Besides being a successful competitor (and metafy.gg coach), Florida Man was one of the most active SoulCalibur streamers for a long, long time. And now you have a chance to learn more about him.
Twitter: @Florida_Man_SC
Twitch: sc_florida_man
Birth Year: 09/07/1996 (I’m 25)
Country: USA
If you had to introduce yourself in three sentences to some SoulCalibur player who didn’t know you, what would you say?
Hey I’m Florida Man from Team Faustian.
I’m one of those Hwang players.
Games?
What is the origin or meaning of your nickname?
I made a meme reddit post of me smacking around a sieg player and a lot of people decided I should just call myself this so here I am.
How did it happen that you ended up playing fighting games?
I have always enjoyed the soulcalibur series casually growing up, as well as old street fighter and blazblue. Later some time then a player by the name of Zigmover21 from the Astaroth discord invited me to a local at the Seattle Gameworks during season one patch 1, which was my first offline tournament ever. I’ve since been hooked. And I can’t be more thankful of him bringing me into the scene.
Who do you main in SC6 and why?
I think this one deserves some context, I have bounced around different characters for a VERY long time. At one point during season one, it was mitsu, and then voldo, and then nightmare and then haohmaru.
I have actually finally settled on Hwang because I feel he fits me the most and is also the most fun and dynamic character I’ve ever tried in a fighting game before, also he’s really cool. My reasoning behind playing him is because I simply enjoy everything about the character from his talisman mechanics to his auras and his inherent flexibility, it creates a lot of time for me outside of matches to theory craft playstyles and strategies based on what he has in his kit which for me is very enjoyable. There is no one set way to play the character and he allows you to be play the way you want to play and make intelligent decisions on your own, rather than using a standard set of options you would always use like some characters do without deviation.
What is your opinion regarding SC6?
SC6 is a very fun game, and it’s not perfect. But I love the game and I love my community with all my heart.
If you could change one single thing about SC6 what would that be?
I think that changing the game in any major way would upset the balance a lot and I’m happy where it is so I wouldn’t change the game in any big way.
So if I absolutely had to answer the question, I would give every character in the game a horizontal 2K.
What do you consider to be your greatest SC6 achievement and why?
I’ve been competing in the game for a long time now and if I really have to tell the truth to this answer, I’m very modest. I feel good the times I’m making it out of pools, and it is enough to make me happy when I go to tournaments. I’m not one for gloating my results over people or the things I’ve done in the game since we’re all just people behind the sticks at the end of the day.
Maybe one day I’ll make it big in the game and can be proud of it but the time feels like it has passed since the pandemic has taken hold of the country with there being no set evo plans and stuff.
Like yeah I guess I made Top 8 at NEC, 5th at Bonus Round, 9th at Summer Jam and during the pandemic before offline came back I made top 8 during WSOE and top 8 in every single Budlight Beer League tournament except one, and consistently place in the top 5 players for WNF online tournaments, didn’t do too bad during soulcalibur without borders, and pre-covid I was doing alright in locals, 65th at EVO which was my first offline major and I won Winter Showdown 7 in Colorado against Sulton_TJK etc etc which felt great but those things don’t mean too much to me like, actually they really don’t.
If there was one tournament which I feel the most proud of it’s honestly the Boominati Day One Hwang tournament. I won that one and it made me want to play the character even more, so I’m proud not so much for winning but proud because it helped me reach a critical decision for my own future during my time playing the game.
Please answer a single question that you were not asked but you would like to answer!
I had to ask a friend to come up with this question (Enders J/AKA Sleepy Captain J) and he said: “How good do you honestly think Hwang is, no bullshit?”
My answer to this question no bullshit is honestly, I think Hwang is an excellent character. It is unfortunate that he was released during the pandemic and there isn’t much offline showing for the character for people to see how good the character actually is and many people are driven away by his knowledge floor of having to deal with the talismans and the awkward frame data on his AA; BB and KK.
Once you get learn to get past those things the character is really good, he has great horizontals, moderately low risk and high reward gameplay, good lows, great CH moves, good whiff punishes, good block punishes, lots of range, and great dmg on his 3B which is complimented by his amazing throw game. And he does all these things while having a tool for every situation you can think of.
He also has a amazing soul charge, a 5-5 matchup with arguably the best character in the game (Amy), and his CE and SA both have very good reach.
He can also do these things while doing guard damage on hit and either gaining health, a lot of meter, or guard stamina passively just by playing the game.
So yeah the character is really good and people should play him. Arguably top 5 if we saw more top players playing him.
(play hwang!)
Thank you for the interview!