I finally won my first G2 Championship today, huzzah. As it turns out, I'm pretty terrible against charge characters and I kept drawing them in semi's and finals, finally got something like 4 Ryu's in a row, I don't remember exactly but there was at least 3, and beat them. I've learned the Ryu match up pretty well thanks to online play, it's tons of fun as an Akuma.
Also, ordered an arcade stick, I had been playing on a standard 360 controller since I got the game (Septemberish) and now all my practice is going to be reset to 0, time to warm up Trial Mode again.