Some weeks ago I played ranked in TTT2 on one of my numerous accounts that I had at beginner. I got a 50 win streak and got to 9th Dan - Marauder when I was done. I played again last night and I had the intention of playing until I lost a game. 3-4 matches into the session, my first loss was handed to me by another smurf account. I got to 12th Dan - Warrior with minimal hassle. I ran into a few 1,000W 1,000L players that had a general understanding of how to play Tekken but lacked profusely in the punishment department, so I took advantage of that.
I promoted to 11th Dan - Berserker off of a Ling/Nina player who started to use Ling's 10-strings in his demotion match. What's interesting to note is that throughout the entirety of my run through the green ranks, I had decent connections across the board. The moment I matched up with another yellow rank, the connection qualities shifted to being inconsistently terrible. I had one guy who appeared to be jumping from a 1 bar to a 4 bar, 4 bar to a 3 bar, 5 bar to a 1 bar, so on and so forth.
The first tidbit of resistance that I encountered was a Pugilist King player who had an awful connection but he was another one of those 10 million W 10 million L guys who couldn't make it out of the yellow ranks to save his life but he knew how to exploit sidestep into Dark Upper or sidestep into King's low sweep. When I reached 10 losses I stopped playing. At this point I quit at 13th Dan - Avenger.
You may be thinking what makes this ranked session so illuminatingly different from every other ranked session that people play, well don't worry because I have some notes.
1. It's hard for me to play ranked with integrity. The moment I got to the yellow ranks I was doing things that you would never catch me doing otherwise, (player match, offline match, quick match, player match lobby, you name it). I would just do random sidestep Jet Uppers with Bryan, random db 3+4,4s with Bob, just because I want to win as easy and quickly as possible. Random hopkicks, orbital heels, barely any pokes. It transformed into a game about wanting to get the most points from a game of Tekken. So I noticed that when I play ranked, I'm not playing Tekken, I'm playing a lazy game of "how little work can I do and still get away with a win". There's nothing wrong with this mindset except for the fact that it hinders my progression in skill level. The highest rank I've ever gotten to was 17th Dan - Destroyer and I ultimately chalk that up to a fluke because I played three times against a 16th Dan - Vanquisher moron Kunimitsu player who practically gave me a handful of promotion points.
2. Ranked is too inconsistent for me to take it seriously. In the yellow ranks people are really out here to kill you, and not just in Tekken (and you know what I'm talking about, the forthright unabashed slit your throat approach) but in things outside of Tekken. Jumping into a match with a 1 bar at the start of the first round. Disconnecting on demotion matches. Blocking a hellsweep but missing a launch punish because of a bad connection. Holding the back button but still getting hit by Lee's Blazing Kick or Hwo's just frame launcher. All of these things throw a huge rusty wrench in the technicalities of ranked. So much that whenever I play ranked, it's very hard for me to play patiently because that approach rarely gets rewarded unless I'm on a 5 bar.
3. I'm a 17th Dan - Destroyer tier player because I absolutely refuse to put work into Tekken. My general approach to Tekken is to win with using the least amount of brain power as possible.
Here's a scenario. I'm in the final round, I'm a small health sliver away from beating my opponent. My opponent just got up from being knocked down, what I do after he gets up will dictate whether I win or lose. If I do a low immediately after he gets up, that would be an easy win, so I'll do that.
If he blocks the low, he can punish it, if I do a mid instead, he might mash a button after blocking the mid. Or I could space him out and just wait until he makes a mistake. But, that's too much work, I'm just gonna do a Dragon Tail. And then I lose the match, because I wasn't willing to be patient enough or put in the effort to win. Because of that I'm a low tier player. I'm willing to take the proper steps to efface this personal playstyle issue alongside not flowcharting and relying on habits. Strong habits die quickly when I play anyone that's worth a match. Against blue ranks, my fundamentals are there, but my amount of effort and execution just isn't there. Dropping a combo because I got too excited that a launcher landed is an issue. I can't count how many times I've attacked a blue rank on my friends list in a player match, and then the blue rank guy will sidestep and launch, or do some high tech wankery that eludes me because I'm a habitual player. Having more confidence in my setups and finishing a combo because I am certain that what I just attempted was going to work initially, is the mindset of a better player than I am.
