I've commented on this in the past, but a handful of players who started in my era of fighting games were fed poor advice about evaluating risk/reward. I tunneled on theory-crafted reactive play, centered around opponents hanging themselves. I put  so much  focus on making the "best" decisions, that I would forget to actually interact with and assess the opponent sitting next to me. I initially thought this was just a quirk of my play, but some of my peers expressed similar challenges during our conversations. Their path of improvement has been involved allowing themselves to actually represent threats and control the tempo against opponents. Ironically, reactive strategies only work against strong opponents when you represent the threats for them to play around.   I'm always thinking plenty of steps ahead of my opponent. More often than not; this is  normally a bad thing . One core memory of this is when I was learning Injustice 2. My husband was constantly hitting m

Since Combo Breaker will be a first offline tournament for a lot of folks, I decided to write this handy guide which will help you plan for the event. THINGS YOU SHOULD DO BEFORE GOING TO ANYTHING : - Download Venmo & Paypal. This will make splitting money with people way easier, since things like rideshares will frequently be on one person's card. Figuring out cash stuff is really irritating, and especially in a post-covid era people are less likely to carry cash on hand. - Get a reusable water bottle. This will save you, I promise. If you don't mind dropping cash for a nice one, anything by Klean Kanteen is usually good. - Make a Twitter account. Not everyone will be willing to share their phone number with you off the bat. This is the best way to connect with people and find information, and also help people locate you if you lose something. You can nuke it after the event, but have one on hand so that you can contact people. If somehow you don't have a discord accou

This write-up is not meant to address whether or not cross canter is too strong of a mechanic. This is meant to explain why you may have seen so much discussion about it. *Why* are the reactions to this mechanic so strong? Why did the dislike for it seemingly come out of nowhere?   Although I haven't been playing much Them's Fightin' Herds recently, I have kept up with the discussions surrounding the game's system mechanics. Cross Canter has been a hot topic, and I have seen a regrettable amount of misinformation about the option's use in the developed metagame. First, let me address a few stray misconceptions about Cross Canter. Some players want cross canter removed! I've heard this sentiment expressed, but I suspect that it's an outward frustration of a different problem. what players want has little to do with the removal of cross canter and more to do with the greater issue of advantage state. Remember, cross canter is only part of the pie regarding

This is more of an informal ramble than an information post, so expect it to be more jumbled and disorganized. Goodness, it's been a while since I've written something here! First, let me address the elephant in the room- I'm not playing Them's Fightin' Herds right now. I've pushed myself really far in that game, and I am long overdue for an extended break. I'm also enjoying Melty Blood: Type Lumina -which is filled to the brim with strong fighting game players. Nothing is permanent, and my feelings are always changing- but right now, I feel that there is more space for me to grow as a player in Type Lumina. So far, my results have been a mixed bag. I won the first monthly for it in Boston (it was me against Spookyblast in grands just like a BBCF local). I have a few Top 8s in big online tournaments, but mostly an assortment of 9th and 17th places. I'm surprised by this- while I have a solid set of fundamentals, I wasn't sure how much of it would tra

About a month ago, I made a tier list for the current version of Them's Fightin Herd s. I was planning to make a follow up video to document how my viewpoints might have changed and elaborate further on its more controversial aspects. However, because so many tier lists came out recently, I felt it was important to document in written form. I highly recommend you watch the initial tier list video if you have time. It's formatted differently than this one, and to my surprise- the discussion was insanely fun and productive (the total opposite of the BBCF tier list I did a year ago). I'm also going to reference it at several points. First, let's be SUPER clear about what this tier list is all about.   This tier list assumes low ping or offline play. There is ZERO consideration being given to international tournaments. I'll expand on that a little when I talk about Oleander. This tier list is a prediction on how the meta will develop long term in addition to how thes