The MIXUP is the largest fighting game event in Europe currently – and also, the largest SoulCalibur event in Europe. After a covid-forced break, it took place just recently and here are the interviews with the Top3 – with HeadCheese, Aelz, and Jason.
As none of you need any introduction as an SC player, will you please introduce your “civil” persona to us?
HeadCheese: I’m pretty basic, just trying to improve on my field of work currently as my main goal.
Aelz: Hello, I’m Nicolas Jeanjaquet, I work as a consultant for a HR software company. I love italian food and my hobbies are often centered around video games and sci-fi of any kind.
Jason: I am just a man who try to attend as many offline tournament as possible. As a night worker, it’s not always that easy to be here and in shape for playing at top level but it seems I do it pretty well.
TheMIXUP is probably the largest FG event in Europe currently. How was it as a whole?
HeadCheese: It was similar to any other offline event, you get to meet people in person and play some games. The main difference was that I hadn’t met the majority of the SC6 players in person. All were really nice, so it was a cool experience.
Aelz: The Mix-Up was still a huge event despite the long break with COVID and such, and still one of my favorite event. The tournament went smoothly and we had a lot of EU participation in this tournament so you had quite a fierce competition for SC6 which is not always the case since the game is getting old. Also Lyon is pretty nice on the side !
Jason: The Mixup is the best EU event, by far, both in terms of visibility and comfort for players. We are lucky to have this event in France.
What were your thoughts when heading there to compete in SC6?
HeadCheese: I wanted to win and put on a good showing, since I don’t get many opportunities to travel for this game.
Aelz: My thoughts were kinda complicated, competition is exciting and those events allow you to meet the community again which is always a great experience, my objective was to go beyond my initial result at MixUP 2019 with a top 6 and maybe reach for a top 1 this time, but beside that, competing has become stressful to me, to a point I can feel physically sick from it. So there was a lot of excitement but also a lot of dread and stress. I’m trying to work on that since VSF but honestly i’m still far away from achieving peace of mind with competition.
Jason: Back then, I was always looking for the win even though I didn’t have the skills for it, today I’m more relaxed and just come and play, I’m less stressed and I enjoy the game more. this was my mindset for the Mixup, just going and do my best.
Looking at the bracket, there seem to be a lot of great matches that were played off-stream. Are there any memorable sets you would like to mention or expand upon?
HeadCheese: Most of my games were on stream, so I don’t have much to say. Only thing I can think of is when Horseface did a side grab that should have rang me out, but Okubo’s will (SC jank) gave my Cervy plot armor and he managed to stay in.
Aelz: I’d say my match against Ganondeurf that was off-stream was probably the closest match I had in the entire tournament, going last round last HP. For other matches, unfortunately, I mainly looked at the stream 😆
Jason: My only match that wasn’t on stream is vs Neon, and I respect him too much to expose what happend in this FT2 Hahaha
Are you satisfied with your performance and result?
HeadCheese: I won so yeah. I did some silly mistakes vs Jason that I got punished for, but besides that, I think I did well to come back from it.
Aelz: I am satisfied and happy with the 2nd place. My tournament started horribly with a early defeat in the mirror against Blade_of_Flame and a lot of extremely close matches after that, like against Sazayel, but on the day of the top 8, despite the pressure and my wounded confidence, I felt like I played pretty well and that I earned a 2nd place, a feat I believe I could not reach the day before. I truly think I could have won against HeadCheese but he played well and fast during our games and I was just a bit too slow to adapt and this time, compared to the last tournament I won, I didnt have the winner side advantage to give me this much needed time.
Jason: If you asked me my thought about my performance just after the tournament, I probably would say “pathetic”. But now I can be honest with everyone including myself, with my playtime the last 2 years, I can’t be unsatisfied, I’m more a thief than anything Hahaha
SC6 v2.31 has been around for over a year and everyone is familiar with the game and MUs thoroughly. So, which character do you dislike to face most, and why?
HeadCheese: Instead of saying Hilde, because she’s generally overtuned and I find her a losing MU for most of the cast, I’m gonna say Tira. I don’t like getting RNGed, and GS in particular feels like fighting a permanently TCing Cervantes in a way, with an antibackstep but without the wall gimmicks. I do like using her for those same reasons though.
Aelz: I’d say Hilde has always been a character I disliked fighting. I even think the match-up between Tira and Hilde is fair, it’s just that it is less exciting than other MU because you have to play so goddamn patient all the time otherwise the character just straight up bully you with a backstep you cant contest and the famous ‘hehe I win neutral’ CA button.
On the other side of the spectrum, fighting characters like Yoshi on some stages is also a horrible experience. On a normal stage, you already have quite the powerful character, but if the stage select gets you the Indian port, now you get one shot from mistakes like stepping at -2 in the middle of the stage. id say its more about a stage issue but the feeling is still there
Jason: I can’t say if it’s Azwel or 2B that I hate the most in this game both doesn’t play the same game as other characters, that doesn’t mean I didn’t learned to play against, but it’s just horrible to face them.
BONUS: If you will be able to add one more character to SC6 (legacy, new, or host), who will you choose and why?
HeadCheese: I like nunchaku, but find Maxi lame, so Li long. Another would be M.Bison. Evil badass dude that uses psycho crusher. He even has a hat. Reminds me of someone.
Aelz: For a guest character, i’d honestly welcome the revamped Kratos from the latest God of War as a guest, his new arsenal would make him super interesting to build around.
Otherwise i’m still waiting for Algol for S3 :copium:
Jason: If I could add a last character to the game, I will probably choose Rock, it’s the last true legacy character that is not in the game!
Thank you for the interview!
