Samurai Channels Evo Moment 37 With Ryu In Street Fighter 5!

Miky “Samurai” Chea has been one of the top Ryu players since he first burst on the national scene during Street Fighter IV’s life. Obviously, that character choice resonated with certain members of the Twin Galaxies staff, and Chea has been on our radar for quite some time. That said, this amazing play on a recent Samurai Stream harkens back to another legendary moment, but Samurai adds just a bit more to make it all his own.

The sound of back-to-back ... to-back parries. https://t.co/5pugyAaFit pic.twitter.com/QWSq9Vi3fQ

— Miky Chea (@SamuraiFGC) April 30, 2018

Ryu’s V-Skill, Mind’s Eye, allows him to channel his inner Street Fighter III and “parry” incoming attacks. In SFIII, parrying gave players a frame advantage that was otherwise unavailable to them if they blocked an attack, but required a precise press of forward on their joystick. Ill-timed parries would result in players getting hit, but rewarded those who timed it correctly with the ability to turn the tide of battle with a full punish combo. Above, Samurai effectively utilizes Ryu’s parry on the opposing Chun-Li’s air medium punch, which hits twice. Effective use of Mind’s Eye should clue other players into the fact that their foe is quite potent with Ryu and shouldn’t be tested, but sometimes you can’t save everyone, right?

After some effective footsies and a well-timed jump-in, Samurai connects with his Critical Art, leaving the Chun-Li player worse for wear. A strong double parry on a jump in allows Samurai to throw the opposing Chun-Li, and then we get the magic moment.

Evo Moment #37

Time for a history lesson that I’m sure we’ve covered on this site before, but it never gets old, so we’ll go over it once more. Before the days of the Mandalay Bay arena and high-quality electronics, we played fighting games in dimly lit conference rooms on CRT televisions. The Evo 2004 Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike tournament saw Justin Wong and Daigo Umehara fighting for their lives in Loser’s Finals (meaning whoever lost this bout would be eliminated from the tournament.) Umehara mounted a sizable comeback on Wong, who sought to end the contest with a Super Art to “chip” Daigo out, as blocking a Super Art causes bits of “chip damage” that would ultimately defeat Daigo’s Ken. In a moment of sheer mastery, Umehara parries the entire Super and ends with a combo of his own to prolong his tournament life.

The crazy part of all this? Daigo finished second in this tournament. Yeah, go figure.

Back to 2018

Back to Samurai, who is faced with the similar sight of a Chun-Li charging towards his Shotokan karate master of choice. Now, Samurai has a substantial life lead and doesn’t need to parry the whole Critical Art, but what fun would that be? But Samurai is able to add his own little flair to the moment by activating V-Trigger during Chun-Li’s turnaround. Samurai mentions that it was “for damage purposes” but I don’t buy it. (In reality, it’s probably to take advantage of the slowdown that occurs upon activation, making it easier to parry the second part of the CA, but what fun is logic in this equation?)

Let this be a lesson that no matter how high your rank is, no matter what your tournament accolades are, and no matter what you’ve accomplished elsewhere in life, you are still at risk of getting hit by a wake-up super. So, as always, stay safe and stay solid out there.

For some of the best Street Fighter 5 action, check out our list of the best Street Fighter 5 streamers!