Tour De Shadaloo Day 2

So as would become the norm on this trip, I am the first to wake up and again thank my lucky stairs that I crashed (and burned a little) on Shane's floor the previous night as the combined hours of sleep left me feeling relatively refreshed.

Two of our boys looking sharp and ready for action.

After the boys got ready, we headed for Dim Sum, stuffed our faces and headed over to UTS to register.

UTS building, a.k.a. concrete sex.

The boys at the table kindly took some time out of stuffing their faces full of Subway to sign us in. We had a quick look around of the venue and to say the least, we were very impressed. The casuals were neatly seperated from the competition area. A very impressive dual projector screen setup was on the main stage with even a live stream going on which I believe was a first for a major Australian tournament.

Benson displaying his mullet in all it's glory while Joey looks really really ridiculously good looking.

We were all then kindly reminded that it might be a good idea to check the bracket to see get an idea of who we would be up against. It also happened to be the case that Daigo got no free ticket to the EVO APAC finals and would be playing pools in the Last Chance qualifiers. We were also told by Melvin (top bloke!) the previous night that there were four pools with each of us Perth boys being separated apart into each pool. At the time we joked about which of us would be the unlucky sod who would be in Daigo's pool.

I scrolled down my pool and had a look. I saw CrazyFreeRider who I had managed to catch on XBoxLive Endless battle and well... we saw how good his Seth was. He had me quite worried as no-one plays Seth in W.A. and I'm quite notorious for bunking out on unfamiliar matchups. Scroll down a little further and whaddaya know... Daigo.

Now, I actually hate this term, but seriously, there was no other way to describe the situation other than... FUCK MY LIFE. With all due respect to the other players in the bracket, I predicted at that point that Daigo and CrazyFreeRider would qualify for the finals tomorrow.

We had actually arrived fairly early though as the tournament only started at 3pm. Casuals were underway on the big screens and Afterdeath a.k.a. George was running a train with his 'Gief. Again, I don't know the 'Gief matchup very well because our resident 'Gief player Terry doesn't come to meetups all too often. I had a go myself and well... it went how you would expect the matchup to go. Balrog zones out 'Gief with superior normals for 70% of his health, then one mistake means Gief is in that ass and it's GGs thanks for playing. My first taste of interstate play was very interesting. I learnt a lot about the matchup from that one game.

After that, I was approached by Mark from Brisbane to do commentary for the stream! Would I? Of course I would! Who would be my commentary partner in crime? None other than Normy from Brissie! Yet another top bloke.

Things got especially interesting when Daigo wanted to warm up with casuals on the big screen. It was all fun and smiles until profound sadness! I got kicked off commentary by Henry a.k.a. Genxa :( Quite funny how nobody cared about the casuals on the big screen until Daigo entered. It was like watching the children of Hamelin and Daigo was the pied piper. I felt sorry for Humanbomb and ToXy duking it out on the non streaming screen. The Top 2 from last years OHN were shown no love. The Daigo effect I guess.

ToXy gets no love as Daigo plays his warm up casuals.

Getting kicked off commentary did mean however I got a chance at casuals with ToXy from Melbourne. Time to really put my skills to the test against one of Australia's best: My Balrog against his Akuma. A very solid match, where I managed to match him for solidity (I'm Balrog baby!). I read on SRK that auto-correct Super/Ultra is godlike in this matchup and for sure I pulled it out in a very clutch moment with the rounds being 1-1 at the time. We were at next to no health each, but I had him pressured in the corner. ToXy teleports out of the corner, I see this and auto-correct Super! I hear the crowd gasp... only to see that my moment of clutchness turns into profound sadness as I executed too early and my Super goes past Akuma while he's still in his invincible teleporting frames. He smacks me in my recovery and again it's GGs thanks for playing. 0-2 in interstate casuals... Hmmm...

This was however the last casual game to be played as Pool play was starting and guess who's pool was up first? Mine of course. I could feel the nerves creeping in. My first major. Ok, easy Jase easy... it's just like any other match you've played. What's that Yang? I'm on the stream setup? FUCK MY LIFE. I'm up first against bksama, a Guile player. I feel rather confident in this matchup since my housemate Honkeybomb picked up Guile in SSF4 so I have a good grasp of what strategy to use. I put up a good fight, however my tournament nerves get to me and I go out 1-2 and into the Saxa bracket I go.

With a bucket of salt in one hand, I was a man on a mission. I proceeded to run a train in the loser's bracket winning five matches in a row against S2 Kevin, Issoropia, Playman, my initial conqueror bksama and then Paz. The train was full steam ahead until the next match got called... CrazyFreeRider vs MrChowda. A few days before we left Perth we were playing on XBOX live and ran into CrazyFreeRider's Seth. We were impressed would be an incredible understatement. Added that no one plays Seth in Perth meant I got 0-2'd and off I went to lick the salt block. Mmm... tasty.

My conqueror... CrazyFreeRider. No salt at all. He was simply too pro.

Next up in Pool B, was derrace, perhaps our best hope from the last chance qualifiers to make the EVO APAC Finals. Surprisingly, he got sent straight to loser's by a Boxer who went by the name Static. Hard to believe since he knows the Boxer matchup so well. In the Saxa bracket, he eked out the win against Auxide, yet another Boxer. However, in the next round, he fell victim to Kyokugen's very impressive looking Viper. Gotta love those FFF sex combos. Derrace then proceeded to take the entire salt block with him...

In Pool C, we had Andrew, a.k.a. Valkyran, a.k.a. Valky-poo abusing everyone lack of knowledge in the Claw matchup. I mean seriously, who the fuck plays Claw. I kid, I kid. Claw is serious business now in Super thanks to some buffs. Again, we got sent straight to loser's but no shame in this loss. vindk8, an insane Dhalsim player and what I would call Australia's best Sim player for sure. Andrew got zOwned and sent to the Saxa bracket... where he met Chris who I believe played T. Hawk and then Gouken. Valky-poo grinded out the win nicely but then fell victim to yet another Sim player this time in the form of CactusDragon. So much sodium!

Our final hope to send someone to join Ricky in the finals would be Taka! His first match was against a Claw player no less going by the name Zip. He was taken out with ease thanks to Valky-poo's elite Anti-Claw coaching tips. So pro. This took Taka and his rushdown Ken right into BeefyGoodness' path who mained T. Hawk. Oh dear. Rushdown vs Grappler aiieeeeeeeee. After Taka got Condor Dive'd into the Saxa Bracket, he came across Crazyandy a Gen player! We spotted one in the wilderness! Nerfed Gen plus matchup knowledge thanks to Guillotine-Fist meant Taka had no problems. Then came a heavy-hitter in the form of wizbore who's Ryu was just too solid for Taka and down he went... profound sadness all round for the Perth boys.

At the end of a quite grueling night, we headed down with the Sydney boys to SuperBowl for some disgustingly greasy Chinese food.

The Boyzzzzzzz

Cheers to Benson for taking the 'wise sage' role and telling us all about SFII footsies and whatnot. Shoutouts to Benson's lame tea pouring skills. Finally, shoutouts to Yang's intense food scooping skills. Benson ain't got nothing on you.

It had been a long day, so we headed back after supper to our palacial accomodation to get some much needed shut-eye.

FA absorb dash back

Jase