Over The Limit: A Set At Red Bull Conquest Qualifier In Saint Paul Proves Online Ranks Aren’t Everything
The online arena for Street Fighter V’s Ranked Match is a brutal one.
Ranked points are acquired and lost in quick succession, and the higher in the ranks you climb, the harder the opponents you’ll face. Those who stand at the summit have clawed their way upward on jagged rocks of spastic opponents and people who kick their routers to induce lag. Reaching the upper echelons is no easy feat, so it stands to reason that those sitting in the Grand Master are good.
But those rankings don’t tell the whole story. Sometimes, there are players who just play better offline, rattled by the stress of losing points. Their strength comes from playing beside a person at a tournament, with results that aren’t just for show.
This was the case with an Ultra Gold Alex player named Brian, aka Overhaul, who defeated a Grand Master Zangief player named MHike2Stronk on stream at a Red Bull Conquest in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I got the chance to talk to him about his experience, his mindset, and his biggest victory yet.
Ryan “Saint Cola” Collins: How long have you been playing Alex?
Brian aka “Overhaul: Since he dropped in March 2016 — and with very few breaks, for better or worse. He appealed to me on a couple of levels: I thought his design was cool, his theme in Street Fighter III: Third Strike is arguably one of the best pieces of music ever produced by video game, ever, and he says stuff like “Hy-pah BAWHB!” and “At EASE, LOO-SUH!”, what’s not to like?
Beyond that, I was coming from Ultra Street Fighter 4 (my first fighting game since Street Fighter 2 on the SNES) where I mainly played a bad Guile and worse Ryu, and struggled to do something as ‘complicated’ as a half-circle motion, so I also saw Alex as an opportunity to learn a new archetype. I only regret not really knowing what made him good in Season 1 before the Season 2 nerfs took away a lot of his uniqueness as this weirdly defensive, poking, footsies-oriented grappler.
R: You’ve been tossing around the idea of switching to Cody (on Twitter). What made you stick with Alex at Red Bull?
O: I work full-time, and I don’t have the same type of time to learn a completely different character like I did when the game came out. When the Arcade Edition trailer was revealed, I was so excited for Cody to be back. Cody has long been a fan favorite of mine between the music and his personality. Add in character development and a skill set that seemed tailor-made for Street Fighter V’s meta, and my expectations ballooned despite telling myself not to. Even after Alex’s fairly significant buffs in the 3.5 patch (though still no reliable antiair…), I found myself losing and going 0–2 with Alex and thinking “Well, I’ve done all I can.” and assumed Cody would fix all my problems.
When he finally dropped, things didn’t click immediately, and I was conflicted. Red Bull Conquest was only a few weeks away, and EVO (my first!) was only a few weeks afterwards. Did I want to go 0–2 with the character I had waited half a year for? The thought depressed me, and it wasn’t until I played a FT5 against a friend with Alex for the first time in awhile that I realized I was having fun with him, unhindered by any expectations. He and I had been through a lot together; he was my boy. I reasoned that muscle memory and matchup experience alone was good enough of a reason to rock Alex, at least for a few more weeks.
R: Before we get into your match with MHike2Stronk, how were your first few matches?
O: I started off by facing Amaan, a very young Dhalsim player who shows up for monthlies from time to time. I think he and I had played maybe a year ago? Both of us were very unfamiliar with the match, and I ultimately took advantage of Alex’s armor to bust his zoning and pressure him to win.
My next match was unfortunately against Duff, a steadfast Claw/Vega main from SF4 days. We both lamented the poor state of our characters before he quickly beat me. He also ended up eliminating me after the match with MHike2Stronk. Not much else to say — Duff is a low tier hero like myself (or at least aspire to be), and I respect him for it.
My first opponent in the loser’s bracket was a Falke player whose name escapes me, unfortunately. I struggled at first, as Falke has the range to out-do even Alex and his anti-airs were on point, and took me to elimination point before I recovered. I was able to walk him into the corner, and took advantage of him trying to FHP me to death too much by whiff punishing with Lariat and st.HP before getting the knockdown and mixing my pressure up between meaty Lariat, Power Bomb, or baiting her reversal.
Next was Ben aka Buckwheat, who helps run Paradise Arcade. While I was pretty happy about my comeback the previous round, beating Ben gave me an idea of how far I’ve come. I have a lot of experience in the Birdie matchup thanks to a friend of mine maining him (who is also named Ben, weirdly enough) and was able to pressure Buckwheat effectively and get the win, tying my best-ever record of three tournament wins.
R: What was going through your mind before the match?
O: The initial excitement I felt about getting my third win at an event as stacked as Red Bull Conquest (relative to our local tournies) definitely was tempered by MHike2Stronk telling me we’d be playing next. MHike2Stronk’s name should be familiar to anyone who regularly participates in or even just watches the r/StreetFighter tournaments hosted by Joe Munday as someone who is consistently in top three, if not winning them outright. His reactions — particularly with Zangief’s parry — are matched only by his ability to make excellent reads, so it should surprise nobody that he has the rank of Grandmaster on CFN. He also streams pretty regularly and has an adorable family, go check him out!
At the same time, I felt like this was the best-possible matchup that I could have gotten. Zangief is a pretty even for Alex; Zangief’s command grab mixups gives Alex a lot of issues on defense but Alex’s pokes can keep ‘Gief at bay to eventually bait out a jump, which is slow enough to antiair with CRHP, and once you have a knockdown Zangief also struggles on defense. Plus, MHike2Stronk and I had been training together with a third friend the night before, so we were already pretty familiar with each other’s playstyle. I just needed to play solid and make good decisions.
R: What was your mentality the second the match began?
O: I remember feeling oddly composed. My headphones didn’t seem to be functioning properly, so I decided to leave them off and let the crowd noise rock, for better or worse.
R: Were you thinking about victory at the time, or just trying to play the matches out?
O: Mostly the latter — the gameplan was to generally frustrate MHike2Stronk with pokes as he approached or whiff punish with Lariat and STHP, get him to jump, and whittle him down, and keep mistakes to a minimum, which is not a traditional gameplan for a grappler but one that worked to great effect here. Even stuff like faking panic in the corner before using Alex’s Flying Cross Chop to escape the corner entirely played a role, though truth be told I was lucky for it to work.
To MHike2Stronk’s credit, he was able to outpoke me at times or maneuver as to make stuff like my STHK whiff and punish appropriately, and his use of the Siberian Express/Running Bear Grab in the second match flustered me enough that I needed a second to refocus before hitting rematch. I was so caught up with the game that I didn’t even realize I had made a comeback in round 2 of the last match until after the fact.
R: Lastly, give me your thoughts and emotions when you achieved victory.
O: First thing I wanted to do was hug MHike2Stronk; it had been a very emotional fight for me despite trying to stay composed because of the odds against me with everyone’s eyes on the match. MHike2Stronk’s also a genuinely good, humble dude, and I mean it when I say that I felt bad about denying him a chance to go further and earn a trip to DC. I have a lot of respect for my opponents and it was my way of acknowledging the emotional weight of the moment.
After I stepped off the stage, I was embraced and congratulated by friends and people in the community I respect, and at a certain point I just had to close my eyes and calmly wrap up the cable for my Panthera while I was slapped on the back. In retrospect I should have kept my focus up, as when I got word I had to play Duff again I almost felt like I was too satisfied to care when I should have tried to figure out a way to keep going, and was kicking myself for not using the opportunity to lab the Vega matchup more to even give myself a chance.
After I got home after a long, satisfying day at the event, the first thing I did was watch the match over. Aside from wincing at all the parries into SPD I let happen over and over, I felt pretty satisfied with my decision-making and felt like I’d executed my gameplan fairly well. It was a pretty big breakthrough for me, and was a big affirmation that I hadn’t wasted the last two years playing one of the worst characters in the game. Whether I stay with Alex for the remainder of Street Fighter V or finally find a solution to my character crisis, I felt like Saturday made it all worth it.
Follow Overhaul to see if he switches over to Cody in a few months or stays with his main man here. Also, read about the changes he’d like to make to Alex here.
