UFGTX Preliminary Pools - Musing on how screwed I am

First off, I love fighting games, I always have.  The sense of competition, the thrill of victory, the saltiness of defeat; it gives me that same sort of rush I get from performing.  Growing up, I was the big dog at the Peoria arcade, and I started seriously studying and practicing fighting games in College.  For the past three years I have made a pilgrimage to Chicago to attend the biggest fighting game tournament in the Midwest - Ultimate Fighting Game Tournament.  I did at fairly well last year, 2/2 in AE, 2/2 in Mystery Game, and 7th in Divekick.

The preliminary pool list came out for this year (UFGTX), and as it stands I'm pretty well screwed.  Below are some of my thoughts and potential strategies looking at who I have to face in my pool.   

Street Fighter Arcade Edition 2012

WARNING - TECHNICAL JARGON INCOMING
As some of you may know, I play Chun Li in AE 2012, and those of you who play the game might be asking "why?" right now.  Indeed, Chun is sadly not a very good character AE 2012.  She doesn't have a vortex, has no real way to rush down, relies on frame traps and risky high/low mixups for pressure, and has an absolutely abysmal defensive game - her only reversal option is EX Spinning Bird Kick (SBK), which is beaten by many, many airborne offensive options and, if all else fails, crouching with about 80% of the cast, so it's easily baitable.  Adding to that, her antiair options are unreliable at best, and you need to quickly react with the right button to specific situations - no catch all like a DP, no sir.  Basically, if she get's knocked down, it's bad news.

WHY AREN'T YOU BETTER IN THIS GAME?

So what is Chun good at?  Footsies.  Chun has arguably the best normals in the game, so her footsie game is incredibly strong.  Pokes like St. HP, St. MP, Cr. MP, Cr. MK and Cr. HK (as long as you're not predictable with it) are all fantastic, so she is terrific at mid range on the ground.  Hosenka (Ultra 1) is good as an anti fireball tool, and Kikosho (Ultra 2) is free damage after her really easy bread and butter combo if she ever somehow gets a jump in. 

So let's look at my pool competition to see how screwed I am!

EG Ricky Ortiz

O_O

Yup...  Game over man...  Great Tournament Great Experience.

So...  Ricky Ortiz...  There's a lot to say about him, but here's all you really need to know - He won AE at the last US major (ECT), has ranked in top 8 at EVO just about every year in SF4 and is widely considered the best Rufus in the world. Here's his EG profile.

Yup.  So, onto the subject of Rufus - Rufus is arguably Chun's worst matchup, the only real competition being Akuma.  Why, do you ask?  Well, Rufus' main tool is his divekick, and Chun has absolutely no good way to deal with it.  Here are the options -

1.  Attempt to Anti Air -With normals at best, you'll trade.  At worst, you'll get stuffed and eat a full combo.  If the opponent is carelessly using it as a movement option and enters your range without actually hitting you, you can tag them with a St. FP or a Cr. HK, but that's fairly unlikely.

A properly timed EX SBK will actually beat Rufus divekick, but you've got to be sure they've committed and it takes meter.  This is a useful option to escape the corner and stupid Rufus mixup (detailed later).

2.  Focus - This actually seems to be a popular option against Rufus divekick in general, and probably the best option.  Since divekick only ever hits once, the focus will absorb the hit, and immediately releasing the attack will beat anything he tries to do afterwards.  Obviously most Rufus players will block, but hey, you're not losing anything and will gain at least a little ground.  The danger here is that if it starts to get predictable they'll start using other jump ins that get the second hit quicker, and now you're back in a bad situation.

3.  Meet in the air - So, the third option is to preempt the divekick entirely and meet Rufus in the air.  Generally speaking, Chun has better air to air options - jump LK, HK, HP and air throw are all good options in this situation, but there is one exception, and one thing that stops this from being a practical strategy - Rufus jump HK.  If you get hit with it, you're eating at least a Snake Strike, EX if he has the meter, and that hurts.

So yeah, as Chun no option is particularly good, so you're often forced to take the mixup.

The stupid Rufus Mixup

Many people consider Rufus to be an "autopilot" character, and there is a grain of truth to this, as his mixup is incredibly simple, but also effective.  It starts with a divekick.  If the divekick hits, combo into Galactic Tornado, then restart.  If the divekick is blocked, these are the follow up options -

1.  Go low - Rufus doesn't have much of a high low mixup, so they'll mostly go for a cr. LK in this scenario.  This can be beaten by quick attacks if the divekick makes contact too high, but is generally a blockstring.

2.  Walk up throw - expecting a block string, the opponent gets thrown instead.  The logical solution to this situation is crouch tech, but that is risky because -

3.  Low dive kick - this blows up crouch tech, along with any other standing/crouching attacks or pokes that you might throw out.

Remember when I said Chun's strength is footsies?  Well, since she doesn't have a way to deal with divekick Rufus doesn't even have to worry about playing footsies.  He doesn't care about your footsies, he'll just jump over them and kick you in the face.

So what are Rufus' weaknesses?  Well, ironically, much like Chun he has a horrible wakeup game (arguably worse, actually).  His only reversal option is EX Messiah Kick which is also pretty baitable, and extremely unsafe on whiff or block.  He also has low stun, so the best strategy is to somehow knock him down and pressure him on wakeup.  Unfortunately, as mentioned before, Chun has no vortex, so any and all pressure is pretty meter dependent.
/TECHNICAL JARGON

Anyway, that's enough on Rufus, let's see who else is in the pool...

TFA|RZR omg itZ Andre

So, he's a bit less intimidating than Ricky.  He's mainly known for Marvel.  I don't even know who he plays in AE...  Rose I think?  If so, Rose is actually not a bad match for Chun.  Anyway, I'm less worried about him, but he's still there.  There's also a member of team CORN, but I don't recognize the name.

Ultra Street Fighter 4 Preview Tournament

UFGT is having a special preview tournament event with the latest build of Ultra Street Fighter 4, and I'm pretty psyched about it.  Chun is getting significantly better in this build - she's getting her df LK antiair back, EX hazanshu is going to focus break, and EX SBK is getting it's hitbox extended downwards so it can't be crouched as easily.  I am pretty excited.  So here is who is in my pool -

Floe

*facepalm,* another Rufus!  Fantasitic!  A former EG, Floe is actually who knocked me into losers last year (and wrecked me in the process)...  So yeah...  Df LK might give me a little bit of a better tool against divekicks, but it's still gonna be a bad match.

Besides that CORN Alucard is in my pool, but he's also more famous for Marvel.  I think he plays boxer, which isn't a terrible matchup.

Killer Instinct

So I bought an Xbone last winter, and therefore dabbled in KI.  I'm fairly okay at it - I can do a couple manuals.  It's a fairly new game, so the playing field is still kinda even, and my fundamentals are pretty strong so unless I'm facing someone like Justin Wong I should probably do at least kinda well.  Let's see who's in my pool -

EG Jwong

OH COME ON!  So yeah, Justin Wong is in my pool.  His Sabrewulf with eviscerate my Jago.  End of story. Here's his EG profile.

Divekick

So, some of you may know I took 7th in Divekick last year.  I consider myself at least pretty good, so I should stand a chance...  Right?  Right?

Chris G

REALLY?  REALLY? 

So for those of you who don't follow the fighting game scene, Chris G is the best Marvel player on the planet.  He knocked me into losers in Divekick last year.  This makes me sad.

Also in my pool is Dave Lang, notable because he is a bigwig at Iron Galaxy Studios, the company that makes the game.  Yeah...

Mystery Game Tournament

So, a small solace, I don't really have any famous names in my mystery game pool.  So yeah, I might do fairly well in that...  Whoo... 

So there it is, a list of the killers in my pool.  Really, I had no illusions of winning any tournaments this weekend, but I would've liked to at least get close to getting out of pools.  Regardless, I'm sure I'll have fun this weekend, but damn I got a bad hand.  Who knows, maybe I'll get an upset...  I wouldn't bet on it but the possibility is still there.  Also, these are preliminary pool assignments, so they might change...  Maybe I'll get lucky and get transferred to a pool filled with monkeys or something...  That'd be great...