No.
I used to think he was moderately decent at them. But post SF6 it is really clear to me he can roughly memorize a combo or two. Like if you just watch him its fucking ridiculous how he cannot actually create an opening, or recognizing one.
He has no real sense of fundamentals. Every button that isn’t his broken. He refuses to acknowledge the importance of using good buttons to gain advantages.
Here is to hoping he actually caves into Fightcade so actual good players show him he ain’t shit.
I can’t speak to how good he was back in the fgc days, but today the answer has to be no.
He can stomp noobs at the start of a new game or during casual on weekdays and stoners Friday night.
But the second he starts to meet real opponents he is pretty much done for.
I’ve thought about this a little bit, and the conclusion I’ve come to is: not really.
For me, it was the fact that Piece of Peace has beaten Phil, what… nearly a dozen times now? That’s not a dig at PoP - he’s clearly put in the hours. But the fact that a guy who had been playing Street Fighter for 6 months, and only practicing in his free time, can beat this former “professional fighting game player” multiple times across multiple characters is proof enough for me.
I don’t think it’s a dig against PoP.
He is the first one to admit that he’s not great at SF and makes mistakes a lot. But it is a good point that somebody that just recently has picked up SF and does in no way practice “like a pro” can go toe to toe against Phil.
No.
Whatever “skills” he had, they’re LONG gone. He was always just above average at best and even now, they’re long gone. I say “had”, as he once said that he did win local tournaments in Bridgeport and that FYE Tekken 3 trophy he still hangs on to like a old varsity jacket from high school, to remember the days of when he thought he was good.
Thats like half of how SF6 exposed him for me. The other half is the very visible mechanics of the game. Namely the drive meter and the super meter. Like the game really seems to be about rationing both very carefully. And the game is more balanced around using them for more utility than damage. Things like parrying, or giving your moves unique properties. But Phil? He uses them only for damage.
However today I wanted to start my thoughts on the multitude of reasons I think Phil is a shitty player. And today’s entry is, he has no respect for his opponent.
This might seem obvious, its phil. But the idea is if you want to play a competive game always assume your opponent knows how to stop it or how to answer whatever move you take. Now that might seem like some Sun Tzu shit or self defeating but bear with me. People who are way into games have defined them as a series of choices or decisions. So, if you boil a game down into its most basic primordial form, at any point on “your turn” you choose between A B or C. And what I am saying is to always anticipate that your opponent knows that D beats A, E beats B, and F beats C.
Now the reason I am using two sets and not ABC in a cyclical fashion like rock paper scissors is because good games have DEF be inequal but effective responses. To use my favorite game of Magic. ABC would be something like playing a creature, playing a spell, or using an ability. And DEF would be in order using a kill spell, countering a spell, or using a stifle. And assuming all six options use all of our mana. And in a vacuum C is my best pick. Because abilities never really cost you cards, but stopping them usually does. So our mana is the same, but I am one card up on them. I have cost them resources compared to me.
Now for a fighting game example. Lets say ABC is light, medium, and heavy attacks. And usually in that case DEF is all one thing: block. But the trick is then that A lets you go again. B puts you both at an ability to hit the faster move. C just hands over your turn. The pay back is that A does the least damage, C does the most. A good fighting game player knows that A is the best option, because your opponent will always block. So they will take their time. Because if A is blocked, now they change the dynamic. A, B, C become a high attack, a low attack, or a throw. And now the opponent has a much harder place on the defense. Because now you have to know the character. Which move is better for the offense. Which one ends their turn if they fuck up. This is where fighting games get interesting.
But Phil. Phil sees this as stupid pattern bullshit. Because Phil thinks you just hit C every time. You don’t respect your opponent having the stop. And sometimes he is right. Most of the time he is not. He’s really only right against assholes who think the best defense is a good offense. He has no understanding of patience or attempting to learn when to find an opening. He just seeks damage.
I don’t pay super close attention to Phil’s inputs when he plays SF6, I mainly just watch for the complaining and the salt, but generally speaking, he seems like the definition of a pattern player. He just tries to do the same shit over and over, and when that doesn’t work, he freaks out and accuses his opponent of being a pattern player.
I think that’s pretty textbook Phil - blatantly doing something, insisting that you aren’t doing it, and then insisting that others are.
I’ve tried my hand at other competitive games, and one thing I learned is that pattern play is a trap. It’s easy to fall into, and hard to get out of. Phil doesn’t seem to be able to adapt at all, and I’m sure that’s why he’s stuck chasing 1500 MR on every character he plays.
He’s better than me, but that’s a low low bar as I don’t play fighting games at all. I don’t believe his excuses for the most part and I’ve seen FGC players on youtube who blow him away in terms of not making excuses and just dealing with the game as is - e.g. Brian F and Smug. I’d love to see him play SF2 Turbo 2 offline against Justin Wong - e.g. you can see in this video of Justin Wong and Smug playing SF2 Turbo, Justin’s pretty good himself.
This is great. It’s a shame fightcade didn’t happen. Phil still talks like he’s hot shit at Super Turbo, and he loves to brag about beating JWong 20 ago or whatever, so I’d loooooove to see him go up against some of these FGC guys in the games that he was “one of the best in the world” at.
Its actually slightly even more brain dead than pattern play. Like he is the worst kind of Marvel player. He just knows how to get damage and learns combos. I will have to find those videos showing the deep hypocrisy of it all. But its true. Pay attention every time he talks about learning tech for SF6. Its only that he ever learns combos. Never does he learn how to avoid or block something.
He is the worst kind of Marvel player too because he can’t even create openings. Except for like those perfect parries. He can only kind of recognize openings. Which is where his tantrums of people being safe comes from. But instead he just throws out attacks and hopes his opponents just can’t block him or counter him
The worst part is playing online, he can just make lag excuses. That’s why I’d like to see him play offline. We’d see how much face-grating on concrete would go on too… mr big mouth DSP…
Never forget the time he tried shouting lag playing the AI. Also he really likes to bring up broken sticks when talking about his history. So, non zero chance he was using that excuse back in the day.
I used to think he was not garbage but that was before I started checking out the various input videos/clips that are out there. Combine that with the PoP SF6 saga and seeing how Piece analyzes moves and takes notes in the lab and now I’d say Dave was never good at fighting games. He memorized pattern combos in SF2 and bet on the random damage multiplier or whatever the fuck is in that game.
The fact that PoP can sit there in a restream and predict 90% of Dave’s move choices at any given time during a match is insane. Either PoP is more autistic than I give him credit for, or Dave is that predictable. Let’s be honest, PoP, you are at least a little autistic 
, but my money is on Dave’s pattern play.
I barely watched the Tekken 8 stuff, but the few times I did watch, he kept using the same 4 moves unless his opponent got wise to his shit pattern.
Slightly better than average.
Well after tonight he just comes off as even fucking worse. He cannot fucking block unless if it is a perfect parry. He can’t time a counter hit. Its fucking miserable
He wanted to end on a win tonight, but it was so clear that he had just given up by the end, that he went overtime by thirty minutes just to get it.
I’ve noticed, especially recently, that he’s pretty prone to just giving up and taking his hands off the stick when things stop going his way. That kind of behavior would be understandable for someone who was newer to fighting games - it’s one of the bumps in the road that you have to learn how to get over, but it’s extremely out of place for an FGC veteran who claims to have been one of the best in the world at multiple fighting games.
Whatever skill he used to have is all but gone at this point. It’s even worse for him now than it is for someone completely new to fighting games because he has this idea of how fighting games should work in his head and they simply don’t work that way anymore or they just plainly didn’t even work back then. Someone completely new to fighting games starts from 0 and can start learning without any weird preconceived notions of how things should work. I mean he still uses the term “move priority” unironically for fuck’s sake. That term was used as “x move beats y move” without understanding why because nobody knew what the fuck frame data or hit and hurtboxes were back in the day. Nowadays it means something different, it’s when two moves hit at the same time, in most games both players get hit, but some series like Virtua Fighter they actually have a move priority system where the move that does more damage will go through in that situation.
The only “skill” he has over complete newbz is that he learns the simplest shit required to beat an opponent and then keeps spamming it to victory until he hits the wall where it doesn’t work anymore. In my experience newbies nowadays focus too much on learning elaborate combos or hyperspecific applications of certain moves (especially if they’re something like sabaki moves) over learning fundamentals so they get cooked by Phail’s Grug-tier “spam 3 moves to victory” strategy. Learning a Grug-tier “3 moves to win” strat is actually a great way to start learning a new fighting game and the wall you hit is a great indicator that you should now start learning those crazy specific moves and combos that people get tricked into learning first. Thing is, after Phil hits that wall he just refuses to learn his character or matchups more closely. That’s why he’ll always remain a scrub.
When Phil is “trying out” a new character, he has the following questions.
1: What’s a easy, but high damaging combo he can break out to make it look like he has an idea of what he’s doing.
2: What’s a good grab (preferably a command grab) he can use deal usually half the damage he heals in every match.
3: What confirms into level 3.
4: Charge move!
He will then form his basic spam strategy around he’s 4 questions and so long as things go absolutely perfectly then he will be as content as a pig in shit. Unfortunately for Phil though, once a character gets past the spam through either knowing what they’re doing, or by being fast enough they can just brute force past it. His ego can withstand a few hits, but once the other person starts actually winning and forcing him to go back and forth, he completely folds.
Dave has no defense, other than a single anti air he will attempt to use universally even when it doesn’t have universal application. No anti air is universal. He will try and panic mash a level 1 or 2 if it has defense, or he will (again) panic mash a drive rush which are all done with all the timing and grace of a premature ejaculation.
Long story short, yeah, Dave is horrible at fighting games. It’s why he’s stuck with all the flunkies at 1400- Master Points.
Not that surprising that a 42 year old isn’t good at fighting games but I love watching him struggle and lose. Big ups to Raw Phil for slapping the guy around with Cammy on that first match of the night
I am not a fighting game fan, but if you know how to play a character enough to get master (lets pretend that matters). Shouldn’t you know how to counter play that character? I heard him use that excuse a lot in last nights SF6 session.