Tour De Shadaloo Day 3

Day 3 in Sydney, and all the boys are tired. Except myself for some reason. I oddly managed to naturally get up at 8am before my alarm even goes off. I try to make as much noise as I can with the floorboards and the clanking of the locker door, but to no avail. Everyone still sleeps. I'm just about to head out myself to get some coffee and then it's a domino effect of waking up. Righteo then!

Off we go once more for dim sum, where we stuff our faces full of siu mai and har gau and head off to UTS again to support our boy HONKEYBOMB in the finals. The day felt a lot more laid back today for at least four of us. For poor ol' Honkeybomb however, he was a mess of nerves and insomnia.

"HKB: Dieu, I get no sleep last night DIEUUUU"
"HKB: I don't want to play today... will you play for me instead?"
"HKB: I want to quit SF4... I so suck."
"HKB: I don't want to let down WA ah."

Poor lad was a mess. In any case, we banded together to support him. We arrived early to get HKB warmed up with some casuals. And of course, over comes Melvin still grinning after his win over Daigo the previous night. It's awn like Donkey Kong. Two games later and Melvin licks the Saxa Salt block... we then proceed to laugh and chuckle at the prospect of HKB and Melvin meeting each other in the finals... Oh no...

It's 1pm and it's time for the finals to start. All round, some great matches went on with some truly top level play. Honestly, it's great to see that Australia has such quality within our ranks. For me at least, it was quite interesting to see how hype a video game could get! I mean, I've watched streams and stuff, but never really experienced it for myself. Hypest moment for me had to be ToXy vs. Daigo. When he took that final round with the Raging Demon I know I went nuts.

But yes, focusing back on W.A. HKB first game in Winner's is up against... Melvin! Oh, laughs for days. How did it go? Let's just say the Honkeybomb was fully armed and Melvin couldn't diffuse it. Shit was nasty to watch.


Melvin: *don'tlooksaltydon'tlooksaltydon'tlooksalty*
HKB: I win! :D

Up next for HKB was robsux, a very impressive NSW player. He could play a variety of characters and ended up counter picking Ricky's Guile with his Viper. Turned out to be the right choice in the end, as robsux had some great execution (FFF SEX COMBO!) combined with some great matchup knowledge using jab thunder knuckle to go under sonic booms. Perth Stealth bomber had to drop HKB in the Saxa bracket...

Where he met none other than Eric a.k.a. dk. HKB still thinking this was vanilla tried to counter pick dk's classic Honda choice, but Eric had some new tricks. Honda has new fireball invincibility on the startup of headbutt I believe and dk abused that shit all day. Added that with the loss of Tiger Knee lockdown and HKB got diffused after getting Ultra'd through a fireball. Profound Sadness. Team Perth has been scrubbed out in Singles.

The rest of the finals had many great moments. Too many to mention (or remember :S), suffice to say, it was HYPE. Congratulations go out to Daigo and Johnny for nabbing the tickets to EVO. Good luck to you both!

Later on was the Team tournament which had a very relaxed atmosphere which was great. Team Perth came up against the 3 wise men and my A-game decided to desert me and I got scrubbed out bad. derrace was up next and took out my conqueror only to fall to a Boxer. HKB then also proceeded to get scrubbed out by said Boxer. PROFOUND SADNESS! Team Perth had epically failed on all fronts! I LOSSSSSSSTTTTTTT.

At this point though, none of us really cared. We were more interested in playing casuals with the others and just socialising. Easily best moment for me was playing against Humanbomb (HKB's arch-nemesis) in casuals. Good thing I know Cantonese which meant I could trash talk... I mean chat with Johnny :) His Akuma is way too good still. Not much matchup experience there, but I did manage to eke out a win against his Guile whilst also wowing some others with Dash Ultra... mwehehe.

Me before I'm about to get Humanbomb'ed.

Valky-poo also managed a win against Humanbomb too! We've officially started our own club as well (with the blessing of Johnny of course). Notable casual sets with others include Jack, Just-S, Sol, some dojo style training with dk and of course Normy. Can never get enough of Normy. I regret not taking a photo with 'The Norminator'. Okay, I'm just making up nicknames now.

Myself and the man who loves his english tea, fights with dignity and keeps it classy... Jack Hu... I MEAN... Jack Luo

My sifu in the Honda matchup, dk a.k.a. Eric

After a while, I wandered back over to the main projector setup where the team tournament was still going strong. Loved the laid back atmosphere, especially with wizbore mistaking UTS for his own lounge room, and some god like commentary by bbbenson, hebretto and Afterdeath. So much smacktalk and love at the same time :) Congrats to Melvin and co. (I believe robsux was in there? I forget...) for taking out Teams and letting Melvin not go home completely salty about the weekend.

A little bit of help shifting the setups back to GGS later and that was EVO APAC weekend over. So many matches, so many friendships gained, so many great memories and moments and of course... so much salt >.<

To all the Perth boys who didn't go, I couldn't recommend it more. Honestly, you are treated so well over there by the Sydney boys, meet so many great people and level up so much in such a short space of time. To all the boys in the other parts of Australia and also New Zealand as well, see you all at BAM :)

FA absorb dash back,

Jase