GetYourTournament has posted a blog discussing the 2011 Super Street Fighter 4 player of the year. GYT has been keeping statistics from the past year on various different players and many different tournaments. Joshua “Wolfkrone” Philpot has been announced as the player of the year. I’m not going to go into all of his stats and what he’s done and why he was easily the pick for Player of the Year. Two things really stood out for me.
The first came at NorCal Regionals 9. I was sitting at the media section with all of the other photographers, reporters and fighting game dignitaries, as competitors battled it out in the Top 8 in the Sunday finals.
Wolfkrone was in the front row, watching two other guys go at it. I’m not sure who it was that started whispering, but the voice got loud enough to where we all could hear it in the media section.
“Look at Wolfkrone," the guy said. "I’d pick him to win. Look at him. He’s proper. He’s focused. The rest of these guys are slouched on their chairs or sitting all weird, but Wolfkrone is sitting in attention. He looks like a guy that wants to win.”
I had never noticed that.
Check out the full article over on GetYourTournament.
Krone absolutely deserved it. He played outstanding in 2011.
I wholeheartedly agree. Fygi Ryu is the the hardest character to actually use as far as pros go. 97% of ppl know everything he can do.
#7 Viper has been literally the same character since Vanilla, we've all had 3 years to learn the match up against a character that's never changed, we didn't even have to adjust match up knowledge to a new ultra or adjusted special properties. And Viper doesn't have Ryus health, wake up game, reversal options or footsies either, and Ryus execution is a mile easier meaning there's less for you to mess up and drop (Unless you're Valle...)
The idea that we know what Ryu can do applies to Viper too, and really should apply to a whole bunch of characters.
but he doesn't win any international tournaments. He only beats on local US players.
@12 Correct me if I am wrong but didnt't Krone send Mago home at the last EVO?
but he lost to Kindevu at evo. If this is US SSF4 player of year. I would agree. I think kazunoko or fuudo should be player of the year.
ok, my bad. eventhubs title is misleading to me.
@ #16, read the article before posting, Wolfkrone was the POTY for North America ONLY, NORTH AMERICA. On another note, I agree with this decision, Wolfkrone showed an outstanding performance at canada cup. Congrats Wolfkrone!
@BlassKain17, i read the entire evenhub article. I never go to link.
#11
Yeah but its a problem if even the Viper players dont actually know on wich side the burnkick mixups will hit.
Viper has a strong wakeup game once she has an ex meter. What does she need footsies for? She has the burnkick. She has ridiculuss damage for a mixup character and better health then mixup character with similar damage. She has more options then mixup characters with more damage but less health (like Makoto). She has "instant" fireballs, and you dont know where it hits before it actually hits, she can cancel her seismic stuff wich is ridiculuss for this game. I mean makoto can cancel her hayate, but the hayate is not really a threat out of a neutral position. It just makes it so frustrating. You want to react and you do and get punished on block. Or you dont react and eat chip and she comes at you with a jump cancel or is right in front of you. And she can bait you so easily. And the cancels also make her a constant threath. She can threathen you without taking a risk, thats garbage.
Ryu is a straight forward character. If you see something, you know what is going to happen, with viper you have to be ready for so many things, and even if you see stuff, doesn't mean you know whats going to happen, and you get punished so hard, if you guess wrong, because of her damage and because so many things can lead into ultra. And sure Viper is the hardest character to play, but only execution wise. But in terms of strategie, reaction, and matchup knowledge, shes the easiest one.
#23 is right in pretty much everithing he said, specially the seismo cancel / feint crap. why dont you give ryu his fake fireball from previous games and watch the hordes of ppl criying ZOMGRYUISIMBA!. ppl mock flow chart kens/pretty much every guile (including world class guiles as ACE/Yoshiwo/Gameoutt) as noobs, but really i cant say that any particular viper is different from 1 to other, all i see is that flaming crap and seismos cancelled... thats all she needs. footsies? lol wuts that?
#23 I was a viper player, I always know where my burnkicks were going to hit. You can OS ex.seismo and to be perfectly honest you can beat it out by mashing jab, it happened all the time to me. In 2012, safe jump OS throw should kill Vipers entire wake up game but I've not testing so much yet.
You can react to burnkicks and hit her out of them/go under them with a c.mk like move. Her "instant" fireball has 30f (an entire half a second) start up and is amazingly punishable on whiff. If you're being baited, that's on you and not an inherent part of Viper, every character has baits and most characters have pressure strings with varying degrees of safety. A good bison has pretty sick corner pressure with scissor kicks and footsies.
Viper is more than beatable, the first American Viper to win a major did so 8 days before the patch came out, 3 years into her lifespan. And I don't really recall any Japanese Vipers taking any majors either. Conversely, a Ryu took EVO 2 years on the run.
Viper was a low midtier character until Krone showed up, Viper didn't change at all, Viper got figured out on day 1. I personally think that Vipers "top 5 status" is Wolfkrone then Latif's top 5 status and not so much to do with the character. Sure, she's not Gen, but I don't see whatsoever how she was the best character in the game like some said.
And my Valle comment is directed at "The Valle", dropping Ryu's SRK FADC Ultra. It was a joke about Ryus execution requirements compared to Vipers.
#28 I would say you did the burning kick mixup wrong then.
And yes, everybody has baits, but they are risky. Viper has a lot of baits already build into the moves with 2 canceable moves and the burnkicks that take her beyound most dp's.
The cr. medium kick trick to let burnkicks whiff mainly work with shotos, most of the cast still gets hit, and it also depends on the spacing if it works.
Also i think its quite the opposite, i think Latif wouln't even be on the Street Fighter radar if it wasnt for viper. Hes not a SF player, and his skills lie elsewhere. Look at his gameplan, if hes patient and trys to play street fighter he looses, and if it gets close to elimination, he starts doing more burnkicks and wins. And there goes your "you can hit her out of them" argument" I mean how come when you watch Latif, you often see burnkicks hit on a lot of wakeups in a row. I've seen matches of him with up to 7 burnkicks on wakeup in a row that hit... on Pros.
And sure safejumps can beat her wakeup game, but that goes for most over half of the cast.
Obviously Vipers dont do the Groundpound (instant Fireballs) up close, and its not like you can dash in without risk cause she could be doing the close one and you run right into it.
Viper didnt get figured out day1 not even a simple character like Ryu gets figured out quickly, its all about the little details, and Viper had a lot of them. And shes not a traditional SF character, so it took a while for players to start playing her like a Guilty Gear character. I dont actually know thou if Viper got changed since Vanilla. Who knows, maybe she got some priority on her moves, some hitbox changes. They arent as obvious as Frame data changes.
#31 That comment was in no way stupid. IT wouldnt be the first time that people are wrong about characters in tier lists. Sometimes it just needs an adjustment in playstyle. Viper is mid tier if you play her like a street fighter character. But even if he did make a mistake or didnt think things through, insulting someone for being human is way more idiotic. If it wasnt for people like you, other people might actually admit that they are wrong. And i really hate that im such a nice person, cause imo you deserved a lot of insults for such a useless and stupid comment.
If he didn't play as a scrubby character i'd be more impressed, at least he doesn't play Fuerte or Blanka i suppose!So annoying constantly seeing 'mind game and rush down' characters constantly winning tournaments, no skill - just tricks.
#34
so your saying viper is as unimpressive as guile's-sonic-boom tactics ... WHAT AN IDIOT
I hate playing against Viper but that's besides the point lol. I think Krone deserves POTY especially after Canada Cup. Remember 8.95 to view the archives.
@ 35.Anyone who says guile doesn't take skill to play is an IDIOT- he has two useless ultras, no mind games, low combo ability, no long range FADC normals, low damage output and is unbelieveably easy to destroy once he's knoced down. viper can win by doing flamekicks all day- as proven by krone and latif. Sonic booms dont mix up, cross over or have gd damage. Warground i think ur sitting there now thinking what lies u can say to try and prove otherwise.
WolfKrone is my city's best SSF4 player Rep the D wolf rep it well!
They say a mark of a great player isn't just a good performance but consistently good performance. No one else had that as much as Wolfkrone.
I'm more surprised about the second place since Latif performance was way above Dieminion's.
How can you complain about a match up for a character that hasnt been unchanged for 3 years?
How many major tournaments have a Viper won?
How many of the pros are complaining other than Perfect Legend?
Ask yourself these questions..... On another note, I just wanna say that I complained about the twins until I learned the match up. People just hate to admit that "if they don't know the match up, then the character is "broken" or "cheap" "
#37 I started to play Guile a few months ago, and i dont think hes especially hard or anything. After i trained with Guile a few hours, i was able to pull of wins with him, while still maintaining the level i played on before. A lot of characters are easy to win against with guile, but a lot of them are pretty hard to handle with guile. So i guess it would be hard to win a tournament with him, but i dont think hes hard to play online with. He certainly requires skill thou. Hes all footsies and spacing, but if you have that already, hes an easy character to pick up. Most guiles take risks thou wich isnt at all necissary with him.
Most consistant player of the year! Took down so many great players and won many tourny's. Dude is a beast. Congrats.
Congratulations Wolfkrone!! That man is a Class act!
Yet someone will almost ALWAYS inevitably say: " uh but characters, 1, 2,and 3 are sooo cheap! They are sooo easy but MY character takes REAL skill to play."
?
Good luck with that.
TRUTH: SSFIV 2012 ( well whatever version really ) is a game where we all win and lose sometimes but will most likley not do one or the other 100% of the time.
EVERY character in this game has cool stuff that when applied correctly, at the right moment may be incorrectly percieved as cheap and unfair.
Seriously. ( or whatever other words a player may wish to use in order to somehow feel better about themself, their loss, or their outright inability to deal with a situation.)
A win within the rules and boundaries of the game engine is simply a win.
Victory or defeat a player ultimately has only THEMSELVES to blame for their failures or success.
Wolfkrone works hard....regardless of how viper is as a character. Krone as a PLAYER deserves it, no doubt.
Also...Guile is not easy mode (except for people who don't know how to fight him). Try fighting a character that has good combos and cross-ups (IE Ken/Viper/Deejay), it's not easy. lol
If you can zone and anti-air, then it can be easy on lesser skilled players. But you need to be patient.
So whose the AE player of the year, according' too them? Does anyone else Feel like there gettin' Trolled for New Year's?
I remember a tier list from vanilla ranking Viper on top.
Noel I get 3rd place in every tournament brown wasn't POTY?