TOPANGA EVO Talk - Top 8

https://youtu.be/lANZkRNR15g?t=5480

Tokido: I thought Momochi might use Evil Ryu.
Momochi: Did you think that?
Bonchan: Of course.
Tokido: I really want to redo the match. Shall we do that?
Bochan: LOL. Whoever loses always wants that.
Tokido: Just one more time. Maybe twice. I was really really confident this time to win when I looked at all the top 8 players. There was nobody I didn't think I couldn't win. So I really wanted to win the first game.
Bonchan: Yeah you get in top 3 if you win one game in winners' side.
Mago: You don't wanna think of losing when you are having the momentum in winners

Tokido: I practiced the Ken matchup a lot
Momochi: Did you practice at Vegas?
Tokido: Yes. I played a lot with him (pointing at Bonchan)
Bonchan: LOL. Yes.
Mago: We were saying if Bonchan's Ken beat Tokido too much, we would use my Ken.
Tokido: I didn't wanna lose too much before the real match.

Bonchan: We all know Momochi Ken is the best but Tokido was saying somebody had to stop Momochi and like "I am going to stop him."
Tokido: I think the matchup is in Akuma's favor. So I have been like I should be the one who will stop Momochi, for a long time. We didn't play in a tournament at all before. It was my chance to show off.
Bonchan: You didn't look like you wanted to beat him that bad, like you were smiling all the time. Well, it was not that bad but, you know, at this level of play you would lose if you didn't play your best. It didn't look like you were playing to your highest potential. Momochi saw that during the match and did a good job distracting your focus. There were some moments at the end of the match in which I thought you were playing very well, but it was too late.
Nanshi: Is it hard to do antiair against Ken?
Tokido: It was the biggest reason why I lost, not doing anti-air well. 70% of the reason why I lost. I should walk forward to do anti-air well. Momochi's forward m.k was annoyed me, that made me walk back and allowed Momochi jump in. I didn't realize what I was doing wrong.
Mago: It looked you were playing not very well because you didn't walk forward.
Bonchan: You didn't get hit by forward m.k. I think you could have played better.
Tokido: I don't wanna talk too much about the match in front of Momochi lol
Momochi: You were talking about the match with Kazunoko so much
Tokido: He's not here

Momochi: We both were a little nervous, I think.
Tokido: I didn't get to accelerate my play to the max speed. I got scared. That maybe showed in my play. In the highest level match, you have to play to your max speed.
Mago: In the TOPANGA tournament, Tokido won. That maybe influenced as a scare factor. That maybe helped Momochi play better.

Momochi: I was guessing he would mash teleport a lot.
Tokido: You're right. I was going for teleport all the time.
Momochi: So I was prepared for it but...
Tokido: One time you punished it by EX tatsu
Mago: Yeah that was amazing.
Momochi: I had Choco mashing teleport.
Bonchan: LOL
Mago: It's 50-50.
Momochi: Yeah. She naturally makes a mistake, so it was perfect for my practice. Well, I got too nervous during the match to punish it often but I got to do that sometimes.
Bonchan: Punishing teleport is hard.
Tokido: It is super hard for Ken to punish it.
Bonchan: You really have to read it on point.
Mago: You should do it with forward m.kick for less damage.
Bonchan: It is hard even with forward m.k. You really have to limit your okizeme game.

Momochi: It was a close game. The sore was 3-1 but Tokido started playing his best at the end so. If I had lost, I would have had to play either NuckleDu or GamerBee. I thougth Tokido could play well against them but I was like, I really didn't wanna play GamerBee. It could have gone like two loses in a row for me. It was really important for me to win Tokido.
Tokido: After I lost to Momochi, I was rooting for NuckleDu so hard. I really wanted to play his Guile.
Mago; NuckeDu was playing pretty well.
Bonchan: GamerBee used Adon. It was a surprise.
Mago: He didn't switch to Elena even when he was leading on the score. Did he lose using Elena before?
Bonchan: I think he won using Elena 3-0.
Mago: His Elena didn't lose in a tournament. Maybe they played causals sometimes. I didn't know why.
Momochi: Maybe he wanted to use Adon once in a while. He knew he'd use Adon for me.

Bonchan: Infiltration beat Aiai 3-0.
Momochi: Aiai looked too nervous to play his best.
Tokido: He didn't play his best at all.
Mago: He only got his bad habit punished.
Bonchan: He got hit by Ultra too much. Looked like he didn't know what to do and back jumped.
Tokido: And get punished by ultra.
Bonchan: Infiltration used it so well.

Bonchan: Nemo beat PR Balrog.
Momochi: It was such a good game. I thought Nemo'd body him when it was 2-0 but PR Rog came back to 2-2. I heard USA! USA! before I knew.
Bonchan: That atmosphere really got Nemo.
Mago: The first two game were like totally Nemo's game. There was no way he'd lose but from there it was totally flipped the other way. Aiai san played so good.
Momochi: ... Aiai san? ... It's PR Rog.
Bonchan: Mago, are you okay? We're almost there.

Tokido: Rolento has an upper hand against Balrog, right?
Mago: Yeah it's Rolento's favor.
Bonchan: Yeah, I heard that. And it's Nemo. He do not miss out on the matchup. But it's PR Rog so I was like "It is PR Rog!"
Mago: PR Rog didn't play as good in that matchup. It was all his own skills. It was amazing catching up like that.
Tokido: Nemo was saying he was worried because he didn't practice Balrog matchup too much. He had tools to kill, but the opponent could bring his own things to abuse.

(vs GamerBee's Elena)
Tokido: I was very confident. ... I know why I lost ... but... I don't wanna say it here. Okay one of the biggest things was like I dropped combo, which could have taken a round. Also, I didn't punish punishable moves.
Bonchan: Like when you blocked Elena's slide in a close range?
Tokido: Right. And I wanted to punish Rhino horn but it was airborne. And I got to punish Ex mullet smash only with low forward. The neutral game was not too bad.
Bonchan: At CEO, you beat him by fireballs.
Tokido: I didn't play too good when he take my fireball with focus. It was not the big deal tho, cause he made a mistake too. ...

Bonchan: You know the feel when you lose in winners and lose in losers right away. I was looking at the games, thinking Tokido could lose like that. GamerBee has so much tournament experience and always ranked high at EVO so I was thinking something bad could happen.
Tokido: My win at CEO was just a 2 out of 3 match. It was not like I outplayed him very well. I just got the momentum then.
Bonchan: Like he just got thrown off.
Tokido: I was playing okay in the begging this time. Maybe I rushed for winning too early.
Mago: GamerBee had very good reads. You can't blame yourself for that. You go through things like that only in the tournament. It's different from casuals.

Bonchan: 5th place is really good when there were 2200 or so players.
Mago: Top 8 players were all good. No fluke. Better players got in Top 8.
Tokido: A tournament as big as EVO allows no strange players to be in Top 8.

Momochi: So I got in winner's Final.
Bonchan: That's a great scenery.
Momochi: It was great. It felt so good. You know how it feels like.
Bonchan: Yeah I know. It was already a year ago.
Mago: Mine was 10 years ago.
Momochi: There was no SF4 then. What was it?
Mago: CVS2. Also GG.
Bonchan: Was it winners final?
Mago: Was it losers? I don't even remember lol

Momochi: So I played Infiltration again. I have played him a lot recently.
Bonchan: He used a new strategy.
Momochi: It looks like I will take the full course of Infiltration. I played his Akuma at Capcom Cup, Decapre Stunfest, Chun Li SEAM and this time.
Bonchan: I thought he'd use Chun Li for the first game.
Momochi: I thought so too, like 80% Chun Li.
Bonchan: The match at SEAM, his ChunLi played well. But it was Evil Ryu this time.
Mago: It was a big surprise.
Momochi: But he had been using Evil Ryu since his pool. Like he beat Chris T with Evil Ryu.

Momochi: The last time I played Evil Ryu was at Stunfest, up against Daigo. I lost then. So I was not too confident playing Evil Ryu.
Bonchan: I don't think anybody is confident against Evil Ryu.
Tokido: I really don't like playing Evil Ryu. His damage potential is so scary.
Bonchan: Maybe only Mago would be like okay with playing against Evil Ryu.
Mago: If it's an unpolished Evil Ryu, be my guest. Like, if any Ken player uses Evil Ryu, I think to myself "Lucky!" with Dakou being an exception.

Bonchan: When it got 2-1 Momochi, Infiltration used Abel. He has used Abel only against Bonchan.
Momochi: But I had heard he was practicing Abel a lot recently.
Tokido: It was for shot matchups.
Momochi: I was thinking he'd use Abel sometime this year. I was like "oh now."
Mago: Yeah he was using it in a tournament.
Bonchan: I've never seen an Abel like that who does not use forward m.k at all.
Momochi: Yeah that threw me off. On the second day of EVO, I was playing Steven (who speaks Japanese fluent) and his friend. Steven uses Abel. There was the Abel player, who was... you know... the guy who played Poongko and got his shirt off. I played those two Able. They played like Abel players very much. So when Infiltration used Able, I was like "oh I'm so glad I played Abel yesterday!" It was not like that at all.
Tokido: It was your homework to do a throw right after you blocked  his forward m.k and dash. You get hit by his heavy punch instead.
Momochi: Yeah. That. He didn't use forward m.k before that. It was the first time.
Tokido: It's hard you have to react to his forward dash. It was the first time on top of that.
Bonchan: You should be waiting for it.
Mago: That move is good good you can chose whether to do dash or not.
Bonchan: He was pushing s. short and s. strong a lot in a far range. It was for Ken's forward m.k?
Momochi: Yes. Ken has hard time if Abel uses s. short a lot. Ken has options against it but he really used it a lot I was like "what should I do?" for a moment. Plus he used s. strong. Normally, there are key moments Abel normally uses s. short. I then am able to punish it at those moments. His s. strong really got me off.
Mago: You ended up using fireballs a lot.
Momochi: Yeah. I was like "why am I doing such a risky move?"
Bonchan: You can just EX roll it. He really made it hard to you.
Momochi: It was how Infiltration shines. He gets you into his own game.
Mago: He is the best in the world at that.
Momochi: You end up playing at his pace before you know.

Bonchan: So it gets 2-2 with Infiltration.
Momochi: I thought I definitely lose to him after how it went. I really didn't know what to do then.
Bonchan: You deliberated for a long time. I was thinking Ken couldn't win.
Momochi: Ken was no. I was thinking Evil Ryu or Akuma.
Mago: I thought you'd use Akuma.
Tokido: I recommended Akuma.
Mago: You played Akuma in Vanilla SF4.
Momochi: What I did is like a combo into knockdown and vortex by demon flip.
Mago: You can still do that with low risk.
Tokido: It's gone.
Momochi: Infiltration mains Akuma so I didn't want that. So Elena. I was practicing Elena just for a Bison in my pool. I think I'm really good at Elena-Bison matchup (hint hint to Bison players in the world). So I thought using Elena was not a bad idea. I didn't know the Abel match up at all.
Mago: It's so brave.
Tokido: It's not easy. Wheel kick is hard to punish for Elena.
Momochi: I don't think it's Elena's favor. It might be Abel's favor.
Tokido: Elena can't use her easy tactics against Abel. She has to play hard.
Momochi: Maybe it's 5-5. But I knew Infiltration never played Elena with Abel.
Mago: It was better than using shoto against Abel.
Momochi: It was the hardest, most exhausting game to play.
Bonchan: It was like, who wants to win harder?
Momochi: It was not about the matchup at the end.
Bochan: You made a lot of mistakes.
Mago: I was like "is it really a good matchup?"
Momochi: It's not a good matchup. But in that situation it was the best pick. I might have lost if I used Akuma or Evil Ryu.
Mago: Yeah he knows the matchups very well.
Bonchan: Any shoto character wouldn't be a surprise for him at all. So picking a character that's totally non-shoto was really smart. You then beat infiltration. It was huge.
Momochi: Yeah it was. It was totally my game to lose.

Momochi: I was praying for NEMO to beat GamerBee. I was like "let us play on the main stage for our pride."
Tokido: GameBee knows the Rolento matchup since RB plays him. Adon is hard for Rolento.
Mago: I have played Rolento with NEMO. We were like "Let's not play Adon." After he lost, he messaged me "We should learn the Adon matchup." Adon can take advantage really easy like that.
Tokido: NEMO played Raimuki's Adon in TAITO station. He could win if the opponent didn't know the matchup.
Momochi: But GamerBee knew it very well.

Bonchan: NEMO won 17 or 18 games to get there. That is amazing.
Mago: Only he can do things like that.
Momochi: He got so much points now.
Bonchan: He now has 256 points. He is practically qualified.
Tokido: I'm fine with Rolento.

Mago: Infiltration was not playing ChunLi to the fullest.
Momochi: His anti-Healing tactic was not the best.
Mago: He compromised by back m.k to punish Healing.
Tokido: He couldn't do fierce into lightning kick. He couldn't punish hard without it. His neutral game was pretty good.
Bonchan: ChunLi's jump is floaty so it might be hard to react to Healing/
Mago: It is possible but it's hard.
Bonchan: If only he had fierce into lightning kick...
Tokido: Close roundhouse EX lightning...
Mago: He could have won if he landed a better combo.

Momochi: I didn't know which one I wanted to win. There was a better chance for me to win Infiltration than GamerBee. But Infiltration used Abel the last time.
Bonchan: In that sense, either one is fine.
Momochi: Yeah. I was like, GamerBee is fine, too.

Bonchan: GamerBee played so well before reset against Momochi's Ken. It looked like Momochi was giving up.
Mago: That s. roundhouse
Tokido: Is there any whiff punish?
Mago: I think you can do walk up and sweep, just barely.
Tokido: Yeah Akuma can do walk up and sweep.
Momochi: It's hard for Ken. You can use forward m.k. Or s.jab into EX tatsu. But when you play side by side, it becomes so obvious that I'm trying to do that. When I was doing that, I was thinking I didn't want him to know what I was trying to do. So I hesitated trying. I think I should have done more even tho, to make it risky for him.
Tokido: You can't even jump to him
Mago: His antiair was so on point.
Bonchan: Yeah that's why the s. roundhouse works so well.
Mago: Ken's EX tatsu is neutralized by Ex rising jaguar.
Bonchan: Both just whiff and that's it.

Momochi: I took one game but I lost 3 games straight after that. When I lost two games, I started thinking Ken is not good for this. But I wanted to play Ken before reset.
Bonchan: Then Evil Ryu.
Momochi: I was surprised myself. I wasn't thinking of using Evil Ryu at all. I was gonna use Ken all the way. But it was too hard on the first set. Considering how I played with Ken, Evil Ryu was better in the risk-benefit exchange.
Tokido: I was all about the ground game. GamerBee didn't jump in at all except low air jaguar kick, which you couldn't react to anyway. In that sense, Evil Ryu is better than Ken cause he has a huge return. It's reasonable.
Mago: His low forward is longer so easier to poke.

Momochi: I was practicing Evil Ryu in Japan, for no reason. I just wanted to use him. It turned out really good for me.
Bonchan: It was a pretty complete Evil Ryu. You used s.m.p well too. Have you used Evil Ryu against Ken before?
Momochi: Not at all. I was gonna use Ken.
Bonchan: It was pretty good. You whiffed his s.h.k, walk up, low forward into fireball, get meter. It looked it was planned well. I thought you used him before.
Momochi: I had the best model aka Daigo. He played GamerBee's Adon before.  I was watching Daigo using Evil Ryu from Ken player's point of view to understand how it works. That stayed inside of me.

Tokido: GamerBee didn't use Elena.
Mago: I thought he would.
Bonchan: But you could use Ken against Elena.
Momochi: I'd have felt better if he had used Elena. I like Ken-Elena better.
Bonchan: He could have used Elena if he had won two games first.

Momochi: I got 2-1. The next game was my game to win but...
Bonchan: The low air-jaguar into low fierce into red focus into ultra...
Mago: S.m.k lost to jaguar kick.
Momochi: Yeah it showed how inexperienced I was in the matchup. I was using s.m.k without thinking.
Bonchan: Crouching m.k was also beat by jaguar kick.
Tokido: It was useful to Adon's s. roundhouse but it lost to jaguar.
Momochi: It was my lack of experience. When I lost the first round by his low air jaguar, I was like "Okay. I'm not gonna get hit by that again." The next round, I was like "okay he has three meters. I have life lead, not gonna get hit by that" and before I knew, I did get hit. EVO is scary.
Tokido: I saw you dropped the low forward fireball FADC combo twice. Maybe you were getting nervous?
Momochi: I was. I was on match point. I wasn't calm at all.
Mago: You can't help using s.m.k for the last without thinking.

Momochi: To tell you the truth, I thought it was 2-2 when it was still 2-1. I thought it was over when I lost the game. Watch the footage. You can see me go like *leaning back, putting hands on the back of his head.* I was like "ah it's over. My EVO is over. I lost by a huge comeback."
Tokido: If it was the last game, it's huge.
Momochi: It was a huge comeback. I then look at GamerBee. He didn't do anything like he's excited, punching the air and stuff. I was like "What? Is he trying not to be Woshige?" I asked him, "Is it still 2-2?" He was like "yeah one more game."
Mago: Yeah when I think about it, I kinda remember that. I was like "Is this Woshige again?"
Momochi: I almost became a reverse-Woshige. I was gonna shake hands like good games.
Bonchan: It went crazy after that.
Momochi: I felt so revived. I thought it's over but it was not.
Mago: EVO this year, there was a man who came back in time and a man who didn't.
Momochi: I took a short break then. I tried to focus again. You know part of me thought it was over already. I tried to fight that very hard.

Momchi: I took the first round pretty well. I was like "Yes. Okay. Don't get hit by the low jaguar kick again." Next round, I got a low forward fireball hit. I was like "Yes. It's a good start." Then... *button pause sound*
Bonchan: That shocked me. It said "1P"

Tokido: I'm glad it was not the last round.
Mago: If I were GamerBee, I wouldn't have played any more. I'd have been like "Yes! I won the game! I won EVO!"
Bonchan: It would have been historical.
Momochi: Tournaments are really scary.
Tokido: Things like that tend to happen in a tournament. My stick stopped working during a tourney while it worked fine otherwise.
Bonchan: Once you experience things like that, you'd be really careful since.

Momochi: I really didn't expect that happened at that timing. I felt bad for losing a round but also I got really sorry to the viewers and GamerBee. I kind of freaked out.
Bonchan: It was EVO's rule you had to make it time over. I saw the same thing during a pool. Maybe it was the match between XiaoHai and Gachikun. I said "you should do KO." But they said the judge guy told them to do time out. The feel when you had to watch it time out.
Mago: And the next round was really the last round. It's like first to one round.
Bonchan: It's the true FT1. Momochi threw a fireball at the opening.
Momochi: Yeah I was like "you can't go throw this."
Bonchan: I totally understand.
Mago: That's so brave.
Bonchan: You can't go through it.
Momochi: I was feeling down at the moment so I wanted to hype up myself by doing something aggressive. But GamerBee was aggressive as well.
Bonchan: He was like "Okay 150 damage."
Tokido: But I think the opening is a moment to wait for a fireball,
Bonchan: You don't expect a fireball in the beginning.
Tokido: As an Adon, you should look for it. Otherwise you are lazy. All you need is to buffer the input, and it is to down back.
Bonchan: You can buffer, but isn't it hard to react to a fireball?
Tokido: Is it? I thought it's easy.
Bonchan: It's not that easy. GamerBee is pretty good at it.
Mago: If it's the opening of a round, it should be easy.
Bonchan: I see. If you only look for it. Anyway, I thought both players did really good opening moves.
Mago: Yeah it was hype.
Tokido: Looks like they thought of it really hard.
Bonchan: Yeah during the time up.
Mago: Neither of them was conservative at all. That's interesting.

Momochi: You know, there is always an accident in a tournament. When such an accident happened before, I always felt down and often lost. This time I really felt down and sorry too. I thought about a lot of things. At the end, I was thinking I didn't wanna regret. I would have regretted so bad if I felt down and lost like that. So I was like "Stop being sorry. Just focus on this round."
Tokido: That last round was really different from the previous ones, even from the ones after you switched to Evil Ryu. It went really fast.

Momochi: So that's my story of EVO.
Tokido: The stick rent fee is 20%.
Momochi: Infiltration uses the same Razer stick so I thought I could borrow it from him. But his stick is the eggplant.

Momochi: You didn't tell me about the rent fee before the match.
Tokido: I told Choco-chan.
Momochi: You're like Endo from Kaiji.


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