SpeedKicks Makes a List of What Separates a High Level Player From Others

Your KIT 2016 Champion of Tekken 7 Speedkicks was recently requested to make a writeup of what necessitates a Tekken player to reach a certain level of decency. He made the post on his twitter page which you can follow @SpeedKicks. SK dispels a lot of valuable knowledge articulating some things that many other top players don't explicitly mention due to their inate talent compared to others along with things that lead to so many road blocks of many mid-tier competitors.

"Everyone knows playing any fighting game is just about making reads and countering correctly. Training to improve on that concept can be really hard unless you understand exactly what you need to do to..make the reads and counter so here's a small list to help get Cade started.

This list is written in the order of foundations. 1 and 2 without 3 isn't so bad, but 3 and 4 without 1 or 2 is worthless.

1. Self Control.

Competitive 1v1 games are called "fast paced chess" all the time for a good reason. They're just a high speed battle of two minds. That being said, you want your gameplay to reflect what's actually in your mind. It would be such a shame if a chess player couldn't move all of his pieces the way he wanted, right? Seeing the knight move for victory only to have a pawn move itself would suck, same in Tekken. You want to train yourself to play so that your character matches what you're thinking(this also includes strong execution). If you think it then it should be done with no processing time and, inversely, if you don't think anything then nothing should be done.

2. Awareness

This one is pretty self explanatory. Imagine playing chess and not being able to see the position of your opponent's pieces and the moves he makes; what would you even have to think about? If you are going to play the game, you need to be able to see what your opponent is doing, the more you see the better. This also seems to be the most consistent determining factor of the level of player. Low level players will block or get hit by things and think nothing of it, only thinking about what they want to do next. Mid level players generally have the thought process of "oh he's respecting me here" or "oh he like to mash" while lacking the ability and desire to see the specific actions of their opponents. High level awareness can account for everything, the small sidesteps, the dashes, the specific attacks and it gives you more information to work with against your opponent.

3. Game Knowledge

So you can see what the other guy is doing, good job. Now you have to beat it. 

Different fighting games have different systems and it's the understanding of the system that can make the difference between making the read on a hopkick, blocking it and punishing it for 30 damage or making the exact same read, backdashing and whiff punishing it for a full combo to oki.

Most mid level players get stuck here because they skip over 1 and 2 in the belief that knowing more about the game will make them a better player. But knowing how to beat what your opponent is doing is absolutely pointless if you lack the ability to (#1) make yourself respond properly or (#2) actually see what your opponent is doing.

4. Psychology and Prediction

This is where it all comes together. We said the game is about reading(#2, #3, #4) and countering(#1 and #3).

You have the ability to see what your opponent is doing and maximize the advantage you get off countering it, but unless you have the reactions of the Mortal Kombat CPU it won't score you any wins. You have to learn to use all of the information you have gained with your awareness and game knowledge to predict what your opponent will do next so you can kill them for it.

This is last on the list because you really want to have the other 3 trained before you start focusing on this. This is the final stage, when you're playing perfectly in a game...this is where your mind is. You don't want to have to think about what's your max damage punish or focus on making yourself see what the other guy is doing. You train those to become second nature so that when you're playing you can focus completely on getting in your opponent's head.

5. Instincts
The bonus entry! 

For the longest time, I couldn't figure out why the top Tekken players didn't all see this the way I did. Their advice to other players was always akin to "just practice and play to improve" even though I learned all of this specifically from watching them play. It's because they never thought about it. They really did get all 4 of the skills on this list naturally by just playing for years. They could see all the right things, make all the right predictions, and body you for it in their sleep. And it's not autopilot...it's not magic knowing...it's just instincts trained after playing for so long. 

I don't have that, I learned Tekken in a few months and even after 3 years I've still only been playing for less than half the time they have; but I'm just now starting to see the importance of it. The lack of good instincts is what creates that huge gap in skill between me when I'm focused and me when I'm off. Instincts gives the player something to rely on to help them make their decisions which is super important at the speed that fighting games move, especially in a game like TTT2 where you have to be so solid for so long to get even a single round. You can train your mind to play #1-#4 perfectly but there will be a time when your mind falters or your focus breaks or the pressure gets too real and you still have to make the right decisions. This is what allows them to do so. "