There are new players discovering Tekken every day; watching guides from PhiDX and TheMainManSWE to build their fundamentals, grinding to high ranks, and eventually entering their first local or online brackets.
Recently, I have noticed that this is done with a lack of preparation for the differences in tournament play. Moreover, it is done with a lack of awareness of how tournament play could even be different. Newer players do not even know what the "tournament skills" are simply because they are not talked about enough.
It’s not my intention to create a full tournament guide. If this were something I had the capacity to simplify down to 5 Steps to Win More Tournaments then it would have instead been made as a PhiDX video.
I also do not plan to offer any solutions here. I will be using my experience and analysis to detail the problems and hopefully instill an intuitive understanding of their existence in the reader. My goal being to develop the ability to spot these issues when running into them, figure out solutions, and maybe even better appreciate the skill displays of the best tournament players.
For obvious reasons, the absolute closest tournament environment one can find to their online first-to-two (FT2) ranked matches is an online bracket. You are playing at home, on your favorite side, with the same input delay, on your monitor, in your room, in your chair, with the same screen distance, and no crowd. The only difference between online FT2 ranked and an online FT2 tournament is the most critical element: the stakes.
For an example of the change in stakes, imagine you were challenged by a friend to play a single round of Tekken for $50.
You can probably already imagine that you may instantly become more responsive to the threat of lows or mixups as there is no cushion of losing 2 rounds in order to find the pattern – when the opponent scores 200 damage on you then it’s game over. You may also intuitively rush to guess where the attack openings are in order to enforce your mixups to them or attack with tighter frame traps to prevent your opponent from doing the same.
Now imagine that same person challenged you to a FT20 set of Tekken for $500. Even with increased monetary stakes, your decision making will become much more relaxed. You may become more willing to take low hits, block more often in neutral, attack without rushing, and look to identify and respond to patterns.
This change is a result of more forgiving stakes. Yes, it is “more forgiving stakes” even though the dollar amount is higher. This is because “stakes” does not only refer to how much money is on the line but also how much health you are allowed to gamble with each in-game interaction.
In the single round scenario, you only have 200 health to bet on each interaction so taking a 20 damage hit matters significantly more than in a normal FT2 set. In the FT10 scenario, you have a lot more health so each hit matters less.
All of this changes the risk/reward on your decision making and forces you to play differently. Since risk/reward is what determines a “good” decision from a “bad” decision, many high level players have different tier lists for both FT2 and long sets. Some things are observably better or worse depending on the stakes.
So with this understanding of how stakes can change gameplay, it should be simple to understand the difference between ranked and online tournament play. In ranked, your goal is to win more than you lose and maintain a positive winrate. But in a double elimination tournament, you are only allowed to lose two full sets.
Even though both formats are FT2, an online bracket has less forgiving stakes than ranked and you will feel the difference. And even if you don’t feel it, you can expect your opponents to feel it and you should account for it in your reads and first layers of gameplay.
Figure out how the stakes affect your opponent — if he is a scared masher or a psycho who doesn’t care, it may look similar on defense but it tells you whether he’ll rush to kill you in the clutch out of fear or if he’ll be calm and bait your panic response.
Learning how to make these high stakes decisions will make you a better Tekken player much faster than normal ranked games. This is why it helps to enter tournaments as soon as you’ve developed your fundamentals.
This is all I'll type for now, as my girlfriend is currently waiting on me,
Speedkicks