« COMPETITIVE PAD PLAYERS: NEW AGE OF HEROES »

This article covers the rise of the pad warrior since the release of Street Fighter 4 and will hopefully encourage those of you who are considering changing from pad to arcade stick due to peer pressure or other factors to just play on whatever makes you feel most comfortable. 

Days gone by, you would see someone at a gathering playing on a pad and you would instantly assume they were a scrub. This sounds harsh, but it's the truth. With the influx of new players for Street Fighter 4 however, this isn't always the case. Now you can never underestimate a player no matter what they choose to control their character with.

Yes, I know there have been solid pad players in the past (Hold Dat who is a great 3s player from NYC comes to mind), but these players were typically few and far between. It was generally frowned upon to play on a pad and if you weren't playing on an arcade stick it was virtually impossible to get respect from within the competitive Street Fighter scene. 

At the end of the day though, you have to be able to execute when you need to, and if playing on a pad gets you results, then don't second guess yourself. Of course there are inherent advantages to using an arcade stick (bigger buttons make it easier to double tap, easier to hit three buttons at once with out mapping, etc) , but if you're dominating on XBL or amongst your friends, you may want to put yourself out there: attend a tournament and see how you do!

That said, there is a bit of controversy within the competitive Street Fighter scene about binding 3 punches and kicks to one button on a pad. Granted, it's harder for a pad player to press all three buttons at once so most would argue this creates an even plane between pad players and stick players in most cases.

On the other hand, there are some competitive scenes such as Tekken where using a pad has pretty much always been accepted as an alternative to using a stick and is never looked down upon. In fact, Aris and Insomnotek, two top SoCal Tekken players, mentioned to me that some players prefer a pad in Tekken because the opponent can hide the sound of inputs.  "It's like playing against a ghost!"

If you are a long time pad player though, you also should give arcade sticks a chance. I'm one example where I played on pad before I really got into tournaments, and couldn't really hang until I put in the time to learn on a stick. Again, it comes down to what gets you results.

Anyway, here are a handful of videos of top level action from players who prefer pad over stick. Of course there are more out there so punch these guys into YouTube and check them out... well.. except Vance here who is pretty much brand new to the tournament scene. Good luck finding videos of him, but lucky for us we  were able to catch him in the wild, dominating at the latest NorCal SF4 tournament. 

Vance - NorCal - Zangief
Vance takes 1st place,  working his way through a gauntlet of top players in one of his first tournaments ever! 

Shizza - Socal - Chun Li
One of SoCals best Chun-Li's playing Yeb, one of the best Gens in the country. 

Wolfkrone - Michigan -  Viper
Pad player holding his own against Daigo!? 

Rico Suave - East Coast - Abel
Pad Abel giving Sanford Kelly some problems. 

Shine - East Coast - Gouken
15 year old pad player who ended up getting 2nd only to Sanford Kelly!