Habaduba is one of rising stars (well, more likely RAISED stars already) of European SC scene. He significantly contributed to put both Poland and Haohmaru to SoulCalibur map and we were able to see his trademark “I go SC6 tournaments and go BRRRRRRRR” approach on many streams including SCWB, OFC, EOS and more.
Nickname: Habaduba
Twitter: @Habaduba
Birth Year: 2000
Country: Poland
If you had to introduce yourself in three sentences to some SoulCalibur player who didn’t know you, what would you say?
Hi I’m Habaduba, a guy you probably see almost everywhere sticking his nose into conversations and never stopping to type. I really value honesty so if you have something to say then go ahead, lets talk about it. If you want to see how I play just find any European tournament… I am in it.
What is the origin or meaning of your nickname?
So as I was making a YouTube account I realized that my prior nickname had quite a few flaws and needed to be replaced. I used to go by “Chomik rzeznik” which in Polish means “A hamster butcher“, a 7-year old me found that funny but it was borderline unreadable for anyone who wasn’t polish.
Unfortunately the origin on the name doesn’t live up to the expectations, I simply came up with it on a whim when trying to think of something original. While i managed to do that I’am not sure I was in the right state of mind at the time to deem “Habaduba” a word simple to read and say.
How did it happened you end up playing fighting games?
It was about 5 years ago me and my best friend would play games together a lot, and one day we noticed Mortal Kombat X was on a Sale, so we decided to grab it. We had no idea how to play fighting games since we both only ever played a little of Soulcalibur 2 and Tekken 4 when we were like 5 or 6 years old, but he was easily beating me when he figured out I couldn’t deal with one of his moves.
He would spam the same button. I got completely obliterated but had great fun and when we were done i still wished to play a bit more so i jumped into training and noticed i have a move that is quite similar to his and it combos into itself on top of that. The next time we played the tables were completely turned and I was really proud when I could time the move to combo properly, so I got excited and went on to improve even more.
At some point my friend got mad I trained, and he dropped the game but I was too hooked myself. I started watching tournaments, combo videos and was amazed, the feeling of getting good at the game, solving problems and beating players I considered godlike felt amazing so from there on I knew I wanted to get seriously great at a fighting game, unfortunately for me MKX was nearing the end of its life-cycle.
While waiting for MK11, I noticed Soulcalibur 6 came out and my sister has been nagging me to get SC5 since she had great fun playing it with her friends, without expecting much I just bought it… And here we are, I’m so into it I didn’t even bat an eye on MK11.
Who do you main in SC6 and why?
I ended up maining Haohmaru although he is a rather new addition to the game so it took a while before i got my hands on him.
My first pick was Nightmare who I switched to Raphael shortly after. I thought Raphs animations were great and the mechanic of moving between his stances reminded me of a MKX technique of Runcacelling specials which i was really found of, so I stuck to him for over a year.
It’s my first Soulcalibur game so it took me some time but at some point I realized Raphael’s play style simply doesn’t suit me well and I didn’t have much more to learn by playing him.
Despite good results with the character i decided to switch for Haohmaru who I initially dismissed when he was released, but having played him a bit more I started to appreciate his tools.
What I find so appealing about him is the freedom you have while playing the character, his movement is first class, the pokes allow you to contest almost every situation and the way your offense and punishment changes under a huge number of variables makes him extremely engaging for me.
What is your opinion regarding SC6?
It’s my favourite game ever.
It had a lot of problems at release, but they have mostly been solved by the dev team and I find there to be enough depth to spend thousands of hours on it and still have something to learn and experiment with. Having tried a bunch of titles I do honestly think It’s the best fighting game out there when it comes down to gameplay and balance but it’s not without flaws.
The main one would be the netcode, there are simply way better netcode solutions out there and its something that touches everyone trying to play the game these days as there are little to none offline events due to the corona virus.
If you could change one single thing about SC6 what would that be?
Introducing a good rollback netcode. It would be a huge upgrade to netplay experience.
About the time I became decent at the game and started winning some tournaments, all offline events got called off so despite the fact I was just about to attend my first offline event a month later, I’am still here waiting for the whole thing to blow over.
It’s the same for a lot of players, online play is simply our only SC6 experience so making it possible to have solid matches with people further away from us would be a ginormous deal.
What you consider to be your greatest SC6 achievement and why?
While it may be a bit cliché but it would have to be gaining all the relations I got while playing. I’ve always been socially awkward and really shy in real life so even though I haven’t even met all those guys, having them put up with me and reach out every now and then is a huge thing for me.
In terms of competitive presence however I think that would be my performance at the “SoulCalibur Without Borders 2020 – EU East”. While I only placed 3rd it’s an event that got me noticed as a Haohmaru player, and while winning is important I think its overshadowed by entertaining and fun matches.
Please answer a single question that you were not asked but you would like to answer!
I imagine there is a lot to think about “What weapons and fighting styles would you like to see in the future of the series?“
There is always an original character or two, so we can always be hopeful for a new style or weapon being introduced.
If you ask me, I think we are lacking some blunt weapons. I understand why, thrusting weapons would take a lot of work to look well with how horizontal attacks are a large part of the game so there aren’t many of those, however there isn’t a single blunt weapon. I would especially appreciate a simple blunt weapon such as a war pick.
I also think it’s a shame there isn’t a single Polish-Lithuenian character in the game especially since it was quite a powerhouse at the time, though you could argue Geralt is Polish haha. While there are a lot of characters with different sort of swords i think Polish saber fencing is quite spectacular and would make good reference for a lot of unique animations.
Thanks for the interview!