« IPLAYWINNER INTERVIEW: LUFFY086 »

James "WorstGiefEVER" Bardolf sat down with Super vs Battle champion Luffy and talks to him about his win at the event, why he plays Rose and even his take on RoseBall! Stay tuned as we will have more interviews with top players in the very near future! Thanks to the Rose community on SRK for submitting some of the questions. SVB Photos by WorstGiefEVER.

Hi, i'm Olivier 'Luffy086' Hay. I am a student in international trade, and I'm from Paris in France.

Why Luffy? Why 086?

My nickname comes from the manga ‘One Piece’, I have had this nickname since I was 13 years old. 086 is simply my birth year.

When did you start playing fighting games?

I started started playing fighting games seriously with SFIV; before that, I was only playing RPGs. 

You use a PS2 pad even though you play on XBOX. Why do you use the PS2 pad? Ever tried stick?

It’s a PSX pad! Not a PS2!  I use PSX pad accidentally, I began SFIV on PS3 where I used Dual Shock 3. The offlines competitions being mainly made on Xbox 360, I needed to play with playstation pad, however, PS3 / Xbox adapter cost 100€, which is rather expensive, while PSX / PS2 / Xbox adapter is 30€. Since I don’t have a PS2 Pad, and only a PSX pad was available, I used this one!

 
Nope, never tried stick, I can do everything I want to with my character already, I wont bother learning to play on stick. If one day, I have to play with a character that requires a difficult execution, I would make the switch.

Why did you choose to play Rose in the first place?

She’s beautiful, she wears a scarf, has high heels, and big boobs.

Are you the best Rose in the world? Any other Rose players you admire?

I really don’t know if I’m the best Rose in the world, but as far as I know, I’m the Rose with the most result in tourney. I respect Saqs a lot, back then, when I was still learning the game, I watched every videos of his youtube channel, and tried to analyze everything he does. Then, every Rose player that contributes to the Rose community should be respected, it’s always a good thing to get tons of opinion to sort out the best things out of all.

What are Rose's toughest matchups? 

In my opinion, Rose has a LOT of bad matchups. I won’t go in details.. I think the toughest are: Rufus, Cammy, Dictator, Feilong, Boxer, Dhalsim, Zangief, Honda, Juri, Chunli.
Of course, that only works if both characters are played at their best.

Your Rose vs. Ryu matchup seems really good, you seem to know it inside out - how do you do so well against Ryu?

After losing to Daigo at World Game Cup, and knowing that Daigo was coming to SVB, I trained a lot against Ryu in training mode, and studied each situation where I could punish him.
For example, Fuudo/Daigo were throwing close range Hadoken, from where I couldn’t react on time to reflect it, and I was forced to block or FA backdash (which move me closer to the corner). So, the solution was to do an EX spiral to do though them and punish Ryu. I didn’t used it in finals against Ryan Hart though, I used Super instead :p.
Also, I know every distance where he can punish a slide/spiral with a DP or C.lp DP, that requires a lot of observations.

But yeah, all my Ryu knowledge comes from the training room, since Yamazaki93 left the VS Fighting community, we don’t have a Ryu in France anymore.

Congratulations on your win at SVB. How did you find the competition? SVB

is traditionally a single elimination tournament, did this add pressure when you were playing?
 

The competition was good, there were a lot of good players coming from different countries

in Europe. Skatan Milla/Yagami from Sweden, RickyTTT/Rockhoward from Spain, Bushin from

Netherlands, Fuma/Vryu from Switzerland… It's truly amazing how a video games

competition can gather people so easily!

In France, I’m known as someone that doesn’t feel the pressure at all, I’m never afraid of

losing because my game quality never slow down because of the pressure. If I lose, that

would mean that my opponent was better, that I have some things to learn about the matchup.

Everytime I lose, I’ll work on the question ‘why did I lose? What did I do wrong?’ then come

back stronger!!

StarNab, LordDVD, Renegad, Luffy & Evans

You also won the 5v5 side tournament with Team ZAHIAAAAAAA. Could

you explain the team name?
 

The team name comes from a famous escort girl in France that had a lot of aventures with

football (Soccer) players.

Some players lament their lack of Rose matchup knowledge, attributing it to part of why they lose to you. What are your thoughts on this?

Well, that’s kinda true, but even if there’s no good Rose near you, you can always learn a little of a character by playing it yourself or go into training mode to try everything, and punish everything she does. Pay attention to when is she safe? What are her frame advantage?

I remember at WGC beating Fuudo in freeplay, then the day after, he knew everything about Rose. No joke.

Daigo has been known for sticking with Ryu, but he decided to counterpick at SVB. Have you ever thought about counterpicking in certain matchups with characters / players?

 Luffy Vs Dawgtanian in the 5v5 finalI never thought about counterpicking; I’m totally against the counterpick rules. For me, the choice of your main character must be a well thought decision. You have to face the pros and cons of your character that’s all. Counterpicking is just a too easy way to get the victory. If your main character is a low tier, then don’t pick it :).

How do you deal with 'rare' matchups ? Rufus, who's barely played in Europe, caused you some serious trouble at ESWC.

Well, yeah we don’t have that many Rufus in France/Europe. I had bad training with Rufus for ESWC, totally my mistake, I forgot that I must not try to punish Rufus' jump in with slide, and I should abuse Rose’s ST.MK. Marn and Wong were better than me those days, since then, I found some things to try out against Rufus, but still haven’t had the chance to test it against a real player.

You are sponsored by Bushido Impact Paris. Tell us about Bushido Impact. 

Bushido Impact is an association which organises monthly tournament in France, Super Smash Brawl, SSFIV, Tekken 6 are mostly on. Every month, the best player in Paris are always there. Feel free to come.

What is the overall scene like in Paris?

The SFIV scene is really weird, there are five players that really stand out: Me, Evans, Renegad, LordDvd, StarNab (yeah the Zahia team!). Then, there are like 5 to 8 players behind us; then a ton of casual players. In our IRC channel/forums, we always try to help those players to get better, but.. they seems to miss a vital part to become good player (I don’t know what it is).

I would like to know about the scene in Europe a bit more. Are there large concentration of skilled players like there is in the U.S.(NY and Cali), or are the better players spread out throughout the country? Are there any massive rivalries or do players mostly help each other?

Ehm… it’s more spread out; the VS Fighting scene in Europe isn’t that big, each country is small in comparaison to a big state like U.S. So, the chance to have skilled player is lower. As for myself, I don’t feel any rivalry between European players; I’m just a player coming to a tournament, trying to do my job.


You have recently started travelling to tournaments around Europe. Where have you been so far and how did you place?

I’ve only been to Dreamhack Summer in Sweden, where I placed 1st in front of StarNab and Ryan Hart, then recently at Super Versus Battle in UK where I won in finals against Ryan Hart.

Congratulations on your win at SVB

 Luffy vs MicVlad in the 5v5 finalYou played at ESWC earlier this year. What did you think of the players you faced there?

The level was amazing, every match was hard. And with the presence of Laugh, Infiltration, Zak, Ryan, Marn, Wong, the tourney was really fun. Each player was really strong, all my matchs were intense, I never got owned really easily with my Rose .

What do you think of the organisation itself? They haven't paid your prize money yet, however Marn tells me he has received his.

The organization was really bad, we played on laggy TV, and they didn’t know at all if counterpick was enabled or not…
Yeah, dunno about my cash prize, I’ll try to contact them right now.

What other tournaments will you attend this year?

I’ll attend the next Bushido Impact in Paris the 5st September, then the Neo Arcadia tourney in Toulouse (France) in November, Dreamhack Winter in November, Beat by contest in Lausanne (Switzerland) in February, then WGC 2011 in Cannes (France) in March. That’s currently my program at the moment.

What is Europe's impression of the U.S. in terms of skill level and respect shown towards each other, and do you feel there is still a gap between the U.S./Europe and Japan?

I’m not really into the deadly question about which area is the strongest.. but each times I read those, I ALWAYS see U.S people screaming that they are the best over Europe. Just because some U.S players win once of two times against someone, means that they are strongest? Lol. Who cares about that, just play the game, come in tourney, win.

I don’t think there is a gap between US/Europe and Japan. In SF4 at least. We already faced Tokido, Eita, Daigo, Fuudo, which are 4 of the strongest players in Japan, and it wasn’t a disease at all. I think the level between all of us is really close.

If you could say anything is your biggest concern in SSF4, what is it? In terms of strategy; it could be match-up specific.

As I play Rose, my biggest concern is the spacing of my move, each move of Rose can be safe if spaced correctly. My defense (tech throw) is really important to me as well, I think that if someone have a good defense, he have a really good option for the victory.

Secondly, in a round, my goal is to take slowly my opponent to the corner, where he is limited In movement and where I can freely punish every escape attempt, and chip him freely.
Then, work on some tricks like frame trap, ambiguous crossup, feint a grab but hit instead…

Who are your practice partners for tournaments?

Nowadays, I rarely practice against a precise partner anymore. I just log on xbl, pick up the first that invit me, play a FT10, then shut down the console.

How do you balance work and Street Fighter 4?

Since I’m working, and plus, SFIV in casuals is boring me since 4 months. I don’t really play that much at home, I only play in tourney now. So I can focus on my work tranquilly.

Are you any good at roseball?

I never lost a Roseball yet. Wanna money match me offline? :)

Make it a shopping bag (blindfold) Roseball money match and you're on. Will you play Marvel 3 or MK9 when they are released next year?

No, I don’t like games with tons of combos (like 40 50 hit combos), and there’s too much

violence in MK. I’ll play KOF XIII when it gets out.

Do you play any other fighting games?

I’ve been learning King of Fighters 2002 UM for the last month with the French KOF community :p.