Ms. Leonhart, Or: How I Learned to Stop Whining and Embrace the Meta (Part 10)
by Dani Diaz
Part 10: Let Them Fight
The UniVersus ban and errata list was posted on Tuesday, and with it came a clarifying errata for an action card. There were no bans, citing that the team was watching the meta closely through the Louisville regional. I had some personal items on my ban wish list, but seeing an empty list didn’t hit me the way I thought it would. In the place of the trepidation and fear of having to face down my personal bogeymen, I felt… sordid excitement.
My problem matchups didn’t suffer any nerfs or get rebalanced in any way, but neither did I. The organized play team seems content to channel Ken Watanabe’s Dr. Serizawa in 2014’s Godzilla, saying “let them fight” at our full meta-shaping power.
I feel funny playing a top tier character and complaining about other top tiers; it’s reminiscent of someone playing season 1 Luke or Ken in Street Fighter 6 and complaining that JP is cheap and needs to be nerfed. In the moment I get frustrated, especially by Paul’s Porco deck, that he seems to get endless answers for free. But I conveniently leave out that I can string out an insane number of attacks on minimal resources and play very strong defense. My mindset shifted from insecurity to anticipation.
In a world of high power levels, the matchups come down to the skill of the players.
There has been a lot of discourse this week about “feels good” cards, for better and worse. My opinion on this is that I’ve seen a lot more great players win games with feels good cards than perhaps the more optimal solution. The basis of “sauce” in our game comes from people playing cards they love in the characters they love. Take Richard’s Hange 1 list centered around a Titanpile bomb. That’s a feels good card that wins games. Real good? I’d say so.
I ended up the butt of a “feels good” card joke recently when I posted about swapping The Jaw Titan’s Bite for Nejire Wave. I’m not upset in the least, it was funny – but it did make me think about what my outlook is going into this tournament. There’s a distinct possibility The Jaw Titan’s Bite makes in back into the list. In testing, I’ve been suffering controlling my hand filtering, something that never was an issue when running Bite. And while Nejire Wave is saucy, it’s still somewhat situational. Not every character is going to be blocking me so intensely, so selling out for the huge damage isn’t necessarily the answer.
I’ve also been considering running Unyielding Destruction to reduce my rival’s board and make it easier for me to jam attacks through. I haven’t had enough time to really test this out, and it’s also situational at best. Playing into an Annie mirror or a Hange, Unyielding just won’t do much to advance my gameplan. It feels silly to sell out for this strategy.
No matter how much list tweaking I do, the matchups come down to the skill of the players.
I got back into Street Fighter recently after watching the Sajam Slam and had some significant derusting to do. After picking up a different character in Cammy, I set out to learn a few basic combos. I quickly advanced through the bottom ranks and settled in mid-Silver, which is roughly where I was with my main, Manon. How many times did I get those cool combos off in games?
Zero.
I managed to rank up after refocusing on basic fundamental play – baiting drive impacts, whiff punishing, well-timed anti-airs. I didn’t need the combos to win games. Conditioning the opponent with solid strike-throw play, making them make mistakes, and punishing them appropriately is universally good in fighting games.
It made me reframe my thinking on my UniVersus gameplay. This card game shares a ton of DNA with fighting games even if it’s become more anime-focused in recent years, and it shows if you’ve enjoyed both the FGC and TCGs. What was I doing that got me into trouble in Street Fighter than paralleled what got me into trouble in UniVersus? Pressing unsafe buttons.
If you’re negative after being blocked, and press another attack button, it’s very likely that you’re going to get punished by the opponent. In UVS, if you overextend on an attack string and don’t finish the job, you’re likely going to get backswung to death. Part of what separates experienced players from newer players is knowing when to press down the gas in both types of game.
The mental interplay with the rival is of the utmost important in both fighting games and UniVersus. In fighting games, you condition through movement and varying your approaches to offense. In UniVersus, your rival must consider how many cards you have in your hand, your board state, your character’s abilities, the possibilities of hand traps, and what enhances you are playing and when. This can lead to very exciting situations where you let some attacks through to let the rival think you don’t have the correct block, or you choose to burn resources to dissuade them from continuing their offense and go on the defensive. It’s what makes this game so interesting to so many of us.
So, my mindset has shifted some from worrying about what the list looks like, and what all the matchups look like. These factors are important of course, but when looking back over my test games in the last several weeks, I realize that I have all the tools I need in the deck already.
As always, the matchups come down to the skill of the players.
I lost games at StarkDark by not preserving the game state, by forgetting my triggers, and by sequencing incorrectly. Most of all, I overextended into board states that could easily survive my offense. Solving these problems within myself will lead me to more success, results be damned.
In this world of high-powered characters and cards, we have been left to our own devices. They want to let us fight. And fight we will.
But I don’t see it as being left to the wolves anymore. Instead as the clock ticks down to Louisville, I’m focusing on bettering myself and playing as clean as possible. We’re going to have some great games and have a great time in the process.
Thanks for joining me on the journey my friends. And as always, keep coping.