult, man.
It's you're got, you're got a long journey ahead of you.
Somebody's got to fight the good fight.
I see. I see.
Well, with that, I think we're. Exhausted of our topics here,
we're going to go ahead and wrap up this episode.
So much has been happening recently and the build up to EVO
is getting more intense. Blink Respawn coming up next for
CPT premieres if you want to check out that.
And the Dominican Republic, going to be a lot of top players
going to that in just a couple of weeks as well.
So we'll be on the lookout for that.
With that said, Adam, any final words to to wrap this up?
Any words of wisdom? This is what people look forward
to at the end. I want to just say thank you to
everyone at. Combo Breaker who came up to me
and you said they enjoyed the podcast.
You know, there was a lot of people actually looking for you
there as well. Brian, trying to thank you for
the podcast, but you were Mia. And shout outs to the one guy
who said I have better opinions than Brian.
You remember who you are. Only one of them though.
Vast minority, right? Right, right, Maybe I do got.
To go to the next tournament and collect tally them up.
That could be our next bit. Who has the better takes Brian
or Idom? And we got to we got to get the
scoreboard going up. All right, guys, that's going to
be it for extra trashy. We're out.
Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time.
Peace. Hey there.
There was a ton going on in that episode.
So thank you so much for tuning in into the end.
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