MCZ|Daigo Umehara on His AE 2012 Grand Finals Performance Against WW.MCZ|Infiltration: “He started to adapt to my techniques, but I couldn’t adapt to his playstyle.”

by iantothemax on December 10th, 2012 at 10:28 pm

While attending the Street Fighter 25th Anniversary grand finals this past weekend, Mad Catz’ Daigo Umehara took the time to talk to Zhi about a variety of topics, including his new 10 A.M. training regimen, his thoughts on his matches against Mad Catz teammate Infiltration, and how the side-by-side style of competition in Western tournaments forced him to work on disguising the sounds of his hadouken inputs.

Source: Mad Catz

http://twitter.com/JusttBruce Bruce

im such a fan
- http://twitter.com/JohnnyTracer1 JohnnyTracer
  
  just as Martha answered I didnt even know that any body can earn $9713 in a few weeks on the netwwork.
- http://twitter.com/JohnnyTracer1 JohnnyTracer
  
  …..goo.gl/6zZoX (Click on Home)
- http://twitter.com/TiffanyDean20 Tiffany Dean
  
  I’m still heartbroken that it wasn’t my man Gamerbee in Grand Finals, though.… http://youtubeGoldenJob5.qr.net/jUvE/watch?v=CTtf5s2HFkA
Bavo Bruylandt

He is the real-life Ryu of Street Fighter, but died one-thousand deaths in the hands of pure evil.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Almeson-Hoku-James/100000479628267 Almeson Hoku James
  
  Just like Goku vs Cell after he absorbed Android Poongko. Korean technology is bullshit.
  - http://www.facebook.com/david.kim.7169 David Kim
    
    HAHAHA!!! Love the analogy
http://www.facebook.com/nick.williamson.944 Nick Williamson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX8tL3PMj7o
Alex Johnson

Man, what can you even do against a guy like Infiltration. The dude’s a cyborg, for crying out loud. Daigo played his heart out and earned every penny of his $10,000 purse, but he came up short when it really mattered.

I’m still heartbroken that it wasn’t my man Gamerbee in Grand Finals, though.
- Singey
  
  Play Cammy.
- Kazzzem
  
  Play Yun:
  
  Infiltration vs. Kazunoko – Canada Cup 2012
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4-nREvJG58
  
  Daigo Umehara (Yun) vs Infiltration (Akuma) – NCR 9 (Grand Finals)
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX_KrLUcBwU
http://www.facebook.com/call.me.mr.siddiqui Adeel Siddiqui

Man I am just pissed off that America didn’t do that well!

We haven’t leveled up as we thought.

Also if I wanted anybody else to win, it would be Daigo over everyone
- Bavo Bruylandt
  
  Strictly speaking Europe may have done better. Only Snake Eyez got ranked higher (and won an international match), the rest went 0-2 (except dieminion who defeated a companion in losers).
  Europe has beaten twice an international player (both US). And were only 2 europeans against 6 US players.
  
  If snake eyez didnt win those matches, it would have been a total loss for US. But he did well.
  Not to blame anyone, almost all players were top-level. There was no shame to lose.
  - http://twitter.com/SJ_75 jkuc
    
    Dieminion beat gamerbee in Winners
    - Bavo Bruylandt
      
      Oh right. Good game to him. Was hoping he could do more
  - john smith
    
    No need to be so politically correct, you should have said: “all players were top level except Floe who clearly got there on a technicality.” I expect big things from the European players. Tourney of this magnitude really will give them great experience on how to deal with pressure vs great opponents. Once guys like Alioune goes back home, he’ll dominate his local tourneys even more and in turn that will force his community to level up in trying to keep up.
    
    This is another reason why, this tourney should have been top 32, and instead of “open” qualifiers, it should have been closed by nationality. Sure some countries would have sent weaker players but the purpose of this tourney should have been to grow the FGC as a whole rather than always seeing Japan vs US dominate the scene.
- BoozerX
  
  America land of the free.
  - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TIC7WNRSMFBSCLF6OR6JQJAAZA sb
    
    Everywhere else in the world (besides Asia) land of the oh hell just stop competing
wconcepts

He just took so many damn fireballs and sweeps (always countering Daigo’s jabs) and Infiltration figured out his forward-fierce strategy right away. Did not expect 0-6 after that amazing Winners’ Finals set. Can’t wait for the rematch.
http://twitter.com/Thraphelga le sun

So I’d like to hear from anyone with a background in running these tourneys in the states on why we haven’t adopted the Japanese seating arrangements for the competing players after ALL these years. I for one feel that keeping the integrity of the match pristine from hearing buttons or glancing at arcade sticks, far outweighs the cost something like that might incur (from a outsider’s perspective of course, if it does indeed cost way too much I’d like to hear about the details).
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Timothy-Ian-McMillan/100003757326579 Timothy Ian McMillan
  
  Because the United States is not Japan.
- alex wong
  
  Don`t take away the one thing that lets USA win…that doesn`t make sense.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=598890045 Dejan Holder
  
  I think a few tournaments do, I’ve seen that setup at a tournament this year and i’ve seen it in France. You have your own monitor etc. and you can play with the stick in your lap or on the table. Its pretty cool.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/KFD623WBWJKHAW75XTB2ATXWMY Troy
  
  The side by side is the way things were in the Arcades back in the day and a lot of US tournaments like to keep that tradition. Being able to hide button presses is part of the metagame and doing fake motions as well.
- john smith
  
  Because taking peeks with your eyes is part of the sketchy tech developed by the US. Not that it has helped any of them in this tourney.
NDLT

I just loved the fact that top 3 were all EVO Champions from 2009-2012. That made me hype as it is as well as the match between Infiltration and Fuudo could of made a difference for Daigo I think. Such a close match between those 2.
- Bavo Bruylandt
  
  Those players have proven that their wins were no flukes. Some other people were close at winning EVO but none have been able to keep their results that consistent in all important tournaments.
Rohan Mayers

I have been reading and hearing a lot of people say Daigo, Justin, and others have been training for like 8hrs a day for tournament. How does players train for a SF tournament? I know in chess, you have a strong and various AI to fight against. SF does that have that. I am a D+ player and I can beat the AI of SF4AE and SFxT on the hardest level with no problem. Also, I doubt they have a lot of people on their level to practice against. Are they just in training mode all the time?
- Bavo Bruylandt
  
  You are beating a weak (but cheating) AI that knows some patterns but can never learn. Usually that boils down to exploiting his known issues, while he can never adapt. That’s irrelevant to learn high-level play, simply a help for execution under stress.
  They have quite a lot of partners. Japan has lots of high-level players, and US as well.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Khanh-David-To-Tuan/1072863242 Khanh David To Tuan
  
  You go to pmode to practice execution, setups, option selects, safejumps, counterpokes, escapes, …
  You play casuals/online/ranked for matchups.
  You play tournaments for mindgames and strategy.
- john smith
  
  Daigo trains at his local arcade where a lot of top level competition congregates. Justin trains by going to or having top players at someone’s house to train. One single mistake will result in a loss at the highest level, dealing with the pressure isn’t something you can do while you train (this is why you need experience). Look at Infiltration, he was a great player before and prob was just as good on a technical level. The reason why he dominated so much this year is because he finally learned to deal with the tourney environment. Not many could have overcome the 0-3 embarrassment from Daigo. The fact he came back in such dominant fashion just proves he leveled up his mental fortitude more than anything.
  - Rohan Mayers
    
    I do not think I am asking my question correctly. Daigo is like the first/second best player in SF4. So, anyone he practice against besides for Inflitration will be a step back from him. So, how can he practice against them anyone? At least in chess, the AI is usually stronger than you and have you a variety in chess programs to give you different challenges. I am wondering how is that done in SF practice. I thought they would just go play online mode on xbox all day long.
    - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_TIC7WNRSMFBSCLF6OR6JQJAAZA sb
      
      Damn bro you must be new to fighting games got to be
      - Rohan Mayers
        
        I have been playing SF since 94 but I just started paying attention to shoryuken and eventhubs in 2012. So, I am not new to fighting games just new to professional fighting games.
    - http://twitter.com/Mike_Jagger92 Michael Brown
      
      Because there are people in Japan better than him that don’t go out to tournaments. Besides he isn’t THE best at all.
      - Rohan Mayers
        
        I thought most people thinks he is the best or second best.
      - Bavo Bruylandt
        
        On international level yes. But even then, there are people at least close to him. So unless he gets to winn all those matches, he can learn from his losses. And you won’t win all the matches in SF4 by being better by a slight margin. You need to be like double as good to do that. From each situation he can learn. He might miss out on some secret unknown technology that anther player has developed until he encounters him. That’s all. Still, such technology has never been gamechanging, only providing a small edge to victory
      - pressstart
        
        Like matchups in game, you have to consider matchups of the players themselves.
      - http://pulse.yahoo.com/_YV2437XOBMNL5UI3GR3PWIDHWY Rong
        
        Daigo fanboy here, but Daigo is hardly the best player.
ec0ec0

of course daigo is not going to give excuses but… its imposible to think that ruy beats akuma, like many are saying, while you are seeing the 9 games that they played… i understand that ryu (only daigo) has been beating akumas (not infiltration) for years but that only show how good daigo is with ryu. Some time before past year evo seth was considered up tier but now, thanks to poongko, we consider seth number 1. Now infiltration is showing that akuma is even better that what we thought but, in stead of seeing it, some are just saying that infiltration is god… Those who dont think that, in todays metagame, akuma has a clear advantage over ryu should see the 9 games again and ask yourself while whatching: is akuma (infiltration) escaping for almost every knockdown for free because he is god or because akumas teleport is broken againt the mayority of the roster? is infiltration using the sweep all the time without fear, and getting key knockdowns with it, because he is god or because daigo cant do nothing about it if he dont want to eat an ultra? is infiltration punishing daigo for throwing ground fireballs because he is god or because those fireballs are really risky for ryu but, at the same time, his only tool while akumas air fireballs are almost save against ryu (when daigo try to punish them during the set he is the one taking damage)?… In this matchup, like in those situations that i have explained, akuma (infiltration) limits what ryu (daigo) can do even without doing nothing and even if you see nothing is hapening and helping akuma (infiltration).
- Ryu_and_Ken
  
  It seems Diago has to work really hard to get a punish whereas if he makes one simple mistake, Infiltration is all over him
  - ec0ec0
    
    thats what i am trying to explain and i am not inventing nothing. Anyone can see what i am saying in both winner and grand finals… also… AKUMA HAS ALWAYS BEEN BULLS**T IN SF4!!! People saying that akuma has been nerfed since vanilla are funny. GUILE has bee nerfed, akuma has just been retouch and still has as many things as HALF OF THE ROSTER TOGETHER ( maybe I am exaggerating but you get my point). Its unreal that CAPCOM has “balanced” this game already 3 times and akuma is still akuma. Those that are defending infiltrations akuma should be all using cammy, seth or akuma because if not i cant understand them…
- john smith
  
  First off where did you get that Seth was #1? In fact where was Seth players in 2012? Akuma might have a slight edge against Ryu but it’s the same advantage some other characters have over Ryu. Ryu is an above average tier, there’s a ton of characters that could “win” against Ryu on paper. You think Cammy Ryu is fair? Or Fei Long Ryu? Forget Daigo / Infiltration etc.. We’re talking average joes to decent players, and when those guys play I guarantee you most equal skilled cammies/fei long will rape the Ryu 9 out of 10 based on the skill set of their characters.
  
  If Alioune’s cammy would have dominated this tourney, posters like yourself would have cried about how cheap she is with her retarded normals and bs dive kick vortex, If Fei Long had won, the same thing about how he does too much dmg etc.. This is just a natural reaction against the character because of the winner. Fact is Infiltration is just that good atm, and it’s got nothing to do with the character. He spent the time to play Akuma near flawlessly, just as much as Daigo showed with his Ryu (reason why other akuma – ryu aren’t even close to those two). So instead of blinding hating on a character, time you showed proper respect to a guy who obviously puts a lot of time training himself in fighting games. You also going to say Infiltration won SFXT because Rolento is so OP right? Get real dude, everyone can play w/e character to highlight their play-styles but i don’t see them winning 2 tourneys at a major do you?
  - http://twitter.com/poke133 Drago Umeharevich
    
    the only viable argument about this matchup is that everyone has tons of experience vs Ryu.. especially when your training partner is Laugh
    
    the rest are fanboy cries and scrub speculation on tier lists. world class players are world class players!
- http://twitter.com/poke133 Drago Umeharevich
  
  so Daigo beats the snot out of Tokido & co. all these years.. and it’s all cool, but when Daigo loses to Infiltration it’s because of the Akuma matchup? give Infiltration some credit especially after losing first set 3-0 (Akuma wasn’t broken in that one? ;P)
  - ec0ec0
    
    Right at the begining of my first comment, and before you respond me, i wrote: “while you are seeing the 9 games that they played” so i think that its clear that i am taking about some of the advantages, that can be seen during both winner and grand finals, that akuma has over ryu in that matchup. I said that before because i am sure that, independently of who was wining during those matches, if any of you go back and see the replays you will see that i am not inventing anything on my firts comment (read it again if you need so). About my second comment i know that i were exagerating about how good akuma is, i also wrote that before you respond me, i am just annoyed about capcom having 3 opportunitys for balancing the game and not taking them. About seth being number 1, i wrote that because of: http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2012/jan/01/top-japan-players-seth-strongest-character-ssf4-ae-v2012 i am just using this as an example, i know that its from some time ago but things havent change much. i think that i have argued very carefully everything that i have said in those comments and that its clear that i am not just an angry fanboy saying bulls**t. It seems to me that, for some reason, some of you dont what to see what i am saying… finally, sorry if my grammar is bad, i am spanish
    - ec0ec0
      
      have any of you ever heard something like: “the advantage of the matchup appears as the set progresses” because i belive in this statement and there are examples of it like the final of the 2nd topanga A league where ryu(daigo) and fei long(fuudo) where matched at the begining but as the set progressed fuudo began to dominate http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2012/jan/20/topanga-ssf4-arcade-edition-v2012-round-1-results-battle-logs/ there are of course more examples. This could have been, only could, important in the set that infiltration and daigo played, apart from the adaptation thing. Sorry for my english again, i actually dont know if i am writing things good or not…
TwitchyGuy

Mad props to both players, those winners finals matches where fucking crazy. At the end Infiltration proved once again that he’s the best player in the world but I like how Daigo never makes any excuses for his loses, that’s the attitude of a true champion.
BoozerX

Daigo going to the lab with Akuma, Yun and Cammy.
http://www.facebook.com/electpaisa Carlos Alvarez Bailleres

True fact: Akuma is the only character to make and appereance in every
EVO top 8. Anybody who doubts that Akuma is easily the best character in the game is not looking at the big picture. Just because anybody in the US has taken the time to develop a top-level Akuma doesn’t mean that it is not the best.
Having said that, how are US players suppose to beat Infiltration if there isn’t enough good Akumas to compete against?
highlulu

I felt like daigo got absolutely mind fucked in the first game of the grand finals set, he went in with a safe jump option select ultra and infiltration read it perfectly and teleported forward through daigo to make him whiff, it didn’t look like he was ever able to recover from that moment.
- Bill Cosby
  
  It was a jab-ultra option select, not a safe jump. Ryu can’t safe jump akuma. OWNED.
  - highlulu
    
    fraudulent memory exposed. makes me so sad.
Cauptain

Daigod is ridiculous. Only this.

Your Guile is superb…Destroy any Akuma in easy mode. But he think:

“I’ll play with a japanese char and show that win, even being a character weak.”Results: LOSERTry char or loser again.
Özgün Yıldırım

guile? it would be a fucking suicide against infiltration. he could use yun though.
Ahoyopl

I feel Ryu is really hurting Daigo’s performance, since everyone knows that character inside-out.
But is he too stubborn to switch to a better character? He should at least have a sub ready.
I mean look at Infiltration; he’s playing arguably the #1 character but
he still has a few subs ready just incase. Completely different mindset.

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