LinkRKC unleashes dominatrix domination at Winter Brawl

Just when the entire 8WayRun community, including me, was about to give up on Ms. Valentine, some guy named LinkRKC strolls along and dominates the Winter Brawl Soul Calibur 5 tournament with her.

I’m still working at learning how to play Ivy, but some people have apparently figured her all out. LinkRKC knows his pokes, knows his spacing, and has Calamity Symphony traps down to a goddamn science.

It’s beautiful… in a painful, S&M-ish kind of way.

Does this mean Ivy is top tier in Soul Calibur 5? By all means no. But LinkRKC dropped by the 8WayRun forums to inspire hope in fellow snake sword players and warn them that reaching this level of play takes commitment, willingness to learn, and a whole lot of losses along the way:

Thanks, everyone. I really appreciate the support. To answer some questions, I had stopped posting mainly because I got tired of the doom and gloom attitude toward SC5 Ivy. Maybe she’s not top tier (there were definitely times where I had whittled someone’s life down, then got launched once and was suddenly behind), but as I said on stream, she has enough. I don’t know why versatility is so underrated.

And to be totally honest, the answer to any character weakness has always been the same: get better at the game. So, you need an extra read or five to win a round. Get good enough to do it. When I lose, I may complain about some perceived weakness in Ivy, but my motivation is then channeled toward “compensate for this weakness,” not “let me find a character without this weakness.”

Words of wisdom certainly applicable to almost any competitive game.

Well, enough babbling. Watch some of his stellar performance yourself and see why Ivy’s viable, even if she ends up in the DD tier.

And, of course, the Grand Finals. Keep in mind that Link came up through Loser’s Finals, so he not only had to win, he had to beat the reigning champion twice. Anyone who wants to complain about Natsu or Mitsurugi can pretty much shut the fuck up right now.