Diamond fella can't even play a normal chill ranked game in peace without being labeled by half the Fgc community as random and getting compared to daigo
When I first saw the clip I thought it might have been a tournament match (based on all the attention) and if it wasn't maybe it would be last game last round but it was first round in a random online set? It's an interesting discussion for sure but I'm surprised it's getting all this attention in the first place
Fr tho this reminds me of the chad meme, all the fgc community going "NOOOOOO YOU CAN'T EX TATSU IN THIS SITUATION, SO RANDOM", and my homie t1tan be like "Haha funny flying kick goes brrrrr"
@@jeanschyso True i be playing Tekken and just practice the hard combos but i don't know fram data. So i either win or lose sometimes but in the end, i am just having fun
I mean, I get the whole "conditioning" argument, and that may well be true, but look at the risk Daigo was facing: huge life lead, early match in the set. Even if Gamerbee read the next DP and punished it, he couldn't deal enough damage to steal the round. So yeah, why not throw out another DP just for the memes? If it works and it keeps on working, why stop?
But Daigo 'just pressing buttons' has a proven track record of success, while online rando's 'just pressing buttons' doesn't. When you have enough experience and success, at a certain point you can roll on subconscious instinct because you've internalized the correct choice. When Steph Curry behind-the-back juke-dribbles into step-back-3, he's not deliberately thinking about what he's doing, he's going with the flow and rhythm. But he gets to do that, because he's a champion and all-time great.
Agreed man same for soccer or basketball. If you shoot from half court and brick you’re benched if you burn it you can shoot it all game. Hit your dps kid
The way I see it is that the Kage player had a read but chose a weird option to execute that read. On the topic of pro player privilege it definitely exists. It always existed but now pro player youtubers like Hook, Punk, and Kizzie have “random” in their regular vocabulary which feeds to that mindset. I’ve definitely seen situations where Hook got anti aired off unsafe air dashes and called his opponent random and chat was agreeing with him.
THANK YOU, its been on my mind lately Everytime hook does a 2H in an opponents string and it hits, "i'm so good, no cap". When he does vegeta 50/50 and gets 2H'd he screams "rAnDoM". Irks me everytime
Punk is one of the main people who be doing that shit, more than half the stuff he says is "That's mad random" shit the tier list video he did with Justin, he was basically calling about 80% of players random based off their characters alone
I don't really take what Punk or Hook say during the matches seriously. A lot of the time they seem to just prattle and brag for the sake of entertainment.
There was a Daigo interview during SF4 era a few years ago where he explained that sometimes you have to do unsafe wake up dp on opponents just to show them you're willing to do it, or else they will always pressure you on wake up without fear. Sometimes there's a bigger overall strategy at play than just that one particular moment.
This is actually fittingly similar to real fighting, you need to threaten leg kicks, threaten takedowns even if your game plan is mostly boxing, just to increase your opponent's mental stack at any point in time and dampen their tools
Kage's EX tatsu is ridiculously fast after the patch and you can see him buffer it like 10 times. He finally does it the moment Karin crouches... I'm not saying its not a little unga, but you can tell there is thought behind it...
Even if it wasn't an optimal play, he wasn't throwing out random shit before that. It would be weirder if he stopped playing for 10 seconds and then hit the exact right sequence to get the game than if it was intentional.
@@andrewwestfall65 Which is the context Brian says we need to even decide between random and read! If he's not a player that makes random moves like that, it was probably a lot more thought out than just the clip conveys. Totally agree with that twitter guy that said it was an amazing read
"ridiculously fast" Mate, that's 11 frames. Dude threw a metered heavy there that would get him killed if it failed while a regular heavy would've done the same at much less risk.
@@Raxyz_0 Only that any other heavy/normal has half the range and is pretty easy to whiff punish by Karin and also doesn't kill on hit. Also 11 frames is much faster than human reaction speed...
@@mrgrimmer7997 > Only that any other heavy/normal has half the range Even Bison's sHK would've hit at that range, and that's a stubby heavy if I ever saw one. That wasn't midrange, they were close. > and is pretty easy to whiff punish by Karin Both Kage's heavies recover faster than EX Tatsu which makes them _harder_ to whiff punish by Karin. > also doesn't kill on hit Neither did EX Tatsu, that's why combos exist. Kage could've killed her with a jab with the right combo. Using a heavy into tatsu and DP would've killed just as well, it was safer if he missed, and conserved meter for the next round giving a considerable advantage in the match. > Also 11 frames is much faster than human reaction Guess how many frames Kage's *slowest* normal is? 11 There is literally 0 benefits of using EX Tatsu there. None. The "read" was alright, the option he chose is what gave it away that was a "fuck it" moment and not an actual read because it's incredibly ineffective. If it was at midrange then maybe the argument of stubby normals could've been made, but that wasn't the case.
I've never understood random being listed as a complaint. "Why did he do that? Who does that?" He did it because it worked lol, because he exploited your assumption that he would not do that. Is that a read? Is that random? Is there a difference? If I know you've made the assumption that I won't use DP in an unsafe scenario, then I know that at least once, I can get away with using it. He needed it only once to work.
This was absolutely not random. The diamond player clearly was looking for a spot to do the tatsu, he was biding his time and watching his opponent. Even if you look at the footsies, he kept edging forward and watching the Karin step back. This happened repeatedly, with the Kage buffering an EX tatsu each time, waiting for his opponent to blink first. The moment the Karin stepped forward and crouched, implying that he was going to push a button and was buffering something, he let the tatsu rip and it worked. Now, it's a very good question "Why tatsu and not something else?", but the guy clearly thought tatsu was exactly what he wanted to use and he knew exactly what he was fishing for to use it against. Suboptimal? Maybe. Random? Absolutely, definitely not.
And furthermore, show me one (1) single Karin who doesn't throw out her op ass buttons at that range. When you see a Karin doing that little shake and bake dance you just know they're gonna press. They can't help it.
Yeah, he definitely looked like he's gonna press a button. I wouldn't trust Kage's normals (especially 6HP with it slow startup and its initial extended leg hurtbox) to consistently beat Karin's 2MK there, and if Phenom pressed 2HK there (although extremely unlikely), walking back and whiff punishing wouldn't have worked. Also, even if this didn't work, it would have conditioned Phenom not to throw low-hitting buttons in similar situations too carelessly, and that would have been some advantage especially with Kage's walk speed. And he was losing the round anyway, so it's just the matter of losing a bar.
yeah no this guy was Absolutely spacing for Tatsu. He'd already decided that Tatsu was the button for that scenario, he was just fishing for it. The only guess here was when to push the button, and that's just a go by feel sort of thing. As for why EX Tatsu? Probably a combination of reach and speed.
I feel like the justification of the guy was that the time was low and Phenom had the life lead, so he just said fuck it imma ex tatsu, if it hits it hits, it it doesn't then i was going to lose anyway
Except for the fact that he was clearly waiting for Phenom to go for the "safe poke" to close out the round. Being so close to dying at that spacing, the Kage player knew what was coming, and in that context EX Tatsu was the best option
Will say, love the video, but he did forget to take into account the "if it hit tho?" Factor -how cool is doing that option in comparison to other options? Because that is a genuine driving force to me doing stuff in fighting games. Sometimes I just think "if I hit this I'll be a god" and then go for it cuz it would be dope as hell! Sometimes it doesnt and I get depressed, sometimes I pop the hell off for the biggest brain play of my life!
Someone in the chat asked a good question. Why was Phenom pressing buttons right there with the life lead? With 20 seconds he could've just timed the Kage out.
"the point of fighting games is to win as consistently as possible" no no no no no. The point of fighting games is to have fun. Some people find fun in doing funny options. It's SFV ranked, there is ZERO risk of losing anything. There are no stakes here. Guy did funny button and it worked. Everyone is overanalysing this.
I can't help but feel like there's some terminology missing here. I don't think the Kage decided last moment to do that ex.tatsu, I think they had an idea in mind even if it was an unnecessary risk. I don't think they were spinning a roulette wheel in their head. And Daigo's dps on the opponent's wakeup didn't all need to hit to affect the rest of the set, right? It feels like 'read OR random' isn't granular enough or perhaps not even the right question.
@@Kara-de5cz I'm just curious at what point do young people think a joke is not understood when it isn't exactly the same as a popular video. They seemed to understand and make a joke about the EX after them quoting the smash video. I'm pretty sure everyone here understands all the jokes, I just hope you learn that the world isn't black or white. You can quote a video and change the quote to make a joke. Not everything you read or hear Has to be a meme. Please learn to understand subtlety and common repore with other human beings
You can't get salty if you stand in Kage's range throwing buttons with life lead and 20 seconds on the clock. Specially with Karin. So what if what the guy did was random, if your button would get stuffed regardless of the move he used? You still got out mashed.
in the daigo scenario gamerbee was throwing every time he was close to daigo. so with that knowledge daigo just DP'd which beats throws. The other clip with phenom doesn't have the context to help me know it was anything more than random
The funniest thing is he says "he's gonna overextend" then as soon as he overextends he gets hit face on. His own read wasn't even a good read, the opponent however, is godlike.
Brian I love your take on these kinds of topics and fully breaking down multiple scenarios to get your point across. I don't even play fighting games that much, but I like watching them and following the mindsets of pro players. You really are giving something special to the community by going in depth with these kinds of things. I really believe you're changing the fighting game community for the better. Prior to getting recommended clips of you in my RUclips feed, I didn't give a shit about Street Fighter 5 even though my homegirl Sakura was in the game. But ever since I've subscribed, I've been watching your content every chance I can and you convinced me to download SFV and give it another chance.
My memory is a bit fuzzy about this but later Phenom was in the chat and said T1tan tried the ex tatsu "read" multiple times on block, wich kinda confirms that he is just random.
Well I think it’s really important to hear what phenom says when he gets hit, “who does that?” I think that the move was so unexpected it led to the win, it was random BUT being random is not a bad thing not one bit
Being an unexpected option is good, but when your unexpected option loses to the same things that the expected option loses to (AKA: Blocking) then it's no better than the expected option. The best kinds of unexpected options are ones that force a different response than the kind that you would normally use: things like Balrog's or G's low rush punch, Birdie's EX dolphin, or Poison's VT Grab all work not because they're unreactable, but because they come out fast enough to catch people off guard and require a different response than the safe options: If they're looking for dash throw, jump or rush punch, they probably won't see low rush coming or have committed to crouch blocking, letting you walk up on them.
I’m glad at least Brian is trying to discuss this in a sensible way. The simple distinction between a read and a random yolo is whether or not a player has collected enough information to reasonably justify the massive risks that don’t make sense on paper. If someone mashes wake up jabs and keeps either catching your mistimed grabs or taking their turn back on your shimmies over the course of two matches, then doing an unsafe crush counter move on your next knockdown would obviously be a viable prediction and thus would qualify as at least a solid *attempt* at a read even if it were to fail. If you’re fighting a Bronze Brazilian Ken who does heavy dp at round start in the very first game y’all have ever played, then that’s obviously a yolo moment. The risk-reward on that is so bad that the only logical reason to do it would be if there was some kind of assurance that it would work, but at that early a stage in the game, such assurances quite literally cannot yet exist. More than anything, the fact that everyone took up their pitchforks and went to war over this clip *without first analyzing the entire match up to that moment* is proof that most of the FGC doesn’t even know what a read is and/or was just looking for an excuse to cheaply dunk on the sub-group that they’re at odds with. Childish and petty af.
It wasnt a read, it was a risk. Ex tatsu reaches at that range, it's fast and probably crushes lows (I haven't sfv'd in a while) and time was low. He took a risk and it worked out. Not everything is a read. I think in the current era of optimizations, players are too attached to what is optimal or "correct" but Phenom was playing "correct" walking just out of range of Kage's stubby normals and what looks like baiting with a short range fast normal before getting clipped by ex tatsu. He's mad because it 's random but the reality is he never considered the option, he was only concerned about Kage's stubby normals and reactable fireball because that's "optimal" neutral play. In reference to Core-A-Gaming's video on player styles, this was a "heart" player move, a risky and unorthodox but not technically incorrect option that worked for the given scenario. We don't know without more info, but I suspect this player isn't playing neutral with ex tatsu all the time. Tl;dr : theoretically optimal play is overvalued and takes up too much space in the lens we use to critique player choices and it's preventing us from appreciating alternative styles of play and decision making in microsituations.
EX Tatsu worked in this scenario because it's unreactable, has enough reach, doesn't extend his hurtbox before it comes out, leads to a kill off of one interaction if it hits, and time is too low for turtling with fireballs anyway. Plus if he gets hit at all he dies anyway so going for a slightly _less_ punishable option doesn't really matter if it's still punishable. Also Phenom wasn't blocking.
14:11 This line set everything off. lmaooo That little comic really does narrow all this down though tbh and like you said, we're all gambling by the end of the day.
I think it's important to put yourself in their mind, we might see it's random and unsafe, maybe in his mind he doesnt know kage like that and thinks if it's spaced its safe. I just think you can't judge at first glance with your own knowledge
16:44 cut to that Samsho tourney with the commentators going “wow both these players are so patient” over both them crouching for like 5 seconds only to be told one of there controllers stopped working and the other guy was checking up on it.
I think something you should've also mentioned is the opponent behavior. Maybe if this first clip was longer and we saw a consistent walk pattern on Phenom's part that a tatsu would exploit, we could be more inclined to believe it was a read. A read doesn't need to be the perfect response in order to be a read, like you sort of implied when you said Tatsu worked, but c.MK was better. If I, at bronze, recognize that an opponent will always grab after a fireball, and punish it with LP and that's it, it's still a read even if the punish is a shitty one
I dont think that first clip had enough context to be called either way tbh. That could been the first round of the second game and the Kage couldve had an idea of the Karin's attack timing and didnt want to risk trading.
I'm kinda in the mentality if it works, it works. At the end of the day, kage won the round. Sometimes you just don't think about it, and feel like something will work, (as silly as that sounds). That being said, once a match is over, it's always a good idea to see if there were objective better options to implement instead in the future.
First 2 were very good reactions, other 2 were: first one, educated guess, second, random guess with the probability of hitting and doing massive mental damage, good risk reward decision. He is quick, if the random shit hits and he perceives mental damage, he will do it again just to persuit the mental damage. That wins rounds in the long run because it puts the opponent in defensive mode guessing, "oh no, is he doing that shit again?"
hi everyone! I've been considering making some sort of social media for me to meet you guys! I see many of the same faces here every upload and if you guy are interested in that let me know!
Chiming in with this comment before finishing the video, will edit it if necessary: On the read vs random poll you did, I don't think there was enough info, the clip out of context doesn't mean anything because we do not know if phenom had a habit of pressing buttons at that range throughout the match, and also it's important if there's ever been other matches between the two, so if he was doing it throughout the match or in previous matches it was a read, if not it was random. Similar with daigo, ppl will say its a read more because we know that daigo and gamerbee have fought each other several times, they know each other's habits very well so that's why people see them as reads.
Sajam said fighting games are a genre that you can play perfectly and still lose. Looking down at someone because their play was random, may be exactly why you lost. Sometimes the brain takes the wheel, Sometimes the gut takes the wheel. Both are important Much love Bryan_Fast
Brian, I'm so happy a channel like yours exists. I don't even play Street Fighter but your mindset and learning attitude is something I have found to be applicable in many other forms. This is pure and amazing content.
reminds me bit of a set i had with an angel rank in dbfz that i also uploaded to yt cause i was so happy about it, where at the start of the game i purposely created a corner szenario multiple times where i started a blockstring but alsways go for the command grab at the same moment in the string, just so that i can go for the simple 5h in the last game when i knew i could kill with the followup and it worked out exactly as i planned, he just pressed a button and got clipped by my fist. the mindgame behind these seemingly simple options can be way more complicated than people think
I play Balrog as well. I'm not great at reading people aside from when they want to get away from me. What I am good at though is recognizing when my opponent has a read on me. If my dash punches get too consistent and I get neutral jumped, I go: "was that random or did I deserve it?" Usually, I find I deserved it. Thanks for the Balrog tips playlist, the wiggle the stick tip is amazing when my opponent has figured out my timing. Land a lot of DPs that way by changing it up. I wonder if they think it was random?
The fact that Phenom got countered alone makes me think that that EX Tatsu wasn't random. He was waiting to punish Phenom's extension and he used Tatsu to do it.
@@alexmaganda5827 DDR's (Daigo dick riders) have always been a constant. been around for ages yet they behave the same way (nothing against Daigo himself btw).
I had friends who thought checks that hit the opponent in Street fighter were reads.... It took them 6 months of my convincing to explain that its not.
A lot of people in fighting games have very rythmic patterns. In that way, you 'know' when they're going to press a button. It's not really a conditioning thing, more so getting a feel for your opponents timing. Problem with that is that it'll always be a guess. Your opponent might suddenly switch their timing. So if this was a read on his opponent, it still was an unfavorable option to go for. I'd say this player had the read and just 'went for it' without considering better options. If he did EX fireball he would've got a kill combo as well but it would've been safe.
I had a personal experience with mistreatment based on rank I played splatoon 1 for years, almost since launch I became pretty amazing, but very good at turf, I almost never played ranked. And the same thing happened when I moved on to splatoon 2 my skills only got better, and I tried to join a team. When I did the tryout I utterly embarrassed them (Mind you I'm only a rank c+ which is pretty close to starting rank) I was pissing a couple of them off since I kept getting 8000 iq bomb placements and roller kills. But they didn't accept me on the team. They said I was lucky and my plays were random and inconsistent. "I wasn't reading them, I was just being random" I hate competitive scenes
yes it is fast but since the opponent has the life lead and the time is about to run out he doesnt need to do anything else but blocking in order to win.
In poker for example you're playing the cards but also playing the person behind the cards. A 'random' call can be the perfect call if you know the person. So the context of the entire match and any information the player may have known from previous matches factors in. Also you could try asking the guy if it was random vs read
How Can we say if it's random or not without the whole fight? Mind conditionning and adaptation to opponent playstyle is part of the read. And Ume is really good at these.
The Kage video seems like he wanted to buffer cr.mk into ex tatsu but maybe did it to quick. I don't see how that was a prediction since if he predicted any button from Karin he could have used ex Hadoken or something safer, It seemed like a lucky mistake or actually random.
I guess if he was going for the hit it would be better to do the tatsu because it’s significantly harder to react too than Kages relatively flamboyant and slow fireball
Me thinks there are a lot of elements to that interaction that wasn't addressed. At 10:17 okay yeah, at that instance where Brian paused fwrd HP, cr. MK, or even VS2 and st. MK would connect. But listen to Phenom on the full clip and where he's positioned for most of it. It's at a range that if Kage overextended with a normal he could get whif punished. At the paused instance it would have connected if Karins was still there. But how many of us have eaten a 30%combo because we hit a button at "that range". Phenom walked there to bait the over-extension of a button to whiff punish it. Kage's Ex tatsu, that just got buffed to be faster, goes over lows, was unexpected, and reaches further than any of the above options. Though a risk, it will tag someone in whiff punish mode. You're not as apt to block when your looking to immediately react with your normal to punish Kage's stubby ones. Also, in context it’s the beginning of a set where you try to establish something. Kage's game plan is to get in your face and Karin can easily zone him out with buttons that lead to a lot of damage. If you can scare the Karin player early into down backing, so she can look out for "random ex tatsu" vrs whiff punishing my approach, walking her down will be easier in the long run.
I feel like going into that grand finals daigo had already picked up a lot of info and cues that led to him getting in gamerbees head and determine that he would react and think this way so he went with that, he had the added advantage of being able to see the player and pick up on any behavior and vibe gamerbee gave off whereas online you’re limited to the times you’ve fought the player and really what you know about the player, most of the time who knows who’s on the other side.
I think one of the things that people forget about tournament reads, especially at the highest level is that there is content of them playing. I don't know how often people do this in the FGC, but studying footage is incredibly prevalent in most high level esports, and so making reads is much easier when you can not only get a feel for what they're doing from the game you're playing, but past games they've played in the same tournament, past tournaments, and streams. In most other esports titles, you will study your opponents, or potential opponents wonce you reach a certain point. In tournaments, you'll generally do prep for your next two possible opponents, though occasionally if you have an idea of who will win, you can focus all your prep on one.
Dude maybe he was about to crack from the pressure and decided to flip the round then and there to break the tension. Trying to outskill a dude 1000× your rank seems a bit scary to me. I think y'all too good at the game to truly appreciate the perspective of the underdog. A diamond taking out a top player. The risk reward infinitely favors the diamond player.
Lets be real that ex tatsu was like a wildcard play ,where its that stupid that people don’t expect you to do it and when it works one thing can be said “we take those”
The most important context is what did the rest of the round look like. The Kage could have been playing the most solid "real streetfighter" of all time, but because he makes a bold move at the very end he's random Mcgee?
He took a chance, he had a lot less to lose. And honestly he probably just assumed phenom would press a button once he got close enough and then he just did it. I think it would have been more crazy if phenom actually blocked that.
I do think the diamond player's move was random, because there is no clear anticipation or read situations compared to Daigo's game. Simply because its a neutral distance standoff stalemate vs wakeup situation. On wakeup, teching against throws is very much expected, and Daigo's intention and anticipation are very clear with the walk up delayed DP. Not to mention Daigo has massive life lead and the reverse psychology of DP without meter that adds to his read game. However in neutral game with both players not pressing any button for a full few seconds, there is literally no tell sign of any type of play coming, you don't know if its footsies, dash in throw, overhead or what not. Sure maybe the Kage player reacted to the micro walk forward from Karin, but it'd still be a stretch to say he anticipated a button press from his opponent for that tatsu to work. If you think about it, one is a calculated and well timed risky play but won't lose if fail vs the other that is taking huge risk in the heat of a moment betting the round on one last move.
What's interesting about this is that I actually ran into this from the opposite direction. I did something in a match that I personally would consider as random. I wasn't really thinking of what my opponent was going to do and was mostly just doing what I felt like. It ended up working out and they told me "That was a great read!" Of course, you take that compliment when you're given it. But, in my head I'm thinking to myself, "Was that a read? I don't think that was a read."
Diamond fella can't even play a normal chill ranked game in peace without being labeled by half the Fgc community as random and getting compared to daigo
Not an attack on the video, I think it's a great analysis it's just that the situation has been blown way out of proportion
When I first saw the clip I thought it might have been a tournament match (based on all the attention) and if it wasn't maybe it would be last game last round but it was first round in a random online set? It's an interesting discussion for sure but I'm surprised it's getting all this attention in the first place
Its less about the match, and more about the discussion it brings up.
Fr tho this reminds me of the chad meme, all the fgc community going "NOOOOOO YOU CAN'T EX TATSU IN THIS SITUATION, SO RANDOM", and my homie t1tan be like "Haha funny flying kick goes brrrrr"
@@k00LTV based t1tan
Two reasons that diamond player EX Tatsued:
1: It's unexpected
2: It's funny if it hits
It’s very funny
Yes but Boomer F is asking "must it be funny only once"
And that why it's a read...
THIS! The number 2 is the reason I do pretty much anything in fighting games. Not everyone is gunning to go win Evo, sometimes you just wanna have fun
@@jeanschyso True i be playing Tekken and just practice the hard combos but i don't know fram data. So i either win or lose sometimes but in the end, i am just having fun
i dont really care if it was random or a read , he got em
Honestly, the absolute balls to do plays like that gets my respect no matter what
Facts
@@ezngen9182 I be salty, but end of the day it got me
I don't even play Street Fighter and obviously Daigo read him like a book.
Brian taught us that we take those
"I'm not gonna overextend"
COUNTER
Same energy as “Ima block this wack ass mix up”
@@lordbasketboi9998 Gets command grabbed.
👀👀👀
👀👀👀
What if Daigo just went "yeah idk I was just pressing buttons lmao" in response to this video.
I believe he said something similar to that after the Japan CPT grand final against fuudo when he kept sweeping
I mean, I get the whole "conditioning" argument, and that may well be true, but look at the risk Daigo was facing: huge life lead, early match in the set. Even if Gamerbee read the next DP and punished it, he couldn't deal enough damage to steal the round. So yeah, why not throw out another DP just for the memes? If it works and it keeps on working, why stop?
But Daigo 'just pressing buttons' has a proven track record of success, while online rando's 'just pressing buttons' doesn't. When you have enough experience and success, at a certain point you can roll on subconscious instinct because you've internalized the correct choice. When Steph Curry behind-the-back juke-dribbles into step-back-3, he's not deliberately thinking about what he's doing, he's going with the flow and rhythm. But he gets to do that, because he's a champion and all-time great.
@@CF565 So are you saying Daigo reached ultra instinct?
@@Flokoli1 correct. They're the same concept.
Most people in the chat: when I do it it's a read, when my opponent does it it's random and he's bad.
^This right here is the recipe to be miserable playing sfv. How to have a Largely Terrible Game time.
I was also watching those twitch chat reactions.
I was like yeah bros youre godlike pro players *slaps self in the face*
Diago: 60% of the time it works every time
Nice Gasanova pfp
@@Drop3dlvl3 it is Diago after all
UmeFlashKick is higher than 60%
that doesn't make any sense
Nice Anchorman reference... 😂
The average frame data studier Vs. The Average "If it works I do it :)"
Mate, I trust me instincts. If it worked for me gran then it'll work for me. Simple as.
And both play styles are viable
It's random until it works, then it's a read
lol
Agreed man same for soccer or basketball. If you shoot from half court and brick you’re benched if you burn it you can shoot it all game. Hit your dps kid
when Daigo does it it isn't a read, it's a write.
Daigo is the author of every match, Tokido helps him choreograph it all
The way I see it is that the Kage player had a read but chose a weird option to execute that read.
On the topic of pro player privilege it definitely exists. It always existed but now pro player youtubers like Hook, Punk, and Kizzie have “random” in their regular vocabulary which feeds to that mindset. I’ve definitely seen situations where Hook got anti aired off unsafe air dashes and called his opponent random and chat was agreeing with him.
THANK YOU, its been on my mind lately
Everytime hook does a 2H in an opponents string and it hits, "i'm so good, no cap". When he does vegeta 50/50 and gets 2H'd he screams "rAnDoM". Irks me everytime
Punk is one of the main people who be doing that shit, more than half the stuff he says is "That's mad random" shit the tier list video he did with Justin, he was basically calling about 80% of players random based off their characters alone
I don't really take what Punk or Hook say during the matches seriously. A lot of the time they seem to just prattle and brag for the sake of entertainment.
@@kogorun It's obvious they just talk shit for the sake of entertainment. I still don't know why people think they are being serious.
@@carlbob0002 Because people are idiots.
There was a Daigo interview during SF4 era a few years ago where he explained that sometimes you have to do unsafe wake up dp on opponents just to show them you're willing to do it, or else they will always pressure you on wake up without fear. Sometimes there's a bigger overall strategy at play than just that one particular moment.
This is actually fittingly similar to real fighting, you need to threaten leg kicks, threaten takedowns even if your game plan is mostly boxing, just to increase your opponent's mental stack at any point in time and dampen their tools
Kage's EX tatsu is ridiculously fast after the patch and you can see him buffer it like 10 times. He finally does it the moment Karin crouches... I'm not saying its not a little unga, but you can tell there is thought behind it...
Even if it wasn't an optimal play, he wasn't throwing out random shit before that. It would be weirder if he stopped playing for 10 seconds and then hit the exact right sequence to get the game than if it was intentional.
@@andrewwestfall65 Which is the context Brian says we need to even decide between random and read! If he's not a player that makes random moves like that, it was probably a lot more thought out than just the clip conveys. Totally agree with that twitter guy that said it was an amazing read
"ridiculously fast" Mate, that's 11 frames. Dude threw a metered heavy there that would get him killed if it failed while a regular heavy would've done the same at much less risk.
@@Raxyz_0 Only that any other heavy/normal has half the range and is pretty easy to whiff punish by Karin and also doesn't kill on hit. Also 11 frames is much faster than human reaction speed...
@@mrgrimmer7997
> Only that any other heavy/normal has half the range
Even Bison's sHK would've hit at that range, and that's a stubby heavy if I ever saw one. That wasn't midrange, they were close.
> and is pretty easy to whiff punish by Karin
Both Kage's heavies recover faster than EX Tatsu which makes them _harder_ to whiff punish by Karin.
> also doesn't kill on hit
Neither did EX Tatsu, that's why combos exist. Kage could've killed her with a jab with the right combo. Using a heavy into tatsu and DP would've killed just as well, it was safer if he missed, and conserved meter for the next round giving a considerable advantage in the match.
> Also 11 frames is much faster than human reaction
Guess how many frames Kage's *slowest* normal is? 11
There is literally 0 benefits of using EX Tatsu there. None. The "read" was alright, the option he chose is what gave it away that was a "fuck it" moment and not an actual read because it's incredibly ineffective. If it was at midrange then maybe the argument of stubby normals could've been made, but that wasn't the case.
I've never understood random being listed as a complaint. "Why did he do that? Who does that?" He did it because it worked lol, because he exploited your assumption that he would not do that. Is that a read? Is that random? Is there a difference? If I know you've made the assumption that I won't use DP in an unsafe scenario, then I know that at least once, I can get away with using it. He needed it only once to work.
This was absolutely not random. The diamond player clearly was looking for a spot to do the tatsu, he was biding his time and watching his opponent. Even if you look at the footsies, he kept edging forward and watching the Karin step back. This happened repeatedly, with the Kage buffering an EX tatsu each time, waiting for his opponent to blink first. The moment the Karin stepped forward and crouched, implying that he was going to push a button and was buffering something, he let the tatsu rip and it worked.
Now, it's a very good question "Why tatsu and not something else?", but the guy clearly thought tatsu was exactly what he wanted to use and he knew exactly what he was fishing for to use it against. Suboptimal? Maybe. Random? Absolutely, definitely not.
And furthermore, show me one (1) single Karin who doesn't throw out her op ass buttons at that range. When you see a Karin doing that little shake and bake dance you just know they're gonna press. They can't help it.
Yeah, he definitely looked like he's gonna press a button. I wouldn't trust Kage's normals (especially 6HP with it slow startup and its initial extended leg hurtbox) to consistently beat Karin's 2MK there, and if Phenom pressed 2HK there (although extremely unlikely), walking back and whiff punishing wouldn't have worked.
Also, even if this didn't work, it would have conditioned Phenom not to throw low-hitting buttons in similar situations too carelessly, and that would have been some advantage especially with Kage's walk speed. And he was losing the round anyway, so it's just the matter of losing a bar.
It crushes lows and vacuums right?
yeah no this guy was Absolutely spacing for Tatsu. He'd already decided that Tatsu was the button for that scenario, he was just fishing for it. The only guess here was when to push the button, and that's just a go by feel sort of thing. As for why EX Tatsu? Probably a combination of reach and speed.
This is the paradox: do you remember when Phenom was "random" because he woke up with jab in early sfv with Necalli??
Ooo how we forget🤣🤣🤣 didn't command grab like 7x in a row but the diamond random?
"command throw"
"another command throw!"
"ANOTHER COMMAND THROW"
I remember all of his faulty game strategies lol. I used to wonder how he got so far playing that way lol.
This was the first thing that came to mind when I saw his reaction to the tatsu. Dude woke up with DP routinely, despite the CC mechanic.
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
You know it's about to go down when he brings out the notepad
All these wanna be content creators are using state of the art editing and graphics while OG Brian is still on Vanilla Windows 10 Notepad
@@ka7al958 Windows Notepad > MS Paint
phenom was looking for everything besides an ex tatsu. If you settled on doing a coin flip. it was a good flip.
I feel like the justification of the guy was that the time was low and Phenom had the life lead, so he just said fuck it imma ex tatsu, if it hits it hits, it it doesn't then i was going to lose anyway
YOLO!
Except for the fact that he was clearly waiting for Phenom to go for the "safe poke" to close out the round. Being so close to dying at that spacing, the Kage player knew what was coming, and in that context EX Tatsu was the best option
Ok but hear me out.
Ex-Tatsu looks cooler than other options.
Will say, love the video, but he did forget to take into account the "if it hit tho?" Factor
-how cool is doing that option in comparison to other options?
Because that is a genuine driving force to me doing stuff in fighting games. Sometimes I just think "if I hit this I'll be a god" and then go for it cuz it would be dope as hell! Sometimes it doesnt and I get depressed, sometimes I pop the hell off for the biggest brain play of my life!
@@thecountercounter9127nah this wasn’t appreciated enough
Someone in the chat asked a good question. Why was Phenom pressing buttons right there with the life lead? With 20 seconds he could've just timed the Kage out.
1:54
- "He won't do it a 2nd time."
- "...Surely, he won't do it a 3rd time."
- "......"
"the point of fighting games is to win as consistently as possible"
no no no no no. The point of fighting games is to have fun. Some people find fun in doing funny options. It's SFV ranked, there is ZERO risk of losing anything. There are no stakes here. Guy did funny button and it worked. Everyone is overanalysing this.
I can't help but feel like there's some terminology missing here. I don't think the Kage decided last moment to do that ex.tatsu, I think they had an idea in mind even if it was an unnecessary risk. I don't think they were spinning a roulette wheel in their head. And Daigo's dps on the opponent's wakeup didn't all need to hit to affect the rest of the set, right? It feels like 'read OR random' isn't granular enough or perhaps not even the right question.
Did he just walk up slowly and down smash?
No, he raw EX tatsu
@@Mark299Baller you don't get the reference
@@Kara-de5cz I'm just curious at what point do young people think a joke is not understood when it isn't exactly the same as a popular video.
They seemed to understand and make a joke about the EX after them quoting the smash video.
I'm pretty sure everyone here understands all the jokes, I just hope you learn that the world isn't black or white. You can quote a video and change the quote to make a joke. Not everything you read or hear Has to be a meme.
Please learn to understand subtlety and common repore with other human beings
@@llamabot9889 oh please, don't get triggered so easily, wooosh
@@Mark299Baller The joke and you!
You can't get salty if you stand in Kage's range throwing buttons with life lead and 20 seconds on the clock. Specially with Karin.
So what if what the guy did was random, if your button would get stuffed regardless of the move he used? You still got out mashed.
in the daigo scenario gamerbee was throwing every time he was close to daigo. so with that knowledge daigo just DP'd which beats throws. The other clip with phenom doesn't have the context to help me know it was anything more than random
Oh that's true! I hadn't thought about it in the context of beating throws, I'd just noticed that gamerbee liked being in the air.
The funniest thing is he says "he's gonna overextend" then as soon as he overextends he gets hit face on. His own read wasn't even a good read, the opponent however, is godlike.
Brian I love your take on these kinds of topics and fully breaking down multiple scenarios to get your point across. I don't even play fighting games that much, but I like watching them and following the mindsets of pro players. You really are giving something special to the community by going in depth with these kinds of things. I really believe you're changing the fighting game community for the better. Prior to getting recommended clips of you in my RUclips feed, I didn't give a shit about Street Fighter 5 even though my homegirl Sakura was in the game. But ever since I've subscribed, I've been watching your content every chance I can and you convinced me to download SFV and give it another chance.
It wasn’t a read, nor was it random. It was half-reaction half-hope-the core of casual fgs.
The fact that we don't see the rest of match on T1tan's side is also a point of contention to me.
My memory is a bit fuzzy about this but later Phenom was in the chat and said T1tan tried the ex tatsu "read" multiple times on block, wich kinda confirms that he is just random.
@@kuthulius nah, Read him like a Book he did
Watching these vids make me want to tune into Brian's streams sometimes. Keep it up 👍🏿
"Who does that?" Reminds me LTG raging.
Well I think it’s really important to hear what phenom says when he gets hit, “who does that?” I think that the move was so unexpected it led to the win, it was random BUT being random is not a bad thing not one bit
Being an unexpected option is good, but when your unexpected option loses to the same things that the expected option loses to (AKA: Blocking) then it's no better than the expected option. The best kinds of unexpected options are ones that force a different response than the kind that you would normally use: things like Balrog's or G's low rush punch, Birdie's EX dolphin, or Poison's VT Grab all work not because they're unreactable, but because they come out fast enough to catch people off guard and require a different response than the safe options: If they're looking for dash throw, jump or rush punch, they probably won't see low rush coming or have committed to crouch blocking, letting you walk up on them.
What an amazing video, I felt like this was in a court trial and you just broke it down like a lawyer would trying to convey his point to the jury
I’m glad at least Brian is trying to discuss this in a sensible way. The simple distinction between a read and a random yolo is whether or not a player has collected enough information to reasonably justify the massive risks that don’t make sense on paper. If someone mashes wake up jabs and keeps either catching your mistimed grabs or taking their turn back on your shimmies over the course of two matches, then doing an unsafe crush counter move on your next knockdown would obviously be a viable prediction and thus would qualify as at least a solid *attempt* at a read even if it were to fail. If you’re fighting a Bronze Brazilian Ken who does heavy dp at round start in the very first game y’all have ever played, then that’s obviously a yolo moment. The risk-reward on that is so bad that the only logical reason to do it would be if there was some kind of assurance that it would work, but at that early a stage in the game, such assurances quite literally cannot yet exist.
More than anything, the fact that everyone took up their pitchforks and went to war over this clip *without first analyzing the entire match up to that moment* is proof that most of the FGC doesn’t even know what a read is and/or was just looking for an excuse to cheaply dunk on the sub-group that they’re at odds with. Childish and petty af.
It wasnt a read, it was a risk. Ex tatsu reaches at that range, it's fast and probably crushes lows (I haven't sfv'd in a while) and time was low. He took a risk and it worked out. Not everything is a read. I think in the current era of optimizations, players are too attached to what is optimal or "correct" but Phenom was playing "correct" walking just out of range of Kage's stubby normals and what looks like baiting with a short range fast normal before getting clipped by ex tatsu. He's mad because it 's random but the reality is he never considered the option, he was only concerned about Kage's stubby normals and reactable fireball because that's "optimal" neutral play.
In reference to Core-A-Gaming's video on player styles, this was a "heart" player move, a risky and unorthodox but not technically incorrect option that worked for the given scenario. We don't know without more info, but I suspect this player isn't playing neutral with ex tatsu all the time.
Tl;dr : theoretically optimal play is overvalued and takes up too much space in the lens we use to critique player choices and it's preventing us from appreciating alternative styles of play and decision making in microsituations.
EX Tatsu worked in this scenario because it's unreactable, has enough reach, doesn't extend his hurtbox before it comes out, leads to a kill off of one interaction if it hits, and time is too low for turtling with fireballs anyway. Plus if he gets hit at all he dies anyway so going for a slightly _less_ punishable option doesn't really matter if it's still punishable. Also Phenom wasn't blocking.
RIP April the Giraffe :'(
I think calling it random simplifies what he did. It was random with the intent of a read. That’s how I see it, at least.
14:11 This line set everything off. lmaooo That little comic really does narrow all this down though tbh and like you said, we're all gambling by the end of the day.
My fighting game play style can be summarized by one phrase: random reads
It's not a drop, it's a R E S E T .
lol
@@protodevilin lmao
Lonely Rolling Star such a banger
I think it's important to put yourself in their mind, we might see it's random and unsafe, maybe in his mind he doesnt know kage like that and thinks if it's spaced its safe. I just think you can't judge at first glance with your own knowledge
I found this educational, and really love the FGC time capsule format thing you got going
16:44 cut to that Samsho tourney with the commentators going “wow both these players are so patient” over both them crouching for like 5 seconds only to be told one of there controllers stopped working and the other guy was checking up on it.
I think something you should've also mentioned is the opponent behavior. Maybe if this first clip was longer and we saw a consistent walk pattern on Phenom's part that a tatsu would exploit, we could be more inclined to believe it was a read. A read doesn't need to be the perfect response in order to be a read, like you sort of implied when you said Tatsu worked, but c.MK was better.
If I, at bronze, recognize that an opponent will always grab after a fireball, and punish it with LP and that's it, it's still a read even if the punish is a shitty one
The fact that the clip is even an issue reflects badly on the FGC. Ridiculous.
A player like Kazanoko is random by design, it’s basically a meme.
I dont think that first clip had enough context to be called either way tbh. That could been the first round of the second game and the Kage couldve had an idea of the Karin's attack timing and didnt want to risk trading.
I'm kinda in the mentality if it works, it works. At the end of the day, kage won the round. Sometimes you just don't think about it, and feel like something will work, (as silly as that sounds). That being said, once a match is over, it's always a good idea to see if there were objective better options to implement instead in the future.
That's a very good point. Both plays were indeed amazing reads!
First 2 were very good reactions, other 2 were: first one, educated guess, second, random guess with the probability of hitting and doing massive mental damage, good risk reward decision. He is quick, if the random shit hits and he perceives mental damage, he will do it again just to persuit the mental damage. That wins rounds in the long run because it puts the opponent in defensive mode guessing, "oh no, is he doing that shit again?"
Just call everything that hits you random. The sigma answer
Brian upload?? Pog
hi everyone! I've been considering making some sort of social media for me to meet you guys! I see many of the same faces here every upload and if you guy are interested in that let me know!
So fast
@@butwhythough7831 I was on my phone at the time lol
Aand we're back
Don't you mean Rog?
:p
To me, there is no binary “read” and “random,” there are just reads that are more random than others
wouldn’t call that a read,rather a jump in the pool
Chiming in with this comment before finishing the video, will edit it if necessary:
On the read vs random poll you did, I don't think there was enough info, the clip out of context doesn't mean anything because we do not know if phenom had a habit of pressing buttons at that range throughout the match, and also it's important if there's ever been other matches between the two, so if he was doing it throughout the match or in previous matches it was a read, if not it was random.
Similar with daigo, ppl will say its a read more because we know that daigo and gamerbee have fought each other several times, they know each other's habits very well so that's why people see them as reads.
"How can we determine if something was a read or if something is random?"
We ask the person. Most will be honest.
What makes you think that? Seems much more likely that someone would claim it's a sick read, regardless of whether it was or not.
Same energy as Damian Lillard's "bad shot" against OKC Paul George.
Been playing fighting games all my life and I still need to be reminded that winning isn't everything. Thanks for the vid Obama.
Sajam said fighting games are a genre that you can play perfectly and still lose.
Looking down at someone because their play was random, may be exactly why you lost.
Sometimes the brain takes the wheel, Sometimes the gut takes the wheel.
Both are important
Much love Bryan_Fast
Brian, I'm so happy a channel like yours exists. I don't even play Street Fighter but your mindset and learning attitude is something I have found to be applicable in many other forms. This is pure and amazing content.
reminds me bit of a set i had with an angel rank in dbfz that i also uploaded to yt cause i was so happy about it, where at the start of the game i purposely created a corner szenario multiple times where i started a blockstring but alsways go for the command grab at the same moment in the string, just so that i can go for the simple 5h in the last game when i knew i could kill with the followup and it worked out exactly as i planned, he just pressed a button and got clipped by my fist. the mindgame behind these seemingly simple options can be way more complicated than people think
Two different situations I don’t think they can be compared.
I play Balrog as well. I'm not great at reading people aside from when they want to get away from me.
What I am good at though is recognizing when my opponent has a read on me. If my dash punches get too consistent and I get neutral jumped, I go: "was that random or did I deserve it?" Usually, I find I deserved it.
Thanks for the Balrog tips playlist, the wiggle the stick tip is amazing when my opponent has figured out my timing. Land a lot of DPs that way by changing it up. I wonder if they think it was random?
Wow what an analysis, I subbed for the matches, I stayed for the quality of the channel.
The fact that Phenom got countered alone makes me think that that EX Tatsu wasn't random. He was waiting to punish Phenom's extension and he used Tatsu to do it.
Daigo uses light punch
Sfv community: READ POG
I will forever gas up Daigo lol... he deserves it
its really ennoying like its ok to simp for someone but these daigo fanboys are cringe
@@alexmaganda5827 DDR's (Daigo dick riders) have always been a constant. been around for ages yet they behave the same way (nothing against Daigo himself btw).
I had friends who thought checks that hit the opponent in Street fighter were reads.... It took them 6 months of my convincing to explain that its not.
A lot of people in fighting games have very rythmic patterns. In that way, you 'know' when they're going to press a button. It's not really a conditioning thing, more so getting a feel for your opponents timing.
Problem with that is that it'll always be a guess. Your opponent might suddenly switch their timing. So if this was a read on his opponent, it still was an unfavorable option to go for. I'd say this player had the read and just 'went for it' without considering better options. If he did EX fireball he would've got a kill combo as well but it would've been safe.
I had a personal experience with mistreatment based on rank
I played splatoon 1 for years, almost since launch I became pretty amazing, but very good at turf, I almost never played ranked. And the same thing happened when I moved on to splatoon 2 my skills only got better, and I tried to join a team.
When I did the tryout I utterly embarrassed them (Mind you I'm only a rank c+ which is pretty close to starting rank) I was pissing a couple of them off since I kept getting 8000 iq bomb placements and roller kills. But they didn't accept me on the team.
They said I was lucky and my plays were random and inconsistent. "I wasn't reading them, I was just being random"
I hate competitive scenes
I'm not that familiar with sf5 but that move the Kage used was pretty fast. I would think jump in anything would give time for a reaction
yes it is fast but since the opponent has the life lead and the time is about to run out he doesnt need to do anything else but blocking in order to win.
In poker for example you're playing the cards but also playing the person behind the cards. A 'random' call can be the perfect call if you know the person. So the context of the entire match and any information the player may have known from previous matches factors in.
Also you could try asking the guy if it was random vs read
Doesn't kage have an ex fireball that's two frames slower but -2?
I love seeing all these different takes from Sajam
But this sajam is better looking. Dont @ me.
How Can we say if it's random or not without the whole fight?
Mind conditionning and adaptation to opponent playstyle is part of the read.
And Ume is really good at these.
Oh no.... I just noticed the Vinny tag on the trending..... I hope he's ok ;-;
caught that too. poor guy.
People need to drop expectations when playing and give credit when they get hit by something unexpected.
Brian divided his chat with the talk about meritocracy like an overhead chop
Lmaooo i love Brian's chat "you don't question Daigo" 😭😭
I mean damn, Phenom kept fishing for that kick every time he was in range to do it. Might as well had done the EX tatsu in that situation.
The only variable you forgot is smug. He can postulate the possibilities with greatest of ease...
The Kage video seems like he wanted to buffer cr.mk into ex tatsu but maybe did it to quick. I don't see how that was a prediction since if he predicted any button from Karin he could have used ex Hadoken or something safer, It seemed like a lucky mistake or actually random.
I guess if he was going for the hit it would be better to do the tatsu because it’s significantly harder to react too than Kages relatively flamboyant and slow fireball
It dodges cr.mk, which is why it worked so well. His own cr.mk mightve lost
A read is like a hypothesis
Random is a guess
Daigo always does this. He's willing to gamble as long as he has an advantageous situation like being ahead in HP.
Fun fact: some of the best fgc players are the unknowns and randoms in the arcades who either don't have the money or time to get out there.
Great breakdown of 2 situations 👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻
11:50 Brian kinda got guns tho 👀
Me thinks there are a lot of elements to that interaction that wasn't addressed. At 10:17 okay yeah, at that instance where Brian paused fwrd HP, cr. MK, or even VS2 and st. MK would connect. But listen to Phenom on the full clip and where he's positioned for most of it. It's at a range that if Kage overextended with a normal he could get whif punished. At the paused instance it would have connected if Karins was still there. But how many of us have eaten a 30%combo because we hit a button at "that range".
Phenom walked there to bait the over-extension of a button to whiff punish it. Kage's Ex tatsu, that just got buffed to be faster, goes over lows, was unexpected, and reaches further than any of the above options. Though a risk, it will tag someone in whiff punish mode. You're not as apt to block when your looking to immediately react with your normal to punish Kage's stubby ones.
Also, in context it’s the beginning of a set where you try to establish something. Kage's game plan is to get in your face and Karin can easily zone him out with buttons that lead to a lot of damage. If you can scare the Karin player early into down backing, so she can look out for "random ex tatsu" vrs whiff punishing my approach, walking her down will be easier in the long run.
The online monsters just don't understand a simple concept: what works works. Whether it's random or not. Trying is better than just theorizing.
I feel like going into that grand finals daigo had already picked up a lot of info and cues that led to him getting in gamerbees head and determine that he would react and think this way so he went with that, he had the added advantage of being able to see the player and pick up on any behavior and vibe gamerbee gave off whereas online you’re limited to the times you’ve fought the player and really what you know about the player, most of the time who knows who’s on the other side.
I think one of the things that people forget about tournament reads, especially at the highest level is that there is content of them playing. I don't know how often people do this in the FGC, but studying footage is incredibly prevalent in most high level esports, and so making reads is much easier when you can not only get a feel for what they're doing from the game you're playing, but past games they've played in the same tournament, past tournaments, and streams. In most other esports titles, you will study your opponents, or potential opponents wonce you reach a certain point. In tournaments, you'll generally do prep for your next two possible opponents, though occasionally if you have an idea of who will win, you can focus all your prep on one.
Dude maybe he was about to crack from the pressure and decided to flip the round then and there to break the tension. Trying to outskill a dude 1000× your rank seems a bit scary to me. I think y'all too good at the game to truly appreciate the perspective of the underdog. A diamond taking out a top player. The risk reward infinitely favors the diamond player.
Lets be real that ex tatsu was like a wildcard play ,where its that stupid that people don’t expect you to do it and when it works one thing can be said “we take those”
"The point of playing fighting games is to win as consistently as possible"
Here I thought video games were for fun, fucked up
I mean if you have fun while trying to lose, then play how you want!
Imagine if ex tatsu was Negative FOUR
Anticipation of crouching medium kick, he bet it all and won the world.
You are very wise with this video Brian
The most important context is what did the rest of the round look like. The Kage could have been playing the most solid "real streetfighter" of all time, but because he makes a bold move at the very end he's random Mcgee?
He took a chance, he had a lot less to lose. And honestly he probably just assumed phenom would press a button once he got close enough and then he just did it. I think it would have been more crazy if phenom actually blocked that.
I do think the diamond player's move was random, because there is no clear anticipation or read situations compared to Daigo's game. Simply because its a neutral distance standoff stalemate vs wakeup situation. On wakeup, teching against throws is very much expected, and Daigo's intention and anticipation are very clear with the walk up delayed DP. Not to mention Daigo has massive life lead and the reverse psychology of DP without meter that adds to his read game. However in neutral game with both players not pressing any button for a full few seconds, there is literally no tell sign of any type of play coming, you don't know if its footsies, dash in throw, overhead or what not. Sure maybe the Kage player reacted to the micro walk forward from Karin, but it'd still be a stretch to say he anticipated a button press from his opponent for that tatsu to work. If you think about it, one is a calculated and well timed risky play but won't lose if fail vs the other that is taking huge risk in the heat of a moment betting the round on one last move.
What's interesting about this is that I actually ran into this from the opposite direction. I did something in a match that I personally would consider as random. I wasn't really thinking of what my opponent was going to do and was mostly just doing what I felt like. It ended up working out and they told me "That was a great read!" Of course, you take that compliment when you're given it. But, in my head I'm thinking to myself, "Was that a read? I don't think that was a read."