JKO Interview

Its been a while since I’ve posted a local player interview. I’m going to try getting these going again.  Here’s the first of hopefully many to come.  The following is an interview with one of the scenes best players Jericho Ugot.

Name or handles you go by:
For online games I am usually known as JUgot, but for chipdamage videos I go by Jko.

What are your favorite games to play?
My favourite games right now are SF4, KOF XIII, and SFEX2A

Who do you play?
In SF4 my main is Gen. For KOF I don’t have a set team right now but my last tournament team was Kensou/Kim/Chin. And for SFEX2A I play V.Rosso/Sagat.

How’d you get into the scene?
I did a Google search for “Winnipeg Street Fighter”. Found out you guys were holding BaseLAN and made my way there. Was only a spectator and didn’t introduce myself until the Friday gathering after a recruitment week.

 Whats your style of play?
I would say that my main style of play would be footsies converted to damage. So I play somewhat lame until I get a hit and then I try to rush down and open people up as much as possible. Although I have zero mind games so that second part is pretty hard.

I believe the last time you SFEX2 against me you were pretty free.  When was the last time you actually played it?
I don’t know about that. I am pretty sure I made you free with Skullomania’s disco ball super mix-ups. But seriously the last time I played was a week or two before TST7. I remember we were supposed to have a money match, but you said you were too scared or something and couldn’t attend.

Why are SF4 and Kof your favorite fighting games?
SF4 and KOF just suit my style of game play. Also, they are both just really fun to play. I enjoy playing other games but not as much as these two games and SFEX2A.

How did you start playing fighters?
I enjoyed playing the alpha series a lot when I was a kid. At any chance I got to rent a game I would always pick one of the alpha games. Then I guess when SF4 came out I just gravitated towards it and just had fun playing it.

Red or Green?
Green all the way. Green dominates punk ass red any day. Green has the better colour, and flavours that are associated with green always better than red. Green Apple > Cherry.

How do you train?
When learning a new game I go to training mode and just practice movement before anything else. When I feel comfortable with my movement I move on to simple combos. After I have those two things down I just try to get in as many games as possible with  online or offline play. As I get more comfortable getting random hits and confirming them to my simple BnB I learn more difficult and damaging combos.

Who are your favorite people to play against?
I love playing everyone in this scene as they all offer something when playing them. whether it’s just simple banter or useful information on the game. If I were to single people out as my favourite though. I would have to say my favourite people to play are the west end training team, Tuesday KOF people, BMike, and Sandeep.

What has been your proudest acheivment so far?
My proudest moments are whenever I body Duong in SFEX2A, and when I somehow get an Alpha 2 win with Gen.

You’ve provided some of the hypest moments for us at baselan.  How did you feel while you were going through and which one did you enjoy more?
During the SSF4 baselan moment, I felt like I was making a lot of good reads along with good decisions. I was pretty anxious throughout the last set. Despite the anxiety I was just having a lot of fun playing in the tournament.

Now for the Marvel moment, it honestly was like the complete opposite. I did feel I was making the right decisions, but I didn’t feel like I was making the right reads. I was just doing stuff and the random nature of that game allowed me to get wins. I was not worried at all that tournament, because I couldn’t care less if I lost. It wasn’t fun. However, I felt solace knowing that people were going to be salty if I won.

Talk a bit about your Evo experience last year.
Evo and Vegas was really fun. I went to evo and went 6-2, unfortunately losing to Marn in losers finals for pools. Despite the loss I had a lot of fun and met a lot of top players. One of my favourite moments during Evo were when Graeme and I were trolling the american fans during top 32 on Friday and top 8 on Sunday. Haha we got mad death stares from one of Latif’s buddies.

What attracted you to Gen in Street Fighter 4?
He’s in a fighting game and he is old. When I was a kid looking to pick a character in any fighting game I would always choose the oldest person. My mentality at the time was that the oldest person would be the most knowledgeable and experienced fighter. That thought process just carried over to who I play now.

Tell us about the Regina tournament and what you thought of there players skill wise.  Also rate their GDLK pizza.
The Regina tournament was great. The venue was nice, and everyone was pretty friendly. I honestly don’t think I played anyone from Regina in SF4. I only played Graeme and 4 Calgary guys. Those Calgary guys were good though. I think I played a few Sask people in mvc3, but it’s hard to judge a players skill in that game.

Their GDLK pizza is a bit exaggerated. The first pizza place being Houston’s which is supposedly “Canada’s best pizza” was super expensive for something not that impressive. It was good but not worth what we paid. The second pizza place we went to was Tumbler’s. This pizza was better than Houston’s and more reasonably priced. Tumbler’s was good, but again I was a bit underwhelmed by it.

What are your other hobbies?
There are a lot of things I like to do in my free time, but I don’t think I can call any of them hobbies. I don’t do things on a regular basis so I don’t think they’re considered my hobbies.

A goat and a cat are standing in your way.  Which one do you kick first?
hmm, That’s a tough one. I guess I would have to kick the cat first. Let’s assume that if I kick one the other one would attack me with the first animal I kicked. My best chance would be that I could take out a cat in one go, and fight the goat 1 on 1. I guarantee I would not be able to take out a goat with one kick, and fighting 2 on 1 just sounds like a bad idea.

What other games do you play?
I honestly think fighting games has ruined me for any other type of game. I pop in another game that isn’t a fighter and I just don’t feel like playing it for long. Since 2009 I think I only bought 2 games that weren’t fighters. One game only has 2 hours on it (blue dragon) and I beat the other game (dark souls pc). Other than those 2 games and tetris attack I don’t really play other games.

Ever consider not being free in sfex2?
Sometimes, I feel that I should stop being free in sfex2. The thoughts of me being free just keep me up at night. Then I beat Duong for around 20 games and then I don’t feel like that any more.

Anything you’d like to say to the comunity?
Yes.  Matty is free in Tetris Attack.  That is all.