| 24 August 2010
The situation is presented to every player that picks up the sticks. You're down to almost nothing in your health. Sometimes, you have the resources to make a rally and get an amazing win. Other times, you have nothing, and you have to find some sort of opening to make a run back toward winning the round.
There are times, not in just Super Street Fighter IV, where miracle runs are performed. The great players all do it at least once. The superior players do it multiple times. It's part of Daigo Umehara's legacy.
But as I've been working on this database for Super Street Fighter IV, one guy has quickly stood out when it comes to comebacks. It's another veteran, Jason Cole.
I only have stats of two tournaments of which he's played. Both are recent, and both tell something amazing about his gameplay. His comeback average is more than double of what I have as the tournament average.
In two tournaments, Cole has a .323 comeback average. Nearly a third of his wins have come when he's been down to a quarter percent of health and trailing (that is my definition of a "comeback", more here in the guide). The tournament average in my database is .168 and decreasing as I continue to put in matches.
Most great players are above the curve in almost every category. However, when it comes to comebacks, they are at the average or below, in part because they don't need to rally to win.
Cole has been different.
At TourneyPlay in Washington this past weekend -- he finished second -- Cole had eight comebacks in the Top 8 for a .307 average. Four of his eight comebacks came in his final two matches, against Bokkin and DeLucifer.
It's only two tournaments, so this might seem like a blip on the radar. However, as I've learned in doing this database, player trends are exposed right away, even after one tournament. Seeing how Cole has played statistically in only two tournaments puts an imprint in my head we will continue to see him live on the edge. It probably won't be at the .323 clip that he's running on at the moment. But I wouldn't be surprised if it levels out to .250 by the end of summer. That would still be way above the average.
Just don't turn away from one of his matches if you see him down to a sliver of health.
Picture by Kelly Bracha.
