Hiya!

I am feeling very salty. I have been feeling very salty for the past couple of weeks now. It’s all because of the recently concluded Chipotle Daily Bracket Tournaments in Street Fighter 6. A part of it is because, despite entering them virtually every day since its launch, I never won a single one. In retrospect, it’s a little arrogant of me to think I should have been able to win even a single tournament. However, a part of me feels I should’ve won at least one. That’s because I usually just lost to the Master Rank players who joined my bracket at the last second.

Okay, so remember when I wrote about how I actually won my first online tournament in Street Fighter 6? I have to say it was probably one of my proudest moments in my gaming life. I’ve never won a single thing before, not even a raffle! So, going out and competing against 32 other players and coming out on top was a big deal for me. However, that tournament was against other Silver and Gold Rank players like myself. A part of me knows I lucked out because I did get matched up against players at around my real skill level and I edged them out to eke out the victories.

Well, that was then. Unfortunately for me, the Chipotle Daily Bracket Tournament lets all players of all skill levels join in whatever bracket they want. This means, during these tournaments, I would face off against more skilled players. That’s not what I’m complaining about. Those are just the rules of the game. I know in a real tournament, players are not herded into different pools because of their skill level or rank. They’re all thrown into the same pool and have to fend for themselves. That’s not what I’m salty about but I’ll elaborate a little more later.

I do have to mention I can only play video games, including Street Fighter 6, during the wee hours of the AM because of my work schedule. Even though I’m working in the Philippines, my job involves me having to do my actual shift during EU time. That means I clock out around 1AM Philippine time. After that, I have to do my usual daily mundane stuff like eat a good meal, clean up a little, think about stuff to write for this blog before I get to log in online to play some Street Fighter 6. I’m only able to allocate around, at most, 2 hours of playtime before I head to bed and do it all over again. I also don’t have time on my rest days because, well, family and responsibilities.

So I eventually stumbled onto the Chipotle Daily Bracket Tournaments one day during these early, before dawn, gameplay sessions. I looked for a bracket that had, at most, Platinum rank players because I feel I can beat at least some of them. I managed to find one bracket which had something like 7 players, all with around Gold and Platinum Ranks. Yep, that’s fine with me. If I do lose to one of these Gold and Platinum Ranked players, I could say it was a fair fight. Oh, by this time, I’ve ranked up my Guile to a 4-star Gold Rank, which took me longer than I felt I should have, so I should be good against some Platinum ranks.

Anyway, I usually like to keep tabs on the brackets of the tournaments I join because I like to get an idea of the kind of characters I may have to face off against. The list of players generally stayed the same for most of the hour, with a few other Gold and Platinum players joining. Then, just 5 minutes before the tournament was going to start, a new player joined the bracket. It was a Master Rank player and I thought why would this person decide to pick this specific bracket when there are so many other brackets out there. Suffice to say, this Master Rank player trounced all of us Silver and Gold Rank players and won the entire thing.

This happened each and every time I tried to join one of these Chipotle Daily Bracket tournaments. I would look for a pool which only had players at around my rank. This would eventually be rendered meaningless as a Master Rank player would swoop in just before the registration deadline ends and this Master Rank player would proceed to just win the entire thing. Honestly, I’ve really gotten enraged by this as it kept happening over and over again.

Now, you may be thinking I’m mad because I keep on losing in these tournaments and you’d be partially right. However, I don’t really get upset when I do lose. I’m a pretty chill gal by those standards. What really grinds my gears are these Master Rank players who insist on sniping these brackets who only have low-level players because they want to be the one to make it to the top.

I understand that’s how these tournaments go. Even in all of the Capcom Cup tournaments, they just lump in all players into different brackets without much of a care regarding if low level players are paired with Master Rank or pro players. In fact, I think tournament organizers take it upon themselves to spread out the top players to different brackets so they don’t eliminate themselves early on and allow lower level players to surprise us. However, this is different. This is the equivalent of having a bunch of amateur basketball teams joining a tournament then, just before the tournament starts, Lebron James and other NBA players put together a team and sign up. That doesn’t seem all that fair, does it?

I also understand some of you will just say I should stop whining and just put in the work to “git gud” at Street Fighter 6. I honestly wish I could but some people just hit a ceiling of improvement and they would need a lot of conscious effort to get better, devoting a lot of time to devote into practicing to break through their barriers. That’s me in a nutshell. As I mentioned before, I can, at most, just devote 2 hours a day into playing Street Fighter 6. Maybe some of these Master Rank players are naturally gifted and reached that level with those same parameters. I’m not, and I would guess a lot of other players are in the same boat as myself and don’t have the talent to burn in advanced techniques like input buffering and sharpening their reactions so they can counter Drive Impact easily. We might be able to do so with enough practice. We just simply don’t have the time to do so.

Look, I get why these Master Rank players are sniping these gateless tournaments. It’s an easy win for them but what do they really get out of it? They get a bunch of Drive Tickets for winning the Chipotle Daily Bracket Tournaments and that’s really it! I mean, just participating in the tournament gives you all the sticker rewards. So, what? Is it just ego then? Is it just so they can say they won a tournament? Well, it feels like a hollow victory as all they did was bully a bunch of low-level players to get the top prize. Did they really practice their mettle against players who are up to their caliber? Did they feel any pressure and feel the euphoric joy of almost losing but managing to make a comeback to steal the win? I doubt it. That’s because I did win a tournament against players who were around my level and I am proud of winning as I did nearly lose a couple of times.

I know a lot of people reading this who play Street Fighter 6 at a high level as saying I’m a huge crybaby. Yes, that may be true. However, this is how I feel about the whole situation. It just comes off as unfair as these Master Rank players won’t let the lower level players have something of their own.

You may say lower ranked players should just tough it out and improve. However, I think that would be a very short sighted thing to say. A huge reason why Capcom has a big hit with Street Fighter 6 is because it did bring in a lot of new people. Do you really think all of those 2 million gamers who got the game were veterans of the fighting game community? No, a lot of them are newbies, attracted to the idea of executing special moves with the press of a button thanks to the new Modern controls. A lot of them wanted to get into it because they felt they could finally play a fighting game. So, do you think it’s wise to try to push them out? Do you think it’s a good idea to not let them have some space to relax and enjoy themselves without getting pummeled into oblivion? I don’t know about you but alienating new fans so your favorite game doesn’t get new blood seems dumb to me.

Well, with the Chipotle Daily Bracket Tournaments over, hopefully, Capcom will reinstate the gated brackets so we low level players can enjoy ourselves without getting bullied… until, of course, you get those Master Rank level players creating a new “smurf” account so they can take that away, too. I guess I’ll be complaining then once that happens.

Byee!

What do you think of Master Rank or really good players choosing to play against lower leveled players? Let me know in the comments section below!