Who Are My Favorite Players?

54 Replies

For some reason, people keep asking me who my favorite Street Fighter players are. I watch matchvids and root for certain individuals just like everyone else, so i guess it wouldn’t hurt to write out an (overly complicated) answer. At least the examples should be entertaining, right?

The obvious choices are CaliPower, ChoiBoy, and watts. They’re the first names to pop into my head because they were at the top of the game when i first discovered the tournament scene. They placed 1st, 2nd, and 3rd overall at B4 – the precursor to Evolution. I’ve always admired their playstyles and i still think nobody in the world has more sophisticated Shotos.

Unfortunately, it’s been a while since the days when those three were winning literally every tournament they entered. That’s partly because in their case, the complete answer has slowly become: prepared Valle, losers bracket Choi, and angry-enough-to-practice Watson. By the way, the amazing thing about watts is how he takes everyone out of their element. Look up some matchvids of your favorite players facing him. You’ll barely recognize their play.

Across the Pacific Ocean, Daigo, Ohnuki, and Kurahashi are names that stand out instantly. Daigo’s résumé speaks for itself, but what makes him fun to watch is the way he punishes everything – he never lets anyone off the hook. Nuki’s achievements are almost as impressive, but what sets him apart is how he constantly finds ways to attack even in the most defensive settings. Kurahashi is a half-robot, half-monster cyborg powered by liquid nitrogen.

MvC2 is another game i enjoy watching, and of course that means Magneto/Storm/Psylocke. Countless great players have represented MSP over the years, but you really can’t go wrong with snapback king SooMighty or Evo2k7 champion IFC Yipes. Still, nothing comes close to seeing Clockw0rk utterly dismantle opponents with Strider/Doom while pointing at bombs.

Speaking of San Diego, i love it when Viscant arbitrarily declares some obscure character or team to be top tier. Nobody ever believes him so he ends up having to prove it by picking bad characters in a tournament. It doesn’t take long before he runs into a hopeless matchup and needs to mount a massive comeback just to even the odds. It’s very entertaining. Although it helps that he’s constantly thinking five steps ahead, because it’s fun to see his plans unfold.

But my absolute favorite player of all time has to be D44 Bas with his guard bar flashing.

Seriously, that guy’s a genius when he’s fighting at a disadvantage. I mean, sometimes he does get guard crushed like everyone else, because that’s what’s supposed to happen. But sometimes he pulls the most unbelievable fearless comebacks i’ve ever seen, almost as if he’s using the handicap as leverage to read his opponent’s mind.

He’s also one of the most technical players ever. Truthfully, i don’t even like the characters he plays – SFA3 V-Akuma and CvS2 A-Vega/Sakura/Bison/Blanka – but it’s different when he’s using them. It’s simply a joy to watch because he’s showing you how the game is supposed to be played – not a lazy caricature of it, but the honest genuine article.

It’s not easy to find people who play top tier without cutting corners. Bas has that rare combination of personality and skill set, where he’s always pushing to innovate and improve even when he’s at the peak. So that’s why he’s my favorite player overall.

54 thoughts on “Who Are My Favorite Players?”

  1. Maj Post author

    But my absolute favorite player of all time has to be …

    Well, can you guess? If anyone comes up with the exact answer before Tuesday, they’ll get a prize – probably an old Capcom artbook or something.

    One guess per person please. Don’t stress over it too much though. I doubt anyone will get it right.

    (Btw, do yourself a favor and mute the clueless commentators when you watch the watts matchvid.)

  6. darcontek

    It seems like you listed all the big name players that I know of. I hope its not somebody obscure. Back in the day, I really like watching both Valle and MIC play tekken tag. Mic was cool because he’d pick characters like Kuma and dominate.

  12. Carnoustie

    Not sure how you feel about grappler play but tentatively putting out Hayao, maybe someone like kuni or vangief.

    Also the only match vids I’ve seen of Mike Watson are him getting his ass kicked in USA vs Japan 2000 and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHSpBq6yWs

    Kokujin sure seems to be playing in his element, just saying.

  14. Maj Post author

    Wow, this is a lot more participation than i expected. To answer the questions, it’s not an obscure choice but it’s not a simple one either.

    Wilken: Well, here’s the thing about Tokido. He’s a lot of fun to watch if you don’t like or don’t care about the game he’s playing, because he always plays the cheapest character. He played Urien in 3S when everyone knew he wasn’t top tier, simply because he was cheapest character in the game. But the catch is, it’s kinda hard to watch him play a game you like because he tends to make it look bad. I like it when he makes it into top 8, but i don’t like it when he wins the whole tournament.

    Masamune_Shadow: Without a doubt, TZW is my number one hero in all of Street Fighter. But as a combo maker, not as a player.

    Poke: Actually Jeff Schaeffer was way before my time. Every video i’ve seen of him has been impressive, but there isn’t much of it.

    Carnoustie: That dude’s been winning tournaments for 15 years and those are the only two videos you’ve seen? And both are hand-picked from fluky single-match brackets? Hm, sounds like you have something against Mike.

  15. Maj Post author

    What the hell? This got linked on SRK today? Why?

    This isn’t a real article (even though it took eight hours to write). It’s just me babbling to myself as an excuse to highlight some cool matchvids.

  16. TheRealJudgeD

    I’m just gonna go out on a limb (since I havent been in the scene long enough to know all the top players) and go with my fav Japanese player, Nemo. But, since I eat, sleep and breathe Chun, maybe I’m a lil biased.

  18. Eminence

    I lolled at the fact that this is an SRK article. I don’t think keits reads your articles, he just assumes its something insightful and puts it on the front page :p.

    The 3s player in me wants to say something like KO/MOV/Kuroda/Boss, but every other player you seem to pick because of ST/CvS2/MvC2.

    Joke guess: Tomo

    Real Guess: ummm ShootingD?

  19. ShadowXSnake

    I’m fairly certain you AREN’T thinking about Hayao, but he’s definitely MY favorite player to watch. He really takes a low-tier character to new heights in high-level play, really showing the strengths of the Parry system put to good use. Hayao will put the fear of God into anyone that dismisses Hugo as a slow Zangief clone.

    But if we’re taking random shots in the dark, I’ll submit Yeb as my guess simply because of his amazing footsies game in vanilla. It’s like watching the footsies handbook in action sometimes.

  21. zephyr

    I have a couple I’ve really enjoyed watching in the past, but you said one guess so I’ll go with my personal favroite.

    RX

    He really stands out to me as a very creative player and has immensely enjoyable matches, but maybe he falls into that Urien category you threw up there for Tokido? I do think that RX’s Urien is a better watch than Tokido’s.

  24. Maj Post author

    Eminence: That’s not it but i have to say, ShootingD is awesome. Maybe at some point in the distant future, i should write up a “favorite Shoto players” post like this one. He’d be on there for sure.

    zephyr: Actually i really like Tokido’s Urien. It’s his ST Vega i’m not so fond of. I didn’t like it when he won CvS2 at Evo either, riding on the roll-canceling bandwagon before people figured out how to deal with all that. It gave the game a bad rap for a long time. His SF4 Akuma is fun to watch though.

  28. sade

    you’re a guile player and an st fan right maj

    from one guile player to another, it’s gotta be muteki

    there’s no other reason you would possibly mention kurahashi and not muteki unless he was #1 on your list

  32. crayzieap

    Justin Wong. Do to his overzealous game knowledge and consistency over the years. That’s my guess^^

  33. cidninja

    i would guess rx, since he pretty much does combo videos mid match. you don’t seem like much of a third strike fan though… gotta be muteki.

  36. WhizKid

    I am going to go with the man, the myth, the legend. I know he doesn’t play much anymore. But it has to be SKill aka Seth Killian because he plays cross handed… I mean seriously how insane is that.

  37. WhizKid

    Side note, this article is really cool, because it also shows who other people think are great to watch.

  40. Maj Post author

    Haha it’s okay, you can withdraw your choice and pick again. Your choice just needs to be clear at the end.

  50. Maj Post author

    Regarding 3S, i actually really like watching Ohnuki play, even though i don’t like Chun Li at all in that game. Daigo’s a lot of fun to watch too, especially that extended set of matches against KO at Evo2k3/2k4. I like watching some of the gimmick characters too, like Dudley, Urien, Makoto, Alex, Hugo, etc.

    As far as Muteki, i guess the only reason i picked Kurahashi is because i heard of him first and it seemed redundant to list both. I mean i’m sure they’re not the only two great Guile players in Japan, but he’d definitely make the list if i had to make one for “favorite Guile players.”

    Not to hate Justin Wong, but he’s just plain not fun to watch. Usually he just sits there doing nothing until the other guy hands him the match. Some of his MvC2 matches are good though. I remember seeing a few live Evo matches that amazed me simply for how hard he punished missed assists.

    ComboFiend is the opposite – a lot of fun to watch. But it’s kind of hard for me to pick him because he made a name for himself by beating up all my heroes. Plus he’s wasting his talents playing bad characters these days.

    Anyway there are probably 50-100 players that i enjoy watching, so it’s not like that list is complete. They’re just the ones that stand out for whatever subjective reason, you know.

Leave a Reply